Faith Bible Church Sermons

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 ask...

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 b...

On Sunday, Dr. Ezequiel Serrato, who serves Faith Bible Church as Director of Spanish Ministry, opened Week 2 of "Ruach to Pneuma" by greeting the church in Spanish and inviting the familiar Latin American response, bendecidos, "we are blessed." Picking up where Pastor Russell left off, he reminded us that the Holy Spirit is not an it but a Person, the third Person of the Trinity, and that we come...

Pastor Russell Johnson preached through Nehemiah 10, the chapter where Israel's confession and prayer from chapter 9 become a signed, public covenant. Pastor Russell opened with two stories about the weight of putting your name on something — the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence knowing their signatures were evidence of treason, and his own experience as a newlywed sitting...

Pastor Russell Johnson preached through Nehemiah 9, the longest prayer in the Old Testament and the spiritual climax of the book. Pastor Russell opened with the story of Bill Miller — a man who in 1940 crashed his car into a snowbank at 110 miles an hour and was pulled out by a stranger named Warren Felty. Five years later, Miller collapsed during a POW march through Germany, and Warren Felty drag...

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-defe...

Pastor Russell Johnson continued through the book of Nehemiah, covering chapter 5 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...

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 rolle...

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 O...

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...

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 leader...

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 arrive...

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 ne...

Pastor Russell Johnson continued through Ezra, exploring chapter 9 and the crisis that confronted Ezra upon his arrival in Jerusalem. The leaders reported devastating news: "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands"—they had intermarried with pagan nations. Pastor Russell emphasized this was not racial prejudice but a matter o...

Pastor Lance Terry continued through Ezra, covering chapters 7 and 8 and introducing us to Ezra himself—nearly sixty years after the events of chapter 6. Pastor Lance highlighted Ezra's credentials: his priestly lineage tracing back to Aaron, his role as "a scribe skilled in the law of Moses," and the repeated phrase that "the hand of the Lord his God was upon him." Most significantly, Pastor Lanc...

Pastor Russell Johnson continued through Ezra, covering chapters 5 and 6 and the restart of temple construction after a sixteen-year delay. Pastor Russell used the "good cop, bad cop" analogy to describe how God sent two prophets—Haggai, who confronted the people's complacency and told them to "go to work," and Zechariah, who cast vision for God's future purposes and the coming "Branch." Together,...