First Thoughts | Blog Ministry | First Baptist Church

When Your Pastor Isn’t As Good As Your Podcast

Written by Heath Lambert on June 26, 2023. Posted in Marked By Grace.

Years ago, when I was still very new in pastoral ministry, I was a young preacher. This was in a day before podcasts (if you can imagine such a world), and a good friend of mine was visiting me on a Sunday at my church and listened to me preach, and he gave me some indelicate feedback. We were eating lunch after church. He just heard the sermon, and I will tell you, this friend of mine went to Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, under the preaching ministry of Mark Dever. This dear friend of mine, whom I love, we were sitting at lunch, and he just was exasperated. He said, Heath, I don’t even know why you preach. He said Mark Dever is the best preacher I’ve ever heard, and I feel like we should just film his sermons and play them at places like your church. Now, a lesser...

Fathers, We Need You!

Written by Ryan Trzeciak on June 19, 2023. Posted in First Thoughts.

Revival is a mighty work of God where he saves the lost and sanctifies the saved in surprising numbers. This message has been boldly proclaimed for weeks as our church continues to preach through the book of Acts. Here at First Baptist, we have been praying that God would do this mighty work in our congregation, and in the city of Jacksonville, all for his glory. We want to see every man, woman, and child come to know and follow Jesus Christ as Lord. However, in order for revival to happen, we need godly fathers who will stand up and lead their families in worshiping our great Savior. Now, please hear me, we also need godly mothers, single women, single men, teens, grandparents, great grandparents, and everyone else in between to be engaged. Revival is a work of God that involves all the...

When Should I Baptize My Young Child?

Written by Heath Lambert on June 19, 2023. Posted in Marked By Grace.

If you are a Christian parent, you are going to feel a unique burden as you bring up your children. That burden is you are going to want your child to be baptized, you’re going to want to see them follow the Lord in the ordinance of baptism. Figuring out when to baptize your kid can be tricky. It’s tricky for a parent to figure out, is it the right time to baptize my young child? I want to provide some guidance on how you could think this through. As I give you the answer, the first thing I need to be honest about is different Christians would answer this in remarkably different ways. If I were a Presbyterian, the answer I would give to this question is very different than the one I’m about to give. I am a Baptist, I am the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville,...

The State of the SBC in 2023

Written by Heath Lambert on June 15, 2023. Posted in First Thoughts.

No Frills In my family, when we want the honest, straightforward assessment of a situation without any sugar coating, we often ask for a “no-frills assessment.” Well, after the conclusion of the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in 2023, I want to share a no-frills assessment of where I believe Southern Baptists are in the aftermath. Southern Baptists are People of Great Conviction The issue garnering the most attention in advance of the convention meeting was the one of female pastors. As messengers gathered in New Orleans, they were asked to decide whether Saddleback Community Church, led by Rick Warren, could remain part of the Southern Baptist Convention after the church installed female pastors in clear violation of The Baptist Faith and Message (BFM). No one knew for...

Caring for One Another With Spiritual Gifts

Written by Richard Lucas on June 12, 2023. Posted in First Thoughts.

Sadly, much of the discussion regarding the topic of spiritual gifts among Christians is fraught with tension and division. Fights break out over which gifts, if any, have ceased or continue today. This division is especially evident with respect to the so-called miraculous spiritual gifts, such as prophecy, speaking in tongues, and healing. In response, Christians can develop pride, jealousy, or even spiritual depression when comparing gifts or being confused about the matter. All of this is so very counter to the emphasis in the New Testament around the subject of spiritual gifts. Correctly understanding spiritual gifts according to the Bible will actually lead to caring for one another. As a church, we want to reclaim love and learn how to be people of compassion in a world full of hate....

Why SBC?

Written by Heath Lambert on June 12, 2023. Posted in Marked By Grace.

As you listen to this episode of Marked by Grace, it is dropping on the week of the Southern Baptist Convention. It is dropping on Monday, June 12th, and if all has gone according to plan, I am in New Orleans with the other messengers of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, and we are going to be ready to participate in the Southern Baptist Convention. If you’ve been paying attention to SBC life at all these days, you know there are some mighty and tumultuous events going down in the SBC. I’m not going to talk about those on the podcast. I’ve already been talking about those on our First Baptist blog at First Thoughts, fbcjax.com/blog. You can go find out about that there. So I’m not going to weigh in on all that now. I’m just going to say it’s...

Should Christians Boycott Target?

Written by Heath Lambert on June 5, 2023. Posted in Marked By Grace.

All right, well, this episode of Marked by Grace is dropping on Monday, June 5th. That means this is the first full week of June. This is the month that many in our secular society refer to as Pride Month. It is the month when our culture is telling us that we are supposed to celebrate all of the continuum of LGBTQ+. And there’s a lot of virtue signaling; there are a lot of people, there are a lot of corporations that are going to want to signal to everybody that they are with the cause. That they are in keeping with the culture. One of those corporations that is doing that rather famously right now is Target. I am a married man and have three kids. And that means there have been seasons in my life where I have thought Target was an extension of my living room. I spend a lot of time...

Sexual Abuse and The Future of The Southern Baptist Convention

Written by Heath Lambert on June 5, 2023. Posted in First Thoughts.

The exposure of the sin of sexual abuse in our churches created the greatest crisis in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Here are four facts about where our convention truly stands as we head into New Orleans. 1. Southern Baptists Want Sexual Abuse Reform The exposure of sexual abuse jolted the SBC to the core. One case of sexual abuse would have been overwhelmingly too many. Hundreds of victims are as horrifying as they are heartbreaking. This terrible problem, however, is not where the trouble ends. Sadly, two opposite kinds of people refuse to tell the truth about this crisis. Some have a vested interest in the status quo, have downplayed the problem, and have resisted any good faith efforts at reform. Others have amplified the problem to the point of caricature. They...

The Baptist Faith and Message and The Future of The Southern Baptist Convention

Written by Heath Lambert on June 1, 2023. Posted in First Thoughts.

Conviction has always been the foundation of our convention. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has declared those convictions in The Baptist Faith and Message (BFM), which we worked so hard to create and take so seriously. It’s been a long time since Southern Baptists have had a debate about the BFM, but we’re having a big one now. When this debate is over, we will either be a stronger convention or a weaker one. I’m encouraged that the SBC is going to get in the right spot on this issue, but we have to work to make that true. The debate started a year ago when the credentials committee recommended further study into the word pastor before removing churches who employed female pastors. As the convention debated that recommendation, the suggestion came that it was unfair to remove churches...

Teaching the Gospel to Young Kids

Written by Heath Lambert on May 29, 2023. Posted in Marked By Grace.

If you are a Christian and you are a parent, then the most important thing to you in the world is that your kids know the gospel. It is going to be a crucial part of your parenting that you teach your kids the gospel, that you want them to believe the gospel, and that they are able to make this belief and the gospel something that is lived out in their life. You want them to be saved. When we think about that, we also have to remember the fact that there are different ways to talk about the gospel. We can have a very sophisticated conversation about the gospel, and we can talk about the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus. We could have a theological conversation about the doctrine of justification or the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We could talk about all sorts...