Sunday 12 July 2026
Seventh 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 65: 1 – 8
Live recording
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Romans 8: 1 – 11
Live recording
Matthew 13: 1 – 9 & 18 – 23
Live recording
Praise – Love Divine
Prayers
Live recording
Sovereign God, we have come to worship you – to declare your faithfulness to us in all things, to acknowledge your majesty and to rejoice in your love. Lord of Heaven and Earth receive our praise.
We are here to rejoice – to bring our thanks, to express our wonder and to celebrate your goodness.
We are here to seek mercy – to confess our mistakes, to recognise our weaknesses and to ask for your pardon.
We come to listen to the message of Scripture, to the words of Christ and to the still small voice of your Holy Spirit speaking within us.
Sovereign God, accept this time of worship and through it help us to draw closer to you. Open our hearts to the love of Christ, our lives to the movement of your Spirit, our minds to all that you are and so may we worship you not just in these moments that we have set aside but in every moment of our lives, in every thought and every word and every action.
In worship of you we bring our gifts. We lay before you the offering of our resources, great or small, these gifts are expressions of our love for you. We lay before you the offering of our lives, our time our talents our very breath because all we have and all we are has come from you and we gladly offer it to you in love and service.
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
If you are a customer of Amazon and have Amazon Prime there is a chance you might watch Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime Video. Jeremy Clarkson is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but just like his previous shows; Top Gear, and The Grand Tour, Clarkson’s Farm attracts millions of viewers. We watch every success and every failure unfold before us. Somehow, he has reconnected viewers with the struggles of farming which are as much political as they are weather related. Technology plays an increasing role in farming, it certainly helps, but for all that it is still very unpredictable.
Even though millions are so much more conscious of farming life, it would still take a very brave person these days to imagine that some kind of “greater truth” could be conveyed through farming imagery. Two thousand years ago it seemed not to be a problem at all.
The parable of the sower is a great wee story and must be one of the best-known parables that Jesus ever taught. The essence of the story is so readily understandable even by someone like me, who is not a farmer. I’m not even a gardener. All I do is cut the grass; but let me tell you I know all you need to know about moss growing up and chocking out the grass!
A good story is of course a very enjoyable experience however; its importance goes beyond just enjoyment. Story telling helps us put our experiences into order and perspective. Story helps us to convey meaning. Jesus was a wonderful storyteller, and was well aware that one of the most effective ways of getting truths across to people was through the form of a story.
The Parable of the Sower catches the imagination with its simple images. It does seem odd however; that in the second part of today’s reading Jesus went into such an involved explanation of the meaning of the parable. Most often Jesus left people to make their own connections, to draw their own truths from his words. Odd, especially as in between the telling of the parable and the explanation of it, Jesus is saying to his disciples that parables were there to make things more difficult, for some people at least. But on this occasion he appears to have spelt out the meaning in words of one syllable.
Our greatest challenge today is our familiarity with the Parable of the Sower. We’ve heard a thousand sermons on this parable; can we really find something new within it?
I don’t know what farming in first century Palestine was like apart from the fact that it must have been pretty unpredictable. Drought and plagues of locusts were real possibilities for making crops fail. Maybe the images that come to my mind come from a Scottish agricultural background of a hardy farm worker walking the field with a pouch of seed grain tied to his waist, sowing the grain with a sweep of his hand as he walked at a steady even pace up and down the field. What sounds simple in fact took real skill and immense stamina. Its hardly surprising that a failed crop can be such a devastating experience for the farmer.
Sowing seed by hand was the way it was done for thousands of years. But no matter how skilled the farmer might be he always had to face up to the possibility of failure. Some seed fell on the path, some seed fell on rocky ground, some seed fell amongst the thorn bushes; only the seed that fell on good soil produced a crop. In other words, in three out of four situations there was failure. That can hardly be a surprise to us. Life is full of failure. No mater how skilled or experienced we are failure is still just around the corner. Every risk we take has the possibility of failure. Every new venture swings between success and failure and to be honest we sometimes learn more in the aftermath of failure.
I think the church is not good at facing up to failure and is often scared to take risks in case it has to confront failure. Failure to take risks leads to decline. Decline inevitably leads to complete and total failure.
Perhaps the church, and that could be our church, needs to take the risk of telling its story in the full knowledge that in three out of four situations the story wont be heard. Yet also reassured by the knowledge that our story has caught the imagination and spirit of millions of people over thousands of years. But what’s our story?
We might naturally gravitate toward the story of the Christ who lived amongst us and died for us and rose again so that we can inherit eternal life through faith in him. But is that really a story? It sounds more like a statement of faith as we might find it in the Apostle’s Creed or Nicene Creed. When Jesus told a story he would often start by saying, “The Kingdom of God is like this…” and he had a multiplicity of stories which indicated that the Kingdom of God was more precious than anything you could have or own or experience in this life.
I fear that we have lost the skill of telling a story, which can convey eternal truths. We have lost the skill of conveying truth through the situations of our modern living. Jesus used story to point people to a greater truth, a better perspective on life, something that would make their daily living better and more fulfilling. He would say, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this” and with a simple story based upon everyday experiences he would begin to open up the meaning of life.
Might our story be like this?
The Kingdom of Heaven is like this, once there was a governor who appeared to take pride in the people who served him, they taught children in school, they brought care to the elderly, they rescued people from fires, but he treated them harshly and gave them the lowest wages he could…
The Kingdom of Heaven is like this, there was once a famous man, a celebrity known the world over, much loved and respected, but in secret he preyed on young children destroying their innocence and trust. I tell you, your Heavenly Father knows what you do in secret.
What story can you tell?
Praise – Come Holy Ghost
Prayers for Others
Live recording
Iran – USA
A peace deal in tatters. Conflict escalating. Lives lost. Shipping destroyed. And all because there is no agreement on which route shipping should take through the Straits of Hormuz. It seems ridiculous and childish; what does it really matter which route shipping takes; only that it dos matter because Iran is determined not to allow the USA to merge from this conflict as the accepted victor. Every step toward peace will be made as difficult as possible.
How then Lord, do we pray? What do we seek in our prayers? What is the answer? Can hearts be softened? Can mercy be shown? When does forgiveness play a part? Can two sides sit down together and acknowledge the futility of their actions? When we are lost for words all we can do Lord, is offer our silent prayers believing that your Spirit can still reach into the hearts of all people. Lord in quietness we pray…
The Bereaved
Father in Heaven, we know you to be a gracious and loving God who wishes only to care for us through all that life brings to our door. We shall all face bereavement at some time but its inevitability does not take away the pain. So, we pray for those who are grieving today where the loss of a loved one has left life feeling empty, where the shock of losing a friend or member of the family has turned life upside down. Bring them peace and strength through grateful remembrance of the love which was shared and hope through the words of your promises. Give them strength for each new day reassured by your promise that we shall see our loved ones again in your eternal kingdom. Father hear us in our prayers for those who are grieving…
Our Own Prayers
Praise – Rejoice the Lord is King
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.