Fellowship With God – Congregation Bat-Tzion

Tim Johnson July 25, 2026

This week’s Torah portion is called Va’etchanan. It begins… “And I begged”. We are in the book of Deuteronomy, or Devarim chapters three through seven. The Shema is in here, as well as quite a lot of other very wonderful Bible verses. Deuteronomy is so rich. It’s kind of like it has been boiled down from the previous four books of the Torah. And now, God is pulling out all the stops, and really emphatically delivering his instructions, his warnings, and his heart to his people. And part of this is because it is at the end of Moshe’s life, and Moshe knows it. There is an intensity here, especially about idolatry, even more-so than we have seen previously, because God and Moses both know the problems with idolatry that are coming to the Children of Israel in the near future.

But today, I want to focus on the fellowship we have with God. This has come from the part in our portion where the Children of Israel ask Moses to hear from God for them, because they are afraid that if they have to do it themselves, they will die. Literally.

But now, for us, with Yeshua as our Savior, things are different. And I want to talk about all of that. So we will begin in chapter four, and give just a little preliminary background.

Scripture quotations are from the NJV Bible (New Jerusalem Version).

Deuteronomy 4

5 See, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as YHVH my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it.

6 Therefore keep and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as YHVH our God is to us, whenever we call on him? 8 And what great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this Torah which I set before you today?

9 Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children.

And skipping down to verse 15:

15 Be very careful (for your souls), for you saw no kind of form on the day that YHVH spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth; 19 and lest you lift up your eyes to the heavens, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of the heavens, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which YHVH your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heavens. 20 But YHVH has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today.

21 Furthermore YHVH was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land which YHVH your God gives you for an inheritance; 22 but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and possess that good land. (This is what Moshe was begging the Lord for in the first verse of the portion. He was begging to go, but God said no.) 23 Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of YHVH your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which YHVH your God has forbidden you. 24 For YHVH your God is a consuming fire, a zealous God.

These last words are terse, and very powerful in the Hebrew.

Ki YHVH eloheicha eish ochlah hu, el kana.

God is not going on and on about it, but instead is emphatically saying in a brief way: Watch out, for YHVH your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

There are good reasons for having a healthy fear of the awesome God of the heavens and the earth. When you read words like this, you can see that. But there’s more:

Deuteronomy 4

27 YHVH will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where YHVH will lead you away. 28 There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek YHVH your God, and you will find him when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the end of days you will return to YHVH your God and obey his voice. 31 For YHVH your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.

32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the heavens to the other, whether there has been anything as great as this thing is, or has anything like it been heard? 33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?

Yes, God is a consuming fire. Yes, God is a jealous God. But God is also a merciful God. And they all heard his voice speaking out of the fire.

Now I’m going to skip down to the verses that immediately follow the repeat of the Ten Devarim, or Ten Commandments in:

Deuteronomy 5

19 These words YHVH spoke to all your assembly on the mountain out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness; with a great voice. And he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. 20 And when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; 21 and you said, “Behold, YHVH our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. We have seen today that God does speak with man, and he lives. 22 Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of YHVH our God any longer, then we shall die. 21 For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? 24 Go near, and hear all that YHVH our God shall say, and tell us all that YHVH our God tells you, and we will hear it, and do it.”

25 YHVH heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me; and YHVH said to me, “I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. 26 Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my mitzvot always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!

You see the heart of God here: His longing for the love and obedience of his people and his intense desire for their well-being.

So there it is. But that’s also how it was after that all through the time in the wilderness. God spoke to Moses, Moses spoke to the Children of Israel. That was the norm. Remember, also, at the end of Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 34

10 Since then, there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom YHVH knew face to face.

There was, however, an event where seventy elders prophesied in the book of Numbers:

Numbers 11

24 Moses went out, and told the people the words of YHVH; and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them around the Tent. 25 Then YHVH came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took of the Ruach that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And when the Ruach rested on them, they prophesied, but they did so no more.

26 But two men remained in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad; and the Ruach rested on them. They were of those who were written, but had not come out to the Tent; and thy prophesied in the camp. 27 A young man ran, and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!” 28 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his chosen men, answered, “My master Moses, forbid them!” 29 Moses said to him, “Are you zealous for my sake? I wish that all the people of YHVH were prophets, that YHVH would put his Ruach on them!

Oh that all the people of God were prophets, and that YHVH would put his Ruach on them! Well, I believe that we live in those days. Let’s read Jeremiah, shall we?

Jeremiah 31

30 “Behold, the days come,” says YHVH, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 31 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says YHVH. 32 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says YHVH: “I will put my Torah in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 33 They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know YHVH,’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says YHVH. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin not more.”

Jeremiah was prophesying about things he could see by the spirit that we now enjoy by way of the atoning sacrifice of Yeshua the Son of God. We do have his Torah in our inward man. It is written on our heart by way of the Holy Spirit of God. Our sins and iniquity have been forgiven, and God will remember it no more.

For the Children of Israel back in those days, the promise of the inheritance of the Promised Land was the thing. Well, that and the Torah, and being the people of God. But for us now, it’s different. We undergo a spiritual transformation when we get born again. Now, our hope, our promised land is in Heaven. That’s where Yeshua went to prepare a place for us. And our hope is in his coming back for us from there.

When I read these verses in Deuteronomy about hearing the voice of God, it reminds me of something in the book of First John that changed my life. I was continuing to seek God at that time in my life. I wanted to understand God, and be pleasing to God. I wanted to understand how it is supposed to be between us: God and Yeshua and me. Well, maybe before I get there, I’ll remind us of what Yeshua prayed in the book of

John chapter 17

20 “Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. 22 And the glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; 23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

His prayer was that we, you and I, all of us, would be one with each other even as he is one with the Father. He also said: I in them, and you in me. That’s what Yeshua was praying. Yeshua is in us, and the Father is in Yeshua. That’s what he said. And that’s what we now have. The purpose being unity, so the world would know that God sent Yeshua.

Now we go to the very beginning of the book of:

I John 1

1 That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life 2 (and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us); 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah. 4 And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled.

So. He is saying here that the life- the eternal life, which was with the Father, was revealed to us. That sounds to me like the new birth.

Then he says that he is declaring to you what he has seen and heard. What he has seen and heard sounds like revelation from God. So he is delivering revelation he got from God to believers here, for the purpose that “you also may have fellowship with us.” These people he’s currently writing to can have fellowship with John. This word “fellowship” is the Greek word “koinonia”. Koinonia means full sharing. Being open and understanding in all things between each other. That is fellowship with each other. That’s what he’s talking about: That they would have understanding, sharing, and be on the same page.

But then he goes on to say that truly our fellowship, our koinonia, our full sharing is with the Father, and with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah.

Please just let that soak in for a moment; truly our fellowship is with the Father and the son. I’d heard this, but not quite seen it in the Bible.

That’s where my mind got blown. I had read these words many times, but somehow the idea that fellowship with God and with his Son Yeshua the Messiah was not only available, it is expected! I had to shift my thinking to realize that God, and Yeshua were there waiting to have fellowship with me. This walk, this spiritual walk, is not done only through understanding and believing the Bible. Oh yes, it certainly begins there. But there is more. To have a true loving relationship with our Lord is what it’s really all about.

Yes we are to have full sharing, fellowship, with each other, and build unity. But it’s the same thing that each of us is supposed to have with God the Father, as well as with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah. We are supposed to be on intimate terms with them both. Just like we just read in John 17: I in them, and you in me. That’s how it literally is.

Do you remember the book of Colossians?

Colossians 1

26 the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations, but now it has been revealed to his holy ones, 27 to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Messiah in you, the hope of glory.

Paul just told us that it is Messiah in us. This is not some weird spiritual concept. This is spiritual reality. Yeshua the Messiah is literally inside of us.

2 Corinthians 13:

5 Examine yourselves, whether you are in the emunah; test yourselves. Or do you not know this about yourselves, that Yeshua the Messiah is in you?- unless indeed you are disqualified. 6 But I hope that you will know that we are not disqualified.

In the King James, the way it reads is: Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

In other words, we are expected to understand that Yeshua is in us, unless we are really out of it. I don’t want to be a reprobate. If we are attempting to walk by the Spirit, and to please God, we need to be mindful of the fact that Yeshua is in us.

And not only that, but God the Father is there too, because he is in Yeshua. And we are expected to have fellowship, full sharing with them. We can talk to them at all times.

I don’t know about you, but when I have fellowship with someone, let’s say for example my wife, it is not a situation where I get to do all the talking. No, she gets to talk as well. And it’s the same way with us when we have fellowship with the Father and with Yeshua. They talk as well. Yeshua is not shy. But first of all we need to listen, and expect him to be there. Have your spiritual ears open. And you’re going to need believing and trust too.

Another prerequisite to hearing is that we are not in a state of sin that we have not repented of. If you are in that state, you may need to stop, and handle it. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Remember? Confess. Admit to the Father what you have done. Repent. Get forgiveness. Then you’ll be in a better state for fellowship with God.

Also, when your mind is agitated, or distracted, it’s not always the best time to hear from the Lord. It sometimes requires “quiet seas” to allow the “ship” of Gods presence to approach. Although, sometimes, if we just bring that agitation, or concern to Him, he will comfort us. There are times in my life now, especially when it’s late, and I’m tired, that the pressures of life start to get to me. I start to feel fear about things in life. But if I bring this to him, even in the moment, many times He will give me encouragement and comfort, and even wisdom about the situation. He is there.

Fellowship with the Father and with the Son will be different for every person. That’s because all relationships are unique, because every individual is unique. Nobody is going to have the same relationship with the Father that I have. That is unique to the Father and me. But that’s okay, because your relationship, your fellowship will be just right for you. God meets us where we are, and will be an encouragement to help us along the way. That’s how it is supposed to work. But remember, we are first supposed to love him, and trust him.

As we read previously in Deuteronomy 4, have you sought after YHVH your God with all your heart and with all your soul? Have you found Him… and has he found you? Are you willing to obey the voice of YHVH your God? If so, then he is willing, able, and I would even venture to say eager to talk to you.

You and I are not Moses, nor will we ever be. But as Moses talked to the Lord face to face, we also can truly have fellowship with the Father and with the son, Yeshua the Messiah. Yeshua is in us.

Also, think about this for a moment: God’s great plan for eternity involves him sending his son to come to earth and redeem mankind, right? Those of us who have received him understand and know this. And in my own selfishness, I tend to think of this in my own terms. I get to go to heaven. I get to be with God. I get to spend eternity there. Yeshua is making a place for us, and for me. But what does God get out of it? God gets us. That is his plan for eternity. That is what He wanted. Don’t you see just how important fellowship with God is? We see this in Ephesians:

Ephesians 1

11 We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will, 12 to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Messiah. 13 In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation- in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Ruach HaKodesh, 14 who is a pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.

15 For this cause I also, having heard of the emunah in the Lord Yeshua which is among you, and the love which you have toward all the holy ones, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of (or spiritual) wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the holy ones, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might 20 which he worked in Messiah, when he raised him from the dead and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in the olam hazeh, but in the olam haba.

Here we see what I am talking about. Yes, we have an inheritance, and oh my, we hope for it and long for it. We actually groan for it. And we have the pledge of the inheritance: the holy spirit. But we see here that God’s inheritance is us. God inherits those of us who have eternity born within us, and who love him. Remember what Yeshua said:

Matthew 7

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Master, Master,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven; but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will tell me in that day, ‘Master, Master, did we not prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’ 23 Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who work lawlessness.’”

I will now ask the question. Does he know you? Do you know him?

After all, this is what we have for eternity and beyond, l’olam vaed: relationship with him. It starts now. Right now we are human, made of the earth. But as born again believers we have eternity born within us. That means we can have a real relationship right now with the Father and the Son. Fellowship involves communication both ways; and we can grow into our relationship more and more in this fleshly body and on this earth. This will continue into heaven forever.

I like to understand how things work, and here’s how I see this in my understanding. I understand that the holy spirit we have inside is the gift we receive when we get born again. It is incorruptible seed, spiritual seed born within us and never goes away. It infuses us with God’s spirit from heaven that we never had before. That’s where Yeshua is within us. Remember, he is in us. And in Him, in Yeshua, that’s where God is, according to John 17 that we read: I in them, and you in me. Remember?

If we hear something that we think may be from God, first of all it will never ever contradict the written word of God. That’s one way to check if it’s real. Another way to understand these things is in James:

James 3

13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good conduct that his deeds are done in gentleness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not boast and do not lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in shalom by those who make shalom.

I believe God wants to give us his wisdom from above; after all, we need it.

Let us be sowers of the fruit of righteousness. In summing up, I will quote David from Psalm 21 because he is speaking the way we should:

Psalm 21

FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN.

A PSALM BY DAVID

2 YHVH, the king rejoices in your strength;

how greatly he rejoices in your salvation!

3 You have given him his heart’s desire,

and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah

4 For you meet him with the blessings of goodness;

you set a crown of fine gold on his head.

5 He asked life of you and you gave it to him,

even length of days forever and ever.

6 His glory is great in your salvation;

you lay honor and majesty on him.

7 For you make him most blessed forever;

you make him glad with joy in your presence.

Let us be glad with joy in the presence of our Heavenly Father!

Shabbat Shalom