Summit Ridge Sermon Podcast

"The Barren Fig Tree"

March 23, 2025
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
Luke 13:1-9
 
"Sin a little thing? It put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. If you could weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would run from it as from a serpent and abhor the slightest appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Savior, and you will see it to be ‘sinful beyond measure.’ " -Unknown
 
“What is sin? It is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised. The truth of God not sought. The wisdom of God not esteemed. The beauty of God not treasured. The goodness of God not savored. The faithfulness of God not trusted. The commandments of God not obeyed. The justice of God not respected. The wrath of God not feared. The grace of God not cherished. The presence of God not prized. The person of God not loved. That is sin.” - John Piper
 
Romans 3:20-23
 
"Am I really what I ought to be? Am I what, in the bottom of my heart, I honestly wish to be? Am I living a life at all like what I myself approve? My secret nature, the true complexion of my character, is hidden from all men, and only I know it. Is it such as I should be willing to show? Is my soul at all like what my kindest and most intimate friends believe? Is my heart at all such as I should wish the Searcher of Hearts to judge me by? Is every year adding to my devotion, to my unselfishness, to my conscientiousness, to my freedom from the hypocrisy of seeming so much better than I am? When I compare myself with last year, am I more ready to surrender myself at the call of duty? Am I more alive to the commands of conscience? have I shaken off my besetting sins?”  -Fredrick Templeton
 
(NET)
 
 
 

"Fearless"

March 16, 2025
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
“Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault- finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.” -NT Wright
 
"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." -Carl Jung
“To be found is to be exposed. No wonder so many of us are still lost.” -Craig D. Lounsbrough
 
Psalm 27 
 
“The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands”Till we Have faces: “The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” -Martin Luther
“Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely. ... He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken.” -Dieter F. Uchtdorf
 
Psalm 42:11
 
(NET)
 

"The Land of Milk and Honey"

March 9, 2025
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
 
“...the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it. ... It is through her liturgical life that the Church reveals to us something of that which "the ear has not heard, the eye has not seen, and what has not yet entered the heart of man, but which God has prepared for those who love Him." And in the center of that liturgical life, as its heart and climax, as the sun whose rays penetrate everywhere, stands Pascha.” -Alexander Schmemann
“I imagine Lent for you and for me as a great departure from the greedy, anxious anti-neighborliness of our economy, a great departure from our exclusionary politics that fears the other, a great departure from self-indulgent consumerism that devours creation. And then an arrival in a new neighborhood, because it is a gift to be simple, it is a gift to be free; it is a gift to come down where we ought to be.”  -Walter Brueggemann
 
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
 
"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back." -CS Lewis
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” -CS Lewis
 
Exodus 3:17
 
Isaiah 32:18
 
(NET)
 

Jesus REVEALED: "LISTEN!"

March 2, 2025
Associate Pastor Eric Burch
 
Discipleship Comes at a Cost
Luke 9:22-26
 
But Our Future is in Glory
Luke 9:27-31
1 Corinthians 15:42-44
Deuteronomy 18:15
Malachi 4:5-6
Luke 9:32
 
If We Listen
Luke. 9:33-36
Matthew 7:24-27
John 10:27-28 
John 14:25-26
 
(NASB 2020)
 

Jesus REVEALED: "Here Am I, Send Me"

February 23, 2025
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
“God reveals himself, that is, in creation and in Christ, in ways we can see and hear and touch and taste, in place and person. Beauty is the term we apply to these hints of transcendence, these perceptions that there is more going on here than we can account for. And that is how we come to identify as apostles of the gospel the men and women and, yes, children, who use words and images and sounds and textures to wake us up to beauty latent and implicit all around us.”“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” -Eugene Peterson
"...to think that creation resulted by accident is like thinking that Webster's unabridged dictionary resulted from an explosion in a print shop" -Albert Einstein
 
Jesus reveals himself through a personal ENCOUNTER...
 
Isaiah 6:1-4
Jeremiah 4:1-10
 
"Our Christian life began not with our decision to follow Christ but with God's call to us to do so." -John Stott
 
which EVOKES a response…  (
 
Isaiah 6:5-7
 
“Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked.” -Peter Kreeft
 
and ENCOURAGES a decision to follow Him.  
 
Isaiah 6:8
 
“Run to and fro everywhere, holy fires, beautiful fires; for you are the light of the world, nor are you put under a bushel. He whom you cleave unto is exalted and has exalted you. Run to and fro and be known unto all nations.” -Augustine
 
“One thing I have observed in all my years of ministry is that the most effective and important aspects of evangelism usually take place on an individual, personal level. Most people do not come to Christ as an immediate response to a sermon they hear in a crowded setting. They come to Christ because of the influence of an individual.” -John MacArthur
 
 

Jesus REVEALED: "God's True Test"

Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
February 16, 2025
 
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” -John Milton
 
WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE 
 
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
 
WE ALL HAVE A CONDITION
 
Jeremiah 17:9
Jeremiah 17:1-4
Romans 7:15-20
 
“What does it mean to harden your heart? It means to see clear evidence of the hand of God at work and still refuse to accept His Word and submit to His will. It means to resist Him by showing ingratitude and disobedience and not having any fear of the Lord or of His judgments. Hardhearted people say with Pharaoh, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice?” "...The same sun that melts the ice also hardens the clay. It all depends on the nature of the material." -Warren Wiersbe
 
WE ARE OFFERED A CURE
 
Jeremiah 17:10
 
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH: Great faith is the product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests. Great triumphs can only come out of great trials." -John Milton
 
 
(NET)
 

Jesus REVEALED: "True Love's Reward"

Associate Pastor Louise Waller
February 9, 2025
 
Jesus Reveals God
 
Genesis 45:3-6, 15
 
Luke 6:27-38
 
 

Jesus REVEALED: "Unwelcome at Home"

February 2, 2025
Associate Pastor Eric Burch
 
Luke 19:8-10
 
Luke 4:21-30
 
God is the only True God and Jesus died so that all can experience Salvation
 
1 Kings 17:24
 
2 Kings 5:15
 
God is Sovereign and He can do as He pleases.
 
Exodus 33:19
 
By doing Good Works among the Gentiles, God is trying to bring the Jews back to Himself.
 
Romans 9:1-5
 
(NASB2020)
 

Jesus REVEALED: "Healing the Broken"

Associate Pastor Eric Burch
January 26, 2025
 
Luke. 4:14-21
Luke 4:1
Luke 2:46-47
Luke 4:18
Luke 6:20
Romans 7:21-24
2 Corinthians 4:3-4
Luke 4:19
Luke. 4:20-21
 
(NASB-2020)
 

Jesus REVEALED: "The First Miracle"

January 19, 2025
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
John 2:1-11
Psalm 36:5-10
 
(NET)