We’ve taken a few months off from our deep-dive into the book of Galatians, but we’re back! Our summer series is going to resume (and finish) the book of Galatians, beginning in chapter 5. Here Paul is reminding us of much of what he has been saying from the beginning. Simply put: Jesus is enough. As the old hymn goes: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” May we find that Jesus is enough in our lives too.

Trent was called to the ministry during his time at South Run Baptist

Church and has served the past 25 years as an Air Force Chaplain.  He

currently serves as Command Chaplain, Headquarters, Air Combat Command,

Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia and is responsible for establishing

spiritual fitness programs that meet the diverse religious needs of 156,739

combat-ready air, space, cyber, and intelligence Total Force Airmen.  He

holds master’s degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Air

Command and Staff College, and National War College.  Prior to joining the

Air Force, Trent served as a senior pastor at churches in Texas and North

Dakota.  Trent credits his decision to rededicate his life to Christ and

ultimately surrender to full-time ministry to the discipleship and

mentoring of South Run’s first pastor, Dr. Tom McMillan.  God used South

Run during these early pivotal years to disciple, license him to the

ministry, and hone his ministry skills as a Youth Intern.  Arguably the

greatest gift South Run gave him was introducing him to Lisa.  Trent and

Lisa were married at South Run in 1993 and celebrate their 30th wedding

anniversary in August.

Continuing the Elijah narrative from last week, this week we see him fulfilling one of God’s charges—namely, Elijah finds Elisha and calls him into ministry with him. In the New Testament passage for this week, we see Jesus doing this exact thing with his own disciples. Jesus even alludes to the calling of Elisha in his response to a would-be disciple. “Calling” is a word that we use often in the church, but there is also a lot of misunderstanding around the topic. Today we will look at what Scripture says about what it means to be called. 

If we simply turn the page from last week’s passage where Elijah was calling down fire from heaven, we arrive at today’s passage in which Elijah is on the run. He fears for his life. The once mighty and confident Elijah is suddenly weakened and afraid. It is in this state of mind that he cries out to God because, according to Elijah, he is all alone. But the truth is otherwise. He is not alone, and neither are you. Elijah has people in his life he could lean on. And more than that, God’s presence is there with him. May we find God’s presence and allow that to be enough.

In today’s passage we read about Elijah, the prophet of Israel, who stood against the false prophets of Baal and called down fire from heaven to demonstrate the power and presence of God. Like CS Lewis said of Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, the presence of God in Elijah's fire is not safe, but we can know that it is good. Fire, in fact, is a symbol used throughout the Bible—from the flaming swords guarding Eden to the lake of fire in Revelation 20 and any number of places in between. The fire represents many things, but today, on this day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is poured out on the church, I want to focus on the fire as purification leading to revival. Let’s dive in!

This is our final week in our Easter series on hope. Scripture, in a few places, gives us a vision of the redeemed world when all things are made new. A word of warning: one should be reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” What we know from Scripture is still only partial knowledge of what’s to come, but even partial knowledge is enough. In fact, it is more than enough to sustain a lifetime of hope. 

In our sixth installment of a series on hope we turn our attention to the story of hope as it unfolds in the Old Testament. The hope that is fulfilled in Jesus and will one day be fully realized in the new creation has its roots in the Old Testament. The story of the Old Testament is a story awaiting an ending because it is a story of hope deferred. Next week we plan to talk more about the ending of this story, but this week we talk about the promises of hope that are raised on the pages of the Bible’s first half. Let us turn there together.

An important life lesson is to surround oneself with people you want to be like. If you are going to be a person of hope, you need to surround yourself with people of hope. The church should be such a place, and I desire that our congregation be a community of hope. If we are to fully embrace what it means to be the church on a hill, we must cultivate hope as a collective virtue. We must embody it and shine its light as brightly as we possibly can.

As we continue to think about the hope that we find in Christ’s death and resurrection, we turn today to an important topic for many of us, the topic of suffering. It is in our hardship that our hope is most challenged. We begin to ask why God would allow such difficulty. We sometimes begin to allow doubt to creep in. We might even lose hope and begin to despair that life will never be the same. Today we must address this issue head on and ask what we are to do when suffering strikes and how we can allow our hope to guide us through our hardest times. Let’s dig in.

We are in the second week of an Easter series on hope. The Easter season is a time filled with hope. We can look around and see the promises of springtime and the length of daylight, and we are given a kind of hope. But Easter is far more than nice weather and longer days. We have a resurrection hope that fits us into a larger narrative of the redemption of all things. And so, this week, we continue talking about hope and what we can do to cultivate hope in our lives.