Sermons on Joseph:

The Wounded Healer

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 24, 2011

Jesus, going to the Cross, understands our aloneness and isolation, and heals it by identifying with it.

Calverton Baptist Church, April 4, 1982; Howard University Chapel, April 9, 1982; Takoma Park Baptist Church, March 31, 1985 Recently a Methodist pastor in South Carolina created something of a stir in his church, and all of it quite innocently. He asked a member of the congregation who was known ...read more

Scripture: Hosea 11:1-9

Denomination: Baptist

Mourning The End Of Summer

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 26, 2011

We find that we have dallied or been irresponsible, and the things we said we want to accomplish are impossible at this late date. But God is capable of redeeming even that element of irresponsibility if we renew our commitment to Him.

Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, August 28, 1988 Here we are at the end of summer, or nearly so. It's the end of August, which is at least psychologically the end of summer. It's the end of the summer feeling, for now it's back to reality, now it’s back to business and a ...read more

Scripture: Jeremiah 8:18-22

Denomination: Baptist

The Word Made Flesh: A New Beginning

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Feb 28, 2011

We cannot repair our mistakes alone, because we keep on starting at old premises. What we need, and receive in the Incarnation, is a new beginning, modeled and taught.

Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, Nov. 30, 1986, Advent I One comic strip character aspires to be a writer. His crowning ambition is to write the definitive novel, the bestseller to end all best sellers. And so time and again he sits down at his typewriter, poises his paws (must be ...read more

Scripture: John 1:1-14

Denomination: Baptist

Safe At Home

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 1, 2011

Interactive sermon, asking what more we can be for our children: mutual submission means respect; parenting means sacrificial love; the church has a responsibility to provide safety.

Takoma Park Baptist Church, August 31, 1997: audience response involved There are times when all of us need to participate, times when no single person can speak all the truths or do all the work. There are times when a community of people must come together, and think together, pray together, ...read more

Scripture: Ephesians 6:1-4

Denomination: Baptist

No Deposit, No Return

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 2, 2011

To fail to do what is right is not only sin, but is unproductive. What of our knowledge resources and our financial resources? Are they making a difference? If not, no gain.

Calverton Baptist Church, Silver Spring, MD, August 15, 1982; Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 1984) Preachers find sermons in all sorts of strange places, and I found this one in a bottle! Now you can just stop thinking what you are thinking and listen to what I mean! ...read more

Scripture: James 4:17

Denomination: Baptist

On Not Giving Up On The Family

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 3, 2011

Baptists have a distinctive history, with some soaring moments and yet with some dismal ones as well. There is much to correct, but the good news is that we remain committed to missions and evangelism.

Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, Feb. 4, 1996 They came out of nowhere. From small villages and obscure city streets, from backwoods farms and hard labor coal mines; from workingmen’s cottages, but not from the plantations, and from the ranks of domestics and cooks, but not ...read more

Scripture: Galatians 6:7-10

Denomination: Baptist

A Mother's Loan

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 4, 2011

Hannah shows us that women today can turn their insecurities and their relationships over to God and can find fulfillment.

(First Baptist Church, Gaithersburg, MD, May 11, 1980; Calverton Baptist Church, Silver Spring, MD, May 9, 1982; Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, May 12, 1985) One of God's great mercies is that He consistently takes our faltering insecurities and transforms them into something ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

All Your Anxieties?

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Mar 5, 2011

God is able to deal with all of our anxieties, not just a portion. He can relieve us of our fears for those things which will not really happen; for our concern for daily survival; and most of all, for our fear of death.

(Originally preached at Calverton Baptist Church, Silver Spring, MD, Jan. 30, 1983; thereafter, with slight variations, at Clinton Baptist Church, Clinton, MD, July 29, 1984; Cresthill Baptist Church, Bowie, MD, Aug. 5, 1984; Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, Aug. 12, 1984; First Baptist ...read more

Scripture: 1 Peter 5:7

Denomination: Baptist

Committed Christians

Contributed by Joseph Stapleton on May 17, 2010

Commitment has become a thing of the past and chrches and Christians are falling by the wayside, this sermon speaks of how the New Testament church was a committed chuch and how we can be that way too.

COMMITTED CHRISTIANS (ALL my sermons use illustrations found on sermoncentral.com and I use the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted) This morning I would like to share with you from God’s inerrant and infallible Word on the subject of Commitment. Commitment is quickly becoming a thing of the ...read more

Scripture: Acts 2:38-43

Denomination: Christian/Church Of Christ

Knowledge (Not Opinion)

Contributed by Joseph Smith on Jun 6, 2010

Some of us handle truth by simply asserting ourselves forcefully. Paul's way was to root truth in revelation rather than logic; to find authentic confidence in personal experience; and to submit himself to transformation. First Baptist Church of Gaithers

If there’s one thing I have a strong opinion about, it is that I do not like people with strong opinions! I have a hard time with the person who declares what he thinks with absolute hard-core certainty, riding roughshod over any contrary thoughts I might have. I struggle with that. I have ...read more

Scripture: Galatians 1:11-24

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

Triumph Through Trying Times

Contributed by Joseph Stapleton on Mar 29, 2011

When trying times come, and they always do, God has a message for us.

TRIUMPH THROUGH TESTING TIMES (All my sermons use illustrations found at www.sermoncentral.com and ALL scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted) After a long series of sermons on giving God room to work, it almost seems fitting, to look at scripture and find a place where God tells us, that tough ...read more

Scripture: Luke 22:31-32

Denomination: Christian/Church Of Christ

It

Contributed by Joseph Stapleton on Mar 29, 2011

Are we not looking for a simple plan to make our lives easier in Christ? Here IT is.

IT (All my sermon use illustrations found on www.sermoncentral.com and All scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted) All of us what IT, we all need IT, but what is IT? Today’s culture is all about making things simpler, and I personally think there are some things that need to be just a ...read more

Scripture: Galatians 5:6

Denomination: Christian/Church Of Christ