Dale Johnson: This week on the podcasts, I’m always delighted to spend time with Dr. Heath Lambert. He became the senior pastor at First Baptist Church Jacksonville, in the September 2017. Prior to serving at First Baptist as a pastor, he served as the executive director here at ACBC, and as a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s the author of several books including The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams, Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace, Transforming Homosexuality, a Theology of Biblical Counseling, and The Great Love of God. He’s married to Lauren, and they have three children: Carson, Chloe and Connor. Heath, it’s always a pleasure to have you on the podcast and to just enjoy time with you, brother.
Heath Lambert: Very glad to be here. I tell you when we’re alone, and I’ll tell you in front of people, but I am so thankful for you and your leadership. The ACBC conference this year was so, so encouraging. You are an exemplary leader, and I’ll do whatever you want me to do. So, I’m happy to be here.
Dale Johnson: Well, I’m glad we have that recorded, now. That sounds like a commitment to blank check to me, and I look forward to that. So, listen, we’re here to talk. And so many people are encouraged by stories. They are always wondering, you know, “how did people that we listen to, and read come into biblical counseling” Before we get into that, for people who may not be familiar with you, Heath, I want you to tell a little bit about your story—Obviously a little bit about First Baptist Church in Jacksonville; Just a little bit about the man, Heath Lambert, your family, that sort of thing.
Heath Lambert: Yeah, so I am married to my wonderful wife, Lauren. We’ve been together for over 20 years now–we just celebrated our 20th anniversary back in the summertime. And we have three kids, as you mentioned: Carson, Chloe and Connor. So, Carson is our 18-year-old, he’s in college and I don’t know how that happened. I remember holding him up on my chest when he was born, and now he’s driving off to college, and doing all these weird things that grown-ups do. And then, we’ve got our wonderful, precious, beautiful, perfect daughter, Chloe. She’s just absolutely wonderful. She may be the funniest person I know, and she’s just great. And then Connor, our little guy, might be the nicest person I know. I always tell them they’re my four favorites, and I’m glad I get to live with him. I got saved when I was 14 years old. I’ve been walking with the Lord my entire adult life. I’ve been in ministry, either pastoring or executive directing or professing or something along those lines. So, I’m thankful to be serving the Lord. I always tell everybody, my greatest privilege, after getting to live with my four favorites, is getting to serve the incredible congregation of people at First Baptist.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, amen. I know a little bit about your story, Heath, so I’m going to ask a couple of things that I think could be helpful and important for our listeners. You talked about coming to faith at the age of 14. We did a conference several years back, as a matter of fact, it was the last one where you were leading ACBC, on the issue of abuse. You told a little bit about your story. Talk a little bit about that and how that’s been impactful for you as you moved into biblical counseling?
Heath Lambert: Yeah, so my mom was a raging alcoholic. Actually, she was a drunk before I was ever on the scene, and then she continued to be a drunk after my twin brother and I were born. We also have two older brothers: One is 13 years older than we are, and the other is 11 years older than we are, but he died a few years ago—so now, there’s just three of us. But yeah, she was a raging alcoholic. By the time we were born, my older brothers weren’t there very much, because my mom and dad had divorced, and they weren’t living with her. So, we were just these little kids alone with a drunk woman, who was angry. She was angry at us, and she was very violent. And so, I don’t have a lot of happy memories from childhood. I have no happy memories in childhood with my mom. That’s a real loss. You try to think: “man, where is there a happy memory with Mom?” And I can’t remember one. What all my memories of my mom are is scary, and bad, and harsh. She got sober when I was a teenager, and she got saved when I was in my late 20s. We didn’t know it at the time, but she had five years left to live. She would get diagnosed with cancer about four years after that and make it about six or eight months. In those four years of following Christ, she became one of the sweetest people I have ever met. So, it is this incredible thing to have horrible, nightmarish memories about this woman, who Jesus changed. And she became sweet and a wonderful mom, a wonderful grandmother, and a wonderful mother-in-law.
But in terms of the impact on my life honestly, you know, I’m thankful for it all. The Lord used it, in part, to bring me to faith in Him. And honestly, it has helped my ministry, and I’ll never know how much it has helped. You know, when I’m when I’m talking to people who are scared, when I’m talking to people who are overwhelmed and sad because of pain that they’re experiencing from a loved one—I’ve never in my life had to wonder what that feels like. I have always, with those kinds of people, had sort of relational capital because when they know, “Hey this is somebody who’s been through it, and who understands,” that is really helpful. So, I’m thankful that there were two really, really hard seasons in my life, and that was the first one. And the Lord has used it to get a lot of glory for His name and create a lot of blessings. I’m a better dad and a better husband. I remember being nine years old and saying, “I am not going to be this way.” I wasn’t safe, but I’m not going to have this kind of home. So, I think about it a lot. I think about it every day. I want to have love, joy, and peace in my home and not anger, volatility, and division. And so, it was painful and awful, but the Lord used it for good.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, it’s amazing when we hear stories like that—the Lord promises these types of things, bringing beauty from ashes, and it’s always wonderful. And I appreciate the way that you honor the Lord and give Him glory. It’s made a difference in your life, for sure. As you think about biblical counseling, obviously, most people see you as the former executive director and now as leading a wonderful biblical counseling ministry at First Baptist Jacksonville. You’ve written books on biblical counseling, but there’s always a story of how we were introduced to biblical counseling, how we were exposed to it. Talk a little bit about your story in that way, Heath, how were you exposed to biblical counseling?
Heath Lambert: Yes, so I always say that I was a biblical counselor or committed to biblical counseling, before I even became a Christian, because my mom was a drunk. And I saw this stuff. I’ve been to so many AA meetings—I mean, I’ve been to more AA meetings than a lot of drunks have been, because of my mom and we didn’t have childcare anything. So, my mom would be court-ordered to go, and we (the twins) would come along with her. And we said the Lord’s Prayer at these things, and keep coming back. And it works if you work it. I mean, I heard all the stuff, and I can remember early conversations where my mom would be trying to express remorse over what she had done, whether that was to hit us or mistreat us or whatever. And she would always say, “that wasn’t me, that was my disease.” And just as a little kid, I would go, “Now that’s weird, because my grandpa died from cancer,” and I thought, “Okay, now cancer seems like a disease, but you’re drinking too much, and not going to work, and sleeping around, and hitting kids, and that doesn’t seem like a disease.” I didn’t know 9, or 8 or 10. I didn’t have words, but I’m like, “It doesn’t seem like you were sick. It seems like you were—something else.” I don’t even know what I would have said, but it just didn’t sit right. And so then, I get saved my freshman year of high school in a Southern Baptist Church, with a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, who is still a dear friend of mine and still is really a part of our family, whom we love very much. She shared the gospel with me and, I believed it my freshman year of high school.
And then, I had a friend, who was at a graduate school, that was an integrationist. She was studying counseling, when I was a sophomore in high school. And she’s coming back, and she was talking about her counseling program. She said that she was learning that in counseling, no matter how bad someone is, you have to get rid of the bad. You have to stop looking at the bad, and you have to start thinking about the good. She said, “Because the deal is, since you, the counselor, aren’t bad like that, you’ve got to find some way to identify with the good, or you’ll never be able to help them with the bad.” And I thought now that just sounded weird to me. It sounded strange because I’m a new Christian. I’ve been a Christian a few months really, maybe a year, and I thought we were all bad. I thought that’s how it works. I was confused. And so, I said, “I need to figure out something about counseling.” So, I went to the CBD catalog. If anybody remembers that before there was an internet, there was a CBD catalog (Christian Book Distributor)—it was this newspaper, print, stapled thing. And I went to the counseling section, as a sophomore in high school, and I don’t know anything. And there is this inset picture of Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams that was featured that month. The it’s the line under it said, “the classic Christian introduction to now-thetic counseling.” That’s what I thought, Now-thetic counseling. What is now-thetic counseling? Well, CBD is selling it, so it’s got to be good. So, I got a pair of scissors, cut out the order form, filled it out, asked my mom to write a check and put it in an envelope. This is the Dark Ages, you know, we put it on a wagon I guess, and they went to go get the thing. And weeks later, I get Competent to Counsel in the mail and I read Competent to Counsel on a bus. The summer between my sophomore and Senior year, our youth group is going to Florida to do beach evangelism–A lot of beach, much less evangelism. I always say the most significant spiritual thing that happened that trip was on that bus. I read Competent to Counsel, basically my sophomore year in high school, and I just thought, “Okay well that’s the way it is. I mean this guy knows more than I do and if you’re going to do counseling, you need to do it the way Jay Adams does.” And so, that was my introduction. So, I was committed to biblical counseling by my sophomore year. I never ever dreamed, that when I went in only wanting to be a preacher, that I was a biblical counselor. I just didn’t know. I just knew that I was for it. And so, that’s where I had to grow up in and see that, “Oh, this isn’t just those guys over there. This is all of us in ministry, and I need to find a way to get good at this.” But my introduction was Competent to Counsel.
Dale Johnson: That’s pretty incredible. So, talk about from your sophomore year, to then when a lot of people are introduced to Heath, maybe in 2009-2010—when you started working at Southern Seminary, and moving into ACBC, and even the BCC. And so, talk about that window of time: Who were the influential people in your life? And how did you get to know them? And how did you start moving in that direction in biblical counseling?
Heath Lambert: Yeah, so I wound up in the Ph.D. program at Southern, honestly, because they asked me to. They had switched the program from an integrationist program to a biblical counseling program. Some of my professors wanted me to get a PhD in systematic theology, that made no sense to me. I just couldn’t imagine being the one millionth graduate from the Ph.D. program at Southern, with systemic theology. I just couldn’t imagine doing it. It didn’t seem like it was necessary. I wanted to be a pastor. But when they changed the program to biblical counseling, and the dean of the School of Theology, and the dean of the school of leadership reached out, and they said, “Hey, we need some good guys in the program that are going to help. We got to build our own guys up.” I thought, “well, now that seems like something that’s useful. If we don’t have anybody, and we need to grow a farm team, I’ll do that.” So, we joined the Ph.D. program at Southern, with the hope that we could help contribute to the good changes that were happening there. And in that program, David Powlison was an adjunct teacher, and he needed a research assistant. So, all these people applied to be David Powlison’s research assistant. Some way, he picked me. And over the years, from 2005, to 2009, I went from working for David, to us being friends.
I’m also thankful to Al Mohler. He asked the trustees of Southern Seminary to make an exception. Here’s David, who at that point was an Episcopalian, for Pete’s sake. He is a member of the faculty of a different institution, and Mohler asked the trustees at Southern to make the extraordinary move to have a non-resident faculty member be the supervisor of a candidate for a Ph.D. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the trustees approved that. So then, David—I’ve been working for him, we’re friends, and now he’s my PhD supervisor. So, I did my doctoral dissertation under him, and then we remained friends. Actually, it’s interesting the same month that I became the executive director of NANC, he became the executive director of CCEF. So, we were friends. David was actually the chairman of the search committee of NANC, that recommended me to the board, and the board recommended me to the membership as the executive director. So, probably the most significant influence was David, and our friendship, and his mentoring of me. And then, you know, once you get a faculty position in biblical counseling, it starts to be kind of a small world, because everybody’s hunting for those faculty guys. And so, once you get in that world, it becomes pretty small. Like how Stuart Scott joined the faculty at Southern, and we became and remained dear friends. David and I were the dearest of friends, until he went to heaven a couple of years ago. So yeah, one thing led to another, and I wound up leading NANC which became ACBC, and then we got to be friends, and now here we are.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, so great. A wonderful story. I want you to talk a little bit about how biblical counseling, specifically, has impacted your life as a pastor, as a professor, and when you’re at Southern teaching. How has biblical counseling impacted your life, not just in terms of ministry, but even personally?
Heath Lambert: So, okay. So as a pastor, you know, I think the most significant impact biblical counseling has made on my pastoral ministry is that I think it made me a better preacher. Now, if you’ve heard me preach anything—Oh boy, it’s not very good. Well, just imagine how bad it was before. You know, just imagine what I’ve been lifted from—no good. But I mean, you know, here’s the thing—in fact, I’ll say it, it impacted my teaching as a professor because I would prevail upon these Seminary students. You know, I would get one shot at them in the required course. I’d say, “Guys, listen. You guys want to go be big hotshot preachers but let me tell you something—You’ve got to figure out how to care for your people. And when you are a pastor, if you just think about a pastor as a preacher, your temptation is going to be to go in that room and shut the door, lock it, put a chair up against it, and surround yourself with all sorts of fun, easy submissive books. And in your preaching, what you will do, (I’m all for books, I’m not saying I’m against study, but I am against mere study) If all you do is study books and come up with a sermon out of that in front of your people, you will be interacting with commentaries. And 99% of your people don’t care about that. And 99% of your people, really a 100% of your people, must be hit in a personal way with the Truth.” And so, when you interact with people, and you’re talking to a broken woman and you realize that when you say one smart thing, it doesn’t necessarily change her whole life, you’ve got to figure out, “How do I take the Truth and get it into the grooves of her life.” Counseling forces that. And you can’t turn that off when you get in the pulpit. You realize, “I’m not having a conversation with smart people in the Ivory Tower. I’m having an interaction with people who are lineman, nursing home directors, stay-at-home moms and nine-year-olds. And I got to figure out how to take this Truth and get it to them.
Personally, I think, biblical counseling saved my life. I could say a lot, but back in the day, Lauren and I used to do marriage counseling after the kids went to bed, when our kids were much younger. And there would be times when married couples would be leaving our house at 11:00, 11:30, even midnight—that’s the reason we don’t do it anymore. We got too old, we’d comatose on the couch, if we had somebody talking about their problems at 11:00 p.m. in our living room. But on so many nights, I’m telling you, we would thank them for, coming, hug them, send them out the door, shut it and go, “Okay, they’re in a mess and they did not get that way overnight. Let’s talk about how we need to do better, right now, before we get in that shape.” I love my wife, she loves me. We love living together, and doing life together, and there is a lot of joy in our home. And I’m going to get to heaven and find out that one of the main means the Lord used was just counseling people and realizing you cannot slouch. You have to stay ahead of problems. You have to encourage and love at the front end. It was just a warning to us—We don’t want bad habits to take root and creating a mess. So that’s one story. I could tell a lot more, but that’s something.
Dale Johnson: No, that’s outstanding. And I want to encourage any of you who are in ministry or pursuing ministry, you should pause this right now, rewind, and listen to what Heath is saying again. And see how important pastoral ministry is, in the way in which you engage in people’s lives. And always think about counseling as counseling. I mean, he’s describing it in such a helpful way that enhances the way that you preach, and address people with the Word, from the pulpit. So, Heath, that’s really, really helpful. I want to talk about now. You’re still a pastor of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville. You’re leading a large ministry there, but you’re still very involved, even in the biblical counseling movement. You’ve recently written a book on biblical counseling and common grace. We’ve recently done a panel together on “Can Jesus heal trauma?” which was a delight to do. You guys can find that out on the web. And you’re still involved—Talk about how biblical counseling still impacts you today and your involvement in the biblical counseling movement.
Heath Lambert: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that question, because when I stepped down from ACBC back in whatever year that was, so many people said, “Why are you leaving the movement? Why don’t you care?” And I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I am not leaving the biblical counseling movement. I’m leaving one job, and honestly, this will give me another opportunity to do what I love to do.” Honestly, you were involved in all those conversations; you know exactly what was going on. And I did feel like I needed to focus full-time on First Baptist Jacksonville. But I also think, one of the greatest tasks of a leader is to ask a really hard question and answer it—which is even harder. The question is: What does this thing that I’m leading really need? And do I have what it takes to give that? And my answer at ACBC was that I don’t have what it takes to take ACBC to the next step, and Dale Johnson does. And so, it was just so clear to me that the Lord was removing me from that position and was raising you up. And I think the last several years have proven that to be true with your remarkable leadership in your ability to stand there and say, “you shall not pass,” you know, with some of these crazy people and what they’re doing. But I wasn’t leaving and have not left biblical counseling. I love it more, and I am more committed than I have ever been. It’s just that the way this has worked itself out is different.
And so, we have a wonderful training center at First Baptist. We have 100, I think, maybe 110 ongoing counseling cases right now at First Baptist—I just saw the report. We have dozens and dozens of certified counselors. And I read, and I pay attention, and I am concerned. I think biblical counseling is ministry and I don’t think it’s like this adjunct addendum. I think it is ministry, and I think the only question is, whether we will do it faithfully or not. And so, I am committed. I’m not a leader in the movement in the same way. Like I’ve always told you, and I said in the beginning—you have it on tape: Now, I will do what you want me to do, because I want to be a help in any way I can. And so, I am reading. I am paying attention. When they say, “hey, what about a forum?” I want to do that. When they say, “hey, will you write this book?” I want to do that. And I’m really, really excited about what’s happening in biblical counseling. I’m mostly excited about what’s happening at ACBC. I have concerns about some other institutions, and some other ministries. And biblical counseling. There’s always, in every area of ministry, the great risk of drift. Nobody ever wakes up and says, “You know, I’ve been super faithful. I’ve been super conservative, and today I think I’m going to jerk the wheel left.” Nobody ever says that. It’s one step here, it’s two steps there, and next thing, you know—you’ll look up, and that thing way, way, way over there is where you used to be. And there is something about biblical counseling that is quicker to drift than some of the other things. And so you are leading ACBC and the movement, in a really, really challenging time where there is a lot of instinct to drift, and a lot of instinct to go in the wrong direction. And I’m thankful for your leadership and want to be supportive, and helpful in any way I can.
Dale Johnson: And one other thing, he will be speaking at our 2024 annual conference and I’m super excited about his involvement. There is on last thing, Heath. I want to finish with this: I have a lot of people ask me everywhere that I go, “How’s Heath doing?” And so, I want you to give an update just so that people can hear from your perspective, how things are going. You’ve been through a lot in the last five years, and so many people have been praying for you. Certainly, our listeners have been praying for you. So, give a quick update before we finish today.
Heath Lambert: Yeah, so you know, the problem started with spasms on my right side. I couldn’t control movement on my right side. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, couldn’t talk, couldn’t chew, couldn’t swallow. It’s a little tiny nerve, the size of a mechanical pencil lead and some blood vessels that had relocated and were resting on and doing damage to the nerve. It was causing a lot of trouble. So, the surgery—neurosurgeons love to do it. They drill a hole in the back of your head and go in with tools to your brain and move the blood vessels over and pad the nerve. And 98% of the time, that is successful. You’re one and done, but then that first surgery got botched, in my case. And so then, they had to go back and fix it a second time, and then that second surgery made things even worse. And so, we moved medical centers and moved physicians. And the physician I’ve got now is Ricardo Hanel. Go, Dr. Hanel—love him. So, thankful for him at the Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville. And he has needed to do, right now, four surgeries to basically fix the damage that was caused in those first two. But it seems like after the sixth one, in July of 2023, like I’m out of the woods. There is still some wait and see: I have a nerve issue, an infection issue, and I’ve got a wound issue. And in July, everybody said, “Man, you just woke up from the surgery and you’re in a lot of trouble. We just need to tell you: Things are not going the right direction.” And so that’s one of those “All right, Lord Jesus—the doctors say what works for everybody else, doesn’t work for me. So, we need you to be the Great Physician.” And, you know, the Lord Jesus has been the great physician, and it seems that where I was in the middle of the woods, in July—If I’m not out yet, I can see the edge of the woods from here. I meet with my neurosurgeon next week, and right now, I feel great. I feel very encouraged about what he’s going to say. So, all things seem to be moving in the right direction, for the first time in about five years.
Dale Johnson: Amen. Well, we are rejoicing with you. I’m so grateful for you and your ministry at First Baptist, Jacksonville, and the partnership that we have through ACBC, as well. I’m grateful for you brother. And as I mentioned, even a few weeks ago at our annual conference—we’re standing on sturdy shoulders and we appreciate your work, and how the Lord providentially brought you to where you are. It’s really great to hear this story. And I’m glad other people are going to be privy to it now, as well. So, thanks.
Heath Lambert: I’m always glad to talk to you.
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