Pledge Sunday At First Baptist Church Mulvane

Over the last few weeks, as we move closer to our pledge Sunday on February 27th, we have been working our way through Nehemiah. In this book, we have seen principles for following God’s call as Nehemiah steps out to build the walls of Jerusalem. This Sunday, I planned on continuing in Nehemiah 4 and examining several forms of opposition the builders face as they strive to follow God’s will. However over the last few weeks, many have expressed questions about how someone can "know" what God is calling them pledge. A heart wrestling with this question is a good thing. This is a question that is relevant in all of the Christian life, not just in a building campaign.

So this Sunday, instead of continuing in Nehemiah 4 (which we will do after our pledge Sunday), we will look at portions of 2 Corinthians 8 & 9. You may have noticed that many of the verses in our "22 days of prayer" brochure are from this section. Here, Paul encourages the Corinthians to fulfill their pledge by completing the collection to help the struggling, impoverished church in Jerusalem. Paul exhorted them to begin this collection in 1 Corinthians 16:1-5, and in chapters 8-9 of 2 Corinthians, he urges them to complete their giving. While Paul is certainly not calling the believers to give in order to build a church building, he does give principles regarding the model and method of giving from the heart that are applicable and necessary in all of the Christian life. I hope you will read 2 Co. 8-9 as you prepare to worship on Sunday.

The Lord through Haggai addresses the people's discouragement in the work He has called them to do.

As we look toward our pledge Sunday on Feb. 27th, this Sunday we will continue in the book of Nehemiah. In chapter 1, we saw Nehemiah burdened for the name and the people of God as he hears about the broken down walls of Jerusalem. And in chapter 1, we saw that all Nehemiah’s efforts, strategies, and actions began with burdened, faith filled prayer. There we saw that we must be people of prayer, not just in building campaigns, but in every aspect of our life as we live for Christ’s name. Dependence upon Christ is essential for the mission of making disciples. For months Nehemiah prayed. And in the beginning of chapter 2, we will see the time comes for Nehemiah to step out in faith as he risks everything to follow God’s call. Nehemiah 2:1-8 shows us what "stepping out in faith" looks like. It isn’t just shooting from the hip or flying by the seat of our pants, hoping everything works out.

Nehemiah, as so many others in Scripture (including Abram, Noah, Moses, David, Esther, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego...the list goes on) steps out in faith, risking whatever circumstances may come in order to be faithful to what God calls him to do. When God opens the door, Nehemiah steps through it. As the writer of Hebrews says, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). This is the epitome of the Christian life.

Nehemiah is burdened by the news of God's people and God's name suffering shame. This burden breaks forth into a faith-filled prayer as Nehemiah worships His God, confesses sin, and calls upon God's promises. Prayer is the foundation of walking in the will of God.

As we begin talking about our building campaign, we must enter this time with the wisdom of the Lord. He has given us principles of wisdom by which we can discern His will and walk in His ways - in every season.

God calls His people to assess their priorities and their ways and return to building His house

As we finished Acts 8 last week, we came across Acts 8:37 which is either missing or bracketed in most of our English Bibles. Whether removed or bracketed, your bible will have a footnote explaining that some manuscripts don’t contain this verse. Using situations like this, some people claim that we cannot trust the New Testament because it has been copied so many times down through history that the original message has been lost. It is commonly put forth that there is no way that we can no for sure that the Bible we have in our hands today is what the Apostles actually wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Sunday we are going to show that this assertion is demonstrably false. We will explain how the text of the New Testament has been transmitted to us and show some examples of how we can be assured of its accuracy. We will use Acts 8:37 as a test case and show you all the information the "scholars" use examine its history of transmission. And we will even look at a few manuscripts.

I know this kind of presentation is a different than a normal Sunday for us. We are committed to expositing the Bible verse by verse and section by section through scriptural books. That is not going to change. The preaching of the word is the central element of the church’s worship. However, as we have come across Acts 8:37, this is a good time for us to back up and also examine God’s work in preserving and transmitting His word to us. We can have assurance (from the evidence) that what we preach from every Sunday, what we read from in our devotion time with God, and what we live by as the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the church - is God’s word accurately transmitted through time from the pen of the Holy Spirit inspired apostles!