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The most important question we will ever ask ourselves is "Who is Jesus?" This is the question Jesus asks the disciples in Matthew 16. The only correct answer is what Peter answers, "Christ, the Son of the Living God" - that Jesus is fully God and fully man who died on a cross to save his people from their sins. It is only when we see Jesus rightly that we can take up our cross and follow Him.

As Jesus sends the crowds away and the disciples across the sea so that He can pray, hours later, as high winds assault the disciples, Jesus comes walking to them on the water. The disciples, afraid Jesus is actually a ghost, refuse to see the signs He gives that it is Him. Peter tells the Lord that the way He can confirm it is Jesus is if He calls Him out on the waters. After sinking, being rescued, Peter along with Jesus return to the boat as the winds cease. It is at this point they finally worship Jesus as the Son of God. We will only see and worship Jesus when we tell Jesus to call us out of the boat, doing reckless things that only He can enable us to do.

Jesus doesn’t require you to bring everything that’s needed, just everything you have, and then to trust him with the rest. As the boy brought his lunch to Jesus, we follow suit as we bring all that we have to Jesus and watch Him take and use it for the good of others and God's glory.

God invites us as a people to pray big prayers and ask the Lord to do above and beyond what we could ask or think. God delights in answering prayers that could only happen with His work. As a church family, Awaken City exists to see God do incredible things in and through us as God builds His kingdom.

Jesus continued teaching the crowds and his disciples in parables. The Kingdom of Heaven Is like Wheat vs weeds, a mustard seed, a valuable pearl. It is seemingly insignificant but is infinitely valuable. As Jesus goes to his hometown, the people refuse to believe that He is who He says He is. Whether our perspective of Jesus is Dismissal or Refusal, Jesus invites us to believe in this too good to be true but is actually true kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus begins teaching in parables. Parables demonstrate whose hearts are open to the message of Jesus or not. The first parable Jesus teaches unpacks the state of our hearts by using a farming illustration. Your heart might be hard and reject the message of Jesus. The cares of this world may have choked around the message of Jesus and drowned it out. Your soil might be open, but the roots of the message of Jesus may not have rooted down deep. Or, you might be totally open to the message of Jesus. Jesus asks us the question with this parable: "How's Your Heart?"

Proximity to Jesus or mere openness to Jesus does not make one part of the Kingdom. To experience Jesus' power, like the cities Jesus criticizes in Matthew 11, and fail to repent and believe is to remain far from Jesus. To have a relationship with Jesus is to repent and believe in Jesus. Those who trust in Jesus do so by living a life of rest in Jesus - of declaring need for Jesus and going to Him.

John the Baptist was imprisoned for publicly identifying with Jesus and he sends his disciples to Jesus with a question. "Are you the one who is to come?" In the middle of his suffering, John began to question the foundation upon which his life was built, and the conviction upon which his ministry was based. Disciples of Jesus will also suffer, but we suffer well when we take our questions about faith or our suffering to Jesus, as John the Baptist did. When we find ourselves in a jail cell, or circumstances we didn't ask for, suffering will clarify and temper our faith.

In the end of Matthew 9 and all throughout chapter 10, Jesus sends out His twelve disciples to do the things He had been doing: healing the sick, casting out demons, and proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven. Throughout the rest of the passage, Jesus directs his disciples to live a certain way as they take the message to the harvest. They are to proclaim the message and entrust it to people who will receive it. They are to trust in God’s provision even as they are persecuted for their obedience. Everything they did for the Lord would be rewarded. Jesus gives these same principles today to His disciples.

Jesus told the crowd that stood around Him in v16 + 17 about new wine and fresh cloth - this reality of the newly revealed power of the Kingdom of Heaven. Then, through the rest of the passage, Jesus demonstrated this power by healing five individuals, doing some things for the first time in the Gospel of Matthew and one that had not happened yet in the entire Bible. The ultimate miracle is Jesus' healing of people's sin-sickness on the cross. Jesus wants to demonstrate new-wine and fresh-cloth power in our lives when we bring situations to Him that are too big for us to handle.

The Gospel is for anyone and everyone. No one is too far gone for the message of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to save. Matthew was the worst of the worst and considered the scum of the earth by his own people. Yet, Jesus found him and called him. Following Jesus cost Matthew a very lucrative job. He collected taxes and could charge extra to make money off of people. He left all that behind to follow Jesus. When we trust in Jesus, that may mean leaving behind things that were precious to us, but in light of Jesus they are worthy things to pay.

Again, Jesus displays power over creation - He just calmed a storm, and now He is found casting demons into a herd of pigs. Not only is He more powerful that all of creation, He is God over the supernatural. He is able to make us free when we believe in what He did on the cross for us.

Jackson Goranflo taught Sunday about the Son of God, what He has done, and how we should respond. The Son of God is Jesus, God in flesh who came to die in our place. We must respond in faith to Jesus' person and work and surrender our entire lives to Him.

Gabe, Awaken City Church's Youth director brings a message from James challenging us with the truth that if we love God, we will obey what He says. Our obedience is a marker that we love Him and have been transformed by the message of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.