Solid Rock Church Sermons

In this sermon, we looked at God’s plan to raise up a better king for the nation of Israel. God reveals to Samuel that He is looking for a king who would be a man after His own heart. Through David’s story, we see that even though God is now going to place a man after His own heart on the throne of His people, he will still be a man with a deceitful heart and a sinful nature. Even though David is a better king than Saul, he is still not the ultimate King to sit on the throne of God’s people. In 2 Samuel 7, God promises to send a Messiah who will lead His people in righteousness. All of this was pointing to Jesus, the Son of God, who would come as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of David who will sit on the throne forever.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we saw how God’s People rejected Him as their king and asked for a human king so they could be like other nations. Through King Saul’s story of sin, the humiliation that his sin brought upon the People of God, and the attempt to shift blame for that sin, we see that God’s People need a better king. Christ is our Better King. He undoes our shame and humiliation, allowing us to walk in transparency and freedom. Through His blood, He purifies us and transforms our identity into members of His Kingdom.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked at how God used Moses to deliver His Law to His people, foreshadowing the Gospel that was to come. Jesus validated the Law by teaching that only those who are perfectly righteous, by obeying every letter of God’s Law, will be accepted into heaven as God’s people. Jesus obeyed the Law perfectly, qualifying Him to take our place on the cross and to take our punishment for our disobedience to the Law. Through Jesus, God made a way for His people to be made righteous by believing the Gospel. Through the Gospel, we have been forgiven for breaking God’s Law, allowing us to see God’s Law as good and right. This forgiveness and love from God encourage us to strive to obey God’s Law with the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing that we have already been rescued and accepted as God’s people.   

In the sermon this past Sunday, we took an in-depth look at Moses’ role in the larger story of the Bible. God came to Moses during a time in which the nation of Israel was experiencing great suffering in its slavery to the Egyptians. Through God’s interaction with Moses, we see that God is completely aware of what His people are going through and He hears their cries to be rescued. We also see that God does not observe His people from a distance; He is intimately involved and knows the suffering of His people personally. Through Moses’ narrative, we behold God’s rightful place as the hero of His story. Just like Abraham, Joseph, and Moses were not the heroes of their stories, we are not the heroes of our stories. God’s plan for redemption unfolds in a way through which He alone is the hero and it’s only by the mighty hand of God that His people find their rescue.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we continued The People of God series by looking at the story of Joseph. Through his story, we get a beautiful picture of redemption and forgiveness and a better understanding of how God’s will for our lives unfolds in seasons of blessing and seasons of suffering. Joseph understood that his life didn’t belong to him. Because of this, he was able to be part of God’s story of redemption by letting go of his right and desire to repay his brothers for their evil toward him and exchanging it for the desire to bless them instead. This is what God has offered to us through the Gospel; Jesus paid the price for our evil and exchanged God’s punishment toward us for God’s blessing. Through our faith in Jesus, God redeems our stories by forgiving our sins, taking what was intended for evil and turning it into something good.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked at the story of Jacob and saw how God’s grace in Jacob’s life is a reflection of God’s grace toward the entire world. Jacob was a deceitful younger brother who advanced himself in life by manipulating and lying to the people closest to him. Through Jacob’s role in God’s redemption story, we see that God displays His sovereign plan over the lives of His people, even before they are born. He does this despite our brokenness and self-centeredness. As in Jacob’s story, God invites His people to wrestle with Him in order that they will come to understand Him more deeply and experience His goodness more personally. God allows pain and adversity into our lives in order to awaken us to see Him for who He is and to take hold of His promises of blessing toward us.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked at the how Abraham’s story fits into the larger story of the Bible. Is Genesis 12, God made a promise to Abraham to make his family into a great nation, through which all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham believed God’s promise and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham’s righteousness was a free gift that he received as a result of his faith in God’s promises to him. Through Abraham’s story, we learn that when the people who lived before Jesus came to earth believed the promises of God, they were ultimately believing the Gospel. Through their faith in God’s promises, they received God’s abundant grace and His free gift of righteousness. In the same way, when we believe the Gospel, we are adopted into God’s family as sons and daughters and we become God’s people, heirs according to the promise.

In the sermon this past week, we looked at the story of Noah. Like Enoch, Noah walked through life in fellowship and obedience with God.  Through Noah’s story, we were reminded that God is Holy and He punishes sin.  However, in His mercy, He also saves those who truly trust in Him and walk with Him. Noah was considered righteous, not because his life was free from sin, but because He walked with God and trusted God even when called to do something that seemed impossible. Through Noah’s story of building an ark of wood as a place of refuge, we see a foreshadow the cross and our true place of rescue. Like Noah, Jesus is calling you to walk with Him in fellowship and obedience so that He becomes your place of refuge. 

In the first sermon of The People of God series, we looked at who the people of God really are and how Adam is the pattern for all who would follow after him. Adam and Eve were created as image bearers and the image of God was passed on from them to the rest of mankind.  As the apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 5, the image of God that was marred by the sin of Adam has been passed down to you. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus has made available to each of us an abundance of grace and the free gift of being made righteousness through faith. The people of God aren’t perfect people. They are people in need of God’s abundant grace. As we journey through this sermon series, we will see how the people of the Bible fit into God’s redemption story and, ultimately, serve to point us to Jesus. We will also see our role in God’s redemption story and find that the people of God are the many sinners made righteous through believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we wrapped up our One Church, Multiple Generations series by looking at how God is still working in us as adults. In Romans 12, we see that God calls us to have a genuine love for one another. Genuine love comes only from the work of the Gospel in our lives and by the church engaging in Biblical community. We are to urge each other on through genuine love, prayer, rejecting evil, and serving one another. We need to be challenged by the truths of Scripture and held accountable for observing them. At Solid Rock, we desire to continue to work toward Biblical community in which people can know one another deeply and spiritually.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked in Titus 2 at the Biblical model for discipleship, in which Paul calls the spiritually mature adults in the church to invest in the next generation. He lays out this discipleship model: while pastors and elders are responsible for teaching sound doctrine to the whole church, spiritually mature men and women are responsible for discipling younger men and women by teaching them how to apply sound doctrine to their lives, urging them toward Godliness and modeling what it looks like to follow Jesus.

In the second sermon of the One Church, Multiple Generations series, we looked at God’s encouragement to students and how SR Students ministry is leading our Junior High and High School students to set an example for adult believers. There may be times when students do things that are looked down upon. Immaturity occurs when a person encounters freedom without a sense of responsibility. Maturity is the ability to bridle independence and freedom through self-control and displaying a deep sense of responsibility for personal decisions. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul calls a young pastor to spiritual maturity: to live his life in such a way that he shows the older people in his church what it looks like to be truly mature in Christ. This is not a call for teenagers to disregard those who are older than them, but instead to show others who Jesus is by allowing their lives to serve as an example.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we began a new series looking at how God has called Solid Rock to be one church that spans multiple generations. We began this past Sunday by looking at Solid Rock Kids ministry through the lens of Deuteronomy 6:4-9. We learned that leading children to know and love Jesus is rooted in who God is, instead of who parents want their children to be. Seeing children become everything God created them to be begins with seeing God clearly. Secondly, we learned that leading children must begin with the hearts of the parents. By God’s design, parents don’t simply pray their children into the Kingdom of God; parents have to lead them there. Parents who want their children to know and love Jesus must first fall in love with Him themselves. All of this takes place within the God-ordained partnership between parents and the local church. The role of the church in this partnership is to fully support and equip parents to be the primary disciple makers in their homes. 

In the sermon this past Sunday, we ended the Colossians series by looking at Colossians 3:18-4:1. In this section of Colossians, Paul reminds the church how Christ has redeemed the hierarchy of relationships on earth. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve walked in righteous submission to God that led to abundant life and human flourishing. They were to reflect this leadership and submission by the way Adam led Eve and the way they displayed their dominion over creation. Because of sin, God’s good creation was twisted and marred, distorting the leadership role of human civilization. Through the Gospel, God’s redemption reaches into the darkness of human culture and redeems what has been lost in our homes and in our society.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we continued the Colossians series by looking at Colossians 3:9-17. In this section of Paul’s letter, he declares that “Christ is all and in all.” Therefore, all that is Christ is in us. This means that the indwelling power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and His transformational power, is conforming us into the image of Jesus. Additionally, because Christ is all and in all, He leads His followers into a community that bears the identity of Christ through displaying compassionate hearts toward one another and bearing with one another in love.

In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked at Paul’s call to live, not as who we used to be, but as we are in Christ. In Colossians 3:5-10, we are called to put the evil desires of the flesh to death and to cast off who we used to be. When we live our lives according to the desires of the flesh, it leads to death. However, when we die to ourselves we are free to live empowered by the Spirit of God, which leads to life. Paul’s command is to stop living as we were and start living as we are now in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.  

In the sermon this past Sunday, we looked at God’s command to set our minds on Christ. In Colossians 3, Paul contends that if we have truly believed the Gospel and therefore, died to ourselves, then we should redirect our minds away from the things of this world and set our minds on something that has real value. As he addresses the inherent human desire to seek after things of perceived value, Paul calls believers to set their minds on Christ and seek after Him. What things of earth have captured your attention lately? How can you reorient your thinking towards Christ?  

In the sermon this past Sunday we looked at how Christians are saved and transformed in daily life through hearing and believing the Gospel. When we instruct one another in the Gospel, we are united together and built up in our faith, in order that no one is able to knock us off course. Paul reminds the church that they are to continue growing in Christ through the same means that they were first saved: by believing the Gospel. When we make it our daily practice to hear and believe the Gospel, our lives remain rooted in Christ and continue to be built up and established in Christ.

This past Sunday, we began a series in the book of Colossians. Paul began by encouraging the believers at Colossae. Although they were surrounded by a domain of darkness, along with false teaching and doctrines, Paul reminded the Colossians to remain faithful to the hope of the Gospel and the person of Jesus. As former citizens of the domain of darkness, it’s easy for Christians to be tempted by the things and beliefs of this world. However, through the work of Christ, we are now citizens of God’s eternal Kingdom, that we may be continuously sanctified by the Gospel and knowledge of Him who saves us.  

In the final sermon of our Gifts of the Spirit series, we looked at 1 Corinthians 14. In this passage, Paul continues his plea for the church to pursue love as the basis from which they serve with their spiritual gifts, in order that the church may be built up. Paul reminds the church that in order for the gift of tongues to be beneficial, there must be an interpreter who can translate the tongues spoken into a revelation, knowledge, prophecy or teaching. Without translation, the person speaking in tongues will seem like a foreigner to the listeners and the church will not be built up. In this final plea, Paul’s main point is to encourage the church to bring their gifts together and to use them to build up one another, striving for order and peace that reflects the character of God.