Preaching and Teaching from St. John Ev. Lutheran Church (Sherman Center), Random Lake, Wisconsin

Join the congregation of St. John in prayer each day at 9 a.m. CST. We meet as a congregation for Divine Service each Sunday at 9:30 a.m., Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., and on festival days, where God serves us with His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.WEBSITE: https://sjrl.org SUPPORT: https://sjrl.org/donate SERVICE BULLETINS: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1omip_adCkH9LlnL8LXWUWdYG-tMl-VXg&usp=drive_fs LINKS: https://linktr.ee/stjohnrandomlake 

You have been somebody's disciple since the day you were born, and Jesus warns that you never rise above your teacher — given enough time, you simply become him. The world is a blind guide that trains us to judge first and forgive slowly, and we have become blind guides ourselves, reaching for the speck in a brother's eye with a plank in our own. But there is another Teacher: Jesus is the Father's mercy in the flesh, who takes our score-keeping heart to the cross and trains us in Baptism, Word, Absolution, and the Supper until we begin to look like Him.

Acts 15:1–21 (NKJV)1 And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question.3 So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren. 4 And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders; and they reported all things that God had done with them. 5 But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”6 Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. 7 And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, 9 and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. 10 Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? 11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”12 Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. 13 And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: 14 Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written:16 ‘After this I will returnAnd will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down;I will rebuild its ruins,And I will set it up;17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,Even all the Gentiles who are called by My name,Says the Lord who does all these things.’18 “Known to God from eternity are all His works. 19 Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, 20 but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. 21 For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

READINGMatthew 9:14–26 (NKJV)14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”18 While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” 19 So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples.20 And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. 21 For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” 22 But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.23 When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, 24 He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. 25 But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. 26 And the report of this went out into all that land.READINGIsaiah 23:6–14 (NKJV)6 Cross over to Tarshish;Wail, you inhabitants of the coastland!7 Is this your joyous city,Whose antiquity is from ancient days,Whose feet carried her far off to dwell?8 Who has taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city,Whose merchants are princes,Whose traders are the honorable of the earth?9 The Lord of hosts has purposed it,To bring to dishonor the pride of all glory,To bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.10 Overflow through your land like the River,O daughter of Tarshish;There is no more strength.11 He stretched out His hand over the sea,He shook the kingdoms;The Lord has given a commandment against CanaanTo destroy its strongholds.12 And He said, “You will rejoice no more,O you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon.Arise, cross over to Cyprus;There also you will have no rest.”13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans,This people which was not;Assyria founded it for wild beasts of the desert.They set up its towers,They raised up its palaces,And brought it to ruin.14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish!For your strength is laid waste.

Matthew 9:9–13 (NKJV)9 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.10 Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

The First Commandment is not chiefly about the gods we refuse to build, but about the trust of the heart: whatever it clings to in the day of trouble is its god. Jerusalem clung to its walls and its waters and never looked to the Maker, and when God called it to mourning it answered with a feast and the creed of the hopeless — eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. To such hardened impenitence the Law can only speak its terror: no atonement, even to death. Yet atonement is precisely the word the Gospel speaks, for the Maker we would not look to was numbered among the slain outside the wall, and His blood purges the sin no ox or sheep could cover. So the fatalist’s table is overturned at the altar, where we eat and drink not because tomorrow we die but because He died that we might live.

A fig tree in full leaf promises fruit and has none. Jesus curses it, then walks into a temple just as green — crowded, busy, alive to the eye — and finds the same thing: a house of prayer turned into a market, all show and no figs. James names it a third time: a church that seats the rich man in the good place and the poor man at the footstool. Leaves without fruit. Dead faith — the kind the demons have, who believe and tremble.But the cure is not "grow your figs or be cursed too" — that is only the curse again. The Lord of glory is hanged on a tree and made a curse in the barren tree's place. He becomes the poor man in the filthy clothes so the poor man can be seated in glory; He becomes Himself the new house of prayer for all nations, where the outsider is welcomed and fed and never sent to the footstool. Living faith receives Him — and the figs follow, not to be saved, but because the tree is finally alive.Texts: Mark 11:11–23 and James 2:1–9. Preached at St. John Ev. Lutheran Church and School, Sherman Center — Random Lake, Wisconsin.

June 22, 2026

June 23, 2026

The religious men accused Jesus—“This Man receives sinners and eats with them”—and He took it up as His glory, answering with the lost sheep and the lost coin. The affliction that sweeps through your life is not a club driving you out but a broom sweeping you home: His pursuit, not your punishment. He lights the lamp of His Word, finds the worn coin that still bears His image, lays the sheep on His own shoulders rejoicing, and carries you to the rail. You came in a lost coin; you go out treasure in the King’s own hand.

June 22, 2026

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June 19, 2026

June 18, 2026

For twelve years, she had been unclean — exiled from the assembly, emptied by physicians who took everything and healed nothing. So she comes to steal a cure from the fringe of Jesus' garment, certain that God's mercy runs out as everything else has. But His power goes out from Him, and nothing is subtracted: she came to take a cure and leaves a daughter. There is always more where that came from.

June 17, 2026

June 16, 2026

June 15, 2026

Jesus is not condemning farming, buying or selling, or marriage. Fields, oxen, and wives are gifts of God, given from His own hand. Abraham had fields. Jacob had livestock past counting. God Himself instituted marriage in Eden. The sin is not in the things. The sin is in the ranking. Each man looked at the gift in his hand and the Giver at his door, and he feared losing the gift more than he feared the Giver.

June 14, 2026

June 13, 2026

June 12, 2026

The Lord’s Supper is not given to profitable servants who have earned a seat. It is given to unprofitable ones. Given precisely where the Law has done its work — where you know you have been the scandal, where you know your forgiveness came out thin and grudging, where your faith on its best day is the size of a mustard seed. “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:5).

June 11, 2026

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June 7, 2026

June 7, 2026

June 6, 2026

June 5, 2026

June 4, 2026

The font is where Nicodemus's question died. Where the Sadducees' question died. You went into that water still carrying the old premise — still asking what resurrection could possibly mean, still uncertain whether the age to come is anything more than this age with the dying removed. And you came out having been given something you did not generate, extra nos, outside yourself, from the One whose Name was spoken over you. The Holy Spirit begot you. The old Adam did not survive. You are already a son of the resurrection before you have died — not because of what you brought to the water, but because of whose Name is on you.

June 3, 2026

June 2, 2026

You look, and you live. You do not first understand, and then live. The teacher came carrying everything he knew and was handed two things he could do nothing with: a birth he could not perform and a cross he could only behold. And even the looking is not the last small work left to his credit — the eyes that turn to the lifted Son are opened by the same Spirit who blows where He wills, the birth of water and the Spirit, not of the will of the flesh, not of any man's deciding. It is given the whole way down.

June 1, 2026

May 30, 2026

May 29, 2026

He is coming upon you, by His Spirit. He is drawing you with the net of His Word. And He is doing more than draw you — He is making His home in you. 

May 28, 2026

May 27, 2026

May 26, 2026

May 25, 2026

Catechesis Handouts: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pZdcXSqajaj87tLsZPrMEaBw-n8gDQUT&usp=drive_fs

He who scattered at Babel gathers here at Pentecost. He who divided the tongues there of evil, now unites them here for good. The same Spirit. The same fire. At Babel, God came down and scattered. At Pentecost, God came down to gather, and He gathered by preaching. Not by making the nations speak one language. By making the one Gospel spoken in every language. Every tongue heard the same thing: the Spirit gives you the peace Christ bought.

May 23, 2026

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May 21, 2026