Imprinted by Christ

Imprinted by Christ

March 23, 2025 T Lent 3

INI

Why do you do what you do? And desire what you desire? Are you living as the person Christ made you to be, or do you find yourself pulled between two worlds – professing faith with your lips while your heart and life tell a different story?

Today, our Lord warns us: those who persist in disobedience will not inherit the kingdom of God. Not everyone has a rightful place at His banquet table. To enter His kingdom, you must be a new creation – reforming not just what you do, but who you ARE.

Yet, this warning comes with the exhortation – “Be imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk as children of light.” This isn’t a call to self improvement. It’s a call to living the regenerated life you’ve received in baptism.

If you weren’t here on Wednesday, I would encourage you to go to the church’s website and read the Lenten series sermon on Pontius Pilate. But to summarize – Pilate is a compromised man. He found Jesus innocent of any crime deserving death, yet he still condemned Jesus to crucifixion. Why? Because he falls to the sin of pragmatism. He doesn’t do what is morally right, he did that which would benefit him most. He wanted to keep peace in the region and hopefully get promoted. Though, he sold his soul, violating his own conscience, for selfish gain and expediency.

Isn’t that the fight between our own flesh and spirit? We know what’s right and what’s wrong, yet, we compromise the truth because we’ll gain an upper hand. We know what’s true, but we suppress it when its beneficial for us – like getting a promotion, or getting a big pay day, or allowing us to keep our friends. Ultimately, living biblical truth means that we aren’t compromised morally to our core, because we’re more concerned with heavenly things than we are about earthly things.

We claim that. We confess heavenly things. We confess to be about the truth. But then we live in contradictions. We are just like Pilate, who claimed Jesus was innocent but still put Him to death. We claim to be Christians, yet we justify every sin that we do that Christ died to free us from.

Jesus points out in the Gospel lesson the spiritual battle that often goes undetected by us. Some accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul. Others demanded a sign from Jesus, even though He had just performed many miracles. But Jesus rebukes them, saying “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters (Luke 11:23)”. Jesus points out the truth about spiritual warfare and the life of a disciple. There’s no neutrality. We can’t claim to be children of light while living in darkness. We cannot serve two masters. To do so is to be living a contradiction – saying that Jesus had plundered Satan out of one’s heart – while showing at every twist and turn that Satan is the one who truly has mastery over the heart.

Paul says the same thing in the epistle lesson. In this text, Paul goes to the heart of the problem. The problem isn’t that we just need to learn how to BEHAVE better. We need to learn how to BE better. You see, at the core of living as a baptized child of God isn’t a reformation of our actions – it’s a reformation of the heart.

So, Paul isn’t waging his finger at us or giving us a moral pep talk. Instead, he’s pointing out what our actions signal about our heart. Our behaviors signal to us that we’re engaging in false worship, with false gods around us. You see, Paul singles out sins like sexual immorality, crude joking about sex, improper talk about the human body because to do so is to engage in false worship of our God. God isn’t as concerned about our behaviors, as much as He is about holiness, that is, our proximity to him. But when we desecrate our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit with filth and uncleanness, we live in a contradiction. We confess to have our souls cleaned by the Holy Spirit through faith, yet we live a life of contradictions – indicating the sobering truth that Paul warns us of – “for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolator) has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God (Eph. 5:5).”

 This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 that we cannot eat at the table of demons and the table of the Lord. It’s impossible. To live a double life is to kill your soul. To compromise your faith as you live in the secular world is a confession that your BEING is off. We cannot take what we want from the world, justifying our compromised actions saying that ‘we’re just living in the secular world and doing what’s expedient’, to then go to church, run back to Christ saying, “wash me clean so that I can go out and do it all over again.” That’s not repentance. That’s abusing grace. That’s despising God’s mercy. That’s hardening your heart to BEING a baptized child of God.

So, can one be a Christian and engage in sexual immoralities over any sort? Can one be a Christian and engage in men’s locker room talk? Can a Christian gossip and slander someone while claiming to love our neighbor? Can a Christian hoard wealth while ignoring the poor? Can a Christian entertain themselves with filth and perversion while claiming their bodies to be temples of the Holy Spirit? The answer is no. It’s a walking contradiction. Because that’s not who Christ has made us to be in baptism. That’s not the new life Christ made us to live. As Paul says to the Ephesians – that’s your former life. To live that way is BE an idolater. But who are you now? You ARE children of light. So, walk as children of light. Just like children live to imitate their fathers, imitate God.

When Paul talks about how we are to imitate God, think of a coin being minted. A blank piece of metal is placed under immense pressure so that it bears the image of the one it represents—like Abraham Lincoln on a penny. It’s an imitation of the original. If the metal is too hard and resists the press, the image won’t form correctly. That coin is then tossed away, because its unable to serve its purpose.

In the same way, God presses His image upon us through His Word, Sacraments, and trials that shape us to reflect Christ. If we resist His shaping, refusing to bear His likeness, we risk becoming like a mis-struck coin—unfit for the purpose He has given us, leading to us being cast away from God. But when we submit to His work, He makes us valuable in His kingdom, bearing His image as a witness to the world.

Here’s an example of when imitating God goes wrong in the Chrisitan life. Imagine a man invited to a grand banquet at the king’s table, where all the food is rich, pure, and satisfying. He rejoices in the king’s kindness, knowing he doesn’t deserve a seat at that table but is invited by the King’s grace. Yet just down the road, his old friends hold a different feast—one filled with indulgence, excess, and pleasure without restraint. He remembers the thrill of that table, the way it once made him feel free, unbothered by standards of righteousness and the feeling of guilt when it isn’t reached.

So, he begins sneaking away at night, telling himself he still belongs to the king while indulging in the old ways. Over time, the king’s feast loses its appeal, and he craves what is corrupt. Then, one day, the banquet doors close. He rushes back, but the guards refuse him entry. “You never truly left the other table,” they say. This is what happens when someone claims Christ but refuses to leave sin behind. Paul warns that those who continue to feast at the world’s table cannot also dine at the Lord’s.

To be as Christ wants you to be, you must flee to Christ, your refuge and strength in every trouble. Christ has given Himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. He came for sinners like you and me. Though we’ve compromised our walk in the past, we walk in the path of one who lived life without compromise. Jesus Christ never bowed down to the temptations of Satan, the world, or the flesh. He never once compromised any wrongdoings for the sake of selfish, expedient gain. He only selflessly gave Himself up to the Heavenly Father as a substitute for your life of sin, so that being washed clean by His blood spilt from the cross, you might be an imitation of Him – completely selfless. Completely uncompromising to the truth of God. And BEING as God made you all to BE.

So, repent of your waywardness. Walk in the light. For the fruit of light is found in all that is Good and right and true. You do not belong to the darkness. You’ve been redeemed from your former manner of living, set apart by God’s Holiness to be His own. Let God’s Word shape and mold you as become less and less like the children of darkness, and more and more like the child of God he’s made you to be. You aren’t alone in this walk, the light of the world, Jesus Christ, walks with you.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston