Lincoln held out against a second half Bury onslaught to clinch a hard earned point.
The Red Imps were in lively form early on, but after going in front they allowed the Lancashire team to take control.
City midfielder Ben Sedgemore had a ninth minute chance, but his low left foot shot produced a diving save from Bury keeper Glyn Garner.
Two minutes later City striker Simon Yeo turned Bury's Matthew Barrass just outside the box only to be chopped down by the defender. Barrass was shown the yellow card but Bury successfully defended the free kick.
Lincoln got the breakthrough in the 23rd minute when Yeo was fouled inside the box by Michael Nelson and Sedgemore easily converted the resulting spot kick.
But Bury started to get on top and Lee Unsworth should have equalized a minute before the break, but put his close range effort into the side netting.
Bury started the second half by pouring men forward and were unlucky almost immediately, when player-manager Andy Preecet hit a low shot from the edge of the box only to see Alan Marriot save.
Jon Newby and Preece both sent efforts straight at the keeper and then Lincoln defender Ben Futcher made a desperate clearance to prevent Newby getting through.
Shakers keeper Garner kept his team in the game with a superb double save in the 67th minute, when he managed to push out a rocket of a shot from Sedgemore and then used his legs to block the follow up from Peter Gain.
Bury, who had switched to a three man strike force with the introduction of substitute David Nugent, finally drew level 14 minutes from time.
Lincoln keeper Marriot fumbled a high cross from Jamie Stuart before compounding his error by bringing down Preece in the scramble that followed.
Preece got up to take the resulting penalty and equalized when he sent the Lincoln keeper the wrong way