Sermons on Joseph Smith:

Declare If You Know Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 24, 2002

The Palm Sunday crowds, like Job’s friends, shouted their slogans too glibly, communicating only popularity and prejudice, substituting religiosity and mere activity for knowing Jesus personally.

Declare if you know. Declare. Interesting word, “Declare”. It suggests that when we communicate, there are a variety of levels at which we can speak. There are different intensities we can use when we want to say something. Some folks merely suggest. They offer timid little ideas ...read more

Scripture: Job 38:1-27

Denomination: Baptist

I Know Your Schemes Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 29, 2002

Poetic reflection for Maundy Thursday, in which the Jesus who is about to go to the cross tells His disciples that He knows their schemes to harm, their unwillingness to travel difficult roads, and their failure to accept the burden of testimony, so that

"Oh, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. ... Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony?” ‘Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me." They began to be distressed and to say to him one ...read more

Scripture: Job 21:27-29, Mark 14:18-20

Denomination: Baptist

What Do You Know? Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 29, 2002

An imaginative reconstruction of the dialogue between the repentant and unrepentant thieves, to be spoken by two preachers. Focuses on the old dilemma, whether God hears prayer.

Unrepentant Thief (U): "Should the wise answer with windy knowledge, and fill themselves with the east wind? Should they argue in unprofitable talk, or in words with which they can do no good? ... What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to ...read more

Scripture: Luke 23:32-43

Denomination: Baptist

I Know My Redeemer Lives Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 30, 2002

Beyond all of the cultural reasons to come to Easter worship, we come to know that our lives are anchored. But it’s hard to know. Job points the way by affirming a redeemer despite the lack of evidence. Today we know a living redeemer, life changer.

 I If I were to ask you why you’ve come here today, how would you answer? Tell the truth, now; you’re in church. What do you expect and why are you here today? I’d guess that a number of us would give out what Mayor Williams calls the ...read more

Scripture: Luke 24:11-12, Job 19:23-27

Denomination: Baptist

Enron, Easter, And Eternity

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 8, 2002

Our church uses the Sunday after Easter for Remembrance, honoring those of our church deceased in the previous year. This sermon mines eternal values from each of their lives.

We are ready to fight for security. The one thing we all want, whether we be aggressive and hostile and always ready to strike out, or whether we be quiet and retiring and always ready to run – the one thing we all are ready to fight for is security. We need to know that our futures are ...read more

Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-2, 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Denomination: Baptist

A Prevailing Church: Binding Series

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 21, 2002

The guesses of the people about Jesus’ identity give us clues about their perception of His character. Jesus used their grasp of His similarity to John the Baptist, Elijah, and Jeremiah to focus on the authority to bind and loose. They, and He, bound rel

Have you ever needed to find out what somebody else really thought of you? Do you know what it is like to ask someone what their opinion is of you – and then you wait for what seems like an eternity for the answer, and when it comes, you are still not sure if it is good or bad? Do you ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 16:13-20

Denomination: Baptist

From Goodness To Going

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jul 11, 2005

Preached at the National Baptist Memorial Church -- a congregation facing selecting a pastor, dealing with an aging building, and in decline. The issue is whether we will stop depending on just being "good" and will live out of grace to bear our witness

I heard not long ago about a very special automobile. It was built in the 1920’s by the Italian firm Bugatti, and it was designed for the outrageously wealthy. This car had 450 horses under the hood, it was 22 feet long and weighed 6000 pounds. It was hand-crafted of the finest materials, it ...read more

Scripture: Acts 9:1-19

Denomination: Baptist

Mourning The End Of Summer

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 20, 2005

We come to points in our lives when it appears to be too late to do what we felt called to do. Our problem is that we have expected God to do for us what we would not do ourselves. But the good news is that God is an empowering healer.

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore – and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over – like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load; or does it just explode?” Langston Hughes, poet of the Harlem ...read more

Scripture: Jeremiah 8:18-22

Denomination: Baptist

Available For Liberation

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 8, 2006

To be effective as peacemakers in a warlike time, we must have a healthy self-doubt, we must understand God’s concern for justice, and we must use what is available to us, no matter how small. Reworking for Montgomery Hills Baptist Church of a message do

There is an old saying here in Washington that nothing ever happens in August. Government people head off on vacation to the beaches, to the mountains, or to beautiful downtown Crawford, so there is nobody to make things happen. So, it is said, nothing ever happens in August. Of course that ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Playing Follow The Leader

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Aug 20, 2006

Leadership and followship demand truth, grace, and sacrifice to be effective. A story-sermon, reworked from one originally done in 1999.

The desire to be “somebody” is deep within all of us. We want to be distinguished, we need to be acknowledged, we must be somebodies, not nobodies. That desire to be “somebody” can lead us to glorious accomplishment, or it can lead to the depths of degradation. It’s all in what motivates us. Do ...read more

Scripture: Hebrews 13:7-16

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