Sermons on joseph smith: showing 856-870 of 26,530

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

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

Prayer And The Chronically Unhappy

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 21, 2010

For Reformation Sunday, October 1987: Job in the Old Testament and Luther in the Reformation Era were chronically unhappy people, but used that as a form of spiritual energy to drive them toward creative achievement and an honest personal faith.

It looks as though some people are just born to be unhappy. There are some people who are going to approach nearly everything with a complaint or a gripe, who are going to make a personal issue out of everything. Nothing is quite good enough, nothing quite satisfies. There are folks whose ...read more

Scripture: Job 6:8-13

Denomination: Baptist

From Faith To Power

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 23, 2010

After Christmas, 1985. We alone of creation know that we could be and should be more than we now are. In Christ and in his vulnerability we are empowered to change.

"To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." Power to become … If you ask what it is to be human, if you want to know what separates us as human beings from all other forms of life, one way you could answer the question would be to say that ...read more

Scripture: John 1:1-14

Denomination: Baptist

Hard To Be Humble

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 24, 2010

Independence Day 1988: Arrogance breeds blindness to our own sin, numbness to the needs of others, and a denial of relationships. The Father's Table is about mercy and grace for all.

You have heard him a thousand times in the TV commercial, warbling away in that gravelly voice with an accent I hear only when I go back to Kentucky. He is singing in the shower and flaunting his huge schnozz at the camera. "0 Lord, it's hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way". ...read more

Scripture: Luke 15:11-32

Denomination: Baptist

Two Thousand Years Of Patience

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 25, 2010

Lent, 1987: We are impatient for God to do something, but do not notice that already He is bringing aspects of the Kingdom, slowly but surely. Have faith and wait to see what He is certain to do.

When I was a boy of about eight or ten years old, I undertook a brief experiment in gardening. I was told that a particular piece of ground in our back yard was mine to use, and I was given some packages of seeds and a few instructions and set to work. Well, that morning I cleared that plot of ...read more

Scripture: James 5:7-11

Denomination: Baptist

To Know, To Obey, To Live

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 26, 2010

July 1988: God's way of life is not burdensome or negative or arbitrary. To know God's way and to do it is to have abundant life.

There is an old saying to the effect that what you don't know won't hurt you. I beg to differ. If it is true that what you don't know won't hurt you, then why don't we just let babies pop anything and everything into their mouths, just as they want to do? Obviously we know that some things will ...read more

Scripture: Deuteronomy 4:1-8

Denomination: Baptist

One Bread, One Body, Many Idols

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 27, 2010

Independence Sunday 1987: We are called to be a distinctive people within American culture, not to follow popular self-centered idolatries.

The trouble with going to Ridgecrest conference center for a week is that you tend to forget how diverse a nation we are. If you were to spend too long at a place like Ridgecrest, you would get to thinking that everybody was Baptist, and Baptist of the southern variety, that everybody gobbled ...read more

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:14-31

Denomination: Baptist

Promise, Shame, And Fulfillment

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 28, 2010

Advent 1986: Everyone goes through a dynamic of promise, leading to shame, then leading to fulfillment, if we understand fulfillment as the presence of God.

I like the little quip about the fellow who offered His prayer with all sincerity and with tremendous urgency. “Lord," he said, "Lord, give me the gift of patience, and give it to me right now!” Well, at least he knew his need even if he did not exactly demonstrate an understanding of ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25

Denomination: Baptist

Prince Of Peace: The Wounded Spirit Whole

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Apr 29, 2010

Advent 1987: Many of us live with deep disappointments, profoundly wounded spirits. Whole nations so live, thanks to the scourge of war. Christ, the Word Made Flesh, does more than tell us to "get over it." He stands beside us, with us.

Jim, as I will call him, was a successful pastor, acclaimed for his preaching skill, sought out for his wisdom, almost worshipped by the flocks of young adults who came to the church he served. It seemed he could do no wrong and that he had it all together, from here on out. Nothing, it seemed, ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 9:2-7

Denomination: Baptist