The Messenger of the Covenant Will Come | Malachi
Brian Hedges | August 31, 2025
Let me invite you to turn in Scripture to the book of Malachi. It should be easy to find; it’s the last book in the Old Testament, page 801 if you’re using one of the church Bibles prepared there in the chairs in front of you. The book of Malachi.
Today we come to the end of our summer series on the minor prophets. We’ve been looking at this wonderful section of Scripture, the Book of the Twelve.
As we come to the book of Malachi, it’s important that we enter this book understanding the difference between contracts and covenants. We are pretty familiar with the language of contracts in our day. Contracts are generally legally binding but can be canceled when terms are not met. You might think, for example, of a job contract or of a cell phone plan. There’s usually a way to get out of the contract. But the covenant is something that’s much more personal than a contract, while also being legally binding and being very sacred. It’s a personal and enduring commitment between two parties.
You might think, for example, of a mom’s unwavering love and commitment to her child. She may not call that covenant love, but a good mother is going to love her child whether that child is sick or well, whether the child makes good grades or bad grades, is obedient or disobedient. Whatever the child goes through in life, mom is going to be there for her. That’s a covenant kind of love. It’s a deeply, deeply committed kind of love, and of course there’s a period in that child’s life where the mother is also legally responsible for the child. A mom never stops loving her child.
In Scripture, our relationship with God and God’s relationship with us is called a covenant. That concept is important for understanding the book of Malachi, which is a book that’s really built around this concept of the covenant.
This is the final message in the series on the minor prophets, and Malachi is probably the last of the minor prophets. He’s certainly one of those three post-exilic prophets, along with Haggai and Zechariah, who prophesied sometime in probably the fifth century B.C. So it’s after the return from exile. We think this is during the Persian period.
It’s the final book in our English Old Testament. Of course, the book of Chronicles is the final book in the Hebrew Old Testament. And in this book we are really listening to a series of conversations. So there’s something like a dialogue format in this book, where God speaks and the people speak, then God replies. There are seven of these; these are called disputations. We’re not going to look at all the disputations, but as we’re reading through this you’re going to notice that format as we go.
We’re really going to focus on this theme of covenant this morning. I think we can do that by looking at three things:
1. Covenant Love
2. Covenant Violations
3. Covenant Renewal
Pretty much all the application is going to be in that second point, as we look at the covenant violations that the people of God were guilty of, and how God confronts them with this and calls them to repentance and calls them to covenant renewal.
1. Covenant Love
Let’s begin, first of all, with covenant love. It kind of sets the stage for the book, and we’ll just read Malachi 1:1-3, the introduction to this book of Malachi. They’re interesting words, but also kind of troubling words, as we read this together. Malachi 1:1-3:
“A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.
“‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord.
“‘But you ask, “How have you loved us?”
“‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.’”
That’s kind of an interesting way to begin a book, isn’t it? You can see the disputation format there, the dialogue, this back and forth between God and God’s people; but it’s also a problematic verse because God here says, “I’ve loved Jacob but I have hated Esau.”
Now, for Israel, the people of God, the issue for them was that they did not feel loved by God. They are doubting God’s love, and that’s because they are living without the sense of God’s blessing in their post-exilic situation. The lack of that sense of God’s blessing will become clear as we look at the covenant violations in point two.
But for us, it’s just helpful for us to understand what the Scriptures teach about the love of God. I think the best way to understand this verse is to interpret it within covenantal terms. God was reaffirming his special covenantal love for his people, the people of Israel, so he says, “Jacob have I loved.” Jacob, of course, was Israel; he was the father of the nation, the grandson of Abraham but the father of the twelve sons who became the twelve tribes. And Esau was his brother, and God is saying, “I have loved Jacob but hated Esau,” and it’s shown in God’s faithfulness to Israel, bringing them back to Israel. In contrast to that, the destruction of the wicked nation of Edom, the Edomites being the descendants of Esau.
But it raises for us a question about the love of God and this statement in Scripture, that the Lord says, “Esau I have hated.” That’s a problem for us today. Does the Scripture teach that God hates people? Some of you may know that this verse is also quoted in the New Testament. It’s quoted in Romans 9 as the apostle Paul is wrestling with that difficult question of the doctrine of election, and he quotes this verse. How do we answer this verse? I think there are a couple of things we can say.
First of all, we could just interpret this verse as being a matter of contrast. There is a contrast between God’s covenant love for Israel and his disposition towards the Edomites. In Scripture you sometimes have the language of hatred used in that way. You remember that Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother he cannot really be my disciple.” Jesus, of course, did not mean that we are to literally hate our parents; he meant that, by comparison, we should love him so much that any other love pales in comparison and looks like hatred. It may be something of a contrast here.
That still leaves us with something of a problem, because it looks like God loves people with an unequal kind of love. But we should also acknowledge that the Scriptures do speak of God’s hatred of the wicked. Psalm 5:6 says, “You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” Psalm 11:5, “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”
As we’ve seen throughout this series, the Scriptures consistently portray God as a God of justice who hates injustice. He hates violence, he hates wickedness; and there is a sense, then, in which he hates the evildoer, the perpetrator of violence.
Yet we also know there are passages in Scripture that speak of God’s love for us even when we were sinners, God’s love for wicked people, God’s love for the world. Somehow we have to put those things together. Friends, this is one reason why we need systematic theology. Systematic theology is what helps us gather what the Bible says about all these different things and harmonize them together. So we have to do some work on this.
I want to suggest an answer that I found helpful many years ago. I probably read this book twenty-five or thirty years ago, a book by John MacArthur called The Love of God. Many of you will know that John MacArthur just a few weeks ago went home to be with the Lord at a very ripe old age, after many years of faithful ministry of the word.
John MacArthur, in this book, makes the case for God’s general love for humanity. He points to a number of different places. He says that God’s general love for humanity is seen in God’s common grace, the grace that he gives to all people. You remember that Jesus said that God “causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” God gives these good gifts to all alike.
His love is seen in his goodness. Romans 2:4 says, “The goodness of God leads us to repentance.” It’s seen in his compassion. Psalm 145:9: “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.” And of course it’s seen in the free offer of the gospel, where God freely offers to save all who believe. The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
We could say that in all of those passages and all of those ways the Bible communicates God’s general, universal love for the creatures he has made, his love for the human race. But MacArthur makes the case that the Scriptures also speak of God’s special saving love, his love for his people. It is a deeper love. It is a greater love. It’s a love with a greater and a deeper intensity.
Listen to this quote from MacArthur’s book. He says,
“While there is a genuine sense in which God’s love is universal in its extent, there is another sense in which it is limited in degree. The love of God for all humanity is not the sort of love that guarantees everyone’s salvation. It is not a love that nullifies his holy abhorrence of sin. It is not a saving love. There is an even greater love of God, however, that does accomplish the salvation of sinners. It is a special love bestowed from all eternity on those whom he has chosen as his own. God’s love for those who believe, his love for the elect, is infinitely greater in degree than his love for humanity in general. The universal aspect of God’s love is important to affirm, but it is even more crucial that we see that God has a special love for his own, his chosen people, and that he loves them with an eternal, unchanging love.”
What is that eternal, unchanging love? It’s covenant love. It’s the kind of love that God showed for the people of Israel in the Old Testament, it’s the kind of love that God has for the church and for all who believe, all who are united to Christ by faith today.
It’s this covenant love that is at the heart of the message of the minor prophets and at the heart of Malachi’s message. Friends, this morning, before we go any further, I want us to just consider how God has shown his love for us. Do this right now. Consider how God has shown his love for you in creation, in providence, in redemption. God has shown his love for you by creating you. You exist! You’re here this morning, and you exist, you have life, you have breath in your lungs, you have brainwaves that are firing, you have consciousness. Why? Because God loved you into existence. The fact that you are, that you exist, is an indication of God’s love, his creative love for you as his creature.
But God has also shown love in providence. Every blessing he has given, every good thing that we ever receive, every good gift comes down from the Father of lights, James tells us, and all of this goodness, this kindness of God that’s been lavished on you—think of family and friends, think of food and pleasure, think of health, think of prosperity, think of how God has even worked through the ins and outs of your life, the ups and downs, the trial—all of these things that God has done, that have carried you through to this point in life, are indications of God’s love and his care. He loves us through his providence.
But supremely we see the love of God in redemption, the gift of his Son to save us. If you are saved this morning—if you have been born again and you believe in Jesus Christ and you know that your sins have been forgiven, that his Spirit dwells in your heart, that you are a child of God and a member of the household of faith and a member of God’s eternal kingdom, and you have the hope of eternal life—you are infinitely loved by God. He’s loved you with a covenant love, and we should be thankful for that love and we should ask, how are we responding to his love?
2. Covenant Violations
We see covenant love in this book, and that covenant love stands in stark relief to the covenant violations of the people of God, which are confronted by the prophet Malachi. Those covenant violations are seen in the many details of the disputations in Malachi 1-3. There are seven of these disputations; I’m only going to focus on three of them in detail, and kind of a fourth in this introductory comment about it.
I want to read from Malachi 2, where you have a disputation with the priest of Israel. These would have been, of course, religious leaders. As I read, I want you to notice the covenantal language. This kind of sets the tone. There is the language of covenant, but there’s also the language of cursing and blessing. Anytime you read the language of cursing and blessing in Scripture, that’s covenantal language. God would bless those who kept the covenant, and then the covenant curses would fall on those who broke the covenant. You see this in Malachi 2:1-9. This is I think the longest passage that we’ll read together this morning (almost, at least).
“‘And now, you priests, this warning is for you. If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘I will send a curse on you [again, this is a covenant curse], and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.
“‘Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. [This is very strong language, typical for the prophets.] And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue [the concern here is for the covenant],’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.
“‘For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.’”
Those verses give us a wonderful portrait of what spiritual leadership should be, don’t they? Yet the priests had failed in this. Verse 8:
“‘But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.’”
You can see there covenant violations, covenant breaking. That’s really right at the heart of this book. He’s addressing not just the priests, but he’s really addressing the people of Israel, and I want to focus on three of the dimensions of this covenant violation or breaking. Those three things are in worship, in marriage, and in giving. As we read this, you’ll see that Malachi is perhaps the most practical of all the minor prophets, because he’s speaking to things that we deal with today.
(1) First of all, worship. Go back to Malachi 1:8-14. The situation here is God is confronting people because they are bringing defective offerings to the worship. They’re bringing their blind and their lame animals. They’re not bringing the best of the flock, they’re bringing the worst! They’re bringing the leftovers. They are dishonoring God by doing that. Malachi 1:8:
“‘When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?’ says the Lord Almighty.
“‘Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?’—says the Lord Almighty.
“‘Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,’ says the Lord Almighty.
Drop down to verse 13.
“‘When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?’ says the Lord. ‘Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and my name is to be feared among the nations.’”
You see the situation. The people of God are not giving their best, they’re giving their worst, and in doing so they are dishonoring God.
So there’s an easy illustration here. Men, think about giving your wife or your girlfriend a gift for her birthday or on Valentine’s Day, and it’s a defective gift. You give her an expired coupon, or you give her wilted flowers, or you give her an iPhone that’s three generations old, the one that you’ve tossed in a drawer. She’s going to feel insulted! You say, “Well, it’s the thought that counts.” No, it’s the thoughtlessness that insults her and shows that you haven’t really considered her worthy and valuable enough to invest something significant in the relationship.
What the prophet is saying is that the Lord feels the same way. When we bring our worst rather than our best to worship, it dishonors him. God deserves our best in worship—this is the application. God deserves our best in worship.
So ask yourself about how you prepare for worship. Of course, we can speak about worship in many different dimensions, including our personal worship, our private worship. But just think about this gathering, Sunday morning, when we gather together to worship. How do you prepare for it? Do you prepare at all? Do you prepare your heart on Saturday night, or are you staying up so late that you can barely wake up on Sunday morning? Do you show up distracted, scrolling on your phone, running late, giving God the leftovers of your attention, or do you show up fully present, with an undivided heart and mind, ready to offer something whole to God? Or is your offering of yourself and of your attention defective, lame, blind, diseased?
There’s a wonderful story in 2 Samuel 24 where David wants to buy a plot of ground, this threshing floor, in order to offer it to the Lord. The guy essentially just says, “I’ll just give it to you, David. I’ll just give it to you.” And David refuses. He will not accept it as a gift. He says, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” He wants to offer something that cost something to him, because he wants to show the value and the honor of God.
How many of us could say the same? “I will not offer to the Lord that which cost me nothing.” Our worship is part of our covenant faithfulness to God, and when we do not give God our best in worship it is a covenant violation.
(2) Second category: marriage. For marriage, look at Malachi 2:10-16. Again, notice the language of covenant in this passage.
“Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?
“Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by [this is how they’re being unfaithful] marrying women who worship a foreign god.”
This is one of the issues for Malachi’s generation. You have mixed marriages, and these are not racially mixed marriages; the Bible doesn’t condemn that all. It’s religiously mixed marriages. It’s a believer who’s married to an unbeliever, someone who’s worshiping a foreign god.
“As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty.
“Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.”
This is where we get the language in the Bible of a marriage covenant and marriage being a covenant.
“Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
“‘The man who hates and divorces his wife,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘does violence to the one he should protect,’ says the Lord Almighty.
“So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.”
Now, there’s a lot in that passage, and more than we can fully unpack, but I want to tease out the application here. It is that we should uphold the sanctity of marriage as the Bible upholds the sanctity of marriage. We might think about how we do that in many different spheres, many different dimensions of life.
If you’re a single person and you’re thinking of getting married or you would like to get married, there are some priorities that should be in your mind and in your heart as you think about marriage. Here’s the first one: don’t marry an unbeliever. If you are a Christian, and you’re a single Christian, and you want to be married, you should only marry someone who is also a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ.
Don’t live together before being married. The relationship in marriage is a sacred relationship, and it is to be honored and it is to be special, and we are to honor the Lord in that way.
Take the marriage covenant seriously. Don’t enter into it lightly. Marriage is meant to be for life; it’s not something to move in and out of.
These are all ways that just in the way we think and the way we approach marriage we uphold the sanctity of it.
If you are married, stay faithful to your spouse. Listen, even if you are married to an unbeliever, stay faithful to your spouse! First Corinthians 7 teaches this. Unless your unbelieving partner wants to leave, then you let them leave, but if you are married to an unbeliever as a Christian, you should stay faithful to your spouse. Honor your marriage vows, even—you might even say especially—when it’s hard, especially when it’s difficult.
Then, about divorce, this passage says the man who hates and divorces his wife does violence to the one he should protect. I think that’s a better translation than the older translations, which say, “I hate divorce, says the Lord,” New American Standard. That’s actually not the Hebrew; the Hebrew is using a third person, not a first person. So to put this in the words of God, “I hate divorce,” I think actually does violence to that text. What the passage is saying is that the man who hates and divorces his wife is guilty of a kind of injustice.
The Scriptures speak to the issue of divorce, and what the Scriptures tell us is that there are legitimate reasons for divorce when there’s been serious sin, a covenant violation such as adultery, such as criminal activity or abuse. I think a case can be made for all those categories. But what the Scriptures condemn is no-fault divorce. What Scriptures condemn is divorce because of incompatibility or because “I want to move on with my life,” or, “I don’t feel in love anymore.” The Scriptures would call that a covenant violation.
Friend, if you are divorced, God is, of course, full of compassion and grace, and if you have gone through the tragedy of a divorce, you should know that God’s heart beats toward you with compassion, and know that Redeemer Church is a safe place for you to heal. But let’s uphold the sanctity of marriage in the way we think about marriage, in the way we approach marriage, in the way we preserve marriage in our relationships.
(3) One more area of covenant violation: in the realm of giving. Now we’re in Malachi 3:6-12. It says,
“‘I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty. [That’s a theme that runs through the prophets. It’s an invitation to covenant renewal.]
“‘But you ask, “How are we to return?”
“‘Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“‘But you ask, “How are we robbing you?”
“‘In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the Lord Almighty.
Once again, it’s covenantal language, the language of blessing and cursing, and here the issue is that the people of God have robbed God by withholding their tithes and their offerings. Their tithes were the required portion, the firstfruit that would be given to God. It was an agricultural society, so it would have been the first portion of the crops given to God and stored in the storehouses of Israel in order to provide for the priests, the Levites, and also to provide for the poor. It was really part of the taxation system of Old Testament Israel.
The offerings would have been the freewill, voluntary offerings that were given above and beyond to the Lord. The problem is that they have robbed God by withholding what God had commanded them to give and by their greedy hearts; they were not generously giving to the Lord.
Now, the Scriptures in the New Testament do not command Christians to tithe. Read Paul’s letters. There’s nothing in Paul’s letters that says you have to tithe. He doesn’t use that language when applied to Christians. What the New Testament does do, however, is commend a kind of giving that has a distinctively gospel-oriented motivation, a gospel shape. So the application for us is to let our giving be shaped by the grace of the gospel.
The situation of the people of God in Malachi’s day can very much be the situation for us, where we also, because of greedy, covetous hearts, withhold and don’t give as the Lord teaches.
Here are some New Testament principles for giving.
We are to give regularly. In 1 Corinthians 16 Paul talks about taking the collection from the Lord’s people on the first day of the week. He wants them to regularly be setting aside money to give to the Lord.
We are to give generously, 2 Corinthians 9:6. “Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”
We are to give cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:7). “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
And our giving is to be motivated by the gospel. Maybe the most important verse on giving in all the Bible is 2 Corinthians 8:9, where Paul says, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thought he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” What Paul is doing there is he’s saying, “Look at what Christ has done! Look at how much he’s given you! Now shouldn’t you give as you follow his example?”
Again, this isn’t legalism; this is grace-motivated giving in generosity. So think about your own practices of giving. That may be giving to the church, it may be giving to support a missionary, it may be giving to help the poor. It may be just generosity towards people in need. Think about your own practices of giving and evaluate and see whether this applies.
3. Covenant Renewal
There have been these covenant violations; God is confronting his people through the prophet Malachi. But there’s also this thread of covenant renewal, as God invites the people to return to him and promises to return to them. One way you see this in particular is in this phrase “the messenger of the covenant” in Malachi 3. I want to read two passages now in these last few minutes from Malachi 3 and 4. They are two passages that figure into the New Testament. This is how the New Testament specifically uses the book of Malachi.
Malachi 3:1-4: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.” That verse is quoted in Mark 1, at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark. Mark conflates this verse with a verse from Isaiah 40 as he introduces John the Baptist, who is the messenger who arrives on the scene to prepare the way for the Lord.
“‘I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple [this is the Lord’s return]; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
This seems to be a different figure than the messenger who prepares the way, the messenger of the covenant.
“‘But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.’”
That’s a prophetic word about a messenger who’s going to prepare the way for the Lord, and then the Lord himself, this messenger of the covenant, who will come to his temple to cleanse and purify the people of God.
When you read the Gospel of Mark—this is a really interesting thing—the Gospel of Mark is structured around a journey, the journey of the Lord Jesus to Jerusalem, and the high point of this book is when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem at the temple and cleanses the temple, which sets off a chain of events that leads to the crucifixion of Jesus. It’s a fulfillment, I believe, of this passage, where Jesus is the Lord. He is Yahweh who comes to his temple and through his death on the cross purifies and cleanses his people, to make them acceptable to the Lord.
One other passage, Malachi 4:5-6.
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
End of the book, end of the minor prophets, end of our English Old Testament. And it’s significant because that passage also is looking forward to John the Baptist, who is this Elijah-like figure. That passage is quoted both in Matthew’s Gospel and in Luke’s Gospel.
I think we can say that covenant renewal, then, is something that happens through the Lord himself, who comes and cleanses and redeems. We could say that Jesus is the Lord who comes to the temple, he is the messenger who came to purify and cleanse his people, he is the one who fulfills the covenant by bearing the covenant curses so that we can receive the covenant blessings. And unlike us, Jesus did not offer that which cost him nothing. Instead, he offered everything. He gave his all to God the Father in a life of humble, obedient service and worship; and he gave everything to us as he went to the cross to give his life, to die for our sins. Jesus Christ is the faithful husband who loved his bride all the way to the end, he is the one who models for us covenant faithfulness, and it is through faith and repentance in him that our covenant with God is renewed.
Friends, as we come now to the Lord’s table, that’s what the Lord’s table is about. It is a covenant renewal meal, it is about remembering what Christ has done in his covenant faithfulness to us, and it is about coming to the Lord in humility, repentance, and faith, to renew our faithfulness to him as we express our gratitude and our love for what he’s done. Let’s pray together.
Gracious God, we thank you this morning for your special, covenant, saving love for your people — love that you have shown to us through your Son, Jesus Christ, through his obedient life, his sin-bearing death, and his resurrection from the dead.
And we, right now in this moment, affirm our faith in Christ — our trust in Christ for what he has done. We thank you, Lord, and we pray that you would search our hearts today for areas of covenant unfaithfulness. Lord, help us search our hearts in these areas we’ve talked about this morning: in our attitude about worship, in our marriage relationships, in our giving — or the lack thereof. Show us, Lord, where we have sinned, and help us to turn and repent. Help us to believe the promises of your Word — that there is great blessing to be found in the safety of a covenant relationship with you.
As we come now to the table, help us to come with grateful hearts, as we reflect on what it cost the Lord Jesus to save us, to redeem us. And Lord, may the gratitude of our hearts overflow into lives of obedience and worship, as we serve and follow him. So draw near to us, we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
