We are in that part of Sefer Yochanan, the Book of John, where Messiah is having his last Passover meal with His disciples. Messiah continues His final instructions to His chosen men who will take over His work. In chapter 15 Yeshua emphasizes our most important relationships.
Regarding our relationship to Him, we are to abide in Him. If we do stay close to Him, by doing those things that will keep us close – studying the Word of God, and the Word of God is all about Yeshua; if we talk to God and Yeshua, and meditate on Messiah’s life, death, and resurrection, His miracles, His parables, His teachings like His blessings which are commonly called “the Beatitudes;” if we keep His coming Kingdom and the New Jerusalem before our eyes; if we put into practice the things He has commanded us to do, then Messiah’s thoughts, His strength, His Spirit, the Son of God’s divine energy will flow through us, and we will grow in godly character, and love. We will understand that we are here on Earth to serve God, and put His interests, His priorities, His Kingdom first. Then we will produce good and lasting results.
Regarding our relationship with one another, within Messiah’s Holy Community of Jews and Gentiles, Yeshua has one supreme demand: This is My commandment, that you love one another. Love for one another is not optional. For us, it is a command and needs to be one of our very highest priorities.
People in the world are not characterized by love for one another but indifference, apathy or hostility toward each other. But we must be characterized by love for one another.
But what is love? People today have all kinds of ideas of what love is, but all too often it is confused with romantic feelings and sexual behavior, but love is not based on romantic feelings or sexual behavior. Romantic feelings may increase or decrease over time, but love remains. A man may meet a woman and during their first date ask her: do you want to make love? But that kind of uncommitted sexual relationship is not love. Love can be expressed through sex, but sex is not love.
It is not love when a man says he loves a woman, but it is only to get something from her. When you are taking from the one you claim to love, you are seducing, not loving. Love is by its nature giving. Love is always bestowing, imparting, not selfishly taking.
Some people confuse love with warm feelings, but warm feelings alone are not love. Sometimes a parent must discipline a child, or a wife must disagree with her husband, or a teacher must correct the student, and there are no warm feelings, but of course there is still love.
Messiah continues: Love one another just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. Love is active. Love is powerful. Love will take the initiative. Love will take drastic action, if necessary, to help the one it loves. Love cannot remain inactive if there is danger to the beloved.
Love will climb the highest mountain, love will dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Love will come down from Heaven and hang and bleed and die on a cross in order to help its loved ones.
In a world mixed with sin and evil, love must sometimes suffer. But love will be willing to sacrifice itself for the sake of the ones it loves. And, this is the kind of love that the Son of God has for us. He was willing to give up His comfort, His security, His place of honor in Heaven, and become mortal, and limited, and subject to misunderstanding, and pain and suffering and torture and ultimately, death on a cross.
Messiah’s sacrifice of Himself is the supreme demonstration of His love for us. We are to strive to love each other in the same way that Yeshua loved us, with that same kind of powerful, active, taking-the-initiative, self-sacrificial love.
Love wants to be friendly, and so Messiah tells us, you are My friends. Let me ask you a question: you have a friend or two, don’t you? And, wouldn’t it be especially nice if you had a very good friend, who was in a powerful and influential place, who could help you if necessary? Wouldn’t it be cool to have the CEO of GM, Ford or Chrysler, or President of the United States, as your friend?
Now, think of it – the eternal Son of God, the One who made the entire universe, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the only Savior and Redeemer, and the Final Judge of humanity, wants to your friend! But, He has a condition. There is an “if” when it comes to Him extending His friendship: if you do what I command you. We can be friends, if You obey Me, and if you share My good values, and participate in the great task of world redemption that God has set before Me. If those are the conditions, are you still willing to be His friend?
Messiah’s love for us makes Him friendly, and a friend wants to tell his as much as possible. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. Love wants to elevate. Love wants to raise up. Love desires to help the one it loves to become the best he can be. The Son of God wants to transform us from slaves into friends. He wants to turn us from ignorant slaves, into friends who are informed about the plans of God, and who then willingly participate in those plans. Do you?
May I say that some of us can improve in this area of being friends. It’s not that we don’t have friends, but I’m talking about being friends within our religious community. Some of us go to the synagogue, and as soon as the service is over we leave, and think that we have done enough; we have fulfilled our religious obligations. They don’t stay to meet new people, to get to know others, to welcome others, to make some friends here.
My brothers and sisters, this is not the way we are to conduct ourselves in Messiah’s Holy Community. We are to be like Messiah, and strive to be friends with one another.
To be friends, you need to stick around, get involved, do things together, share you mind and thoughts, like the Messiah did with His disciples. Won’t you consider reaching out more, making a special effort to get more involved in the lives of others here in the synagogue? If you do, others will be blessed, you will be strengthened, and the whole synagogue will be built up in love.
Let’s continue: Messiah’s love for us is based on His initiative, His choosing of us, not our choosing of Him: You did not choose Me but I chose you – I knew you before you knew Me; I was interested in you before you were interested in Me; My Father was drawing you to Me before you were ever aware that you were being drawn to Me. Messiah took the initiative in our friendship.
I chose you and appointed you (I placed you in your position, in your relationship to God and Me), for a specific purpose – not to make your life more comfortable or convenient, but that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain. I have chosen you, and put you in the place you are in, born to the parents you were born to, part of the family you are in, in the nation you live in, living in the exact the time you live, working in the job you are in, having the friends you have, so that you will produce good and lasting results. I have chosen you and provided you with everything you need to grow in godly character, and love and obedience and service to God, loving one another, and being a blessing to humanity. These good results in time will last through eternity.
And He has made it possible for these things to characterize our lives now, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. “Stay close to Me” Messiah tells us, “and love one another, and you will know My mind, understand My will, and you will know what God expects of you, and what is really important, and what you should pray for, and then God will hear your good prayers and answer them.”
And again, because love is so important, Messiah repeats: this I command you, that you love one another.
Now, King Messiah addresses our relationship to the world, and the attitude that the world will have toward us is not characterized by love – quite the opposite. If the world hates you (and it will), you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. The world will hate you. Expect it. Be prepared for it. And, understand that the hatred of the world that is directed toward you has its origin with its hatred of Me. The world is not indifferent toward Me; the world actively hates Me, and this hatred is very old, going back to the beginning. And, since you are now joined to Me, the world’s animosity will likewise be directed toward you.
And you know what? In one sense that’s a good thing! Because, if you were of the world – if you were still part of the fallen, evil, satanic world system, with its corrupt values, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
I saw you headed for death and destruction, and I made the choice to remove you from this perverse and dying world, and transfer you into My good and eternal world. It was My initiative and my choosing. That’s the kind of good friend that I am. I was the One who chose to begin transforming you from within, giving you My Spirit and My values and My knowledge, which are very different from the world’s. But, because of that, you will be detested.
Remember the word that I said to you, earlier this evening, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ The master is greater than the slave, and if they persecuted Me, which they have, they will also persecute you; the world has shown its contempt for Me, the righteous Messiah, the Holy Son of God, full of wisdom and grace and truth, One who only did good and never sinned. If they treated Me this way, with hatred, contempt, opposition, persecution, then obviously they will treat you the same way or worse; if they kept My word – which they haven’t, they will keep yours also – which they won’t. So, how people understand Me and relate to Me is the way they will understand and relate to you. The way the world relates to you will reveal their true spiritual condition, and where they really are in relationship with God.
But all these things – misunderstanding you, making fun of you, not paying attention to the truth that you tell them, mistreating you, they will do to you for My name’s sake – because of Me, and who I am, and because you are joined to Me, and share My values and understand the truth I have told you, and because they do not know the One who sent Me.
The sad reality of the situation is that the world, even if they are religious, since most of mankind is deeply religious – including the Jewish world, the Hindu and Buddhist world, the Moslem world, with all their prayers and religious ceremonies and rituals, don’t know the one true and living God, who is Yeshua’s Father, the One who sent Him to save them and bless them and restore them to God and life. They don’t know God, they don’t know Messiah, and so they certainly won’t know or value or appreciate us; in fact we can expect quite the opposite!
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin – I don’t mean that they would be sinless – far from it! But they would not be guilty in the sense of not understanding that I am the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world, and rejecting Me. But I have come to Israel and I have spoken to them the very words of God. I am have made it abundantly clear who I am, by coming from Heaven to Earth, becoming a human being from the royal line of King David, proclaiming, declaring, teaching them unambiguously who I am. But now they have no excuse for their sin.
They have sufficient knowledge and are fully responsible for their rejection of Me. And, he who hates Me hates My Father also. Don’t tell Me that you love God but dislike Me! We share the same Name and Spirit, character and essence. I am just like Him. I am the exact representation of the Father’s nature. I do and say everything at His express command. He who hates Me hates My Father also.
And, it’s not just Yeshua’s teaching about Himself that makes human beings guilty and without excuse: He says, “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin;”
I have done unparalleled miracles in Israel. I have miraculously healed so many of the sick, including people born blind from birth, and people who were paralyzed. God has used Me to heal lepers, and cast out demons, and raise people back to life who have died. I’ve feed thousands from a few loaves of bread and a few fish. I’ve walked on water, calmed the winds and waves and storms. Most of Israel’s prophets didn’t do anything like these things, and these miracles should clearly tell you that I am close to God, sent from God, the Messiah and the holy Son of God. But you have ignored the clear implication of My miracles, and that doubles your guilt!
But now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. Forget all your excuses. Your hatred of Me has been done with sufficient knowledge, and you are fully responsible. And, your hatred of Me really means that you hate My Father, the living God.
And, this irrational hatred shouldn’t come as a complete surprise: But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘ They hated Me without a cause’ (see Psalm 35:14 and Psalm 69).
That means that the Book of Psalms is Torah. Even though in a strict sense, only the first five books of Moses are the Torah, in another sense, the entire Bible, including the Prophets, the Writings and the New Testament Scriptures, are also Torah – God’s divinely inspired Teaching.
If many of the righteous, including the Psalmist who wrote Psalm 69, and King David who wrote Psalm 35, who was one of the best human beings who ever lived, one of Israel’s greatest kings, and a man after God’s own heart; if David was hated by the majority of Israel, who rejected him when they followed Avshalom in his rebellion – then Yeshua was hated even more so, and also for no good reason. There is absolutely no reason for Israel to have hated Him 2,000 years ago, or continue to despise Him to this day. He only spoke the truth. He only went about doing good to people. Our hatred is totally irrational.
Now my friends, in spite of these crystal clear words of the Adon Olam, the Master of the universe, and in spite of His many miracles, including His resurrection from the dead, and the incredible impact He has had on the world for 2,000 years, more than any other human being, there are people today, even some who are considered Messianic Jewish leaders, who are teaching that a Jewish person can be saved apart from confessing their belief, their personal faith and trust in Yeshua!
Yes, we will face the hatred of the world. It can’t be avoided my friends. It is to be expected. It is part of what it means to be a disciple of the Master. But the good news is that greater is He who has been given to live within us, than the whole world!
When the Helper comes – My Spirit, who is also the Spirit of My Father, and the Helper is a Person, with mind and will and emotion, He will help you when you are persecuted, and comfort you and strengthen you in your trials, and empower you during your difficulties, and enable you to endure, whom I will send to you from the Father – I will send Him because I have authority over My Holy Spirit, who is also the Spirit of God, that is the Spirit of truth – the true Spirit of God, the Spirit who teaches and promotes only the truth, so that you will continue to learn the things that are pleasing to God, who proceeds from the Father –
So, here we have the Trinity at work – the Son of God sends the Spirit, who proceeds from God the Father, and He – the Holy Spirit – will testify about Me – He will keep pointing you to Me, and tell you about Me, and who I am Messiah, the Savior and Redeemer, and what I offer you – salvation, redemption, being accepted and connected to God. He will keep redirecting your minds to My importance and centrality. He will do this directly, as He works on your minds and hearts. He will do this as you read the Word of God. The Holy Spirit will help you see Me in the Holy Scriptures.
And you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning. You will testify about Me, despite the defiance and hostility of the world. The world will not be able to stop you from speaking and testifying to the truth about Me, and fulfilling the task of world evangelism that I have appointed you to. You can be strong and bold and courageous, and more powerful than the world.
These things – these warning about the difficulties you will face, but also the blessings and grace you will receive to enable you to be more than conquerors, these things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. If you really pay attention to what I am telling you, and believe them, and put them into practice, you won’t stumble. They will keep you from failure.
They will make you outcasts from the synagogue – which has happened in the Jewish community since the First Century, even as Messiah warned, and lasts until today, but this rejection from our former religious communities has happened to many other nations and peoples where the Good News about the Messiah has spread, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. This has happened from time to time. In the First Century, some Messianic Jews were persecuted and killed. In many places where Catholicism has dominated, the true Christians were persecuted, arrested, sometimes tortured and killed, and this was done by religious people in the name of God, deceived people thinking that they were actually serving God!
How can this be? It’s simple: These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.
Let’s pray: Holy Father, help us to truly know You, and to truly know the Messiah.
Thank you for Your love, and Messiah’s love, which elevates us from slaves to friends! May we meet your righteous requirements to truly be Your friend!
Lord God, so work in us, and redirect us if necessary, that we would bear much fruit, lasting results.
Help us to expect, and be worthy of, the hatred of the world, because that means that we are truly joined to Messiah. And thank You that we can endure it with the help of Your Spirit.