He Is Jealous For Me Series

Introduction:

A. If you like to listen to contemporary Christian music, then when you see the title of today’s sermon, “He is Jealous for Me,” you probably think of the David Crowder Band’s song “How He Loves,” because the song begins with that sentence.

1. The beginning of the song goes like this:

He is jealous for me

Loves like a hurricane

I am a tree bending beneath

The weight of His wind and mercy

When all of a sudden

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

And I realize just how beautiful You are

And how great Your affections are for me

2. Those are indeed beautiful words with a lot of deep meaning to them.

3. God’s love for us is like a hurricane, and we are indeed “blown over” when we realize how great are God’s affections for each of us.

B. But the first line, “He is jealous for me,” leaves us a little unsettled, doesn’t it?

1. Is it okay for God to be “jealous?”

2. How is it right for God to be jealous, but not for me to be jealous?

3. In today’s sermon, I want us to explore how and why God is jealous for us, and why is it right and good that God is this way.

C. Today’s sermon is the second in our new sermon series Counterfeit Gods – Defeating the Idols that Battle for Our Hearts.

1. Last week we discovered that idolatry isn’t just a problem of the past, but that it continues to be a problem in our time and in our lives.

2. We learned that anything can become an idol, when it takes a place in our lives and hearts that belongs only to God.

3. We learned that God has commanded that we have no other gods before Him or beside Him.

4. The one true God must be our only God.

5. And because the one true God must be our only God, He is jealous for us.

6. Let’s explore what that means by answering some important questions.

I. First of all, Is it true that God is a Jealous God?

A. Let’s investigate the Bible and see whether it says that God is a jealous God.

1. Exodus 20:4-5a: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God …” (Repeated also in Deuteronomy 5:8-9)

2. Exodus 34:12-14: “Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).”

3. Deuteronomy 4:23-24: “Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”

5. Deuteronomy 6:13-15: “It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.”

6. Ezekiel 39:25: “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name.”

7. Zechariah 1:14 says: “So the angel who talked with me said to me, ‘Cry out, Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion.’ ”

B. When we think of the characteristics of God, jealousy is not one that immediately comes to our minds, and yet in the Old Testament in these numerous passages, the Hebrew word qanna^' translated “jealous” is used to describe God.

1. And to make the matter even more intriguing is that God not only employs jealousy as a trait, as we saw, God even takes it on as one of His names - “…whose name is Jealous” (Ex. 34:14).

2. So, the Bible makes it clear that God is a jealous God, but what does it mean?

II. Second, What is does it mean that God is a Jealous God?