FPC Dallas

When God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, the first question is surprisingly simple: "What do you see?" Jeremiah sees an almond branch, the earliest tree to bloom at the edge of winter. God responds, "You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it." In this sermon from Eshel: Preaching the Trees, we explore the almond tree as a sign of God's attentiveness. Long before the landscap...

In Zechariah's vision, the angel of the Lord stands among the myrtle trees in a quiet valley. It is not a place of triumph or spectacle, but of waiting, listening, and hope. In this sermon from Eshel: Preaching the Trees, we explore the myrtle tree as a sign of God's consolation. While the world often celebrates what is large, impressive, and immediate, Scripture reminds us that God is also presen...

When God commands the construction of the ark of the covenant, the chosen material is not cedar from a distant forest or some rare and noble wood. It is acacia, a rough desert tree growing in the wilderness. In this sermon from Eshel: Preaching the Trees, we consider what it means that God builds holy things from ordinary materials. Again and again, Scripture reveals a God who works with what is a...

Long before David and Goliath face one another in the Valley of Elah, the ground beneath them already carries a history. The terebinth tree stands as a witness to conversations unfinished, conflicts unresolved, and stories that continue shaping the present long after they seem forgotten. In this sermon from Eshel: Preaching the Trees, we consider how buried history influences the lives we live tod...

Elijah collapses beneath a broom tree with nothing left to give. There, God meets exhaustion not with demands, but with rest, nourishment, and presence. It is one of the most honest moments in Scripture. A prophet who has reached the end of his strength. A person who cannot imagine a way forward. In this sermon from Eshel: Preaching the Trees, we sit beneath the broom tree with Elijah and consider...

Abraham makes peace with a rival king, and the story ends with an unexpected act: he plants a tamarisk tree. The tamarisk is slow growing. Abraham will never live to see it reach maturity. Yet he plants it anyway. In the opening sermon of Eshel: Preaching the Trees, we explore the Hebrew word eshel, a word associated with eating, drinking, and lodging. A tree as an inn. A place of welcome. A sign...

Pentecost is the story of a frightened and uncertain community becoming something new. In Acts 2, the Spirit arrives like wind and fire, disrupting fear, crossing boundaries, and drawing people together across language and difference. What begins as confusion becomes proclamation. What begins behind closed doors becomes a public witness. This sermon reflects on the movement of the Holy Spirit, not...

What holds a community together after the excitement fades and ordinary life returns? In the closing sermon of Eccentrics: Keeping It Real After Easter, we turn to Peter’s final vision of the church. Not polished or perfect people, but a community learning how to remain together in grace, peace, and genuine love. Drawing from 1 Peter 5, this message reflects on the kind of relationships that can s...

What does it mean to speak about hope in a fearful and reactive world? In this week’s sermon from 1 Peter, we reflect on the call to always be ready to give an account for the hope within us, but to do so with gentleness and reverence. This message explores a way of living that is grounded rather than defensive, faithful rather than performative. A way of bearing witness through humility, courage,...

What does it mean to belong to something larger than yourself? In this week’s sermon from 1 Peter, we turn to the image of living stones. Faith after Easter is not something we carry alone. We are being built together, shaped into something steady, shared, and full of purpose. This message explores what it means to find your place in a community that is still being formed. A life where identity is...

What does faith look like when life cannot be explained or resolved? In this sermon from 1 Peter, we encounter a difficult call to endure suffering that is not deserved. Not all suffering is the same, and not all of it can be fixed. Some of it must simply be carried. This message is a companion for those who have learned to expect only brief grace, who have not been able to reconcile with life, bu...

What does love actually look like in real life? In this sermon from 1 Peter, love is not described as a feeling, but as a posture. Something lived out in the body. Something that stretches us beyond instinct, comfort, and convenience. Drawing from the early church, this message explores a kind of love that does not come naturally. A love that reaches toward others without shared history, obligatio...

What does it mean to have joy that does not depend on circumstances? This sermon explores a kind of joy that exists before proof, one that holds even in uncertainty and struggle. Drawing from 1 Peter, it invites us to consider how resurrection reshapes not just what we believe, but how we endure. Part of the Eccentrics: Keeping It Real After Easter series.

Easter begins in the dark, with people carrying spices toward a sealed tomb. The women in Mark’s Gospel are not certain, not hopeful, and not prepared for what they will find. They are simply walking. Along the way, they ask a question they cannot answer: who will roll away the stone? It hangs in the air, unresolved. And still, they keep going. This sermon explores the kind of faith that does not...

Good Friday confronts us with a different kind of violence. Not only the machinery of empire, but the quieter, more familiar force of anonymity. In Mark’s Gospel, the cross is surrounded by a crowd described only as “they.” No names. No responsibility. Just a chorus of passing voices. This sermon explores what happens when suffering becomes spectacle. When humiliation is carried out not by a singl...

The journey through gravity and grace comes to its final movement here. After gravity, affliction, attention, de-creation, and obedience, we arrive at what has been present all along: grace. Grace is not something we achieve at the end of the journey. It is what meets us in every stage, even when we are unfinished, uncertain, or resistant. It is not a reward for getting it right, but a reality tha...

After de-creation, something new must take shape. This sermon turns to obedience not as rule-following, but as a lived response to grace. In the Gravity and Grace series, obedience emerges after the self has been loosened from control and illusion. It is not forced compliance, but a form of listening that becomes action. A way of living that reflects trust rather than certainty. Obedience asks us...

After naming gravity, affliction, and attention, this sermon explores what happens when the self begins to loosen its grip on the world it has constructed. Drawing on Simone Weil’s theology, de-creation is not destruction for its own sake, it is the undoing of illusion, control, and self-centered narratives that keep us from reality. We spend much of our lives building a world that makes sense to...

After descending through gravity and affliction, the journey toward grace begins with attention. Drawing on Simone Weil’s insight that attention is the rarest form of generosity, this sermon explores how easily we replace true listening with explanation, advice, or quick solutions. In Mark’s Gospel, when the crowd tries to silence Bartimaeus, Jesus does something different—he stands still and asks...

Not all suffering is the same. In this sermon from Mark 5, we explore the difference between pain and affliction. Pain scars the surface. Affliction burns underground, severing the roots that connect us to community, voice, and belonging. As part of the Gravity & Grace series, this message reflects on the woman who hemorrhaged for twelve years and the synagogue leader, Jairus. One comes from the f...

In Scripture, the sea is never neutral. It represents chaos, fear, and the forces that pull everything downward. In Mark 5, Jesus crosses the water to meet a man living among the tombs, bound by affliction and abandoned to gravity. This opening sermon in the Gravity & Grace series explores what Simone Weil called the “natural movement of the soul”: fear descends, water always falls, and we often p...

Ash Wednesday begins with a descent. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is named “Beloved” at his baptism and immediately driven into the wilderness. This sermon explores what that movement means, not as punishment or “tough love,” but as a return to dust, to humanity, and to grace. In a culture that avoids limitation and fears weakness, this message invites us to see the wilderness differently: not as break...

What if friendship is less about being understood and more about the willingness to truly know another person? This sermon reflects on Christian friendship as a practice of attention, one that honors full humanity rather than convenience or similarity. Drawing from Philippians 2:19–22, the message explores Paul’s description of Timothy as a model of friendship shaped by humility, curiosity, and sh...

What if friendship is less about being understood and more about the willingness to truly know another person? This sermon reflects on Christian friendship as a practice of attention—one that honors full humanity rather than convenience or similarity. Drawing from Philippians 2:19–22, the message explores Paul’s description of Timothy as a model of friendship shaped by humility, curiosity, and sha...

What makes a voice trustworthy—and why can confidence alone be misleading? This sermon explores “righteous speech” as more than tone or delivery, arguing that truthful words are formed through the disciplined work of discernment. Drawing from Paul’s prayer in Philippians, this message connects the physiology of speech with the spiritual practice of separating what is true from what is merely accep...