He is Jealous for You
EXODUS 20:4-6
David Crowder
“He is Jealous for me. Loves like a
hurricane I am the 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.”
Is Jealousy always a bad thing?
Exodus 20:4-6
“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of
anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. 5 You must not
bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a
jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I
lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is
affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those
who reject me. 6 But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations
on those[a] who love me and obey my commands.”
That’s a Stumbling Block to Many
 Erik Reece, Professor of Environmental Journalism at the Univ of Kentucky in his book An
American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God, said this after quoting Jesus:
Matthew 10:37-39 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and
whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take
his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses
his life for my sake will find it.”
 “Well, it just struck me as ‘Who is this person speaking 2000 years ago, a complete historical
stranger, saying that we should love him, (who we are really incapable emotionally of loving)
more so than we should love our own fathers and sons?’ It just seemed like an incredibly
egomaniacal kind of claim to make.”
A Stumbling Block to Many
 Michael Prowse in the London Financial Times “Worship is an aspect of religion
that I always found difficult to understand. Suppose we postulate an omnipotent
being who, for reasons inscrutable to us, decided to create something other
than himself. Why should he . . . expect us to worship him? We didn’t ask to be
created. Our lives are often troubled. We know that human tyrants, puffed up
with pride, crave adulation and homage. But a morally perfect God would surely
have no character defects. So why are all those people on their knees every
Sunday?”
 CS Lewis in Reflections on the Psalms that one of the great obstacles in coming
to believe in the God of the Bible was that when he read the Psalms, the
constant demand from God to praise him seemed (to him) to picture God as
craving “for our worship like a vain woman who wants compliments.”
3 Questions
 What is the Meaning of God’s
Jealousy?
 Why is God Jealous for me?
 Why is God’s Jealousy the Greatest
thing in the World?
What is the Meaning of God’s Jealousy?
 “Qanna”- Intensely Red
 Exodus 34:14 “You must worship no other gods, for the LORD, whose very name is Jealous, is a
God who is jealous about his relationship with you.”
 3 ways Jealousy is used in Scripture:
I. As intolerance of rivalry or unfaithfulness
II. As being suspicious of the accomplishments of others.
1 Samuel 18:7-9 ““Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his ten thousands!”
8 This
made Saul very angry. “What’s this?” he said. “They credit David with ten thousands and
me with only thousands. Next they’ll be making him their king!” 9 So from that time on Saul kept
a jealous eye on David.
III. As anger towards a rival or one who is thought to have an advantage. This is envy
Meaning of God’s Jealousy
 This leads many astray
 Oprah said in a webcast on Jan 14, 2009, ‘I was in
my 20’s and I remember sitting in a church…the
minister was preaching about how God ‘the Lord
thy God was a jealous God and the Lord thy God
would condemn us for whatever,’ and I remember I
had a spiritual aha! There. And I was in my late 20’s,
and I suddenly thought, ‘How can this God who is
all loving and all powerful, why would God be
jealous of me?’
Meaning of God’s Jealousy
 We
often think of jealousy as envy
 Jealousy can be good or bad
depending on object of jealousy
Envy is always focused on self
 True love always involves
jealousy
Why is God Jealous for Me?
 Because of His Great Name
 John Piper ““Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of
God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without
obscuring the glory of God.”
Exodus 20:5 ““You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I,
the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your
affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their
children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and
fourth generations of those who reject me.”
Deut 4:24 “The LORD your God is a devouring fire; he is a jealous God.”
Why is God Jealous for me?
 What’s an Idol? Anything that rivals the devotion that belongs
to God
 Why didn’t God abandon His people? Why doesn’t He
abandon us? Because of His overwhelmingly great love!
 John Piper ““The jealousy of God for your undivided love and
devotion will always have the last say. Whatever lures your
affections away from God with deceptive attraction will come
back to strip you bare and cut you in pieces. It is a horrifying
thing to use your God-given life to commit adultery against the
Almighty.”
 God loves us too much to share us
Why is God Jealous for Me?
 We’ll never be satisfied until we are satisfied in Him
1 Peter 1:18-19 “1 Peter 1:18-19 “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the
empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which
lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”
I Cor 6:20 “for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”
 CS Lewis ““Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your
money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but
to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here or a branch there,
I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to
have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think are innocent as well
as the ones you think wicked- the whole outfit.”
Why God’s Jealousy is the Greatest thing
in the World
 It means that God want’s the very best for my life
 Romans 8: 38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
 Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who
have been called according to his purpose.”
 It means that God will see me through until the end
 John 6:37 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast
out.”
 John 10:27-29” My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal
life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has
given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”
God’s Jealousy is the Greatest Thing
Brennan Manning “My trust in
God flows out of the experience
of his loving me, day in and day
out, whether the day is stormy or
fair, whether I'm sick or in good
health, whether I'm in a state of
grace or disgrace. He comes to
me where I live and loves me as I
am.
Conclusion
A. It’s a good thing, because unlike us, His
jealousy is not mixed up with weakness or sin.
It’s not insecure, selfish or suspicious. He wants
us all and always because He is worthy of it, and
we will never be happy until we give it to Him.
B. And, it’s something to be treasured because it
demonstrates how much God loves me and you.
He will protect us from other suitors, He wants
the best for us, and He’ll see His work through
until the end.