Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church

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Prayer serves as the open line of communication between God and His children. But all prayers are not the same. When we are surrounded by problems and our minds are overloaded with thoughts of anxiety, we often ask the question, "Where is God?" Today's sermon examines an instance in Scripture where the believer seeks answers and help from God through prayer. As we eavesdrop on the Psalmist's exper...

God has invited us to participate in His global purposes of making Him known. He has privileged us with the opportunity to share the message of the gospel that has transformed our very lives. When we explore the depths of what God has done for us through the person and work of Jesus, we should be motivated and excited to proclaim the gospel to our neighbors and the nations. We should be committed...

Habits form us. We make habitual choices that move deeper and deeper into our hearts and eventually define us. We make those choices because of the counsel we take. We take that counsel and are formed by those habits because they feed us in some way. Every habit pays off in a way that keeps us coming back for more. Habits rooted in wickedness and sin will leave us feeling like chaff: hollow and di...

Welcome and hospitality in community is not just a command, but ultimately it is a response to what Christ has done for us, and it is one of the ways we get to experience blessing in community. Therefore, we should eager to show the same hospitality Christ showed his disciples and continues to show his church today. John 13 reveals the way our pride and fear get in the way of ways of responding to...

If your faith is in Christ, his Spirit has already made you a vital “body part” of his church: not only accepted, but honored, respected and needed. This is one of the sweetest fruits of the Gospel and one of the primary tools God uses to grow you in grace. Experiencing this reality, however, will cost you. The cost is commitment: not to the church as an organization, but to the actual people who...

Christians expect interpersonal conflict in the church and learn to work through it. Often it is fueled by deeper conflicts between groups within the community. All of us have preferences and “patrons” who represent our particular beliefs, but we must not allow them to encroach on the unifying centrality of the cross. Only Jesus was crucified for us, and we are baptized only in the name of the Fat...

Celebration is essential to community. Before we can work through conflict or strive together toward common goals, we must remind each other how fully God has already provided for us. Here Paul makes at least four celebratory “toasts”: We are already saints, we are never alone, we have everything we need, and we are living a good story.

Yo Soy Libre is not just a Spanish phrase meaning “I am free.” It’s a Christian declaration and motto. A motto for this new year that declares who we are because we’ve put our faith in God who through Jesus has made us free… free to love and free to live with confidence.

Rev. Michael Phillips kicked off our series on Transformative Community with this sermon from Hebrews 3 and 10. He is the Reformed University Fellowship campus minister at Georgia Tech.

The abundant life Jesus came to give is a life full of God, and God is full of abundance: Abundant grace, abundant resources, and abundant generosity. God's abundance does not insulate us from suffering, nor does it cancel it out. Instead, it enlarges our soul to experience life more fully in every respect, both now and in eternity.

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God became human to know what it’s like to be you. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, Jesus was (and is, although he’s ascended) a real, normal human being, just like us. Not only does he identify with us in our human-ness, he is not ashamed of us, and is proud to call us his little sisters and little brothers. Even more, he is able to help us no matter what we’re up against; beca...

Jesus came to make God known more than ever before. Christians tend to think we “know” all about God because we’ve heard a lot of Bible stories, especially the Christmas ones. John reminds us that we’ve still barely scratched the surface of who God is. The God who “tabernacled” among us in the glory of flesh comes to us full of grace and truth, which he pours out on us over and over again. We can...

Even in the promised land, God anticipated a world of both accidental and intentional violence. Mercifully, he provided cities of refuge as way to curtail vigilante justice while taking seriously the consequences of death by human hands. New covenant believers no longer live in a theocracy, but we can learn from it in the way we relate to others today. Jesus showed in Matthew 5:21-22 that both act...

God has given his people eyes to see and faith to walk. Often we prefer sight over faith, especially when there’s something hard we just got out of or are about to get into. Walking by sight energizes our individual preferences, even as it runs up against our trust in God. But God, being rich in mercy, has called the household of faith to walk together, having confidence in Him no matter what’s be...

The daughters of Zelophehad demonstrate that we can trust God with our future. Shattering the notion that women must always be responsive, their bold request came from deep faith that God would bring his people into the promised land. God’s affirmation of them and the statutes he enacted illustrate both the necessity and the weakness of laws. And their concern for land and a name speaks to our uni...

The bronze serpent is an unlikely symbol of grace. Like the ancient Israelites, we all have the same tragic impulse to resist dependence on God and choose the way that leads to death. But God had mercy on them, and ultimately, as Jesus explained in John 3:14-15, his “lifting up” onto the cross, and out of the tomb, and into heaven, would provide our permanent cure. Rather than always trying harder...