Papers the elders of Westlake have written or used to work through various issues, followed by articles and reflections from members of the Westlake family. Looking for sermons? Listen to our latest sermons or browse the sermon library.
Position papers
Articles
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Romantic Comparisons and the Gospel of Christ
One of the joys of being a pastor (and Su would say, of being a pastor’s wife!) is that we get to spend time with…
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Mount Comparison
The contest on Carmel, in 1 Kings 18, between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal is an epic, even by Biblical standards. At…
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A Giant of Comparisons
The story of David slaying Goliath is filled with comparisons. David hears the taunts of Goliath hurled at the men of Israel, and responds, “Who…
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Beastly Comparison
‘Comparison is the thief of all joy’. But not all comparison. As we’ve seen in the last three posts, comparing God to ourselves and to…
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‘To Whom Will You Compare Me?’
At the heart of Christianity lies a problem… how do you describe the Trinity? Of what can you say, ‘O, the Trinity is like this’?…
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Comparing Your Way to Humility
In the last post, Incomparable God, we considered how comparing ourselves to God can become a means to praise and proclamation. But that is not…
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The Incomparable God
Theodore Roosevelt reportedly described comparison as ‘the thief of all joy’. He certainly has a point. If you constantly compare yourself to others it will…
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Tears in the Desert
In Psalm 126, the psalmist asks of God, ‘Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negeb!’ It is a powerful image: rivers of…
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Advent – Second Time Around
Advent is a time when the church looks back to the first coming of Christ, and prepares herself for the feast – the celebration –…
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Idols and Limping Between the Two
When Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, he didn’t just address the prophets but the people: “How long will you go limping between two different…
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Peter’s Sword
The contrast between Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter in the courtyard of the high priest is a stark one. At Jesus’ arrest…
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Sloth and the Middle Period
Martin Lloyd Jones, the great British preacher, said that ‘the middle period’ is the time when we may be most prone to Sloth. The question…
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Sloth and the Workaholic
I suspect your view of sloth is only partially correct. We tend to think of sloth as the attitude of the couch potato – the…
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When you don’t feel God’s presence
On Sunday we considered the truth of God’s omnipresence – that God is present everywhere, at every moment. This is a wonderfully reassuring truth, as…
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The Quest for the Happy Ending
I read something recently that said that ‘we live in the first era of history that considers happy endings to be works of inferior art.’…
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The Sluggard part 2
So, back to this character in Proverbs: The Sluggard. If we are at risk of sluggardly tendencies outside the work-place, in our walk with God,…
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Sluggards Read On – Part 1
I can’t remember who it was, but someone once advised me to read a chapter from the Book of Proverbs every day. Every fool should.…
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It Can Never Satisfy
At one time or another probably all of us have felt the desire for ‘just a little bit more.’ The writer of Ecclesiastes has this…
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Handing on the Baton
From talking with folk after the two services this Sunday, (and the launch of Junior Youth Fridays), I know I was not alone in feeling…
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Knocking on the Brothel Door
In his book, The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller quips that of Paul’s famous discourse on marriage in Ephesians 5, the one part that many…