Rose City Baptist Church

“…The multifaceted plan of redemption doesn’t just have you at the centre of all that God does. God has never been under any obligation to Man, the creature. Would you be offended at me if I told you that God, before the creation of the world, needed nothing? That Father, Son and Holy Spirit were satisfied in their eternal existence. That it was only out of the overflow of love that God chose to c...

Matthew 6:19-24 Cody Dodd Tune in to hear Cody Dodd take us through Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount about laying up for ourselves earthly treasures.

“The peace that the apostle has in mind is not merely the absence of conflict… but the presence of positive, healthy relationships. These do not come as a result of superficial harmony, where we are nice to each other and coexist without open conflict, but genuine peace is the result of following the guidelines of Matthew 18:15 and going to those who sin or offend us in loving confrontation. We Ca...

“Believers are adopted into the family of God by grace alone, through the finished work and sacrifice of Christ, but their existence as children of the light, children of the day, has moral implications, The Thessalonian Christians did not need to be reminded of the facts, but they are being reminded here of the implications these facts held for their actions. They are already day people, but they...

“Adam and Eve ate the first recorded meal in rebellion, which is to say, they rebelled against God by eating what was forbidden. And because of their actions, their sin; rebellion and sin have pervaded every relationship, event, thought, and part of creation since. So when we go from looking at humanity’s first meal to what has been called Jesus’ last supper, we again see our rebellion full streng...

“The goal of this whole passage is quite simple and clear, although it has unfortunately also been the source of a great deal of end times speculation that is quite unrelated to Paul’s own interests. Paul’s expressed goal is ‘ that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope,’ or to state it positively, that our hope would be so grounded in the resurrection of Jesus, that our whole understand...

“Today we enter into the Passion of Jesus Christ. In our common English use, the word passion means intense desire, or an uncontrolled or barely controlled emotion, but in its original Latin, the root ‘passio’ means to suffer or to endure, therefore Christ’s Passion refers to his suffering rather than any impassioned desire…”

“Much has been said about the seeming contradiction put forward here: that only the father knows when he will send the son. Is Jesus not fully God? How then could he not know what he, in fact, does know? The false teaching of kenosis asserts that Jesus gave up his divine powers when he came to earth as helpless babe. That he emptied himself of his glory and omniscience and might. Taking Philippian...

“It should be clear, both from the commands and example of Christ and his apostles, that living quietly and minding our own business does not mean that the church is to tone down its proclamation of the gospel. On the contrary, Paul consistently encouraged boldness in this regard. The church was not to live so quietly that they failed to function as witnesses of Christ both in word and deed. It is...

“What comes to mind when we think of the word hypocrisy? I go to the dentist once or twice a year, and there is one part of that visit that I really dislike.: that’s when my dentist starts asking me pointed questions about my flossing habits. I can see him typing on his keyboard, so he remembers what I said last time. I try to tell him that I’m doing my best, and he’s like ‘I don’t think you’re do...

“I’ll try to summarize points at the end, but so that you don’t miss it, there is no appeal here to cultural norms, no argument on the basis of what is ‘healthy’ or ‘will make you happy,’ the call to sexual morality is on the basis of God’s own character and his will for us. For the believer, it doesn’t matter what our Lord commands of us, he is our Master and we his slaves. Whatever it costs, I m...

“It is God’s work among us that creates sanctification, that makes us obey. But at the same time, moral effort is in no way antithetical to faith. It is, rather, the outworking and expression of true faith. In response to God’s gift and initiative, believers have a responsibility to let the power of Grace come to expression in our lives. Full dependence on God is wholly compatible with human exert...

“Today, there is a tendency to fall into one of two ditches when it comes to understanding the work of Satan: either we fail to recognize at all that we have an adversary who is constantly seeking to destroy us, or we give him far too much credit and assume he has far more power than is attributed to him in the Bible—as directly responsible for everything that goes wrong in our lives…The truth lie...

“This life is not all that there is. There is a life to come through Jesus, and in this is bound up all of the power, all of the endurance, and all of the joy and hope of the Christian life…If we have joined Christ in his death and shared in his suffering, then we know we will also join him in his resurrection to new life!”

“There are many ways to avoid persecution and suffering for the gospel. We can avoid confrontation and church discipline, compromise with those who call themselves Christians but are not. We can avoid teaching unpopular doctrines of Scripture, such as this one on suffering, so as to keep people comfortable. We can compromise our purity from the world, so we don’t stick out like a sore thumb and ga...

“The expectation, once again, is that all genuine believers, those who should have confidence that they are brothers, loved and chosen by God, will be imitating the holy, righteous and blameless conduct of the apostles as the apostles themselves emulate Christ. Those who follow Christ will not only emulate the apostles and Christ himself in what they abstain from, but they will be seeking to imita...

“Instead of worrying about how to prove our innocence, or defend against the maliciousness of slanderers and accusers, we are told instead to share the hope we have in Christ. And that’s playing a whole different ball game. It’s not fighting with the weapons of this world. It’s meeting persecution with joy, and opposition as opportunity; because every time it’s win-win. It’s a win if people are ch...

“Church, we must be on guard against deception. Now you might think, ‘But Josh, our message is divine revelation, how could deception come into play? ’ In many ways. When believers are not bold, they are tempted to reduce the offense of the gospel. We think it wise to only share certain things or certain aspects of the gospel with our friends and family, so as to win them over with deception. It i...

“Have you ever played Mario Kart? There have been several iterations, but the original was the first to have the unique feature of being able to race against the track record, the fastest completion of whatever track you are on. An ephemeral version of the track champion (a ‘ghost’ if you will) would be projected directly in front of you so that you could learn every twist and turn of the track. A...

“Many who have grown up in the church, like me, have endured prayer meetings where the content of the petitions are expressed only as a “technique for acquiring blessings;” long incantations for the purpose of procuring God’s favor. Or, alternatively, in reaction to such demanding and boisterous prayers of past experience, one can readily fall into the ‘fatalistic’ sort of prayer, where we only as...

“As John Stott observed, “What stands out of Paul’s vision of the church is its God-centredness.”…Grasping this point will fundamentally change the way we think about church. We will think of the worship service less and less in terms of what it does for us, and more and more as an opportunity for us to glorify, praise, and worship God…We will view gathering together with other believers for worsh...

“Church, this is the ultimate question, there is none greater: Who do you say this Jesus is? Who is the Christ? …Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great...

“Christian, the cross has freed you up, you have nothing else pressing. Because of Jesus, you can now love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Anything less shows you have not yet understood the grace and freedom you are now in. You are free now to fully obey and to love and to serve the Lord. If this is hard, your job is not to try harder,...

“There is no such thing as a lone wolf Christian…It’s only together, as the church, that we can, with fear and trembling, work out our salvation as God works in us. This message is not for individual Christians, alone and isolated from the church. That’s not what the promise is for…Christian: Accept that you are a small part of the whole. You are a cog in the machine of the church. It is only when...

“Hosea calls us here to confess our sins, reject past objects of deceptive faith, and recognize that there is hope only in the sure character of God. Will we humbly admit our own need to receive from the only Savior? Genuine repentance is not bringing a gift in order to bribe or appease God, nor is it a feeling of sorrow or shame about getting caught for doing something wrong. It is not making a d...