Summit Ridge Sermon Podcast

The Book of James: "Living Like the Church: Do What It Says!"

March 17, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
 
I CAN’T ANGER MY WAY TO RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS! 
 
James 1:19-21
 
“Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.” -Aristotle
 
Proverbs 17:28
 
“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person…But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 
I CAN’T FAKE MY WAY TO RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS
 
James 1:22-26
 
To serve one another by following the example of Jesus Christ ensuring others are seen, heard, valued, and cared for as deeply valued members of God’s family and this church. 
 
1 Peter 4:8-11
 
I CAN OBEY MY WAY TO RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS
 
James 1:27
 
“The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.” -David Brooks
 
(NET)
 

The Book of James: "Living Like the Church: Our Training Ground"

March 10, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker 
 
James 1:9-18
Galatians 3:28-29
 
(NET)

The Book of James: "Living Like the Church: Wanting Godly Wisdom"

March 3, 2024
Associate Pastor Eric Burch
James 1:5-8 NASB
 
What does the Bible mean by Wisdom?
Luke 2:52 
Matthew 13:54
Acts 7:22 
1 Kings 3:9
1 Kings 3:11-12
 
What does James say here about God?
James 1:5
Psalms 103:8
Matthew 7:9-11
Matthew 7:7-8
 
What does James say about our sincerity?
 
James 1:6-8
Matthew 21:20-22 
John 17:20-21
Colossians 2:6 
 
(NASB 2020)
 
 

The Book of James: "Living Like the Church: The Long Haul"

February 25, 2024
Associate Pastor Louise Waller
 
James 1:1-4
Trials of many kinds
 …To Test Our Faith
Hebrews 12:1-3
“…Let us run with…"
"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when you get diagnosed with cancer or when you haveto declare bankruptcy or when you just lost your job or when you just got serveddivorce papers. How we think about tests and challenges will determine the outcomethey produce in our lives. Tests and challenges can utterly ruin people or renovate them.We are not to be broken by the trials but broken by God in the midst of trials. To bebroken by God means to be healed of our sick and willful ways of dealing with life. To bebroken by God means to finally come to the place where we can admit that we do nothave what it takes; that we have exhausted our resources, are at the end of our rope,and that we are poor in spirit. It means to finally be brought to the place where we areready for an entirely new way of living life—God’s way, filled with God’s power,moment by moment. This is how our faith is perfected."  -J.D. WaltReward: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness,Gentleness, Self-Control1 Peter 1:3-7
 
(NIV)
 

Seven Challenges of the Church: "Playing Church Instead of Being Church"

February 18, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
"I believe that every Christian ought to be joined to some visible church; that is his plain duty, according to the Scriptures. God’s people are not dogs, else they might go about one by one; but they are sheep, and therefore they should be in flocks." -Charles Spurgeon
“The Church needs more people willing to wash feet, not just point out they're dirty or complain that they smell.” -Mark Hart
 
 
Revelation 3:14-22
 
 
"Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress. The contented soul is the stagnant soul." -A.W. Tozer"We need to repent of the haughty way in which we sometimes stand in judgment upon Scripture and must learn to sit humbly under its judgments instead. If we come to Scripture with our minds made up, expecting to hear from it only an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God's, then indeed he will not speak to us and we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices. We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior." -John Stott
 
(NET)
 

The Seven Challenges of the Church: "Remaining Devoted to Jesus"

February 11, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
“Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as “a place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” -Philipp Yancey
 
Revelation 3:7-13
 
(NET)
 
 

Seven Challenges of the Church: "The Dangers of Complacency"

February 4, 2024
Associate Pastor Eric Burch
 
Joel 2:12-13
Revelation 3:1-6 
Revelation 3:1
James 2:14-17 
Revelation 2:2-3 
Mathew 10:22 
Revelation 3:4 
Revelation 3:5-6 
 
(NASB 2020)
 
 

Seven Challenges of the Church: "Following the False Prophets"

January 28, 2024
Associate Pastor Eric Burch
 
Revelation 2:18-19
Revelation 2:20
1 Kings 16:30-32
Joshua 1:8 
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Revelation 2:21-23
Revelation 1:16
Matthew 18:6
Revelation 2:24-29 
Psalm 2:4-9
Matthew 13:41-43
(NASB)
 

Seven Challenges of the Church: "Behaving Like the World"

January 21, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
(Due to technical difficulties, approximately the first three minutes were not recorded.)
 
 
“As I look around on Sunday morning at the people populating the pews, I see the risk that God has assumed. For whatever reason, God now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire, not even through the physical body of his Son in Galilee, but through the mongrel collection that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in God’s name." -Philip Yancy
 
“Persecution for Christians is not a possibility, it's a promise, it's not a maybe, it's a surely! Following Jesus can mean finding the trouble you've been looking for!” -Kingsley Opuwari Manuel: 
 
Revelation 2:12-17
 
Matthew 15:11
 
“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,..." -CS Lewis
 
(NET)
 

Seven Challenges of the Church: "Suffering For Doing the Right Thing"

January 14, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker 
 
“The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.” -John Calvin
 
Psalm 94:3-7
 
Revelation 2:8-11
 
“Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous.” -Tim Keller
 
“Persecution for Christians is not a possibility, it's a promise, it's not a maybe, it's a surely! Following Jesus can mean finding the trouble you've been looking for!” -Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
 
1 Peter 5:10
 
Hebrews 10:25
 
(NET)