Do I do that? I am asking something from the Lord, some help, some provision, some blessing, some needed thing. I pray, ‘Oh Lord, save souls among us. Bless our children and bring them to thyself. Bless us in our labours and prosper us in gospel work. Help us in holiness. Relieve us of some of our problems and difficulties’, but what am I doing? I'm praying for things without remembering this is a covenant. I must make promises. It's not cause and effect, as if God is going to bless me in accordance with those promises, but obviously I must make promises. I must remind myself of my covenant duties. I must dedicate myself properly. I have been neglecting my own part in this, my own obligations to him. Do we ask too quickly, forgetting intelligence praise, and worship, and thought of him, the worship of God? Or do we ask for what we need and what we would like, without any sense of giving anything in return.
When did we last solemnly promise God that we wouldn't do certain things, and we would endeavour to do certain things. Do we understand that covenant obligations? As you look at churches at large today, and as you look at the tone and the mindset of evangelicalism generally, you don't see much notion of obligation. ‘I'm going to buy a new car.’ What kind of a car? ‘Oh,’ – nobody would actually speak like this, but – ‘the biggest and the most glamorous that I can lay my hands on.’ You don't see the tone in evangelicalism that you used to see forty, fifty years ago: ‘Well I’m going to make sure I buy one that doesn't stretch my stewardship, and doesn't set a bad example which the Lord would not be pleased with me having.’ People don't think like that so much today. ‘I'm going to rent or buy a new flat or house.’ What kind? ‘Oh, I want this; I want that; I want something else.’ There is not very much of, ‘Yes, but I'm not my own, and everything I have is the Lord's, and everything has to be done with a view to his service and my pleasing him.’ Or, ‘I'm going to get a new job or design a better career.’ Well, what do you have in mind? ‘Well, what I like is this; what I'm interested in is that.’ The language of evangelicalism is all the language of me, and what I want.
If I say, ‘I will dedicate myself to God’, that’s good, very good. But if I say, ‘I am in a covenant relationship with God through Christ. He has purchased my place in this covenant, and earned it for me, but it is a covenant, and I have obligations.’ You see that's an even higher form of dedication. I am his and I owe him and I should serve him and put him first. That adds a lot of meaning and bite to dedication. That's the value of covenant language: it makes me more serious; it makes me think; it imposes obligations, it makes me feel guilty when I break them. Covenant language is precious. God will not forsake us, no matter what happens. Covenant language enables me to trust his providence. He was faithful even to the disobedient Israelites, even in provocation, and severe provocation. How much more will he be faithful to his blood bought people in New Testament times!