Solid Rock Church Sermons

In this Easter sermon, we looked at the prophetic words of Isaiah 53 and the significance of Jesus' resurrection. This passage foretells the suffering and resurrection of the coming Messiah and reminds us that Jesus' agony and death were the fulfillment of God’s will and essential for our redemption. Through His resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death and made a way for us be rendered as righteousness before God by faith. Isaiah 53 ends by pointing out how Jesus shares the rewards of the resurrection with those who put their trust in the transformative power of His resurrection, giving us access to a relationship with God.

In this sermon, we looked at the Gospel of Luke's portrayal of Jesus' deliberate path to Jerusalem, culminating in the pivotal events of Holy Week. The narrative, starting in Luke 9:51, highlights Jesus' determination as He set His face toward Jerusalem and walked toward His impending death, burial, and resurrection. This journey ended in Luke 19:41 when Jesus stopped outside of town to overlook Jerusalem. As He looked down on the city, He was overcome with sorrow for its inhabitants because, amidst their turmoil and suffering, they failed to recognize the peace that Jesus offered. His tears were not only for Jerusalem but for all humanity - past, present, and future. Jesus grieved for those who suffer in anguish and who overlook His presence, and the peace that only He can offer. Jesus is still offering the same peace today for those who would believe and put their trust in Him.

In this sermon, we looked at what it's like to be with God. God values relationship, and in Matthew 11:25-30, we see the intimate connection between the Father and the Son. Jesus invites us to share in this relationship by showing us who the Father is. The call to enter this relationship is not through striving, good works, or perfection; we are simply invited to lay down our heavy burdens and rest. While the world would weigh us down, Jesus desires for us to take his yoke upon ourselves—a yoke which is easy and light. Jesus is gentle and lowly in heart, and He is kind to our souls. While following Him may not always feel light, we can securely rest in relationship with Him.

In this sermon, we looked at what it's like to be close to God by examining Jesus, who embodies "the radiance of the Glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature." In John 11, we see God's compassion for us and how His glory and power to save sinners is revealed through the brokenness of our world. After the death of Lazarus, Jesus' response to Martha's grief was kind and gentle, offering Himself as the solution to her pain. Jesus, Himself, confronted the brokenness of the world, sharing in the weight of our struggles, and He empathizes with our present-day suffering as our compassionate High Priest.

In this sermon, we looked at Romans 3:19-26 to explore the nature of God's justice. True justice requires upholding laws and consequences consistently and without favoritism. In Romans 3, Paul reminds us that every human has sinned under God's Law and is subject to God's judgment. Paul says that while God is just and always upholds His law, He is also kind and patient and has made a way for us to be made righteous without violating His own justice. Through the shedding of His blood, Jesus became a substitute payment for our sin and the death we deserve, satisfying God's just demands while also offering grace and forgiveness to believers.

In this sermon from 1 John 4:7-10, we looked at how love is embedded in God's nature and how He is the source of all love that is experienced in the world. Love is not merely an attribute of God's personality or something He does in the world; love is part of the very essence of His being. Despite varying definitions of love in the world around us, the Bible describes love as a selfless and compassionate desire for the good of the one who is loved, initiated by the one who loves, with no expectation of anything in return. This is how God has loved us. The ultimate demonstration of God's love is displayed in the Gospel through the sacrifice of God's only Son, Jesus, to atone for our sins. Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrated His love by doing this for us while we were still dead in our sins and had nothing to give in return. To know God is to know love, and the evidence of having received God’s love is a willingness to share it with God and others. When we love others the way God has loved us, we reflect His image in the world around us.

In this sermon, we looked at how Revelation 4 reveals the profound nature of God's character. The vivid imagery of God sitting on His throne magnifies the majesty and holiness of God. The four creatures hovering around God's throne repeatedly declaring God’s holiness further reveals that God is sacred, pure, worthy of awe, and unlike anything else in existence. This holiness is not just about moral purity; it signifies God’s unique position as the sole supreme being, deserving reverence and worship. This chapter in Revelation begins with an invitation from God for John to draw near and see who He is and what He is like. As God invites John to "come up here," we see an open invitation for all of humanity to draw close and witness His majesty firsthand. This encourages us to pursue a deeper, more personal relationship with a God who is not like us, yet who wants to be with us.

In this sermon, we continued our journey to answer the question, "Who is God?" We began by looking at how God reveals Himself in the Bible as one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. In the Gospel of John, we saw that the Father, Son, and Spirit have eternally existed in a loving and honoring relationship within themselves. God did not create us because He was lonely or needed relationship; He already had relationship before He created us. He created us as image bearers to reflect His character and qualities in the world through how we live in relationship with Him and one another. Our very essence and purpose are intertwined with our ability to forge deep, meaningful connections with God and others. Through loving and honoring others, we mirror the communal nature of God Himself and fulfill our ultimate purpose in the world.

With this sermon, we started a new series on the Greatest Commandments. In this series, we’ll spend time looking at the commands to love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. This week, we began with the question, “Who is God?” If we are going to love God, we must first know who He is. We looked in Exodus 3:13-15 at the significance of God’s name: “I AM WHO I AM.” This name goes beyond human comprehension and speaks to God’s eternal, self-existent nature, unbound by time. Unlike us, God’s existence is necessary for the universe to exist and He is self-sustained, inviting us into a relationship of wonder and worship. This revelation is not just about understanding God’s identity but also realizing the depth of relationship He offers to us as His creation.

In this sermon, we looked in Matthew 16:13-19 at the pivotal moment when Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" This question was more than a theological pop quiz; Jesus was drilling into the core of the disciples’ personal faith. As Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” we were reminded of how the entire narrative of Scripture points toward that answer. The Old Testament’s anticipation, prophesies, and law all serve as a prelude to the coming of the Christ. Peter was declaring that Jesus is the Son of God who became flesh and dwelt among us, fulfilling God’s promise to rescue His people and restore His Kingdom on earth. This confession of Jesus’ identity is foundational to our faith and the essence of the Gospel. As God’s representatives in the world, we are all called to be prepared to answer the same question Peter answered… “Who do you say that Jesus is?” Our mission in the world is to be prepared to give an account for the hope we have in Jesus and to share what we believe about who Jesus is, what He has done, and how we called on Him to be saved.