Biblical · Confessional · Liturgical · Sacramental
Delivering Christ Jesus
and His Gifts for You
A confessional Lutheran parish and school in Random Lake, Wisconsin — gathered around Word and Sacrament since 1855.
Sundays at 9:30 a.m. · Divine Service
Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. · Divine Service
Our Church
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church in Random Lake, WI gathers at Sherman Center to receive Christ’s gifts of Word and Sacrament. We are a confessional, liturgical congregation of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, faithful to the Scriptures and the Book of Concord. Visitors are always welcome.
Our School
St. John Ev. Lutheran School in Random Lake has served families with Christ-centered education since 1855. Children grow in the faith through daily catechesis, the liturgical life of the parish, and a rich academic curriculum rooted in the Lutheran tradition.
Sermons, Catechesis & News
Recent sermons, Bible studies, and articles from St. John.
- Jeremiah Chapters 11–12
This week the preacher becomes the sufferer. Jeremiah announces the covenant curse (Jer. 11:3) and then learns that the men of his own hometown have marked him for death (Jer. 11:21). Three handings-over run through these chapters: Judah handed over to the curse she chose, Jeremiah handed over like a docile lamb brought to the slaughter (Jer. 11:19), and God’s own dearly beloved of My soul handed over into enemy hands (Jer. 12:7). When Jeremiah asks the oldest question, why do the wicked prosper, the answer isn’t information. It’s a warning that the running gets harder, from the God who has run it Himself. - “He Was Faithful the Whole Time You Were Not” Trinity 9 2026Jesus tells the parable of the unjust steward immediately after the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Johann Gerhard saw why: Christ knows how easily we misuse that teaching for carnal security, taking the sweetest thing God ever said and turning it into a permission slip. Paul answers that man with a desert full of graves. Israel was baptized into Moses, ate the same spiritual food, drank from the Rock that was Christ, and two of them reached the Promised Land. The warning lands on the man who thinks he stands. So does the promise: God is faithful, the way of escape has an address, and the door behind you was never bolted.
- “Holiness Runs Down from God and Never Back Up” Friday of Trinity 8 (observed) 2026The men haggling in the temple courtyard knew which oaths could be collected on. Swear by the gold and you’re bound; swear by the temple and you can walk away. Jesus calls that blindness: holiness runs down from God to the thing and never back up, and the temple is holy only for Him who dwells in it. We do the same arithmetic with our years and our giving, wanting a righteousness we can audit. But the altar was holy before you got here, and the gift on it is Christ’s own body and blood.
- Jeremiah Chapter 10This week’s class takes up Jeremiah 10, the prophet’s longest satire on idols: a god cut from a tree, dressed in silver, nailed down so it will not topple (Jer. 10:4), a scarecrow in a cucumber field, carried because it cannot walk. Over against it stands the true God, the living God and the everlasting King (Jer. 10:10), who needs no carrying but carries His people (Isa. 46:3–7). Which direction the carrying runs is the whole difference between idolatry and the Gospel.
- “You Were Carried Through the Door Before You Could Walk” Eighth Sunday after Trinity 2026Two cries stand side by side in this Sunday’s readings: “Lord, Lord” and “Abba, Father.” The first belongs to an applicant outside the office door with his accomplishments in a folder; the second to a child who never wondered whether he was allowed in the house. Jesus doesn’t dispute the applicants’ resume. He disputes that it ever mattered. What every false prophet wants is to turn sons back into applicants.
