Solid Rock Church Sermons

In this sermon, we looked at John 16:4-15 when Jesus once again encourages His disciples with the hope of the coming Holy Spirit. Jesus knows the disciples are full of sorrow at His departure and the reality of their future suffering at the hands of those who would persecute them. However, Jesus tells them it is actually better that He should ascend to the Father so the Holy Spirit will come. The Spirit’s ministry convicts the world, leads Jesus’ followers into truth, and furthers the message of Jesus in Trinitarian unity. All of Jesus’ disciples, including the Church today, can find tremendous hope, comfort, and joy in the fulfilled promise of the Holy Spirit.

In this sermon, we looked in John 15:18-16:4 when Jesus talks with His disciples about the persecution and suffering they will encounter. Jesus explains that because the world hates Him, His works, and His message, the world will also despise His Church. Those who follow Jesus will face hatred and hostility. However, Jesus also encourages believers with the promise of the Holy Spirit. As the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit will comfort believers, empower them to proclaim the name of Jesus long after His ascension, and enable them to withstand persecution in His name.

In this sermon, we looked at John 15:1-17 when Jesus gives us a picture of our relationship with Him by saying He is the true vine and we are the branches. As people who have heard and believed the Gospel, we are commanded to continue to abide in Jesus: to find our identity in Him, to bear fruit through His power, and to bring glory to God in the process. Here we find true joy and show that we are His disciples. However, the true test of abiding in Jesus is how well we love one another. As chosen friends of Jesus, we are called to bear fruit, laying down our lives for one another, just as Jesus laid down His life for us.

In this sermon, we looked at Jesus' promise in John 14:15-26 to send the Spirit of Truth to His disciples to help them after He is gone. Jesus tells His disciples that they are to keep His commandments after He is gone as evidence that they belong to Him. This sounds like an impossible expectation to fulfill until Jesus explains that God will send the Holy Spirit to teach, remind and empower them to love God and keep His Commandments.  He offers this to us, too.  Out of His love for us, God sends His Holy Spirit to dwell in us, fulfilling everything that is required of us. As Christ followers, we are to strive in every way to love Jesus and keep His commandments. This isn’t a legal transaction, but a whole-hearted effort rooted in faith that the Holy Spirit will empower those who believe to this end.

In this sermon, we looked at John 14:11-14 when Jesus gave a parting promise to His disciples. Jesus told His disciples that if they believed in Him, they would do greater miracles than they had seen so far and God would grant them what they asked for. The Kingdom of God would be established on earth as the Father carried on Jesus' works through weak and imperfect believers. Of these greater works, the greatest miracle happens when the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of someone who is spiritually dead to see the goodness of God’s grace, saving and transforming them from a sinner into a saint.

In this sermon, we looked at John 14:1-11 when Jesus addressed His disciples' troubled hearts. The disciples were becoming anxious and broken hearted the more Jesus talked of leaving them but Jesus reassures them that the key to not being troubled is rooted in believing and trusting in His promises. Jesus uses the imagery of a large house with many rooms to illustrate six promises about Heaven. He tells the disciples that believing and trusting that they will spend eternity with Him is enough to bring peace to their troubled hearts even in the midst of extremely troubling circumstances.

In this sermon, we looked at a new command Jesus gave to His disciples in John 13:31-35. After washing the disciples' feet and telling them to do the same for one another, Jesus gives them the command to love one another. He calls this a new command because He has given them a living example of the specific kind of love He has for His followers. Additionally, from this point forward, the outworking of this new command to love one another will be a primary way by which Jesus’ followers are identified once He’s gone. Before Jesus is arrested, His followers could be identified by being with Him physically; going forward, Jesus will be reflected in the disciples’ love for one another. As His disciples today, we are called to have this same love for one another. The primary identifying marker of His church is the sacrificial love shown for one another. 

In this sermon, we looked in John 13 at a specific command Jesus gave to His disciples. After taking the place of a servant by washing the disciples' feet, Jesus tells them to do the same for one another. More than a command to physically wash each other’s feet, Jesus was calling His disciples to an inner humility and heart attitude of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience toward one another. Jesus calls us to do the same today. When each member of the church adopts this servant heart attitude toward one another, we experience the joy of living in authentic Gospel community.

In this final sermon in the 2021 All In series, we looked at how Israel anchored itself in God's Word as His people moved into their new land. In Joshua 8, the people of Israel had come to the place in their journey where they could finally fulfill what God had commanded them through Moses in Deuteronomy 27. They reached the area of Shechem where God commanded them to stop and read His Word out loud. In this place, they set up an altar, gave their offerings, and anchored their hearts in Him. As we move into our new building, we must be anchored in God’s Word as well. In order for Solid Rock to continue being Solid Rock, the Word of God must be our primary focus in determining what we preach, what we sing, and how we worship together as the Body of Christ.

In this sermon, we looked in Joshua 7 at how God disciplined the nation of Israel for the hidden sin of one man and called them to consecrate themselves before continuing their mission to take possession of the promised land. We also looked in the New Testament where God instructs His people about how consecration works. In Colossians 3, God calls the Church to take off the old self, by putting sin to death, and to put on the new self, by believing and walking in the Truth of the Gospel. The Gospel calls believers to walk in the light by wholeheartedly owning and confessing sin. This means that believers are called to radically own their sin and walk in transparency with one another rather than hiding in shame or pridefully defending ourselves. The sign of a growing and maturing believer is the consistent readiness to radically own sins and ask forgiveness from God and others in order to be consecrated to be more like Jesus.