"Oh How He Loves You And Me!”

It is an awesome thought to think that the God of this vast universe loves us with a jealous love.

Oh How He Loves us!

Illus: Many of us can remember when we were in grammar school and we started loving the opposite sex for the first time.

Before we men grew into that area of our life if the teacher would seat a girl beside us fellows we would say, “I don’t want to sit beside no girl”

Later on as we grew and that girl grew we wouldn’t have minded if the teacher made that same girl sit in our lap.

When many of us boys were young and some young girl caught our attention and when the teacher was not looking we would send her a love letter.

And it went something like this, “I LOVE YOU, DO YOU LOVE ME?” And when the teacher was not looking we would send it to that special girl.

She would receive that love letter that said, “I LOVE YOU, DO YOU LOVE ME,” and she would write back saying, “YES, I LOVE YOU!”

And again when the teacher was not looking they both would smile at each other and start a puppy love romance that would last for a couple of days!

We all enjoy hearing someone say that they LOVE US, DON’T WE!!!

But when you think about God, the Creator that made this vast universe, say, “I LOVE YOU WITH A JEALOUS LOVE THAT IS REALLY SOMETHING!!!”

Let me illustrate…

Illus: The best way I can describe His love for us is for us to think of a small ant in this vast universe. We know how small an ant is to us. But suppose that small ant God loved so much He gave His Son to die for that ant.

As God looks across this vast universe that He created we could be no more than a small ant in the sight of God and yet God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die for our sins.

O How He loves us!!!

That love leads us into what I want to preach about today.

The Bible clearly teaches that HIS LOVE FOR US IS SO GREAT THAT GOD IS JEALOUS OVER US. Wow!!!

Exodus 20:5 states, “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

For us to understand that God is a jealous God we have to consider the context in which this is written.

That is when you speak of jealousy there are two kinds.

Let’s look at these two kinds…

I. A BAD JEALOUSY.

That is, there is a jealousy that some have that is a bad jealousy. They are jealous because SOMEONE HAS SOMETHING THEY WANT!!!

The world is full of people who live a life of jealousy because someone has something they want.

These folks live a miserable life because they are always seeing something that someone has that they want:

It might be that someone has a:

• Car

• House

• Clothes

• Beauty

• Job

• Job Promotion

• High IQ

• Wealth

If they do not have … they want it. You cannot help but feel sorry for these people because there is always something they see in others that they do not have but they want!!!

Jealous people are the most miserable people on the planet earth.

They have never learned what the apostle Paul learned.

Look at Philippians 4:11-12, “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”

Notice, Paul told us that he became able to live a life of contentment.

HOW DID HE LEARN THIS VALUABLE LESSON?

Look at verse 11 again, “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned…”

To be content in life is a LEARNING PROCESS.

That is, as you go through life and if you want to enjoy a life of contentment you have to learn to QUIT LOOKING AT THE LIFE OF OTHERS AND WANTING WHAT THEY HAVE.

You will always be miserable because you can always find something in the life of others that you cannot have and never will have.

Instead of being jealous at others who have what we want we are to count our blessings and as the song writer said, “ONE BY ONE.”