Solid Rock Church Sermons

In this sermon, we looked at God’s purpose for the Law in Genesis 2 so that we can better understand the purpose of God’s Law in our lives today. After placing Adam in the Garden, God gave Adam a Law to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This Law was meant to keep Adam and Eve in the knowledge of good and protect them from the knowledge of evil. For us today, the Law give us the knowledge of what is good by revealing the character of God and foreshadowing the future realities of God’s enteral Kingdom. However, because none of us can obey God’s Law, it also reveals what is evil and our deep need for the Gospel. We need someone to rescue us from the penalty of disobeying God’s Law and reconcile us to God. Jesus came to Earth as the Son of God to perfectly obey God’s Law and then offer Himself as a sacrificial payment for our disobedience. Through His death and resurrection, we have been forgiven of our sins and reconciled to an eternal relationship with

In this sermon, we continued the Genesis series by looking at how God created man and woman in His image as relational beings. In Genesis 2, God declares that it is not good for Adam to be by Himself. This doesn't mean that Adam is able to be relational if he wants to; this means that Adam was designed to exist within perpetual intimate relationship. To address this need in Adam's life, God creates Eve as a helper. Before Eve is created, Adam spends time with the animals God had already made and can't find anything to fulfill his relational need. Eve isn't created primarily to help Adam with the workload of caring for the garden; Eve is created to help Adam with his need to be known. When we live in intimate relationships within our families and the Church, we are sampling the eternal realities of the coming Kingdom.

In this sermon, we looked in Genesis 1 and 2 at God's design for work and rest. As God told mankind to be fruitful and multiply, He was commissioning us to multiply and fill the kingdom with His image bearers. We were created to be small reflections of His Kingship in the world. God worked for six days and then He rested. We were created to bear this image in the world through our working and resting. Work wasn't created to be a burden and rest wasn't created as a means of temporary recovery from work; work and rest are inserted into creation by God to be a blessing and part of us bearing His image in the world. As we follow God's plan for work and rest, we bear His image to the world around us.

In this sermon, we looked at what it means to be created in the image of God. In Genesis 1:26-31, God created mankind with the explicit purpose of bearing His image in the world. God created us like Him in that He gave us minds with which to think, reason, and make decisions. He created us like Him by giving us hearts with a capacity for relationship and a soul that will exist for eternity. God created us like Him in that He gave us the capacity to work and create, bearing His image as sub-creators in the world. As image bearers, we are set apart from creation and commissioned by God to bear His image in the world. Where you see a human being living according to God’s design, you will see a small reflection of God Himself.

In this sermon, we looked at the function and purpose of God's creation. In Genesis, 1:1-25, we saw that all matter, space, and time has been created by God and exists under His rule and reign in order to reveal and glorify Him. God created the world with designed rhythms and divine purpose that are clearly seen in creation. Romans 1 declares that God made His invisible attributes visible through His creation. The immeasurable nature and incomprehensible complexity of the universe bear testimony to a creator who is even higher, more immeasurable, and more incomprehensible. As human beings, God designed our hearts with the capacity to worship. The rest of creation was designed to aim our worship toward God alone. When we see God as the author and sustainer of all that exists and behold His glory in His good creation, our hearts are drawn toward God, the only One truly worth of our worship.

In our final sermon of The Dawn of the Church series, we looked at the everyday mission of the Church. As seen in Acts 2:41-47, the first Christians had an immense joy in Jesus that gave them a passionate love for God and a compassionate love for their neighbors. This immense joy fueled a courageous response to persecution and suffering as well as a deep desire to care for the poor and discarded. Even though the number of Christians was relatively low in these early days, they quickly caught the attention of their society. These believers didn’t just make a difference in the world, they made the world a different place. From the dawn of the Church to our present day, knowing Jesus continues to produce a passionate love for God and a compassionate love for others. This love compels us to live the mission of Jesus in our everyday lives by serving others and sharing the life-changing message of the Gospel.

In this sermon, we looked at the heart of Biblical community. In 1 Corinthians 12, we see that Christian relationships are more than a working partnership for doing ministry; we are called to bear with one another, boasting in our weakness and exposing our neediness to one another. Fear of rejection is one of the most painful things a person can experience because the desire to belong is hardwired into who we are. The Gospel calls and empowers us to take the risk. The Gospel declares that we are accepted by God as needy beings that can’t fix ourselves. Believing the Gospel means we agree that we need help from God and others so when we tell the truth about our neediness, we live in unity with the Gospel. This is why Paul encourages believers to take the risk of being known by sharing our weaknesses with one another, trusting that the Lord will lead us to healing and strength in Him.

In today's sermon, we took a deeper look into the Gospel rhythms of everyday life in the early Church. Acts 2:42-47 captures a beautiful and challenging picture of the rhythms necessary to living life with one another in Biblical community. At the dawn of the Church, the believers were devoted to spending time together on a regular basis. They worshipped together weekly and spent time in one another's homes on various days throughout the week. They were able to meet each other's needs because they were available and present. Like the believers in the early Church, we are called to live life in the rhythms of Biblical community, spending time together consistently and intentionally. We can't worship together if we aren't meeting together, can't grow together if we aren't spending intentional time together, and can't meet each other's needs if we aren't available. In order to experience the kind of Biblical community that marked the early Church, we need to be willing to go against the grain of current cultural

In this sermon, we continued The Dawn of the Church sermon series by looking at the early Church's devotion to Communion. In Mark 14, Jesus reveals the full meaning of the Passover meal to His disciples and transitions the Passover meal into the Communion meal we practice today. In the Passover meal, we see that the promises of Exodus 6:6-7 are fulfilled in Jesus. As we take Communion together, we remember and celebrate everything the Passover meal symbolized: Only Jesus can rescue us from our burdens and our slavery to sin. Through His death and resurrection, we are redeemed from sin and death and adopted into His family as the people of God.

In this sermon, we continued to look at the early Church's devotion described in Acts 2. This week, we looked at these early Christians' deep devotion to praying together as they passed along what Jesus taught His disciples about prayer. In Luke 11, the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray. He gave them an example prayer before teaching them about the heart behind prayer. Through this passage, we learn that prayer isn't about making transactions between us and God; prayer is a way for us to lean into God's presence and experience His goodness. New Testament Scriptures tell us that when we don't know what to pray or how to pray, we can ask the Holy Spirit to pray for us, ask others to pray for us, be honest with God about where we're at and what we're feeling, pray for things we are thankful for, pray Scripture and the written prayers of others, and pray the words that Jesus equipped His disciples with in the Lord's prayer.

In this sermon, we continued our The Dawn of the Church series by taking a look at the early Church's deep devotion to their fellowship with one another. We learned that, as believers, our fellowship with Jesus is made visible through our fellowship with one another.  To be part of the fellowship of Jesus implies that we are in a partnership with one another in the mission of Jesus as we share our lives in both suffering and blessing. Living as the fellowship of Jesus also includes giving generously to the Church as a reflection of God's generosity toward us. As described in Acts 2:41-47, the fellowship of Jesus is the sacred gathering of those who have believed the Gospel and through which God choses to display His power to the world.

With this sermon, we began the first of four weeks looking at the devotion of the early Church to the Apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer found in Acts 2:42. This week, we focused on the Church's devotion to the Apostles' teaching. This heartfelt dedication was born out of belief in the message of the Church, found in Christ Jesus. As we devote ourselves, both personally and corporately, to the powerful message of the Gospel, we are able to experience true life in Him and forever be changed from the inside out.

For this second week of The Dawn of the Church series, we looked in Acts 2:22-41 at the first sermon of the Church. In this passage, Peter uses the Scriptures to boldly preach that Jesus is the Messiah who was proven by miracles and signs, predicted by the Prophets, delivered up according to the plan and foreknowledge of God, crucified, killed, and raised up by God. Upon hearing his words, the people listening are deeply convicted and ask Peter what to do. Peter’s answer is simple: repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. Acts 2:41 tells us that about 3000 people were saved that day. This first sermon of the Church provides a template for all church sermons today and it informs each of us as believers. As we believe and continue to be changed by the grace of God, we are to share the Gospel of Christ with those around us so they may experience the life-changing love of Christ.

With this sermon, we launched The Dawn of the Church: Acts 1-2 series. We looked at Acts 2:1-21, when God uses fallible humans to establish His infallible Church by sending His Spirit to empower the Church and accomplish works that would otherwise be impossible for His people. This significant event marks the dawn of the Church and reveals that the true power of the Church is found in the Holy Spirit of God. God has given the Holy Spirit to the Church to empower believers to deliver the message of the Gospel. Through His powerful Gospel, God is dismantling the curse of sin and death, saving the lost, setting captives free, and uniting all who believe into one people as His Church.

In this sermon, we looked at the surprising and glorious angelic announcement of the birth of Jesus in Luke 2:8-21. The angels appear to shepherds watching their flocks at night and proclaim that the Savior, Messiah, and Lord has been born! The joy of heaven overflows into the appearance of an angelic multitude giving glory to God and praising Him for His favor toward mankind. After traveling to see Jesus with their own eyes, the shepherds tell others about the angelic announcement of this newborn Messiah. They praise God, rejoice, and are glad because their long-awaited King has come! Like those who had been awaiting the arrival of the Savior, we struggle with sadness, fear, loneliness, and a general sense that things aren’t as they should be. We find that what this world has to offer is insufficient; we are in need of something greater. The celebration of Christmas reminds us that there is a source of ultimate joy found in our Savior who enters into our sadness, fear, and loneliness and gives us a rea

In this sermon, we looked at Mary and Joseph's experience of the first Christmas. In Matthew and Luke's accounts of the nativity, we see that Mary and Joseph faced many difficult situations that caused them deep loneliness. We also learned how God gave us the feeling of loneliness to remind us that it’s not good to be alone; we were created to be deeply connected to God and to others. Loneliness allows us to know when that connection is missing and drives us toward real intimacy with God and others. Jesus died on the cross to provide this true relational intimacy. Without the Gospel, we would be shackled to perpetual loneliness. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has reconciled us to Himself and to one another by faith, allowing loneliness to remind us of our need to live in community.

In this sermon, we looked in Luke 1:26-50 at Mary's response to Gabriel's announcement that she was about to become pregnant with the Messiah. When Mary first encounters the angel, she is stricken with fear. Like many of us, she tries to calm her own fears by attempting to control the situation. Instead of giving into Mary's demand for understanding, Gabriel responds to Mary's troubled heart by letting her know that God is bigger than her fear and that He is going to overshadow her with His presence and power. Mary surrenders to the Lord's will for her life and her fear is transformed into rejoicing. Fear is the God-given emotion that is meant to send to us running to God. We run to God because we trust in Him as a good Father who has good intentions for our lives. In His arms, we surrender our desire for control and acknowledge that our anxiety and rage are inadequate responses to our fear. Like a good father, God helps us discern what is true and replaces our fears with rejoicing.

In this sermon, we looked at the story of Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. Both were considered righteous before God, yet they lived with deep sadness at never having the child they longed for. The sadness they felt wasn’t a result of personal sin, but the overarching brokenness of this world. It reminds us that even those who are in Christ still have hopes and desires that may never be realized in this life. We see Elizabeth take her sadness and burden to the Lord in prayer while faithfully serving. The Lord answers her prayer with a son, who would become John the Baptist. God didn’t owe her this response, yet chose to answer her prayer for her good and in order to provide a prophet pointing us to Jesus, who meets us in our sadness and disappointment. We are provided comfort through the Holy Spirit and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, who shifts our sadness into gladness. Because of Jesus, we can experience hope and connectedness in the midst of our sadness and truly know what it means to b

In this sermon, we looked at how John ended his Gospel with Jesus' invitation to Peter and John to follow Him and trust Him with the outcomes of their life stories. In this closing scene, Peter asks Jesus what the outcome of John’s life will be and Jesus responds by making it clear that He alone will be the author of John's story. Then Jesus says, “Follow me,” inviting Peter to surrender his life and trust in Him. At the end of his Gospel, John says that there aren't enough books in the world to contain all the stories of Jesus. That's because Jesus is still writing His story, which includes your story. Jesus is extending the same invitation to you: “Follow me.” This simple invitation means fully trusting Jesus and submitting your life to Him as the primary author of your story. Have you truly surrendered your life to His invitation?

In this sermon, we looked at how Jesus forgave and restored Peter to his calling as one of Jesus' disciples. In John 21:15-19, Jesus makes Himself known, for the third time since His resurrection, to seven of the disciples on the shore the Sea of Galilee. After a miraculous catch of fish and a gracious meal with the disciples, Jesus addresses Peter in a way that brings to light how Peter denied Jesus three times. Through a series of three questions, one for each of Peter's denials, Jesus draws Peter back to Himself. This moment is bigger than Jesus simply forgiving Peter for his sins; Jesus forgives Peter, calls him back into relationship, and restores his calling. In this story, we also see how God forgives and restores us. When we repent and ask for forgiveness, God does more than forgive our sins; He cleanses us of all unrighteousness, invites us into a loving relationship, and restores our calling and purpose in His Kingdom.