Pilgrim: a Podcast from Pastor Fortunato

1 John 2:28–29 • Will you lift your head or hang it low when Christ appears? John closes this chapter not with a threat — but with an appeal. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • March 26, 2026. John has spent this chapter warning the church about antichrists, liars, and the seductive pull of the world. Now in the final two verses, he turns from warning to wooing. His appeal is...

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 • The Lord's Supper isn't a ritual — it's a declaration. It stands between two emptinesses, and until He comes, it has no expiration date. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • March 29, 2026. The bread and cup of the Lord's Supper occupy a specific position in redemptive history. Looking back — an empty cross. Looking up — an empty sky. And the phrase "ti...

Matthew 27:57–28:8 • What if the tomb was never his? What if death tried to hold something it had no legal right to keep? ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 5, 2026. Jesus Christ borrowed everything. A manger that belonged to livestock. A table in someone else's upper room. A colt that had never been ridden. And at the end — a rich man's tomb. He came into this world wi...

Romans 3:23–10:13 • Every believer is called to share the gospel — but most don't know where to start. This step-by-step Romans Road training shows you how. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 2, 2026. Pastor Fortunato walks the church through a complete Romans Road gospel presentation using a flipchart evangelism tool, demonstrating how the same message can be delivered...

Proverbs 4:14-17 • A father gives his son six commands — not suggestions — about a road that will take you farther than you meant to go and keep you longer than you planned to stay. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • March 22, 2026. There's a question every young person asks — and every parent dreads: "How far down that road is too far?" The very question is the trap. This me...

Proverbs 4:20-23 • Everybody's trying to fix the wrong thing. Better environment. Better therapy. Better behavior. But Solomon said the problem — and the solution — is the heart. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 5, 2026. Psychologists educate the mind and call it progress. Sociologists fix the environment and call it reform. Self-help culture modifies behavior and cal...

Proverbs 4:24-27 • Still a boy in a man's body. America is full of them. Solomon saw it coming — and he handed fathers a roadmap to fix it. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 12, 2026. 📚 Part of our ongoing verse-by-verse expository series through Proverbs America has a boy problem. Men trapped in men's bodies who fold when an authority figure says no, who can't fix th...

1 John 3:1–3 • You are already a son of God — not someday, not if you behave well enough, not after you prove yourself. Right now. But what does that mean, and what does it demand? ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 9, 2026. Most Christians know they're saved. Fewer know what they're saved into. John opens chapter 3 with a command, not an invitation — BEHOLD — because w...

1 John 3:4-10 • If you're saved and still sinning, you're not failing — you're in a war. Here's what's actually happening inside you, and why that war is proof you're born again. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 16, 2026. 📚 Part of our verse-by-verse expository series through 1 John Every believer has asked it: Why do I keep doing what I hate? Paul screamed it in Rom...

1 John 3:11–18 • Love isn't one evidence of salvation. According to John, it's the only evidence. Not vocabulary. Not attendance. Not baptism. What you do with the person next to you. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 30, 2026. You can walk into almost any church in America and hear the right words. Saved. Covered by the blood. A testimony of what God did. John isn't i...

1 John 3:19-20 • Your heart keeps reading the verdict. Your conscience won't stop the case. But the court you're arguing in isn't the highest one. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • May 7, 2026. Your conscience is a real court — but it's a lower court. It has real jurisdiction, but not final jurisdiction. There is a higher bench. There is a higher judge. And the God who sits...

Matthew 24:1-21 • Is Matthew 24 a warning for Christians today — or for someone else entirely? Most believers never see the distinction that changes everything. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • March 22, 2026. There are TWO "last days" in your Bible — and confusing them will cost you clarity on prophecy, the tribulation, Israel, and the church's role in end times. In this l...

Matthew 24:20-27 • Does prayer actually change things, or is everything already fixed? And when God says "great tribulation" — who is that really for? ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 5, 2026. Most believers have never been taught to rightly divide the judgments of Scripture. When you put Daniel's people in the church's seat, the whole Bible becomes a junk drawer. Thi...

Matthew 25:31-46 • Is the judgment in Matthew 25 the final judgment for every person who ever lived — or is something else entirely happening here? ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 12, 2026. 📚 Part of our ongoing series on the Judgments of God — understanding what they are and what they are not. Most Bible readers have been handed one drawer and told to put everythin...

Matthew 25:31–46 • Joel 3 • Zechariah 14 • Revelation 19 — Two armies. One returning King. Every nation called to account. Here is what the Bible actually says happens at Armageddon and beyond. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • May 10, 2026. Most people have heard the word Armageddon. Almost nobody knows what the Bible says actually happens there. This lesson traces the full...

John 8:1–6 • Everybody has a guess. Nobody goes to Numbers 5. This is the answer the Bible actually gives — and it changes everything about this passage. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • March 22, 2026. The scribes and Pharisees walked into the temple that morning thinking they had the perfect trap. A woman. A law. A crowd. Two jaws, one snare. What they didn't know was tha...

John 8:7–11 • They brought the woman. They left the man. And the one they came to trap was the only one qualified to close the case. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • March 29, 2026. The Pharisees came into that room with the law as a weapon. They had the statute. They had the woman. They had a crowd. What they didn't have was the man — and that single missing detail put Deu...

John 8:12-18 • When Jesus said "I am the light of the world," he wasn't coining a phrase — he was closing a thousand years of prophecy, typology, and promise that the Pharisees had been holding in their own hands. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 12, 2026. 📚 Part of our ongoing verse-by-verse expository series through the Gospel of John The candlestick in the taberna...

John 8:19–24 • The most dangerous mistake a man can make isn't gross immorality — it's misidentifying Jesus Christ. And the Pharisees were standing right in front of him. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 19, 2026. 📚 Part of our verse-by-verse expository series through the Gospel of John The Pharisees built their entire identity on knowing God — the prayers, the fasti...

John 8:25–30 • They asked with contempt. He answered without flinching. Jesus Christ never scrambled for an answer, never softened his claims, never revised his message — and the men who tried to silence him only proved him right. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 26, 2026. 📚 Part of our verse-by-verse expository series through the Gospel of John Every age asks the qu...

John 8:31-36 • Jesus offered freedom to men who were completely certain they were already free. The hardest conversation you'll ever have is with someone who doesn't know they need help. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • May 3, 2026. When the CIA built their headquarters in 1961, the director personally insisted John 8:32 be etched in stone in the lobby. An intelligence agen...

John 8:37–41 • Seed and children are not the same word. One is about origin. The other is about resemblance. Jesus knew the difference and he draws the line in this passage. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • May 10, 2026. You can be Abraham's seed and not be Abraham's child. Jesus makes that distinction deliberately in John 8. Seed is about bloodline. Children is about condu...

📖 Proverbs 5:1–5 • Lies don't come in ugly packages. Nobody falls for something that looks like a trap — you fall for something that looks like a gift. Solomon knew that. He wrote it down so his son wouldn't have to learn it the hard way. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • April 26, 2026. 📚 Part of our verse-by-verse expository series through Proverbs Solomon isn't lecturin...

Proverbs 5:6 • She's not after your body first. She's after your thoughts about eternity. Most sermons on Proverbs 5 stop at the warning. Solomon didn't. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • May 3, 2026. Everything in the first five verses — the honey, the oil, the wormwood, the sword, the feet going down to death — all of it is in service to one objective: keeping this man fro...

Proverbs 5:7–14 • God speaks before the ruin falls. Always. The question is whether you're listening now — or confessing later when it's already done. ⛪ Preached at Pilgrim Baptist Church • Cookeville, TN • May 10, 2026. The strange woman doesn't ask for partial payment. She takes your honor first. Then your years. Then your wealth. Then your health. Proverbs 5 lists exactly what she collects — a...