Deut 18:13, You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. 
    	We are in the midst of the instructions of Moses to the second generation of the Children of Israel as they were in preparation to enter into the Promised Land. Moses was detailing how they should act and treat one another as they entered in to inhabit the Land of the Lord’s guarantee and pledge to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their fore fathers. They were to go into the land and to live there, not like the nations which the Lord was dispossessing, but as the people of God. They were to deal with one another in the manner worthy of the name of the Lord which they bore upon themselves as His Chosen Nation. As well, they were to honor the Lord by not participating in the detestable way of the former inhabitants of the land.
	In the midst of this morning’s reading, Moses made the declaration from the Lord to His people that is our passage of consideration. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. When we read this, we might be struck with the idea that this was something that was not possible from mankind mired in the filth and shame of his fallen nature. This was the result of the curse which has infested the manifest essence of humanity since the Fall from grace in the Garden of Eden.  
	We might think that the Lord God Almighty was expecting too much from His people to demand that they remain blameless before Him in the land. But, less we begin to make excuses for their eventual dissipation in the manner of all mankind, let us consider several descriptions from both the Old and the New Testament which would preclude our lack of faith that any could be blameless before the Lord. We are not looking at humanity’s idealism, set in the imagined perfection that might somehow earn a place of honor in the courts of the Lord. We are dealing with the heart of those who set God, and a living relationship with God, above all other considerations. 
Other than Jesus Christ, there has been no perfect man. But there have been those standouts of humanity who showed that the consideration for the relationship that puts God at the forefront of each heart is established by God. It is to be the expected manner of operation on this earth, albeit seemingly rare and not without trials and tribulations within the lives of those for whom God means everything.	
We will begin with the record of Gen 6:9 and a most notable example among all the humanity of his day, Noah. Gen 6:9, These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. 
As scripture tells us, Noah was a righteous man and blameless in his time. He walked with God. Can you imagine all that Noah had to endure when God told him to build the ark? There were the endless taunts of his neighbors, not to mention the fact that he knew that they were all going to die in the flood. He must have had many discussions with God concerning the possibilities of some other means of dealing with the evil heart of mankind. However much he might have been distressed and maligned and abused by those fellow men, he walked with God. He held true to God. He made the Lord and obedience to the Lord the utmost focus of his life. This was even to the point of setting aside any other use of his time to build the ark in preparation for the imminent flood that was coming because God told him it was. 
Next we have the Lord’s relationship with Abram, soon to be named Abraham because of His friendship with God. This is reinforced for us in Gen 17:1 when God gave him the same declaration as Moses gave to the people in our morning’s reading. 
Gen 17:1, 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. There are several aspects to this relationship which serve us well in our consideration of the friendship between God and Abraham. He also was not perfect. He had his issues with belief, including the idea that he would be a father of a child with Sarah, his wife. We know that he tried on his own to make this come about resulting in his son, Ishmael, by Hagar. This was not at all the manner of a perfect man. 
However, there was a faith that resided in the heart of Abraham, in his ongoing relationship with God that could not be quenched. He talked with God and he believed God and he trusted in God to make every provision. This was even to the point of giving God his complete obedience in terms of his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, his most beloved son, if that was what God required. He was not perfect, but God considered Abraham to be blameless before Him with all that was in his heart unto the Lord God Jehovah.
This is what was required of the Children of Israel in their habitation of the Promised Land. They were to show the Lord that same faith in action which was put before them in the examples of Noah, and of Abraham, and as they had seen in Moses. They were to enjoy the land as it was their inheritance from the Lord, Himself. In so doing, they were to honor one another as unto Him.
After Moses, Joshua so encouraged them as is recorded in Josh 24:13+14. He instructed the people from the mouth of the Lord as to all that God had done for them. It is the description of the fact that they inhabited the cities and the vineyards and the groves which they had not built or planted. Everything had been prepared for them by the Lord. In full accordance with that reality, they were to so honor Him with their hearts and their worship.
Josh 24:13+14, 'And I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.' "Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 
       	They were not to get caught up in the false gods of Egypt and neither were they to be involved in the worship of the idols of the previous inhabitants of the land of Canaan as had been the warning from Moses. They were to be blameless before the Lord in the manner of their holding true to Him through all the generations which followed. They were to teach their children of the goodness of the Lord and recount to them all the ways in which the Lord had caused His great love and His grace and His mercy to abound to them. They were not to follow or incorporate the rites and rituals and idols of the nations which surrounded them. Those actions were utterly despicable and vile before the purity and holiness of the Lord God Jehovah.
	The nation was to be blameless before the Lord in the every aspect of their consideration and worship of Him. While they may not be the people of perfection, they were to deal with the Lord fully in line with His requirements and stipulations. Their sacrifices were to be those that would bring Him glory and would be completely acceptable in His presence. 
As we read last time, this meant no lame or deformed or useless animals were to be offered. The hearts with which they were to bring their offerings and sacrifices to the Lord were to be such those which indicated that they wanted to bless the Lord and to receive His blessing upon themselves. 
The manner in which they assembled in His presence was to be such that all would understand that the Lord was the most important reality of their lives. It would declare that everything they had and were was all because of His so great love and His manifested work which resulted in a people whose heart was fully set upon pleasing God. This is the aspect of blamelessness that was before the nation in the habitation of the Promised Land.
	This was reemphasized by King Solomon, in 1 Kings 8:59-61, at the dedication of the temple. This was many years after the Israelites entered in and conquered the Promised Land. There was the need for continual reinforcement of the fact that all that the people had was because God was going before them. Even as they had turned their backs on the Lord as their king, they still were under the obligation of seeing the truth that He was the One Who was providing their every need. Set within the human glory of the temple that Solomon built, there was the detail that the Lord had made it possible. He provided the skills and materials from which it and the nation were brought into existence.
	1 Kings 8:59-61, And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day." 
	As the nation proceeded forth, they were to hold true to the Lord and be utterly devoted unto Him in the manner of their walk as the Chosen Nation of God. They were to look to the Lord to supply the daily needs of the people now as He had supplied the needs of their fathers in the wilderness wandering. It was no longer with Manna and water from the rocks, but it was still truly the provision of the Lord in the harvest and the growth of the flocks and herds and the various other means of all that was needed as each day unfolded.
	Our hearts turn to another man who is put forth by God as blameless and that is Job. We read this in Job 1:1. Job 1:1, There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. 
	While he was blameless in terms of his personal relationship with God, there was much that it cost him, if we will recall. He lost his family, his herds and flocks, his health, everything which had set him apart in terms of this world’s consideration. There was even the point at which his wife questioned him concerning his trust in the Lord. She posited the idea that he should just curse God and die because of all that he was suffering. 
Nonetheless, Job held true to the Lord and the Lord manifested His grace and His mercy in the bountiful restoration of all that was lost and even more. It was not a pleasant experience, but Job held himself blameless in the eyes of the Lord and the relationship that they shared together.
	Now let us consider the One Who is blameless and perfect, the only man who was and is truly thus, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God. In our commitment to God, we need to give ourselves to the guidance and the direction of the Holy Spirit, in obedience to His Word. This will bring us closer and closer to the perfection that is the life of Christ. 
Accordingly, He commanded something of His disciples and of us in Matt 5:44-48, that we need to take to heart. He left no leeway for our excuses. As the Lord God instructed His people in this morning’s passage, so did Christ give even greater detail in the course of our being blameless before God Almighty.
	Matt 5:44-48, "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? "And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 
	Notice how we are to treat others, even, and most especially those who mistreat us, abuse us, persecute us, those who would be considered our enemies and otherwise unlovable by us. Just as the Father so chose to love each one of us, even when we were at enmity with Him, so are we to pray for and to seek for the Lord to bless, through us, those with whom we have the most issues. We are to be perfect in our dealings with one another because that shows that the love of God is truly in our hearts. It is being expressed in the manner in which the glory will all be the Lord’s. We will be seen as the Children of God, not because of what we say, but because of how we deal with those who are especially vile and despicable in the every sense of this age’s consideration.
	The Apostle Paul, in Phil 3:8-16, brought this truth to the forefront. It is his explanation of exactly how fully and perfectly we are so loved by God and should thus show forth that love unto others. 
Phil 3:8-16, More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. 
	When we face the trials and the tribulations and the loss of all those things which this age so highly prizes, we need to remind ourselves of how much Jesus suffered in our stead. Christ was tortured egregiously, even to death on the cross for you and for me. He, Who was sinless, became our very sin in order to cover us with His own redemptive blood. The work of Christ brings to the forefront of all His Chosen people the reality that there is a blamelessness that is ours. It is His perfection and His righteousness and His holiness that is given to us in our living relationship with Jesus.
	Whenever we become discouraged and think that it is all just too much to bear, we need to read and re-read that which is given to us as encouragement in Heb 12:6-11. We have traced it throughout all those whom the Lord has called blameless in both the Old and the New Testament. It is the whole reason that we can stand blameless before God, The Father, because He has adopted us as His Beloved Children in Jesus Christ.
	Heb 12:6-11, For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So be it!
	You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Heb 3:5+6. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Amen.