Sunday 19 July 2026
Eighth after Pentecost
Welcome!
Welcome to excerpts from the worship held within the newly formed Westhills Church of Scotland Congregation. We know that not all members of the congregation are able to be in church on Sunday morning; offering these excerpts from the Sunday morning service might help you feel included. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you.
If this post helps you explore what happens within an act of worship then please read on…
The Psalms
Psalm 86: 11 – 17
Live recording
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Romans 8: 12 – 15
Live recording
Matthew 13: 24 – 30 & 36 – 43
Live recording
Praise – Heaven shall not wait
Prayers
Live recording
Patient and gracious God whose power is shown in kindness and service, gather us into Your presence. Still our hurried minds and restless hearts, that we may learn again Your way of mercy and worship You with undivided hearts.
We praise you for the heritage in which we are set, a Christian heritage, a Scottish heritage, the stories, myths and fables that continue to inspire, inform, and transform our living, experiencing our connection with our ancestors of family, nation and faith.
We come into your presence to be people who live and breathe the Bible stories, not repeating them in a robotic way but rather feeling the energy they bring us; the reassurance of your working in the midst of our lives then and now; with us, in us and continuing your story through us.
Help us to teach by word and action the value of deep truths like forgiveness and mercy and equality. Help us to be the expression of God’s openness to all people and His willingness to accept people as they are.
God of gentle judgement and endless mercy; we come as we are. We confess our impatience. We rush to conclusions, we judge before understanding, we try to do Your work for You. Forgive us when we fail to trust Your timing, your plan and your boundless Grace. Teach us the kindness that reflects Your righteousness.
Such is your love for us that you have offered your only Son to be the one who brings grace and forgiveness into our lives. Such an offering is beyond our imagining yet real in every way. And we too make an offering, even though ours may be like the widow’s might, almost insignificant in comparison yet genuinely from the heart and sacrificial in its intent. Receive all that we lay before you this day for we are your people and you are our God.
Hear us as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer saying…
Our Father who art in Heaven Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
Live recording
It’s odd how you remember people, associate them with particular things even though you haven’t seen them or spoken to them in decades. John was a friend of mine in Secondary School. We were in the same year though John was older than me; in fact he was one of the eldest in my year. John was a big strapping lad, tall and broad with it. He was built like a rugby player although he didn’t play rugby. It was the daftest thing you ever saw when John began driving lessons. The local driving instructor had an Austin Mini, a proper Mini, none of this BMW nonsense you get today; but John was easily over 6 foot and literally had to squeeze himself behind the wheel, his knees were up at his ears. How he kept control of the car I’ll never know!
I also remember John coming to school wearing a black tie rather than his school tie. John’s mum had died after a long illness. Very little was said about the nature of John’s grief. Teaching Staff obviously knew what had happened and were very considerate, but pupils were not made privy to anything so personal as John’s family grief. We all kept a respectful distance saying nothing, not even a “sorry for your loss”. There seemed to be a barrier, a line not to be crossed between privacy and offering compassion. Maybe society just dealt with things differently back in the late 70’s.
It was after that time, after the loss of his mum, that John learned to drive and then went on a summer course at the Agricultural College. I think family were keen to see that John had some direction and purpose in life, some independence and if necessary a way of earning a living. When John went to Agricultural College he did a course in what we colloquially termed “Tattie Rogueing”. When the rest of us were grubbing about in the mud lifting the tattie crop with our bare hands, John acquired some expertise in spotting disease in what should be a field of quality seed potatoes.
It took a really keen eye to recognise not only types of disease in the crop but also the different varieties of potato. John was well paid for his skills. So John would walk a field looking for all the rogue tattie plants lifting them out so disease wouldn’t spread through the crop. When a farmer is hopeful of producing a harvest of good quality seed potato he needs to know there is no disease and no stray varieties amongst the crop. Even for the trained and experienced eye it can at times be almost impossible to distinguish the good from the bad.
Two thousand years ago Jesus told a story about a man who sowed good seed in his field and expected to see a good harvest. Yet, when weeds were sown amongst his crop he couldn’t just go and pull out the weeds. Both had to grow together. Jesus again uses an everyday, commonly known image to convey Truth.
There is a kind of weed known as Bearded Darnel, which even to the trained and experienced eye is impossible to distinguish from wheat as it grows. Darnel was so difficult to detect and so problematic that in ancient times the Romans considered it a criminal offence to sow darnel seed in someone’s field. The only time that darnel and wheat could be told apart was when they began to produce seed. By then of course it was too late. The roots of the plants were so intertwined that to pull up the weeds would have destroyed the wheat crop. There was no choice but to let the weeds grow along side the wheat until harvest time when everything could be uprooted and separated out.
Jesus tells a story of how good and bad exist side by side, how sometimes they are almost impossible to tell apart, that sometimes trying to uproot the bad can also uproot the good and in the final analysis we can sometimes only tell the difference by the fruits they produce. Of course in Jesus story the weeds didn’t get there by chance, the seeds didn’t just blow in on the wind. There was a deliberate act of sabotage – an enemy had deliberately sown bad seed amongst the good.
Maybe Jesus harks back to the Garden of Eden that idyllic place where only good existed, all was right and perfect and humanity’s fellowship with God was beautiful. But when the serpent sowed the seed of doubt in Eve’s heart it all began to change. Eve and then Adam may have acquired the knowledge of good and evil but they did not acquire the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
What may be good to one person may be bad to another. One man’s Freedom Fighter is another man’s terrorist. Where genetic engineering may bring health and healing we also fear it can create monsters. Nuclear engineering can produce limitless supplies of electricity it can also produce weapons of mass destruction. One person’s Human Rights can be another person’s lack of Justice. The Parable of the Weeds recognises what we all know; that we live in a world of shadows.
It is difficult for any preacher to tackle some of Jesus statements about judgement and punishment, far easier to skip over the passages that talk of “The Son of Man sending his angels to gather up all those who cause people to sin and all others who do evil things who will then be thrown into the fiery furnace where they will cry and grind their teeth” The angels certainly seem to know who is good and who is bad, but for me who lives in a world of shadows neither terribly bad nor terribly good, I’m left hoping that there is sufficient good in me to outweigh the bad. It is an arresting thought, it is there to stop us in our tracks and make us think about who we are and how we relate to others. Ultimately we might only know if we have it right by the fruits we bear. Good and bad grow side by side until the harvest.
Good and bad exists in each of us. We are capable of being giving and loving; we are capable of being selfish and hateful and we will go on being a mixture of these things throughout our lives and not always know which is the right or best way to react in any situation life throws at us. What we hope is that our faith in Christ and desire to walk in the way of Christ will guide us toward living the kind of life that produces a harvest of good. Thirty fold, sixty fold, perhaps a hundred fold. It’s all about the harvest. Listen then, if you have ears!
Praise – Jesus Christ is waiting
Prayers for Others
Live recording
The search for truth
Father, we praise you for Jesus Christ your son. From his search for truth as a child in the Temple to his death on the cross, he put you first. In everything he did he honoured you. His life and death help us to see how great and good you are; his resurrection assures us that nothing can separate us from your love. Make us like him – as eager to find your truth and as faithful in following it through – so that, as we put you first in our lives, people may see your love again and find new hope in our risen, reigning Lord. Father hear us in our prayers as we seek your truth and allow others to find the truth through us…
The Outcast and the Stranger
Lord Jesus if we were to follow you our lives would be so different. We would sit in the company of the poorest, fight the cause of the weakest, and love the unlovely. Allow us Lord to get our hands dirty in the grime of Christianity. To be in the places where faith is challenged, where darkness is chased by the light, where Resurrection brings life to those who are dead. Allow us to be in the places where pain is acute and to face the despair that so many feel. When all around is pain and darkness that is when faith are hope are most precious. When we are weak the love of God makes us strong. Lord hear our prayers that in discipleship we might minister with a lasting love to the outcast and stranger…
For those who are ill
Lord Jesus when you walked this earth miracles of healing came from you hand. You were known as the healer of people’s body’s, minds and spirits. Have compassion again on those known to us or not, who endure illness. Restore them to health and strength. May they know the joy of your presence near them and your peace within their hearts. Lord Jesus, we pray for those who through age, infirmity and ill-health have lost contact with the fellowship of the church, this place where once they found peace and comfort and strength and now find themselves more isolated and their faith diminished. In their time of need be their strength, be their hope, be their place of refreshment and comfort. Lord hear us as we pray for those who are ill…
Praise – Will you come and follow me
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.