“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (I John 2:1-2). …
Shaped BY the cross into the shape OF the cross
Sermons by Alan Smith
When it comes to our faith in Christ, there are several things that are essential for us to believe. For example, we must believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. We believe that Jesus was crucified, that he was buried and that he rose from the dead on the third…
If I were to ask this morning, “With a show of hands, how many of you like chocolate ice cream?”, I suspect that there would be quite a few of you who would raise your hands. And if I were to ask, “How many of you like Brussel sprouts?”, there would probably be a lot…
This morning, in our study through the New Testament, we come to the book of James, and James is filled with so much good stuff that I found it difficult to narrow my lesson down to just one topic. I could easily preach 20 different sermons from the book of James because James is…
About thirty years ago, Sueanne and I spent a couple of weeks in Scotland. On that trip, we saw a lot of huge cathedrals. Those cathedrals are among the most beautiful buildings in the world. If you were to build one today, it would cost millions and millions of dollars. But, to me,…
The story is told of two brothers who were convicted of stealing sheep. As part of their punishment, they were branded on the forehead with the letters ST, to indicate “sheep thief.” One of the brothers couldn’t deal with the embarrassment of it, so he moved away and never came back. The other brother, though,…
Just about every preacher is familiar with the Pareto Principle. They may not know it by that name, but they understand how it works. Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist who noticed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Later, his principle was expanded to say…
You’ve probably noticed that things have changed a lot in this country over the past couple hundred years. One of the things that has changed is how we punish people when they commit a crime. My guess is that it’s probably been quite a while since you’ve seen someone punished in stocks or pillories like…
One of the things that Sueanne and I tried to teach our children as they were growing up was the value of money. I’m not sure at what age it happens, but somewhere along the line, children begin to take on the consumer mentality of our culture. I’m sure all of you parents have…
There are a number of sayings that people think are in the Bible, but they’re really not. Sometimes those sayings may express the thought of scripture, but the actual quote isn’t there. For example, the Bible never says, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. The book of Proverbs talks a lot about the discipline…