Sermons on Joseph Smith: showing 1,036-1,050 of 26,430

Playing It Safe: Job's Friend Zophar Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 7, 2009

For Lent and Annunciation: Zophar’s counsel is to "play it safe" by sticking to ideas rather than engaging persons. He thinks that security is the goal. God in Christ takes the risk of loving us and living with us.

Every human heart is so made that it can be hurt. Of that I have no doubt. Every human heart is subject to hurt, to pain, to shock. Every one of us is subject to feelings that we do not enjoy -- disappointment, anger, despair, guilt, anxiety -- a whole range of painful feelings. And we either deal ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Go Tell It On The Mountain

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 10, 2010

Celebrates the literary insights of James Baldwin, who had died shortly before; the privilege of redemptive suffering on the part of a person or a people participates in the suffering of Christ and of His victory. Includes readings from Baldwin’s writing

Nothing is more full of mystery than this – that the suffering of .a few who are oppressed and injured acts to redeem the many, including the oppressors. And yet nothing is more true than this – that from time to time a person, a people, a race receives the awesome privilege of suffering in such ...read more

Scripture: Revelation 6:12-17

Denomination: Baptist

Grow To Care, Care To Grow

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 11, 2010

A church that wishes to grow must "get over" negatives about evangelism and must tell the truth about the human spiritual condition; must present a full diet of worship and study and preparation; and must be a source of radical community.

We have a garden at our house. Or should I say, we had a garden. It was carefully planted, lovingly tended for a time, it was nurtured through the searing heat of July and watched over during the thundershowers of mid-August. But something happened to that garden, something awful and terrible, ...read more

Scripture: Acts 2:37-47

Denomination: Baptist

Heart Transplant

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 21, 2010

God works in our lives much as a surgeon does in our bodies: cleansing thoroughly of old idolatries, assisting us in the transition, and then giving us a new indwelling presence, that of Christ.

I remember the corny old song that says, "They've gone just about as fur as they can go." And it seemed just about right, too, at one time. They've gone just about as fur as they can go, when airplanes were invented and we could soar as on eagle's wings. They've gone just about as fur as they can ...read more

Scripture: Ezekiel 36:22-27

Denomination: Baptist

Marriage Is A Triangle

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jun 13, 2010

January 1988. Marriage is more than a contract between two people. It must involve God and working toward the purposes of God; otherwise it is a divorce, whether the law is involved or not.

There are all sorts of reasons not to preach this sermon! There area all kinds of problems kicked up because I have felt led to conclude our series of studies in the prophet Malachi with one of his most pointed and deliberate passages: his passage on marriage and divorce. Getting into this topic ...read more

Scripture: Malachi 2:13-16

Denomination: Baptist

We The People, Breaking Bondages Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jun 15, 2010

God does not want merely personal religion; He desires our investment in breaking the bondages that imprison others. America post-Vietnam is strikingly similar to Judah post-Exile. Neither can afford to retreat into comfortable religion.

A great nation had been humiliated by something they had never supposed could happen. Because they saw themselves as the people of God, chosen by him for a special role in the world's history, they had imagined themselves invulnerable. God would never desert his people, they believed. God would not ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 58:5-11

Denomination: Baptist

What God Wants On Sunday Morning

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jun 16, 2010

We are incurably religious, thinking that if we use the right formulas, we will be acceptable to God. But God wants our personal involvement and our investment in understanding Him.

Our most persistent sin is that we are religious. Of all the sins that men and women commit, of all the wrongheaded directions we take, of all the wayward wanderings on which we go, none is more persistent than this: that we are religious. As someone has put it, we are incurably religious. ...read more

Scripture: John 4:19-26

Denomination: Baptist

The Melody Lingers On

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jun 22, 2010

What we learn and share through the arts will build our reserves and will communicate memorably.

If you really want to leave a lasting impression on somebody, how do you do it? If you truly need for somebody to remember whatever you think is important, how are you going to make sure they won't forget? Well, one technique is, of course, to use words. Lots and lots of words. That’s ...read more

Scripture: Deuteronomy 31:16-22

Denomination: Baptist

Peter: The Power Of Peer Pressure

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 5, 2010

Calverton Baptist Church, Silver Spring, MD, 1983: Our denials, like Peter's, reflect our confusing loudness with loyalty and our seeing ourselves as victims rather than victors. But Christ is able to look at us, evoke repentance, and turn us around.

The fire crackled in the crisp air, casting shadows on the walls not five yards away. It looked inviting, this bonfire, for not only was the night air chilly, but also this whole episode had been so draining, so terrifying, that the body cried out for comfort, for something, anything, that would ...read more

Scripture: Luke 22:31-62

Denomination: Baptist

May Day Mayday

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 11, 2010

We are called to turn the world upside down, as revolutionaries. But our energies dissipate and we become frightened. Let us look to the one who did not flinch from His mission.

The winter of 1780 and 1781 had looked bleak indeed for the American cause. If the English control of the seas continued; if the French did not move more decisively to help; if the supply arsenals could not be stocked and if the men did not keep their courage, all would be lost. Even General ...read more

Scripture: Acts 17:1-9

Denomination: Baptist

Dynamic Tension Body Building Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 18, 2010

Montgomery Hills Baptist Church: As the old Charles Atlas method used muscle against muscle to build young bodies, so the church may use its forces against the values of the world to build itself. Inclusion rather than clannishness, love rather than comp

If you are male and of a certain age, you will remember the little cartoon stories that ran in every comic book or came wrapped around your Bazooka bubble gum – stories about a 97-pound weakling who was always about to approach a curvaceous bathing beauty but was invariably upstaged by a ...read more

Scripture: Ephesians 3:7-21

Denomination: Baptist

A Humble Walk

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 25, 2010

FBC Gaithersburg: funeral for Julia McNeely Vance, centenarian, physician, daughter of Irish Baptists. Text and poem requested by family. Julia's commitments, nurtured early, brought her into an unusual life. Not delivered by me because of illness.

That classically Irish face looks out at me from the printed page, and I wonder what it must have been like for Julia McNeely, born a century ago, to have grown up and to have followed her calling. On one side were all the customs and expectations of her day and time … that women would live ...read more

Scripture: Micah 6:6-8

Denomination: Baptist

How To Tell The Truth

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 25, 2010

Monologue, as if the speaker were James, illustrating points by incidents in the life of Jesus. Truth comes with compassion, it does its own convicting, and must be backed with a life of integrity.

One of the peculiarities of the letter of James is that it has so very little direct reference to the life of Jesus. If it was written, as has traditionally been believed, by the James who was the brother of our Lord and who became prominent in the Jerusalem church, then it does seem odd that he ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

The Father: Reaching Into The Pockets

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 9, 2010

The waiting father reaches deep into the reservoirs of love, extending compassion to his wayward son. So we also as parents must seek not to control but to guide and then be ready for forgiveness.

I shall not soon forget the image he presented, this father of the bride. He had smiled all through the vast and elaborate preparations for the wedding; his daughter was a kind of elegant princess, he knew it, she knew it, everybody knew it – and so the princess must have a grand occasion. ...read more

Scripture: Luke 15:11-32

Denomination: Baptist

The Game's Not Over Yet

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 10, 2010

Christmas 1985: In our tumultuous world and in our troubled lives, those negatives are not the last word, for God has sent Immanuel to work a work that is not yet finished, but will be eventually.

The morning sports pages brought forth a pearl of wisdom from one Ron Jaworski, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. Mr. Jaworski, as it turned out, is something of a prophet. He referred to his team's irritating habit of getting off to a good start in their games, leading right up to the last ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 11:1-9

Denomination: Baptist