First Thoughts | Blog Ministry | First Baptist Church

Is it Okay to be Sad in Your Suffering?

Written by Heath Lambert on August 22, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

This is the third podcast that is dropping in August, that I am recording in July in anticipation of my third brain surgery on August 4th to relieve pressure on one of the nerves in my brain that’s caused by some blood vessels that are compressing that nerve. I don’t know exactly, as you listen to this, what phase of the recovery I am in. Having been through this twice before, I know that by the third week, I’ve been doing a lot better in the other two cases. I’m starting to get around a lot more easily; I’m starting to be able to do more; I’m looking ahead in that third week to being able to be cleared by the surgery team to be able to do some other things than the kind of slower, more cautious things I’ve been able to do up to this point. So again,...

How Do I Deal with the Pain of Physical Suffering?

Written by Heath Lambert on August 15, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

This week, on the podcast, I want to talk to you about the toil and the agony of physical suffering. As you might know, this is scheduled to be my second week of recovery from my third brain surgery. I am recording these podcasts near the end of July in anticipation of that surgery. I don’t know exactly what kind of situation I’ll be in as you listen to these podcasts. But since I’ve done this a couple of times before, I know that I am in a season of my life that is not fun. That is very hard. I have this physical problem in my brain with blood vessels compressing my trigeminal nerve, and it causes spasms and discomfort and pain and all sorts of things. The only way to relieve that pressure, the only way to fix it, is to remove those blood vessels from the nerve. And that...

The Amazing Grace of Friendship

Written by Scott Connell on August 15, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

January 1, 1773 is a momentous date for hymnody. It not only serves as the date that ‘Amazing Grace’ was first presented to the public by John Newton now almost 250 years ago, but it is also the date that William Cowper penned ‘Conflict: Light Shining Out of Darkness,’ based on John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” We know the hymn today as ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way.’ It is hard to imagine a more fruitful single day in English hymnody nor a starker juxtaposition of two texts depicting the nature of the friendship that these compositions represent—grace and darkness. January 1773 was a difficult month for Cowper, a man often plagued by lengthy periods of depression and even moments of insanity. By the winter of 1773, Cowper and Newton had...

How To Help Your LGBTQ Friend

Written by Spencer Harmon on August 8, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

If you are an evangelical Christian, the odds are that you know someone in the LGBTQ+ community. If you don’t, you will. 20% of Gen Z identifies as something other than heterosexual. Pretty soon, you will meet someone who has a partner of the same sex or “identifies” as something other than their biological sex. What do you need to know as you minister to your friend? This can be an overwhelming question if you are a Christian who believes the Bible. That is because two things are crystal clear: (1) the Bible teaches that the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is sinful and destructive, and (2) our culture is deeply hostile to anyone who would embrace what the Bible teaches. That means you are going to get into some tense moments if you are a Christian seeking to be faithful to Jesus during these times. There...

Where is the Goodness of God in Suffering?

Written by Heath Lambert on August 8, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

By the time you hear this podcast, it will be dropping on August 8th, the second week of August. And that will be just a few days after what is scheduled to be my third brain surgery that is taking place on August 4th. I am recording this podcast and the rest of the podcasts in August, near the end of July, before my surgery. As you’re listening to me say these words, I don’t know what kind of shape I will physically be in. I might still be in the hospital. I might have been released from the hospital. Having done two of these surgeries before, I have some sense of what to expect. Neither of my recoveries was exactly the same. After the first surgery, after about three and a half weeks, I started to feel like a human being again. And then I got a nasty case of COVID. And it...

Miscarriage and Mercy

Written by Andrew Morrell on August 1, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

A Dark Day “Oh, my! It looks like you are having twins.” These were the first words the doctor spoke to us at my wife Kate’s routine ten-week ultrasound. The news was surprising and wonderful. God had given us not one beautiful child created in his image but two. “Hang on,” the doctor said only a few seconds later. “One of them doesn’t have a heartbeat.” We walked out of our doctor’s office that day bearing the weight of a reality that was unthinkable when we walked in. One of the beautiful and precious twins that had lived in Kate’s womb for a few short weeks was now dead. We wouldn’t get to squeeze his cheeks, tickle his belly, or watch him grow up. He was gone. We named him Samuel. It was a Tuesday. And it was the darkest day of our life. As we got into our car to drive back home, the...

Can Christians Smoke Marijuana?

Written by Heath Lambert on August 1, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

Over the last decade, there has been a surprising number of changes in the laws regarding marijuana. We’re seeing a growing trend in the United States of America to make marijuana legal in some sense; not every law is the same. Not every intention for every law is the same. But there’s no denying that the last decade has seen a growing liberalization with regard to the legality of smoking marijuana. What that does is if you live in a place where it is legal to smoke marijuana, it raises a question for a Christian. And the question is, if it’s legal to smoke marijuana where I live, then am I allowed to smoke it? So that’s the question this week on the podcast, can a Christian smoke marijuana if it’s legal where you live? And the answer is no. Christians cannot...

Loving Difficult People

Written by Ernie Baker on July 25, 2022. Posted in First Thoughts.

Let’s be honest; some people are hard to love. Unfortunately, from the stories I hear, it is often a spouse. Your difficult person may not be a spouse; he could be an extended family member or even someone in your church who just “rubs you the wrong way.” A Model to Follow As we live our lives, the realities of our fallen world are realized in our difficult relationships. Scripture is realistic about this. In particular, as Paul writes, he applies biblical teaching to this very subject. In Ephesians 5, he writes, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (vs. 1-2). Who are the “us” that Christ loved? Certainly not very loveable people (see 4:17-19)! In these verses, our...

What Should I Do if I Doubt My Salvation?

Written by Heath Lambert on July 25, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

This week on the podcast, I want to talk about doubting your salvation. But I want to talk about doubting your salvation in a little bit of a different way than we typically do. Typically, when I talk with Christians and church members throughout my ministry, when you’re talking to somebody who doubts their salvation, you’re talking to someone who is in a lot of pain, you are talking to somebody who is struggling, who feels overwhelmed because what they want is to be saved, they are concerned that they are not because of their doubts. They don’t want to be without salvation, and so it’s a painful, difficult process. There is a time and a place to be open and honest about how painful and dark of a place that could be. But what I want to do this week is I want to talk...

How Should Christians Think About Plastic Surgery?

Written by Heath Lambert on July 18, 2022. Posted in Marked By Grace.

We’re talking about Christians and plastic surgery on the podcast this week. About a week or so ago, my wife and I were walking through a crowd of people, and for whatever reason, I just started recognizing that I had walked by four or five women who clearly weren’t a part of the same group. It wasn’t like they were in a group of people that were walking. But I walked by a group of women, four or five of them, who all looked very plasticky. They looked the same. You could tell all of them were looking at the same sort of pictures of what they wanted to look like. You could tell they had had plastic surgery, and you need to know I am clueless about these things. My wife and my daughter make fun of me. They’ll be talking about somebody on television or talking about...