Palms Presbyterian Sermons

Summer Road Trip (Part 4): The Missionary Journeys of Paul (Part 4) Acts 14:8-18 Sunday, July 5, 2026 Paul performs a miraculous healing in Lystra, and the people who witnessed it, awed at the apostles' apparent power, begin to worship them as gods. The human heart is inclined toward worship, but this inclination can get us into trouble when we point it in the wrong direction. Bryant Anderson prea...

Summer Road Trip: The Missionary Journeys of Paul (Part 3) Isaiah 61:1-5, 11 & Acts 17:1-9 Sunday, June 28, 2026 When the gospel comes to Thessalonica, an uproar ensues. And in the words of the apostles' opponents, the gospel is "turning the world upside down." This is what happens when the world and the gospel collide: things get turned upside down—our expectations, our certainties, even our...

Summer Road Trip: The Missionary Journeys of Paul (Part 2) Acts 16:6-15 Sunday, June 21, 2026 Interim Associate Pastor Beverly Dempsey preaching. Current Series: Summer Road Trip The Apostle Paul did a daring thing in the years after Rome executed Jesus of Nazareth: he traveled around the Roman Empire spreading the message that Rome—despite its great power—was no match for the good news of God mad...

Summer Road Trip: The Missionary Journeys of Paul (Part 1) Acts 13 Sunday, June 14, 2026 Parish Associate Craig Davies preaching. Current Series: Summer Road Trip The Apostle Paul did a daring thing in the years after Rome executed Jesus of Nazareth: he traveled around the Roman Empire spreading the message that Rome—despite its great power—was no match for the good news of God made known to the w...

2 Corinthians 13:1-11 & Matthew 28:16-20 Sunday, May 31, 2026 Beverly Dempsey preaching. Palms Presbyterian Church is a church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. To learn more about us, visit us at palmschurch.org .

The Church in Exile (Part 4) Jonah 3:1 - 4:1 & 1 Peter 4:1-11 Sunday, May 24, 2026 Exile can be a necessary reminder to the church that God’s love and work are not limited to us and ours; they are extended to the whole world. Our job as exiles is not to withhold God's goodness from others, but to be good stewards of the love and grace of God—to bear witness by bearing fruit. Bryant Anderson pr...

The Church in Exile (Part 3) Daniel 1:3-5, 8-17 & 1 Peter 2:11-17 Sunday, May 10, 2026 Daniel succeeds in exile not because he tries to succeed, but because he tries to be faithful. In the same way, the church doesn't become faithful by making a difference in the world; the church makes a difference in the world by being faithful. Bryant Anderson preaching. Current Series: The Church in Exile...

The Church in Exile (Part 1) Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 & 1 Peter 2:2-10 Sunday, May 3, 2026 So much of our sense of who we are is linked to place—where we live, where we're from, where we feel we belong. To live in exile is to be placeless, which can be more than disorienting; it can undermine our very identity. If the church is living in a modern exile, how can we root ourselves so that we...

Sunday, April 26, 2026 Psalm 137:1-4 & 1 Peter 1:1-2, 13-23 After the people of God suffer dislocation and exile at the hands of Babylon in the 6th century BC, exile becomes a key metaphor for how they understand their collective life in a challenging world, even long after they return to their homeland. For the Christian church today, exile remains a useful lens through which to view the chal...

Acts 2:14, 36-41 Sunday, April 19, 2026 Beverly Dempsey preaching. Palms Presbyterian Church is a church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. To learn more about us, visit us at palmschurch.org .

1 Peter 5:1-5 Sunday, April 12, 2026 Bill Wildey preaching. Palms Presbyterian Church is a church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. To learn more about us, visit us at palmschurch.org .

Get Ready (Part 7) Matthew 28:1-10 Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026 Life and death are both transformed on Easter: death is revealed to be much less potent than we thought, and life is revealed to be more enduring, more far-reaching, more eternal than we have fully reckoned with. Jesus leads the way into this new and strange life that is free of death's iron grip, but are we ready to live? Bryant Ande...

Get Ready (Part 6) Matthew 21:1-11 Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026 Jesus rides into Jerusalem—his so-called "triumphal entry"—on a donkey. This little bit of performance art is not only an intentional embodiment of a well-known prophecy (Zech. 9:9); it is also clear demonstration that he has not come to conquer or rule like a human king. It seems that people get the first part (prophetic fulfillment)...

Get Ready (Part 5) Matthew 16:21-26 Sunday, March 22, 2026 One of the more difficult realities of Jesus's ministry is that he, in no uncertain terms, invites those who would follow him to accept suffering willingly: to take up their own cross, just as he will take up his. What sort of suffering is it that we are called to undergo, and to what end? Bryant Anderson preaching. Referenced in this serm...

Get Ready (Part 4) Acts 10 Sunday, March 15, 2026 Beverly Dempsey preaching. Current Series: Get Ready Lent is a forty-day period of preparation which precedes the celebration of Christianity's holiest season, Easter. Throughout the church's history, faithful Christians have adopted a range of practices during this time of anticipation, ranging from rote dietary restrictions all the way to full ex...

Get Ready (Part 3) Romans 12:1-8 Sunday, March 8, 2026 In a culture that prizes self-improvement and self-actualization, it seems a strange—even blasphemous—thing to encourage self-sacrifice. But if it is our hope and intention to imitate Jesus, then we cannot escape his call to live lives of self-giving love: precisely the kind of love he demonstrated on the cross. Bryant Anderson preaching. Curr...

Get Ready (Part 2) Psalm 51:1-12 & Mark 4:1-20 Sunday, March 1, 2026 Jesus tells a parable of a farmer sowing seeds to illustrate the importance of soil for producing fruit. The season of Lent is a time to consider the ways that the soil of our hearts has become inhospitable to the the seeds that God is sowing, and what we can do to be made ready to change and bear fruit. Bryant Anderson preac...

Get Ready (Part 1) Psalm 27:7-14 & 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Sunday, February 22, 2026 Paul warns the Thessalonian church not to fall asleep: not to be lulled into complacency or apathy, content with the world as it is. Instead, Paul urges the church to keep awake, to be ready to hear God's call and discover God at work around them. What does it mean to keep awake today? How can we make ourselves...

Priorities (Part 6) Matthew 17:1-9 Sunday, February 15, 2026 In a world full of brief, distracting “shooting stars,” Christians must navigate by the steady, unchanging light of Christ—placing him above everything else and letting his love reorder our lives. Beverly Dempsey preaching. Current Series: Priorities In the introduction to his podcast , Russell Moore speaks of "holding fast to what reall...

Priorities (Part 5) John 15:1-5 & Jeremiah 29:1, 4-11 Sunday, February 8, 2026 To God's people in exile, the prophet Jeremiah gives an extraordinary set of instructions, which basically boil down to: Make yourselves at home. The people believed they had no purpose in the present and no hope for the future, but God insists that fruitful living is possible even in the bleakest circumstances. Bry...

Priorities (Part 4) Genesis 12:1-4 & Philippians 3:7-14 Sunday, February 1, 2026 To be a Christian is to journey toward Jesus: to be on a pilgrimage toward a life that is more and more centered on and shaped by his example and his call to love God and to love our neighbor. A pilgrimage is hard work and riddled with doubt and uncertainty, which is what makes partisanship so alluring to us. Part...

Priorities (Part 3) Isaiah 11:1-9 & Matthew 5:38-48 Sunday, January 25, 2026 We want to make a difference in the world, and we want the church to make a difference, too. We have plans, hopes, and dreams, and we work to make them happen. But sometimes the life that scripture calls us to live seems completely at odds with what will actually get results. So which is more important: the ends, or t...

Matthew 2:1-12 Sunday, January 4, 2026 Beverly Dempsey preaching. Palms Presbyterian Church is a church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. To learn more about us, visit us at palmschurch.org .

The Great Exchange (Part 3) Philippians 2:5-11 Christmas Eve, December 24, 2025 We have turned our lives into carefully structured and controlled environments with little room for surprise and wonder. The coming of God in the flesh in Jesus Christ is, at its simplest, a profound interruption—but we have inoculated our lives against being interrupted, and made it harder than ever to experience real...

The Great Exchange (Part 2) Genesis 1:26-27 & John 1:1-5, 10-14 Sunday, December 21, 2025 We rarely contemplate what an astounding thing it is that God created humanity in God's own image—that there is a spark of divinity in each of us. Even more astounding, however, is that God would set aside divinity altogether in order to fan that spark in us into a flame, leading us to new life. Bryant An...