A No. 1 record can create momentum. It can also create expectations.

For Sean Rodriguez, the success of "It Is Finished" featuring Disciple could have provided an obvious blueprint for what came next. The song's collision of rock and rap-influenced vocals connected powerfully at Christian rock radio, spending 10 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on Christian Music Weekly's Rock chart. It remained in the Top 5 for 18 consecutive weeks, the Top 10 for 23 and the Top 20 for 32.

Instead of trying to recreate it, Rodriguez used the momentum to show listeners another side of his music.

That progression comes into sharper focus with the September 25 release of the Just Like God EP through WieRok Records.

The three-track project surrounds Rodriguez's January single "Just Like God" with two previously unreleased songs, "God Is On My Side" and "The Day He Made." All three reflect a more accessible Christian AC and contemporary Christian direction that has increasingly become central to Rodriguez's music.

That direction first became apparent when "Just Like God" arrived January 23.

Co-written and produced with GRAMMY and Dove Award-winning producer Seth Mosley and mixed by Michael "X" O'Connor, the song was notably different from the harder sound many listeners associated with Rodriguez following "It Is Finished."

The distinction was intentional.

Rodriguez and his team launched an extended Christian AC radio campaign behind the single, introducing him to programmers outside the rock format. Approximately six months later, "Just Like God" had earned rotation on 20 stations nationwide and peaked at No. 51 on Mediabase.

Rather than move immediately to an unrelated release, the new EP builds directly upon that foundation.

Its focus track, "God Is On My Side," takes a simple declaration and surrounds it with circumstances that make the declaration matter.

There are hills too big to climb. Waves continue rising. Lions wait. Goliath stands in the way.

Rodriguez's answer is not that those obstacles are imaginary or insignificant.

He smiles.

"And when they ask why I'll say / God is on my side."

The song draws on recognizable biblical imagery while keeping its application firmly in the present. Its confidence is not rooted in the idea that believers are strong enough to handle everything placed in front of them. Instead, it points repeatedly toward the character of God.

"Who spoke the storms to peace? / Who has the healing hand?" Rodriguez asks.

Later, the perspective turns outward: "What's your mountain? / Watch Him move it / What's your challenge? / Watch Him use it."

Long before its September release, that message was being tested in the environment for which it seems naturally suited: a live audience.

"God Is On My Side" became a set-list staple throughout Rodriguez's extensive 2026 touring season and developed into a crowd favorite at Christian festivals around the country.

The EP's other new track has an even more established role in those shows.

"The Day He Made" has opened them.

Inspired by Psalm 118:24, the song begins with the realization that waking up to another day is itself something worth celebrating.

"I woke up to forgiveness / A breath of brand new life," Rodriguez sings.

The song's origin traces back to a Christian music festival where Rodriguez performed in front of more than 15,000 people. Afterward, he began reflecting on the journey that had brought him to that moment and on the stories of God's faithfulness he heard from others that day.

Rather than becoming a song about career achievement, the experience led Rodriguez toward gratitude.

"The Day He Made" treats redemption as a victory rather than a source of shame. Yesterday contains lessons. Tomorrow requires faith. Today represents another opportunity to live in the grace already received.

That perspective has made the track a fitting way for Rodriguez to begin his live performances throughout 2026.

Both new songs reunite Rodriguez with Mosley as co-writer and producer and O'Connor as mixer, continuing the creative team established on "Just Like God."

There is also a notable reversal in how these songs have reached listeners.

Normally, a song is written, recorded and released before an artist discovers whether it works live.

For much of Just Like God, the live audience came first.

Festival crowds have already heard "The Day He Made" open the show. They have already responded to "God Is On My Side." The September 25 release now gives those songs a permanent recorded home.

That road-testing occurred during Rodriguez's most expansive touring season yet.

His touring footprint has grown steadily across 2024, 2025 and 2026, with this year bringing his greatest number of headline-stage appearances at major Christian music festivals.

His profile within the wider Christian music industry has also grown. Rodriguez appeared at NRB in both 2025 and 2026 and performed at CMB Momentum this year as the "Just Like God" campaign continued introducing him to Christian radio.

Immediately ahead of the EP release, Rodriguez extended that radio outreach internationally with a two-week promotional tour in Australia.

Viewed together, those developments make Just Like God something more useful than a stylistic pivot.

It helps fill in the picture.

"It Is Finished" remains an important part of Rodriguez's identity and an undeniable part of his recent breakthrough. It showed how naturally his energetic performance style and rap-influenced delivery could work within Christian rock.

But Rodriguez's ambitions were never limited to reproducing that one sound.

"Just Like God" opened a door into Christian AC. "The Day He Made" demonstrates the joyful, accessible side of his songwriting. "God Is On My Side" combines that accessibility with the kind of bold declaration that has always suited Rodriguez onstage.

There is a throughline connecting all of them: conviction.

The production may change. The radio format may change. But Rodriguez remains most recognizable when the song gives him something he can say without reservation.

On Just Like God, that conviction is distilled into three straightforward ideas: God remains faithful, another day is worth celebrating, and an impossible circumstance does not get the final word.

After several years of increasingly larger stages and wider radio exposure, Rodriguez is not narrowing his identity around the sound that first broke through.

He is widening it.

Sean Rodriguez's Just Like God EP releases September 25 through WieRok Records.

 

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