Shabbat Shalom! We are going to please turn in our Bibles to the book of 1st John, HaRishonah LeYohanan, 1st John chapter 2 today. I would like to say that if you understand the epistles of John, of Yohanan, it will help you immensely to understand the position that you and I, as believers in Yeshua, have because of the work that Yeshua, the Messiah, have accomplished for us when he died on the tree. So, Yohanan, of course, is writing to the family, to the Mishpacha. And he wanted the family of God to understand the importance of the work of the Messiah for the family, for the people of God, and to understand our position and the ability to have fellowship with the living God when we follow Yeshua, the Messiah.

So, we are reading today in 1st John chapter 2, the first 11 verses. And I'm reading. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Yeshua, the Messiah, the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for us only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected.

Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him, ut himself also, sought to walk even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I'm going to stop here in 1 John 2, verses 1 to 11. And this is the text for us for this ministry meeting. I trust that the Lord will help us to grasp this passage. And specifically, brothers and sisters, I would like to zero in a little bit on the first two verses of 1 John 2. As a reminder, once again, we are studying the letter that Yohanan wrote to the mishpacha, to the family. He doesn't write this to unbelievers. He's writing to every person that have entered into the family of God.

He that has the Son has life, 1 John 5. He that has not the Son of God has not life. So he's writing to the family of God, to the mishpacha, and every believer that belongs to Yeshua the Messiah, he's part of this family of God. But as he's writing to the family of God, he recognized the fact that just the same like in a normal family, father and mother, Abba and Ima and children, Yeladim, in a normal family, sometimes when we are not living in obedience, we somehow have friction in the family. And there is no fellowship with one another when we are not in obedience to the Lord.

So in the spiritual life of the believer, many times it is the same thing. When a believer is not walking in fellowship with the Lord, he doesn't enjoy the things of God. He cannot pray or she cannot pray. He cannot enjoy the place that he has in this family because he or she deviated from obedience and sin crept in. And there is no joy when we are not in a right fellowship with our father. And so in this second chapter, Yohanan, that is John now, wanted to emphasize and help the children of God, the believers, to understand that we as believers have an advocate with the father.

And not only that we have an advocate with the father now, we also have a need to live in obedience in order to have fellowship with our father, which is in heaven. So this chapter is really devoted specifically, first of all, to the necessity for us to understand that we have an advocate with the father. And so look how he began. First of all, in verses one and two, Yeshua the Messiah is our advocate. And brothers and sisters, listen to me. If you understand verses one and two of first John chapter two, it will help us all to appreciate what Yeshua is for us, what Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach is for us.

And I want to elaborate a little bit upon these two verses. And then Lord willing, we're going to move on to the next verses. Notice what he says, first of all, in verses one and two, he wanted the people of God to understand that they have an advocate. And I want you to listen to this. He began in verse one. He says, my little children. First of all, you notice the word, my little children. He's writing to the believers. That word in the Greek, my little children is teknion. And it's applied to really all believers. He doesn't talk about just a little child, just a believer, just became a believer today.

But it's applied to all the believers. Actually, it is better said, my dear sons or daughters. In Hebrew, we call it Banim. Not only Yeladi, little children, but Banim means just sons and daughters that belong to God. And he began by saying to them, my little children. And as John is concerned, every believer, whether he's 10 years old or 90 years old, he is a dear child of God. He have accepted a Messiah. Maybe five years, 10 years, 20, 30. Maybe he's with the Lord already walking for 60, 70 years. We have some of our own brothers in our fellowship that are for many years walking with the Lord and accepted Yeshua the Messiah.

But as far as God is concerned, they are sons and daughters of the Father. They are children. They are children. Just like one of the Jewish sisters who became a believer just recently, she's just became a little child, born from above, a child of God. She, as a newborn babe, and another who have been walking with the Lord for many years, they are both sons and daughters of the Father. And so he began and he's saying, my dear children, you belong to God. I'm writing to you for one simple reason. I do not want you to sin. I want you to live a life that is pleasing to the Father.

You know what he said in verse 1a? My little children, these things I write unto you that ye sin not. The reason that I'm writing this is because I want you to live a life of purity. A life that is pleasing to the Father. A life that is honoring God here in this world. And that's applied to a little babe in Mashiach, a babe in Christ, or to the ones that are very old, have been many years walking with the Lord. This letter, this word of God was written for all believers in Yeshua the Messiah, because God has brought us to himself, and he does not want us anymore to live the way we used to live before we became the children of God.

And so he's saying to them in this verse, These things I write unto you that ye sin not. If you just turn to 1 John 3 verse 9, he says, Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. What does that mean? That the believer who belong to God does not commit on an ongoing basis living a life of sin. We have also a new nature that cannot sin. And therefore what he is really saying, If you became a believer in Yeshua, one that is born of God, he cannot live anymore the way he or she used to live before they became believers. And you notice this, what really happened to us.

When we became believers in Yeshua, all of a sudden our appetite is no longer the same like it was in the past. We no longer have these desires on an ongoing basis to do the wrong things and live in a world the way we used to before we became believers in Yeshua the Messiah. So what he is really saying, I am writing to you this letter, this Igeret, so you will not sin anymore the way we used to live, to live before we became believers. But notice this in brothers and sisters, in the very same verse, he adds less somebody might say, Well, I have never sinned in my life anymore.

I am living a life that is just a life of perfection. He is saying to them, and if, notice this, and if any man sin, that means that there is, because we are still having this old nature in us, a possibility for a believer to sin. And we do, we know that, because we are not yet in glory, we are not in heaven, we are still here below, and we know, if we are honest with ourselves, that a time things coming into our minds, into our thoughts, into our affection, into our ears, into our eyes, that we sin, and there is a time in our lives that we fall, we fail, we dishonor the Lord, and we do sin.

And so he is saying, if sin came into your life and my life, then immediately, notice what he says, we have an advocate, with the Father, Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, the righteous. Now, this is doctrine. In other words, he is saying, if we sin, we have an advocate. What is an advocate? An advocate is a Greek perakletos. It comes from the simple word, a lawyer. If we sin, we have a lawyer, with their Father. Now, listen to these brothers and sisters. If you have any problem, any issue today, with the world in which we live in, we're usually going to a lawyer. And the lawyer's responsibility, he charges you a lot, right?

The lawyer's responsibility is to come to your aid, before the court, and before the judge. He's representing you in the court, in order to aid you, to help you, to deal with the problem that you have. Now, this is exactly the ministry of Yeshua, the Messiah today, on behalf of his people. In fact, let me just mention that. When Yeshua was on the cross, some 2,000 years ago, on the tree, he looked at the Father, and you remember he said, "It is finished. The work of redemption was done. God had been satisfied. The work of redemption had been accomplished once and for all, by the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua, the Messiah, on the tree, and his resurrection from among the dead." But you see, there is a work that he did not finish, and that he is doing every day, on behalf of the people of God.

And that work is the work of the advocate, of the paraclete, who is coming alongside the people of God, to represent them before the Father. And this work, this ministry of Yeshua the Messiah, is an ongoing ministry, that he still does it at this moment, even as we are sitting here at this meeting hall, and listening to the word of God. What is this work that Yeshua does today, on your behalf and on mine? He is really like a lawyer, in Hebrew we call it, "orech din", or as the text is said, "melitz". He is the one, that is standing before the Father. And he is representing everyone, that belongs to him, to the Father.

And you know what he is saying, when we sin? He says, "Father, for these sins I have died. I have paid the price, of the sin, that this particular individual have committed." Now notice this, here is very important, when it comes to doctrine. He says here, if any man sin, we have an advocate, but notice it says, with the Father. He doesn't say, we have an advocate with God. Why doesn't he use the word God here, but he used the word Father? You see, we are still the children of God, even when we sin as believers. In other words, our positional link of union, never severed, even though we, from time to time, fail him here, in this world.

So can you imagine, beloved brothers and sisters, Yeshua, the Messiah, who had finished the work on the cross, some 2,000 years ago. After he died, and he was buried, and he rose from among the dead, God had placed him at his right hand, and now in heaven, he is representing us, as an advocate, as a lawyer, as a paracletos. And his ministry, is to come to our aid. And he is saying to the Father, every time we sin, and you know, to our own shame, many times, things have crept into our own hearts, into our own life, and we fail the Lord, and yet Yeshua would raise his hands, and he would say to the Father, "Father, for this sin I have died." He is aiding, he does the ministry of that paracletos, aiding us in the presence of God, in heaven.

And you notice what it says here, at the end of verse 1, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father." Who is this advocate? This advocate is Yeshua, the Messiah, the righteous. You see, beloved brothers and sisters, if the Father, will not forgive the sins of his children, then he will not be just, towards his Son, who had been faithfully the just one, finished the work for us on the tree. And that's why the Father must forgive the sins of his own children, on the basis of the finished work of Yeshua, the Messiah, the righteous. This is the ministry of Yeshua, the Messiah, today for us.

Now, for a moment, go to the Gospel of John, chapter 14. I want to mention something there in connection with the word advocate. We find out that Yeshua is speaking to the disciples in the upper room, before he went to the cross, to the tree. John 14, verse 16. He says, the Father, "And he will give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth which the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and he shall be in you." That word for comforter is the same word for advocate or paracletos.

Now, what Yeshua is saying here to the disciples, "Listen, I'm going now to go back to my Father, but when I go back to the Father, I'm going to send to you another paraclete, another advocate, another one that's going to come alongside you to aid you in your life." So, what we really learn here, and this is the Holy Spirit of God, Ruach HaKodesh, was given to us to be our paracletos, our advocate, our lawyer, to help us, to aid us as we walk here in this world. And he is actually doing the work of the Father in the life of the believer. That's the first advocate that we have.

But we have another advocate, and that is another one who represents us, who's coming alongside to represent us, but he's representing us in heaven. This is Yeshua, the Messiah. He is the one that is saying to the Father, he says, "Father, listen, for the failure, for the sin of this particular child of yours, I have already paid the price. Forgiveness must be given to them because I have paid the price. I am the righteous one who knew no sin, who did no sin, in whom there was no sin, and I was judged on behalf of this particular child. And therefore, Father, these sins, I have already paid for them." Now the different, beloved brothers and sisters, between this advocate, this lawyer, and the lawyer that we might take to hire for today's problems in this world, I'm talking about when we go to the world court, the difference is simply this.

The lawyer that we hire today will have to pay him a lot of money to do the service. But the lawyer that we have in glory, the Messiah, we don't have to pay him. He paid for us. He washed our sins away. Secondly, the lawyer that we have to pay for money here in this world represents us between a judge here in this world. But Yeshua the Messiah is representing us before the king and the judge of the universe. The one that is the judge of judges. The one who is the supreme court of the universe. He is representing us before the Father and he is saying to the Father, "Father, I have already paid for this.

There is no longer a need for this." for this price to be paid again because he has already finished the work for us on the tree. And beloved brothers and sisters, there are many people who are walking around today. They are believers. They accepted Yeshua the Messiah, but they never have the assurance of salvation. And every time they fail or they sin, they already think that they have lost their salvation. And now in order to regain their salvation, they have to do something. And Yeshua is teaching us through the apostle John, Yohanan here, that we are children of God the moment we have accepted the Messiah as our Lord and Savior.

and if any man sin, we do have an advocate with the Father, Yeshua the Messiah, the righteous who paid for our sins on the cross, on the tree. Now, another thing to learn is to see another aspect of the ministry of Yeshua in heaven. And this is the aspect of his high priestly ministry in heaven. So for this, I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter 4. In verse 14 to 16, it says, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into heaven, Yeshua, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Chapter 7 now, verse 23. This is the writer to the Hebrew. He continues and he says now, in connection with the high priestly ministry of Yeshua the Messiah, he says these words, "And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this man, namely Yeshua, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Just pause with me here for a moment.

Now you notice that John is speaking of the ministry of Yeshua as an advocate, but the writer to the Hebrews speak of the ministry of Yeshua the Messiah as a high priest. What is the difference between the ministry of Yeshua today as the advocate in the presence of God, or the ministry of Yeshua the Messiah today as a great high priest before God? The difference is this: As an advocate, as a lawyer, he represents us before the Father. As a high priest, he represents us before God, though it is the same person. As an advocate, As an advocate, he is aiding us, and he is showing to the Father that these sins that we have committed have been paid for.

But as a high priest, he is not sympathizing with our sins, but he sympathizes with our weakness. As an advocate, as an advocate, he is representing us before the Father. As a high priest, he represents us before God. And as representing us before God, he is not representing us sympathizing with our sins. No! Our sins had to be judged. That's why he paid for our sins. But as an advocate, he is representing us before the Father, the Abba. And he is saying, For these sins, I have already received the judgment on behalf of these people. And that's why, notice again, Hebrews chapter 7, it says in verse 25, Wherefore, he is able to aid them and to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he is ever livers to make intercession for them.

Now he, every day, making intercession on behalf of the people of God. Again, go back to Hebrews chapter 4, and verse 15, For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but he was in all points tempted, like as we are, yet without sins. Notice he used the word infirmities here. You notice in verse 15, He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Not with the feeling of our sins, but with the feeling of our infirmities. He knows our weakness. He knows our shortcoming. He knows that we are inclined constantly to be tempted and tested by Satan. He knows that we have an enemy that desires to cause us to fall.

And as men, he understands this because he lived here. He was tempted. He was tested, yet without sin. So he knows what you and I are going through. But he never sympathized with our sins. He sympathized with our weaknesses, with our infirmities. That's why he represents us before God as a high priest. But as a lawyer, as an advocate, he represents us before the Father. And he is reminding the Father that he was that righteous one who paid for every sin that we have committed here in this world. And so, beloved brothers and sisters, this is really doctrine. This is teaching. And that's why sometimes we mix it.

We say, as a high priest, he's representing us before God because of our sins. No. As a high priest, he's representing us before God and he sympathized with our infirmities. But as a lawyer, he's representing us before the Father and reminding him that the price have already paid was judged for our sins. And so now go back to our chapter in 1 John 2. And now he's building upon this. He's moving now to verse 2 and he's saying, "Look, who is the one that is representing us before the Father?" It says, "And he is the propitiation for our sins." Notice in Hebrew, it was for our infirmities. Here it is for our sins.

Not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Now here's another thing with respect to doctrine. This word propitiation come from the Hebrew word actually to the word kapara. Kapara means to make atonement. And really what we learn here that Yeshua is the propitiation, the kapara, for our sins before the Father. That means that word really speaks of the fact that the Father had been satisfied with the work of the Messiah. In other words, in order for God to accept a sinner and to have the ability that the sinner could be able to be in his presence, God had to be propitiated, satisfied.

So you know what happened, brothers and sisters. God is holy. We just read in 1st John chapter 1 and verse 5. This is the message that we have heard from him and declare unto you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. So how can a holy God receive a sinner into his presence? Well, he must be satisfied with respect to the judgment upon sin. So God had been satisfied with the work of his son. And that's why Yohanan is saying, you know what, Yeshua is the propitiation. He satisfied God's holiness. So when a sinner comes to God and he's saying to him, I confess my sins, I accept what Yeshua has done for me.

God says, I'm accepting you because my holiness and righteousness have been satisfied, propitiated. The need of my holiness have been satisfied with the work of the Messiah Yeshua. And now I can allow a sinner to come into my presence and make him a child of the Father. I have been propitiated. And you know, brothers and sisters, really, some of us I think talked earlier about Cain and Abel. You know, when Cain and Abel approached God, Abel was accepted, Cain was rejected. But why did God reject Cain and accepted Abel? Well, Abel brought blood of an innocent animal. Cain brought good works, a lot of the sweat of his brow, but it does not satisfy the holy God.

A holy God needs to be satisfied with respect to sin. And so when Yeshua came, and he was a righteous one, and he was penalized for us, he satisfied a holy and a righteous God. And God looks at him, who said already in John 19:30, "It is finished." God looked at him, and he says, "I am satisfied." Because if there would not be someone who would pay the price, another will have to be punished. Sin must be judged. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And God will have to judge sin. And so Yeshua satisfied him. He had propitiated him. satisfied the holy requirement of a just God.

And he became now the propitiation for our sins. And so now somebody says, "Wait a minute, Brother Gideon, notice the verse continue." And the verse says, "Not only that he is the propitiation for our sins, but it says not only for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world." Now what does that mean? Because sometimes somebody says, "Well, look, Jesus died for the whole world, and therefore everyone is a believer and he is saved because he satisfied God for everyone. And therefore everyone can be saved." Well, the truth is this. Yes, the work of Yeshua the Messiah on the tree propitiated for the sins of the whole world.

Everyone's sins have been judged by the work of Yeshua the Messiah once and for all on the cross. But not everyone from this world availed themselves of the value of the work of Yeshua the Messiah. That's why the Bible says, "Whosoever will, let him come. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever from the world will come and believe on him, he will receive forgiveness of sins." So what we learned here that the work of Yeshua the Messiah is sufficient to meet the need of every person that ever was born into this world. The value of his precious blood is enough to meet everyone's need.

Everyone's sins have been paid for. But you got to come and make it your own and to appropriate the work of the Messiah for yourself. You will not receive the benefit that Yeshua the Messiah have paid for us on the tree, on the cross. So this is important, brothers and sisters. This is what you call doctrine that we must understand if we are going to appreciate the work that Yeshua have done for us on the tree, on the cross. Now go back to another verse in 1st Peter, chapter 3, verse 18. Peter, Shimon Petrus wrote and he said, "For Christ, Christos, Messiah, for the Messiah also has once suffered for sins, then the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit." Now in this verse we have three things that we find out about the work of Yeshua the Messiah.

The first thing is the Messiah also has once suffered for sins. This is the ministry of propitiation. He once suffered for sin, propitiated God, satisfied God with respect to sin. Secondly, he says the just for the unjust, that is substitution. He is the just one, he is the righteous, the just this is Yeshua, the unjust this is you and I. So he died once, satisfied God. The just for the unjust became our substitution. And then thirdly, that he might bring us to God. That is the word reconciliation. Propitiation, the Messiah has once suffered for sins. Substitution, the just for the unjust. Reconciliation, that he might bring us to God.

Now that he is satisfied God, a sinner can be brought to God and be reconciled with God and become part of a family, the Mishpacha, eternally saved. We have a paraclete in heaven and have a paraclete within us. The paraclete in heaven is Yeshua the Messiah, who is before the Father. The paraclete on earth is Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit of God, who are aiding us here in this world as we walk here with Yeshua the Messiah here upon the face of this world. And so what a precious truth it is for us to understand that Yeshua the Messiah satisfied entirely the Holy God and who became now our Father.

And one more point before we are going to move to the next verses. The reason that we read today from Exodus chapter 25 about the mercy seat that Aaron and Moses were called to build among our people Israel when the tabernacle, the Mishkan was built some 3500 years ago. There was a mercy seat. What was the purpose of the mercy seat? The mercy seat was right above the ark of the covenant. It was like the lid upon the ark. There were two cherubim standing facing each other and their wings hovering above the kaporet, the mercy seat. And that to which Aaron had to come every year on the day of atonement, Yom HaKippurim, to bring blood.

When he would bring the blood he would sprinkle it between the mercy seat, on top of the mercy seat, before the mercy seat, in order to propitiate the God of Israel to satisfy His holiness. because the blood of the animal made it possible now for a person to be accepted with God because God had been totally propitiated, totally satisfied with the work of the sacrifice. Well, we know that all these sacrifices pointed to Yeshua, to Jesus, our Messiah, and our Lord. And so, brothers and sisters, hope, I was clear on this. Verses 1 and 2, Yeshua the Messiah, he is our advocate with the Father, the one that represents us as this paraclete in the presence of the Father.

For every sin that we have committed, he would say to the Father, "Father, for these sins I have already paid a price. I have died for those sins already." And therefore, we can say that when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just towards the Lord to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So now, back to 1 John, chapter 2, and verses 3 to 11. If we are now, as children, are going to enjoy fellowship with God, the Father now, we are in a need of having an obedient life. Now you know, we know very well that obedience is something that is hard for us to learn.

Often times, those of us who raise children know very well, we never need to train our children to disobey, right? You never said to your child, "Please, I want you to learn a little bit to disobey me." You always have to train the children to obey. They are not always obeying. And when there is disobedience, practical fellowship is broken, not fellowship as in our union. No, that is never broken because there are children. But nevertheless, look of the importance of obedience to the Father. verses 3 and 4, the children are called to walk in light. And walking in light is walking in obedience to God's word. And so he says in verse 3, he says, "Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandment.

He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him." So, keeping the commandments of the Lord, what the Lord has commanded us in Scripture, is in obedience to God. In other words, notice how he is saying in verse 3 and 4, "He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him." In other words, how do we know the Father? Not only to know about the Father, but to know the Father. You know, how do we know each other? You know, we perhaps know about each other more than we really know each other personally, close enough.

You know, somebody said to me, "Brother Gideon, if you are going to know me, you will not like me anymore." Why? Because if you know more about me, you will find out my failure, my shortcomings, my sins, because I'm not perfect. I may be giving an appearance that I'm pretty good and okay, but in reality, I'm not. And the truth of the matter is this, really. The more we will know God, our Father, it will help us to seek to be more like him, to be more in fellowship with him. And the more we know Yeshua, our Mashiach, have an intimate relationship with him, it rubs upon our shoulder and we are somehow walking in light, walking in a way that is pleasing to God.

And so he says in verse 3, "Hereby we do know that we know him in a real fellowship with him if we keep his commandments." commandments. And we can go through the various commandments that Yeshua, the Messiah, had given his disciples when he was teaching them in the upper room, doing his walk with them here in this world. So to know him is to have fellowship with him and to enjoy to spend time with him. and then he says he that says that he know him and do not keep his commandments, really he is lying. And the truth is not in him. In other words, by saying, "Oh yes, I know Yeshua, I know Jesus, I know Yeshua, the Messiah, but if we are violating consistently on an ongoing basis, violating his commandments, it's really sure that we really do not know intimately the Father or intimately the Son, the Messiah." By the way, do you know that the first disciples in Acts 11 were called "Meshichiyim" translated to the Greek "Christos" or "Christ" or "Christ" or "Christians" but in the Hebrew it's "Meshichiyim" followers of the Messiah.

How do you think they called the "Meshichiyim" Christians in the beginning? Because they spent time with the Lord. The more they spent time with the Lord they say, "Ah, those that belong to Yeshua, to the Meshich, they are followers of the Messiah." They became a testimony to Yeshua, the Messiah by virtue of the fact that they knew him, spending time with him. When we don't spend time with the Lord, when we don't have fellowship with him, we really don't know him. How do we know the Lord more and more in our lives? Well, we read the Bible, we read the scripture, we take time to pray, to speak with him, and we spend time to submit to him, obeying him, keeping his commandments, seeking to submit to what he commended us as believers in Yeshua, the Messiah.

Then you notice, and I'm continuing here, in verse 5, obedience to God's word is a proof that the love of God is perfected in us. It says in verse 5, whosoever keepeth his word, in him verily the love of God perfected. Hereby know that we are in him. Now, notice the difference, brothers and sisters. In verse 3 and 4, it says, if we keep his commandments. But in verse 5, it says, if we keep his word. What is the difference between commandment and word? There is a difference between those two. Even though, the commandments are part of his word, but yet, there is a distinctiveness between commandments and word. What is the difference?

A commandment is when we are being told, I want you to do this, I want you to get up in the morning, I want you to go to the office, to the work, and I want you to do this, this and that. This is a commandment. But the word is far more than just a commandment. The word of God is to know the heart of God, the heart of Christ, the heart of the Messiah. That we don't even need to be told, but just to go because we know that that is the will of God in our lives. Somebody said this like this, there are three motives to obedience.

One of them is we have to do something. Secondly, is we need to do something. But thirdly, is we want to do something. For example, if you were a slave under the Romans, you would have to do the work that your boss or your master have told you because you are a slave. Secondly, if you would have been simply an employee, like today, many of us are employees, we know that we need to do what our employer tells us to do. If we are not going to do what our employers tell us to do, we will get fired and we will not get paid. So, we don't have to, but we need to because we are getting reimbursed for that.

but the third thought is we want to do this. It's not more an employee or no more a slave, but it's a child who want to do the will of the Father out of the abundance of his heart. God, the Father, does not need to commend us. He doesn't need even to force us. He knows that his child out of a response of love of love to the Father will want to do the bidding of his Father. Like a child, again, is a great example at home that he sees his Father come from work. We talked about it the other day. And he knows that his Father told him to do certain things before he left the house.

But now, when he has done it, he obeyed the commandment of his Father when his Father told him what to do. But if his Father left and went to work and he didn't tell him what to do, but he knew what would please the Father. And out of submissiveness to his Father, he went and he's done those things without even to be told. That's the obedience, not necessarily to the commandment, but to the word, to know the heart of the Father. You know, brothers and sisters, this is so important for us. We don't want to be motivated to obey God because we have to. We don't want to be motivated to obey God because we need to.

Oh, I'm a Christian. I need to do that. But we want to be motivated to obedience because we want to. Why? We love him because he first loved us. We respond to him because he reached us first. Out of the love for our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, we will seek to please him even if he didn't give us a specific command. You know, somebody said it like this. You know, sometimes people come to me and say, what's wrong with going to the bar and going to all these places and doing all these things? What's wrong? You know, it's nothing wrong with it. Well, that's the wrong question to ask.

The question to ask is, what's right? What will please God the Father? What will give him joy to his heart? And you see, this is different between obedience because I have to, obedience because I need to, but it is obedience because I want to obey my Father. And you know, we find ourselves most of the time, not in the last one, into I want to, many times or most of the time we need to, well, we have to, you know, and we haven't many times arrived to the appreciation of who Yeshua is and to say, listen, I want to obey God, my Father. I want to obey Yeshua, the Messiah, not because I have to, not because I need to, but because I want to have fellowship with my Messiah and my Father.

that's what he's really saying here in verse 5. He that keepeth his word in him verily, the love of God is perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. In other words, the love of God is being perfected in the life of the believer, being matured and developed because I'm submitting to God not out of necessity, not out of need, but out of simply submissiveness to the Lord. And brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us with this so we can grow in appreciation of who he is and what he has done for us. And so now he's continuing on in verse 6. He says, "He that saith." How many times he used that word, "He that saith." "He that saith." Verse 4.

"He that saith." Verse 6. "He that saith." Verse 9. It's mentioned again and again in this passage where we are here today. Verse 6 he says, "He that saith, that he abideth in him, art himself also to walk even as he walk." To say that you abide being close to the Lord, well, it's got to change us. It's got to change the behavior, the conduct. Well, if we are saying that we are abiding in him, we are close to him, we are near him, well, it says in verse 6, "We ought to walk even as he walk." In other words, the standard is rising. You might say this is stage number 3.

Stage number 1 or level number 1, obedience to his commandments. Level number 2 is obedience to his word. Level number 3 is walking even as he walk. In other words, really having a fellowship with the Lord and submissiveness out of the desire of the heart to obey and to live for the Lord. So John is now speaking to the children of God and he is encouraging them with the need of obedience. Do you know how sin entered into this world? Simply by disobedience of one man by the name of Adam who was the federal head of the whole human race. He plunged the whole human race into sin by disobedience eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and by disobedience sin have entered into the world.

So let's just quickly move on and conclude with this portion. Verses 7 to 11 is the final point here in this message for today. Verses 7 and 8 believers in this age have a new commandment in additional to what they have already heard in the past. It says in verse 7 and 8 brethren Achim I write no new commandment unto you but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning the old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. the beginning. But then he adds in verse 8 again he is saying a new commandment I write unto you which thing is true in him this is in Yeshua and in you because the darkness is past and the true light is now shineth.

So we have the old commandment you might say which God had given instructed us historically in the past but we also have that new commandment. Now in the Greek the word for new it has more than one meaning. There is two words and I am going to just read it from my text here. The word for new can be new in time and the word new can be new in quality. That is the two ways in which the Greeks represent the word new. The one that is new in time is neos n-e-o-s the one that is new in quality is k-a-i-n-o-s kainos two different Greek words.

One of them has to do with time another one has to do with quality. Now we have heard in time past the commandments of the Lord that is already have been said to us in verse 7. I don't write a new commandment. I am writing to you an old commandment which you have heard from the beginning. From the beginning here has to do with from the time of the incarnation. That is how the whole book is beginning. That which was from the beginning speaking about the Messiah entering into this world and he gave commandments to his own people. But he is adding here something that is very interesting because after the death and the burial and resurrection of the Messiah we received the Holy Spirit of God to indwell the believer.

And so the indwelling of the believer by the Holy Spirit of God enables us to obey in a unique way much more than just what we have heard in the past but also in quality. That means that we are able with the aid and the help of the Spirit of God to submit to the Lord with the help of the Holy Spirit of God. In a new way. In a quality way. You see before the Spirit of God came to this world men could not obey because the Holy Spirit of God was not indwelling the believer. But once the Spirit of God came and he is indwelling every believer now he is our aid he is helping us to be obedient in a higher quality that we could or men could obey prior to the coming of the Spirit of God to be indwelling all those that believe in Yeshua the Messiah.

So verses 7 and 8 we have the old commandment but we also have the new commandment to obey those commandments enable us because the Holy Spirit of God is indwelling a believer in Yeshua the Messiah. And here what does the Holy Spirit of God enable us to do? Verses 9, 10 and 11 look what he is enabling us to do. A believer who is in fellowship with God he will love the brethren. And that's why he says in verse 9 he that says he is in the light and he hateth his brother he is in darkness even until now. You see if a person say well I am in light in the light and yet I hate my brothers or my sisters really what happens is that the person is really not in the light he is not in the light but actually he is in the darkness.

He cannot see clearly because hating the children of God the believers really is not that which is coming from the Spirit of God. So he is saying here hating a brother is really being in darkness. So we have to be very careful we might don't agree with a brother or don't maybe appreciate what a brother or sister have done to us or what we have done to them and they might not appreciate what we have done to them but to come to a point of hatred that we only show that we are really not in the light not walking in a way that is in a right fellowship with the Lord.

That is darkness. Hatred is darkness. The first hatred that we see in Scripture is again going back to Cain and Abel for men that Cain hated his own brother because what Abel have done really caused him to be jealous over him and he hated him and he ended up killing him and murdering his own brother. So hating a brother is being in darkness. We have to check ourselves all the time if we have this hatred towards others. And again you notice he is talking to brothers to believers. He is not talking about the world here. he is talking about the Nishpacha the family of God.

Then secondly in verse 10 loving a brother is abiding in the light. He that loveth his brother the word for love is the Greek word agapeo. He that loveth his brother abides in the light. And as it says here and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. In other words when we are close to the Lord and abiding in light recognizing our weaknesses and our failures and our sins and confessing and before the Father and then we are abiding in this light then what happened we turn around and instead of hating someone because we didn't get our own way we began to love the brethren.

And the loving of the brethren this Greek word agapeo unconditional not depended all upon the performance of my brother or my sister. simply just as God loved the world he is enabling us to love our brothers and sisters unconditionally not depend upon their performance simply to love them in a way that is unconditional for God so loved the world unconditionally not depend upon the performance of the person who received that love. and finally brothers and sisters verse 11 he that hateth his brother and he walketh in darkness and he knoweth not whither he goeth because the darkness have blinded his eyes. When we are away from the Lord and not enjoying fellowship with the Father and his Son and ending up beginning to act in the flesh and hating brothers and sisters who perhaps had some wrong dealing with me then actually the Bible does say that we do walk in darkness and really as it says here at the end we do not know the way that we walk it says and knoweth not whither he goes because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

And so the lesson for us beloved brothers today is twofold. Number one Yeshua is our advocate. He is there the one that representing us before the Father saying for these sins I have died. In turn when we are being spoken by the Spirit of God the Spirit of God then the other comforters speak to us. He is aiding us to confess our sins and our wrongdoing. And when we confess and repent before the Lord we know that those sins have been dealt with. and in turn it changes our lives and we walk close to the Lord in the light in fellowship with Him. And then instead of hating we end up loving.

Instead of desiring something against another we desire the benefit of another. And we build the people of God and we build the family of God and we grow together and we become a testimony for the Lord Yeshua the Messiah in a poor world with so much hatred and animosity and killing and murdering and all the sadness that is existing here in this world for us as believers who are in fellowship with the Father we can make a change even in our own little circle for the glory of God and for the blessing of the people of God.