Summit Ridge Sermon Podcast

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)
 

Seven Challenges of the Church: ”Forgetting Why We Do What We Do”

January 7, 2024
Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker
 
Revelation 2: 1-7
(NET)

The Book of Psalms: ”Praise God!”

December 31, 2023
 
Associate Pastor Louise Waller
Associate Pastor Eric Burch
Millie Ethier
Worship Pastor Deborah Murphy
Lead Pastor Dan Acker
 
Psalm 148 (NET)

Advent: ”The Coming of Love”

December 24, 2023
Associate Pastor Justin Brunenkant
 
Psalm 96:1-13
(NKJV)

Advent: ”The Coming of Joy”

Associate Pastor Eric Burch
December 17, 2023
James 3:13-17 NET
 
Which Do You Want To Be?
 
Psalm 126:1-6
Psalm 126:1-3
Daniel 4:3
Isaiah 61:1-4 (NIV)
Psalm 126:4-6
 
Which Do You Want To Be?
 
Romans 5:8
“Let our hearts gratefully remember the lovingkindness of the Lord; we were sadly low, sorely depressed, and completely past hope, but when Jehovah appeared He did not merely lift us out of depression, He raised us into wonderful happiness. The Lord does nothing in halves; those whom He saves from Hell He brings to heaven. He turns exile into ecstasy and banishment into bliss.” -Charles Spurgeon.
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
 
(NET)
 

Advent: ”The Coming of Peace”

December 10, 2023
Associate Pastor Louise Waller
 
Psalm 91:1-16
John 14:27
Luke 2:14
 
The Peace
Romans 8:1
 
The Veil
 Hebrews 6:19-20
 
Shalom
John 16:33
Hebrews 2:14-15
 
At War for Peace
"A repentant sinner beset again by the devil will ask himself, “How can God love me and bless me?” But as he looks at Christ dying on the cross, buried, and rising again, he says, ‘I know he loves me. I cannot understand it but I know he does. He has done that for me.’ It is not mere sentiment or feeling; he has solid facts of history to prove that God loves him. God does not merely tell us that he loves us, he has given the most amazing proof of it. Nothing is more wonderful than to know that God loves you; and no man can truly know that God loves him except in Jesus Christ and him crucified." -Matthew Henry
 
"Approach, my soul, the mercy seat, where Jesus answers prayer; there humbly fall before his feet, for none can perish there. Bowed down beneath a load of sin, by Satan sorely pressed, by wars without and fears within, I come to Thee for rest. Be thou my shield and hiding place, that sheltered near thy side, I may my fierce accuser face, and tell him thou has died!" -John Newton
"The devil will try to steal your peace by accusing you of your sins. ‘What can I tell him? I cannot tell him that I am a good man, I cannot tell him about my past or even my present. There is only one way of silencing him; “I can my fierce accuser face, and tell him Thou hast died”. The man who believes vaguely in the love of God cannot do so, for the devil will not listen to him. The man who says ‘I feel happy’ will soon be made unhappy by the devil, for he is more powerful than we are. There is only one thing that the devil can never answer and that is the argument of ‘the blood of Christ saves me’. He will come back again, but you will always be able to silence him, and thus continue in a state of peace." -Unknown
"Peace even when you fall into sin? In Jesus, God has dealt with your sin, once and forever. He is now dealing with your righteousness." -Graham Cooke
Philippians 4:5-7