Fruit of the Foundry

Close your fist around your money, your wife, your kids or your business, and you'll smother the very thing you're trying to hold on to.

We come out of the Sermon on the Mount and into Proverbs 10, one of 31 chapters that can give you "a PhD in everything life" if you read one a day. We talk about praying out loud when you're nervous, where to start reading the Bible, what it really means to love your wife like Christ loved the church, and how a just weight changes the way you run a business.

📖 Read along: Proverbs 10, Proverbs 11:24

Man was created for a purpose. Life is God's foundry. Join us as we seek out the fruit forged in God's own foundry.

#Proverbs #ProverbsTen #ChristianPodcast #FruitOfTheFoundry #Faith

Can you do all the right things (go to church, give, serve) and still hear Jesus say "I never knew you"? It all comes down to what you're building on.

We finish the Sermon on the Mount with Matthew 7:21–29: the wise man who built on the rock and the foolish man who built on sand. We talk about why the trials are the "friction" that binds us to Christ, doing the hard thing and doing that with joy.

📖 Read along: Matthew 7:21–29

Man was created for a purpose. Life is God's foundry. Join us as we seek out the fruit forged in God's own foundry.

#SermonOnTheMount #Matthew7 #ChristianPodcast #FruitOfTheFoundry #Faith

When life falls apart, you pray. When life is going great, do you still? Most of us don't, and that's exactly when pride and comfort creep in.

Back in the (newly upgraded) studio, Jake and Dan pick up the Sermon on the Mount at Matthew 7:12–20 and wrestle with a hard question: how do you win or lose and react the same?

They talk about why success can be a bigger test than a trial, how a brutal stretch at work turned into a reason for joy, and why the hard thing is usually the right thing. T

hen it's the Golden Rule, the narrow gate (which is Jesus BTW, not any one church denomination), and knowing a tree by its fruit, including why you're probably the thorn bush if everyone around you looks like one.

📖 Read along: Matthew 7:12–20

Man was created for a purpose. Life is God's foundry. Join us as we seek out the fruit forged in God's own foundry.

#FruitOfTheFoundry #SermonOnTheMount #ChristianMen #Faith

Two DUIs by 19. Ten days in a jail cell. A family where every gathering started with "where's the closest liquor store?" Luke's story is what happens when grace shows up anyway.

Luke (ultrarunner, builder, husband and adoptive dad) sits down with Jake and Dan to share how the anger from a broken home turned into years of drinking, why getting sober at 21 didn't stick the first time, and how a father-in-law who "chased him down" with the Gospel finally made life make sense. They also get into a seven-year adoption from the Philippines and building a business without losing your family.

Through all of it, Luke keeps coming back to grace: grace for yourself and for the people around you, for your past and your present, because we've been given grace we never deserved. Learning to keep giving it, he says, is what has driven his biggest growth.

Mentioned in this episode:

Wild at Heart by John Eldredge: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400225264

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250183863

Quest 180 addiction recovery at Eagle Brook Church: https://eaglebrookchurch.com/next-steps/find-support/addiction-recovery

Man was created for a purpose. Life is God's foundry. Join us as we seek out the fruit forged in God's own foundry.

#FruitOfTheFoundry #Testimony #Recovery #Grace #ChristianPodcast

You can smell the stink in someone else's house the second you walk in, but never in your own. Jesus says our hearts work the same way.We're back in the Sermon on the Mount with Matthew 7:1–11. We talk about taking the log out of your own eye before going after your brother's speck, why only Jesus can change a heart (even our kids'), how to tell when you're throwing pearls to pigs, and why God's answer to our asking, seeking and knocking is often a loving "not yet." Along the way: Pharaoh's hardened heart, living out faith on a rough-and-tumble work crew, and how to enjoy a Cody Johnson concert at 40.📖 Read along: Matthew 7:1–11📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEExtreme Ownership – Jocko Willink & Leif Babin: https://link.amazon/B02RXp9idFinancial Peace Revisited – Dave Ramsey: https://link.amazon/B0ipn6lSrFinancial Peace University: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/ramseyplus/financial-peace

Every September Spring Valley celebrates Dam Days, and in this show we want you to experience a sample of our community.

After more than 40 of you ran the Dam Mile with us at 6am, Jake and Dan opened the studio to a live audience and sat down with five local men for quick 15-minute conversations. Dan and Jake challenge each guest with questions about their lives and what it has taught them.

Home builder Wyatt Anderson talks about the night in jail that ended his drinking for good, nearly 24 years ago. Adam Johnson of Johnson Hill Customs was baptized last week, and he explains why letting go of old grudges changed his marriage and his business. Airline pilot Fred Jacobs almost skipped his first cold plunge and showed up anyway. High school principal Chris Segerstrom talks about owning your mistakes in front of your staff and putting the "big rocks" on the calendar first. Brant Haglund of Advantage Excavating explains why God sees the compaction under the finished grade.

This episode will encourage you to use whatever God gave you, whether that's fitness, music or a video game night, to get into people's lives. None of us has it figured out. Just keep showing up for your family, friends and your community.

Scripture: Joshua 14:10–11 · Proverbs 3:5–6 · Proverbs 11:1 · 1 Corinthians 12:12–27

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Jesus says don't be anxious. Easy to say, harder to do.

This week Jake and Dan finish up Matthew 6 and talk about what that looks like when you're actually anxious. Anxiety hits everybody differently, so they talk about how it shows up in life and in marriage.

They also cover why you should have that hard conversation you keep putting off, and how taking a breath before you answer can help. Then a question comes up that they argue over: is anxiety ever from God, or is it from the enemy? They use Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane to work it out.

Scripture: Matthew 6:25–34
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You don't grow by staying comfortable. You grow by showing up anyways.

Jake and Dan discuss a hiking trip that fell apart, and while giving up control of the plan felt like failure, their pivot and response to that turned out to be the whole point.

They talk through the difference between chasing a goal and living the journey, why God parts seas we're too fixated on our own plans to notice, and why doing hard things with other people builds a trust nothing else can.

All of this leads to one invitation: we want you to join Jake and Dan for the Dam Mile Experience on September 19th at 6 AM. Walk it, run it, show up and pray -- whatever level you're at, the invitation is to come do the hard thing together.

If you've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for comfort to run out, this one's for you!

Everything you own is going to rust, break, or get left behind. So what's actually worth building?Jake and Dan dive into Matthew 6: if moth and rust destroy everything we chase on earth, what actually lasts? Jake gets honest about the tension of pouring into his wife, his three boys, and his business -- which has meant pulling back from friends and family he genuinely loves. Join them as they unpack why relationships, not possessions, are the only thing that outlasts any of us.If you've ever felt like you're grinding for something that won't matter in ten years, this one's for you.

Most kids spend twelve years learning how to follow instructions. Almost none of them spend twelve years learning how to lead.In this episode, Dan and Jake sit down with Bobbie, co-founder of Spring Forth Academy, an Acton Academy. She talks about what it looks like to raise kids who can think for themselves instead of just comply. We get into why most schools are structured to demand compliance instead of building leadership, why "the only real failure is not learning," and why accountability, done with love, is one of the most underrated tools in parenting. Bobbie breaks down how Spring Forth Academy uses tribes, freedom levels, and Socratic conversation to put kids in the driver's seat of their own growth, starting as young as five.This isn't a takedown of public school. It's a conversation about what's possible when kids are trusted with more responsibility earlier, and what changes when parents stop dropping their kids off and start showing up as partners in the process.If you've ever wrestled with whether your kid is being taught to think, or just to comply, this one's for you.