When God Feels…Jealousy

Exodus 20:1-6

August 17, 2025 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I almost didn’t get to see the first Star Wars movie. Can you imagine how different my life would have been if I hadn’t? Anyway, it had been out for a while, and I wanted to see it, but I wasn’t old enough to go on my own and my parents honestly had no interest in seeing it. I think to this day they’ve never seen any Star Wars, but I have chosen to look past that and love them anyway. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. So one day the invitation came for my younger brother to go to a birthday party for one of his friends, which didn’t interest me until I found out the party was going to see Star Wars. I was not happy, and I was very jealous that my little brother was going to see the movie I wanted to see before I did. I don’t remember what I said, to be honest (it probably wasn’t very pleasant), but whatever it was it caused my mom to call the other parent and ask if I could tag along. So I did. I didn’t even care that I had to hang out with my little brother’s friends because I got to see the movie that changed my life—and has cost me a lot of money over the years! And it all began because of a moment—or maybe several moments—of jealousy.

Jealousy. The green-eyed monster. When someone else has something (or someone) we want. We have all experienced it; maybe it’s something we’re wrestling with now. Why did he get the promotion and I didn’t? Why do they have the big, fancy house that I’ve always dreamed of? Why is she with him and not with me? Why do they have the fancy expensive car and I’m driving a beater? In some ways, our culture is built on creating jealousy. Advertisers try to tell us that we need the latest, fastest, best and shiniest of everything. Other people have those things, so why don’t you? No money down, just drive away with it! Upgrade your house, your car, your computer, your phone. You need it, you want it, you have to have it. Jealousy is an emotion we are all too familiar with, and when it’s unhealthy it can and will lead to hurt, brokenness and a lack of trust (Lamb, The Emotions of God, pg. 69). So if it’s such a negative emotion (a monster), why does the Bible say repeatedly that God is jealous?

We’ve been asking that question a lot during this weeks as we look at the various emotions the Bible ascribes to God. So far we’ve talked about really difficult emotions like hatred and anger—don’t worry, the more “positive” emotions are coming soon—and we’re coming to realize that while God is not just a bigger version of you or me, God does have emotions. The difference between God’s hatred or anger and yours or mine, though, is that his is directed at the sin, brokenness and injustice that fills the world. God’s anger, God’s hatred is righteous and it is for our good. So what about his jealousy? Can we say the same thing about that emotion?

Just as there is unhealthy jealousy (which is the kind you and I most often experience), there is also healthy jealousy. One of the earliest places we read about it in the Bible is at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, which we read this morning. In the text, they’re not called that, though. They are the “Ten Words,” and they are basically meant to be the summary of all 613 laws God gave the Hebrew people through Moses. If you want an even smaller summary, we can turn to Jesus, who summarized everything here this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength….[and] Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). Which is, actually, what the very beginning of the commandments is saying. Even though we love to post these commandments in courtrooms and public places (as if posting them will somehow make people follow them), these commandments are not ultimately about making people into law-abiding citizens. These commandments are about a relationship, the most important relationship (Walt, Wilderness, pgs. 83-84).

Before these “Ten Words” tell us how to treat each other, they first put our focus on God. In particular, the first couple of commandments are about who and how to worship. Now, the Bible does not assume there aren’t other gods. In fact, the assumption is that there are. Human beings are always in the market for things, gods, to worship. The nations all around them had ample gods. And those gods might have been completely made up or they might have been actual spiritual beings, like demons, who convinced people they were the ones who made the world and who controlled certain aspects of it. Both of those situations are dangerous and are threatening to the Hebrew people. That’s why these Ten Words begin with this word: “You shall have no other gods before me” (20:3). Notice that there’s no denial that there are other gods. But these people are not to worship them. The Bible’s claim is consistently that our God, the creator God, Yahweh is his name, is greater than and above all other gods (cf. Exodus 18:11). Whatever and whoever else you think you eat to worship is inferior to Yahweh. He is the only one who could rescue the people, who could save them, and he is the only one worthy of worship (cf. Comer, God Has a Name, pgs. 75-79). “You shall have no other gods before me” (20:3). It couldn’t get clearer than that.

And then the next command is about idols. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth below or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” — and here it comes: “for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (20:4). Here, at the very beginning of their life as God’s people, idolatry was already a danger to the people because everyone around them had idols—little statues “hand-carved by a craftsman in need of a buck or a priest in need of a job” (Comer 80). An idol is meant to represent something else, but ultimately it’s just “a hunk of rock” (Comer 81) or wood. It’s inanimate and, more than that, it’s a piece of the creation that God has made. When we bow down to something like that—literally or figuratively, with our body or our heart—we are worshipping the creation rather than the creator. When we bow down to something else—a statue or anything or anyone—we are “worshipping a different god,” no matter what our words say. It’s the posture of the heart, the attitude of our lives that matters (Goldingay, Exodus & Leviticus for Everyone, pg. 80). God is jealous and will not give up his worship to anyone or anything else.

When the Bible says God is jealous, it doesn’t mean he is longing to have the fast sports car or the new iPhone or the bigger house. What God longs for and deserves is a relationship with you rooted in worship and an idol steals that away from him (cf. Kaiser, “Exodus,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 1, pg. 422). It’s serious enough that the Bible refers to worshipping an idol as “spiritual adultery” (Kaiser 423). But God’s jealousy is not unhealthy. His jealousy is “characterized by honest and gracious communication” (Lamb 69). Like a spouse or a close friend, he longs to be with us; he is jealous for our time, for our presence, for our worship. He wants to be with us because he loves us, and as St. Augustine once said, “He who is not jealous does not love” (qtd. in Lamb 67).

It wasn’t long after these “Ten Words” were given that this particular attribute of God was put to the test. Moses had delivered the commandments to the people, then he had gone back up the mountain to receive additional laws and instructions from God. So Moses is gone, and he’s gone for quite some time, and the people get restless. How quickly they forget those words inscribed on stone! In their impatience, they remember how in Egypt there were statues of gods everywhere. The Egyptians got to see what the gods they worshipped looked like, but they have no idea what this God up on the mountain with Moses looks like. So they go to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and they say to him, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Exodus 32:1). And so Aaron does. With the gold they received (or stole) from the Egyptians, Aaron makes a calf statue and says, “These are your gods” (32:4). These people have made a commitment to God. They have said they will be his people. They have heard his commandments, one of which is, “Don’t make idols.” And so, naturally, they make an idol. And they begin to worship this calf god, in spite of the reality that seven chapters before this they heard Moses tell them that God was jealous for their worship. No wonder God is angry (as we talked about last week). No wonder Moses is angry. They’ve committed spiritual adultery while the honeymoon is still going on. God is jealous because he loves these people and they have rejected his love (cf. Lamb 74-75).

The golden calf incident ends badly, by the way. First of all, Moses seemingly has to talk God out of destroying the people because of their idol worship. Moses rejects God’s plan to make him into a new nation and instead asks for mercy on the people he rescued out of Egypt. His argument basically goes like this: if you destroy these people, the Egyptians will think that’s the reason you brought them out in the desert, to destroy them. It will be bad for your reputation. Instead, Moses says, show them mercy and I will take care of it. So Moses goes down, asks Aaron what happened (and Aaron basically lies his pants off to his brother), then grinds up the golden calf and makes them drink the powder. Think about that the next time you want to give your allegiance to something other than God—you might have to drink it. After that, he orders those who are still with God to go through the camp and kill those who are not. And that is followed by a plague that goes through the camp (Exodus 32:9-35). As I said, the story ends badly, and it’s all because of misplaced worship. It’s a cautionary tale, and it’s also a reminder for all time to be rightly focused in our worship.

God is jealous. God feels jealousy. God loves us so much he doesn’t want to share that love with any other god. God loves us so much he doesn’t want anything to come between him and us. In fact, the prophet Isaiah says it is his jealousy that led to the birth of Jesus (cf. Lamb 77-79). In that famous passage that we usually read on Christmas Eve, Isaiah promises the coming of a savior: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). The prophet saw that one day someone would come who would be all of those things wrapped into one. His kingdom, Isaiah says, would have no end and it would be marked by justice and righteousness. This one who is coming will be everything the people have been hoping for. And how will it happen? It will not be an ordinary birth, an ordinary child, an ordinary person. No, the promise will take place this way: “The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (Isaiah 9:7). Another way to translate that verse is this: “The jealousy of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” God is so passionately committed to his people that he will do anything, move heaven and earth, to be with us. He is so jealous for us that he will do whatever it takes, including coming to earth and giving his life on a cross, to be in relationship with us. The zeal, the jealousy of the Lord will accomplish this! He is passionately committed to you and to me and to all of his children. That’s why, as I’ve said the last two weeks, he gets angry at injustice and hates sin. It’s because of how much he wants to be with us.

So, then, the question becomes: how should we respond to God’s jealousy? First of all, recognize that God wants to be our exclusive focus (cf. Lamb 83). We are the objects of his love and he deserves to have first priority in our lives, hearts and minds. Remember what Jesus said the greatest commandment was? Love the Lord your God with everything in you and love your neighbor as yourself. God wants to be our exclusive focus because we are his. Or, as John says in another place, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19, NKJV). I have to tell you I wrestled with this part of the sermon. I don’t know if anyone else is like me, but I have no problem believing that God jealously loves everyone else in the world. I have no problem standing up here week after week to tell you that God loves you jealously, that he has a passionate commitment to you. But I have trouble saying that about me. Again, I don’t know if anyone else struggles with that, but I’m just being honest here. I do—because I know me. I know my weaknesses and my failures. I know the times I’ve really messed up and the times I’ve failed to live out the faith I say I believe. And for those times when I forget, there are a few people in my life who are willing to remind me. I am absolutely certain that God jealously loves you, and I’m trying to believe the same about me. So if you’re in that camp also, maybe you need to hear this as much as I do today: God is jealous for you and there isn’t a single thing you can do to stop him from being passionately committed to you. We are his exclusive focus; he wants to be ours.

The second response corresponds to the second part of that greatest commandment. If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, why wouldn’t we share with our neighbor the good news about our jealous God? Don’t we want them to experience the same jealous God? And, just to be clear, Jesus defined “neighbor” as not just the people who live next door to us but basically anyone around us, anyone we have contact with. Tell people that God jealously loves them (cf. Lamb 84). People devote themselves to all sorts of things these days: money, the pursuit of internet fame, drugs, alcohol, all sorts of substances and other things. People today devote themselves to political power, economic supremacy, national pride. But none of those things will love them back. None of those things will have the kind of passionate commitment to them that our jealous God has. Why would we not share the good news that there is someone who is jealous for them? Love God, love people—that sounds so very familiar! Jesus said we love our neighbor by demonstrating the kind of love God has for them: by looking after the sick, giving a drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, feeding the hungry (cf. Matthew 24:31-46). We love people the same way God loves them; we are his hands and feet. Share with others the jealous love of God.

Then, finally, taking a little bit of a different tack, keep an eye on your own jealousy. Remember that we are made in the image of God and one way we reflect his image is through our emotions, including jealousy. And it is easy to for us to slip from healthy into unhealthy jealousy. It’s one thing for a spouse to be jealous of how much time work is taking away from home life, but it should lead to honest and open communication rather than angry or passive aggressive actions. Unhealthy jealousy is characterized by a lack of trust. Healthy jealousy leads to communication. Keep an eye on your jealousy and make sure it’s staying in the healthy range. And along with that, don’t be afraid to tell those you love how much their relationship means to you. Healthy relationships are honest relationships, rooted in the deep, deep love of God toward all of us.

And that brings us back to the wilderness, at the foot on Mount Sinai, where Moses is bringing these new commands, these words, to the people. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image…” (20:3-4). One God with no statues? What kind of crazy idea was this? And why would this God make such demands? To protect you and to protect me. When we worship something or someone else, when we give authority in our lives to something or someone other than to God (even if it’s Star Wars), we become less than human (cf. Wright qtd. in Comer 113). We become less than who we are created to be. We were made in the image of God. We are his children. And he is jealous for us. He wants us back. Worship the Lord your God and him only, for that is the way to life. Let’s pray.