Sunday 23 August 2026
Thirteenth 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…
Worship was abbreviated due to the annual Fire Drill !!
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Matthew 16: 13 – 20
Live recording
Praise – When we walk with the Lord
Prayers
Live recording
God of all, as we have gathered together in Your house, we turn our hearts and our minds to the worship of You. We wish to pause, to take a moment to leave behind us the thoughts that tumble over each other, distracting us from You.
We lay at Your feet all that has gone before us in the past week, the things we regret, tasks left undone, words uttered in anger, the things we wish we could forget, mistakes made, moments that made us uncomfortable;
the things that brought us joy, time spent with family, the laughter of friends.
All of this, and so much more, we lay down at Your feet. Still our troubled minds, renew our tired hearts and give us a spirit of praise.
For we wish to draw closer to You, to offer our songs of worship, to hear Your Word speaking to us, to learn more about You. Lord, let us enter Your presence,
for there is nowhere on earth that we would rather be.
Loving Lord, we must confess that all too often we have rejected rather than rejoiced.
We are quick to grumble over what we think we lack rather than give thanks for what we already have. We spot problems before we see potential;
We ask that You will forgive us for all the times that we place ourselves before our neighbour; when our desires are prioritised and the needs of others ignored; when greed overrules our conscience and we hoard our blessings instead of sharing freely with those around us.
Father, we pray that You will renew and refresh us; shatter our hearts of stone and fill us with a love for all people; break our stubborn wills and reshape us into the people You would have us be. Let us truly be Your people, Your followers.
Following you means learning to love wholeheartedly, to respond graciously and give unreservedly. May this offering we bring today reflect the presence of Christ in our hearts in its love and grace and generosity.
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
Let me tell you about Ken. Ken was a friend of mine way back in the mists of time. Ken was a little older than me and a married man while I was young free and single. I can’t for the life of me remember Ken’s wife’s name but for the sake of argument I’ll call her Barbie. I don’t think Barbie was her name but Ken and Barbie sound familiar in some way. I don’t recall her having blonde Barbie hair or voluptuous Barbie curves but that’s neither here nor there.
Ken and Barbie were enormously happy because they had a baby on the way. And like all parents-to-be they had long discussions about what they might call their child. Names for a girl and names for a boy all of which were kept top secret until the happy day of the baby’s arrival into this world. But Ken and Barbie had a problem to resolve in naming their child. Ken came from Paisley and Barbie came from Geneva, Switzerland. All of Barbie’s family spoke French, so they needed names that would work in both languages and that really limited their choices. Well the day of labour arrived and with little more than a cough and sneeze Barbie gave birth to her baby boy whom in Paisley speak they named Christopher, which in French translates as Christopher. Barbie was a doting mum; Ken was a proud dad who had achieved the impossible of appeasing his French-speaking mother-in-law.
Now, my rather trifling story does have echoes in the Old Testament right back at the beginning of the Book of Exodus. Exodus Chapter 1 finds us at the beginning of the foundational story of the nation of Israel and of Judaism. Yes, we acknowledge that there is nothing in ancient Egyptian records that indicates any kind of exodus of slaves on the scale we read of in the Old Testament but the story’s centrality to Israelite history and identity is beyond debate.
In a move that is as current as it is ancient the leader of the Egyptians begins to build up fear and anxiety about the foreigners and strangers living in their midst. Since the time of Joseph, Israelites had been both welcome and valued in Egyptian society. Now however, the tide is turned for it is feared that they might unite with the enemies of Egypt to become an internal threat to security. The fear leads to oppression and slavery, the Israelite people being used to build great cities for the Pharaoh.
When the oppression backfires new methods of limiting the Israelites are found. Hebrew Midwives are coerced into killing Israelite baby boys but the midwives fear God more than they fear the Pharaoh and choose to ignore the instruction of their oppressors. The Pharaoh realising that Hebrew Midwives have managed to evade his instructions takes a step of insanity commanding his people to kill all infant boys. It’s not the only time in the bible that the killing of all infant boys takes place. Thousands of years later in a peculiar twist of fate where “the abused becomes the abuser” King Herod also ordered the killing of the infant boys when he learned of the birth of the Christ.
Into that context of fear and oppression and mindless slaughter, a baby boy is born to Israelite parents of Levite heritage. When his mother recognises that she can no longer adequately hide him, she forms a basket of reeds made water tight with bitumen and hides her baby son amongst the rushes on the riverbank. The little boy is watched over by his sister. The Pharaoh’s daughter happens upon the baby boy in the basket and rescues him. In time Pharaoh’s daughter adopts the boy and calls him “Moses” a name that is very similar to the Hebrew word for “water” and similar to the Egyptian word for “child”. He is given a name that has meaning in both languages and both cultures.
Names continue to be significant throughout the development of the Israelite nation. People and prophets are named and re-named according to how God calls them and what tasks he gives them. Even into Jesus’ time people’s names retain significant meanings and people are re-named in order to heighten that sense of being under God’s hand and calling. Who you are, what name you bear becomes a central part of one’s identity and purpose.
In Matthew’s Gospel, following on from debates and discussions with the Pharisees and Sadducees we find Jesus and his disciples near to the city of Caesarea Philippi. Initially it was the site of a Temple built by King Herod in honour of Caesar Augustus. Later Herod’s son, Herod Philip, developed the city as a Capital city and in honour of Caesar renamed it Caesarea Philippi. The city was a centre for government both Roman and local. It straddled traditions, cultures and languages and religions. It is in the context of that multiplicity of faiths, gods, powers, languages, meanings, philosophies and outlooks that Jesus challenges his disciples. Who do people say that the son of man is? asks Jesus. It could almost be an academic question. Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah – they were all radical prophets announcing the coming of God’s Messiah.
But then the deeper, more personal question, “Who do you say I am?” And Simon, called Peter by Jesus, finds something in his spirit that switches on like a light bulb. A truth that illuminates his mind and sole, “You are the Messiah”
It is then that Simon is given his new name Peter, the Rock, the foundation. Different traditions interpret these words differently, but on this we can agree, Jesus gives his disciples authority to teach and preach the Good News rejecting the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees and the religion and government so readily portrayed in the complex society of Caesarea Philippi and yet bridging all those traditions, crossing the boundaries, straddling the divisions.
Identity is such a central issue to our understanding of self. In a complex multi-national, multi-racial world what is our Scottish identity? Who am I? Who are you? Does His name Jesus, Emmanuel, The Christ, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, still hold meaning across traditions and cultures? What name do you give Him? Who do you say Jesus is?
Praise – Take my life and let it be
Prayers for Others
Live recording
The gift of faith
Lord God, you have placed within our hearts one of the most precious gifts that we can ever possess, the gift of faith. Faith that illuminates our soul and lets eternal truth find a home in our heart. Faith that allows us to call out your name and see who You truly are. Yet we so often neglect that gift, doing so little to nurture it. Faith gives us confidence in life and confidence in you. Faith reassures us that you are in control. Your word teaches us that all we need is faith, not our labours however good, not our actions however worthy, will ever set us right with you, but faith will open the door to all you have in store for us. Lord hear us as we thank you for the gift of faith and ask for it to be strengthened within our hearts…
Those in Hospital
Lord Jesus Christ, we can read in the pages of the Gospels how you stretched out your hand in healing to those who were ill. With authority and power, you forgave sin, restored faith and restored well-being. It is true that we do not always understand the fragility of our bodies. Yet, we continue to put our trust in you, believing you are a compassionate God who hears our cries for help and is willing in your greater wisdom to respond to our needs. We pray to you for those who are in hospital asking you to watch over them restoring their health and well-being. May they know you are with them giving them peace in their hearts. Hear us as we pray for those who are in hospital…
Praise – My life flows on in endless song
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.