WestGate Church Teaching

Finny Abraham shares what the bible teaches us about loving our city.

Tom Randall shares stories of God's work in the mission field

In the Book of Acts, there’s a story about a man named Ananias whose life is completely interrupted when God breaks through into his everyday, normal life as gives him a difficult assignment: go meet a murderous religious leader named Saul and help him. Ananias is confused - because Saul had developed a reputation for not only arresting Christians, but also killing them - but God tells Ananias that He has big plans for this man. This story is instructive for us today, and although we might not change world history like Ananias, we can be courageous as we follow God.

As the series on the Book of Exodus comes to a close, the story ends with the end of the life of Moses, one of the preeminent characters in the entire Bible. WestGate Church lead pastor Steve Clifford takes a look back at the life of Moses, pulling out some core lessons that we can all take away from the life of this great man, none more glaring than this simple fact: the account of Moses life, spanning the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy, ends with a memory of Moses’ powerful deeds and relationship with God. And this reality can help us center our own lives as we examine what kind of life we want to be remembered for.

In Exodus 32, we find a disturbing story. The Israelites - a group of people who have just experienced the miracles of God in a more profound way than arguably any other group in human history - grow impatient while Moses is on Mt. Sinai meeting with God and decide to take matters into their own hands. They fashion a Golden Calf and begin to worship it, saying that this thing was the god that saved them from slavery. This story reveals something true about us, as well - that we all are quick to forget God and what he’s done. In this message, Josh Fox shows how this is true of us, and how we can not fall into the trap of believing that God is holding out on us when things don’t go the way we thought.

Commandment number 10 - the final commandment - says to not covet, which means to “desire things or possessions, especially things that belong to someone else.” This makes this commandments different than the others, because it’s not an external action, like say, adultery or murder or theft - but has to do more with the internal orientation of one’s heart. But is it just stuff that we covet? Jesus’ teachings later in the New Testament show us that the real problem with coveting is comparison, and God wants us free of that. And Jesus shows us how.

Is lying really that bad? I mean, those nuns in The Sound of Music kind of lied. And we all tell little lies to each other, mostly to either avoid getting in trouble or for the sake of general decorum and social kindness. What’s the big deal? In this message, we dive into what it means to “bear false witness” and the little ways we do this all the time, and why it’s more damaging than you’d expect. In the Christian Scriptures, the command by Paul is to speak with both truth AND love, and we examine how refusing to speak with radical candor leads to a form of hypocrisy that’s either ruinous in its empathy, obnoxiously aggressive or insincere manipulation.

We all know that stealing - taking someone else’s property - is wrong. It’s one of the first and most basic lessons that we learn as kids. But what if goes even deeper than that? What if the commandment to not steal is not only about making sure human civilizations don’t descend into chaos. Because this commandment, if we look closely, shows that God's heart is to provide for the physical needs of His people. They don't need to hoard for tomorrow, or steal from one another. They are going to be taken care of. This is the model Israel needs to learn. And later on, in the sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus reminds His listeners that His Father is eager to take care of His children, and this is the reason why we should not worry. In short, the way of Jesus is the way of trust: we do not have to fend for ourselves. God will take care of us.

Traditional Biblical teaching posits that human sexuality is a good gift from God Himself. But if that is the case, then why, so often, is it the source of deep pain for so many people? In this message, WestGate Church lead pastor Steve Clifford unpacks the meaning behind the famous commandment not to commit adultery and what God is trying to do, and how he’s trying to protect humanity from misusing sexuality in a way that leads to harm and disintegration.

Arguably the easiest of the 10 Commandments to *not* break is commandment 6, which prohibits murder. We even justify our bad behavior to one another by saying things like, “Come on! It’s not like I killed somebody.” But perhaps we shouldn’t be so glib to gloss over this prohibition against murder, given to the Hebrews by Yahweh on Mt. Sinai. To the ancient Hebrew people, living in the shadow of violent death under Pharaoh’s rule, this command was revolutionary. It meant their lives were valuable to Yahweh. And then, several hundred years later, Jesus expanded this teaching on what it means to “murder” your brother, saying that speaking harsh words, or words of contempt is the same as murder. And suddenly, this commandment isn’t so easy to not break.