Text for the message this morning, again, from 1 John. 1 John 2. I'd like to look at verses 3, 4, 5, and 6. 1 John 2, verses 3 through 6. The title is taken from verse 3. Hereby we do know. Hopefully get through this today. I'd like to expound on these four verses. The privilege to know Him, the proof that we know Him, and the perfection in knowing Him. Stand as we read the text in reverence to God's word. I invite you to do that. Those of you that are comfortable to stand, and let's read together. beginning in 1 John 2, verse 3. 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 we know that we are in him. He that saith, he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. Let's just pray again. Thank you, Father, for your scriptures here, and just thank you that we can have them so freely before us this morning, and we would just pray that you would teach us these truths and lessons through your word and through your Holy Spirit this morning, and help us to learn them well and apply them to our lives this coming week and coming days. In the name of Jesus, we pray, amen. You may be seated. I was gonna ask you to look for repeated words as we read that passage, and maybe some of them just stood out to you as we read. What are some words that just keep coming up in this text this morning? No, okay. How many times does no come up? Does someone know? I think it's at least, what, three times? What are some other repeated words Commandments, okay, very important word. Keepeth, it's another very important word. Him and his, yes, him I think is six times. Sometimes it's referring to us, him, and mostly it's referring to him, God or Jesus. Any other repeated words? We, I think we is five times. We. So we can know Him. Are you agreed? Can we know Him? We can know Him. That's the first bullet we want to look at, first point. The privilege to know Him. We can actually know God. How does that affect you? The reality of that. Isn't that just truly amazing? God wants to reveal himself to us. I'm just going to briefly highlight, well, how does God do that? I know the handout kind of gives it away, but that's okay. Give credit to Alyssa for the handout. How does God reveal himself to man? How did he reveal himself to you? Through His Spirit. How else? By nature, yes. The creation, very much so. How else does God reveal Himself to us? I have through His Word. and also have through by the biblical history of man's story. And we'll just briefly give you a few scriptures concerning each one of these. First of all, God reveals himself through his spirit, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9 through 12. Verse nine, but as it is written, I hath not seen or ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things God hath prepared for them that love him. And a lot of times we take that to mean all those things he's prepared for us over in glory, but wait a minute, that's not really the thought here. He goes on to say that, but God hath revealed them to us by his what? By spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. So God's spirit reveals God to us. Verse 11, for what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God. Verse 12, now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of God that we might know. We might know, there it is again, that we're know, we might know the things that are freely given unto us by God. So God reveals himself to us by his spirit. When we have God's spirit in us, he reveals himself to us. Secondly, God reveals himself to us through his word. Saint John 5.39 says, search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life for they or the scriptures are they the scriptures testify of me. So the word is a testimony of Jesus. It's a testimony of who he is. So God reveals himself to us. Jesus or God, we will use those interchangeably. There's different roles for them, but I think in John writing this, part of his focus is on Jesus, but it's also on God. So God and Jesus. The word is, a divine revelation of God. Saint John 1.1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So you want to know about God? You want to have God revealed to you? Read the Word. We got it right here. God is revealing Himself to us. through his eternal word. Thirdly, God reveals himself by the biblical history of man's story. Hebrews chapter one, verse one and two, I have it here. God, who at sunry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. The story of man begins in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Man was created perfectly and communed directly with God. God was known to Adam and Eve in dimensions of completeness that were marred by sin. After the fall, God has been intentionally revealing himself to man through people, through biblical history, the story, the stories of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of the children of Israel, of Jacob and Isaac, and you could go on and on and on. What were those stories for? God was revealing himself through those stories. They are a testimony of who God is, how God works, and how God manifests himself in the story of mankind. talks about the Old Testament prophets. They spoke of God. They revealed who God was and how he worked and how he dealt with mankind. And then it says, and finally in these last days, and that's today, we have the son, the son of man or the son of God. He is revealing himself through his son, Jesus. Now, when John was writing this text, this epistle, He was an older man by now, perhaps already in his 80s. We're not quite sure, but perhaps in his 80s. And remember, he had been following Jesus at a very young age. Jesus had called his disciples. He was one of those sons of thunder, perhaps even as young as a teenager. So he had been following Jesus for a long time. John was known as the what disciple? What kind of disciple? Beloved, yes. Possibly the closest friend to Jesus here on earth. Remember he had seen Jesus with his own eyes, he had touched him, he heard him speak with his own ears. John knew Jesus very, very personally. He knew him by personal experience, by physical experience. He also knew him by an experience of having Jesus change his heart. So for John, his knowledge of Jesus far surpassed just a physical connection. And none of us this morning have connected with Jesus in a physical way. but we can have the privilege of knowing Him in our hearts. God reveals Himself to us, again, by the Holy Ghost, by His Word, and by the biblical history of man. Now, this knowing, this privilege of knowing God is not just up here. It's about 12 inches lower in our hearts. Not a casual acquaintance, This knowing is an experimental spiritual knowledge that comes from an intimate relationship with Jesus. Mayen's Dictionary says for knowing The Greek word frequently indicates a relationship between the person knowing and the object known. And in this respect, what is known is of value or importance to the one who knows, and hence the establishment of the relationship. It's not just some knowing, some knowledge. It's a experiential knowledge that you have from having Jesus in your hearts. And Vines also says, such knowledge is not obtained by mere intellectual activity, but by operation of the Holy Spirit consequent on the acceptance of Christ, end quote. Do we know God? How many of you know God? We can know him, and yet, 1 Corinthians 13, 12 says, for now we see through a glass darkly, Our vision isn't really too clear yet. Not yet. But it will be. Someday it will be. It says, but then, we're gonna see him face to face. Now I know in what? Part. But then I shall know him even as I am known. We're gonna know him perfectly someday. Isn't that exciting? But for now, we have the privilege of knowing God. We can know that we know. How can we know that we know? That's the next one, the proof of knowing God. How do we know him? How can we know that we know him? Is it by our feelings? I feel like I know God. Is it by our faith? I believe I know God. Is it by our works? I think I've done enough that I know what God wants, so I must know God. Maybe there's a bit of a combination of all three of them, but the test that John gives in this text is a fairly simple test of knowing whether we know God or not. If we, if we keep his commandments. And verse five, if, doesn't use the word if there, It says, keeping His commandments, in verse 6, if we're going to walk as He walked. Now, John repeatedly uses this little two-letter word, if. 21 times, if I count it correctly, in this epistle. If we say we have fellowship. If we walk in the light. If we say we have no sin. If we confess our sins. If is a conditional particle or clause. Knowing God is contingent on us keeping His commandments. That's the proof of knowing God. Well, then we must then ask, what are God's commandments? That's the test. What is the test? What are His commandments? I thought we said we know Him. The Ten Commandments? If we keep the Ten Commandments, we pass the test. Or is it the 613 Jewish commandments referred to as the mitzvah? If we keep all those 613, we'll probably be all right. Or how about the 1050 New Testament commands that someone has compiled? Now, due to repetitions, we could classify them under about 800 headings. How can we navigate through life trying to keep either 613 commandments or 1050 commandments? Is this really a requirement to know that we know God? That's a bit overwhelming, isn't it? 800, that would be more than two new ones each day. How are we going to track all that? Hereby you know that you know Him if you keep His commandments. Follow me to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22, verse 34. When the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, what is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Hmm. What is Jesus saying here? Verse 40, Weibov's New Testament says, the whole of the law and the prophets is summed up in these two commandments. Would you agree that when verse 37, loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, all our being, everything that we have, The other 1049 commandments are covered. When we love God with all our being, keeping His commandments is a joy. We gladly observe His commandments because we love Him. And we could ask the question then, so what do you think? Can we obey without loving? My children could. I think so. Sort of, at least. But can we truly love without obeying? My gut's where it's at. You know, the idea of loving God with all our being as proof that we know Him, doesn't that sound kind of like a fairly lofty idea, a concept that we just really, I like that, don't you? But wait, there's a second part to this commandment. Verse 39, love your neighbor as yourself. This commandment is a bit more practical. We can't quite hide from this one as well. If we don't love our neighbor, we don't love God with all our being. Is that too much? If we don't love our neighbor, we don't love God with all our being. If we don't love our neighbor, we're not keeping God's commandments, are we? And if we're not keeping God's commandments, we don't really know Him. Do we? Now we can say we do. Get to that text again. Verse, is it four or five? The wrong chapter. Verse 4, we can say we love Him, but if we don't keep His commandments, what are we? Liars. I don't know about you, but that's fairly strong language. If you call someone a liar, you better have some fairly good grounds to do that. I think if our children do that, could use some discipline maybe even, but the solemn truth is if we say we love God and don't love our neighbor and don't keep his commandments, we're lying. Now Jesus was having this discussion again with a lawyer in Luke 10. And this lawyer wanted to justify himself. So yeah, oh, who's my neighbor? Well, what are you talking about? And the story Jesus gave, two passed by the hurt man. The third one stopped to help. And then Jesus asked, Who do you think was neighbor? And the lawyer replied correctly. He said, the one who showed mercy. What did Jesus say? Go and do likewise. Keeping his commandments is proof we know him. Loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors yourself. It's also keeping his word, verse five, Hereby we know that whosoever keepeth his word. Now, keeping his word and his commandments are, they're basically inseparable. Maybe just, I think the word is a more comprehensive term. The word, remember, is a revelation of who God is and what his will is for us. His commandments are more specific instructions that he gives us in his word. And by the way, when we talk about commandments, they're not suggestions, okay? Commandments are not negotiable. Commandments are commandments, not suggestions. Keeping his commandments also includes walking as he walked in verse six. Now the word. ought. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walk. That word is not, if we read it in our English, it almost seems like this could be a suggestion. It's more than a suggestion. This word ought is the same word that's used in John 13 when he talks about feet washing. You ought to wash one another's feet. It's a lot stronger than just a suggestion. If we say, again, that we are abiding in God, we're gonna walk like he walked. Now, how do we walk like Jesus walked? What does that look like? Obviously, we can't walk like he did in his divinity. How many of you can walk on water? How many of you can read somebody else's mind like Jesus did? No, we can't walk in that respect like He did. But we can walk like Jesus did in His humility, in His servanthood, in His kindness, in His mercifulness, in His honesty. By the grace of God, we can walk like Jesus walked in those ways. So we have the privilege to know Him. We have the proof we know Him, now the perfection in knowing Him, verse 5. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. How many of you are perfect? How many of you want to be perfect? Yeah, the word perfect can be a little scary. We often tend to think that the word perfect means to be completely free from faults or defects. It's just perfect. No, that's really not what the word means in this text. The Greek word is teleo. Can you help me say that? Tellio. Tellio. It means to accomplish, to complete. Accomplish, complete. And this particular usage in this verse is a verb. So you teachers, what's a verb? What's a verb? shows action. That's right. This is an action word. This is something that is happening. When we are loving God with all our being, We were going to want to love our neighbor with all our being. We will want to be keeping his commandments. We will want to be keeping his word. We're gonna want to walk like he walked. And when that is taking place in our hearts, guess what's happening? God's love is being perfected in us. And in the process, we're being perfected in that love. Action. It's an ongoing process. God's love being completed in us. Perfection? God's love is still working on my heart. So we have the privilege, the proof, the perfection. What can we take with us this week? Number one, let's meditate on the wonderful privilege to have Jesus Christ revealed to me personally. And I can know him. Secondly, let's live out God's will to love others. That's how we know we love Him. And when we love Him, we know we know Him because we're keeping His commandments. Thirdly, allow God's love to perfect you. Let's kneel to pray. Dear God, we are humbled by your presence this morning and by how you have revealed yourself to your people, how you have revealed yourself to each of us personally and collectively through the word and through your spirit and through creation and through the history of the Bible and the stories of man that have taught us of who you are and then the witness and testimony of the life of Jesus here on earth. We can be assured there is a God because of how you have revealed yourself to us. Thank you that we can be a part of knowing you. God help us, all of us, to have a deep desire to know you better each passing day. And then God, as we've considered this test of whether we really know you or not, oh God, it's only by your grace and strength and power that we can live in obedience to your word and to your commandments and to walk like you walked. And God, just thank you that Your love is so great and that as it does its work in our lives and hearts, it's making us complete. Help us to allow that to happen on a daily basis. Just bless each one this morning in a very special way. Even those that aren't here and perhaps listening in. Give us strength and courage for the coming days. We love you, God. Help us to live out that love in practical ways this week. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.