📖 New sermon The Teacher Who Is Mercy Itself 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. Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/tIyrLMGH8MI 🎧 Listen: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stjohnrandomlake/episodes/The-Teacher-Who-Is-Mercy-Itself-Trinity-4-2026-e3lerb0 🔗 https://sjrl.org/the-teacher-who-is-mercy-itself-trinity-4-2026/

📖 New sermon “Cursed on the tree so the barren tree could live.” Friday of Trinity 3 (observed) 2026 A fig tree in full leaf promises fruit and has none. Jesus walks from the cursed tree into a temple just as green—a house of prayer turned into a market—and James names it a third time: a church that seats the poor man at the footstool. All leaves, no figs. But the Lord of glory is hanged on a tree and made a curse in the barren tree’s place. He becomes the poor man so the poor man can be seated in glory, and He is Himself the new house of prayer where you are welcomed and fed. Living faith receives Him, and the figs follow—not to be saved, but because the tree is alive. Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/V3v9E2U0bxo 🎧 Listen: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stjohnrandomlake/episodes/Cursed-on-the-tree-so-the-barren-tree-could-live--Friday-of-Trinity-3-observed-2026-e3l92jp 🔗 https://sjrl.org/cursed-on-the-tree-friday-of-trinity-3-observed-2026/

📖 New sermon “He isn’t using a club. It is a broom. He’s sweeping you home.” Trinity 3 2026 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 answers the charge that He receives sinners with the lost sheep and the lost coin—lighting the lamp of His Word, laying the sheep on His own shoulders rejoicing, carrying you to the rail. You came in a lost coin and go out treasure in the King’s own hand. Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/fLtWSNtVpEY 🎧 Listen: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stjohnrandomlake/episodes/Trinity-3-2026-e3l4mlf 🔗 https://sjrl.org/he-isnt-using-a-club-it-is-a-broom-hes-sweeping-you-home-trinity-3-2026/

📖 New biblestudy Jeremiah Chapter 4–5 — The Foe from the North The Lord sends Jeremiah running through Jerusalem to find one righteous man so the city may be pardoned—and finds none. The foe gathers from the north and Jeremiah’s vision unmakes creation itself over a people wise to do evil. The one Just Man is found at last outside the walls, and for His sake the city is spared. Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/q4Lt-hEPfNc 🎧 Listen: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stjohnrandomlake/episodes/Jeremiah-Chapter-4-5-e3l4jrl 🔗 https://sjrl.org/jeremiah-chapter-4-5-bible-study-june-21-2026/

📖 New sermon There's Always More Where That Came From 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 God's mercy runs out like 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. Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/3HntNRng2I8 🎧 Listen: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stjohnrandomlake/episodes/Theres-Always-More-Where-That-Came-From-Friday-of-Trinity-2-observed--June-17--2026-e3kv777 🔗 https://sjrl.org/theres-always-more-where-that-came-from-friday-of-trinity-2-observed-2026/

Dan barely does any social media. I think he prefers Instagram and occasionally responds on X. I’m a weirdo.

Thanks for the shoutout. It’s been a long labor of love.

📖 New biblestudy Jeremiah: Chapter 3 — Bible Study, June 14, 2026 In Jeremiah 3:1–4:4, the Lord does the legally impossible: He calls back the wife the Law itself would bar from return. Yet mercy overrules statute — "Return, backsliding Israel," He says, "I am merciful." The one condition He names is not penance or probation but honest confession: "Only acknowledge your iniquity." Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/BqQsfTE0ttQ 🎧 Listen: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stjohnrandomlake/episodes/Jeremiah-Chapter-3-e3kpotd 🔗 https://sjrl.org/jeremiah-chapter-3-bible-study-june-14-2026/

📖 New sermon "Blessed are you who eats bread in the Kingdom of God now!" Trinity 2 2026 A man sitting next to Jesus says it will be blessed to eat bread in the kingdom of God — someday. Jesus answers with a supper that is ready now. Three guests excuse themselves with fields, oxen, and a wife; where the fear of God dies, the Giver is ranked below His gifts, and the feast goes untasted. The master throws the doors wider and fills the hall with the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind — those with empty hands and no reason to refuse. Come, for all things are now ready. Read it: ▶️ Watch: https://youtu.be/oEZjwQAynD0 🎧 Listen: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4V6UP1pqPJdm5xeHNLtWYl 🔗 https://sjrl.org/blessed-are-you-who-eats-bread-in-the-kingdom-of-god-now-trinity-2-2026/

Ivan Karamazov cannot believe, as long as one child is in torment; Camus’ hero cannot accept the divinity of Christ, because of the massacre of the innocents. In this popular pity, we mark our gain in sensibility and our loss in vision. If other ages felt less, they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber. --Flannery O'Connor