SMS Backup+ will back them up to your GMail account (automatically, if you want), and will restore from there (takes a while if you have many messages, but works, and the automation has saved me before now).
I also have MyBackup, which will back them up to SD - faster to restore, which is why I still use it even with SMS Backup+ installed. There are a number of other apps in the market that will do this as well.
The wipe will remove the apps, but you just re-install them from the market then restore the backup.