This hour we're going to be in Ephesians chapter one. If you'd like to turn there. Ephesians chapter one. This hour I want to speak On our Lord Jesus Christ, on this topic, the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church, that's what I've titled this, the head of the church. That's what he says in our text. He put him, gave him to be the head over all things. to the church in verse 22, but there is now and there has only ever been one church. There is now and there's only ever been one elect people. There is now and has only ever been one chosen people. Now, a lot of people think that under the Old Testament covenant that Israel, the nation itself, the blood, if you had the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you were an Israelite, you were a chosen, You were chosen of God, you were ordained into eternal life, and they're the ones that were chosen. And during that time, nobody else could get in or get out. They could become a proselyte Jew. So I guess you'd get in that way. You'd have to just relinquish your entire family. You'd have to relinquish your entire beliefs. You'd have to sell everything and move to there. So that did happen. Matter of fact, the Lord told the Pharisees one time, he says, you spend all day trying to make a proselyte. And when you do, you've made him threefold child the hell that you are. And it's just religion begatten religion is all that that is. Israel, God's chosen people, Israel, were a spiritual children, spiritual children. The Lord called Abraham. He gave him faith to believe God. It was, Scripture said, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him to righteousness, or it was, the word accounted is the same thing as reckoned. It was reckoned to him for righteousness. Why? Because the Lord had made him believe, given him faith to believe. This is all a spiritual people that was called. Not all Israelites or not all Jews in the Old Testament were elect of God. They weren't. The Lord had an elect people from every nation, every tribe, every kindred, every language. from the beginning, but he chose to call Israel, call Abraham's seed for the Messiah, for the promised Messiah. That was the whole purpose of that calling. In your seed, I'm going to bless you because you'll be the father of a mighty nation. But he wasn't talking about a physical nation. He's talking about his blood-bought children, the ones God elected from the world before the world ever began, the ones that the Lord chose into eternal life. That's why the scripture says, they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. You and I, if we are his elect, we are the spiritual Israel. That's who we are. We are put into Zion, the city of God. It was all a spiritual work that was going to be done. You remember when Christ came and they didn't want him, they set away with this man because he didn't set up a physical kingdom. The Lord's purpose was not to ever set up a physical kingdom because he said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. The Lord set up a spiritual kingdom. He said, if my kingdom was of this world, my servants would fight for me. Kingdom none of this world. So there's only now and only has ever been one church. And he read that, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We can put that right there with it. But it's made up of the Old and New Testament saints. Israel oversees that little country over there. That's not God's chosen people. And that's very controversial to some people. They really believe they are. But that was where the promise Messiah came through. No, the chosen seed, the chosen promise is the Lord Jesus Christ's children. It's his church. It's only ever been one church, and it's made up, it's a very diverse church. It has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with the color of our skin. It has nothing to do with our, and I'm thankful for this, it has nothing to do with our accents. It has nothing to do with the way we talk. It has nothing to do with any of those things. Our heritage, our creed, our bloodline, nothing. It has everything to do with the blood of Christ. That's what it has to do with. Old and the New Testament churches are one and the same. They were elected by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and quickened by the Spirit according to His own will and purpose, according to His own, all by His grace. They're called the Eternal Church of God. They are collectively the Bride of Christ. That's who they are, the Bride of Christ, the Chosen of God, predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, predestinated to eternal life, ordained into eternal life. These are the ones that are the Church, the Church. Now this hour, I want to look at the head of the church. I want to look at our Lord as the head of the church. Let's read this same text as before verse 18 through 23. The eyes of our understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe. According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. Far above principality and power and might and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world, also that which is to come. and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." The head of the church, that's what I've titled the message. As it clearly reads in our text, Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. He is the head, and the church is the body. The church is the body. That means first, First thing that that means is that he is the covenant head. He's the covenant head, meaning he became head of the church before the church existed in time. He's the head of it. By him, all things exist. We heard that the first hour. Colossians 1 tells us this, and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. This is really important because so many people believe, even if they believe he's the head, they don't believe he has the authority to save the body unless we allow him to save the body. But no, he has the preeminence over all. He has the preeminence over all the body. And I realize that there's exceptions to what I'm about to say and certainly would never pick on anybody. But you control every part of your body with your mind. You control every part of your body with your mind. Even your heart beats because your brain is sending a signal to your heart. So this is what I'm saying is, is the Lord is completely sovereign over his church, over his body. He's the head. As such, he represents his chosen people. before the throne of God, he's our representative. We hear these things and we know that it'd be true, but if I could slow my mind down just long enough to really grab a hold of that, I have a representative before God that pleads for me, that pleads my cause, that pleads the blood on my behalf. What a glorious thought. Oh, that's something to rejoice about, that you have a advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is our representative before God as our covenant head. And I love the fact that as our covenant head, as our representative, every good work, his righteousness, his holiness, everything, all the gifts that he gave, he reckoned them to his church because he is the head of the church. He said, talking to the Father, he said about the church, I in them and thou, Father, in me, and we are one. This is the work of what he did on the cross. It's amazing in our eyes. Salvation was reckoned to his church, his body, by his finished work. Now, something important, since we're talking about covenant head, is we have to start with the first one, and that was Adam. Adam was the first covenant head. And in Adam, everyone died. I want to say this, and I don't want this to be confusing, because sometimes things can come across as confusing. So I want to go as slow as I can and be as simple as I can. I was telling the men in the study, I had to try to figure out how to simplify this. But the Lord has only ever seen I want to make sure I say this right. The Lord has only ever seen two men. What do I mean by that? Adam and Adam's seed, all of Adam's seed, that's one man and the Lord Jesus Christ and his seed. That's the two that the Lord seen. So if you're in Adam and you're not in Christ, the Lord sees you as guilty. But if you're in Christ, you're no longer in Adam and he sees you as worthy. He sees you as righteous. All died because of Adam. And yet through Christ Jesus, his elect live. Turn with me to Romans chapter five. If we can wrap our brains around the fact that the Lord's only seen two, that means that is sufficient evidence to say, okay, well, that means all of my works don't count for anything because I can't change anything. I'm still in Adam. That's what that means. It doesn't do me any good. I can't get out of being an Adam. That's something the Lord has to do. Salvation's of the Lord. Ephesians chapter five, verse 12 says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that hath not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ has abounded unto many. Not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation. But the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, and we always say what's the therefore, therefore, we've already read it, but we love that. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. Whereas by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned into death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ, our Lord." Our representative head, Adam, our covenant head, Adam, when he ate the fruit, we ate the fruit with him. Have you ever thought of the fact that it just says, and she gave it to Adam and he did eat. I mean, in my mind, it's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ is what it is, dying for his bride. I mean, it really is. He knew what the consequence was for taking that, but the only way that, she was already doomed at that point. She'd already broken the, she already committed trespass, but she came out of Adam. So she was still just literally out of his ribs. So that's just, he's still just him, if I'm making sense here. But whenever he ate the fruit, we ate the fruit with him. And therefore we died in Adam right then, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We died in him. So now we're sinners. And that's what he says, we're by one man disobedient all. were made sinners. That's what our first covenant had. Adam failed. Failed to do his job in obeying the Lord's word. Failed to do his job in keeping what the Lord had given him. He had everything. Well, he had, there was no sin. He had paradise. He didn't have to work. Um, and obviously because the curse came to the woman that labor should be hard. Obviously labor wasn't hard before that. I mean, that's just putting one and one together. So, but everything we lost in Adam, we gained back infinitely more in the Lord Jesus Christ because Adam didn't have oneness with God. Does that make sense? He didn't have oneness. He'd have perfect union. He was a friend of God called the friend of God. The Lord would come down in the cool of the evening and walk with him. and talk with him, but he didn't have oneness. What we have in the Lord Jesus Christ is we have complete oneness. I in them, and thou in me. We're one with the Father. Adam was sinless, but Adam wasn't holy. If Adam was holy, he would never have taken part in it. Holiness is the opposite of sin. He had the capacity to sin, therefore he did. Lord Jesus Christ didn't have the capacity of sin. He was holy. This is our second, this is our, the head I'm still speaking about. He is our representative before the father. He is our covenant head. Adam ate of the fruit, condemning everybody, damning everyone, unless God does something. That's where it sits. We all died in Adam and there's no getting out of Adam. There's no changing that. God must do something. And this is the difference between all false religion and the true gospel is we're completely dependent upon us. We see Adam falling and we see us falling in Adam realizing that we don't have a way to do anything to get back to that place where Adam was at one time. He fell. And I heard it said many times, I had said this from this pulpit several times too, but if you're wrong on the fall, you're wrong on it all. I don't know who the first person was that said that, but most people are wrong on the fall. They don't understand, and may God teach us, when Adam fell, he fell to the very bottom, the very bottom. It wasn't like he fell just a little bit. No, he fell into death, literally, he died. And in doing so, what can come out of death? Well, that's the glorious part of the gospel. Life can come out of death by the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that can do that. He's the only one that can bring forth life from a dead corpse, from a dead corpse. And that's what he does in his people, as our head, as head of the church. See, this is why it's glorious, is because before Adam was even created, God had purposed salvation. You think anything catches God off guard? No, he's omnipotent. He knows everything all the time, and he's omnipresent. He's everywhere all the time. Didn't catch him off guard. He knew exactly what Adam would do. He purposed it for his own purpose, for his own will, to redeem his bride, to save his people from their sin. He knew the price. He knew what was gonna happen because he ordained it to be so. Though His people were elected by the Father, they were redeemed by the Son and quickened by the Spirit according to His purpose at His appointed time all by His grace." Christ is our covenant head and He accomplished the salvation that Adam could not accomplish. That no other Adams that were born after Adam, that's what we are, is just another image of Adam, a sinful image of Adam. But yet now the Lord predestinated a people to be conformed to the image of His Son. The second man, Adams, what scripture calls him, the one that was holy and righteous and good. He says, you're not gonna look like that Adam anymore. You're gonna look just like my son. Why? Because when he sees the blood, he says, I'll pass by you. Whenever that blood's applied, you'll be made the very righteousness of God in him. Go back with me to our text in Ephesians one. Look at verse 21. far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all we have seen that because he's our covenant head, we have hope of salvation. We have hope because he saved us from our sin by his own doing. But secondly, because he's the head of the church, his people, and I've already said this, but his people have an advocate. They have an advocate. An advocate is one who goes between. You can think of a lawyer as being an advocate. He advocates for the client that's hired him to advocate for him. Most people believe when they stand before the Lord, they're gonna give an account for what they've done and the Lord will accept them based upon that. But here's the problem, you have to have an advocate. I've known a few judges and one judge and I were talking and he said to me, if somebody doesn't bring a lawyer with them, it's really hard for me to take them serious because they don't know the law. They don't know, they don't understand the law, they don't understand the, people say, I'm gonna represent myself, and they don't understand how a court system actually works. They can understand that they're sworn in, they're asked questions, whatever else, but they don't understand the ins and the outs of what the judge is looking at, the evidence that he's looking at, the things that it's involved with, because they're not a lawyer, not a lawyer. You and I, Only reason we know the law is because God gave it. But the only reason that we understand that we cannot keep the law nor represent ourself is because God enabled us. He caused us to see that. I can't represent myself. I don't know the law. His ways are above my ways. His thoughts are above my thoughts. That's what the Lord teaches us. We need an advocate. And we have one. The scripture says, and I've quoted this already, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. There's our hope. that he would advocate on our behalf. I got a question for us this morning. Have you ever taken, and we're still on the subject of our Lord being the head of the church, but have you ever taken, I have a paper, matter of fact, I have a paper out there and it's in your bulletin right now. It says we need to get a head count. for an upcoming event. You ever taken a head count? It's what you normally do whenever you're planning something or you're trying to figure out with your family you're going to order pizza, you're going to need a head count. You don't know how many pizzas to get. You know, this is very simple. But you're not actually talking about heads, are you? We're not talking about heads. We're talking about the person. We need a body count. Sometimes we may say that. But it's always the head because the head is where you see the features of that individual. I don't think I want to say this right. I don't want to make this funny. When I think of Linda, I don't think of her hands. Do you understand what I'm saying? I think of her face, right? And I'm not going to point on anybody else because that's far enough. I made my point. But you understand what I'm saying here? We don't think of the feet of somebody when we think of that. Maybe if they're hurt, maybe you think of it that way, but we don't think of their big toe. You understand what I'm saying here? We think about their face, that person, that individual, and where does their personality come from? It comes from their body language, yes, but their mouth, how they speak, how they talk, their characteristics that they do, the way that they do things. What is my point? Because we have an advocate with the Father, because we're one with the Lord Jesus Christ, when the Father sees us, he's not looking at the body, he's looking at the face of his son. Do we see that? He's looking at the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's looking at our covenant head. He's looking at the head of the church because he is the representative. That's how we remember each other by looking at each other's face in our mind. The Lord looks at the face of his son and he says, he, he sees us in him. He sees us in him. So when he sees me, He says, you're justified because you're in Christ. When he sees you, he says, you're justified because you're in Christ. This is marvelous because unless the Lord reveals this, this is hard to understand. But oh, if we could grasp, because he's our head, the Lord sees his son when he sees his people. He's not paying attention to the toe or the foot or the hands. He's looking in the face of his son. Well, how can that be possible? Well, because of the glorious substitution on the cross of Calvary. Substitution. When he, scripture says, I quoted this first hour, 2 Corinthians 5, 21, I believe it is, I quote this pretty often. He, God, hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. What does that mean? Well, that's imputation. The Lord took my sin and gave it to Christ and took his righteousness and gave it to us. That's glorious. Now we're seen as the very righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because he is our head, the head of the church, head of the body. Everything we lost in Adam, we gain back infinitely more in Christ. In Adam, we died. In Christ Jesus, we're made alive. We're made alive because he's our advocate, our covenant head. Now, lastly, I actually struggled to find a third point. I like three points. I feel like that's a pretty good number. If I go to five, then I've always felt like that's too much because I preach my points normally all at the same time anyways. I just say the same thing over again three times. But I struggled because I didn't know what else to be said about this. But the Lord gave me this. The body cannot survive without the head. The body cannot survive without the head. Now, I can lose an arm and I can lose a leg. I mean, you can lose a lot of body parts and still live. But the body cannot live without the head. The church cannot be made alive without Christ Jesus being our head. It's impossible. If the Lord had not chose to become our covenant head, if he had not chose to become our advocate, we would have never believed. We would have never believed. Can the arm think for itself? People talk about how I chose Jesus. That's a work. Remember, we're in Adam, we're dead. Don't forget, until we're made alive in Christ, we're dead in Adam. So in Adam, in the state of Adam, first of all, the arm's dead. But second of all, can the arm think for itself? Does it think to move? Or does the head make the arm move? It can't think for itself, can it? Can the leg think to walk? No, the mind is what controls the leg. The mind is what controls the arm. The mind controls the body. The mind controls the body. And so it is with our Lord and His church. He has purposed all things, and all things are ordered, ensure that we will be in His presence one day after a while. He's going to keep us by His power, according to His will. Paul said, the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. He said, if our lives be hid, it's hid with Christ in God. Dead man can't choose anything, can he? You know what a dead man can do? Can lay there, it can stink, and it can rot. And any of those, is that a substitution for the blood of Christ? That's foolishness. It's blasphemy. No, that's all a dead man can do. The Lord has to come to a sinner and say, live. And thank God as our head, as the head of the church, that's exactly what he does. He said, I am the head, you are the body. It's the same example when he said, I am the vine, you are the branches. It's all a picture of he's the focal point of salvation. He's the focal point of the church. It's not, I know we live in a vain society, I guess humans by nature are vain, and people say, you know, a guy might have big muscles and he gets more looks than other people, look at my muscles. But they remember the person by their face, not their physique. The Lord ain't looking at me as the arm or the, I don't know. I'm just happy to be part of it. I don't even want to think about what part I am just to be part of it. I don't care. Give me the smallest place, bottom of the foot. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I just want to be in Him. I just want to be in Him. Somebody's like, well, I'm probably the hand. I'm really important. I'm not. I'm probably a, well, least important. It's the least important thing of what part are we. It doesn't matter. I just want to be part. I'm part of Him. The Lord demands perfection. He requires righteousness, holiness. His justice must be satisfied. So what is our hope? That Christ is our head, and therefore we are righteous, and therefore we have been justified, and therefore we have been sanctified, and therefore we have been glorified freely by His grace, because He's our head. Because we are in him, and he's given us faith to believe, we are made to think what he thinks. We're made to think the way he thinks. We used to not think the way that he thought. We thought we knew everything in false religion, had it all figured out, and the Lord came to us, knocked us off our high horse like he did Saul. He drew out the confession, Lord, what would you have me do? The Lord said, Saul, Saul. He was persecuting the church, wasn't he? In some of us, maybe in some similar sense, hated the gospel. I hated it for a time. Best thing I ever heard now. But the point I'm making is, is unless he comes to where we are, gives us faith to believe, we're not going to think like he thinks. Paul, you know, he had to say after his name was changed to Paul, he says, well, I see it much better since the Lord struck me blind. I see a lot better since the Lord struck me blind. He was blind for three days. We were made to think the way he thinks, believe what he says by his faith bestowed. Everything God required, he provided and gave to us in our covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church. Now his people are alive in him and unto him because he is the head of the church. Listen to Ephesians 5. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved, well you turn over there if you want to, Ephesians 5 verse 25. It's just a few pages over. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Why did he do that? That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. That's you, his church. That's me as part of his church. That's his church. I'm not talking about Holy Grace Church. I'm talking about all the churches that assemble together that have believers in it. Their congregation, you combine every one of them from the beginning of time until now, or till the end of time, his chosen people, that's his church. He says they're gonna be holy. And what do you say, holy, unblameable, unreprovable in his sight and other place. But here he says, without blemish, without blemish, holy and without blemish, everything he did, I wrote this, it sounded funny when I wrote it, but I'm like, no, that makes too much sense not to say it. Everything God did in salvation, he did it on purpose. He did it on purpose. You say, well, yeah, but don't think about it. Everybody talks about God as if salvation is an accident that happened or once we don't know who's going to be saved. I understand that. But what they mean by that is, is it's up to you. It's your choice. And we found, we know by both messages this morning, salvation is God's choice alone. So everything he did, he did on purpose. He did to make us the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. He did it that we would be presented as holy and without blemish and unblameable and unreprovable in love under the brethren and unto him. And when are we going to be unblameable, unreprovable? When are we going to be holy and without blemish? Right now. Right now. Why? Because Christ is head of the church. That's why. Christ is our head. Everything he did, he did it on purpose to fulfill the purpose of God. This is why he is the church's only glory. If I was gonna have a fourth point, that would be it. He's our only glory. We don't glory in the arm. We don't glory in the finger. We don't glory in the toe. We glory in the Lord, our head, our covenant head. We're not looking at one another saying, uh, how good of a life we live. And that's an all false religion. People look at each other. Who are you looking to? Who am I looking to? We're looking to the lamb of God. We're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are rejoicing because he is our covenant head. our substitute surety that redeemed us back to God. Listen to what he says, what scripture says, for by him, and for him, and through him were all things created, and he is the head of the church. He is the head of the church, and thank God he is the head of the church. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would take this, bless it to our understanding for your glory. Thank you, Father, for being the glorious head of your church. May we only glory in you and your salvation. In Christ's name, amen.