H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
October 3, 2004
CHEATERS NEVER WIN?
Luke 5:29-32
My friend Dick Peterson tells me he has a theory about why Christians are falling from popularity.
In fact, he says that good people everywhere dislike Christians, and for excellent reason. This
intrigues me, so I pay close attention and I find that Dick’s theory makes sense. Let me share it with
you to see what you think.
Basically nobody likes a cheater, especially people who work hard to follow the rules and to do
things the right way, and the bottom line is that Christians—at least really good Christians—are all
cheaters. Does that notion shock you? It shouldn’t, because it’s true. Christians—the truly good
ones—are all cheaters. I can’t think of a single exception. No wonder our culture is down on
Christianity.
Consider the non-Christian who really struggles to live a good life. He strives for moral
relationships. He works hard to be an attentive, involved parent. He’s honest in his business dealings
and pays his bills on time. He abides by the law of the land, keeps his nose clean, never cheats on his
taxes, and votes in every election. He believes in community service, and he makes regular donations
to a half-dozen charities. In short, by the standards of the world, he is a good person. He deserves
every ounce of credit we can give him for the discipline, the effort, and the sacrifice expended in
trying to be good.
Christians, on the other hand, deserve no credit whatsoever, because we’re cheaters in the game
to be good. We're like the kid in school with a folded piece of paper tucked under his cuff on the day
of the big test. This kid has a friend who knows all the answers, so on the night before the test he gets
together with his buddy and he copies all the answers down in tiny letters on his cheat sheet and
walks into class the next day confident and unafraid. The kids sitting around him have worked hard:
they’ve taken notes, read the text book, studied and memorized into the wee hours, but when the
graded papers are handed back, our cheater is the only one whose paper has written across it in bold
red letters: 100% PERFECT! Who says cheaters never win?
I can imagine some of you are feeling somewhat offended and scandalized about now. You’re
thinking, “I’ve never cheated on a test in my life! I’ve never cheated on my taxes or my spouse or
even my golf score!” As your pastor, I’m glad to hear it, but if you are a Christian—a good
Christian—then you are a cheater, nonetheless. There’s no way around it. That’s how Christianity
works.
We Christians have got a buddy named Jesus who helps us cheat our way through that tough course
called Living a Good Life: 101. If we have some of the answers for life’s tough problems, it’s not
because we’re smart or because we studied hard; it’s because our friend Jesus gave us the answers.
If we have any hope of a place in heaven, it’s not because we’ve got it coming to us for living so well;
it’s because Jesus has gone to reserve that place for us and get it ready for our arrival. If we
Christians can lay claim to any goodness, it is not the personal goodness of impeccable morality or
selfless service or ethical behavior; it is the goodness of Jesus Christ—gracious, unearned goodness
freely given to those who do not deserve it.
People who are really working hard to be good have every reason to resent Christians. Call it
goodness or righteousness or being set right with God—whatever you want to call it, we Christians
get it, not by our own striving and hard work, but because Jesus earns it fair and square and then
turns it over to us. That’s not fair. It’s a cheat, and anybody who really understands our religion
understands that we’re cheating. Ironic, isn’t it, that so many people outside the church think we’re a
bunch of goody-two-shoes, but inside church we know that our only hope for salvation is somebody
else’s goodness.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy being a Christian. In fact, Christianity can be a real
challenge. You see it’s not nearly enough to simply toss the name of Jesus around the way you might
drop the name of some celebrity you once met on an airplane. That’s why Jesus warns his disciples,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 7:21
NRSV). No, for this whole Christian thing to work, we need a genuine, personal, honest-to-God
friendship with Jesus.
And real friendship takes some work, doesn’t it? Real friendship means you don’t always get your
way. It means investing energy in another person. It means spending time together even when other
things are clamoring for your attention. It means revealing yourself to another person—without lies or
pretense. It means listening—not just waiting for my turn to speak, but genuinely listening with the
ears and the heart. And it means really getting to know someone else, caring about who they are,
learning what they like, understanding their values, and honoring how they look at the world. And if it’
s a friendship worth the effort, there is also trust—deep, abiding, committed trust.
This is the friendship Jesus offers to us and expects from us. Nothing less will do. When Paul
encourages us to have the “mind of Christ,” he means that we are to be such close friends with our
Lord that we know how he thinks, we know what pleases him and what grieves him, we know what
he would do in a given situation, we know what he expects from us, and we trust him enough to
follow his lead. We trust him to never let us down. We trust him to do for us what we cannot do for
ourselves—to save us.
In other words, for us to claim the goodness of Christ, we must claim Christ himself. That level of
friendship isn’t easy or cheap. It’s really a twenty-four/seven proposition, a continually growing
friendship. That’s asking a lot just to be a good Christian, but even so it’s better than trying to be
good all on our own.
And that's what separates Christians from everyone else. You see, we're cheaters, all of us. The
church is a kind of Cheaters Anonymous. “Hi, my name’s Mike, and I’m a cheater. I found out I
couldn’t be good enough on my own, so I’m claiming a goodness I didn’t earn, the goodness of
somebody else, the goodness of Jesus.”
We mess up and fall short in so many ways. In the words of the old prayer, “we have done what
ought not to have done, and we have left undone what ought to have done.” I shudder to think what
grade I have earned so far in Living a Good Life: 101. Fortunately, Jesus has promised to get me
through the course. With his help, I’m counting on an A. To be brutally honest about it, I know it’s a
cheat, but it’s such a sweet deal I can’t pass it up.
If you haven’t already gotten in on this deal, I hope you will. Jesus has room for lots more friends.
And let’s not kid ourselves that we don’t need the help; it’s not like you or I will pass this course on
our own.
Soli Deo Gloria!