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In the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us a radically different picture of the good life. The Kingdom of Heaven does not define blessing by wealth, status, comfort, or power. Instead, Jesus announces good news to the poor in spirit, those who mourn, and the meek—the very people the world is most likely to overlook. As we follow this King, His Kingdom begins to reform our hearts. Our desires change as we hunger and thirst for righteousness, extend the mercy we have received, and pursue an undivided heart that belongs fully to Jesus. That inner transformation then redirects the way we live, calling us to become peacemakers and remain faithful even when following Jesus brings rejection or persecution. Finally, Jesus calls His people the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The Kingdom is meant to radiate through us so that our schools, homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and relationships experience something distinctly different because the character of Jesus is being formed in His people.

Matthew 4 introduces us to the kind of King Jesus is. In the wilderness, Jesus faces temptation around appetite, assurance, and allegiance, yet He refuses every shortcut and chooses the Father’s way. His desires do not rule Him, He does not demand that God prove Himself, and His allegiance belongs to God alone. Then the King calls ordinary people with two simple words: “Follow me.” Following Jesus means more than believing the right things. It means being with Jesus in His presence, becoming like Jesus through formation, and doing what Jesus does by joining His mission. We become like the one we spend time with, and as Jesus forms us, He sends us to become disciples who make disciples. Finally, Jesus shows us where that mission leads. The King moves toward brokenness. He does not remain distant from suffering, sin, shame, addiction, or pain. Like a light entering the darkness, Jesus comes to seek, save, redeem, and ultimately restore what is broken. The invitation is to follow this King with our whole heart.

Matthew introduces John the Baptist with one clear message: prepare the way, because a new King has come. Jesus brings a kingdom before which every rival kingdom must bow. That means preparing the way begins by examining what has taken the throne of our own hearts and surrendering anything competing for our allegiance to Christ. John also calls for a repentance that produces fruit. True repentance is more than religious tradition, family history, or saying the right things. It is a change of direction that reaches the roots of our lives and begins to produce visible evidence that we are following Jesus. There is no secondhand faith in the Kingdom of God.  The chapter closes with the baptism of Jesus and the Father declaring, “This is my beloved Son.” Through faith in Christ, we are brought into the family of God and given a new identity: beloved. Jesus steps into the place of sinners, moves toward our brokenness, and gives His life so that we can become sons and daughters of God.

What would it look like for an entire city to experience spiritual renewal? Colossians 1 gives us a picture of ordinary believers carrying the gospel into the places where God has already planted them and, through His grace, seeing that gospel bear fruit and increase. That begins by being rooted in the gospel. The gospel is not simply the starting point of the Christian life; it becomes the soil in which every part of our lives grows. As we submit our lives to Jesus and the authority of His Word, the gospel begins to form us, strengthen our faith, and remind us of God’s faithfulness even in seasons when we cannot see what He is doing.  From there, we are called to be faithful where we are planted. Following Jesus is more than attending church. Every believer is called to be a disciple who makes disciples, carrying the gospel into our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, and everyday relationships. When God’s people live faithfully on mission, fruit produces seed and the gospel continues to multiply.

As Wake Church enters a new season, Ephesians 1 helps bring us back to the heart of who we are and what God has called this house to become. In a culture increasingly shaped by distraction, spiritual renewal begins when our eyes are opened again to the beauty, supremacy, and goodness of Jesus.  Enjoy God, Find Family, and Love People are more than phrases. They describe a movement of renewal. Enjoy God is personal renewal: delighting so deeply in Jesus that our lives begin to reorient around Him. Find Family is communal renewal: recognizing that through Christ we have been adopted into a family that is not built around preference, background, or similarity, but around the cross. Love People is cultural renewal: carrying the love and message of Jesus beyond a Sunday gathering and into the places God has already positioned us.  The invitation is simple: wake up to Jesus, wake up with Jesus, and wake up for Jesus. Receive the new life He offers, build your daily life around His presence, and live on mission so others can encounter the same Jesus who changed you.

James closes his letter by calling believers to patience in the middle of pain. Christian patience is not passive waiting. It is a steadfast trust rooted in the promise that Jesus is coming again and will one day make all things right. When life feels unfair, painful, or unresolved, we can establish our hearts in that hope.  James gives us three pictures of patience. The farmer teaches us to trust God’s timing, faithfully tending what has been placed in our hands while leaving the rain to God. The prophets teach us to remain obedient even when obedience brings opposition. Job teaches us to trust God’s character when we cannot understand His hand, resting in the truth that He is compassionate and merciful.  These pictures ultimately lead us to prayer. Prayer is the posture of dependency upon God. It keeps us connected to the Father when we cannot control the outcome, see the answer, or understand the waiting. The circumstances may remain uncertain, but through prayer we can walk with peace, trusting that God is faithful and that His timing is better than our own.

James calls us to examine more than just what comes out of our mouths. Our words have power to build up or tear down, but they also reveal what is happening beneath the surface. The tongue becomes an indicator of the inner life, exposing the source of the wisdom, desires, and loyalties shaping us.  From our words, James moves deeper into our wisdom and our wants. Wisdom from below is marked by selfish ambition, jealousy, and disorder, while wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, merciful, and sincere. Our conflicts reveal the desires warring within us, and unchecked desires can slowly pull our allegiance away from God and toward a world organized apart from Him.  The answer is not simply better behavior, but surrender: submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your heart, and humble yourself. Because Jesus first humbled Himself and gave Himself for us, we can surrender our words, wisdom, wants, worldliness, and will to Him.

James confronts the difference between a faith that is merely professed and a faith that is truly alive. Paul and James are not presenting competing gospels. Salvation is by grace through faith, but genuine faith does not remain empty. A living faith begins to produce visible evidence through obedience, mercy, sacrifice, and surrender.  Dead faith can hear the Word without changing, sympathize without sacrificing, know theology without truly knowing God, and recognize His authority without submitting to it. James warns that even correct belief by itself is not enough. The question is whether that belief has begun to reshape the way we actually live.  Living faith moves in the opposite direction. It submits to Jesus and produces progressive change. It serves others with mercy, places what we love on the altar, and ultimately surrenders every area of life to Christ. The goal is not perfection, but direction: a life increasingly brought under the authority of Jesus. The question James leaves us with is simple: Is your faith dead or alive?

In the opening chapter of James, trials and temptations reveal two very different paths. Trials can become places where God tests and strengthens our faith, producing steadfastness and spiritual maturity. Temptation, however, draws us through disordered desires toward sin and ultimately death. The wisdom of God teaches us how to recognize the difference and respond faithfully.  Our instinct is often to escape pressure as quickly as possible, but the pressure of a trial may be the very thing God is using to form something deeper within us. Instead of only asking God to remove the difficulty, James invites us to look beyond the pain and recognize what God may be producing through it.  When temptation comes, wisdom also calls us to look within and identify the desires, patterns, and behaviors that repeatedly lure us toward sin. Finally, James directs our eyes above, reminding us that every good and perfect gift comes from a Father who does not change. We can navigate trials and temptation by looking ahead, looking within, and fixing our eyes on Jesus.

In this message from Summer In The Psalms, Psalm 57 gives language for the moments when life feels dark and God seems distant. David writes while hiding from Saul in a cave, but he refuses to confuse the security of the cave with the sanctuary of God Himself. Instead of placing his ultimate refuge in isolation, control, or self-protection, he declares that his soul takes refuge in God.  Fear continually reminds us of everything we do not know, but worship turns our attention toward the Father who knows all things and can accomplish all things. Worship is more than music; it is the act of drawing close to God, remembering His character, and trusting His loving kindness and truth even while the darkness remains.  The invitation of Psalm 57 is not to pretend the cave is gone, but to learn how to see within it. Sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes He meets us in the middle of it. Either way, His children do not have to remain paralyzed by fear. Through faith in Jesus, we can remember who our Father is, remember who we are in Him, and worship our way through the dark.

In this message from Summer In The Psalms, Psalm 46 declares that God is our refuge, our strength, and our very present help in trouble. Life, temptation, fear, and spiritual opposition can come from every direction, but there is always somewhere to run. That refuge is not found in personal effort, success, security, or self-reliance. It is found in Jesus.  God’s presence gives His people the confidence to say, “Therefore we will not fear.” Fear may come when the earth gives way, plans fall apart, jobs are lost, or diagnoses arrive, but those moments become opportunities to remember who our refuge is. The God who created the universe is present, His purposes cannot be stopped, and His strength is available when ours is gone.  Jesus is not only our refuge in this life, but also our refuge in the life to come. His sacrifice secured redemption once and for all, and His finished work—not our own merit—is the reason we can stand before God. The invitation of Psalm 46 is simple: come and see what the Lord has done, and run to Him as your refuge, strength, and present help.

In this message from Summer In The Psalms, Psalm 13 gives permission to come before God with complete honesty. David does not hide his pain, frustration, fear, or questions. He brings them directly to the Lord, showing that faith is not a performance and that God does not require polished language or artificial praise.  Hardship can create deep questions about God’s goodness, presence, and faithfulness. Instead of ignoring those questions or pretending everything is fine, Psalm 13 presents a healthier path: bring the pain to God, be honest about it, make the request, and continue seeking Him. God will not heal what remains hidden, but He meets His people in the places they are willing to bring into the light.  The movement of Psalm 13 goes from “How long?” to renewed trust in God’s steadfast love. Honest wrestling does not have to destroy faith; it can deepen and strengthen it. The hardest moments of life can become the places where God does His deepest work, producing a faith that is genuine, tested, and rooted in Jesus.

In this message from Summer In The Psalms, Psalm 81 confronts the gap between wanting God’s help and allowing God to rule our lives. Israel celebrated His miracles and provision, yet repeatedly turned toward other loves. Their deepest problem was not a lack of information, but a heart that desired other things more than the God who had rescued them.  The same tension continues today. Our desires are constantly being shaped by social media, advertising, politics, work, entertainment, and the people around us. Even good gifts, success, family, health, security, and comfort, can become disordered loves when they are placed above God. Reordering our loves does not mean caring less about those gifts; it means loving God more so that everything else can be loved in its proper place.  Psalm 81 closes with the promise of the finest wheat and honey from the rock, a picture of the satisfaction found in God alone. Jesus remained faithful in the wilderness, carried our stubbornness and idolatry to the cross, rose again, and now gives His Spirit to reshape our desires. Even in the hardest places, the sweetness of the gospel remains: nothing can separate us from Him.

In this message from Summer In The Psalms, Psalm 131 reveals where true soul satisfaction is found. While the world continually promises fulfillment through achievement, possessions, success, comfort, and control, every finish line eventually moves. More options and more convenience have not produced more peace.  David describes a heart free from pride, eyes free from arrogance, and a life no longer consumed with things beyond its calling. This is not complacency, but humble contentment: faithfully moving toward what God has called us to while remaining satisfied in Him today. Even the waiting room is not wasted, because God is always working while His people wait. Like a weaned child resting securely with a parent, the soul can become quiet in the presence of God—known, loved, protected, and held even when circumstances remain unsettled. Lasting soul satisfaction is found by placing our hope in the Lord now and forever.

In this message from Summer In The Psalms, Psalm 20 is preached as a battle prayer for the day of trouble. The psalm contrasts trust in visible power — chariots and horses — with trust in the name of the Lord. The deeper question running through the sermon is simple and searching: what or who have you been quietly trusting to save you?  The message names the modern “chariots” people lean on every day: money, success, image, relationships, security, control, status, and comfort. These things may be gifts, but they cannot bear the weight of the soul. When they become more than tools, they become false saviors.  Psalm 20 is then read through the lens of Jesus as the true King who entered the day of trouble, walked toward the cross, rose from the grave, and now gives His people the only name that saves. The call of the sermon is to stop trusting in what cannot hold you and to stand firm in the name of the Lord.