Awaken Church

You can be grateful and still miss Jesus. In week 3 of Turn Back, we look at the one man out of ten who stopped, turned around, and found something the other nine walked right past.

A blind beggar on the Jericho road cries out for mercy, throws off his only covering before he can see, and follows Jesus on the way to the cross. In Week 2 of Turn Back, we walk the road with Bartimaeus and discover that getting helped and being changed are not the same thing.

Most of us aren’t ungrateful on purpose. We’re just in motion. This week we start Turn Back with ten men who stood far off, a dinner party that went sideways, and the thank-you note most of us have never written.

What if the voice of God is not reserved for a select few, but is already speaking directly to each of us? In this message drawn from John 10, we are confronted with one of the most personal and powerful truths in all of Scripture: Jesus says his sheep hear his voice. Not the most devoted sheep, not the most experienced sheep, not the sheep who have it all together. His sheep. That means us. We explore what it looks like to stop outsourcing our connection with God to others and start recognizing that we were never meant to receive his voice secondhand. Through the vivid imagery of a shepherd who calls his own by name, we are reminded that God does not shout instructions from a distance. He goes ahead of us, leads us, and finds us even when we have been cast out or have wandered far. The central question this message places before us is not whether God is speaking, but whether we have become familiar enough with his voice to recognize it when he does.

What do you do when God feels silent and your prayers seem to hit the ceiling? Through Job's suffering and God's surprising response, this message calls us to lay down our case, trust the One who's answering, and find in Jesus everything we need.

You keep telling yourself that God's gone quiet, but what if the silence was never His?

Saul was certain he had God figured out...until Jesus interrupted him on the road to Damascus and proved that conviction isn't proof of being right. This week, we're asking the harder question: are you willing to hear God's voice even when it costs you your comfort, control, and certainty?

God met Moses in an ordinary wilderness field and made it holy ground. In Christ, God's presence goes with us, which makes the kitchen sink, the classroom, and the cubicle holy ground too. God calls us out of safety into surrender, and when we ask "Who am I?", the great I AM answers, "I will be with you."

Is your salt still in the shaker? God keeps placing open doors in front of you, but they close fast. Colossians 4:5-6 has a practical framework for sharing your faith in a way that feels natural, honest, and real. Stop. Ask. Listen. Tell the truth. Gospel fluency isn't about having the perfect words. It's about showing up.

You can quote the whole Bible on loving your neighbor and still not know the name of the person who lives fifty feet from your front door.