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“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless.” (Genesis 17:1)
There are times when we get ahead of God in our thoughts and then our actions. Before this chapter in Genesis, the Lord God had promised Abram he would be the father of multiple nations. Abram was a man of great faith in what God told him and believed and lived in the Word of God. In the Old Testament time, Abram’s belief and faith in God’s word were enough to be accounted as righteous. Still. Abram, as we all are, was human and subject to human frailties. Abram was an elderly man, and his wife was not much younger than he. Abram’s wife Sarai felt that she could not bear a child at her age and told Abram to take her maidservant Hagar and have the child with her. Abram did, and Hagar gave birth to a son named Ishmael. Today’s history of Ishmael has caused much strife and war.
The Lord God is longsuffering with His children, and this verse we are looking at demonstrates His loving kindness. Instead of punishing Abram and Sarai, God gave Abram instructions how to walk before God as a child of His. It was an excellent counsel for Abram, and it is an excellent counsel for us today and forever. The Lord God Almighty is a Sovereign God whose foundational trait is love. God loves His creation more than the hate of their sin and suffers much in patience; until we return to Him in repentance. We all know that we violate God’s Word, and we know Paul’s words are true. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
The Lord told Abram to “walk before Him blameless.” I wonder how a sin-fractured person walks blamelessly before God? Our Lord is always faithful to forgive us, but a short time passes before we stumble into sin again. Yet, God is not wanting any to perish and is faithful to forgive the repentant heart. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
What is blameless, and how do we walk that way before God? Blamelessness carries two ideas in the Bible. In the Old Testament’s sacrificial system by God’s Law, the people had to sacrifice animals to pay the penalty of sin in their place. The animal could not be one they would have discarded anyway, but an animal without defect or blemish. The animal would have been one of value, as it was the show animal of the pack. The animal has to be the best they had to sacrifice rather than dispose of.
The law was this in Scripture. “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD.” (Leviticus 1:3) The tent of meeting was the Tabernacle, where God’s presence was present in the Holy of holies. The priest was sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice on the altar of God, not the actual sinner’s blood. It was a physical death for a physical sinner who had faith the animal’s blood would be received as his own.
This sacrifice may have taken care of the physical sins committed, but sin originates from the person’s heart. The other idea of sacrifice is the moral side of the issue of sin. Physical and moral has to be addressed as Jesus told us God judges the heart. “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:10)
To be blameless before the Lord, one must also be blameless before the people. People who have charges against their behavior do not live a principled life, would not be seen as blameless. The heart is deceitful even to ourselves, and we must then fill the idle moments with the truth of God’s Word. If the heart is filled with His truth, there is little opportunity for evil to sneak in. If we can discipline our minds with truth, we can live our morals with integrity. “He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart.” (Psalm 15:2) James’s book speaks a lot about controlling the tongue and keeping pure thoughts impacts greatly the words we speak. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)
In the New Testament teaching, we see the idea of sacrifice has pointed to a sacrificial lamb. Jesus is identified as the Lamb of God by John the Baptist. “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) Jesus the Christ was described as the Lamb without blemish or defect. If the animal sacrifices were of unblemished animals, then Jesus was the only man who was unblemished. “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:17-19)
He took the physical sacrifice to the spiritual sacrifice as He offered His unblemished Spirit on God’s altar. This Spiritual sacrifice on our behalf provides an example of how we should live spiritually. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit allows the faithful to live a life led by the Spirit of God. By the lead of the Spirit, we can live in the pureness of His influence. Jesus is our High Priest who sits at the right hand of God, before the Father praying in intercession for His own. Jesus cleanses our hearts and empowers a life of service to God. “For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:13-14)
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is God’s pledge that we are His children and heirs to the riches of His glory. “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14) The transformation of the mind enables the Christian follower to be blameless in spirit, mind, and body in the moral character of their Lord Jesus. “He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:17)
Can sinful people be blameless? No, we are not blameless only by our efforts to live a righteous life. When God looks at the followers of Jesus, He sees them through the righteousness of His Son, Jesus. Our sins are imputed by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” (Colossians 1:21-22) God protects His children and ensures their status as His children and remains until the final judgment. Jesus stands as our advocate and testifies the Christians are His. It is by His righteousness we are saved. “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.” (Jude 1:24)
The Christian must live by faith in His commands with diligence. Our blamelessness is for the public display of outward expression from inward moral character. It is not hypocritical to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with God, our Savior. It is a moral discipline we must adhere to. “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless” (2 Peter 3:14). We can become blameless in a darkened world rift with wickedness by our ability to discern and avoid any critical spirit. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.” (Philippians 2:14-16)
Do not lean on your own understanding but lean on the counsel of the Spirit that lives within you. Seek His guidance in all your ways that the evil one will not cause you to stumble. We all have the power within us to overcome the ways of the world. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
We live in the protection of the Almighty God, and it is His love that protects us. His love secures our hope that we will leave this world and find salvation in His Kingdom. His love within us is that we want to share with our family, friends, and enemies. Our hope and prayer of love will see the truth in us and seek Him while He can be found. It is our love for each other that all know we are His. “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” (Colossians 3:14)
Thomas N Kirkpatrick
First Baptist Church of Durant, November 11, 2020
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