WestGate Church Teaching

We live in a noisy world. We are inundated with noise pollution in our everyday lives. Because of population, technology, and industrialization, our world is literally louder than it’s ever been. But beyond auditory sound, and maybe more dangerously, we live with an alarming noisiness in our mental, emotional, spiritual lives. Amid the distraction of noise, what we most need is silence. We often l...

This past weekend, we put forth a hypothesis that a lot of conflict in our lives is a direct result of a lack of humility. This week, Steve Clifford and Andy Barron join David to talk about the social science behind conflict – and why humility is the path forward in every case. We also examine the work of scholars Edwin Judge and John Dickson’s who studied ancient history to find out how humility...

Sermon Description: You might have heard some folks say recently that the United States is “more divided than it’s ever been in its 247-year-long history.” Objectively, this is not true (see War, Civil) but it can *feel* like it’s true. But beyond the national landscape, conflict and division are part of our daily lives, too. How do we move forward? Enter here, the person of Jesus, who showed, thr...

The word “resilence” is one that’s gotten a lot of traction lately. What makes a person “resilient” in life? Why do some people make it, and some collapse or give up? And is there something specific or particular about Christian resilience? As we walk into the new year, Jay and David talk about this. Plus, we dissect cultural stories that center on incredible human resistance - movies like Cast Aw...

Jay Kim

The AfterWord - 2022 Year in Review As this year comes to a close, David Tieche and Jay Kim sit down to review what their favorite moments were this past year - both in the Bay Area and in our church. We look back at all the things we taught on this past year and outline a few that really impacted us and left an indelible imprint on us.

One of the names given to Jesus is “Wonderful Counselor.” Jesus the Messiah is not “a counselor, among many options” but “THE” capital “C” counselor. Steve Clifford and Andy Gridley stop by to talk about what it means to have Jesus as your “Wonderful Counselor.” Is there a diagnostic? What are the signs that you are treating Jesus like just any ordinary counselor? How do you know if you’re doing i...

One of the titles given to Jesus is the phrase “Wonderful Counselor.” In the ancient world, a counselor was a pivotal position for Kings, Queens and rulers, helping them not only make wise decisions, but live and rule well. And although the term “counselor” is used many times in the Bible, this is the only place it’s capitalized and the only place it refers to God Himself. This title is a proclama...

It seems that lately, whenever I ask people how things are going, the answer is the exact same: I’m good…just busy. And the holidays - and the list of things that have to get done - doesn’t help us to slow down. And yet, hurry is a dangerous spiritual enemy to the very things the Advent Season is supposed to usher in: love, peace, joy. So how do we stop? David Kim, WestGate Church’s Discipleship a...

Often the Christmas Season is filled with hurrying, as we rush to do more and more in less and less time. But hurry is counterproductive, indeed it’s hostile soil for things like love and peace and joy. And sometimes, we hurry so much that even Jesus gets crowded out. The prophet Isaiah, writing about the Messiah, says that He will be “everlasting.” God is outside of time and invites us into lives...

Jesus is called the “Prince of Peace” by the prophet Isaiah, but if you actually look at the Christmas story in the Bible, it doesn’t seem all that peaceful. Mary is disgraced with a scandalous pregnancy. She’s told a “sword will pierce her soul.” Rome is the conquering power over the Jewish people. A genocidal tyrant kills a bunch of toddlers trying to kill baby Jesus. Joseph and Mary have to fle...

One of the more famous titles for Jesus is from the famous words of Isaiah where He is called “the Prince of Peace.” Peace is what we often need, but often in our own lives, we attempt to make peace by either avoiding the conflict or dominating. We try to avoid to get peace or “win” to get peace. Neither work and what results certainly isn’t peace. Fortunately, later in the book, Isaiah outlines w...

It’s Advent! But what does that word mean? We don’t use that word much. Does it have something to do with Advil? Advert(isements)? Jay Kim stops by to chat about the purpose of Advent and its meaning. We also discuss the first of four terms used by the prophet Isaiah to describe the Messiah - Mighty God. We talk about why it’s so tough for most of us to *actually* believe that God could do somethi...

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote stirring and familiar words that someday, a Messiah would come, and that people would call Him “Wonderful Counselor” and “Prince of Peace” and “Mighty God.” All very nice, but it’s that last one - Mighty God - that trips a lot of people up. We live in a culture where the idea of God breaking into human history to do something...

The ending of the Sermon on the Mount is wild. Jesus’ most famous set of teachings is not a religious to-do list, but it does have strong implications about how we live. Jesus outlines things that His followers must actually DO, with God’s help, to follow Him. Things like fighting anger and lust, keeping your promises, loving your enemies, quietly giving to those in need, and not judging. And then...

In our digital age, there’s more information flowing around us than at any point in human history. And yet, hearing or knowing or being informed is not enough. It’s easy to be informed, especially today. Yet, there’s so little actual change in our lives and in our world. We know so much but we do so little. This is catastrophic. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus concludes by making the...

Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with some stern and sharp warnings. David and Jay talk about the prophetic history Jesus is channeling in these, including the words of John the Baptist that Matthew includes in the beginning of his Gospel. Jesus also strongly warns against false prophets, so we ask the question, “What might be the false-teachings (pseudo-truths, deceptive ideas) that have made t...

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents some beautiful and soaring images of not only God, but what life with God can be. So you might expect, as Jesus’ most famous sermon comes to a close, that Jesus would end with a big rhetorical flourish. A giant inspirational rah-rah go-get-em-Tiger kind of pump-up-the-crowd ending. But He does not. INstead, Jesus ends soberly, with a series of war...

Near the end of the sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins to wrap up this lengthy teaching by talking about prayer. And in that teaching, Jesus reinforces what He’s already taught earlier. Using the example of a father, Jesus says that God’s parenting is *at least* as competent and loving as human parents (who are not perfect all the time). Jesus then goes on to say that God’s provision is not merely...

Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 7 can be a minefield of questions. Is Jesus saying that prayer is a blank check and we get whatever we want? That can’t be true. And if God knows what we need, what’s even the point of praying? Also, there’s an experiential problem: we all know people who have faithfully prayed for something very good, and that prayer has gone unanswered. What do we do about th...

A while ago, the Barna Group did an extensive research project where they asked non-religious people why they rejected Christianity. What came back were three adjectives. Non-religious people perceived Christians overwhelmingly as 1. judgmental (87 percent of respondents), 2. hypocritical (85 percent) and 3. anti-homosexual (91 percent). Eeesh. Jay Kim stops by to talk about the fairly well-known...

Even people who are not religious at all know at least one teaching of Jesus, taken from Matthew 7 - the one where Jesus tells His followers to “do not judge.” Sometimes, this is used as a convenient shield to protect people against criticism or accountability, but it’s also true that being judged feels…awful. It’s like being rejected. Only worse. We’ll examine what Jesus means, and what He doesn’...

Way back in 1988, one-hit-wonder Bobby McFerrin topped the charts with his feel-good song “Don’t Worry. Be Happy.” Solid advice. But how exactly does one go about doing that? Saratoga Campus Pastor Lisa Averill sits down with David to talk about anxiety, how worry and anxiety are fundamentally different from stress and how to get free from worry using Jesus’ advice and words from Matthew 6.

Lisa Averill

Last weekend, more than 1,380 volunteers from WestGate Church donated more than 5,000 volunteer hours at 18 high-impact service projects across the city and the results were…well, you sort of have to see it to believe just how much was accomplished. In this message, we share photos, videos and stories from Beautiful Day. We also zone in on a brief parable from Jesus about how the Kingdom of God is...