Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Rev. S. Michael Greene: A Pyramid of Praise (Ezra 3:10–13)

Rev. S. Michael Greene, pastor of Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church in Richardson—known as “The Rock”—proclaimed God wants his people to be like a pyramid, having a strong and sturdy foundation and pointing upward. Ezra describes the temple as a place with such a foundation and purpose.

Praise is a prescribed part of the plan for God’s dwelling, Greene said. We all are going to praise something, he declared, and Scripture—particularly the psalms—directs us to praise God. Such praise is not about our preferences but about God’s desires, he contended.

Praise is due God, who is good and whose love endures forever—no matter our circumstances, Greene proclaimed. Praise also is “built on a promise” he continued, reciting several of God’s promises found in Scripture. He exhorted his hearers to point upward with their praise.

Greene delivered this sermon May 21, 2023, for the morning worship service of Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church in Richardson. It was his first sermon as pastor there.

A sermon outline is available here.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Joel Gregory: Steps Back Home (James 4:6-10)

Joel Gregory recounted how even birds, fish and dogs want to go home—covering hundreds or thousands of miles to get there. The Wizard of Oz resonates with so many, because “deep in the heart of every human is a desire to come home,” he declared. God wants people to come home to him, Gregory added.

Gregory sees in James’ letter several steps back home to God. The first step is to submit to God, laying down our pride. The second step, resisting the devil, follows directly from the first.

Third is to draw near to God, who is already drawing near to you, Gregory proclaimed. “Cleanse your hands,” the fourth step back home, Gregory described as taking up holy habits even before “you feel like it.”

Fifth, “purify your heart,” or “guard your center,” as Gregory put it. Finally, the last step back home is to “feel it,” he continued, to mourn over one’s sin in order to rejoice over one’s salvation by God’s grace.

Gregory delivered this sermon May 21, 2023, for the morning worship service of the Second Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark. He is professor of preaching, George W. Truett Endowed Chair in Preaching and Evangelism, and director of the Kyle Lake Center for Effective Preaching at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Bautistas Predicando es una columna del Baptist Standard. No es un esfuerzo para avanzar en una teología o estilo, sino para presentar lo que una colección de Bautistas considera una palabra de Dios. Asimismo, Bautistas Predicando ofrece un repositorio de predicación Bautista para el estudio y la investigación futuros. Para recomendar un sermón que se presentará en la Bautistas Predicando, por favor envía un correo electrónico a eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Casey Spinks: It’s All True and Good and Beautiful Enough (Colossians 1:15-23a)

Casey Spinks, a member of First Baptist Church in Waco and a Ph.D. candidate at Baylor University, challenged his hearers with deep questions about themselves and the world around them, about what is true and how one can know. He acknowledged Christians also ask some of these same questions. Yet, the answer to these questions already exists in the person of Jesus Christ, Spinks contended.

We may think we don’t have the right answers to our questions, he continued, but the gospel tells us “we are not in the dark.” We have the answers we need—“the fullness of everything”—in Jesus Christ. Spinks then applied Scripture to the specific set of questions he asked during his introduction.

God uses simple people and simple things to communicate this truth, but we often look for something more, Spinks said. The question, then, is whether we will believe Jesus is the truth.

Spinks delivered this sermon April 30, 2023, for the morning worship service of First Baptist Church of Waco en Español as a supplement to their Bible study series “The Fullness of Christ” published by GC2 Press, formerly BaptistWay Press.

A sermon script is available here.

Casey Spinks: Todo es verdadero, bueno y lo suficientemente hermoso (Colosenses 1:15-23a)

Casey Spinks, miembro de la Primera Iglesia Bautista en Waco y Ph.D. candidato en la Universidad de Baylor, desafió a sus oyentes con preguntas profundas sobre sí mismos y el mundo que los rodea, sobre qué es verdad y cómo se puede saber. Reconoció que los cristianos también hacen algunas de estas mismas preguntas. Sin embargo, la respuesta a estas preguntas ya existe en la persona de Jesucristo, sostuvo Spinks.

Podemos pensar que no tenemos las respuestas correctas a nuestras preguntas, continuó, pero el evangelio nos dice que “no estamos en la oscuridad”. Tenemos las respuestas que necesitamos—“la plenitud de todo”—en Jesucristo. Spinks luego aplicó las Escrituras al conjunto específico de preguntas que hizo durante su introducción.

Dios usa personas simples y cosas simples para comunicar esta verdad, pero a menudo buscamos algo más, dijo Spinks. La pregunta, entonces, es si creeremos que Jesús es la verdad.

Spinks pronunció este sermón el 30 de abril de 2023 para el servicio de adoración matutino de la Primera Iglesia Bautista de Waco en Español como complemento a su serie de estudios bíblicos “La plenitud de Cristo” publicada por GC2 Press, anteriormente BaptistWay Press.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Linda Livingstone: Rest for Your Souls

Linda Livingstone, president of Baylor University, after quoting song lyrics by Tom Rosenthal about being too busy even to die, declared, “Jesus never commands us to operate at such an all-consuming, breakneck pace.” Rosenthal’s narrator didn’t have time to rest his soul. Jesus calls us to come to him and find rest.

Addressing Baylor faculty and staff, Livingstone briefly recounted all they had done during the now-concluded academic year. She then turned her focus to the Sabbath. The Sabbath rest was created by God, commanded by God and practiced by Jesus, she instructed.

Busyness is a temptation difficult to resist, Livingstone admitted. She also called hurry—an expression of busyness—“a great enemy of spiritual life in our day.” Gallop reported educators at all levels report “the highest level of burnout of any industry.” Good educators need to rest their souls.

Livingstone concluded with two ways her hearers can “give God space to restore our souls.”

Livingstone delivered this sermon May 5, 2023, at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary for the annual “Lift Up Your Hearts” faculty and staff worship service. A recording of the sermon was not available.

A sermon script is available here.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Johnny Spray: Living with No Regret (1 Kings 2:1-3)

Johnny Spray, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Giddings, wants his congregation “to live a life with as little regret as possible”—as hard as that is to do. He acknowledged the word “regret” itself brings regrets to mind. He also acknowledged one of his deepest regrets.

“To live life to its fullest means you’ve got to leave some things behind,” Spray said. “You cannot flourish by living in regret,” he continued. He wanted his hearers to be honest with themselves and the Lord, so they could live life to the fullest.

David’s deathbed counsel to Solomon serves as an example of Spray’s desire for his church. David wanted Solomon to “continue getting stronger,” to risk demonstrating he’s a man of God and to follow God obediently.

Solomon didn’t listen and reached the end of his life with regrets. Spray exhorted his hearers not to make Solomon’s mistake, but to do four things, starting with giving their lives to Jesus.

Spray delivered this sermon May 7, 2023, for the morning worship service of First Baptist Church of Giddings. It is the last sermon in a series titled “The Life of David.”

A sermon outline is available here.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Sammy Elliott: All Things Sexuality

Sammy Elliott, lead pastor of Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock, began a series on tough questions by taking head-on the topic of sex. Since everyone else is talking about it, the church must talk about sex also, Elliott challenged.

Elliott acknowledged the tension and sensitivity around sex and sexuality and sought to speak with grace and truth. Midway through his sermon, he called for “a big time out” to challenge Christians to respond to gay and transgender people with love and grace.

He described American culture as permissive in relation to sex, though some things are still considered off limits because they are nonconsensual. He traced contemporary sexual permissiveness to Plato’s elevating the mind over the body—emotions over biology.

Responding to Platonism, Elliott traced the Genesis account of the creation of male and female, and sex and marriage. He also traced Paul’s discussion of sexuality in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6.

Elliott concluded by pointing to Jesus as the model of how to love people “outside our belief zone” without affirming everything people do. He challenged his congregation to love people well in Christ’s honor.

Elliott referenced the following sources during his sermon:

• Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2018).
• Preston Sprinkle, Embodied: Transgendered Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say, “Chapter One: People” (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2021). Heard in a sermon by James Emery White, “Primordial: Adam and Eve, Part Two: Male/Female, Marriage” (Mecklenburg Community Church: February 19, 2023).

Elliott delivered this sermon April 16, 2023, for the morning worship services of Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock. It is the first in a series titled “Tough Questions.”

A sermon script is available here.

CORRECTION: The date of sermon delivery was corrected from May 16, 2023 to April 16, 2023 (May 11, 2023).

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Kenneth Wells: Loving God, Loving Each Other (Matthew 22:37–40)

Kenneth Wells, senior pastor of Northview Baptist Church in Lewisville, declared, “To love God, you have to know God, and to know him, you have to know Jesus Christ.” Our love for God is a response to all God has done for us, he continued. This love must come out in our words and our deeds.

Some have walked with God so long, they assume God knows they love him, Wells said. But that love needs to be communicated afresh. We are to love God because God is ever-present and jealous for our devotion. Such love is expressed through worship, admiration, adoration and service.

Loving God is also outwardly expressed in how we love each other. Our unity is an example of this, as is our allowing others their opinions, and carrying each other’s joys and burdens, Wells explained.

We need to take a stand against sin, Wells declared, and we need to love the sinner at the same time. “The world simply needs to see our love,” he proclaimed.

Wells delivered this sermon April 16, 2023, for the morning worship services at Northview Baptist Church in Lewisville.

A sermon script is available here.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Bruce Rudd: Highway to Heaven (Luke 24:1-32)

Bruce Rudd, pastor of Mt. Sylvan Baptist Church in Mount Sylvan, examined the story of two disciples encountering Jesus as they walked to Emmaus the day Jesus rose from the dead. Even though Jesus had his resurrection body, these two people couldn’t recognize him, Rudd remarked.

These two were discussing the right things—the happenings in Jerusalem during the preceding days, especially Jesus’ death and subsequent empty tomb, Rudd proclaimed. Jesus explained what the Scripture told about him, but they still didn’t know it was him.

Rudd compared their inability to see to our own inability to see the truth. He laid the blame for our current blindness on sin and departing from God’s word, concluding, “America’s problem today is a sin problem.”

Near the end of the story, the two disciples’ eyes were opened and they knew Jesus. Rudd explains this knowing wasn’t simply head knowledge, but it was experience. The result changed them profoundly.

Rudd delivered this sermon April 9, 2023, for Easter Sunday at Mt. Sylvan Baptist Church in Mount Sylvan.

A sermon manuscript is available here.

https://baptiststandard.com/wp-content/uploads/BP-Bruce-Rudd.mp3

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Matt Killough: Psalm 39

Matt Killough, pastor of First Baptist Church in Sonora, is transparent about times when he struggles with frustrating people and his efforts to navigate those times. He describes Psalm 39 as a revelation for him in this regard.

Killough points out the psalmist’s presence among the wicked and his determination to be silent among them. The psalmist couldn’t stay silent forever, however, and eventually spoke, Killough adds. He didn’t speak to the wicked, but to the Lord, asking the Lord to teach him and to hear his prayer.

Asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border with nothing but the clothes on their backs and maybe a small bag serve as a picture for Killough of the psalmist standing before God with nothing.

Just as the psalmist turned his focus away from his enemies and onto God, Killough encourages his hearers not to be fixated on frustrating people but to be focused on Jesus.

This brief sermon was recorded for the Baptist Standard on April 4, 2023. It is part of a series in Psalms Killough is leading his congregation through on Wednesday evenings.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Noel Dear: Jesus and the Olive Press (Matthew 26:36-46)

Noel Dear, pastor of First Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, explained the significance of olives and their oil for the people of Jesus’ day and society. He gave a detailed account of how olive oil was made, pointing out olives were pressed three times, each time resulting in a different quality of oil.

Dear noted Gethsemane—as in the garden where Jesus prayed the night he was arrested—means “oil press.” While in that garden, Jesus was pressed three times, Dear said. The guilt of our sin was the weight that pressed Jesus, who grieved our sin to the point of death, Dear added. But we have a hard time believing our sin is that serious, he contended. “Our sin separates us from God,” and Jesus becoming our sin resulted in God turning away from him, Dear proclaimed.

Returning to olive oil, Deal explained that the first press—the purest oil—was used for sin offerings, the second oil was used in lamps to produce light, and the oil from the third pressing was used to make soap. Jesus’ experience in the garden of Gethsemane depicts a similar pressing that resulted in Jesus being our sin offering, our light in a dark world, and our cleansing and fresh start, Dear concluded.

This sermon was delivered April 9, 2023, for the Easter Sunday morning worship service of First Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, which was held in the William R. Johnson Coliseum at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches.

A sermon manuscript and outline are available for further reading.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Aaron Pardue: Pressing into Jesus, Part 3 (Mark 1:14-20)

Aaron Pardue, senior pastor of Northway Baptist Church in Angleton, desires his church “to be filled with followers.” Likewise, before being a leader, Pardue wants to be a follower—of Jesus.

Mark’s Gospel skips the birth narratives and atarts immediately with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, namely with John the Baptist baptizing Jesus, Pardue pointed out. Right after recounting Jesus’ baptism, the Gospel tells of Jesus calling four ordinary people—Peter, Andrew, James and John—to follow him.

Jesus still calls ordinary people to follow him, Pardue declared. Their responsibility is to preach the gospel throughout the world and to produce fruit that glorifies God. They are to follow Jesus right away, doing what he says because of the urgency of his good news, Pardue said. Followers of Jesus must be passionate in this pursuit, he added.

This sermon was delivered March 5, 2023, for the morning worship service of Northway Baptist Church in Angleton as part of a series titled “Pressing into Jesus,” in which “the church is looking into some of the narratives of Jesus in preparation for Easter.”

The sermon video linked here is an edited version of the sermon. The full worship service can be seen here.

A sermon outline is available here.

Baptists Preaching is a column from the Baptist Standard. It is not an effort to advance any one theology or style but to present what a collection of Baptists considers a word from God. Likewise, Baptists Preaching offers a repository of Baptist preaching for future study and research. To recommend a sermon to be featured in Baptists Preaching, please contact eric.black@baptiststandard.com.

Janet Ross: Life in God’s Kingdom (Matthew 4:17–5:8)

Speaking through the rain, Janet Ross, senior adult minister with her husband Reuven Ross at Highland Baptist Church in Waco, told an outdoor gathering of college students she grew up willing to go anywhere God told her to go … except Africa. She ended up being called to South Africa in her early 20s. This required God doing “soul surgery” on her to “cut unhealthy soul ties” to her family she loved deeply. “Jesus became everything for me and to me,” Ross said.

Ross then pointed her hearers to Jesus’ message of repentance and his calling his first four disciples. To be part of what God is doing in the world—including his miracles—a person must repent, which she later called “a lifestyle” for a disciple of Jesus. With Peter, Andrew, James and John as examples, she emphasized the immediacy and extent of Jesus’ call.

Crowds flocked to Jesus as the result of his miracles and teaching, but, Ross noted, few repented. Many are like that today, including in the church, she added. Now as then, people want what Jesus will do for them without surrendering to him and living for him, she declared. “Some people want more,” though, and want a closer relationship with Jesus. “Their prayer boils down to just three words: anything, anytime, anywhere.”

Ross then explained life in God’s kingdom with a study of the Beatitudes recorded at the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

This sermon was delivered March 21, 2023, during the third night of the FM72 annual revival prayer and worship gathering at Baylor University in Waco. The sermon was sourced from The Call to Radical Discipleship written by Ross and her husband and published under their Hebrew names Reuven and Yanit.

A sermon script is available here.