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Our Church Constitution (Part 2)
Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · November 9, 2025
Transcript:
Well, let me give you a, not a caveat, but just say this off the bat. I'm going to try my best not to bore you to death today, because today is the one day that we have the potential of, I say one day, I mean you might think I'm boring every week, but today is one day that is more, more likely to be boring. So we're going to, we're going to try to make this as interesting as possible. We've been talking about our church constitution, so I want to read a few parts of it that are relevant to our study today. Hopefully we can get through the entire thing, not the entire constitution, it's 54 pages I think, but the entire part of the constitution that I would like to get to and just make a few comments on it. And hopefully wrap up our study of, on our church altogether and then be praying. Please pray for me to know what the next study we need to go into for our Sunday school, our adult Sunday school. And there's a lot of different directions, different things. And I have received a few suggestions, a couple of suggestions, but if you have something that's on your mind and on your heart, we might could, if you let me know, we might could look into that and see if that's a study we could do. But I just want to be a help as we study the Bible together. And so let's pray and then we are going to again try to finish up about our church's constitution. All right, let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together once again. Thank you for the good fellowship yesterday and the opportunity to spend time with one another and to enjoy one another's company, to share a meal together and all of those things. We thank you for the beautiful weather. Thank you for the beautiful colors that you put before our eyes here where we live and this time of year. Lord, thank you for the breeze. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for your goodness shown to us, especially though, Lord, we give you thanks for the Lord Jesus. None of those things would matter for they would be fleeting and brief and unenjoyable knowing Lord that we were under the wrath of God, but we had been freed from the wrath of God by the gospel, by the cross. Lord, we give you thanks for that. I pray that you would strengthen us and help us as we look at these things today. You would help us understand, help us to look at these things in a practical way and to just grow from it. As we look at our church, Lord, we want to be fully integrated, fully involved with both feet, with our arms, our legs, our head, our mind, our heart in our local church. So Lord, help us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so last week we talked about the church constitution and why we need a church constitution and the biblical basis for it. We looked at Matthew 18, Acts chapter 6, 1 Corinthians, various verses there, Titus, Revelation. We saw that the church is not only at the power of binding and loosing, we saw that as well both in Sunday school but also on last Sunday or the Sunday before last, and we saw how that was not only given that authority and power to make judgments, but also we saw that in practice in the book of Acts. So we're following the pattern. We're not making this up as we go. We do have to fill in some blanks about what we do, but we have power to do that as a church given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ to fill in those blanks, but we're still following that pattern as seen in Scripture. That's what it means to be a biblical church is we're following the pattern, the directions the Lord has given and the pattern we see that his church set for us in the book of Acts and in the epistles. So that's our guide. We looked at practical reasons. We have as far as church constitution, I gave you three things to three parts. The first one is the biblical basis. The second one is the practical reasons for having a church constitution, and we looked at that and what that was is primarily the necessity to articulate what we believe because remember everybody in Christianity, and I mean that in the broadest sense possible, everybody in Christianity uses the Bible to support what they believe. So you can't just say, well, you can, but you could just say, well, the Bible is our constitution and our doctrinal statement. Well that's all fine and good, but what do you do when somebody who claims to use the Bible comes in and starts saying things that do not agree with what we have come to understand the Bible to mean? And so that's why we articulate it. But the Bible is the basis, right? The Bible overrules everything, and that includes the doctrinal statement. So the doctrinal statement is supposed to rest upon the Bible. So that's why it's important that we make judgments about various doctrines, like we saw in the book of Acts, making a judgment about the purpose of the law and those kinds of things. And so with the doctrinal statement, just by way of review, our doctrinal statement or our articles of faith, which is what it's called in the constitution, essentially say this, having examined the relevant verses prayerfully, we believe the scripture teaches this doctrine. So it's not meant, the articles of faith are not meant to be the final authority on everything, and they're not meant to answer every question or every verse or every objection. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to state what our belief is. And then that's after careful consideration of the truths of scripture, because the scripture of course is the basis. So what I'm saying to you is, it is not incompatible to have a doctrinal statement while at the same time your final authority for your faith and the basis for your faith be the Bible. They're not incompatible. They're actually complementary. They go together. And one depends on the other. The third reason that our church constitution is important is our legal reasons. So we have the biblical basis, number one. Number two are practical reasons, and number three are legal reasons. Legal reasons. Now due to the fact that each local church, now I'm referring to right now where we live, so I'm not trying to extend this to other countries or other cultures. I'm not trying to do that. That all has to be applied, and that's a difficult thing to do in other cultures to apply these same things in every case. But that's why we have flexibility to make the judgments that we must make. But in our world where we live, each local church is a legally recognized entity. It is a legally recognized entity. It's part of statutes in our state. It's part of statutes in our federal government. Now that doesn't mean that we have to be recognized. That is, a local church has to be recognized by the government for it to be legitimate. That's not the case. There are many periods in history where churches existed underground, though not literally underground. I used to think that underground meant they met underground. But just by that meaning, they were not recognized or permitted to exist, but yet they existed. Because remember, we ought to obey God rather than men. And if that's what it comes to, that's what it comes to. We don't want that, but that has happened many, many times over the years, and still happens to this day in some places. Because our church is a legally recognized entity, we are required as a matter of practice and necessity to articulate who we are and what our practices will be from a legal perspective. Because we are legally recognized, there are certain legal obligations. And with that recognition comes privileges, and with privileges come some responsibilities. So, if you're going to be legally recognized by the authorities that be, that you are a church, there are probably going to be some responsibilities that go along with that recognition. Now there's benefits, too. It's a give and take. And I would say the benefits outweigh the downsides. But there are both be...
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Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · November 9, 2025
Transcript:
Well, let me give you a, not a caveat, but just say this off the bat. I'm going to try my best not to bore you to death today, because today is the one day that we have the potential of, I say one day, I mean you might think I'm boring every week, but today is one day that is more, more likely to be boring. So we're going to, we're going to try to make this as interesting as possible. We've been talking about our church constitution, so I want to read a few parts of it that are relevant to our study today. Hopefully we can get through the entire thing, not the entire constitution, it's 54 pages I think, but the entire part of the constitution that I would like to get to and just make a few comments on it. And hopefully wrap up our study of, on our church altogether and then be praying. Please pray for me to know what the next study we need to go into for our Sunday school, our adult Sunday school. And there's a lot of different directions, different things. And I have received a few suggestions, a couple of suggestions, but if you have something that's on your mind and on your heart, we might could, if you let me know, we might could look into that and see if that's a study we could do. But I just want to be a help as we study the Bible together. And so let's pray and then we are going to again try to finish up about our church's constitution. All right, let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together once again. Thank you for the good fellowship yesterday and the opportunity to spend time with one another and to enjoy one another's company, to share a meal together and all of those things. We thank you for the beautiful weather. Thank you for the beautiful colors that you put before our eyes here where we live and this time of year. Lord, thank you for the breeze. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for your goodness shown to us, especially though, Lord, we give you thanks for the Lord Jesus. None of those things would matter for they would be fleeting and brief and unenjoyable knowing Lord that we were under the wrath of God, but we had been freed from the wrath of God by the gospel, by the cross. Lord, we give you thanks for that. I pray that you would strengthen us and help us as we look at these things today. You would help us understand, help us to look at these things in a practical way and to just grow from it. As we look at our church, Lord, we want to be fully integrated, fully involved with both feet, with our arms, our legs, our head, our mind, our heart in our local church. So Lord, help us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so last week we talked about the church constitution and why we need a church constitution and the biblical basis for it. We looked at Matthew 18, Acts chapter 6, 1 Corinthians, various verses there, Titus, Revelation. We saw that the church is not only at the power of binding and loosing, we saw that as well both in Sunday school but also on last Sunday or the Sunday before last, and we saw how that was not only given that authority and power to make judgments, but also we saw that in practice in the book of Acts. So we're following the pattern. We're not making this up as we go. We do have to fill in some blanks about what we do, but we have power to do that as a church given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ to fill in those blanks, but we're still following that pattern as seen in Scripture. That's what it means to be a biblical church is we're following the pattern, the directions the Lord has given and the pattern we see that his church set for us in the book of Acts and in the epistles. So that's our guide. We looked at practical reasons. We have as far as church constitution, I gave you three things to three parts. The first one is the biblical basis. The second one is the practical reasons for having a church constitution, and we looked at that and what that was is primarily the necessity to articulate what we believe because remember everybody in Christianity, and I mean that in the broadest sense possible, everybody in Christianity uses the Bible to support what they believe. So you can't just say, well, you can, but you could just say, well, the Bible is our constitution and our doctrinal statement. Well that's all fine and good, but what do you do when somebody who claims to use the Bible comes in and starts saying things that do not agree with what we have come to understand the Bible to mean? And so that's why we articulate it. But the Bible is the basis, right? The Bible overrules everything, and that includes the doctrinal statement. So the doctrinal statement is supposed to rest upon the Bible. So that's why it's important that we make judgments about various doctrines, like we saw in the book of Acts, making a judgment about the purpose of the law and those kinds of things. And so with the doctrinal statement, just by way of review, our doctrinal statement or our articles of faith, which is what it's called in the constitution, essentially say this, having examined the relevant verses prayerfully, we believe the scripture teaches this doctrine. So it's not meant, the articles of faith are not meant to be the final authority on everything, and they're not meant to answer every question or every verse or every objection. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to state what our belief is. And then that's after careful consideration of the truths of scripture, because the scripture of course is the basis. So what I'm saying to you is, it is not incompatible to have a doctrinal statement while at the same time your final authority for your faith and the basis for your faith be the Bible. They're not incompatible. They're actually complementary. They go together. And one depends on the other. The third reason that our church constitution is important is our legal reasons. So we have the biblical basis, number one. Number two are practical reasons, and number three are legal reasons. Legal reasons. Now due to the fact that each local church, now I'm referring to right now where we live, so I'm not trying to extend this to other countries or other cultures. I'm not trying to do that. That all has to be applied, and that's a difficult thing to do in other cultures to apply these same things in every case. But that's why we have flexibility to make the judgments that we must make. But in our world where we live, each local church is a legally recognized entity. It is a legally recognized entity. It's part of statutes in our state. It's part of statutes in our federal government. Now that doesn't mean that we have to be recognized. That is, a local church has to be recognized by the government for it to be legitimate. That's not the case. There are many periods in history where churches existed underground, though not literally underground. I used to think that underground meant they met underground. But just by that meaning, they were not recognized or permitted to exist, but yet they existed. Because remember, we ought to obey God rather than men. And if that's what it comes to, that's what it comes to. We don't want that, but that has happened many, many times over the years, and still happens to this day in some places. Because our church is a legally recognized entity, we are required as a matter of practice and necessity to articulate who we are and what our practices will be from a legal perspective. Because we are legally recognized, there are certain legal obligations. And with that recognition comes privileges, and with privileges come some responsibilities. So, if you're going to be legally recognized by the authorities that be, that you are a church, there are probably going to be some responsibilities that go along with that recognition. Now there's benefits, too. It's a give and take. And I would say the benefits outweigh the downsides. But there are both be...