From understanding how Christ is head of the church, we can understand the characteristics of the church. There are many people who have caused confusion with regards to this topic, even saying that we are just like any other church. If we are not sober and cannot discern, we can easily be deceived. To be in this church is very precious. How can we have a close relationship with Christ? In this first part of our series, we will discuss how Christ is the head of the church.

“For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.” Ephesians 5:23

Paul uses the relationship between husband and wife to talk about the relationship between Christ and the church. In creation, God created Adam and, from his rib, created Eve. They became one body, husband and wife. In Ephesians 5:32, Paul says that this is a great mystery. This mystery talks about Christ and the church. Here, it talks about Christ being the head of the church, just like the husband is the head of the wife. Christ is the Saviour of the whole church. If Christ becomes the head of the church, He needs to give His life. If He does not give His life, there would be no cross and we would not have this today. Jesus was nailed on the cross and He shed His blood to wash away our sins. That is how the church appeared.

“… to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28b)

The speaker hopes that everyone will memorise this verse. This verse tells us what the Bible is. This definition of “purchased” is to be saved. There are many different denominations of Christianity and they all say that they are saved. However, in the Bible, the church has the meaning of being called. One is called through the blood of Jesus Christ. If we do not have salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ, even if we call ourselves a church, it does not mean that we indeed are so, but are merely people brought together like a community. A church needs to be purchased with His own blood. When Jesus was nailed to the cross and He breathed His last, a soldier pierced His side. They were hoping that before dust that those who were nailed to the cross would have died so that their blood could come out quicker. When they realised that Jesus had died on the cross, the soldier used a spear to pierce Him as a mockery. However, water and blood came out of Jesus’ side. This fulfilled one of the prophecies in the Bible. This was about 2000 years ago. So how can we take the blood and water that flowed out of Jesus today? The church needs to have the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God Himself. Only God can transcend time and space because He created time and space. Only God can wash away people’s sins. In baptism, if there were no Holy Spirit, even if we were to be washed a thousand times and we declare that we believe in God, there is no difference. Many churches do baptism. However, in our church, the Holy Spirit witnesses during baptism.

“This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.” (1 John 5:6)

There is blood and water and the Holy Spirit as a witness. So when we are baptised, we are baptised in this and that is how the efficacy of Jesus washing away our sins comes about.

No matter what race, gender or age we are, so long as we undergo baptism through the Holy Spirit—which isn’t about receiving the Holy Spirit but instead that we have experienced the Holy Spirit witnessing that our sins are taken away in baptism—and you have become a part of the body of Christ. This becomes the church of Christ.

In John 7:37-38, it says that those who are thirsty can go to Jesus. And those who believe can have rivers of living water flow from his heart. This was how the church of God was established; it is not that I believe in God and you believe in God, and we come together. If we have not been through baptism and there is no witnessing by the Holy Spirit, it is useless. Christ became the head of our church and He gave His life; He fulfilled this salvation plan. It is not that He chose us and said that we can continue by doing as we please. He is our head, and He continues to be our head. He will guide us and lead us.

“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Hebrews 2:10

Here, it talks about how Christ is the captain of our salvation, He is the first son. He is our older brother. This older brother is guiding all the little brothers and sisters. He is an older brother who is very responsible and leads us and takes care of us. If the Father gives Him one person, He would not leave them. As the Head, He guides us. How does He do so? God gives us the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is God and also Jesus. After baptism, Jesus lives in us. He wants to give us the Holy Spirit so that He can live with us; through this Holy Spirit, Christ allows us to go on this road. This is one of the missions as the head of the church. Not like in the Old Testament where the priests guide. Even to the end, the priests guided the Israelites to worship idols. God guides us on this heavenly path. We need to learn to listen to His voice. We need to know God’s will, which is what God wants. This is how we walk.

“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.” Ephesians 5:29-30

Here it says that no one ever hated his own body. Would we hate our own body? We would not. If we notice that there are some patches on our skin, we would quickly want to do something about it, because it is something on our body. We want to protect and cherish our body. As a part of the body of Christ, He will nourish and cherish us as His responsibility. Both are His work. How does God nourish and cherish His body?

“… just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:25b-27)

God protects us so that we are holy and without blemish. God will protect us in this state so that we are perfect. Christ will protect us through the water and the word. We are born through the truth in baptism. God continues to wash us by the water and the word.

“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17)

This verse tells us that God sanctifies us by the truth. The word makes us holy. We need to listen to the word and to walk in the word. We need to manifest God’s words in our actions. When this word washes away our impurities. What is the word? The word is love. The ten commandments put together are love. The first four are to love God with all our might. The last six are to love man as ourselves. We cannot see God. We manifest love towards those whom we can see.

If we cannot love God whom we can see, how can we love man whom we cannot see? That is why God washe dpeople’s feet, because He loved man. After He did that, what did He say? I give you a new commandment, that you must love one another the way I have loved you; if you love one another, that is how others will know that you are my disciples. With the love that God has given us that we must love others. If we are able to manifest this love, we would be able to fulfil the law. This is a requirement of the law. By our own mights, we cannot do this. However, once we are able to love one another, without blemish, then we would be very holy. So God through baptism through His word, He protects us and nourishes us. God loves us very much. But we are constantly interacting with people on this earth. Sometimes we would be weak and deceived by the world. When Jesus washed our feet, He wanted us to stand within Him and not leave His love.

Jesus is the High Priest amongst us. How does He cherish us?

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16

Jesus can sympathise with our weaknesses. He was once a man who faced temptations. Jesus would be victorious, but we often are tempted and we fail. When we fail, do not give up! We must continue to call out to God and to look to Him so that we can have His mercy to His hand. This is the work of Christ as the head of the church, to cherish and nourish us. When we become the body of Christ, how blessed are we! Our heavenly Father loves us to such a degree. How do we respond to His love?

We need to fully submit to His love.

God gave us His Holy Spirit to guide us on this path. So we need to fully submit. What is the work of the Holy Spirit? (1) He guides us into the truth so that we can understand the truth. Since we have the Holy Spirit today, we need to rely on the Holy Spirit to read the Bible. Sometimes when we read the Bible and we humble ourselves to ask God to guide us into the truth, then we can understand the truth. God’s word is His will. To understand it and to enact it are different. We have lusts of the flesh so even though we understand what the Bible wants us to do, we may not be able to do it. We need to fight against these fleshly lusts, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” Galatians 5:16-17

We need to rely on the Spirit to fight against the flesh. Sometimes we say we understand the word but it is very hard to do. We need to pray and ask God to please give us this power to help us to destroy our lusts to submit to God. If we do this, we will find that the Holy Spirit helps us and that our flesh is nailed to the cross. We need to submit to God because He is our head. If the head has a thought but the body doesn’t do it, what is this person? This person has a stroke. Because the brain says, lift up your right hand, and the head has sent out a command, but the body does not do it. Our church should not have a stroke in this sense. We need to submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and through His will, we need to act this out. If you do this, gradually, you will find that your life is led by the Holy Spirit. You should not go on the path through flesh and blood. When we battle with our lusts, we may say, Jesus, why do you not love me, why am I like this? But Jesus is waiting for us. When we have walked away from God, return. We have the Holy Spirit. Let us not go through this path of pain and sin.

We need to emulate Christ.

As the head, the body should follow and emulate.

“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)

Paul had truly managed to achieve imitating Christ, which was why He was able to say this statement. Christ has left a very good example for us. What Jesus did, this is what we should do.

“But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:20-24)

This verse tells us to learn from Christ. We need to learn His word and receive His truth. Then we need to act this out. So if we do not act out the Bible, it merely becomes knowledge and this is useless to us and we would become Pharisees. If we just say that the Bible says this, is there any use? It is useless. We need to act it out. To act this out, we need to rely on the Holy Spirit to cause our fleshly lusts to be nailed to the cross. Then the old man will be changed and we would slowly put on the new man, till Christ is formed in us. This is one of our goals in our lives of faiths. If we all become like Christ, then in Leicester church there would be 200 Christs, like there are 200 lights shining. To shine in a place where there is death, so that people would come to this path of peace. This is something we must aim for in our lives.

Whatever we do, we should glorify God.

“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

Here it says that whatever we do, we should do to the glory of God. When we eat or drink, we should think, does this glorify God? Because eating and drinking is living. If we are able to think whether we glorify God, then anything else we do not need to talk about. If we are the body of Christ, whatever we do, we need to glorify God, the head. This is also the teachings of husband and wife. If we turn to Proverbs 31, the virtuous wife is hardworking. But everything she does does not need to go beyond the head.

Brothers and sisters, how blessed are we that we have been chosen to be saved by His blood! The church is God’s church and has not be created by man. All the more we need to be thankful, to glorify Christ and emulate Christ. This is our duty.