Resilience: The Journey Continues

Sermon Summary:

In this powerful message, we explore the crucial lesson of resilience in our spiritual journey. The story of Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem serves as a poignant reminder that progress in our faith can easily slip away if we become passive. Just as Nehemiah found the city in disarray after his absence, we too can find our spiritual lives deteriorating when we lose focus. The message challenges us to remain vigilant and diligent in our pursuit of holiness, emphasizing that rebuilding our lives as Christians requires constant attention and commitment. We’re reminded that passivity leads to decline, but resilience requires ongoing dedication to doing good. This lesson is particularly relevant in our personal lives, where we may face seasons of rebuilding due to various life challenges. The message encourages us that with God’s help and the support of fellow believers, we can indeed rebuild, even though the journey may be difficult and filled with setbacks.

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Sermon Points:

CONTEXT: Nehemiah left Jerusalem to return to Persia for a season. When he decided to return, he found the city in disarray. Tobiah had moved into the Temple grounds. Tithes were not being paid. The Sabbath was not being honored. Some Jews were intermarrying with pagans. Nehemiah responded forcefully and faithfully to each situation. He worked to restore the integrity of Jewish practices of faith and fidelity to the Law.

“Nehemiah’s knowledge of Scripture; his ability to apply that knowledge to the particular context; his courage to make highly unpopular decisions; and his skills to mobilize a highly fragmented, conflicted, and disengaged group of people are the dream of many pastors and leaders.” -Donna and Thomas Petter, NIV Application Commentary

Passivity leads to decline! Resiliency requires diligence in doing good!

For Christians, any journey of re-building requires a commitment to holiness and honoring God.

Seasons of Re-Building As followers of Jesus, we remain anchored in our faith as we aim at a new future when we re-build. Through prayer and obedience, we resolve to honestly forge ahead, overcoming inevitable obstacles and denying the force of distractions. We steadfastly commit ourselves to the authority of God’s direction in our lives as we joyfully engage in the journey. We refuse to let all of our work collapse due to our inattentiveness. We can re-build!

Key Takeaways:

• Passivity leads to decline; resilience requires diligence in doing good
• Inattentiveness can quickly undo progress in rebuilding
• Christians must commit to holiness and honoring God when rebuilding their lives
• Rebuilding is a challenging but achievable process with God’s help
• The church itself has gone through multiple seasons of rebuilding throughout its history

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Scripture References:

• Nehemiah 13, particularly verses 4-31

Stories:

• Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem and his efforts to restore proper worship and practices
• The history of First Baptist Church Arlington, including its founding, relocations, fires, and periods of rebuilding
• Brief mention of testimonies from Living Hope ministry, illustrating the challenges of personal rebuilding
• The deterioration of Rolling Hills Country Club as an analogy for spiritual decline without attention

Transcript

Father, I want to thank you today for this opportunity to gather here in this place. We’re grateful for the freedom that we have to worship you. We never take that for granted. We thank you, Lord, for the voices of the children that we’ve heard today and recognizing that they represent both our present and our future. And we’re grateful for them. Today, Lord, we come before you and pray for our nation. We know that these are very challenging days across our land. And we pray for healing and for hope across America today. Today, we pray for President Biden. We know that these are incredibly complex. Complicated days. And he certainly leads on a world stage. And the decisions that he makes affects the lives of millions of people. So we come before you today on his behalf asking for you to give him wisdom and prudence as he makes decisions. We also pray, Lord, for former President Trump. We pray for Vice President Kamala Harris. Because in short order, one of those two people will be the leader of the free world. Amen. And so we lift them both before you. None of us in this room today has any idea of the pressures and the challenges that they will face. And so we ask you to give them wisdom. We also pray, Lord, for our nation during this election. We certainly pray for your people. We pray that Christians across America, that we would honor you not just with our ballots, but also with our behavior. And we ask you to give us wisdom to do just that. We pray for our world. It seems to us, Lord, that our world is on fire. We pray for the troubled places in our world like the Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran. And the list goes on and on. And we know, Lord, that there are people in all of those places, innocent people today who suffer. Not because of any decisions. Not because of any decision they’ve made. But just because of where they happen to live. And so we lift them to you today. And we pray for peace in those troubled places. In our own nation, Lord, we’re mindful of the devastation that’s occurred because of the hurricanes. And we know that there are fellow Americans, citizens, friends, family members right now who found themselves in harm’s way and they need your help. Some of them need shelter, a place to live. Some of them need food and water. Some of them, their jobs are in jeopardy. Their futures are uncertain. And so we lift them to you today. We know that there are many, many people working among them diligently and faithfully. We thank you for that. We’re particularly grateful for Texans on Mission who represent us. And they are the voice and the hands and the feet of Jesus in the lives of so many. So we ask you to give them strength and resilience. And patience during these days. And here, closer to home, Lord, we are grateful for how you’re at work in our church. But we know that there are those in our church that are facing difficult days. We’ve had several deaths in our church family. And we know there are people who are rebuilding their lives as they come out on the other side of the reality of what’s just occurred. We know others, Lord, who are facing difficult types of challenges. And we just pray for them as our brothers. And sisters in Christ. And lift them before you. We thank you for how you’re at work in our church. And we just pray, Lord, that you’d guide us as we face challenges ahead of us as a church. Perhaps new seasons of ministry. And, Lord, our goal is to give you glory. And so we ask you to give us wisdom to do just that. That we will honor you in decisions we make. And that we will follow the Jesus way all the way home. And so we offer that prayer to you today in the name of Jesus himself. Amen and amen. Well, you know that if you’ve been with us at all, that our theme for this year is together. And today we are bringing our fall conversation to a conclusion. Together for the future. We began this series at the beginning of the fall. Even though at that time the weather was not cooperating with us, we went ahead and launched fall anyway. And it eventually has caught up. And so today… Today we’re going to end this fall series. And I think next Sunday, as we begin missions month, I think next Sunday is time change Sunday. Isn’t that right? And is it the good one or the bad one? I asked that in the first service and everybody said bad. So is it the less bad one, I think? But anyway, I think that’s next Sunday. But we’ll be here whenever we’re supposed to be here. How about that?

So, as I said, we’re going to bring this series to a conclusion. We have been… Talking about lessons for rebuilding. And let me just walk you through what we’ve learned real quickly. If you’re new and you haven’t been here at all, this will catch you up to date. And just put you in a place where we can have a conversation today to have one more lesson. We started with the message that I called anchored in the faith and aim toward the future. Obviously, if you’re going to rebuild your life, we believe it needs to be anchored in your faith in the Lord. And then we learned about neology. We are believers. We begin with prayer. Anytime we’re going to rebuild anything. And then the next lesson, you are here. You’ve got to start from where you are. You can’t start from where you wish you were. And make an honest assessment of your life. Planning and zoning. We’ve got to make plans, get to work. You know, a dream is not a plan. And then inevitable obstacles. When you’re rebuilding your life, you’re going to face them. So we have to learn to overcome them. And they can be overcome. We don’t want to get sidetracked by distractions. And so if you’re tempted to be detoured by distractions when you’re rebuilding, don’t let that happen. And then… We talked about the fact that we need a firm foundation, which we believe is the truth that’s revealed in God’s Word. It’s trustworthy. Last Sunday morning, we talked about how we can experience the joy of the Lord while we’re rebuilding our lives. That joy is both a gift and a choice. So today, one more lesson. And we’ll be done with this series. And we’ll turn the page toward missions next Sunday morning. So the final lesson for the day in this series is resilience. The journey. The journey continues. And the text is found on the very last page of Nehemiah. The 13th page. And it’s a story about resilience. Let me catch us up to date so that it’ll make sense this morning. Okay? We last left Nehemiah last Sunday in Nehemiah 8. It was a big revival service at the Watergate. It was a great celebration. Great joy. Great rejoicing. Rejoicing in the life of Israel, if you remember that. You come to Nehemiah 9, and the children of Israel stand in the Lord’s presence, and they reaffirm their covenant with God and give expression to it. And they’re going to remain faithful to the law, is what they tell the Lord. And then in Nehemiah 10, they expressly state their promises. So the children of Israel in Nehemiah 10 tell the Lord directly. They say, we’re not going to marry pagan. So we’re not going to give our daughters to pagan men. We’re not going to give our sons to pagan women. We will continue to keep Israel pure. The threat of Israel’s survival was on everybody’s mind. You know that the northern kingdom had already been lost, intermarried, polluted by the Assyrians, and no longer existed. All that’s left is Judah and some of Benjamin. And so they are committing themselves to be pure in their marriages. They promised. They promised to keep the temple pure and holy. They promised to pay their tithes so that the priests could do their work in the temple. They promised to keep the Sabbath. And they told the Lord, we will do all of these things. Then you come to Nehemiah 11, and Nehemiah leads the children of Israel in repopulating Jerusalem. It wasn’t good enough just to have a wall around the city if nobody lived in it. So Nehemiah 11 tells the story of how many Jews decided to move back inside the wall of Jerusalem, so the city would have vitality in life, rebuilding their homes, and they’re going to live and work within the gates of Jerusalem. And then Nehemiah 12 is a beautiful story of worship. So Michael, it was choirs, musicians, every kind of musical instrument, everything you can think of, orchestrated choreographed. It was your world, you and Aaron. Had choirs standing on the wall. Choirs standing underneath so the people could all hear them. As a matter of fact, if you look at verse 43 of chapter 12, the text says this, just kind of as a summary of that day. They’re dedicating the wall. And it says, On that day they offered great sacrifices, so they worshiped in the temple, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. So the children’s choir sang, kind of like today. And women and men. And in fact, the text says this, The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away. So it was a beautiful concert, celebration, worship, everything you’d want it to be. And the wall was dedicated. And the children of Israel were prepared to step into the future. So once that’s done, Nehemiah leaves. And he goes back to Persia. He is the cupbearer to the king, which is somewhat like a chief of staff. To the king, it’s a very important position. So presumably, he returned home where he had worked. And he went back to work in the government. And he left Jerusalem be. We’re not sure how long it lasted, but a number of years passed. Nehemiah decided to pay a visit back to Jerusalem and just see how everything’s going. That’s where we pick up the story. So are y’all with me? Okay, last page of the story. We’ve been reading through Ezra and Nehemiah. We’re going to finish it. We’re going to finish it up today. So here’s what happens, okay? So if you look at verse 4 of Nehemiah 13. We’ll just read some excerpts. Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, the musicians, the gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests. Well, while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem. This is Nehemiah talking. For in the thirty-second year of our tax receipts, King of Babylon, I had returned to the king. Sometime later I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem, and here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God. I was greatly displeased, and I threw all of Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. I gave orders to purify the rooms, then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God with the grain offerings and the incense. I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and that all the Levites and the musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. So I rebuked the officials, and I asked them, Why is the house of God neglected? And then I called them together and stationed them at their posts. Now skip down to verse 14. Remember me for this, my God. Do not blot out what I have done. So faithfully done for the house of my God and its services. In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in grain, loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs, and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. Now skip down to verse 23. Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. And then finally verse 30. So here’s his last comment. I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign. I assigned them duties each to his own task. I also made provisions for contributions of wood at designated times and for the first fruits. Remember me with favor, my God. What a fascinating story after Nehemiah comes back to Jerusalem. So let me just set the context, and we’ll talk about it for just a second, and we’ll learn our last lesson about rebuilding. Nehemiah left Jerusalem to return to Persia for a season. When he decided to return, he found the city in disarray. Tobiah had moved into the temple grounds. Tithes were not being paid. The Sabbath was not being honored. And some Jews were intermarrying with pagans. Nehemiah responded forcefully and faithfully to each situation. He worked to restore the integrity of Jewish practices of faith and fidelity to the law. So here’s the thing. Do y’all remember at all in reading this story, Tobiah? Let me remind you of who he is. He appears in Nehemiah 2 verse 10. And he’s an enemy of Nehemiah. He’s an Ammonite. He does not want the wall to be rebuilt around Jerusalem. And he says so. And he’s in cahoots with Sanballat. Those two men are going to oppose Nehemiah. Chapter 2 verse 19, they expressly state their opposition to anything Nehemiah’s doing. Nehemiah gets the people to start building the wall. And then you may remember in Nehemiah 4, Tobiah makes fun of them. And he says, You Jews don’t know how to build a wall. If a fox were to run across the wall, it would fall over. Poking fun. Nehemiah 6, he tries to bait Nehemiah to leave Jerusalem so that he can kill him. Okay. So Nehemiah leaves. He’s gone back to Persia. He comes back to Jerusalem. And lo and behold, Tobiah is living in the temple.

And Nehemiah is like, how in the world did this happen? Eliashib the priest has invited Tobiah to live in the temple. And I love verse 8. Nehemiah just kicked him out. Took all his goods, all of his belongings, everything he owned and got it out of the temple. Purified that storeroom and returned it to what it was supposed to be. A storehouse to provide for the Levites to worship and lead the people of God in worship. So he put back all the holy utensils and he got rid of Tobiah. I was listening to a sermon a while back on this very chapter. And the preacher that preached that sermon said that Tobiah is representative of all the things that Christians allow into their hearts. And he says, you need to kick some Tobiahs out of your life. It’s what he says. Well, so that’s what Nehemiah did. Nehemiah then found out that the people weren’t tithing. And he asked, he said, why are all the Levites bivocational? They’re supposed to be here taking care of the temple. And they’re out plowing fields. And they had to say, well, the reason they’re out plowing the fields is because nobody’s paying the tithe anymore. So they can’t do their jobs anymore. So Nehemiah challenges them, rebukes them, and restores the tithe. And challenges Israel to bring the grain offerings and the oil offerings and the gifts of their finances to support the work of the temple. Then Nehemiah watches them on the Sabbath. And he sees the farmers working just like as any other day. When they’ve promised God they won’t work on the Sabbath, they’ll honor the Sabbath. Not only that, they’re bringing their goods and wares on the evening before the Sabbath. Camping outside the wall of Jerusalem, bringing them into the city. And the Jews are shopping on the Sabbath. And so Nehemiah says, stop it. We’re not doing that anymore. And so he closes the gates on the Sabbath so nobody can bring their stuff in. And he shuts all the markets down. And he says, you are going to honor the Sabbath like you said you were going to. Then in my favorite part of the story. This one’s interesting. You get to verse 23. And remember the future of the Jews is threatened right now. There’s only a remnant left. There aren’t that many of them. They don’t have a king. They don’t have an army. And so one of the things they’ve got to do is maintain the purity and the fidelity of Judaism. So if they keep intermarrying with all these pagans, there won’t be any Jews left. And that’s going to threaten the actual line of the Messiah. Does that make sense? So they’ve agreed we’re not going to do that. Well, they’re doing it. Fascinating what Nehemiah does. If you look at verse 23 and 24, he found out about it. So verse 25, he goes and finds some of these men that have married pagan women. Look at verse 25. He says, I rebuked them. I called curses down on them. I beat some of them up and I pulled out their hair.

And there you have it. Nehemiah knew that to pull the hair out of a Jewish male would have been something that they would have viewed as a curse to have their head uncovered. I’m not saying anything to all you bald men in here. That’s not the point. But in other words, he was saying, you are acting like pagans. Well, then I’m going to make you look like a pagan. You’re not going to be a part of this company if that’s how you’re going to live. So Nehemiah, then he found out in verse 28 that Sanballat, who was partner to Tobiah in crime, that his daughter has married the priest’s son. So he kicks him out. And he says, I’m not going to have the priest’s son married to a pagan. So finally, you get to the end and Nehemiah says, verse 30. Now, I purified this place. I’ve made provisions for the temple so the people of God can worship. The Levites are back at work. The Jews have committed themselves to purity. And so now we can get on with things. In other words, Nehemiah was basically saying it wasn’t enough to build a wall. Because when he got back to Jerusalem, y’all, the wall was still there. It was fine. So from the outside, everything looked okay. But once he gets inside of the city, he sees how everybody’s living because the point of the wall was to preserve the people of God. So that the people of God could actually reach the pagans with the good news because they were supposed to be a light to the Gentiles. But if they have no faith, if they’ve lost their way, they have nothing to offer anybody else. Does that make sense? So Nehemiah is leading in a wholesale revival. It’s a powerful story. But when you read a page like this, it’s no wonder that a lot of people who study leadership study Nehemiah.

Donna and Thomas Petter have written a wonderful commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah. Let me read you a quote from their commentary. They said, other words, the ability to be decisive, make responsible decisions, and do them in a timely fashion. He said, these guys say all of that is found in Nehemiah. So with all that said, let me give you our final lesson from my perspective rebuilding. And it has to do with resiliency. Because when you read a page like this, what we discover is something I’ve learned in my own life and I believe it to be true in the journey of rebuilding. Passivity leads to decline.

Resiliency requires diligence in doing good. If you’re rebuilding your life and you get down the road a bit and you become inattentive, then what you and I both will have to learn is an unwillingness to remain diligent in rebuilding results in an inevitable decline. Progress had slowed in Jerusalem because the people became so lax after Nehemiah left. The leaders became lax. Progress slowed. People followed. And not only that, we moved from progress to regress. And these children of Israel moved backwards in decline. And it doesn’t take long for it to happen. So I just want to encourage you this morning in your journey of rebuilding. Be resilient. Pay attention. Be diligent to the things that matter. It doesn’t take long for them to regress. You know, when we first moved here back in 2001, I started playing golf at Shady Valley Country Club. We left there when Josiah started playing golf. Our son and he joined the golf team at Lamar. And we joined Rolling Hills Country Club. And I really loved Rolling Hills Country Club because there are no trees there. It’s great. Errant shots could find a fairway. It may not be your fairway, but you could find one. Shady Valley is named Shady for a reason. Let me just tell you. Those of you that look for golf balls with Scripture on them, you find a lot of them at Shady Valley. I promise you. I found all my golf balls at Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills opened 1954. It originally was called the Rojelo. Nine-hole golf club. 1962, they changed the name to Rolling Hills. Built a clubhouse right when we moved here. And so we joined. We played a lot of golf there with Josiah through the years. Well, have y’all heard what’s happened to Rolling Hills? Some of you Arlington folks know it sold a few years ago. And there’s going to be a brand-new housing development, which is fine. I’m fine with that. In fact, I think it’s going to be okay. And it’ll be a good thing, mixed use and all that. But have you seen the golf course lately? Have you driven by it at all? It didn’t take long, did it? You quit paying attention, and Mother Nature takes over, right? It’s just what happens. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying it is what it is. It’s amazing to me how quickly it happened. It didn’t take very long at all. Well, you quit paying attention in your own life, and Mother Nature will take over. Unfortunately for us, it’s our sinful nature that takes over. And if you’re inattentive, and you’re not diligent, and you’re not resilient, all that progress you’ve made in rebuilding, you can lose it much more quickly than you could ever imagine. I can promise you the last thing Satan wants is Christians who have confidence in rebuilding. And so I want to encourage you. Be vigilant. Be resilient. And for Christians, I would just say this about us. When it comes to rebuilding our lives, we have to have a commitment to holiness and honoring God. We’re not just rebuilding any old life as Christians. We’re rebuilding godly lives. That means we’ve got to pay attention to things like purity, and holiness, and honoring God. Nehemiah comes back to Jerusalem, and like I said, the wall is still there. It looks great. All the gates are working. Everything was just like he left it, except for what was on the inside. That’s where the struggle was. And once he looked at it and examined it, the priests had compromised. My goodness, they had moved Tobit. They had moved Eliah into the temple. And Eliashib had allowed his son to marry Sanballat’s daughter. And the people followed. The temple was polluted. The Sabbath was no longer a big deal. They weren’t paying their tithes. They’d even got to the point to where they had grown lax in their views of marriage. And the entire understanding of who they were as a people deteriorated. Well, I would just say to us, if you’re going to rebuild your life as a Christian, you’ve got to be diligent spiritually and show some resilience, because it matters. So, let me just sum the whole sermon series up, if I can, with just this little paragraph. Can I do that? Let’s just do this in conclusion. When we’re in seasons of rebuilding, and you know, you find yourself in a season of rebuilding for all kinds of reasons. There are just all kinds of things that happen. You can have a spouse that dies. You can have a parent that dies. You can have a diagnosis physically. You can have something happen vocationally, and you’ve got to make a job change. You can just be in a season where you think, okay, I’m just ready to rebuild my life. Maybe you get married, and you’re starting a whole new life. Or you’ve just come through a divorce, and now you’re going to rebuild. There are just all kinds of reasons for it. So, when you find yourself there, let me just offer this synopsis. As followers of Jesus, we remain anchored in our faith as we aim at a new future when we rebuild. Through prayer and obedience, we resolve to honestly forge ahead in overcoming inevitable obstacles and denying the force of distractions. We steadfastly commit ourselves to the authority of God’s direction in our lives as we joyfully engage in the journey, and we refuse to let all of our work collapse due to our inattentiveness. We can rebuild. I want to encourage you this morning. You can rebuild. Look at your neighbor and tell them, you can rebuild. You can.

Say it to yourself, I can rebuild. With God’s help, with God’s grace, with the people of God around you, you can rebuild. Now, I’ll tell you this, y’all. Do you think it’s easy?

If it’s easy, everybody do it. I’m just telling you it’s not easy. I’ve been through it myself. Ups and downs. It’s a winding road. Pitfalls along the way. Twists and turns. I get it. Last night, we, Cindy and I, came last night to the 35th anniversary celebration of Living Hope. Living Hope is a ministry that our church is connected to that Ricky Shillette leads. And it is a ministry that cares for and provides hope for people who are sexually broken. And we listened last night to testimonies of people who are in that ministry. And it’s amazing listening to their stories. But their stories were real, authentic stories of the challenges that I’m talking about this morning. Coming to reality, recognizing the need to make a change, and beginning a long journey. And we heard from a number of them who said, I had nowhere else to go. And that’s the truth in our society. So many people that find their way to Living Hope have nowhere else to go. Because they can go one direction and be completely condemned. They go another direction and be completely affirmed. They’re looking to be loved, the ones that have come to us. And trying to find a path forward. And that’s what Living Hope offers them. But we listened to their testimonies. And you know what their stories were? Commitment, determination, rebuilding, and then pitfall and regression. And then rebuilding and a journey, continuing and then inattentiveness and challenge and a pitfall. And then rebuilding and a journey. But the good news is the ones we heard from last night are on that process of rebuilding to the glory of God. It’s hard though. Not just for someone who’s dealing with those struggles. For any of us. That’s why a lot of people just don’t do it. But I want to encourage you to do it. You know, we’ve learned some lessons in this series. Rebuilding things, people. The pieta, we talked about how it’s been put back together. The life of Thomas Terence, Simon Peter. We’ve talked about a lot of people who have been, have had their lives rebuilt. Churches. Sometimes have to go through rebuilding. You know, this church has been through numerous seasons of rebuilding. Y’all know that though, right? This week, I was reviewing our history book called Higher Ground. It’s amazing when you go back and read some of the stories about our church. 1871, our nation was coming off the terrible Civil War. Ulysses Grant was the president. And we had a group of Baptists down at what is known today as Johnson Station. Seventeen of them, I think it was, started the church. Had a pastor come from South Carolina. They launched the church in 1871. Couple years later, about three years later, the railroad was going to be put in three miles north. The pastor of the church was Reverend Josiah Leake. And Reverend Leake said, here’s what we need to do. We need to move to where the people are going to be. We need to leave this Texas Ranger Station and move up by the railroad because that’s where the community is going to be. And so they decided to move 1876 three miles north. Not everybody came because in 1876 a three mile walk was a three mile walk. So some people didn’t come. He led the church to come anyway. And they ended up buying property they built a church. An actual church building here in Arlington. We’re the oldest church in Arlington. And built a church over here on Oak Street and Border Street, but today’s UTA Boulevard. Pretty close to where the UTA bookstore is if y’all know where that is. Just beyond our property here. And that was the home of our church. They called themselves the Arlington Baptist Church. They were no longer Johnson Station Baptist because they weren’t in Johnson Station anymore. So they became the Arlington Baptist Church for about 30 years. And then about 1909 or so, the building burned. And so they had no place to meet. And eventually the church deteriorated some, disbanded. And they just quit meeting. It was a challenging time for our church. Finally in January of 1911, a group of them said, we need to form a church. And we need to make sure we have a future here. And so they met on a Sunday. It was June the 4th, 1911 and started the church again. There was another group of them though that didn’t care for that group. So they met the same day that afternoon and started another church. The first group called themselves the First Missionary Baptist Church of Arlington. The second group called themselves Central Baptist Church of Arlington. And even though they used to all be a part of the Arlington Baptist Church. Are y’all still with me? So now you got two Baptist churches in this little town. And they continued to minister alongside each other. However, the two pastors realized we probably ought to get together. So in 1914, they decided to merge into one church. The two pastors had to decide which one of us is gonna pastor this thing if we actually merge the two churches together. They finally chose to do it. And the good news was there was only one Baptist church in Arlington again in 1914. They met together for a year and decided they couldn’t get along with each other so they disbanded in 1915. When you read the record, they say we disbanded because of dissatisfied conditions. Whatever that was. There was a missionary in Tarrant County who saw all this unfold and he said you Baptists in Arlington need to get your act together. So he came over here in January 1916 and tried to call them all together and said we need to start meeting again. So they decided to. And they started again the church and they rebuilt. And they bought property over here on Abram and Pecan Street. And they built our second sanctuary in the city of Arlington. And there was a brick building with white columns and it became our home. Beautiful building. Some of you have seen pictures of it. October 13th on Friday the 13th 1944 that building burned to the ground. So once again, our church had nowhere to meet. The pastor at the time was a very popular pastor. Dr. Meredith was our pastor at the time. And the church struggled. Met at Arlington High School. The old Arlington High School which is over here on Cooper. Where the UTA School of Social Work has been.

And finally in 1945 they bought this property here on Center Street. And the building that has the steeple for those of you that are new, that’s the original church that was built on this street. And it was dedicated in 1947. Great excitement. Church went into debt for the first time. And everybody was excited. Dr. Meredith had finished his PhD at Southwestern Seminary. He was up and coming leader in the Southern Baptist Convention. He was a young pastor. And then in August of 1950 he was 39 years old. He unexpectedly dropped dead. And so this congregation found itself once again in a very challenging time. World War II had ended. The Korean conflict was beginning. Pastor had died. The church was in debt with a brand new building. Unsure about their future. 1951 the church reached out into West Texas and brought someone that no one knew. His name was Henry East. And Brother East came to be our pastor. And he stayed for the next 25 years as the pastor of this church. And he rebuilt the church. Started buying property. Started churches all over Arlington.

And re-evangelized this community. Dr. East retired and the church brought Dr. Wade. 1976 Dr. Wade came and led this church through another season of rebuilding. Purchasing more property. Starting Mission Arlington. And engaging in a Matthew 25 ministry here in this community. And then he felt led to take his gifts and leadership to Texas Baptist and became the executive director of Texas Baptist in 2001. Y’all called a skinny preacher from Alabama to take the reigns of this place. The church has been through multiple wars. Two pandemics. 1917 and 2020. Challenges of a changing ministry environment. Church fires. Churches disbanding. Broken fellowship. Launching mission efforts. And what I would tell you is that here we are in 2024 with our eyes on the future once again. Praise God. Amen.

And what we’re wanting to do is look at our ministry opportunities and challenges and whatever we have to rebuild or rethink reevaluate, we’ll do it. We’re getting ready to go on staff retreat today and our leadership staff will be meeting for the next couple days at Riverbend. You can pray for us. We’re looking at this next half decade. These next five years in front of us. 2025 through 2030. And flourishing together is our theme. And we are joining in a study. Called the Global Flourishing Study. It is the largest study of its kind in the history of sociology. It is being led by Harvard University and Baylor University. And they have 45 scholars that are leading the study of human flourishing across the world. Our church is going to be a part of that project. And we are going to engage in a whole journey of flourishing together as the people of God. We’re also joining hands with an incredible effort among Western Christians who are desiring to take the Gospel to the whole world by the year 2033. Which is the 2000th anniversary of Pentecost. One of the leaders of that movement is Dr. Elijah Brown. He is the General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. A communion of over 51 million Baptists of which our church is a member. And he is piloting a project and leading a project to take the Gospel to the world and mobilize the Baptist family across the world to join hands with the rest of Christianity. To make sure that everyone across this planet has the opportunity to hear the Gospel in their own language that they can understand by the year 2033. And Dr. Elijah Brown is a great friend of mine. And so the last Sunday morning of Missions Month, which is next month, November 24th, he is going to be our guest. And he’ll be preaching in both of our worship services and sharing that vision with us as a church. And what I would tell you is we are extremely excited and hopeful for this next season ahead of us. Anchored in our faith and our heritage. But aimed toward a future that we’re trusting God with. I have no idea what all lies in front of us. But I would say to us we are going to rebuild whatever we’ve got to rebuild. We’ll reevaluate whatever we’ve got to reevaluate. And we will do whatever God leads us to to the glory of God. Praise His name. Amen. So, with that said, let me lead us in a word of prayer. And we’re going to have meditation and commitment. Alright? So let’s pray. Father, we are grateful to be a part of Your work. We’re grateful to be a part