Tawa Baptist

How He Loves

Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:6-9, Nahum 1:2-3, Matthew 10:37-39, Luke 15:1-7, Romans 8:18, Psalm 85:10-12

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Jealousy
  • Transcendence
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Today we continue our ‘Anthems’ series. In this series we are looking at the lyrics of one hymn or Christian worship song each week to see how that song informs our thinking about God and how it connects with Scripture and the heritage of our faith.

The song we are looking at this morning is called How He Loves, written by John Mark McMillan. It was released in 2005.

We don’t sing How He Loves in our Sunday worship services very often, probably because it is difficult for a smaller congregation to sing. It works better with a larger gathering. I quite like the song though. It has some salty, bold lyrics. God’s love is not pedestrian.

As usual we don’t have time to unpack every line of the song but I do want to focus our attention on two themes: jealousy and transcendence. First let us consider jealousy.

Jealousy

Okay, here’s a quiz for you. What was the name of the rock band who wrote the song Mr Brightside?     

That’s right, The Killers. You’re on to it. They almost have a cult following. The Killers wrote Mr Brightside around the end of 2001. It’s a song about jealousy. One of the band members had a funny feeling that something wasn’t right in his relationship with his girlfriend and sure enough, when he turned up at the pub, he found her there with another guy. Mr Brightside describes the feeling of jealousy provoked by cheating.

So what has this got to do with John McMillan’s worship song, How He Loves? Well, John McMillan’s song is also about jealousy, but jealousy of a different kind, divine jealousy. The opening lines of How He Loves read… 

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
 

Jealousy is not a word we usually associate with God. It tends to be a word that carries negative connotations for us. Jealousy often makes us think of envy and people behaving badly, as with The Killers’ song Mr Brightside. So what is jealousy and in what sense can we say God is jealous?

Well, jealousy is a very strong, very intense emotion. We might call jealousy a passion or a zeal or a fury. Jealousy is triggered by an affront to our rights or our honour. If we believe something belongs rightfully to us but is then given to another we will instinctively feel jealous. For example, a husband or wife may feel jealous if their partner in marriage is unfaithful in some way. By its very definition marriage is an exclusive relationship. There are some things in marriage that should not be shared with anyone else. Both husband and wife have every right to expect faithfulness from their partner. So a jealous reaction (a feeling of intense fury or passion) in the context of unfaithfulness in marriage is fair and understandable. In fact, the more you love your husband or wife the greater the potential for jealousy.  

But not all jealous reactions are fair or right. Some jealousy is misplaced. For example, if you don’t like your hair (or if you don’t have hair) you might look at someone who has perfect hair and feel jealous. That is, you might believe that the hair on their head should belong to you. Clearly, that kind of jealousy (which we might more accurately call ‘envy’) is not fair or justified. We have no right to the hair on someone else’s head. This is a frivolous example of misplaced jealousy – I’m not meaning to get at anyone who may be bald.

Another example of jealousy is when someone gets the praise or the promotion or the prize that we believe belongs to us. In that situation we may feel quite justified in our jealous indignation (our anger), but really we are seldom in the best position to judge. Sometimes life is unfair. Sometimes things don’t go our way but God, who is jealous for justice, has a way of making things right, if not in this life then in the next.

The point is, jealousy is that strong feeling we get when something we believe rightfully belongs to us goes to someone else. Sometimes our human jealousy is appropriate and other times it is not.

But God’s jealousy is always righteous and justified because God is the creator of all there is, so everything rightfully belongs to him anyway.

Now you might be wondering if this idea that God gets jealous is just a human notion, something we have projected onto God. Let me assure you it’s not.

God describes himself as jealous in the Bible. For example, in Deuteronomy 5:6-9, while giving the ten commandments, God says to his people Israel…

6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before me. 8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…

The specific context for God calling himself jealous is the command to not worship any other God and to not make an idol. We might not bow down to actual statues, like people in the ancient world did, but we do sometimes place a higher value on things that are created, things that are less worthy than God. For example, we may worship money or our career or our reputation or our family or our own pleasure.

God is saying he has every right to insist upon our absolute loyalty and obedience. If we give our worship to something that is not God, then we are denying God what rightfully belongs to him and we will trigger God’s jealousy. 

God does not insist that we worship him exclusively because he needs it. God is not insecure. He doesn’t need to have his ego propped up with praise every five minutes. God doesn’t actually need anything from us.

No. God insists that we worship him exclusively because we need to. Worshipping God is good for us – it gives our lives value and meaning.

When we worship things that are not God we devalue and demean ourselves. We make ourselves less than whatever it is we bow down to and we empty our lives of any sort of lasting meaning.

The Bible often depicts God as a husband whose wife (Israel) has been unfaithful to him by worshipping other gods (with a little ‘g’). If God didn’t experience intense jealousy over infidelity, then that would indicate he didn’t care at all. The fact that God rightly feels jealous when we worship other things proves that he cares a great deal.

Returning to the first line of the song for a moment…

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

Putting the image of a hurricane alongside the idea of God’s jealous love is perfect. It’s so Biblical. In the book of Nahum chapter 1 we read…

A jealous and avenging God is the Lord, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.  

They are strong words.   

The thing about a hurricane or a whirlwind is that we can’t tame it. We can’t domesticate it. A hurricane is a powerful and dangerous force.

Sometimes we forget how dangerous God can be. The jealous love of God is like a hurricane – we need to make sure we are on the right side of it.

Sometimes Israel got on the wrong side of God’s jealousy, but in the reading from the prophet Nahum, it was Israel’s enemies, the Assyrians, who were on the wrong side of God.

To say that ‘God is jealous for me’ is to say that God is on my side and he is going to deal to my enemies with the rage of a hurricane.

Now, as I alluded to in our responsive prayer (earlier in today’s service), our enemies are not flesh & blood (our enemies are not other nations). Our enemies are unseen; things like pride, resentment, fear, loneliness and depression. But even though our enemies are unseen, they are still very real and just as dangerous as bullets and bombs. God’s love is greater than those things.

The other thing I need to make clear about the hurricane image is that it is a metaphor for God’s jealous love. We shouldn’t take it too literally. If an actual hurricane passes over a country and wreaks havoc, that doesn’t mean God is angry with that nation. The survivors of an extreme weather event need compassion, not condemnation.

Now some of you may be thinking, ‘Okay, fair enough, the Old Testament does describe God as jealous. But what about the New Testament. How does God’s jealousy fit with the person of Jesus? After all, isn’t Jesus supposed to show us what God is like on the inside?’

Good question. Thank you for asking it. Yes, Jesus does show us what God is like on the inside. And yes, Jesus does reveal God’s jealousy. Let me give you some examples…

In Matthew 10:37-39 Jesus says, “Whoever loves his father or mother more than me is not fit to be my disciple; whoever loves his son or daughter more than me is not fit to be my disciple. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow in my steps is not fit to be my disciple. Whoever tries to gain his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it. [1]

These verses are difficult for us and yet in them we find an example of divine jealousy. Jesus is not saying we shouldn’t love our family. We need to honour our parents and not turn away from our family when they are in need. But, at the same time, Jesus is saying that he is entitled to a greater loyalty from us than our own family is. So if our family give us an ultimatum and ask us to choose between them or Jesus, then we need to choose Jesus. If Jesus were just a man, then he would have no right to say this. But because Jesus is also God, he has every right to say it. 

A.T. Luter observes how the Biblical words that are used for jealousy are closely associated with zeal and zealousness. Zeal represents intense emotional effort and energy focused toward a goal. Jealousy is the relational counterpart to zeal, primarily a focusing of emotion toward a person in the desire for a closer, better relationship. [2] 

Thinking of jealousy in this way (as an intense desire to be closer to a person) reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15. Jesus said…

4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them—what do you do? You leave the other ninety-nine sheep in the pasture and go looking for the one that got lost until you find it. 5 When you find it, you are so happy that you put it on your shoulders 6 and carry it back home. Then you call your friends and neighbours together and say to them, ‘I am so happy I found my lost sheep. Let us celebrate!’ 7 In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine respectable people who do not need to repent.

This parable is an example of the jealous love of God. We rightfully belong to God. He is our creator, our heavenly Father. If we are lost or carried off by something else, then God jealousy pursues us with his love to find us and bring us home. God’s jealous love will not abandon us or share us with the evil one. Jesus is the good shepherd who restores the lost sheep.

Perhaps the clearest example of how Jesus reveals God’s jealous love was in going to the cross. God was so jealous for us, he felt so strongly that we belong to him, and not to sin or death, that he redeemed us back for himself through Jesus’ crucifixion and death. Indeed, God’s act of raising Jesus from the dead also demonstrates the power of God’s jealousy. God’s jealous love is stronger than the grave.

Okay, so that’s one of the themes of the song, divine jealousy. The other aspect of the song I want to highlight is transcendence. 

Transcendence

By transcendence I mean ‘rising above’ our circumstances, being lifted out of our troubles. (This has nothing to do with transcendental meditation by the way.) A transcendent experience is one which is extraordinary, incomparable, matchless, second to none. The song How He Loves describes the kind of transcendent experience one can have through the love of God.   

In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest and Lieutenant Dan are out one night on their boat, fishing for shrimp, when a huge storm hits. It’s the worst storm in that area for decades. Lieutenant Dan is angry with God. He’s up in the rigging yelling insults at God, ‘You call this a storm…’ He’s practically goading God to sink their ship. Forrest is more circumspect, more humble. He’s got his hand on the wheel navigating the boat through the waves.

Lieutenant Dan’s fury is a jealous sort of rage. He believes he was destined to die a hero’s death in battle (in Vietnam) but God spared his life through Forrest Gump and now Lieutenant Dan feels cheated. Dan thinks God has taken something from him that wasn’t his to take. But God’s jealous love for Lieutenant Dan is greater than Lieutenant Dan’s jealous rage at God. In fact, God’s love lifts Lieutenant Dan out of his hurt and resentment.    

They survive the ordeal at sea and when they come into port the next morning they see all the other boats in the harbour have been smashed to pieces. Prior to the storm they couldn’t catch a cold. Now, after the storm, all their competition has been taken out and they catch tons of shrimp.

Eventually Lieutenant Dan makes his peace with God. He breaks off his romance with death and transcends his troubles, he rises above his self-pity and rage, to embrace a new life.        

John Mark McMillan, the author of How He Loves describes how his song came about (and I paraphrase here)…

Some of my friends were in a car crash. One of them (Steven) died later in hospital that night. I was angry and confused and hurt. Steven was a youth group leader and had been in a prayer meeting earlier that day. I process things through music. The song ‘How He Loves’ is not about a pretty, clean, Hollywood, ‘hot pink’ type love. It’s the kind of love that is willing to love things that are messy and difficult. Gross things. God could still love me in my anger and frustration and resentment. He could love me through that. God wasn’t offended that I was angry at him. ‘How He Loves’ is a song that celebrates a God who wants to hang with us through the mess.       

John McMillan’s song describes something of the extraordinary, incomparable, matchless, transcendent experience of God’s love. Sometimes in worship we become so absorbed in God that we transcend our troubles. Whatever mess we are in fades away and we lose ourselves in awe and wonder and delight at the goodness of God. It’s like our soul is granted a Sabbath rest from its pain and struggle and we are actually able to heal.

We notice transcendence in verse 1 of the song when we sing…   

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.

Afflictions eclipsed by glory reminds us of Paul’s words in Romans 8:18…

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

As I’ve said on other occasions, suffering and glory go hand in hand in the Bible. If we share in Christ’s suffering, we will also share in his glory.

What strikes me about Paul’s words in Romans 8 is that the glory will be revealed in us. It’s like we are vessels or containers for God’s glory. As Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 4:7, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show this all-surpassing power is from God.

Verse 2 of the song continues the theme of transcendence where it says…

And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss, And my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don’t have time to maintain these regrets, When I think about, the way that He loves us,

We are reminded here of Psalm 85:10-12…

Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. 11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. 12 The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. 13 Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.

Jesus is heaven’s kiss on the earth. In and through Christ heaven meets earth.

Back to the song, …my heart turns violently inside of my chest suggests a deep internal heart change, repentance in other words.

Or perhaps it’s more like the way our heart races or skips a beat when we come near to the one we love.

We may regret some of the things we have done in our life. We may keep going back in our mind rehearsing our past mistakes, feeling bad and playing the ‘what if’ game with ourselves.

But when we think about the way God loves us we don’t have time to maintain these regrets – we transcend our past. We rise above ourselves. We realise it’s not about us. It’s about Jesus.

Conclusion

God loves us jealously. His love is transcendent, extraordinary, incomparable, second to none. In God we find our rest.

Let’s sing in our bubbles now, How He loves us…

How He Loves

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a 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.

And oh, how He loves us oh
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

And oh, how He loves us oh,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way that He loves us,

Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us…

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song ‘How He Loves’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

What is jealousy?

How might we handle (process) our jealous feelings in a healthy way? 

Why is God’s jealousy always right and good? In what sense is God’s jealousy an expression of his love?

Why does God insist that we worship Him exclusively?

In what ways does Jesus reveal divine jealousy? Can you give examples from the Bible?

What is transcendence?

What is your experience of God’s transcendent love? What is your response to His love? (If you are not aware of God’s love for you personally, you might like to ask Him to show you.)

Outtakes

One another occasion in the gospels we read how Jesus fell asleep in a boat during a hurricane. Imagine that, Jesus is so at home in the middle of a storm that he is able to sleep like a log. Why is Jesus so relaxed? Because he is God and his way is in the whirlwind and storm.

God’s jealous love isn’t just contained in the first line of the song. Verse 2 also implies God’s jealousy for us where it says,

…we are His portion and He is our prize…
Deuteronomy 32:9 tells us the Lord’s portion is his people.

The apostle Paul talks about ‘thinking of others as better than ourselves’ (Philippians 2:3). When we do that we prevent feelings of jealousy in the first place. For example, if someone else gets the praise, the promotion or the prize, then we are happy for them because we believe they (and not us) are rightly entitled to it.

John McMillan also wrote the song King of my heart, which we sang earlier today during our on-line service.

[1] Refer M. Erickson, ‘Jealousy’, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, page 410.

[2] Refer A.B. Luter, Jr. ‘Jealousy, Zeal’, DPL, page 461.

Tawa Baptist

Nahum on Nineveh

Scripture: Nahum 1

 

Title: God’s comforting judgment

 

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s comforting judgment
  • God’s righteous anger
  • Conclusion

 

Introduction:

When I was a kid dinner was meat and three veg and sometimes the three veg included Brussel sprouts

–         Boiled Brussel sprouts tasted just awful to me

 

Recently though, I had a salad with thinly sliced raw Brussel sprouts, apple straws and a nice dressing – it tasted surprisingly good

–         I still don’t like boiled Brussel sprouts but I love raw Brussel Sprouts in a salad – delicious

 

This morning we continue our series on the city of Nineveh

–         Over the past few weeks we have looked at Nineveh through the eyes of Jonah

–         Today we begin looking at the city of Nineveh through the eyes of another prophet, called Nahum

 

People generally like the story of Jonah because it’s familiar and because it reveals a God of compassion and mercy

–         A God who is slow to anger and rich in love

–         And they are the characteristics of God that taste good to us

–         Consequently Jonah gets preached on widely

 

Nahum, on the other hand, presents quite a different side of God

–         Nahum uses some very strong language and can leave one with a feeling of judgment and doom

–         In the book of Jonah, God is patient, Nineveh is saved and Jonah is angry

–         But in the book of Nahum, God is angry, Nineveh is destroyed and Nahum’s feelings are not explored

 

Consequently Nahum has the reputation of being the Biblical equivalent of Brussel sprouts

–         Yea, it’s good for you but kind of hard to swallow

–         But if you thinly slice it and eat it raw – if you break it down and understand it in its original context, it is surprisingly good

 

In the book of Jonah, the people of Nineveh repented of their violent ways and God had compassion on them – he relented and did not destroy their city.

–         Sadly Nineveh’s repentance did not last

–         Some decades later the Assyrians went back to their violent ways

 

Fast forward 100 years or so from the time of Jonah and God has another message concerning Nineveh

–         This time there is no opportunity for repentance – the Assyrians have gone too far and so Nineveh will be destroyed

–         From Nahum chapter 1, verse 1, we read…

 

An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

The Lord is a jealous and avenging God;     the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes     and maintains his wrath against his enemies.

 

3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power;     the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,     and clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up;     he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither     and the blossoms of Lebanon fade.

 

5 The mountains quake before him     and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence,     the world and all who live in it. 6 Who can withstand his indignation?     Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire;     the rocks are shattered before him.

 

7 The Lord is good,     a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him, 8     but with an overwhelming flood he will make an end of Nineveh;     he will pursue his foes into the realm of darkness.

 

9 Whatever they plot against the Lord     he will bring to an end;     trouble will not come a second time. 10 They will be entangled among thorns     and drunk from their wine;     they will be consumed like dry stubble.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

 

God’s comforting judgment:

Charles Dickens’ classic novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ begins with that famous line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

–         This is a kind of paradox – a thing exhibiting apparently contradictory characteristics

–         If we think in terms of ‘either / or’ then we will probably struggle with paradox

–         But when we learn to think in terms of ‘both / and’ then paradox starts to make more sense to us

 

Other examples of paradox include…

–         ‘Nobody goes to that restaurant, it’s always packed’

–         Or, ‘The sound of silence’

–         Or, one by our friend C.S. Lewis, “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”

 

The humble Brussel sprout is a paradox too – it can taste disgusting but it can also taste delicious

 

The Bible is full of paradox – seemingly contradictory things that go together

–         Like our friend Jesus says…

–         ‘The first shall be last and the last shall be first’

–         Or, ‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it’

 

Nahum presents us with paradox in the nature of God

–         The same God who is merciful and ready to forgive the people of Nineveh is also a jealous and avenging God

–         God is full of anger but at the same time in control of his anger

–         He can be a powerfully destructive force against the guilty and a refuge for those who trust in him

–         Paradox – it’s ‘both / and’, not ‘either / or’

 

One paradox in particular that Nahum draws out is God’s comforting judgment

 

The name ‘Nahum’ means comforter

–         And yet, Nahum’s message seems anything but comforting

–         It’s about God coming in judgment to destroy Nineveh

–         This is what God (through Nahum) has to say to Nineveh…

 

…but with an overwhelming flood he [the Lord] will make an end of Nineveh;     he will pursue his foes into the realm of darkness.

9 Whatever they plot against the Lord     he will bring to an end;     trouble will not come a second time. 10 They will be entangled among thorns     and drunk from their wine;     they will be consumed like dry stubble.

 

Nahum is writing poetry here but it is poetry that came true in history

–         The city of Nineveh was eventually overwhelmed by a flood of enemies in the form of the Babylonian army

–         The city was also destroyed by a literal flood of water

–         The river which Nineveh had relied on as a natural defence became the instrument of its destruction

 

To be pursued into the realm of darkness is a frightening image

–         Darkness in Scripture usually means distress, terror, mourning, dread and  oblivion

 

Entangled among thorns is a picture of pain & powerlessness

–         If you are entangled in thorns then you can’t move without tearing your own flesh or impaling yourself

 

Likewise, being drunk means losing all control and making a fool of one self

–         The thing about being drunk is that it’s self-inflicted

–         In other words, Nineveh have brought this disgrace on themselves

–         They, and no one else, are to blame for their predicament

 

Dry stubble is grass or vegetation that has been consumed so only the short little stalks protrude out of the ground

–         To burn the stubble is to completely destroy what is left

–         There will be no trace left of the city

–         This may seem harsh but it is quite fair

–         The Assyrians used a scorched earth policy with others – burning everything to the ground in their wake

–         Now God is going to do the same with them

 

Overwhelmed, tangled, drunk and consumed – this is to be the end for Nineveh

–         How is that comforting?

–         Well, it’s not comforting if you are from Nineveh

–         But to Nineveh’s enemies (especially to Israel), who have suffered much at the hands of the Assyrians, it is actually a great comfort to know that God is on your side

–         That the evil and violence you are suffering will be brought to an end

 

It’s the comfort of facing a violent attacker knowing that the police are on their way – the bad guys are not going to get away with it

 

The paradox of God’s judgment is that it is a comfort for those who trust him and at the same time a nightmare for those who oppose him

 

7 The Lord is good,     a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him,

 

We don’t like to think about God’s judgment all that much – it scares us

–         We prefer to think about his mercy and forgiveness

–         We still need to remember his judgment though – not so that we are frightened but so that we will be comforted when we suffer injustice

 

If we complain that God is not fair then it could be that we don’t have an adequate grasp of his judgment

–         Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they will be satisfied

–         Things may not be right now but God is going to make them right in the end – there is comfort in knowing this

 

God’s righteous anger:

God’s judgment is comforting and his anger is righteous

 

Verse 2 describes the Lord (Yahweh) as a jealous God

–         We generally think of jealousy as a bad thing

–         We think jealousy is born from the fear of being replaced by a rival

–         We associate jealousy with envy

–         And while it can carry those connotations it can also have a more positive meaning

–         As in having zeal or ardour to safe guard or protect something from thieves and robbers (from those who have no right to it)

 

For example, it is entirely appropriate for a husband to be jealous for his wife and for a wife to be jealous for her husband – jealous in the sense of protecting your marriage and not sharing your partner with another man or woman

 

Likewise, it is a parent’s job to be jealous for their children – to protect them, to not allow any harm to come to them and to search for them when they lost

–         Jealousy in that sense is a good thing

 

Jealousy in its best sense is a form of righteous anger

–         Jesus demonstrated zeal or jealousy for God’s temple when he overturned the tables of the money changes

–         Jesus was rightly angry at the merchants because their greedy presence was preventing people from coming to God for worship & prayer

 

There has been a series of movies over the past decade called Taken, starring Liam Neeson

–         The first in the series tells the story of a retired CIA agent whose daughter is kidnapped by some human traffickers

–         I haven’t watched any of these films, mainly because I have two daughters and I don’t find that sort of thing entertaining

–         But there is a famous scene from the first movie, which has become part of popular culture, where Liam Neeson’s character is on the phone with the kidnappers and says to them…

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. But if you are looking for a ransom I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills that I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.

 

This is a bit dark and threatening but it helps to illustrate what we mean by jealousy in a fatherly sense

–         Please don’t misunderstand or misapply the illustration

–         I’m not suggesting we have a license to behave like Liam Neeson’s character in that movie

–         We are not to go after our enemies with death threats

 

The point of the illustration is to help us understand what Nahum is getting at when he says…

–         The Lord is a jealous & avenging God… slow to anger & great in power

 

The Assyrians (the people of Nineveh) had kidnapped the people of Israel

–         You’ve heard the expression, ‘the 10 lost tribes of Israel’ – well it was the Assyrians (Nineveh) who did that

–         They invaded Israel and those they didn’t kill, they carried off into slavery, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind them

–         Like human traffickers they were cruel & brutal and did not show mercy for women & children

 

The Lord God is like Liam Neeson’s character in two ways…

–         He is a loving Father who is jealous for his children Israel

–         He will stop at nothing to go after those who have taken his daughter

–         He is also a mighty warrior – the Lord has a particular set of skills that make him a nightmare for people like the Assyrians

–         The difference with God is that he knows exactly who the Assyrians are and where they live

–         And, unlike any human being, the Lord is qualified to act as judge and executioner

 

Now God’s jealousy isn’t just for his children Israel

–         The Lord is also jealous for his reputation and his role as God

–         If anyone tries to displace God by worshipping idols or by putting themselves in the place of God then the Lord is not happy with that

–         It’s not that God feels threatened or fearful of rivals

–         It is that God feels protective of his creation

–         When we try to displace God, when we worship the things we have made rather than our maker, creation suffers for it

–         God won’t tolerate any rivals because it is bad for the world he loves

 

The people of Nineveh had put themselves in the place of God

–         They were arrogant – they thought they were untouchable, undefeatable

–         And at the time when Nahum delivered his oracle (his burden) they were the leading world power of the day

–         Which makes Nahum’s message even more remarkable – because he was predicting Nineveh’s downfall at the height of their powers

 

One of the things we note about Liam Neeson’s character, in the movie Taken, is that he is calm – he is in complete control of his anger

–         There is quite a bit about God’s anger in our reading from Nahum

 

In verse 2 we are told that the Lord is filled with wrath and then in verse 3 we are told the Lord is slow to anger and will not leave the guilty unpunished

–         These statements seem contradictory don’t they – but its paradox

–         Nahum’s point here is that God is in complete control of his anger

 

That the Lord is filled with wrath tells us (paradoxically) that God cares and is deeply affected by injustice and evil

–         If God didn’t care he wouldn’t feel angry – he wouldn’t feel anything

 

That God is slow to anger tells us that God is in control of his temper – he doesn’t react in the heat of the moment or fly off the handle

–         To give you an idea of how slow to anger the Lord is, the Assyrians’ reign of terror lasted for 250 years

–         God’s anger is righteous – He releases his anger at just the right moment and in just the right measure so that the guilty are not left unpunished

 

The image I get when thinking of God’s anger is one of a huge dam holding back water

–         The water of God’s anger (and power) is released in a controlled way

 

It is precisely because God is good and in complete control that he is qualified to take vengeance on his foes – We are not qualified to pass judgment

 

We don’t have time to explore every line of poetry in these verses but there are a couple of metaphors of God’s power I need to draw your attention to

 

In verse 4 we read that God dries up the sea and makes all the rivers run dry

–         To the ancient Hebrew mind the sea symbolised chaos

–         Nahum is saying here that God has the power to make chaos disappear

–         In other words, God’s jealousy (his righteous anger) restores order

 

Then in verse 5 we read how the mountains quake before the Lord and the hills melt away

–         Mountains and hill are the image of stability and security

–         Nineveh may think they are immovable – as stable and secure as a mountain

–         But before God’s righteous anger they are not

 

What was it Jesus said…

–         “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you”

 

Conclusion:

Our reading from Nahum began today with the words…

–         An oracle concerning Nineveh…

 

The original Hebrew word translated as oracle also means burden

–         Nahum’s message is a burden, just as vengeance is a burden

 

So with all this talk of anger & destruction, where is the good news for us?

–         Well, the good news is: we don’t have to carry the burden of vengeance

–         We don’t have to worry about getting even with our enemies because we know God is more than able to take care of that

 

Following the teachings of Jesus, the apostle Paul (in his letter to the Romans) writes…

 

Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.   

 

To heap burning coals on their heads isn’t to be taken literally

–         It is a metaphor which means something like, ‘when you show kindness to your enemies, it causes them to burn with shame’

–         Loving your enemies – it’s a paradox

 

Because God takes vengeance on our behalf, we don’t have to – we are free to keep our hands clean and let God do the dirty work

–         Let us pray…

Tawa Baptist

Ten Words

Scripture: Exodus 20:1-17

Title: Ten Words

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s love comes first – relationship, freedom & grace (v.2)
  • Loving God – loyalty & jealousy (vv.3-7)
  • Sabbath holds it all together – creation not chaos (vv. 8-11)
  • Loving neighbour – community not competition (vv. 12-17)
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Whenever I cook I like to follow a recipe

  • Without the instructions I’m cooking blind and don’t know if the outcome will taste any good
  • But with the recipe I don’t worry
  • The recipe gives me confidence that we will eat well that night

Please turn with me to Exodus chapter 20, page 80 in your pew Bibles

  • Today we resume our series on Moses
  • By this stage in their journey Israel are 3 months out of Egypt, camped at the foot of Mt Sinai
  • Moses is acting as an intermediary between God and the people, communicating God’s words to the Israelites
  • In this morning’s reading God gives Moses a recipe for life
  • These are God’s instructions for living well
  • From Exodus chapter 20, verse 1, we read…

Read Exodus 20:1-17

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

This recipe or list of instructions, in Exodus 20, has been summarised as ‘love God and love your neighbour’

  • And while that’s a pretty good summary it doesn’t actually start with our love – it begins with God’s love
  • Before we can love God, or anyone else, we must first accept God’s love for us – if we miss out that step all our efforts will come to nothing

God’s love comes first – relationship, freedom & grace (v.2)

The thing with following a recipe, or any other set of instructions, is that you have to follow all of it

  • If you leave out any part of the recipe then it doesn’t taste right
  • For example, you might be making a brownie and you see the list of ingredients includes 100 grams of butter
  • You think to yourself – that’s easy – I’ll just measure out 100 grams and throw it in the bowl with the sugar and the flour
  • Then you can’t understand why the ingredients don’t combine well
  • So you go back to read the recipe again (properly this time) and you see that you were supposed to melt the butter first

It’s the same with flat pack furniture

  • You might think you can take a short cut here or there but if you miss out any steps along the way or get those steps in the wrong order, you have to start again

This recipe or list of instructions that God gives Moses in Exodus 20 is commonly referred to as the ‘10 Commandments’

  • It would be more accurate though to call this the ‘10 Words’ or the Decalogue (deca meaning 10 and logue meaning word)

Verse 1 reads, ‘God spoke and these were his words.’

  • The original Hebrew text doesn’t even mention the term ‘commandment’ in this passage

Anyway in verse 2, Yahweh says to Moses…

  • “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves.”

Clearly this is not a commandment – it is a statement of fact

  • God is essentially saying, ‘Israel, I love you. Remember that, because my love is how it all begins’
  • Consequently, in Jewish tradition, the Decalogue (or the 10 words) begins with verse 2

Unfortunately our Protestant tradition overlooks verse 2 altogether

  • Our tradition begins with verse 3, ‘Worship no God but me’.
  • By not paying attention to vs. 2 we Protestants have messed up the recipe
  • We’ve forgotten the first & most important ingredient – God’s love for us

So let’s get it right then – let’s pay attention to the whole recipe and start with God’s first word in verse 2 – because this is where God makes it plain what His intention is in giving the Law

Yahweh begins, “I am the Lord your God”

  • This is a statement of personal relationship
  • As Terence Fretheim observes: The address is to the individual ‘you’ and not to Israel generally – which lifts up the importance of internal motivation rather than corporate pressure or external coercion [1]
  • In other words, God’s instructions should be understood relationally and personally
  • God does not intend for our obedience to be forced from the outside but wants us to obey Him freely and willingly from the inside, because we know He loves us and we love Him in return

We have speed limits on our roads

  • Those limits are put there for our well-being, our safety
  • We might obey the speed limit for external reasons – because we don’t want to get snapped by a speed camera and fined
  • Or we might obey the speed limit for internal reasons – because we care about the people travelling in our vehicle
  • They say a man never drives more carefully than when he has his new born baby in the car. Why? Because he loves his child
  • As a father he isn’t worried about speed cameras – he just wants to protect his child
  • God’s words, His instructions or His recipe, are given in love
  • And He means for us to keep His words out of love for Him – not out of fear of punishment

God goes on to say, in verse 2 …

  • I brought you out of Egypt where you were slaves
  • The message is clear – God’s intention for Israel is that they be free
  • The Law is not to be understood as another form of bondage
  • The Law is to be understood as a recipe for freedom

When God says…

  • Do not commit murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal and so on, He isn’t taking away their freedom
  • He is indicating how they can more fully enter into their freedom
  • The Law is not a whip and God is not a slave driver
  • The Law is a gift and God is a redeemer

The other thing we should note here is that grace comes first, before the giving of the Law

  • God saved Israel before they had done anything to deserve it, that’s grace
  • Grace is the horse and obedience is the cart
  • The horse of grace pulls the cart of obedience
  • We mustn’t get the cart before the horse

So, God frames His Law in terms of personal relationship, freedom and grace

  • God gives the Law for our well-being
  • The Law is intended as an expression of God’s love for us

 

The first step in God’s recipe then is recognising His love for us

  • The second step is about us loving Him
  • Loving God means being loyal to Him

 

Loving God – loyalty & jealousy (vv.3-7)

In verse 3 the Lord says, ‘Worship no God but me’

  • Then He goes on to explain in verses 4 & 5, this means you don’t make any sort of graven image and you don’t bow down to any idol

Basically God wants our exclusive loyalty

  • He tolerates no rivals (as the Good News Bible puts it)
  • It’s not that God is insecure or feels threatened by the competition
  • Rather, there is no competition
  • There are no other gods beside Yahweh and therefore we would be wasting our time if we worshipped anything else

More literal translations of verse 5 have the Lord saying, ‘I am a jealous God’

  • We tend to think of jealousy as a negative thing – like envy
  • And while jealousy can have that nuance in today’s modern English use-age, it never has that meaning in relation to God – God is not envious

The word jealousy originates from the Latin word zelosus – from which we get the word zealous  [2]

  • Jealousy, in relation to God, has to do with His zealousness for our well being

I didn’t really begin to understand the concept of God’s jealousy until I became a parent

  • You know when your child is vulnerable or threatened or at risk in some way and you experience this incredible urge from within to protect them
  • That energy, that irrepressible instinct to protect, that’s jealousy in the positive sense of the word

There is a movie which came out in 2008 starring Liam Neeson, called Taken

  • I haven’t seen the movie because, as a father of two girls, I don’t find that kind of thing entertaining
  • Basically the daughter of an ex CIA agent is kidnapped and the father (Liam Neeson) goes after the kidnappers to get his girl back
  • The father is jealous for his daughter – he is fiercely protective of her and will not rest until she is safe

God is jealous in the sense that He is fiercely protective of those in His care – those who belong to Him

  • He is jealous in the sense that He will leave no stone unturned to find us and restore us to Himself

Pharaoh inflamed the Lord’s jealousy by his mistreatment of the Hebrew people and Egypt suffered terribly as a consequence

We see the lengths that God would go to, in His jealous love for us, in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross

God’s jealousy, then, is essentially His protective instinct for us

  • Like a parent’s protective instinct with their child
  • God doesn’t want us to bow down to anything else because that would be bad for us and He wants to protect us from what is bad
  • It’s really quite cool that in loving God we are doing ourselves a favour

In the same way that God is jealous for our well-being – we too need to be jealous for God’s reputation

  • And so in verse 7 The Lord says, ‘Do not use my name for evil purposes’
  • Or, ‘Do not take the Lord’s name in vain’

To take the Lord’s name in vain is to say, ‘You must do what I say because God has told me this’, when in fact God has not told you that

To take the Lord’s name in vain is to claim you are doing God’s work by blowing yourself up in a crowd or flying a passenger plane into a high rise

To take the Lord’s name in vain is to say, ‘I’m a Christian’ and then live the lifestyle of a pagan

God is jealous for us and we need to be jealous for Him

  • Loyalty and jealousy – that is what it means to love God

Sabbath holds it all together – creation not chaos (vv.8-11)

When you make a cake you need a binding ingredient – something (like an egg for example) that holds the mixture together

At the centre of God’s recipe is the instruction to dedicate one day in seven, a Sabbath to the Lord for resting

  • The Sabbath is the binding ingredient in God’s recipe for living well
  • It holds together God’s love for us with our love for God & our neighbour
  • Or to change the metaphor: The Sabbath instruction is a major intersection connecting the main arterial routes within God’s Law

We observe a Sabbath for ourselves, for our neighbour and for the sake of creation

Jesus said, ‘Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man’

  • Before anything else the Sabbath reminds us of God’s love for us
  • The Sabbath is a gift from God for our well-being
  • By resting, our body is restored and our mind is released from the knots it gets itself into
  • Rest prevents work from becoming an idol and therefore helps us to remain loyal to God

If you are baking bread then normally part of the process involves allowing the dough time to rest before you put it in the oven

  • Or when you cook a choice piece of meat – you don’t cut it as soon as it leaves the pan – you let it rest for a few minutes first

If we are going to enjoy life and get the most out of it then we need to factor in times of regular rest

Not only is it good for us when we observe a Sabbath, it is good for others also – it makes us easier to live with

In verse 10 the Lord says the Sabbath is for everyone, including your children, your manservants & maidservants, your animals and the foreigners living in your country

  • This instruction was way ahead of its time
  • In other cultures the men in charge might be allowed a day off while everyone else had to keep working
  • In Israel though, there was to be Sabbath equality

At its heart, Sabbath rest is really about creation. In verse 11 God says…

  • “In six days I, the Lord, made the earth, the sky, the sea, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested. That is why I, the Lord, blessed the Sabbath and made it holy.”

There is a relationship between the physical order and the moral order

  • When Adam sinned against God in the garden, the land was cursed
  • When we make production and consumption and money more important than God, then the environment suffers
  • But when we keep God’s moral order we preserve the physical order
  • Observing Sabbath rest is a creative act which keeps the forces of chaos at bay

The first step in God’s recipe is recognising His love for us

  • The second step is us loving God – being loyal to Him & jealous for His reputation
  • The key ingredient which holds it all together is Sabbath rest
  • Sabbath connects loving God with loving our neighbour

Loving neighbour – community not competition (vv. 12-17)

To love our neighbour is to be beside them and have their back – to be committed to their well-being as God is committed to our well-being

Verses 12-17, of Exodus 20, spell out what loving our neighbour looks like…

  • Honour your father and mother
  • Do not kill
  • Do not commit adultery
  • Do not steal
  • Do not accuse anyone falsely
  • Do not covet

These instructions are about living in community, as opposed to living in competition

  • Community requires cooperation – competition leads to isolation
  • Community sees connections and how to strengthen those connections
  • Competition sees people either as tools to be used or as a threat to be eliminated
  • In community we have each other’s back – we don’t worry about ourselves – we think about the person next to us
  • Therefore we have a sense of security in community
  • But in competition there is only anxiety

When we look at these ‘love thy neighbour’ instructions we notice that at least two of them relate directly to family life

  • Honouring parents and not committing adultery
  • Parents and husband or wife are our nearest neighbours
  • To follow these two instructions is to maintain family life which in turn strengthens the wider community

Honouring parents is an intentionally broad expression which may mean different things depending on the circumstances and stages of life

  • When we are young it could mean obeying our parents, but it won’t always mean that
  • As our parents get older and less able, honouring them might mean taking care of their physical needs

‘Do not kill’, is a tricky one – particularly in light of some other aspects of Old Testament Law where God seems to condone killing

  • For this reason some translators prefer to say, ‘Do not commit murder’
  • But this is problematic also
  • Perhaps it is good that the Hebrew word for kill (rasah) is a little vague in its definition, because this forces us to continually reflect on the meaning of the commandment, particularly in light of issues like war, euthanasia, suicide, self-defence and abortion
  • I like what Terence Fretheim says here: “The basis of the command is that all life belongs to God. The divine intention in creation is that no life be taken. Life is thus not for human beings to do with as they will; they are not God.” [3]

We are not to steal, because work is a gift from God and when someone steals they show contempt for other people’s work

  • Stealing, in the original context, could also be a life and death matter, depending on what was stolen and how poor the victim was

‘Do not accuse anyone falsely’, was originally a reference to not giving a false testimony in legal proceedings – don’t pervert justice in other words

  • But it could also mean don’t gossip or speak slanderous or deceptive words about anybody
  • We need to have each other’s backs in our conversations and guard one another’s reputations – this builds trust

Covetousness has to do with misplaced desire, envy, lust & greed and this last instruction is mostly concerned with a person’s inner life – the inclinations of the heart and the habits of the mind

  • The thing with coveting is that other people can’t usually tell when we are doing it – but God knows, because God looks on the heart
  • If we avoid coveting other people’s stuff then we will probably avoid breaking the previous five ‘love thy neighbour’ instructions

Conclusion:

There’s a lot more we could say about God’s recipe in Exodus 20 – in particular the way Jesus modified it and extended its meaning in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – but that’s enough for today

The main thing to take away is that the Decalogue (God’s 10 Words of instruction) are a recipe for living well

The first step in the recipe is recognising God’s love for us

  • Grace comes before the Law
  • But even the Law itself is an expression of God’s grace
  • God gives His instructions so we can be free

The second step is us loving God

  • That means being loyal to Him & jealous for His reputation

The key ingredient which holds it all together is Sabbath rest

  • Sabbath is a creative act in that it keeps the forces of chaos at bay and connects loving God with loving our neighbour

To love our neighbour is to have their back – to stand beside them in commitment to their well-being as God is committed to our well being

  • Loving our neighbour requires a community attitude, in contrast to a competitive attitude

Let us pray…

[1] Terence Fretheim, Exodus, page 222

[2] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/jealous

[3] Terence Fretheim, Exodus, page 233.