El Kana

Thankful to be in the presence of God this afternoon, what a privilege it is for us to come once again to worship the holy name of our God. So thankful for what God has done in all of your lives and continues to do in our lives, and we thank God for his faithfulness. Warm welcome to all the guests that are here with us this afternoon, we pray that God will bless you as you worship the Lord with us.

The story is told of two shopkeepers who are bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend each day keeping track of each other’s business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival. One night, an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, “I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. Would you be rich? You can be very rich, but he will be twice as wealthy. Do you wish to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. What is your desire?” The man frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, “Here’s my request: strike me blind in one eye.”

Jealousy and envy can be strong emotions that would make us even not want to have things for ourselves if it means that someone else doesn’t have it, isn’t it? Here’s the way the dictionary defines jealousy: it is a feeling or showing an envious resentment of someone or their achievements, possessions, or perceived advantages. But it is much more than just envy, is what jealousy is. Jealousy is basically envy where you don’t want something that belongs to you to be taken by the other person. Jealousy, in its origin, in its root, is an intense desire to keep for yourself what you have, not wanting somebody else to get it, and this can even happen even in the midst of a marriage as well.

The famous Irish novelist and playwright, Samuel Beckett, received great recognition for his work, but not everyone was savoring or happy about his accomplishments. You see, in Beckett’s marriage, in fact, was a really miserable existence because his wife was jealous of his accomplishments. I hope and pray that no one here is jealous of the accomplishments of his or her husband or wife. One day in 1969, his wife Suzanne answered the telephone, listened for a moment, spoke briefly, and hung up. She then turned to Beckett and with a stricken look whispered, “What a catastrophe.” Was it a devastating personal tragedy? No, she had just learned that Beckett had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. But so filled with jealousy, she did not find any happiness in the fact that her husband had won the Nobel Prize.

So, jealousy, as even with its definition, is not something that we want to have in our lives, and at its very root, it is a very negative thing. No one wants to be called jealous. So, we’re going through our series, “I Am,” on the names of God, and we find a very curious and strange description of our God in Exodus 34:8-14 that we will talk about. I already told you everything that is negative about jealousy, then why would God identify himself as a jealous God? What could be so good about calling our God a jealous God?

Exodus 34:8-14: Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. “Oh Lord, if I found favor in your eyes,” he said, “then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.” Then the Lord said, “I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people, I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you’re going, or it will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” It doesn’t make any sense on the surface, doesn’t it? Because as I told you, everything is so negative about the statement of God being a jealous God, or this word jealousy.

The context here, you all know in Exodus 34. Moses had been with the mountain of God himself, given the tablets of stone, but as he came down from the mountain, what he saw was a people who had given into idolatry. As because of the delay that Moses happened, they had persuaded Aaron to make a golden calf for them. They are worshiping this calf, and there’s a sound of great celebration, honor, and worship with the calf that is going on. Moses gets so enraged and angry that he throws the tablets of stone, and he breaks them apart. And God is about to be ready to destroy the entire people of God because of the idolatry towards him. But God shows mercy, he saves the remnant, even though there were thousands of people being killed on that day. God is still merciful towards his people.

In Exodus 34, God invites Moses to come and write, but now not with his own hands, with his Moses’ own hands, two stone tablets and the Commandments that God had given to them. And then in verse 6, God reminds Moses of his very nature. He tells them he passed in front of Moses, and he said, “The Lord, the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” When we’re reading Psalm 16, Brother Sujin talked about the fact that it is God who has brought us here this afternoon. And you know why you and I were able to come here this afternoon? It is because of this verse, because your God that you worship is a compassionate and gracious God who abounds in love and faithfulness. You did not come here on your own, you did not have life and breath in your lungs to be able to worship God today because you are holy unto the Lord. It is because God is a forgiving God, and even this week, we experienced his grace, his compassion, his faithfulness, and forgiveness in our lives because he forgives, continuously forgives, and gives us his grace and mercy. It is the reason why we are alive on the face of the Earth, and we are here this afternoon, even worshiping His holy name.

So God reminds Moses what kind of a God he is. Continuing on in the next verses, in verse 7, he says to them, “I am a God who maintains my love to thousands, and I forgive wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” But the same God, who is a God of grace, a God of great mercy and compassion, is also a God of judgment. So it reminds him that he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. What a grave and dangerous warning that we find here in God’s word. Yes, it is so wonderful to stand here week after week and talk about the fact that God is a gracious God, and he is, and he is the compassion of God, and he is a faithful God. But these principles haven’t changed from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant either. It is only because we are in Christ that our sins are constantly forgiven. But remember what God is saying, he does not leave the guilty unpunished, and the sins of the parents unfortunately are sometimes passed on to children, and even to the third and fourth generation. What a stark warning in God’s word.

And then he says to them, “But here’s what I will do. I will make a covenant with you, and in this Covenant, you know what I will do? I will provide for you, I will drive out the Nations that you come across from you, I will give you victory in every battle, I will go before you.” And as in the portion that we read today, he says that “I will do so many things in such amazement that everyone will wonder, ‘Oh, how great are the works of the Lord.’” And when you study your scriptures, exactly what you see, isn’t it? God did so many amazing things for his people. In exchange for that, in a covenant, there are two parties: God, who makes the Covenant, and the one who is making the Covenant with. He has now to do certain things. This is all that God asks of you to do: “just don’t go and worship other gods in my place.” Seems like a very simple request, doesn’t it? ‘I am going to be this God that is going to provide everything for you. I’m going to fight your battles, I’m going to make sure that you’re victorious in every area of your life. In fact, I’m going to do things for you in such amazement that everyone will be wondering what a great God and what a great work you are. And as you enjoy these blessings, as you eat off the Manna and the quail, and as you enjoy the shelter of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, constant reminders of God’s provision and protection upon you, as you defeat nation after nation, and God gives you victory, all that I ask is that you continue to serve me faithfully.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Do not bite the hand that is feeding you?” That’s kind of like what God is saying. “Don’t bite the hand that is feeding you. Don’t forget the one who is giving all these things to you.” And it seems like a simple request, but the question that you and I should be asking this afternoon, and I should be asking, “If God has given all of these things to us out of his grace and compassion, and his forgiving nature to us, do we have any other gods that we are serving this afternoon in our lives?” There may not be any literal idols sitting in your home, but in your heart, are there idols that you’re worshiping, that deserves the place where God needs to be worshiped?

And then he says to them, “Don’t do that. And not only that, when you go to this nation, don’t make a treaty with them because they will start serving their gods. Don’t give your children in marriage to them because you will start serving their gods.” And then God tells them the reason why in verse 14, “Do not worship any other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, for the Lord, whose name is El Kana, is a jealous God.” And we come to the name we’ll be focusing on today, that God is El Kana, a jealous God. What does it mean by El Kana? It literally means a jealous God. In fact, if we were to look at a kind of a literal translation of it, it is this: El Kana means to become intensely red in the face. To become intensely red in the face. Let me give you a word picture here. You’re a husband and a wife, maybe you are in the engaged phase. Let me put it that way because that’s when love is so fierce, right? Love is so strong. You’re not yet married, but you are in the engaged phase, and you’re walking along the street, and you’re a person engaged to your fiancé, turns and looks at somebody of the opposite sex in a way that you don’t really agree with. You don’t have to say any words. And if you are especially very expressive person like me, where you don’t have to ask me what is in my heart, just look at my face, you can see what is in my heart. I can’t hide it. It’s a blessing and a curse, you know? And if you’re a person like me, what will happen is that automatically, my face will become red. Sometimes, you know, when I say certain things in public, Liza will say, “Don’t make that face,” because you know why? Because whatever I’m saying to her, she only wants her to hear it. She doesn’t want the whole church to know that I’m not happy. And so that is exactly the picture here: face of God becoming intensely red because the people that are supposed to worship Him are now serving other gods, because he is a jealous God who wants his people only to worship Him.

I haven’t told you yet why this is a good trait of God, and we’ll come to that. You know what else means that our God is a consuming fire, God is a jealous God. He jealously longs for our love and affection, and when we turn our attention to somebody else and gives the place that belongs to him, his face becomes red, and he becomes a consuming fire to those who are rebelling against him in unfaithfulness. You know, Isaiah 42:8, the word of God tells us this, “I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not yield my glory to another, or my praise to idols.” I will not give, yield, my glory to another. And I have here a practical thing that you always remember in your heart. It is this: God will always make sure that his glory is not given to anything or anyone else. You can either join in the business of what God is doing or suffer the consequences of rebelling against the work of God. God will always make sure that God is lifted up in the midst of the church. If any Pastor, any believer, any Elder, any Deacon is standing in the way of the glory of God, guess who’s going to get hurt? The Elder, the Deacon, or the believer is going to get hurt. God is not going to get hurt. God does not yield his glory to another. He will make sure that what praise belongs to him always goes to him. That is why in God’s word, it’s telling us, especially those of us who are leaders, to humble ourselves, to yield ourselves to the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the moment I start exalting myself, the moment I start lifting myself up, guess what God will do? God will remove me from my position of authority because God will never yield his glory to another.

You know how you can ensure that you will continue to have the privilege of leading God’s people? Always have a heart of humility and worship towards God and always ask the question, “Oh God, is there anything in me that is taking away the glory that belongs to you?” As a worship leader, you have to make sure that when you get up here in front of the people, that people are worshiping God and not you. And you have to always ask the question, “Is my talent that is important here or the glory of God that is important here?” No, it is God. He will not yield his glory to others. That is the principle of God, and we need to understand that in our lives as well.

Why is God a jealous God? I already told you jealousy is a bad thing, so why would God call himself El Kana? See, there are many reasons why. The number one reason is this: God’s jealousy towards us is righteous and holy because he alone is worthy of our adoration and worship. See, the problem with human jealousy is that I am not worthy of worship. So, if I am upset over the fact that I’m not getting the proper attention, I don’t have a right to be jealous because I don’t deserve it to begin with. You see the difference here? God is different than us. Godly jealousy is a good thing because unlike human beings, God alone is worthy of praise and worship. A lot of times, people in the world think, “You know, your God is always wanting to be praised. Is he kind of, you know, a god who’s not so secure of himself? Does he always need to be told how great he is? Is he kind of a person with a lack of self-worth that he needs his people to come and constantly tell him how great he is?” No, your God is completely self-sufficient. In fact, he was self-sufficient even before he created anything. Within the Trinity, he was self-sufficient, self-satisfied, and completely content in the relationship with the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. God does not need me. God does not need you. But why does God ask us to worship him and him alone? Because in worshiping him, his way, we fully understand that full potential for which we were created to begin with. It is this great passion for God’s glory that makes God a jealous God. Because in running after anything else, we’ll be missing out on the greatest worship ever, the worship of God and God alone.

Secondly, God’s jealousy towards us is righteous and holy because he alone has exclusive right over our lives and our worship. You know what the Bible says constantly? “You are not your own. You are not your own. You are not your own.” Say that to your heart even this afternoon, “I don’t belong to myself. I belong to Him.” He can be jealous towards me because there is no one else that I belong to, and no one else has an exclusive right over my lives other than God. Your husband does not own you. Your wife does not own you. Your dad or your mom does not own you. No one in the world owns you. There is one person who has exclusive right over your life. It is God who created you, and more importantly, The God who purchased you with his own precious blood owns you, and that’s why he can say, “Worship me and worship me alone.”

Now you understand why God’s face is turning red because you are turning the relationship that you are supposed to exclusively have with him, and you’re inviting somebody else into that relationship. And God cannot stay back, and God does not find any kind of humor in it, and he sees this as the biggest idolatry, to be something that is so repulsive. Because see, God’s jealousy is not like human jealousy. His love is not like human love. His love is never controlling, it is never insecure, it is never selfish, it is not irrational. His love for us, his sinful people, is the passion brightening his face as he looks upon us through Jesus Christ crucified. It is his passion moving him to pour out his riches and treasures in Christ, even though we are sinners. See, God’s passion for us, love for us, comes because we belong to him, and we are exclusively his.

Thirdly, God’s jealousy towards us means – this is a good news – He has the right and obligation to punish those who are unfaithful to him. How does God become the righteous judge of the universe? Because he owns everything, and he has the right to punish those who are unfaithful to him. Because he is in control, he owns everything, he has every right to be jealous and a consuming fire. But you know why this is so important? Look at Deuteronomy 4:23-24. God said to them, “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 the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; he is a jealous God. Do not do that.” And the Bible will tell you it is a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the Living God because he is a consuming fire. We have to be careful in our lives, asking the question all the time, is my heart, is your heart, fully devoted to the only person that matters, the one that owns us, the one that has complete and exclusive right on us?

Finally, you know, you should be glad this afternoon that God is a jealous God. It is God’s jealousy that made him not to be content with the fall of Man. It is God’s jealousy that caused him to send his son into this world. God could have easily said, “Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, sin entered into Humanity, let them all perish. I am self-sufficient, I don’t need their worship, I can just live the way I’ve always lived.” But God did not leave us in our wretched state. It is God’s jealousy that made him come after us, just like a husband goes after the love of his wife, just like the wife goes after the love of the husband, just like a fiancé wants to take the heart back of the person who is wandering away from him. God came pursuing our heart, and you and I should be glad that he did that by sending his son into this world.

See, look at what God did. God’s jealousy, unlike human jealousy, is ultimately what’s the greatest benefit in our lives because he pursued us by giving us his son and he continues to pursue us even today by His Spirit. Oh, what a glorious God! This jealous God did not want to leave me in my sin and die in my sin and run after the idols of this world, so he came for me. He gave me his son, he showed me how much he loved me by dying on the cross for my sins, and his word continuously tells me that while I was a sinner, he died for me. And then he continuously pursues me. After Jesus had ascended, God did not leave us to come back to him on our own; he sent the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to come and live with the church. 

You know what the main business of the Holy Spirit today is? To bring the church back to Jesus, over and over and over again. That is the greatest ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, to bring the heart of the church back to its first love with the Lord Jesus Christ. Why does the Holy Spirit convict? Because the Holy Spirit’s conviction is basically telling you your heart has gone away from its love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why does the Holy Spirit judge you? Because it is telling you to turn back from your evil ways because you are making him jealous towards you. You need to come back towards him. He is a jealous God. You cannot serve both God and the idols of this world at the same time. 

And the Holy Spirit, why does he give us the fruits of the spirit of God? Because so that we can learn to love him even more. Oh, all the fruits of the spirit ultimately are for what purpose? So we can grow in our devotion and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we have been engaged. Why does the Holy Spirit give us the gifts of the Spirit? Have you ever thought about that? Why does the Holy Spirit give us the gifts of the Spirit? I’m asking Pentecostals this morning, do you know why the Holy Spirit gives us the gifts of the Spirit? There’s a lot of different purposes, but here’s my answer: The number one reason why the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of the Spirit is so that you can worship your God, the lover of your soul, to the best of your human abilities.

Why does God give us a spiritual language known as speaking in tongues? So that we can communicate in prayer language better with him, and our soul will be edified by that worship. Why does God give us the gift of prophecy? So that we can turn back from our Wicked Ways and back to a singular devotion of God. Why does God give us the gift of interpretation? So we can weed out the false teachers that will tear our hearts away from our singular devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s all about loving him the way he is supposed to be loved. It is all about worshiping him because he is El Kana, He is a jealous Go.  He will not yield his glory to another.

The Apostle Paul told us this so beautifully, didn’t he? In 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, he said, “I am jealous towards you with the jealousy of God himself.” He’s using the same language of the Old Testament, the jealousy of God himself. “I’m jealous towards you, you know why? Because I promised you as a bride to one husband.” That’s what we are, we are the bride of Christ, and all of you, including me, have been promised to one husband. Remember that, we are in the engagement phase, we are supposed to walk with our fiancé, we are supposed to love only our fiancé, we are only supposed to think about our fiancé, we are supposed to make sure that our fiancé is the most important person in our life. But then he says, “One husband, Christ, but I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent.” This is the fear in the heart of the Apostle, this is the fear in the heart of every godly man, this is the fear in the heart of every pastor, this is the fear in the heart of every Sunday school teacher, this is the fear in the heart of every godly man and woman, that somehow, somehow our pure and undivided attention to Christ will be taken away by the cunning ways of the serpent. Be careful, your God is a jealous God. He wants your worship and my worship, he wants your undivided attention and love, and he does not want you to give your heart away easily to the idols of this world. 

Why does God insist on us serving him and him alone? In his book, “Is God a Moral Monster?” Paul Copan asked the question: How can jealousy be a good thing? Here’s part of his answer. He says, “in God’s case, when we run away from him, we are like people who are rummaging through the garbage piles of life and avoiding the source of satisfaction.” He’s saying God is like preparing a buffet for you, but you know what we are as human beings? We are outside in the street, looking through garbage cans to find crumbs of bread. That’s where we are when we run away from God. He said, “it reminds me of a comic strip I once saw of a dog who had been drinking out of a toilet bowl.” There’s plenty of water everywhere, but the dog is drinking out of the toilet bowl, and then you know what he says? “It doesn’t get any better than this.” When you run out of the things of this world, he says, you are like a dog that is drinking out of the toilet bowl. It’s not that there’s no other water, but you think that is the best water, whereas God is saying, no, that is not the best water, that is dirty water. You are not supposed to drink from the toilet bowl.

I’ll end with this. If you’ve been to London, you know how famous Westminster Abbey is. In the shadow of Westminster Abbey is a little church, Saint Margaret’s. Pastor of that church was a man named Edward Pierce; he died in 1673. He has written about this topic of God being a jealous God and how his love for us is so burning with passion, and he wants us to have the same love for him. He says, in the marriage relation between Christ and his people, there is a giving of themselves to each other. Right, in every marriage, there’s a giving of each other that is supposed to happen. Christ gives himself to our soul. “I’ll be yours,” he says to the soul, “to love you, to save you, to make you happy in me and with me. I, with all my riches and treasures, will be fully and forever yours.” That’s what Jesus is saying to us. On the other hand, the only thing that you ask of the soul is, give yourself to Christ. “I will be thine,” says the soul to Christ, “I will be for thee, and not for another.”

I hope we can make that covenant with God even this afternoon. God, you have saved my soul, you have given me joy unspeakable, you’ve given me peace in my life, you have given me everything that I need for life, for godliness, for spiritual blessings, for physical blessings. You’ve given me breath in my lungs, eyes to see, ears to perceive, to hear, all the things that could go on and on. But all the things you’ve given to me in Christ, the riches that you’ve given to me are unsearchable. The Bible says, all that you ask in return is my undivided devotion to you.

I pray that we’ll will be a church who understands that our God is a jealous God, that he will not yield his glory to another, but his jealousy is a good thing. It is that jealousy that continues to come after you, even when you run away. It is that jealousy that comes and says, “Come back to the father’s house,” because he wants to continue that relationship with you. In the book, in the Old Testament, Hosea, he continuously, continuously was asked to take his wife back because that’s the way God is. A God of unconditional love, a jealous God who keeps coming for my broken heart and your broken heart. As if he needs us? No, because he wants us to be well. He does not want us to be drinking from the toilet bowl. He wants us to be drinking Ozarka, filtered, distilled, precious pH balanced water. He loves you, he does not want you to be miserable running after the gods of this world. May God, by his spirit that he has sent into this world, enable you to live for him and him alone.

Heavenly Father, we thank you this afternoon. Oh, that you are El Kana, a jealous God who alone is worthy of our worship, who alone deserves our worship because we belong to you. Who, in his great love and jealousy for us, sent his Son to die on the cross for us and still pursues us by the giving of the Holy Spirit. Oh God, our heart is prone to wander, our heart is so easily distracted. Give us undivided heart devotion to you and you alone. Change us, oh God, cleanse us, wash us, transform us. Thank you, Lord, for hearing our prayers. We pray for the rest of this service as we now enter into your table, may your presence continue to abide with us. It’s in the name of the Lord Jesus that we pray.