Faith Bible Church Sermons

Pastor Jamey Bryant opened with Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese intelligence officer who kept fighting on a Philippine island until 1974, twenty-nine years after the war ended, convinced the surrender leaflets were a trick. Pastor Jamey said most of the world is still in that jungle, striving over a battle won at the cross, and that many believers are too: exhausted, keeping score, afraid that slipping up might prove their faith was never real. Returning to the well in John 4, he drew four things. Grace is a free gift, living water offered without cost, echoing Isaiah 55:1. Grace is not earned but received, since Jesus made the offer before He ever named her five husbands. Grace is secure, held in what he called the double grip of God, the way a parent holds a toddler across a parking lot even when she lets go. Then the text turns at verse 31, where the vocabulary shifts from ask, receive, and drink to work, sow, and reap. Speaking to men who already believed, Jesus calls them to the harvest, and Pastor Jamey said salvation is free but discipleship is costly. He also announced that in October he moves from worship into a new role as Lead Pastor of Equipping.

Pastor Russell Johnson opened the Like Never Before series with the movie cameo, the famous face that flashes on screen and disappears. He said that is how Gentiles looked in Israel's story: Rahab, Ruth, Naaman, Nineveh, rare. Then Jesus arrives and the cameos become regular cast. In John 4:4, the word behind "had to pass through Samaria" is not geography. John uses it for divine necessity, the same compulsion behind the Son of Man being lifted up. Samaria was not a detour. It was the destination. Devout Jews would add days to their journey to avoid that ground, carrying centuries of contempt back to the Assyrian resettlement of 722 BC and the rival temple on Mount Gerizim. Jesus went straight through, sat down tired at Jacob's well at noon, and asked a Samaritan woman with five husbands behind her for a drink. Samaritan, woman, sinner: three walls, walked through on purpose. Pastor Russell showed this was always God's heart, from Genesis 12:3 to Isaiah 49:6, but in the Old Testament grace flowed through the nation. Now God sits on the well Himself. He closed with the first two pastors of Faith Bible Church, Bill Elkins and Dave Anderson, and fifty years of grace now handed forward.

Elder Greg Cryer closed the series with the road his family traveled up the mountain to Turpin, Haiti, more than ten years ago. It had a destination and it had been cleared, but it was never paved, and the ride was all ruts and gravel and dust. He said many of us travel the Christian life the same way: Father and Son, but no Spirit. Working from Ephesians 2:8-10 and the good works God prepared beforehand, Greg walked three stops. First, I am secure. John 1:12-13 gives us a birthright as children of God, and Ephesians 1:13 says the Spirit seals us. Satan's lie is that we are insecure. Second, I am significant. 1 Corinthians 12 says the Spirit gifts each of us for the common good, and no gift outranks another. Here the lie sends us to people, circumstances, or self instead of Christ. Third, I am dependent. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says power is perfected in weakness, and we resist that because independence lets us keep control. Drawing on Dr. Bill Yarger's Biblical View of You, Greg said we can never earn God's love or lose it.

Pastor Russell Johnson opened with Fletcher Reede in the 1997 film Liar Liar, a man who cannot make his hand write a lie about the pen he is holding. He said Romans 7 runs the same way in reverse: we want to do right and find ourselves doing the opposite. Turning to Romans 8:1-8, Pastor Russell traced a tightly argued chain. The word behind "no condemnation" points less to the verdict than to the sentence being carried out, and the old sentence is the one Ephesians 2:1-3 describes. We have been pardoned, yet we keep showing up at the old prison asking for our old cell. Verse 2 answers with a higher law, the law of the Spirit of life, and verse 3 with a Son sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, so that verse 4 can call us to walk rather than work. Using a doll held down by gravity and lifted by balloons, Pastor Russell pictured prayer, Scripture, worship, and community tied on one at a time. Romans 8:5-8 gives the mechanism: setting the mind. Borrowing an image from Jonathan Haidt, whom he was careful not to endorse, he described a rider on an elephant. We do not wrestle the elephant. We aim it, daily, until desire follows.

Pastor Russell Johnson opened in Romans 8:26-28 with a memory from his years as a young youth pastor in Winnsboro, when a girl in his ministry lost her grandfather and met him in the hospital hallway, screaming and without words. Pastor Russell said those speechless moments are exactly where we experience the active presence of God. Our trouble in prayer is a content problem rather than a technique problem: we do not know what to ask for, and Paul includes himself in that weakness. The word Paul chooses describes physical frailty, an inherent limitation rather than a moral failure. Romans 8 records three groans: creation groaning under futility, believers groaning as we wait for the redemption of our bodies, and the Spirit Himself groaning too deep for words. These are labor pains, not death pains. The Spirit takes our stumbling prayers and pleads our case before the Father, while Christ intercedes at His right hand. Because the Father searches hearts and knows the mind of the Spirit, our prayers cannot arrive garbled. Pastor Russell closed with David in Psalm 139, who moved from being searched to inviting the search, and with an invitation into the Vision 2030 season of prayer and fasting.

Pastor Rick Wilcox introduced the Holy Spirit as our Teacher, and the better Teacher at that. He opened with Dr. Al Collins, the professor who wrote Hugh B. Brown's prayer on the blackboard, "from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth, O God of truth, deliver us," and who corrected a fiery eighteen-year-old by planting a seed and walking away rather than arguing. Pastor Rick then turned to the Gospel of John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us what Jesus did; John tells us who He is, written by an old man setting down what had not yet been said. That brought us to Thursday night in the upper room, where Jesus, hours from the cross, spent His last teaching hours on the Holy Spirit. Working through John 14 through 16, Pastor Rick showed why this Teacher surpasses the finest human one. He abides with us and in us. He does not hand us new information; He turns on the light over the Word already written. And He guides continuously, disclosing what is to come, which is far more often our next step than a distant horizon.

Elder Drew Howard opened Week 7 of "Ruach to Pneuma" by drawing a careful distinction that builds on last week: being indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being filled with Him are not the same thing. Indwelling, he explained from Ephesians 1:13, is the seal every believer receives at salvation, permanent, unconditional, and positional. Filling, from Ephesians 5:18, is His influence, and it is repeatable, conditional, and experiential, rising and falling with our response to Him. Working through the account of the ark of God in First and Second Samuel, Drew showed both the warning and the way. Israel first treated the ark as a good luck charm, carrying it into battle to force God's hand, and the result was disaster, defeat, the ark captured, and a child named Ichabod, "the glory has departed." His first warning landed there: God is not a genie in a bottle or a Santa Claus, and we must never use Him as a token to get what we want. Then, tracing David's life, Drew drew out five marks of a Spirit-filled life. Live out the calling God has given you, using your gifts for His glory. Inquire of the Lord and seek His will rather than your own. Seek your answers in the Word and live according to it, as David learned when moving the ark carelessly brought death and moving it God's way brought blessing. Sing songs of praise that fill the heart, as David danced before the Lord with all his might. And own it, be unashamed of being filled with the Spirit, even under the contemptuous gaze of David's wife Michal. Drew was honest that being filled can look a little crazy to a watching world, a Bible open on your desk at work, a mission trip instead of a vacation, and that this is exactly the point. He closed with a final warning drawn from Michal: be careful how you judge others who are worshiping in the Spirit.

Pastor Russell Johnson opened Week 6 of "Ruach to Pneuma" with the season he and Terri were expecting their twins: preterm labor at 24 weeks, eight weeks of hospital bed rest an hour from home, and both grandmothers moving in two weeks at a time to bring the family stability, security, and assurance. That became his picture for the morning, the permanent Resident every believer carries. Walking through Romans 8:9-11, he showed that Paul's repeated "if" is not doubt but settled fact: if you belong to Christ, the Spirit already dwells in you, not as a second stage or a reward for the advanced, but as the immediate consequence of saving faith. He is a Resident, not a guest, and the same Spirit who raised Jesus now lives in you. From Ephesians 1:13-14, Pastor Russell then opened the seal along three lines: security that only a greater authority could break, ownership that marks you as bought and belonging, and a down payment, the Greek arrabon, the first installment of an inheritance guaranteed to be paid in full. You cannot grieve Him away or fail Him away. You are sealed for the day of redemption, and the invitation is to stop striving for a security you already possess.

Student Pastor Eric Wischmann opened Week 5 of "Ruach to Pneuma" by reflecting on the birth of his daughter Ivy in April and how becoming a father, as becoming a husband and a pastor before it, exposed his weakness and reminded him of the cycles we carry and pass down, good and bad. He named struggles many of us feel powerless against, including anger, insecurity, addiction, and arrogance, and asked how we break these cycles. His answer was that cycles are not broken by trying harder; they are broken when God makes someone new. Turning to John 3, Pastor Eric walked through three truths about the new birth: its necessity, its means, and its gift.Pastor Eric then explained the new birth as a gift. Jesus pointed Nicodemus to Ezekiel's promise of a new heart and new spirit, and to the bronze serpent in the wilderness, where dying people were healed by looking in faith at what God lifted up. In the same way, Jesus would be lifted up on the cross, and whoever believes in Him has eternal life from the moment of belief. This gift is unconditional and undeserved, purchased entirely by Christ, and adding any of our own credit denies the sufficiency of His work and the Spirit's work. He closed by saying we are no longer slaves to sin. The cycles that have felt unstoppable can end because the Spirit now lives in us, and the church should live so changed that others notice, as people who take responsibility for their sin, seek help, and live as new creations in Christ.

Pastor Jamey Bryant opened Week 4 of "Ruach to Pneuma" with Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense," the little document that, written in plain language a farmer or shopkeeper could read aloud in a tavern, fanned the colonists' quiet discontent into an open flame and helped birth a nation we are about to celebrate at 250 years. He used it to point to a far greater catalytic moment: Pentecost, the birth of the church and the day the Holy Spirit came to indwell God's people and never left. Walking through Acts 2, Pastor Jamey set the scene with the disciples waiting in the upper room for ten days, doing exactly what Jesus told them to do, holding onto His promise that it was to their advantage that He go away so the Spirit could come. He reminded us that Pentecost itself predates the church, an ancient harvest festival tied to God's provision and the giving of the Law, which makes the wind and fire of Acts 2 all the more fitting: just as God gave the Law with fire at Sinai, He now gave a gift greater than the Law, the Spirit, with fire as the sign of His indwelling presence. Then came the tongues, and here Pastor Jamey was careful. This was not chaos or babbling, but real, known languages, each visitor from across the world suddenly hearing these common Galileans declare the mighty works of God in his own heart language. The Spirit chose to reach each person at the heart level, and the whole purpose was to shine the spotlight not on the speakers, not even on Himself, but on Jesus.From there, Pastor Jamey turned to Peter, transformed. Fifty days after denying Jesus three times, Peter stood before thousands and boldly proclaimed Him, declaring that the One they crucified God had raised and made both Lord and Christ. The crowd was pierced to the heart and cried out, "What shall we do?" Pastor Jamey took time with Peter's answer in Acts 2:38, the call to repent and be baptized, and walked carefully through how it holds together with salvation by faith alone in Christ alone. He showed that the people had already believed by the end of Peter's sermon and that Peter was calling that specific generation, guilty of rejecting the Father's, the Son's, and the Spirit's testimony, to come out from under judgment. He reminded us that Acts is a transitional book, a little messy as the early believers figured things out in real time, and that we get into trouble when we build an entire theology on one snapshot rather than reading it alongside the rest of the New Testament. He closed with the wonder of it: three thousand souls added that day, a church devoted to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer, and the same Spirit who indwelt and empowered them still indwelling us, still giving boldness, still sending the gospel out, and still inviting us to participate today.

On Sunday, Pastor Russell Johnson continued through the book of Nehemiah, covering chapter 8 and a crisis that came from inside the community rather than from its enemies. Pastor Russell opened with the story of American contractors from Vermont and New York during the War of 1812 who supplied two-thirds of the advancing British army because the profits were too good to refuse — "myopic, self-defeating, and imprudent at the deepest level." Before entering the text, he established Proverbs 9:10 as the lens for the chapter, defining wisdom as "the skill of living well" and the fear of the Lord as "a settled, life-shaping orientation toward God." He then walked through three layers of economic devastation inside Jerusalem — families unable to eat, landowners mortgaging everything to survive a famine, and families whose children were already enslaved to pay crushing debts — all caused by wealthy Jewish nobles exploiting their own people. Pastor Russell called it "what the absence of the fear of God produces — it makes you dumb and can even make you mean." He traced Nehemiah's response as wisdom in action: anger proportional to the wrong, deliberate reflection before speaking, a public assembly to confront a community-wide sin, and an immediate demand for full restoration. He then walked through Nehemiah's twelve-year record as governor — declining his food allowance, feeding 150 people daily at his own expense, refusing to acquire land — all driven by the fear of God rather than political calculation. Pastor Russell closed with an honest acknowledgment that injustice among God's people is real, a direct apology to those wounded by the church, and a Dallas Willard quote defining disciples as "people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus."

On Sunday, Pastor Russell Johnson continued through the book of Nehemiah, covering chapter 4 and the escalating opposition that met the builders as the wall went up. Pastor Russell opened with a story from his college days hauling hay with his father-in-law Ken, who taught him to always roll a bale of hay toward himself before picking it up in case something was hiding underneath. One day he rolled a bale back to find a nest of baby barn owls — wings outstretched, chests puffed out, beaks clicking — doing everything they could to look big and scary. Pastor Russell compared those puffed-up owls to Nehemiah's enemies: "lots of noise and bravado." He organized the chapter around a repeated pattern — the opposition hears something they don't like, there is anger and posturing, and that posturing is met with an expression of faith. In the first round, Sanballat rolled up to the construction site with a military escort and launched five mocking questions while Tobiah added his one-liner about a fox breaking the wall down. Nehemiah's response was not a clever comeback but prayer, taking the offense to God rather than retaliating. Pastor Russell noted that "the most powerful response to ridicule is not a witty comeback — it's continuing to work." In the second round, the coalition expanded to surround Jerusalem on all sides, and ridicule escalated into threats of violence. Worse, three internal voices — tired workers, threatening enemies, and frightened friends from outlying communities — began singing the same song: stop building. Nehemiah responded with both trust and action, stationing armed men at the vulnerable points and recasting the vision: "Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your houses." In the final section, after God frustrated the enemies' plan, Nehemiah did not relax but got more organized — splitting workers into builders and guards, assigning weapons alongside tools, posting a trumpeter beside him as a rally signal, extending the workday from "dawn until the stars appeared," and requiring workers to sleep inside Jerusalem. Pastor Russell emphasized the "both-and" of mature faith: "He organizes it because he trusts God and because he understands that God works through prepared and faithful people." He concluded with Nehemiah sleeping in his clothes, sword within reach, the wall half done and the work still going: "Don't be afraid. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome. And fight. Let's keep building."

On Easter Sunday, Pastor Russell Johnson explored Hebrews 10:10-14 through the powerful imagery of "3 Chairs"—asking the question that matters most: "Do you have a chair?" Pastor Russell opened with a humorous story about his mom and aunt getting in trouble at a nursing home over someone's chair, then pivoted to the profound truth that sitting down represents finished work. He walked through the Old Testament priests who had no chair because "their work was never complete"—standing daily, offering repeatedly, the same sacrifices that "can never take away sins." Pastor Russell connected this to the Ezra-Nehemiah series, showing how those books end with spiritual work still "unfinished" and pointing forward to someone who would complete it. Then Jesus showed up! Pastor Russell declared that Christ "offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins" and "sat down at the right hand of God"—the place of highest honor, authority, and approval. The stunning conclusion from Ephesians 2:4-6 is that because Jesus sat down, we get a chair too: "Seated us WITH HIM. Not someday. Not after you perform well enough. Right now!" Pastor Russell invited everyone to stop striving and rest in the finished work of Christ.

On Sunday, Pastor Lance Terry continued through the book of Nehemiah by covering chapter 3 and asking one central question: "What does it take to build?" Pastor Lance opened with the story of the Galveston seawall — how after the devastating 1900 hurricane, different groups came together to plan, fund, and construct a massive seawall while raising much of the city by fifteen feet, completing much of the work in just two years. He then connected that engineering feat to the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls, walking the congregation through a visual reconstruction of the wall section by section, gate by gate, noting that more than forty sections were rebuilt by leaders from different backgrounds and professions — priests, goldsmiths, perfumers, officials, and homeowners. Pastor Lance drew out three things the people needed to recognize in order to build. First, they had to recognize it was not just a brick and mortar project — the high priest Eliashib consecrated the wall at the very start, setting it apart as belonging to God and dedicated to His glory, not their own comfort or fame. Second, they had to recognize where they were vulnerable by strengthening the gates, since gates determined what came in and out of the city and represented their most exposed points. Pastor Lance applied this personally, sharing his family's decision about cell phones for his children and his experience with Re:gen's repentance planning process. Third, they had to recognize it was a group effort, highlighting the repeated phrase "next to him" throughout chapter 3, which painted a picture of everyone working shoulder to shoulder in the same direction. He noted that people of different professions stepped outside their normal work to build, and that most sections were built by the people who lived nearest to them. Pastor Lance concluded by connecting the sermon to a church work day the previous Saturday, where people who were "overqualified to spread mulch" joyfully showed up to serve, and challenged the congregation: "Don't sit back and watch while other people build. Jump in with us. Get to work. Let's keep building."

On Sunday, Pastor Russell Johnson continued through the book of Nehemiah, covering chapter 2 and the remarkable sequence of events that followed Nehemiah's four months of prayer. Pastor Russell opened with a personal story from 2015, when he was leading a church plant in San Saba, Texas — "the Pecan Capital of the world" — and needed a teaching job to support his family of seven. He and his leadership team prayed specifically for a job matching his teaching certificate, for an interview despite having no experience, and for a house big enough for five children in a tiny town, and God answered every one of those prayers in rapid succession. Pastor Russell then walked through Nehemiah 2, showing how prayer, planning, and the providence of God work together. When the king finally noticed Nehemiah's sadness — four months after his initial grief — Nehemiah was "very much afraid," because displaying sadness before the king was a serious breach of court etiquette and he was about to ask Artaxerxes to reverse his own official decree halting the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Pastor Russell highlighted the split-second prayer in verse 4 between the king's question and Nehemiah's answer, explaining that "these normally are the overflow of sustained prayer" and that "we expect God to steady us in the moment of crisis if we have no time with Him before the crisis arrives." Nehemiah's bold, detailed requests — for permission to go, letters of safe passage, and timber from the king's forest — revealed that he had spent his four months not only praying but planning, because "clarity of vision produces clarity of request." After arriving in Jerusalem with a military escort, Nehemiah conducted a secret nighttime inspection of the walls before making his pitch to the people — naming the shared reality plainly, standing with them in it as "we" rather than "you," and sharing the testimony of God's providence. The people responded immediately: "Let us arise and build." When the enemies Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem countered with ridicule and accusations of rebellion, Nehemiah's response was short and decisive: "The God of heaven will give us success; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no portion, right or memorial in Jerusalem." Pastor Russell concluded by observing that "prayer, planning, and trusting in the providence of God produce boldness and courage.

Pastor Russell Johnson launched the book of Nehemiah, beginning with chapter 1. Pastor Russell set the historical context by explaining that Nehemiah's account picks up thirteen years after Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes I (445 BC) — a king whose own father, Xerxes, had been assassinated in his bedchamber by a court attendant. When Nehemiah's brother Hanani arrived from Judah with news that "the remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire," Nehemiah's response was remarkable: he "sat down and wept and mourned for days." Pastor Russell challenged the modern assumption that emotional detachment equals strength, pointing out that "Jeremiah wept. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Paul wept over the churches. And now Nehemiah weeps over a people he hasn't seen, in a city he only grew up hearing stories about." He walked through Nehemiah's four-month prayer — from Chislev to Nisan — showing how Nehemiah prayed the truth about God ("great and awesome...scary and dependable"), prayed the truth about himself by identifying with his people's sin rather than claiming personal exemption, prayed the promises of Scripture back to God from Deuteronomy 30, and finally prayed about his "one big thing" — asking God for favor before the most powerful king on earth. Pastor Russell highlighted that Nehemiah's prayer was not demanding of God but was a reminder to himself of what God had already committed to do. He concluded with the quiet revelation at the chapter's end — "Now I was the cupbearer to the king" — showing that God had been positioning Nehemiah for years, and that his comfort was never the point: "When the call came, Nehemiah was willing to trade his security for a dangerous mission on behalf of people he had never met, in a city he had never seen, because they were God's people, and that was enough."

Pastor Russell Johnson concluded the book of Ezra with chapter 10, the difficult resolution to the intermarriage crisis. The chapter opens with Shecaniah rising to encourage Ezra: "Yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this... Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act." Pastor Russell highlighted this as a model of how leaders sometimes need others to move them "from dejection to direction." Ezra then assembled all the people—standing in cold December rain, trembling inside and out—and confronted them directly: "You have been unfaithful." The people responded remarkably: "That's right! As you have said, so it is our duty to do." A three-month investigation followed, and the guilty were named publicly—priests, Levites, singers, and laypeople alike. Pastor Russell addressed the "elephants in the room": How does this fit with God's hatred of divorce? He explained this was "a unique situation in redemptive history" involving "the very survival of a faithful remnant," not a prescriptive pattern for today. The book ends somberly, with broken families and unfinished restoration—pointing us forward to Christ, who would come to "finish the spiritual work we could never do on our own."