First Baptist Portales Sermons: Recent Episodes
Phillip Smith
Listen in as we seek to faithfully study the Gospel through God's Word and break it down for our lives today.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip compares the stories of King Nebuchadnezzar and King Belshazzar. Both kings are destroyed by pride, but only one listens to Daniel's warning and responds accordingly. Still, Daniel effectivly communicates truth in both situations. So, what does all of this mean for us today?
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses the danger of mixing allegiances when God expects every bit of our loyalty to go to Him first. This may mean that there are things followers of Jesus refuse to participate in as they stand loyal to their savior.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about how exiles influence the culture around them even if it stands against God's values.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip breaks down Daniel 1 and looks at how exiles must resolve not to comprimise. In a world and culture that will regularly try to influence us, faith in God often means standing against that influence.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip introduces the story of Daniel and his friends: 4 teenage boys who resolved to be faithful even in the face of the indoctrination programs of their Babylonian conquerors.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip explores the ending of Luke's biography of the early church. After pages describing the hindering of Paul's church planting journey resulting in a Roman house prison, Luke closes by saying that the Gospel was preached "without hinder." Is Luke being ridiculous, or is there something more happening?
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus' means for ending His sermon. Rather than an easy mnemonic technique to help you memorize, Jesus ends his sermon with a warning about doing. Information and knowledge is not enough to be good Christ follower. A true disciples puts Jesus' teachings into practice.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus' final warnings as He closes His sermon on the Mount giving the same call as Moses did in Deuteronomy calling us to make a decision on who we will follow.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus’ radical rule summarizing the the whole of the Old Testament and how it was totally revolutionary not only for his day but for ours as well.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip looks at Jesus' clear desire for his disciples to have deep prayer lives. Most of us know our need for prayer, but far fewer actually pray like we should. Might it be we don't fully understand God and therefore don't pray accordingly?
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses the infamous "Do not Judge" passage. Is Jesus making a blanket statement about judgement, or is he giving boundaries to help his community of followers truly grow?
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus' view of creation and how understanding God's care for us and the world is the ultimate relief to even the most anxious cultures.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus' vision for human flourishing involving turning everything over to God rather that storing up things for ourselves.
Listen in as Pastor David looks to The Lord's Prayer and explores what it means to be sincere in our desire to communicate with God as we serve him rather than playing pretend.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip begins the next section of the Sermon on the Mount looking at how transformed hearts take action within our world trusting in God's attention and approval rather than man's.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus' view of love and intimacy and the human heart's ability to totally ruin God's vision set forth in Genesis 1 and 2.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about how Jesus explores the external command of "Do not murder," but quickly makes it more personal with the internal problem of anger.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about how Jesus views the Old Testament helping us to better understand it and Him.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip explores the Beatitudes through the lens of the Kingdom of Heaven helping us to understand how Jesus brings blessings for today and hope for tomorrow.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip looks at Jesus' subversive opening words to his sermon on the mount helping us to reframe how we see the world and how is really "blessed."
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about Jesus, His Kingdom, and our role within the Kingdom starting from Genesis and moving through the Old Testament
Sorry for the audio issues at the beginning; they are resolved quickly. Listen in as Pastor Phillip explores Jesus' testing in the wilderness proving his identity and showing us all a new way to be human.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses the 3 stories at the end of Matthew's Nativity narrative. We'll see how intentionally following Jesus does NOT mean all our wildest dreams come true. Rather, even when difficulty and hardship come our way, we can trust God's ability to turn evil on it's head to accomplish His plan.
Listen in as Pastor David discusses Luke's nativity story and how the story takes us all the way back to God's intentions for creation.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip connects the Christmas story all the way back to the Old Testament looking at how Jesus succeeds where everyone else before had failed in order to rescue broken humanity.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip dives deeper into what it means to intentionally belong to God and the balance of Freedom that comes with the Gospel.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks more about Renewal and the key parts of seeing renewal come.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip dives into the the Opening of Matthew and the beauty of everything Matthew does to emphasize the importance of Jesus.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses the pattern of Renewal as we seek to live as a renewed church in a broken world.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses how we who intentionally belong to God should interact with a world who would rather follow their own ways
Listen in as we celebrate the Next Generation at FBC. We begin with our youth reading "Spoken Word" and some of our children reading Scripture. Then Pastor Phillip will talk about how we should emphasize reaching the "Next Gen."
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about what it means to intentionally belong to God and our job as Christ followers to draw more people to intentionally belong to their Creator.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip wraps up our community series by talking about the Triune characteristic of "Mutual Deference" and what that means for a healthy church community.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about finding Joyful Intimacy within the church. We were created to know and be known, but that can only happen if our minds are renewed by the power of God within the Gospel.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses how Jesus' community of new humanity lives in glad submission. Our world tends to revolt against the idea of submission in any context, but Jesus sees submission as a vital part of what it means to follow him.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip gives an overview of the book of Ephesians showing how God desires to restore all humanity back to it's original created state...back to full equality. (Note: This sermon walks through a visual timeline. If you'd like to see it you can search for "First Baptist Portales" on YouTube and jump to about the half-way mark)
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses why we need community finding the answer in the person of God himself. God has eternally existed in a community of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and man kind is created in that Image. This has so many implication for why we need community.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip begins exploring our fourth core value of Community. The way Jesus sees is community has always been radicle and counter cultural, but that is especially true in our modern western society. How does the church reclaim Jesus' vision for community?
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses the need to obey God even when it sometimes requires foolishness and waiting. God always works through our obedience, but we don't always see it.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus' expectation of asking. Multiple times Jesus invites us to ask things of the Father in Jesus' name, but is this just a formula to get what we want or is there more?
Listen in as Pastor Phillip preaches through three simple steps to better attune ourselves to the Holy Spirit through inviting Him into our lives through surrender.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip dives deeper into the biblical concept of slowing. In a world of busy and noise, often slowing down demands finding quiet places to reconnect with God. That's what happened with Elijah.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses why we don't often hear from the Spirit the way the Jesus followers did in Scripture. Maybe we're far too busy and distracted. Maybe the first step to building a stronger relationship with God in us is through slowing down.
Listen is as Pastor Phillip discusses the value of Scripture, particularly looking at the Old Testament and examining how the bible is both a human and divine work given by God in some really fascinating ways!
Listen in as Pastor David discusses what it means to be anchored into Christ who is far superior to all else.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip dives into the practical aspects of living a life filled with the Holy Spirit.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about how the Spirit moves in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch and how He is looking to move similarly in our lives today!
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Luke's continuation from his Gospel connecting what Jesus "did and taught" to the disciples and now to us explaining who the Spirit is and how we can give Him more control over our lives.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses Jesus statement in John 16:7. Is it really better for the physical presence of Jesus to be gone and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit be here? How so? The answer is found by looking through the entire biblical compilation.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip dives into a discussion on the person of the Holy Spirit looking back at the ancient Hebrew understanding of the Spirit and the modern implications that has on today's church.
Join in as Pastor Phillip prompts us to pray through Nehemiah's prayer for his city reminding us that true restoration can only come from God.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses how Jesus is the only solution to the brokenness of the world as we celebrate this Resurrection Sunday.
Listen as Pastor Phillip discusses "what's at stake" if we fail to root into the Gospel. Any time we as individuals or the church attempt to root into something else we will always fall into ruin forfeiting a life of fruitful permanence.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses what it means to "apprentice the messiah" promised in Psalm 2 and fulfilled in Jesus.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip talks about how we root into the gospel by meditating on the word. In this highly practical sermon we discuss our need of meditating on scripture by slowing down, surrendering control, and seeking formation.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses what it means to be Gospel-Rooted. We'll look at Psalm 1 and 2 and talk about knowing the story of the Gospel to root it into our identities.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses how Jesus gives life by offering restoration. We'll look into the restoration of Peter at the end of John's Gospel and see how it connects back to a plethora of stories leading up to this point.
Listen in as Pastor Phillip discusses how Jesus brings hope and compassionate love through bringing Lazarus back from the dead.
Listen in as we look into how God gives life by giving Jesus, and Jesus gives life through love.
Listen in as we look into the creation story to see how our all-powerful God brought life by bringing order to chaos.
The Church exists to make Disciples.
1.) It's our Commission
2.) It's how we Represent God.
We kick off 2022 by focusing on Luke's description of the very first church and asking the questions: "What is the Biblical vision for the church?" and "What is the biblical definition of church?"