Sermons on Joseph Smith: showing 886-900 of 26,428

Hurry Up And Wait

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 25, 2010

Funeral message for Thelma Harper Brown, who exhibited extraordinary patience during a long decline.

What must it feel like to spend every day waiting? Just waiting. Not going anywhere, not keeping appointments, not concerned about a schedule, but just waiting. Waiting through interminable days and dark nights; waiting to be fed, to be turned, to be spoken to. What must it feel like just to ...read more

Scripture: Romans 8:18-39

Denomination: Baptist

Six Miles Of Obedience

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 25, 2010

Funeral message for Eva Myers, whose distinctive discipline was six miles of walking daily ... a metaphor for walking with Christ.

"Whoever obeys [God’s] word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, ’I abide in him,’ ought to walk just as he walked." At first I didn’t believe it. Six miles a day?! How could anybody, especially one up in her years, ...read more

Scripture: Psalm 26:1-12

Denomination: Baptist

The Word Of The Cross

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 26, 2010

Funeral message for Mrs. Athelstein Coleman, whose hobby was working crossword puzzles: a play on "crossword" to say that the "word of the cross" means wisdom and strength.

It's not only what people do that interests me; it's also why they do it. When I see someone doing something over and over again, I want to know what that behavior means. If there is a pattern in someone's behavior, what does that pattern mean? Often you find that people do what they do, even ...read more

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Denomination: Baptist

Seeing A New Thing

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jun 29, 2008

Some of us are just not observant and do not see what God is doing. We let fear paralyze us, we do not see what an international church means, and we need to bear a testimony of excitement about all that God is doing in this church.

Many of you know that I recently spent a week in Kentucky and Indiana doing a family history search. My companion for that week in archives rooms and on cemetery grounds was my younger brother, who is a professor at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Texas. We planned for that particular week, as ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 43:1-21

Denomination: Baptist

The Bald Eagle Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 6, 2008

Micah’s symbol of the bald eagle, a sign of grief, applies to America. We are abandoning justice, kindness, and the humble walk with God. Our collapse is from within rather than from without. Yet God has sent a different kind of conqueror to redeem us.

What we see is more powerful than what we hear. The visual always trumps the audible. I learned a long time ago that what people see is more powerful than what they hear. I learned it when I sat through an education professor’s hour-long lecture about why lecturing was the least effective way to ...read more

Scripture: Micah 1:1-16

Denomination: Baptist

In This House Of Peacemaking Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 13, 2008

Peace is something the world needs to learn from the church. To be peacemakers we must teach all of God’s truth, we must model peaceful resolution, we must equip with real skills, and we must find peace with God through Christ.

We entered the conference room in stony silence. For several weeks I had noticed the two of them – mature women, well-established, well-grounded in the Lord – but at odds with one another. They had been planning a special event, but had disagreed over the menu. One of them wanted an item dear to ...read more

Scripture: Micah 4:1-8

Denomination: Baptist

Ripe Ritual And Redemptive Righteousness Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 20, 2008

Dramatic monologue as if it were from Micah himself, summarizing the entire book around the contrast between practicing ritual in order to avoid judgment vs. living God’s requirements of justice, mercy, and the humble walk.

[Outside the sanctuary] Justice, O God! Justice! We must have your justice! And righteousness! Without that we are lost! Oh, Lord God, the Temple and the city – what I see there sickens me. That ripe and rotten ritual, those empty gestures, those paid and padded priests! O God, ...read more

Scripture: Micah 7:1-20

Denomination: Baptist

A Completed Appointment

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 30, 2008

Funeral sermon for Alfred Bailey, long-term chair of the church Building and Grounds Committee, civic activist, and Martin Luther King Memorial founder. His unfinished tasks and his missed appointments are completed by a God who gave him many assignments

It’s tough to be on time. And it’s tough to get things finished. In fact, those two items are closely connected. It’s tough to be on time precisely because it is so tough to get things finished. And if you are involved in a great many things, chances are you will never complete them all, nor ...read more

Scripture: Job 23:1-14

Denomination: Baptist

Stumbling Into A Quantum Leap

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 3, 2008

When we stumble, but repent, God gives us a chance to leap like a deer and rejoice.

The best discoveries are the discoveries made by accident. The things you did not set out to find, but found anyway. The five dollar bill tucked in between the pages of the book you picked up to read. The charming little boutique around the corner from where you really intended to go. The best ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 35:1-10

Denomination: Baptist

Promises To Keep Before I Sleep

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Nov 8, 2007

We find it difficult to keep promises because we are focused on dealing with today’s issues. We back off our commitments to God because they are hard, but we can receive help from accountability partners, and can know joy and fulfillment.

To be a saint is not to be perfect; to be a saint is to be someone who makes promises and keeps them. Sainthood is not some magic status, conferred by the church for merit or miracles; sainthood is ordinary people living in extraordinary faithfulness, making promises and keeping them. Did you ...read more

Scripture: 1 Kings 1:48

Denomination: Baptist

Gifted For Ministry

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Nov 10, 2007

We are a gifted church, with diversely gifted members, and we need to turn that into creative expressions of love for our community.

I don’t get to watch the Miss America pageant any more. Used to be, every September I would hunker down in front of a TV set and prepare to ogle. Gorgeous gals, we called them, in those Neanderthal days, before our language had to become politically correct. Beauty contest, we called it, before ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

A Harvest Of Peace

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Nov 11, 2007

As gardeners grow beauty, so also we must grow peace: speak truth without prejudice; pass judgments but do something to help the troubled grow; pay attention to our own hearts; and settle for nothing less than Christ as the full truth.

As if we did not have enough yard work to do at home, my wife and I have taken on a gardening project at the church to which we belong, Montgomery Hills Baptist Church. The landscaping had deteriorated, and so a gardening team was formed to take care of it. My wife volunteered; I got volunteered. ...read more

Scripture: Zechariah 8:9-17

Denomination: Baptist

Enough

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Nov 12, 2007

Wealth leads us to illusions wherein we lose sight of God; poverty leads us to spiritual disease. Pray for enough to satisfy real needs and to be able to give for others.

You don’t have to raise your hands on this one. But I do wonder how many of you spent some time this week fantasizing about that Powerball lottery. What would you have done with $250,000,000? What dreams would you have indulged? What unthinkable thoughts did you think? Well, now, I, being a ...read more

Scripture: Proverbs 30:8-9

Denomination: Baptist

Living With A Ministry Outlook

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Nov 17, 2007

Pulpit drama monologue as if Naaman the Syrian were reporting his healing. God’s gifts are free, contrary to what Gehazi thought.

It’s incredible. Truly remarkable. That I should look this good, after all I have been through. Maybe you wouldn’t understand. You did not see what I looked like only yesterday. Leprosy! I had leprosy! Great scabs on my skin. Whitish blotches here and there. Horrible sores, everywhere. ...read more

Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-27

Denomination: Baptist

Living At Four Corners

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Nov 25, 2007

For Christ the King Sunday and in support of international missions: using a metaphor of a complex intersection, we are to give, teach, heal and share as the four corners of our Christian life.

May I introduce you to my neighborhood? For two months now I have been burning up the Beltway and 270 coming up to your place two or three times a week. It would seem only fair that you should come down to where I live, if only in your mind’s eye. Let me introduce you to Four Corners. Four ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 11:10-13

Denomination: Baptist