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FaithIsland

di Pastor Mitch

Religione e spiritualità Relazioni

Stagione 2026

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 10:9-10 says, "if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." No one can believe for you. No one else's opinion matters. This is between you and God. Period. And if you're carrying around a whole bunch of baggage because you think you aren't who you think you should be - that God didn't do right by you - dump it. Just put it all in those little plastic bins and walk through the screening machine and keep going - never look back. If Jesus really is God. If He is your Savior. If He created the world and called everything into being with just a few words - then He certainly knows what He's doing when it comes to you.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 8:36 says "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" There are far too many people who don't have time for God because they are so busy paying off their credit cards and mortgages - and yet at night in their silent cries of being overwhelmed and out of control they expect God to have time for them. In Matthew 11 Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and over-burdened, and I will give you rest! For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." God gave you friends and family as a gift. They are to bring joy and encouragement to you as you make this journey through life. And ultimately they are the only things you get to take with you when you leave this earth. Everything else is going to disappear. Makes it kind of simple to figure out what God thinks is important.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Audio

If I came to church on Sunday with a backpack full of rocks and complained I had a backache - you would tell me to stop carrying the backpack full of rocks. You don't have to be a doctor or nurse to figure out what's causing my aches and pains. But when someone comes and says, "I am carrying a huge load of things I cannot forget. A long list of people I will not forgive" - why don't we say, "it's time to learn to forgive and forget - let Jesus carry those burdens for you?"

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Audio

Jesus made you His own in baptism - and every single day the Holy Spirit works in and through you to bring about miracle after miracle. Jesus said, "whoever wants to be My disciple has to take up His cross and follow Me." That's our carry-on - our cross - but the truth it, it carries us - we don't carry it. You only need faith in Jesus to make this trip - everything else is overpacking. Trust in God - believe Him when He says everything you need is already yours in Christ. Your ticket says: final destination Heaven - no bags checked. Remember when I said my dream vacation is to just go to the airport and climb on the plane with no carry-on or suitcase and get everything I need when I arrive at my destination - if I don't get to do it while I'm here, that's exactly what I'll be doing when I go home to heaven. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost audio

The Canaanite woman doesn't try to justify herself or claim she is good enough or deserved anything - but she knew God was a "dog" person - the kind that "accidentally - on purpose" dropped scraps from the table.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost audio

Jesus reaches through the waves and the wind as we start to sink and pulls us into His arms and sets us inside the boat. He sets us back into a community that watched us try to walk on water. He does not yell at us and say, "what were you thinking?" He knew what we were thinking. He knows us inside and out so it's not a surprise. So why put us back among people that saw us make fools of ourselves? The church is not perfect, or even practically perfect. It is a community that gathers around The Cross and who in many and various ways have all cried out with Peter, "Lord, save me!" And across the spectrum of our faith and our doubt, Jesus does save. The greatest churches are not the largest or prettiest - the greatest are the ones who know the power of the Law and the Gospel and trust in the forgiveness of God.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost audio

Last week I said St. Paul was, "Bald-headed, bowlegged, strongly built, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows and a rather large nose." We don't know what the Prophet Isaiah looked like - except his lips - sounds strange, but we know exactly what his lips looked like. Isaiah got a divine invitation. A couple of angels showed up and escorted him to a temple where the candles were flickering, the incense was thick with holiness and the smoke stung both the eyes and nose. When Isaiah looked up - high above him, was the Creator of the heavens and the earth - and his robe filled the enormous temple. He was surrounded by winged creatures shouting back and forth to each other. And when Isaiah realized where he was, he cried out, "I am done for! I am foul mouthed and the people around me are foul-mouthed. I have seen God - and no one who sees Him can live." Then one of the angels touched his lips with a red hot coal taken from the fire and said, "it's okay now." God then asked, "who will go?" And with charred lips and a quiver in his voice Isaiah said, "Me, I'll go - send me!" God said "GO!" The hardest part of Isaiah's ministry was after God said "GO!" - God said very few would listen to him. That must have been soul-crushing. To be THE prophet of God - sent to proclaim the good news - and almost no one would listen. God said he had to go anyway. A remnant would hear and be saved - and the rest would not be able to claim God hadn't given them one last chance. Isaiah spent the rest of his ministry looking into the eyes and souls of those he preached to - wondering whether they heard or not.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Audio

When we think about Easter's empty tomb it should lead us to ask, "If God could bring His Son back from death, what else could He do?" That is where our hope comes from as we realize God has a plan and purpose for us beyond just existing. St. Paul suggests you remember your baptism - the day God called you back into His family and breathed life into you again. He may have been "bald-headed, bowlegged, strongly built, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows, and a rather large nose" - but he knows what he is talking about. And more than anything he wants you to be so excited about the Gospel that your life is filled with "grammar totally out of whack, split infinitives, verbs and nouns exploding all over the place, dangling participles and incomplete sentences" because your life in Jesus is just like that Parable He told where you are out mowing the lawn and come across a suitcase full of the most precious things on earth with your name on it and a little note that says, "love Jesus" - and you get to be the most generous, loving, forgiving, life-filled person in the world - in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Audio

Why do you pray? What are the reasons behind prayer? It's one thing to say a "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest..." at mealtime or "now I lay me down to sleep..." prayer before we close our eyes. But that's not the kind of prayer we're talking about today. The kind of prayer St. Paul is talking about is the kind where we are so angry, so frustrated, so hurt, so lost that words completely fail. Do you remember the last time you prayed one of these prayers? You might not have even thought of it as a prayer - you just shouted or cried or went silent. And whatever you were praying about or for or against was something so far out of your control that it was like a blow to the stomach that knocked the wind out of you and left you gasping for air. Now think about why you prayed. And why you prayed to God. And what you thought He could do. And why you trusted Him.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Audio

In Matthew 13, Jesus packs a bunch of parables together - all of them about Jesus' favorite subject: The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is right here. The Kingdom isn't some far off place you go to when you die, the Kingdom is at hand - among us and beyond us, the now and not-yet. It is the wheat growing in the midst of weeds, the yeast working its magic in the dough, a pearl growing. It comes and goes in the twinkling of an eye - so pay attention so you don't miss it. This Kingdom knows no geographic boundaries, political parties, single language or culture. It advances not through power, but acts of love. This Kingdom arrived, not with a trumpet's sound but a baby's cry. It is not about vanquishing enemies but forgiving them. And the Savior did not arrive on the back of a war horse but a donkey. The two most important events in the Kingdom take place three days apart - the first on a cross and the second at an empty grave. There is still more to this Kingdom - a day when tears will be wiped from every eye, swords will get beaten into farming tools, justice will flow like a river down a mountain and righteousness like a never-ending stream. And on that day people from every tribe and tongue and nation will live together in peace - and there will be no more death. Like it or not, this parable challenges much of what we think is our job as the church. The parable says God is the judge - not you, not me, not kings or presidents or pastors. If anything, it says we might be able to get rid of thorny weeds, till the hardpacked dirt, put up a few scarecrows to keep the birds away. That is something the church can do.

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