Glory of God Series
May 4th, 2008
The Glory of God in His Jealousy
Odds are if you have ever really cared for another person you have experienced jealousy in one form or another. Some people experience it far more easily than others. So for those of you who might not be as familiar with what jealousy looks like, I want to start off by showing you. Picture a couple who are in love. They are out on walk on a nice spring afternoon enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company. Picture that in your head and you have the scene ready to go and all cued up. So let’s hit play and see what happens.
Now…jealousy is one of those abstract ideas that can be hard to visualize, so I thought it would be easiest to paint a picture for you. Jealousy comes in many shapes and sizes. When a boyfriend sees his girlfriend checking out another guy we might encounter some jealousy. See what happens is this couple is spending quality time together. They are in love and everything is great. The problem is when her attention drifts when she sees something else that she likes. At first she is with the one she loves and that is great. He has her undivided attention. She is with the one she loves but right here her attention is turned as this object of her distraction walks by. She is taken in and takes her eyes off of her love…and they follow this person that doesn’t love her. So this lustful emotion walks by and distracts her from what she has. The major thing here though is not her attentions shift, it is the resulting effect on him. In seeing her attention and desire move to another, the man here becomes jealous. So this face…this expression he has…this is jealousy.
This week we are looking at the Glory of God in His jealousy. God is a jealous God. Normally the word jealousy carries a negative connotation. Throughout the New Testament in places like Romans 13:13, 1 Corinthians 3:3, and Galatians 5:20 it is listed as vice not a virtue. If jealousy is something to be avoided how then can it be a characteristic of God? If jealousy is a bad thing, then how can God have anything to do with it? Maybe God is not really jealous maybe jealousy is a bad word for it. Well jealousy would be defined as being intolerant or un-accepting of rivalry or unfaithfulness. God is passionately intolerant of rivalry and unfaithfulness, so God is jealous. He is a jealous God and strangely enough it is out of His jealousy that we see even better how glorious He is. God’s glory is seen in His jealousy.
Jealousy is a strong emotion that also gets its power from passion. If there is no passion, then there is no jealousy. If you do not really care about someone then nothing about them would make you jealous. What I find really interesting though, is that we get the word jealousy from the same word that means zeal. Zealous and jealous come from the same word. This is really cool. Think about it what this means: these two ideas are similar or linked in a way. You see this word can mean two different things based on its intention or on the object of attention. You see both jealousy and zeal root in the same emotion. When you think about it, zeal and jealousy are actually very similar both in how they express themselves and in the feeling that they evoke. Zeal is considered a good thing, but sometimes it is not. Jealousy is considered a bad thing, but sometimes it is not.
Scripture even says on numerous occasions that God is jealous. Take for example Pslam 78:56:
Ps 78:56 But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes. Ps 78:57 Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow. Ps 78:58 They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols. Ps 78:59 When God heard them, he was very angry; he rejected Israel completely. Ps 78:60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among men. Ps 78:61 He sent the ark of his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy. Ps 78:62 He gave his people over to the sword; he was very angry with his inheritance. Ps 78:63 Fire consumed their young men, and their maidens had no wedding songs; Ps 78:64 their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep.
Or sometimes God even refers to Himself as being jealous, like in Zechariah 8:
Zec 8:1 Again the word of the LORD Almighty came to me. Zec 8:2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.” Zec 8:3 This is what the LORD says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.
When Israel was unfaithful to God, then God’s jealousy burned against them. When other nations tried to interfere with God’s plans for Israel then His jealousy burned against them. God is jealous. So if God is jealous then jealousy cannot be all bad. While in the New Testament it is often used to describe a negative feeling or action in the Old Testament it is commonly used to describe God. So we must ask: What is jealousy? The word for jealousy literally means: “to boil” or “to seethe” with emotion. This is a perfect picture. Picture this: take a pot filled with water and leave it on a hot stove for a while. At first the water is completely calm. No ripples, no movement. It is tranquil sitting comfortably in this pot. After some time that pot will start to boil. The water is no longer just sitting there it has become so heated that its entire form is changing. Bubbles are shooting up from the bottom of the pot to the surface of the water and a hot steam is released. Jealousy is basically an emotionally boiling pot. Those feelings and emotions that would normally be tranquil and calm are set off by an outside source. The emotions then bubble up to the surface and steam is starting to come out. Jealousy makes you feel like a boiling pot of water. You feel heated, like steam is ready to pour out of you. Jealousy really feels like your blood is boiling.
We picture jealousy as a negative thing, because in many of our experiences it is. We have all had times where we felt jealousy of someone else. Many of us have dealt with the jealousy that comes from insecurity in our own lives or through someone else. But we have all seen it. Maybe it’s a friend, a family member, your spouse, or maybe it’s you. Insecurity causes jealousy where there is nothing to be jealous of. Now you may have hurt people in your life because you are overly jealous when there is no need to be. Or maybe you have been hurt by someone in your life who is more jealous than they should be.
Jealousy is often considered to be a negative thing, but there is more than one type of jealousy. Sometimes we experience an inappropriate jealousy. A jealousy that comes from insecurity or one that comes from our wanting something or a desire for something that is not ours. We experience this when we want something that someone else has. This type of jealousy is a resentment of the success or possession of another. So much of the jealousy we see comes from greed, pride, and insecurity. Due to this jealousy is given a negative connotation, and rightly so for this is a common way jealousy is expressed, because of insecurity, greed, selfishness, and pride.
Another type of jealousy is an unwillingness to share with anyone else that which is rightfully yours and yours alone. This is the type of jealousy a husband or a wife will have if another person tries to take or get too close to their spouse. Guys, you know how you would feel if some other guy started trying to take your wife away from you. You would feel heated ready to steam like, your blood was boiling you would feel jealous. Your wife is your’s, she belongs to you and no one else. Her heart is yours and no one else’s. You feel jealous because you are unwilling to share what is rightfully yours and yours alone. Ladies, the same is true of you. If some girl started trying to win your husbands heart, if some girl was trying to take him away from you-you would be angry. Your heart would pound, your temperature would rise, you would steam, and your blood would boil. You would be jealous because you are unwilling to share your husband with any other girl. Rightfully so, he is yours and yours alone. You have a right to his heart that no one else has because he is your husband. What you are feeling is jealousy, that jealousy is a righteous jealousy. That comes from your desire to have what is yours and yours alone.
This righteous jealousy is something that we share with God. God feel jealous too, not an improper jealousy that comes from envying what someone else has, but a righteous unwillingness to share that which is His and His alone. Look at 1 Corinthians 10:19.
1Co 10:19 Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 1Co 10:20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 1Co 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 1Co 10:22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
Since the beginning of the world, we have belonged to God. He imagined us; shaped us; molded us; and gave us life. We are His creation and we belong to Him. Out of His love for us God gave us a choice so that we might choose Him. We didn’t. We chose ourselves. We chose to try and make ourselves like God rather than to submit to the authority of the one true God. Since the creation of the world God has been trying to bring us back to Him. He created a world that would testify to His greatness, and still we would not see. He performed miracles and delivered His chosen people, but they would not stay faithful long. He gave us the law so that we might become aware of our own shortcomings and return to Him, but we did not. He spoke His word to prophets that they might bring His people home, but His people would not hear His voice. So He sent us His Son to draw us back to Him, and you know that ended. Rather than accept Jesus we put Him on cross and watched Him die. From the beginning God has been trying to bring that which is His back to Himself.
Just as a husband would feel jealous if his wife offered affection and love to another man, so God feels jealous when we offer ourselves to other things. We fill up our lives with all of these things that are not God, and God gets pushed to the back. From the beginning of time God has been trying to bring that which is His back to Himself. But rather than go back, rather than letting God be God of our lives, we choose to make all sorts of other things God of our lives.
If we were really honest, most of us are not monotheistic. Don’t get me wrong, you believe there is only one God. You worship the true God on Sunday mornings, maybe even read the Bible and pray here and there. You believe there is only one God, but you don’t really live like it. If we were truly honest with ourselves we would admit that some of us serve more than one God.
For some we follow the God of the universe, then we serve the god of time. We serve him well. With so many things to do, so little time to do them, some of us are guilty of making time a god in our lives. We do not seek council in our decisions from God, we seek them from a calendar or a watch. As time ticks on our service to him grows, and at the end of the day when time gives us a break, then we might of God.
Maybe time is not your other god. Maybe its money. You serve the almighty dollar. Everything is about the cost, making money. Life is simple dollars and cents. Make more than you spend, do what it takes to get ahead. Maybe money is your god and you seek him, desire him, fight for him with all that you are. Maybe money sits on the throne of your life where God should be. Then, after checking the accounts if there is a place, we might give something to God.
Maybe your god isn’t time or money, maybe your god is you. You are your own boss, you make your own decisions. You are the only one in charge of your life. You have control. You have the power. You decide what gets done. Maybe you have tried to make yourself god. You want the authority, power, and decision making ability that God has but you don’t want it from God, you want it from yourself.
We turn many things into gods in our lives. We give our hearts to many things that are not God. We give the place in our hearts that belongs to God and to God alone to money, friends, family, time, a career, any of this sounding personal? Any of this hitting home? We put all sorts of things in place of God in our lives. If God was our spouse everyone one of us would be guilty of adultery. You see each and every one of us has given our heart, that part of heart that belongs exclusively to God, at some point to something or someone that was not God. We have given ourselves to the things of this world and we have walked away from God. This makes God jealous.
God is jealous but in a very different way than we are jealousy. You see we get jealous over all sorts of things that we should not let affect us. We feel jealous often because we let pride, insecurity, greed, and selfishness into our lives. We feel jealousy more often as vice than as a virtue. Our jealousy comes from our passion for our self. It comes out of an over inflated view of our self. God’s jealousy comes out of love. You see when you are jealous, even when you are righteously jealous, you feel that way because someone is threatening or interfering with what belongs to you and you alone. Even though your jealous has its place, it still roots to some degree in selfishness and pride.
God is the greatest thing in the world. Nothing is greater than Him. Nothing is better than Him. So while we often will feel jealousy because we are selfish people, but even in God’s selfishness He is completely selfless. God is jealous because you are replacing the greatest thing in the world with something that is not as good. Whatever you might try to fill your life with, it is not as good as God. You see in God’s jealousy we see just how great He is, because His jealous is out of a desire for us to have the greatest thing in the world. Nothing is more loving than giving someone the greatest thing in existence that just happens to be God. The greatest thing He can offer you. The greatest thing He has. Is Himself. God’s jealousy is completely loving because He desires for you to have the greatest thing in the world and that is HIM. He is the greatest thing. He is the greatest thing in the world, outside the world, that has ever existed, or that will ever exist. Nothing is greater than God.
Sometimes we think that about ourselves, for us that thought is pride. For God, that thought is merely an accurate assessment of quality, God is the greatest thing in existence. He lovingly offers Himself to us, because HE is the best present He can give.
You see God’s jealous is another way for us to see how great He really is. God belongs at the center of our lives. He belongs in the deepest parts of our heart. God deserves to be treated as God. It’s time we started treating Him that way. Let us not continue to put our idols and false gods on the throne of our hearts. Let us today, maybe for the first time, surrender everything to God, let us no longer stir His anger and jealousy against us by putting other things in His place. Let us stop arousing the jealousy of the Lord and come back to Him, where we were meant to be.
