Walking by Faith and Blameless
Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.
2 "And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly."
3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying:
4 "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.
5 "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.
6 "I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
7 "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.
8 "Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."
9 And God said to Abraham: "As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
10 "This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;
11 "and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.
Abraham is the forefather of faith in Christ. Abraham wasn’t justified by works, but by trusting God. The works followed, but he was justified before he carried out any acts of religious works.
God revealed Himself
Abraham’s journey of faith began by God revealing Himself to Abraham. Abraham did not seek out God, but God sought and called Abraham. That has never changed. No one decides to find God. We may think we are the one searching, but in reality God is working in our lives to draw us to Himself. God deals with people in different ways. Some people hit rock bottom and then are driven to look for God. Some people are drawn to intellectually search for answers through knowledge or religion and eventually find God. Some people see God in the lives of others and some have chance encounters and someone shares the gospel with them. There are countless ways people find Christ, but all of these have one thing in common, God’s unseen hand drawing others to Himself. Jesus taught this principle in the following passages:
John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Matthew 11:
27 "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
28 "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
The Bible expressly tells us that no one can come to the knowledge of Christ and find salvation unless the Father draws him. We are all drawn by the unseen hand of God. Through circumstances, problems or just the emptiness inside that God stirs to make us search for something more. Scripture makes it clear that the Father draws us to the Son and no one can come to the Father except through the Son, Jesus Christ. Or as Acts 4:12 puts it, Jesus Christ is the only “name under heaven given to us by which we must be saved”. You cannot find God unless He draws you and you cannot have salvation without Christ. We are drawn to Christ for our salvation. This hasn’t changed since the beginning. Abraham’s faith was in God through the promise that would one day be fulfilled in Christ.
Abraham’s relationship with God began with God revealing Himself.
Walk Before Me
The relationship was established first. God’s call is never to just believe that He exists. God calls for active faith. God called for Abraham to walk before God and be blameless. We are counted as blameless through our abiding relationship. We become pure by inheriting God’s purity, His holiness and His righteousness. Our goodness is a foreign goodness that is credited to us as though it is our own, but without our own merits. The Bible makes it clear that I cannot offer anything that is acceptable to God by my own works. God will only accept what He has produced in my life and I offer back to Him. God only produces the fruits of righteousness in the lives of those who abide in Him. To abide is to have a continuous walk and unbroken relationship with Him.
1 John 2 tells us that if we remain in the doctrine that brings us salvation, we will also abide in the Son and in the Father. We can only have confidence toward His return if we are abiding in Him. The Bible tells us that because we know He is righteous, we can know who belongs to Him because everyone born in Christ will also practice righteousness. We are also warned not to receive anyone who teaches deceptive doctrine and does not adhere to godly doctrine. Within the last few years we are seeing false teachings enter the church. People are now teaching that we can have salvation without a relationship with God or that we can have a superficial relationship with God on our own terms. The Bible does not teach this and churches are in conflict with God by allowing false teachers to lure people into believing that you can love the world and sin and still love God. The Bible clearly warns that to have friendship with the world is to be an enemy of God (James 4:4). Believing in Christ is more than a superficial belief that does not affect your lifestyle. If a person is unwilling to leave the world, they do not truly believe in Christ. You can’t believe in Christ without believing in what Christ taught. We either love God as He is, or we reject Him completely. You can’t have God and not the Word of God. Psalm 138:2 says that God has exalted His word above His name. To reject any of God’s word is a rejection of God – even if that is not our intention. 1 John 2 adds clarification to this point:
3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
Or as God said to Abraham, “Walk before Me and be blameless”. God is the only One who can purify our lives and make us blameless before Him. His righteousness in our lives is the natural result of an abiding relationship with Him.
The Covenant is Established
God established His covenant with Abraham. The covenant is the promise of God’s grace. It is not something Abraham has done or must do, but what God has done. As we studied in Genesis 15, the covenant was not dependent on Abraham at all. The terms of the covenant was between God and Himself not God and Abraham. If the covenant was dependent on Abraham or his descendants, the first time they failed God, the covenant would have been broken and the consequences agreed upon would have come upon them. The covenant was dependent upon God alone. Abraham and the nation of Israel that descended from him could only choose to walk in the covenant or away from the covenant. It is faith – trusting God – that determines whether or not we will walk in God’s covenant. The covenant is a blood oath that cannot be broken. The old covenant was sealed with a sacrifice and offerings, the new covenant was sealed with God’s own blood poured out on the cross. God cannot break His sworn covenant. To do so would be to violate His own word. So the covenant stands whether we choose to walk in it or reject it. We either believe or we don’t believe God.
Abraham Believed
Romans 4:
3 For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."
…
10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.
11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also,
…
13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Abraham believed God and was justified before God established the covenant. People struggle with salvation without works. It is natural for people to feel like they must merit God’s grace, but as Romans 11:3 states, “For if it (salvation) is by grace, then it is no longer works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. For if it is by works, then it is no longer grace”. In other words, if we put works before grace we are nullifying grace and cannot be forgiven. We are putting the cart before the horse. Before grace and before salvation ALL works are of our own flesh and God repeatedly states that He rejects our works of the flesh. God only honors what He produces. God must first draw us to the Cross of Jesus Christ, we put our faith in God’s provision for our sins, we lay down our lives and receive the new life God has created for us in Christ. We lay down our trust in our own flesh and put our trust in Christ. Then we are welcomed into the covenant that God has established.
It was no different with Abraham. Abraham had faith and put his trust in God and he was justified by God. He was credited with God’s own righteousness. After surrendering his own life and being justified, then God gave Abraham the terms of walking in the covenant. Abraham did not do the works of the covenant before salvation, but after. If Abraham had known the requirements of the law and tried to do them before God justified Abraham, it would have been by his own merits and he could not have entered into God’s covenant. We must first be justified and then we can obey God’s law out of faith. Our faith is in God, not in keeping the law. The law and righteous acts can’t save anyone. Even during the time when Israel had to follow the law of Moses, the law did not justify them. Faith justified them and they kept the law out of faith that produced obedience. They trusted in the sacrifice that symbolically pointed to Christ, but we trust in the revealed Christ. The Bible tells us that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, but that the sacrifice was an annual reminder of sin. Those who walked by faith looked ahead to God’s redemption and we look back at God’s redemption on the Cross.
Works followed.
The evidence of Abraham’s faith is that he obeyed God. Could Abraham claim that he believed God and then refuse to obey? Look at James 2:
18 But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe -- and tremble!
20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called the friend of God.
24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
James was confronting the same problem that we see today. People were claiming that they had saving faith but, as James pointed out, their faith was no different than the faith even demons have. They know for a fact who Jesus was. They believe He died for sins. They know He was raised from the grave. But that doesn’t send them to heaven. Faith is more than just believing that there is a God, but putting our trust in God and submitting to His word. Abraham was declared righteous before God in Genesis chapter 15, but the sacrifice of Isaac wasn’t required until Genesis 22 – many years later. Therefore we know it wasn’t the works that justified Abraham, but the works proved Abraham’s faith. Most Christians today claim to have faith and will walk by faith until it requires any kind of a sacrifice. When it comes to suffering, they will disobey God. This proves that they do not have a real faith. They can’t trust in the promises of God. They can’t trust in the provisions of God nor can they see the value in suffering. They are walking by sight and when they can’t see the immediate benefit or they can’t see how God will be able to work it out, they turn from Him.
James stated that a true faith will see opportunities to be touched and to touch those in need and will not ask God to send help, but will obey the command that God has already given and will become the hand that helps. Even if it cost us something, we will reach out if we have true faith. Today, we think nothing of telling a white lie to avoid discomfort or to gain benefit. We can’t resist immoral temptations because we trust in our flesh more than we believe God can satisfy us. We sacrifice our eternal inheritance for this temporary world because we really don’t believe. If we truly believed God and had faith, we would live like heaven was real and this world was passing away. We indulge in the lusts of this life because we don’t believe the promise and the curse that “God is not mocked, whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap”. We can’t resist temptation because we don’t have faith in God. We are not willing to suffer and be counted with Christ because we don’t have faith in God. We can’t put off our inheritance because we don’t believe God. So we gladly sacrifice eternity so we can have gratification now. Look at Acts 3:
25 "You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ’And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
26 "To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."
Our first blessing in Christ is that He has empowered us to turn away from our sins. He has not given us a license to sin, but a receipt that our debt has been paid and the freedom to walk away guiltless. I have been set free from the entanglement of this life and I can run the race toward heaven. Before Christ, I did not have the freedom to abide in God’s presence, but in Him I am a child of God and an heir to heaven. The works I do are the evidence of the object of my faith. If my works are sin and a life focused on this life, then my faith is in the world and the promises of the god of this age – which is satan. If my works are acts of righteousness, it reveals that my faith and trust is in Christ. The works produced through my life reveal which god I am following. The god of this age uses my sinful desires to produce sinful works. If I serve the Lord God, He will produce works of righteousness through my life.
James tells us that our works justify us because this reveals the direction we are going. I am either following God in obedience, or following the devil in obedience. Or as Matthew 6:24 puts it, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Whether it is intentional or we are deceived, if our lifestyle serves the treasures and pleasures of this world, we are enemies of God. Or if we are serving God with our lives, we will be enemies of the world.
****
If you would like to download this message in Word format, go to:
http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/gen/walking_blameless.htm
****
