This passage of Scripture reveals a part of God’s character that we often like to ignore. But, we also find that He’s not just a God who punishes — He’s a God who forgives.

Pastor Brent looks at the call of Moses at the burning bush to see how before he was a great leader, Moses was a hesitant and questioning responder, but God was able to use Moses by helping him see what is that in your hand.

Introduction 

I’m so excited to continue our series describing who God is.  Long before we began this series, when we were only in the planning stages — I was fired up to teach you all about this character trait of God.   

And the reason I wanted to teach on this topic is because it’s a hard pill for many of us to swallow.  It’s one of those character traits that leaves us scratching our heads, not because it’s a big fancy word like “omniscience” or “sovereignty” — as a matter of fact, this is THE character trait we are all MOST familiar with.  We just never think of God when we think of it.   

And that’s why I’m so excited about this message — I LOVE to teach things that are new for most people.  Now it’s not that I like to teach things that are obscure and scarcely mentioned in the Bible.  We never teach something that’s only mentioned in one questionable verse.  Today’s message about God is directly stated all over the Bible.  But for some reason, I think most of us skim right past this important description of God, never considering the incredible significance this trait plays in our lives.  

Isn’t it funny how we do that sometimes?  We can read the Bible for years, read it cover to cover, and still never see things if we never slow down, never take time to consider what God wants to teach us through these passages.  And as a result, some people think of the Bible as some dry book that doesn’t apply to their lives at all.  Today, I hope you again see the incredible life found in the Bible when we take time to think deeply about what some key phrases mean for our lives and how we relate to God. 

Jealousy — Good or Bad?

To introduce our topic for today, I’ll let God tell you about himself — reading from Exodus, God tells the Israelites:

“. . . the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”  —Exodus 34:14

That’s pretty clear.  That’s pretty direct.  God… is… Jealous.  He even claims the word Jealous as his name!  That’s an enormous statement — it communicates to the Israelites that Jealousy is part of God’s core — i’ts imbedded in his character.  God isn’t just jealous sometimes, like a toddler who wants the toy YOU are holding — it’s who he is.  Just like God is Infinite, Sovereign, and Holy, here we find that he is Jealous. 

For many of you, that probably comes as a bit of a surprise.  You may be thinking, “but I thought jealousy was a BAD thing?  Aren’t we told as Christians that we aren’t supposed to be jealous?”  Yes.  We are.   

In the famous verses used at nearly all weddings from 1 Corinthians 13, we read:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. (NLT) 

So then, how can God be jealous if it’s a sin for us to be jealous?  That’s seems like a contradiction, but I hope that unpacking this seeming conflict will lead to understanding God so much better! 

So first, we need to start by defining the word jealous.  From Merriam-Webster:           

a: intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness

b: vigilant in guarding a possession  

Now for most of us, when we hear the word jealous and think about these definitions, we imagine a teenager in love who jealously tries to control her new boyfriend or a child unwilling to share his toys with another, jealously guarding his toys.  In these situations we see an immaturity; we see somebody trying to control the situation; we see selfishness and sin.   

And this is why it’s hard for us to wrap our heads around the idea of God being Jealous.  But let’s step back and look at that definition again.  Is there anything inherently sinful in this definition of the word jealous if applied to a marriage? 

It’s good to be intolerant of rivalry in a marriage; it protects the covenant you and your spouse make to one another.  It protects you against the unfaithfulness that might destroy your marriage. It’s also noble to vigilantly protect and guard your spouse from danger — to care for him or her as your most valuable possession – one given to you by God to cherish for a lifetime. 

So, now that we have two seemingly conflicting ideas about jealousy in mind, how do we differentiate? 

The first form of jealousy is selfish and sinful.  Its all about YOU.  And you’re jealous OF the other person — what they have, what they’re doing.  You’re jealous of their vacation, their promotion, their easy life, you name it.  I’m sure each of us can think of somebody we are jealous of for one reason or another. 

An interesting thing I found when I looked through numerous Bible verses and across translations is that this selfish jealousy, which is described as sinful and something for Christians to avoid in the Bible, is almost always translated as envy.  Envy is the form of jealousy that is sinful and selfish. 

The second form of jealousy is mature and Godly, focused on others, and based in profound passion FOR the other person.  This is when a parent sees a child being drawn into a bad crowd and wants to intervene and pull the child back into relationship with the family.  The child may see the parent as overbearing and controlling, but really, the parent is jealously protecting the child. 

This word is more closely related to the idea of zeal — an eagerness and pursuit of something.

And as you can see, it’s this second form, this idea of God’s jealousy as zeal for his people that God is conveying to us when he repeatedly tells us across the Bible that he is a jealous God. 

Our God

Moving forward, now let’s look at how God’s jealousy impacts our lives.  Let’s look at Exodus 20.   

This is the second book of the Bible, right at the front.  And this is a really important chapter in the Bible.  It’s at the heart of the Old Testament.  It’s where God gives Moses the 10 Commandments.  You all know at least some of these rules — Thou shall not kill, shall not steal, shall not covet.  These are the very first rules where God began to establish how he wanted his people to be a holy people, to be set apart from the other nations.  And right in the beginning of these 10 commandments, we read of God’s jealousy, something we probably have glossed over many times before and never fully understood. 

And God spoke all these words:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.”  —Exodus 20: 1-3

Here, we see God first describing that he is “YOUR GOD.”  He is establishing the relationship he has with the Israelites.  He is reminding them of the covenant he made with their ancestor, Abraham to be their God and to be in a covenant relationship with them.  Essentially, his relationship with the Israelites is to be like a marriage relationship. 

And then he continues and he sets his first commandment — Have no other Gods. Just like a marriage, you have one partner.  God will not allow any other lovers, nothing else that might draw away their attention, their focus, or their love. 

Then he continues in verse 4 & 5:

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, “

Here it is again, clear as day, God’s reason for his first and second commandments is that he is jealous.   

Now I know many of you have read these verses before, but have you ever considered the significance of this statement?  When we start to put this all together, it only makes sense that God is jealous. 

If God is in a covenant relationship with his people, and that covenant is like a marriage:

• then we should expect that God will be zealous for his people
• we should expect that he will be intolerant of rival gods
• we should expect that he would be vigilant in guarding and protecting his people
• this is how we expect a husband to feel towards his wife, and so we should understand why God feels this way towards his people

And in saying that, we would expect all of this from the God who loves his people with greater love than we could ever comprehend, then we are, by our own logic, defining God as a Jealous God.  And that’s a very good thing for us. 

You see, God knows that no other gods exist.  He knows that nothing in all creation can give us the joy and peace that relationship with him provides.  He knows that we were created for a relationship with Him – so when he sees us sleeping around with the gods we create in our lives, our modern-day idols, his jealousy burns brightly for us. He wants better for us.  He knows we are settling for second best. 

And this isn’t the selfish jealousy you and I so quickly think of when we hear that word.  He isn’t envious of the idols we set up in our own lives.  He is jealous — no zealous — for our affection and worship – knowing that we will never be fully satisfied with anything or anyone other than HIM.   

And it’s through his holy jealousy that we are better able to understand and appreciate the remainder of this verse in Exodus.  Let’s continue where we left off in verse 5:

for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,  

Reading these verses can be really challenging to our faith.  We wonder why God would say he will punish the children for the sins of their parents.  And while that takes a much more detailed answer than I have time to give, here’s the short answer:

1. He doesn’t actively punish anyone for their parent’s sins – but the consequences of parents sins are often passed down through generations. 
2. Additionally, the reason for the consequences isn’t to get even, or to cause suffering; the reason for the punishment is to try and restore the relationship, to try and bring his children back to himself.  His jealousy isn’t AGAINST you, it’s FOR you and for your good. 

Many of us are parents.  When our kids mess up, we know we  have to discipline them to teach them and help them grow up.  God does that same exact thing with his children.  So, we shouldn’t view this verse on punishment as displaying God as a terrible person, but as a loving father. 

And we can see the purpose of God’s jealousy being for our good from the very next verse:

but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

Ultimately, God’s jealousy is for our own good.  It’s to keep us in our father’s love, to protect us from all the false lovers the world parades in front of us, trying to draw our affection away from God and toward things which, while they might be good, should never be put above God in our lives. 

Application 

So, what does it mean for us that God has a holy zeal, a Godly jealousy for us and our affection? 

First, it means that we need to examine our lives and make sure that we aren’t arousing his jealousy with anything in our lives we have made an idol of.  Idols in America in the 21st century don’t look like they did in the days of Moses.  We don’t have wood carvings or stone statues to represent gods.  But we have a plethora of activities, hobbies, treasures, and even people that we put in front of God in our lives.

• Maybe it’s your finances.  Perhaps you worship the mighty dollar, you’re unwilling to give to the church or to others, you work countless hours to increase your income, to build up your bank account, all at the expense of time with God or time following his steps for your life.
•  Maybe you worship your hobby or your special interests.  You skip church each Sunday to golf, spend time on your property, or workout for the next 5K you signed up to run.  Now don’t get me wrong – neither golf, a vacation property, nor working out are bad things.  But if they rob time from God, rob money from God, rob God of your highest affections and worship — then they have become idols in your life.
• Honestly, your children or your spouse might even have become idols in your life.  If you love your child more than God, if you are willing to sacrifice your relationship with God for the the sporting events, the band competitions, and the whims of your child to make them happy — then you may be staring at the cutest little idols ever when you look at your kids.

Here’s the thing we need to recognize, and I know it’s hard and steps on our toes, but it’s true: God DEMANDS to be the priority in our lives.  He’s not just a God that we can pick up on Sunday when we come to church and put back down the rest of the week.  When we do that, when we act as nominal Christians, allowing God to be a part of our lives, but not the main thing, we are behaving as the polytheists that God detests.  That’s why in Revelation he tells the church at Laodicea he would rather they be HOT or COLD rather than lukewarm. 

God is NOT OK being a part of your life.  He loves you too much.  His holiness and his faithfulness to his covenant won’t allow him to let you go worship at the feet of other lovers.  You are too valuable to just let you throw your life away like that.

As I list those possible examples of idols in your lives, you need to search yourself and see what you have elevated above God, to the highest esteem in your heart.  And you need to confess your sin to God and turn these idols over to God, asking him to help you put him first. 

Second, we must be zealous for God in the same way he is zealous for us.  A marriage isn’t much fun if you’re the only one jealous for your spouse and vigilantly protecting the marriage.  You want both spouses to feel that same love, and have that same jealousy for the other person.  In the same way, God wants us to be as in love and jealous for him as he is for us.   

Here are 3 very practical ways we can jealously protect our relationship with God:

• We should recommit our relationship to God.
  • For some of you, after hearing this message, you realize you’re just playing around with God and then going and flirting with everything else you enjoy in this life.  You need to commit. 
  • For some of you, this may mean it’s time for you to be baptized — to let the world know, YOU ARE GOD’s CHILD.  If that’s you, let me or Brent know — we have a baptism service coming up right after Easter Sunday. 
  • For others of you, you need to get into a group that holds you accountable in your relationship.  That could be a D-Group, a Sunday School class, whatever…
• We should be guarding our devotional times and not letting the busyness of life rob that special time we get to spend with him, perhaps first thing in the morning or before falling asleep at night.
• We should be intolerant of the things popping up in our hearts that threaten to rival our devotion to God.  This isn’t a one and done searching of idols in our hearts.  We need to consider regularly what is threatening our relationship with God — what is rivaling him for our time and our attention – and we need to set it aside. 

Conclusion

You see, God’s jealousy isn’t just a fancy way of saying he has a lot of love for us.  It’s more than just the feeling of love.  It’s the protective, purifying, pursuing form of love for us.  His jealousy is never to harm us, but is always to draw us to himself.   

Just like God was jealous for the Israelites in the time of Moses, promising to punish them if they worshipped other Gods or show love if they kept his commandments, he is jealous for us.  Through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and our accepting his blood for the forgiveness of our sins, we become God’s chosen people.  He jealously works to guard us from other lovers, he gives us the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and point us back to him.  He does all he can, short of stepping on our free will, to guard us against rival affections, to keep us holy. 

Truly, God’s jealousy is for our good.  We should never worry about it or fear it — we should feel secure in knowing he cares so much.  And we should respond to his zeal for us with our own single-minded zeal for him, our creator and redeemer.

Introduction

We are in the middle of a series of messages where we are trying to fill in the the blank, “God is                 .” Our goal is to deepen our understanding of who God is. When we deepen our understanding of who God is, this results in a response. We cannot come face to face with God and just walk away from it. God is not some benign force in the world. When we see him and experience him and know him, we will respond in some way.

For some people this response is to push him away or hold him at arms length. After all, if God is who we say he is, then the last thing we want is for him to be messing up our lives, or so we think. But a more appropriate response is that when we see just how infinite God is, his vastness, his majesty, his greatness, and we begin to understand that God is sovereign, that even though we may not understand everything that is happening around us and to us, because he is a good God, who loves us, we can trust him to work everything out according to his plan and for our good. Our response to seeing God this way is seen in one word…worship.

We respond appropriately to God when we surrender our lives to him, not just by coming to church and doing something religious once a week, but by living our lives in such a way that brings him glory every day.

And so today we continue to build on this, to discover something else about God. Today we will look at the statement, “God is Holy.”

What is holy? Right away I think we have a problem. This word is a good biblical word and a good church word, but do we really understand what it means that God is holy? It isn’t that we don’t hear that word used today. It’s used, but in ways that probably have very little to do with the original definition.

In fact, we hear this word used in a couple of different ways in our culture. It is used as a random adjective attached to various words. This was popularized in the 60’s by the show Batman and Robin, not any of the thousand Batman movies that have been released in the last 30 years, but the good one, the television show from the 60’s, with Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. Well, if you watched that show, it didn’t take long to see that one of Robin’s catch phrases was “Holy whatever.” This show only ran three seasons. And in season one alone, Robin made a “Holy whatever” statement 120 times.

There are websites dedicated to this. It was obviously created so that pastors like me could use them as illustrations in our sermons. Robin said things like, “Holy Smoke,” or “Holy Ravioli,” “Holy Bill of Rights,” “Holy Rip Van Winkle,” “Holy Jack in the Box,” “Holy Un-refillable Prescriptions,” “Holy Stomach Aches,” “Holy Interplanetary Yardstick.” Now put your phones down. Don’t start YouTubing this yet. I know my mentioning these has you wanting to see what possible situation could Batman and Robin have been in for Robin to utter such ridiculous phrases. To be honest, I have no idea if this is where the overuse of the word holy came from, but it certainly didn’t help.

The other way we hear this word used today does have a religious or spiritual overtone, but it is not positive. We hear someone called a “Holy Roller.” It usually refers to someone from a Pentecostal tradition and it usually isn’t used in a positive light. Neither is the expression, “Holier than Thou.” This of course is used to describe someone who is smug, sanctimonious, and self-righteous.

So, we have our work cut out for us to figure this out. How do we know God is holy? What does it mean that God is holy? And what does God’s holiness mean for our lives? Let’s see if we can answer these questions today.

God is Holy

As God begins to reveal himself to various people, he does so by also revealing his character. In Exodus 3, we find the story of Moses and the burning bush. This is where God speaks to Moses, calling him to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt.

Obviously, this is a strange scene for Moses, for anyone, but we read:

God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.—Exodus 3:4-6

What made this holy ground wasn’t Moses. It wasn’t the bush. It was God.  And we see this expanded and developed a bit more when God gives the Law to his people, giving them rules on how they should live.

In Leviticus, God says to them:

“I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.” —Leviticus 11:44-45

This theme continues to run through the Old Testament. . .

in the prayer of Hannah

“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” —1 Samuel 2:2

in the psalms

“Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy.” —Psalm 99:9

in Isaiah’s vision of God

“And they [the angels] were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” —Isaiah 6:3

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. God establishes himself as holy in the Old Testament. When we get to the New Testament something changes. God is still holy, we just see it in a different way.

In Mark 1, we read a story of Jesus.  While he was in a synagogue he was confronted by a man with an impure spirit. When this demon saw Jesus it cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus is the visual representation or the visible expression of the invisible God, including his holiness. He is God in human fresh. The God of the Old Testament that declared his holiness is now seen and modeled for us in the work and person of Jesus Christ. This affirmation that Jesus is the Holy One is confirmed not just by demons, but also by those who knew him.

In Acts 3:14, Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, was preaching a sermon to a crowd and he began to talk about Jesus. Listen to how he described him.

 “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.” —Acts 3:14

In the book of Hebrews, we find the writer talking about Jesus and how he functions as our high priest, interceding between us and God. 

“Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.”  —Hebrews 7:26

So, multiple times in Scripture we see that God is Holy. In fact, there are probably more references to God’s holiness in Scripture than to any other attribute. But what exactly does this mean?

Holiness Defined

Unfortunately, many people today associate the word holy with a list of dos and don’ts. These rules are the ones that you people, I am looking at you, are supposed to follow. You know that standard list — don’t drink, don’t cuss, don’t smoke, don’t date girls who do. We believe holiness is only about behavior.

But the Biblical definition of the word is not primarily about behavior. Yes, behavior comes into it later, but what it means is “set apart” or “separation,” something unique to be used differently than ordinary common things.

In the tabernacle or temple, certain items were were consecrated or set apart for certain use. These items were called holy because they could not and should not be used for everyday use. They had a special function.

When applying this definition to God, we see that he is the set apart one.  Holiness is his quintessential nature. He is set apart from his creation. He is above it all.  When we say God is holy it means that he is transcendently unique, infinitely exalted above everything.

In Exodus 15, after Moses led the people across the Red Sea and God miraculously rescued the people, they sang these words:

“Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?”  —Exodus 15:11

And do you know what the answer is? Nobody.

Pastor John Piper said it this way, “The holiness of God is the most fundamental reality of all. It refers to the reality that God is utterly unique and in a class by himself—that’s his set-apartness—none compares with him. There is no other Creator, no other sustainer, no other final measure of good and evil…He is utterly set apart in a class by himself, unequaled, unrivaled, totally underived, absolute in his being and perfection, without beginning or ending or improvement. In a word his holiness is the supremacy of his infinite worth among all that is.”

It sets him apart from everyone and everything. He is not like us. But it isn’t just about his position. It has ethical implications as well. He is also separated from sin. He is absolutely free from any kind of evil or deficiency. And because he is separated from evil, he cannot sin, he will not tempt anyone to sin. He is untainted with the slightest trace of immorality.

And when we see God in this light, we are faced with a dilemma. How will we respond?

Responding to God’s Holiness

Those who have been in or around church for any length of time have sung the hymns, “Holy Holy Holy,” or “Holy God We Praise Thy Name.” We are used to this idea. But to some, this can be a very intimidating thing to think about. There can be something threatening about a holy God. Standing next to him, all our warts and failure, our sin and disappointments stick out like a neon shirt in a sea of gray suits.

But what we find with God is that his holiness doesn’t make him unapproachable. Here’s the interesting part about this. It is one characteristic that he doesn’t just apply to himself. He calls us to be like him in this. He calls us to be holy.

In First Peter, Peter writes these words:

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”—1 Peter 1: 13-15

Now obviously there has to be a tweaking of the definition of the word, because how we defined it earlier can’t apply to us. God is above all. We can’t be. So how does this apply to us?

As I said earlier, many people assume this means there are rules we are to follow and so we do one of two things. We equate this to some type of rule following lifestyle. We morph into some type of modern day Pharisee, not just checking off our own list of rules we’ve followed, but looking at others to help point out the rules they’ve missed.

The other extreme of this is to just collapse in hopelessness and say, “I can’t do it. I sin and I can’t help it.” So, we throw ourselves on God’s grace and mercy and don’t even try.

But does it seem possible that a God that does show grace and mercy, a God who loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us, would ask us to do something that we had no chance of accomplishing? No. That’s a sadistic God.

So, what does this mean? To be holy means to be completely and totally God’s. No area of your life doesn’t belong to him. No priority in your life is not judged by him. No part of your heart doesn’t belong to him. You are completely and totally devoted.

And in order to do that, we must be set apart: set apart form our surroundings, set apart from the lifestyles and priorities of the world around us.

But even in saying this, I want to make sure you understand that being set apart does not mean isolated from. In the past, there have been movements, whose leaders thought the best option for holiness was to completely remove themselves from the culture, to move away and live far away from the corrupting nature of sin.

Just so you know, that’s not it. In order to get on the right track, we need to look to our perfect model, the one we should be imitating and mimicking, Jesus Christ. He lived on this earth and as we have already said, he lived a sinless and righteous life.

What did he do? He was able to be spiritually apart but physically present. He was able to minister and heal and love and yet continue to be holy. He hung out with those that the religious people wouldn’t even take the time to spit on: the tax collectors, prostitutes, sick, outcasts, demon possessed. All of these people society had thrown away and Jesus lived among them. That’s who we are called to be as well.

This is not a call to practice religion differently. It is a call to be transformed at our very core, in such a powerful way that it matches the power of the salvation we have experienced. It must permeate everything we do. And ultimately it means living a life controlled by the Spirit of God that lives within those who follow Jesus.

Peter isn’t just saying, “learn to manage your sin better.” Holiness is a way of life. We get there by walking in step with the Spirit of God. A wrong understanding of this will become hypocritical and pharisaical and will turn people away from God.

But when we look like Jesus, when we reflect the holiness of God, people will be drawn to him. And we exercise holiness in worship, in love for our neighbors, and in promoting justice and rooting out injustice.

Conclusion

A holy God requires holy people. But notice God doesn’t say be as holy as I am. That is impossible. He says be holy because he is holy. . . and there is a difference. Our holiness is always derived and dependent upon our proximity to and relationship with God.

Paul reminds us in his second letter to Timothy that there was a reason for our salvation.

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.”  —2 Timothy 1:9

What are you doing to cultivate holiness in your life? Are you actively seeking the guidance of the Spirit? Are you living with and accepting sin, or are you fighting daily to crucify the flesh so that you look more like your Father in heaven?

Does how you live testify to your faith in God, show the character of God and bear witness to the power of Jesus in your life? Our God is a holy God, another aspect that makes him who he is. What will you do to show that holiness in your life this week?