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Reflections on the Beaufort Revival (Pt 2: Recognizing Revival)
Last week we began a study of the great revival that took place in Beaufort in the 1830s. We were introduced to Rev. Daniel Baker, the great preacher from Savannah whom God used greatly to spark this tremendous movement, and churches that were affected, such as our friends at The Parish Church of St. Helena and The Baptist Church of Beaufort. Through this period of revival, our small community became saturated with the glory of God! In the coming weeks, we’ll look with detail at those changes, which lasted for almost an entire generation in Beaufort. But before we look with greater depth at how God transformed Beaufort, and through…
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Longing for the Future Sabbath
Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at the various rest-work rhythms that God has built into our world; night and day, rest and work, seed time and harvest. These rhythms are gracious provisions for weary pilgrims sojourning through this world. And yet, even those rhythms often leave us longing for more. We enjoy a vacation, but we know it will soon come to an end. We love the Lord’s Day, but we remember that Monday is lurking right around the corner. Many who have spent years looking forward to retirement often find themselves disappointed. We hope for rest in this world, but it’s never quite enough. C.S.…
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We Do Not Drift Into Holiness
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Gospel Grace and Sabbath Rest
This month in our pastoral letters, we’re thinking about the rhythms of rest and work that God has built into His created order. This week, I want to discuss one of our Lord’s sweetest gifts to His people: the rhythm of six days of work and one day of rest. The day of rest is known in Hebrew as the Shabbat, meaning “ceasing or stopping,” from which we get our word “Sabbath.” Because of the Judeo-Christian influence on our world, it can be easy for us to take this pattern of rest and work for granted. For a moment, rather than looking at this through the lens of 21st century…
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What Does It Mean to Rest in Christ?
This month, we are studying the ways that God has designed us to glorify Him both in our rest and our work. As we saw in last week’s letter, God has designed the world with built-in rhythms for both: He has designed the day for activity and the night for sleep. He has designed seasons for harvesting and seasons for reaping. He has designed six days for working and one for rest. He even gives us a few months off from cutting grass each year! These rhythms all point to the wise design of an caring God. No Rest for the Weary If such rhythms are baked into creation, why…
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Rhythms of Rest and Work
Dear Saints, I hope that reading these pastoral letters have been as much of an encouragement to you as writing them has been for me. I don’t know if you have experienced this before, but I believe that the teacher often gets more from the lesson than the students. That was certainly the case with this series on the “one anothers” of Scripture, as the Spirit moved powerfully in my own heart, convicting and challenging me to not merely be a hearer of the word, but doer also (James 1:22). This month in our pastoral letters we will be considering rhythms of rest and work in the Christian life. This…
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They Will Know You By Your Love
We have been using these pastoral letters over the last two months to examine many of the different “one another” passages in the New Testament. I hope it has been an encouragement to you; it has certainly encouraged me as I have watched you live out these commands from God in the life of our church. As we conclude this topic with this pastoral letter, I want to return to a quote I shared in the first pastoral letter in this series: “Holiness is not a mystical condition experienced in relation to God but in isolation from human beings. You cannot be good in a vacuum, but only in the real…
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Five Blessings of Hospitality
This week in our pastoral letter, we’re going to think about a topic that is vital for life in the church: hospitality. We will look at several New Testament exhortations to hospitality in this letter, but I want to focus on 1 Peter 4:9: “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” Life in the early church to whom Peter wrote these words was exceedingly difficult. Internally, there were the pressures of theological controversy, division, and relational strife. Outwardly, there was the reality of increasing persecution from the Roman government. There was nothing easy about being a Christian in the first or second century. If ever a group of people had…
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Build One Another Up
This is our sixth installment in this series on the “one another” statements in Scripture. Thus far, our focus has been on how we are to treat one another, particularly in times of conflict or controversy that could harm the church. This week, I’d like for us to look at how we are called to intentionally and proactively build one another up in Jesus Christ. I have been a believer for 24 years, and in that time I have had the privilege of being mentored by some of my pastoral heroes, including Douglas Kelly, Bill Barcley, and Terry Johnson. Each of those relationships has left an indelible imprint on my…
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Every Spiritual Blessing in the Heavenly Places
Dear Saints, I saw something in my time in the Word this morning that I couldn’t wait to share with you. I was reading Ephesians 1:3-10, [3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, [4] even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [5] he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed…
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Count Others More Significant Than Yourselves
This week, I received a very sweet email from a young lady in our congregation who said something that absolutely overwhelmed me with joy. Speaking of the family at First Scots, she said, “the way y’all treat the people in that building is probably one of the most heaven-like things I’ve ever seen.” She’s right: in the divisive, selfish world in which we live, a church that treats one another well is a foretaste of heaven. I have read and re-read that email about 50 times this week, every time praising God for His work in this body. Her words also made me cry out to the Lord again and…
