2020 Jealous God

Yeah, guys, so starting today till we get this done, we'll be looking at Zechariah 8,

because Zechariah 8 is almost like an inheritance chapter or an inheritance passage that is

being given to us as a church so that we can plot the next 12 to 15 months in terms of

what God wants us to do. And so it's like a field that has been given to you and in

the field are either nuggets of gold or oil. And so getting the field doesn't call for

much celebration. You can celebrate it, but it doesn't do you much good because the oil

has to be drilled or the gold has to be mined. So that's the thing with most directions or

prophetic words that God gives. It's good to get excited about it because it's God speaking.

And if you heard Maya reading again and again in the chapter, you hear the whole idea of,

and this is what the Lord Almighty says. So we can get excited about that. But on the other hand,

it has to be mined and drilled. And so that's what we'll be doing over the next eight weeks.

One of the first things I want to say about this is just imagine, what if what if what I'm saying

is absolutely true, then here's what it means. It means that the Lord of heaven and earth has a

plan or a strategy or a blueprint for a group of nobodies who he wants to work with. I just want us

to be aware of that. That this is the creator of the universe. The cosmos exists because he allows

it to exist. It consists in him and he decides that there are a group of people who meet and the group

of people will keep growing, keep changing in its composition. But this is a group of people I want

to work with. And therefore, this is what I have for them over the next 12 to 15 months. So one of

the things we need to understand as soon as we come to a place where we believe that it is God

who has plans and he who is speaking is everything that is said must be clearly heard,

humbly received, joyfully believed and diligently worked out.

Diligently outworked. Everything that God says, it doesn't matter. It's not like this applies only

to what we're doing right now. But whenever God speaks or whenever you sense God directing

something specifically towards you, these are four steps that have to go into play. One, it must be

clearly heard. And the quality of your hearing determines the output of the seed. It must be

clearly heard. It does require that I speak it clearly or whoever is speaking it speak it clearly.

But once it's spoken clearly, it must be clearly heard. And Jesus said this again and again,

hey Jacob make sure that you hear correctly because if you don't hear correctly, you either

produce 30 or 60 but you can actually produce 100 fold. Once you clearly hear it, you must humbly

receive it because many of the things God says are impossible or go against the grain of what I'm

presently doing or will require a change in plan. And there is a tendency in the heart of man to

resist that which is impossible or that which goes against the grain of present thinking. So humbly

received. Once it's humbly received, then I go into this place called joyfully believing it, joyfully

believing it. Not grudgingly, not off and on, not like a turtle that pulls its head back every so

often. Joyfully believe it and then joyfully believing it is good. But after belief comes the

actual outworking that must be done diligently. Diligent carries in it the sense of consistency

and long haul. It's long obedience in the same direction. And the great thing about any inheritance

that God gives is that God usually gives it to a people. And so once he gives it to a people,

let's say God gives you land, gives the people land. He gave Israel land. But whenever he gives

people a land, then what happens is each tribe and then each family gets allocated a portion.

This is so cool about God. And these are eternal principles. So let's assume that what we are saying

right now is absolutely true, that this is what God has for us as a people. And I don't say as

Acts 29 because Acts 29 may be 20 people today. What if it's 60 people tomorrow? So that's why I'm

calling it a people. Anyone who comes under this roof and decides, hmm, nice roof. So whenever God

gives people a promise or a blueprint, know that there's a tendency in the church to think, well,

then the leaders and the pastor will take care of it and yeah, we'll have to attend and clap and sing

every so often. No, when God gives people something, it trickles down to the tribe and to the family so

that every family benefits. And the strange thing is you can benefit even without being a part of

it. You cannot buy into it. But the strange thing is because God is giving it to everybody,

whether you buy into it or not, you get it. The problem arises when you try planting seed that

you get regardless of whether you like it or not. The more you're into it, the more the seed

produces. But the seed will be given to everybody. Let's assume you're all my children. My God.

Let's assume you're all my children. And so it's Christmas and I come with gifts for everybody.

And so everybody here gets a gift. But how you use the gift depends on your connection with the

giver. But will everyone get a gift? Yes. Will everyone use it the way they need to use it? No.

Why? Because that depends on coming and asking the one who made the gifts for the instructions

to play with the gifts. I won't say this every time we continue down with Zechariah 8,

which is why I'm spending as much time as I'm doing right now. The other thing is guys,

as we work with this, we got to ask two questions. One, what is it that I presently have in my hand?

And what is it that I'm reaching out for? What is it that I'm reaching out for?

Keep asking this question throughout your life. Because God looks at two things. With one hand,

He says, Hey, Jacob, I've already given you stuff to do. So stop looking at looking for something

new. Stop looking for what's the next exciting mountain that you need to climb. Stop looking for

what's the next prophetic word you need to receive. Look at what you have in your hand

and deal with that faithfully. While with the other hand, keep reaching out for the things that I have

for you. And this is how Jesus lived. First 30 years of his life, man, he was faithful at home

as a small time businessman taking care of his family. While he's reaching out towards his

messianic role, which is soon coming. And how you're faithful with what you have in your hand

determines the capacity and the ability to manage what God is going to give you.

What you have, how you deal with what you presently have in your hand

determines the ability and the capacity to manage what lies ahead. Because as Christians,

especially if you go to a charismatic church where the prophetic is often at work,

everybody wants the next new prophetic word that God has for you. But God will give you a prophetic

word, but you will not be able to manage it or rule over it with the capacity that you need.

With the capacity that you need, unless you've been faithful with what you've had.

What do you have in your hand? A little bit of oil. Well, then be faithful with it.

Make cookies and bring it and give it to Jacob and then see what happens.

I'm looking at some of you who haven't done that for a while.

So, so what do you have in your hand? Deal with that faithfully and it creates a capacity and

the ability to rule over what God has for us in the future. And then the last point I want to make

before we go into Zechariah 8 is this is just crazy man. God, I don't know, I throw out these

pens every week and they still make it back into this bag.

God is giving this inheritance to a people first and then to individuals second.

That's the way he works. He didn't call out Moses and say, hey Moses, you and your family,

I really want to give a whole lot of land to you. He didn't call out Jacob and say, hey Jacob,

you and Joseph and Benjamin, let's a lot, a whole lot of stuff to you. God always works with the

people. He's been looking for a people right from the beginning of time. Every time he starts

something, he may start it with one man, but he's always been looking for a people. And at the end

of the day in Revelation chapter 21 and 22, it ends with the people. Christ came not to draw

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

individual believers to himself. He came so that he could have a body made up of individual believers.

If your body is whole, then the members in your body are whole. If your member is painting,

it means, I mean, what I'm trying to say is when the entire body receives what is from God,

then there is no part that is left out. We have a tendency because we have a highly individualized

society to have a few brilliant individuals who run the entire thing. And that is not the God way.

The God way is always, can the entire body get what I want? Then you know what happens, even if

an individual is resistant, he gets swallowed up by the body.

Does that mean that you lose your identity or your individuality?

No, it becomes secondary. You don't lose it, but it becomes secondary.

This is the cool thing about God. It is not that you lose your individuality or identity,

but your individuality and identity is now secondary to the character and the personality

and the identity and the individuality of just one, the Christ. So it's not that it disappears,

it just becomes secondary. Any questions on that before we go on to Zechariah 8?

Any questions guys, anything you want to add? Hey, Evan, did you really turn the heat on or turn it off?

I think it's higher than you know.

Pardon?

I think it was about 73.

No, it can go up to 73. Just make sure you turn it off because then they find out.

Oh, shucks.

Said Derek, yeah. Any questions on what was just said?

No? Okay, let's go to Zechariah 8, verse 1 and 2. Can someone read it out?

Zechariah 8:1

Zechariah 8, 1 and 2.

Zechariah 8, 1 and 2. Okay, the word of the Lord Almighty came to me. This is what the

Lord Almighty says, I am very jealous for Zion. I'm burning with jealousy for it. This is God

speaking. Oprah got really put off because she once went to a church where the pastor was

preaching on jealousy and on jealous God and she got totally cheesed off with God because she

heard the preacher talking about a jealous God. So that's why she turned her back on

the God of the Bible. This is authentic, I'm not making it up. But today we'll be talking about a

jealous God again and thank God Oprah is not here. So Zechariah 8, 1 and 2. The word of the Lord Almighty

came to me. This is what the Lord Almighty says, I am very jealous for Zion. Have you noticed again

he starts with the corporate, he doesn't say I am very jealous over an individual. He says I'm very

jealous about Zion. What is Zion? Zion is not Israel. Zion is a resting place of God. Where does

God rest now? He rests in the midst of a people. We are Zion. Whenever we talk about Zion in the New

Testament one must not think ah shucks Zionist Israel. Nope. If you go to Hebrews 12, 22 to 25

it says that you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the place of his saints.

Zion is now the resting place of God. And where does God say he rests? If you go to Psalm 32,

I think it's Psalm 32. It says that I have found you as a resting place, as in a people as a resting

place. So he says I'm really jealous over Zion and then as if that isn't enough he takes it a

step further and he says I'm really burning with jealousy, burning with jealousy. You know the idea

of jealous, how do you define jealous? Jealous is what happens when the one you love goes after another.

Jealous is what happens when you find that someone is competing for the one you love.

Jealous is a very human word that most humans experience at some point or the other.

Jealous is either when the one you love goes chasing after someone else or jealous is when

there are others who are competing for the one you love.

That's what jealous means. I've got to say I feel jealous over you. I'm actually burning with jealousy.

I remember I used to really like this girl and this was ages ago.

And then my best friend liked her too.

And when he and I were alone he would tell me how much he liked her and man I really wanted to put

him out of his misery but I couldn't find a baseball bat so I would just sympathize. But

even at that age I was hardly 18, I started young, there was this sense of my god the jealousy you

feel when someone else is competing for the person you love. That's exactly what God is saying here.

I mean look at the scriptures with jealous God. Exodus 20 verse 5, Exodus 20 verse 5.

Exodus 20:5 Exodus 20:5

Verse 5.

It says you shall not bow down to them in worship for I the Lord your God I'm a jealous God.

Look at Exodus 34 14, Exodus 34 14.

It says do not worship any other God for the Lord whose name is jealous. I mean he calls himself

jealous. I mean which God has the audacity to name himself jealous and yet that's what he names

himself. As we find out why he'll blow your mind man. It's a great name for a God to have

but no other God would dare call themselves jealous. That's what he says here. Do not worship

any other God for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Guys we're going through the book

of Zechariah. Why are we going through these verses? Because as we look at these verses we'll

realize the kind of people he expects us to be over the next 12 to 15 months and the kind of God

he wants to be over the next 12 to 15 months. Let's look at Deuteronomy 4 23. Deuteronomy 4 23.

Deuteronomy 4 23.

Deuteronomy 4 23. It says there be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that

he made with you. Do not make for yourselves an idol in any form or anything the Lord your God has

forbidden for the Lord your God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. So you have a consuming

fire and a jealous God. This is the whole idea of listen I'm burning with jealousy.

So here's the fascinating thing guys. It's fascinating that God chooses to enter into an

intimate relationship with me to the point that he now feels sadness and anger when I give to

someone or something the affections that belong to him. Just think of that again. It's fascinating

just think of that again. It's fascinating that this invisible God of the universe

has entered into an intimate relationship with me to the point where he actually feels sadness and

anger when I give to anything or anybody the affections that belong to him.

What kind of God is this?

He feels he feels angry when I give to something or someone

the affections that belong to him. He feels sad. Hey this whole idea of grieving the Holy Spirit

we don't know what it means. We think if Emily misses the line in the song or the Holy Spirit

will run away because he was grieved by our by missing our two lines in the song. That's not

grieving the Holy Spirit. Grieving the Holy Spirit is when the affections that belong to God

are taken by me and given to something or somebody else. This God has become so intimately in love

with me that it actually saddens the Lord of heaven and earth the king of the universe the creator of

cosmos now actually feels sad or angry when the affections that belong to him are given by me to

something else or somebody else. That is grieving.

And so you might think well he shouldn't feel angry. You know what he did with that anger?

He put it on his own son Jesus so that you may be spared his anger.

Odd God man. Once you become aware of it the more you become aware of it the more aware you will be

of your affections going places where it shouldn't go. You think that wives don't notice when husbands

heads are on a swivel? I've watched man. It is so grieving to a woman when she's walking with her

husband and his eyes are darting and looking at other women. You should see how women feel when

they find that their husbands are actually flirting while they're standing there with another woman.

So the grief it causes Mark, the grief it causes is tremendous.

It just rips a woman's heart out because standing there it happens.

I just want us to understand what jealousy is really like guys.

I cannot understand this kind of love that the father has for me. It's odd on one hand he's the

father on the other hand Christ looks at us as his bride because he's the bridegroom.

Any questions?

You know divine jealousy is actually holy because God expects the same fidelity and character that

he has in his covenant people. Stranger just think of that line divine jealousy,

divine jealousy. This is not Don John this is the son of God.

Stranger just think of that line divine jealousy, divine jealousy.

This is not Don John this is divine jealousy. Divine jealousy is holy. Divine jealousy is holy

because God expects the same fidelity and character he has

in his covenant people. Think of that man.

Hey his fidelity is so absolute he'll never be faithless. He will never be faithless. There is

not a moment in my life where God will not be faithful. He will only be faithful. He'll never

be faithless. His character will not change. It's immutable. It won't change. It doesn't matter how

I treat him. It doesn't matter how saddened he is. It doesn't matter how I provoke him to jealousy.

The one thing that doesn't change is his fidelity and his character towards me and does not a God

who dwells amongst the covenant people have the right to demand of the people the same fidelity and

character that he has? Does not a husband demand that of his wife? If you being as evil as you are

can demand that of your spouse what about an absolutely holy God who lives in unapproachable light?

How can he expect less? You see when Paul says now approach the throne of God for he has shared our

frailties and he understands our condition he is not saying that God has lowered the bar. He's saying

God sympathizes with your weakness but he cannot expect anything less because holiness if it is

lessened does not stay as holiness anymore. He cannot expect anything less because he is

not accepting anything less because holiness if it is lessened does not stay as holiness anymore.

You don't need the cross. You don't need bloodshed. You don't need any of that. If

holiness can be lessened all God has to do is reduce his holiness by a little but if he reduces

his holiness by a little we become acceptable and he ends he stops being God.

That is why every other God in every other religion can always dumb down their holiness

and people become acceptable to a ritual. Not this God because he stopped being God.

Divine jealousy is holy. Divine jealousy is also loving. Divine jealousy is also loving.

Divine jealousy is also loving but guess what it's an intolerant love.

It is an intolerant love. What do I mean by intolerant love? This it is intolerant in that

it fights. It resists and fights when the oneness that was forged

at Golgotha

is squandered or wasted on someone else or something else.

Divine jealousy is loving. Divine jealousy would not exist if God wasn't loving. If he wasn't

loving there was no need. I mean what do you care if someone else's spouse is running after

somebody else? You'll feel bad. You have your Christian sensitivities now. You'll probably

pray but it doesn't affect your life because you're not in love with that spouse. But what

when it's your spouse? We just can't understand it because Paul said it's a mystery that Christ

loves the body. His bride like a man loves his wife. He said it's a mystery. We don't understand

the depth of it but divine jealousy is loving but it's an intolerant love because it fights for

the oneness that was forged at Golgotha between the spirit of God and my spirit that have become

one according to Romans 6 19. He fights for it. It's an intolerant love.

It's an intolerant love. God doesn't sit by idol as you wonder.

There is not a single story in the New Testament that Jesus spoke that portrayed the father's love

where the father was sitting idle. It is always the father who starts running.

So whether it be stone idols, whether it be self that becomes an idol, whether it's the cares and

the rewards of the world, hey guess what? This God of yours and this is rarely spoken of demands

exclusive faithfulness. He demands it. He has a right to demand it because he's done everything

in this relationship. He demands exclusive faithfulness.

He demands it. He's the one who stands at the altar and says through sickness, through joy,

through you didn't have to make an oath. You just had to receive his love. He's the one at the altar.

In this marriage only one swore

his love. The other just received it. We'll read a passage from Ezekiel. It's so beautiful

where you see God as one who marries you and he's the one who's doing all the work.

The strange thing is guys discipline is actually an outworking of God's jealous love.

Discipline is an outworking of God's divine jealousy. If he wasn't jealous he would not discipline.

My dad disciplined me because it was important to him that I do well in life.

Hebrews 12 talks about it. Discipline is an outworking of divine jealousy

because he knows that your affections if they lure you away will come back to knife your soul.

In 2nd Corinthians 11, Paul puts it this way. I've pledged you as a virgin to one husband but I am

afraid that just like Eve was deceived by the serpent you are being deceived and your affections

are being drawn elsewhere. And what happened to Eve when her affections drew her elsewhere?

She was knifed in her soul and we still suffer the gash.

The reason discipline kicks in is because he's so jealously in love with me.

Oh my God Jacob if I don't step in now

because of my divine jealousy over you then the very affections that are seducing you away will

come and knife your soul and that will perhaps be more unbearable.

He is jealous for me. Love's like a hurricane that could just about begin to define the force of his love.

Somehow David got it. He would sit amongst his sheep and with his harp and sword and he would

harp and start playing and singing songs that talked about how much God cared.

Jealousy is also spelled

as zeal. Jealousy is also spelled as zeal. That's another word that well represents jealousy.

I'm excited about what God has for us guys. I like God becoming bigger than he presently is

because just when you think you can begin to wrap your arms around his wrist he turns up

bigger and then you realize ah shucks. Jealousy is spelled zeal and God is zealous about his

splendor and expects us to be too. Guys the word glory which comes from a Hebrew word called

kabbod basically means his weight, his magnificence, his splendor, his power, his

excellence. All this is taken together. I've put in a word called kabbod which is what we now say

called glory and so God is zealous about his glory as in this is an immutable unflogged character

and he does not allow it to be treated like sewage. He's zealous about it

and as a people we need to begin to understand that he expects us to be zealous about his splendor.

We see the jealousy of God. We see this jealousy in John chapter 2 verse 14 to 17

John 2:14–17

where Jesus enters the temple and he begins to flip tables over and then he begins to drive out

the money changers with a whip and the disciples who were watching were later reminded of a

scripture in psalm 69 which said the zeal of his house has consumed me.

This is something that the holy spirit should cause to break upon our lives

because you'll be surprised at how different life is when zeal falls on a people. Throughout the old

testament zeal caused people to do things that had them enter hebrews chapter 11. In the new

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

testament zeal exists because the holy spirit exists not outside but inside and just needs to

be stirred up and you'll be surprised if you work on it. You'll be surprised if you work on it.

When you go home that oh God stir up oh God stir up that zeal that is present in me by your spirit

you'll be surprised at the things that you will reach out for while being faithful over the things

that are in your hand. This is not a message trying to explain Zechariah 8 1 2. This is a message

trying to show us what God wants of us. I pray God that the zeal that you feel stirring in your heart

as I speak will not go dormant because of the cares that choke out what we hear for two hours on a Sunday.

Take guys like Phinehas numbers 25 6 to 9. What did he do? He saw a man called Zimri bring a woman

called Cosby into the camp. She was a Midianite and while people were worshiping God he brings

her in and scripture insinuates that he was caressing her and what does Phinehas do? He

takes a javelin and he thrusts it right through Zimri and Cosby and the plague that begins to hit

the camp stops and God says of Phinehas this man is possessed with the zeal of God. Zeal has consumed

him and this man will always have a part in the priesthood. What do you think happens to David?

He's brought cheese and honey and cranberry perhaps it was Thanksgiving to the front lines

and he sees this Philistine giant marching up and down and you know what David begins to say?

Why is it that there is nobody here who is beginning to step out