Sermon Central
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Jesus The Rock Series
Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 24, 2024 (message contributor)
Summary: The Old Testament knows God as the Rock. But Jesus is also The rock. He is the only firm foundation to build our lives on. But we need to learn from the ancient Israelites. They were unfaithful and most were destroyed. We must not make the same mistake.
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INTRODUCTION
We’re in a series looking at descriptions of Jesus. The Bible is full of descriptions of God the Father, of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. Last week, we looked at one of Jesus’ descriptions of himself. He said, ‘I am the good shepherd’ [John 10:11]. We looked at what shepherds were like in the Bible, and we looked at what shepherds are like today. Shepherds today are very much like the shepherds in the Old Testament. They care for their sheep. They’re committed to their sheep. And they’re very tough and resilient.
Jesus is a shepherd like that for us and we can be very thankful that he is. But it isn’t enough to understand that Jesus is our good shepherd. We have to do something! We have to listen to our shepherd. We have to follow him. And we have to reject other voices.
That’s what we looked at last week.
JESUS THE ROCK
This week, we’re going to look at another description of Jesus: Jesus the rock.
Are rocks useful? They certainly are if you want to build a tall building! This is a picture of the world’s tallest building: Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. It’s 828 metres high! For comparison, The Shard in London is 310 metres high. For a really tall building like Burj Khalifa to stay upright it needs a really strong foundation. As you can imagine, it has one.
As far as I know there is just one place in the Bible which says that Jesus is the rock. It comes in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
I think this is quite a difficult passage. Not impossible. But a bit difficult.
Let’s read 1 Corinthians 10:1-10.
Paul is teaching the Corinthian Christians something. Paul’s takeaways come in verses 6-10. Paul has a list of don’t do this, don’t do that. He is warning the Corinthians. His argument is, Look at what happened to the ancient Israelites! They were destroyed! The same could happen to you! In the context of that argument, Paul says that the spiritual Rock that followed them – the ancient Israelites, in other words – was Christ.
How does all this connect up? It’s a bit difficult! But not impossible!
Let’s take it one step at a time.
GOD IS THE ROCK
The Old Testament is very comfortable with the idea that God is a rock. Indeed, The Rock.
One of the chapters in the Bible which says that most clearly is Deuteronomy 32. Moses is about to die. He decides to sing a song! Priscilla [my wife] will probably sing a song when she’s about to die but I don’t think I will. Anyway, Moses gets going with his song. This is how he starts:
“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak,
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
May my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distil as the dew,
like gentle rain upon the tender grass,
and like showers upon the herb.
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect…” [Deuteronomy 32:1-4a].
Moses wants to say why God is great. And the first thing he says is ‘The Rock, his work is perfect…’
God is THE ROCK. In the ESV, Rock has a capital ‘R’. The ESV has treated The Rock as a name for God. It’s a great name for God. God is very much a rock. He’s strong, stable and permanent. He is the ONLY true place of security for God’s people. We could talk a lot more about God as The Rock in the Old Testament but that’s probably enough for our purposes.
THE ROCK WHICH GAVE WATER
Let’s go back to Paul. He wrote that the ancient Israelites ‘drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them.’ What is this about? The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They followed Moses across the Sinai Peninsula on their way to Egypt. It’s a big desert and – surprise, surprise – there was sometimes no water. On two occasions, God miraculously provided water from a rock. Once was at a place called Rephidim. God told Moses to strike a rock and water came out of it [Exodus 17:1-6]. The second time was at a place called Kadesh. This time, God told Moses to SPEAK to the rock [Numbers 20:1-11]. But Moses struck it. Water came out of the rock as before, but God was not happy with Moses.
On those occasions, physical water came out of a physical rock. But Paul wrote about spiritual water and a spiritual rock. We need to think some more.
SPIRITUAL WATER AND A SPIRITUAL ROCK
Moses knew God as The Rock. But God wasn’t just The Rock. In the Old Testament God also calls himself ‘the fountain of living waters.’ God told Jeremiah:
