Gospel City Church

"What's the point of that story?" Have you ever found yourself asking that question when reading a parable in the Bible? Today, in Matthew 13:1-52, we looked at 8 different parables that are all teaching us something about the kingdom of heaven - the redemptive reign of God through Christ. It is through this kingdom that He triumphs over all opposition. Indeed, this kingdom has begun but it is not...

This week we looked at Matthew 11–12 together, which capture five portraits of Jesus. In His interactions with the Pharisees and other characters in Matthew’s gospel, we saw that Jesus answers doubts patiently, that He prioritises our hearts, that He is the Lord of the Sabbath, that He has undeniable power, and that He grants us rest. Yi Khen challenged us to see how these portraits of Jesus bore...

We are continuing in the series of Promises Fulfilled, based on the book of Matthew. This week, we are looking at the passage from Matthew 9: 35 - 11:1. Can you image attending a concert or a worship service and having the ability to know and experience the emotions of every single person in your sight, all at once? You could sense who was anxious, broken-hearted, stressed, annoyed, uncomfortable,...

We looked at Matthew 9:1-34, continuing our "Promises Fulfilled" series. Before Jesus proceeded to heal a paralytic and enabled him to walk again, Jesus met this man's biggest need in life - the forgiveness of his sins. We are reminded that no matter where we are in life, the most critical issue of the human condition is sin and the need for forgiveness. Oh how comforting it is to us that Jesus ha...

We looked at Matthew 8, a true whirlwind of miracles and healings during Jesus’s ministry on earth. Jesus healed the sick, calmed a violent storm, and cast out demons from men possessed by darkness. As Yi Khen preached on the passage, we saw that Jesus’s miracles provoke a response from us. If he held such divine power, he can’t have been only a teacher. Much more than that, he is the Son of Man w...

Kyle, one of our covenant partners, preached on Matthew 2:13-4:25 today, considering the passage from 3 perspectives that fit within the greater story of the Bible - the historical, biblical and theological perspective. Matthew intentionally ordered these stories to show us this theological truth - Jesus is fulfilling Israel's story. Everything God has called Israel to do and that Israel has faile...

Blessed Christmas! Christ is born! At our Christmas service today, elder Chris talked about how hope often gets associated with our dreams and our desires. How does the story of a baby born in a barn relate to hope? This Christmas hope is not a hope that is a simple wish/desire. It's a biblical hope. It is a confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. Th...

The King has come! We celebrated the birth narrative of Jesus today, aptly, one week before Christmas, with much adoration for the one true King who has come for all peoples and nations. As Yi Khen, one of our covenant partners at GCC preached through Mat 1:18-2:12, we saw how Matthew imbues the story of Jesus’ birth with so much anticipation, that when Jesus finally arrives, we are confronted wit...

Chris Abner, one of our Elders at GCC preached through Mat 1:1-17 in a message titled “What’s In A Name?” Matthew begins with a recap à la “Previously, in the Old Testament…”, by giving us readers a long list of names — a genealogy. But why? What do these names teach us about who Jesus is and His gospel? Why do we herald the coming of this King? Firstly, we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ bec...

Today's sermon on Malachi 3:13-4:6 began with a question many of us might have contemplated before: “Why do the wicked prosper?” Unfortunately, we have put ourselves in the place of God, to insist that justice be done in the way we want, when it is actually we who have all been unfaithful to God, and are no less guilty before Him. We learned that the book of Malachi ends with two promises, which a...

The passage of Scripture we heard from today is Malachi 2:17-3:12. We looked at how the fact that God doesn't change provides God's people with a hope that assures, and fuels our desire to obey. As much as it is a source of comfort, it is also a source of warning because His judgment is coming to the disobedient. In the second part of the passage, we were challenged to a mindset shift - instead of...

Nick Gonyea, one of our covenant partners at GCC preached on Malachi 2:10-16. We learned that the problem with unfaithfulness is when we go against God’s design of a covenant community where relationships are built for trust, honesty, peace, loyalty, support, care, and love for one another, but instead deal with each other treacherously in pursuit of our own self-satisfaction. We also learned that...

Kyle Essary, one of our covenant partners at GCC preached through Malachi 1:1-2:9. We learned about how God rebuked the Israelites for their false worship, and how they continued to question God’s love for them despite His steadfast commitment to them all along. God rejected Israel's heartless offerings, because they defiled what ought to be holy, and came from a heart that did not desire to honou...

"Does the Big Mac come from Village Park"? This morning, elder Andy posed this obvious question to drive home the basic idea that good trees make good fruit and bad trees make bad fruit. We looked at the final part of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 7:13-29, where we see that the sign of genuine teachers is repentance and good character, and not necessarily the great works. Jesus said that we...

One of our elders, Massimo preached from Matthew 7:1-12. The sermon today was divided into 3 parts - judging, asking and doing. Just because we sin differently from someone else, it doesn't give us the moral high ground to judge another. We also learnt about how sometimes, even though we've checked our hearts and removed the log from our eyes (ie: we are ready to share truth with someone with the...

Chris Abner, one of our elders, preached from Matthew 6: 19-34 and challenged us to answer two questions: “What do we treasure?” and “Who do we trust?” How do we know what we treasure? Look at what we spend our money on, and what we spend our time on. We invest in what we treasure. We were encouraged to treasure God, because treasures of this world are corruptible and will not last. When we treasu...

Andrew Katay visited and preached on Matthew 6:5-18 in a sermon titled “Have you received your reward?” We were convicted by Jesus’ warning in His Sermon on the Mount of the dangers of using acts of righteousness to serve ourselves -- in other words, the dangers of hypocrisy. Christ asks us the important question of whether we are ‘spiritually acting’ in plays of our own creation, created to satis...

Andy Dawson, one of our Elders at GCC preached on Matthew 6:1-4 in a sermon titled “Giving From The Heart”. It was an important warning about practicing righteousness without the right heart. In a world where we often chase after the ideal public persona, paste an innocent-looking "bible+coffee" or "mission trip" picture or two, we must ask ourselves why we do this. Would we even continue to do th...

Today in service, Elder ManHon preached on Matthew 5:38-48, a moving and convicting passage on what it looks like to obey and live out our Christian faith as commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ. In many ways, Matthew 5:48 is the pinnacle of the Sermon on The Mount -- Jesus declares that God is the standard, not man. When we are wronged, naturally, the flesh wants us to retaliate and take matters in...

Chris Abner, one of our elders in GCC preached on Matthew 5:21-37. We were reminded that King Jesus’ standards of obedience go beyond outward appearance, and instead examine the core of our hearts. As shocking as it may be, we must admit that we are all adulterers, liars, murderers, and deceivers in our hearts, and have failed to obey God. Yet, we were also reminded that the lifestyle, choices, an...

Yi Khen, one of our covenant partners at GCC preached through the second of our “The King’s Speech” series, with Matthew 5:13-20.  We were reminded that Christ’s righteousness does not invalidate the law, but instead fulfills it perfectly. We can rest in the knowledge that we have a holy God who gave us a good, good law that we would never be able to obey completely ourselves, not by any stre...

Today we kicked off the first of our Sermon on The Mount series, otherwise known as “The King’s Speech”! Chris Abner, one of our elders in GCC preached on Matthew 5:1-12, and helped us to see how Matthew, The Sermon on The Mount and Beatitudes really are about Jesus the King and His kingdom! Blessedness doesn’t come from something we have done, but how we have been welcomed into His Kingdom, havin...

Today we completed our Gospel N.E.T. series -- Kyle Essary, one of our covenant partners at GCC preached on the “T” - Transform. We were reminded, as we ever so often need to be, that the gospel of Jesus Christ makes it possible for us to be transformed and to bring about transformation even when it seems like we or the world are so very far from God. Indeed through transformed worship, cities, an...

Andy Dawson, one of our covenant partners at GCC preached a sermon titled “Equipping People to Live Gospel-Centered Lives”. It was really helpful to be reminded that as Christians, we cannot live our lives apart from God’s Word. It is the Bible and biblical teaching that equips from beginning to end to live gospel-centered lives. To quote from the sermon, “The Bible is not just the doorway through...

Massimo Gei, one of our elders at GCC preached a sermon titled ‘Nurturing Gospel Centered Communities’, and reminded us that as Christians, it is not our social backgrounds, shared interests, or attitudes that holds us together --  but Jesus Christ. He saved us out of sin, into one body as His church. Despite all our differences, we are reminded that fellowship among Christians is really a gi...