Solid Rock Church Sermons

In this sermon, we looked at John’s account of the crucifixion of Jesus in John 19:16-37. While John wants us to see the intensity of this moment, he doesn’t want us to lose sight of the bigger picture of God’s unfolding plan to redeem His creation. When Pilate says, “What I have written, I have written,” we can see the finality of what God has written. John includes many prophetic details, connecting Jesus’ death with the rest of the Bible, giving us a beautiful and powerful picture of God’s goodness in Jesus’ suffering. This allows us to understand the intensity of Jesus’ physical pain and the shame of His public humiliation as things that needed to happen for God’s redemption plan to be fulfilled. Through His great redemption plan, we are drawn into the eternal salvation only available through faith in Jesus. 

In this sermon, we looked at Jesus' claim to be the King of the Jews. In John 19:1-15, Pilate was struggling to know what to do with Jesus so he had Jesus severely beaten and humiliated, hoping this would appease the Jewish leaders and Jesus could be released. However, when Pilate presented a beaten and bloody Jesus, the crowd of Jewish leaders replied, “Crucify Him!” Viewing this part of John’s Gospel through the eyes of the prophet Isaiah reveals that what was happening to Jesus was the unfolding of God’s intentional and necessary plan. Although Pilate and the Jews were unaware of God’s plan, Jesus’ suffering was fulfilling the prophesies of the coming Messiah who would save His people. Like Pilate, we too have to decide what to do with Jesus. While Pilate initially referred to Jesus as a man, he presented Him as a king in the end. Today, we are left with this question: Is Jesus simply a man who was beaten and crucified oris He a King who laid down His life and took it back up again for His people?

In this sermon, we looked at John 18:28-40 when Jesus claims to be the King of the Kingdom of Truth. The Jewish leaders wanted to have Jesus put to death, while still maintaining the appearance of adhering to their strict religious laws, so they passed the burden onto the Roman Governor, Pilate. They knew that if Pilate could get Jesus to admit to His claim of being a king, it would make Jesus look like a political threat to Caesar, and Pilate would be forced to put Him to death for treason. As Pilate questions Jesus, Jesus doesn’t deny that He is a King but points out the difference between His Kingdom and earthy kingdoms by saying that His Kingdom is not of this world and is a Kingdom of Truth. This left Pilate, and every person since, pondering the reality of absolute truth and wondering, “Is there a truth greater than my perception of the world?” Our brokenness keeps us from naturally being drawn to absolute truth and seeing that we are all broken people living in a broken world that is hopeless without Christ. However, when we recognize absolute truth, we see both this difficult truth about ourselves as well as the liberating truth that God meets us in our brokenness, sets us free from guilt and shame, and leads us to healing.

In this sermon, we looked in John 18:12-27 at Jesus' faithfulness as He was being interrogated by the Jewish religious leaders. As Jesus continued to do His Father's will during the interrogation and false accusations, Peter was outside in the courtyard denying, three times, that he was one of Jesus' disciples. While John specifically captures Peter's unfaithfulness to Jesus, the reality is that all of the disciples abandoned Jesus to face His death alone. In this story, we see a convicting reflection of ourselves. Like Peter, we too are followers who make promises to Jesus, only to go back on those promises when the journey gets hard. However, this wasn’t the end of Peter’s story; we looked ahead in scripture and found that weeks later he was instrumental in organizing the disciples to launch the church in Jerusalem. Despite his ongoing personal struggles, it was Peter who helped break down the walls of racism and partiality in the early church. Just as God continued to use Peter to advance His Kingdom, God works in and through us as we take our failures and unfaithfulness to Jesus, entrusting ourselves to Him as the Shepherd of our souls.

In this sermon, we looked at how Jesus' arrest unfolded in John 18:1-11 and how this affects our lives today. After Jesus' prayer in the upper room, He and the disciples go out to the garden just outside of town. Judas comes to the garden, leading the religious leaders and Roman soldiers. When the leaders ask which one is Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus steps forward and identifies Himself, saying, “I am.” At His words, the soldiers and religious leaders fall to the ground in fear. Knowing what was to come, Jesus’ deity continues to be displayed as He willingly lays His life down by His own authority. This is further emphasized when Peter tries to take the situation into his own hands and Jesus asks him rhetorically, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” The cup Jesus refers to is laying down His life and taking it back up again for our salvation and eternity with Him.

In this sermon, we looked at John 17:20-26 when Jesus prays for the believers who will come to Him through the work and testimony of His disciples. Christ prays that we will be united in our faith with one another just as He is united with the Father. This unity is grounded in our relationship with Christ and will be a sign to the world that He was sent by the Father. Jesus even gives believers His glory, that we may reflect that glory back to the Father and the world would see His glory as we become perfectly one. As His disciples today, we are called to be unified as we faithfully share the Gospel and live the mission in our everyday lives, that more and more would come to know the life-changing love of Christ.

In this sermon, we continued to unpack Jesus' prayer in John 17. As Jesus prays to the Father, we see a beautiful picture of His earthly ministry and fulfillment of God's will and purpose. Jesus prays for His disciples to be protected by the Father as they face suffering in their ministry. However, the protection that Jesus prays for isn’t to remove the suffering the disciples would face; He prays that the Father would use their suffering to sanctify them while keeping them in His presence. As His disciples today, the same is true for us: As we face trials, we are being sanctified, or set apart, for God. The Gospel meets us in our brokenness and sinful nature and transforms our hearts to be more like Christ and reflect His glory. Despite any difficulties we may face, we can be assured that our sanctification is rooted in the finished work of Christ and always leads to heart transformation.

In this sermon, we looked at John 17:1-5 when Jesus begins to pray and ask the Father to glorify Him through His upcoming suffering and death. Through His prayer, Jesus helps us understand how the Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father. In His prayer, we also see our part in glorifying God: We don’t add glory to God when we glorify Him; we glorify God by making Him known and revealing His glory that already exists. In this passage, Jesus also reminds us that even our salvation is a way through which God reveals His glory. As believers, our greatest desire must be to make much of God by reflecting His goodness and making Him known to the world.

In this sermon, we looked at how Jesus prepares His disciples to walk through a difficult season of fear, loneliness, sorrow, and failure. In John 16:25-33, Jesus tells them that a new era is coming when He will overcome the world and return to the Father to sit as the mediator and advocate between man and God, thus giving His disciples direct access to the presence of God. Jesus is teaching us that peace is not found in the absence of suffering and failure, but in the presence of God alone.

In this sermon, we looked at John 16:20-24 when Jesus shares very difficult news with His disciples. He tells them that the time has come when He will no longer be with them but that they will have a fullness of joy that supersedes the dark and difficult circumstances they will face. Despite any troubles we may encounter in today’s world, this same fullness of joy is ours in Christ Jesus.