Who Or What Are You Going To Cheat
10/26/03 NLF I Samuel 15:13-23 Luke 10:38-41
Let’s meet a few people today. Randall is the star football player on the team. Last week against Southside, Randall rushed for 250 yards, and scored six touchdowns in the 70 to 6 blowout of East River. If they win the next game, they are almost certain to make it to the playoffs. The only problem is the history exam. Randall has barely been academically eligible to play all season. If he fails the history exam, it’s the end of the season for him.
Randall didn’t bother to study over the weekend. On Monday he sees his friend John, and tells him on the way to history class, “John, you’ve got to let me cheat off you on your history test today. Just push your paper to the side and lean back. Man if I fail this test, I’m off the team and we never will make it to the playoffs this year.” John is a Christian. What is he supposed to do?
Karen likes Robert, and she has agreed to go with him to the movies on Saturday night. Robert is really crazy about Karen. This guy is in love, in love. They agreed to start just seeing each other. Now even though Karen likes Robert, Karen has always had a major crush on Dave who has never given her the time of day. The telephone ring.
Karen answers it. Stumbling on the phone is Dave. He says, “Karen, I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time that I like you. I’ve just been too scared to do it. I’ll understand if you say no, but would you please go with me to the movies on Saturday night.” What is Karen suppose to do with her earlier promise to Robert?
Ronald has a cleaning job. He is suppose to clean each night for five hours with a 20 minute break. The job is not that difficult. There is no one there to see what time Ronald comes in, and what time he leaves. His boss has given him flexible hours so long as he puts in the five hours. That week, Ronald wanted to get home early to watch the World Series, so he left early three of the five days. When he went to get paid, his boss looked at him, and said, “do I owe you for the full twenty five hours this week.” What is Ronald suppose to say?
Now John, Karen, and Ronald are all facing the issue of cheating. John-will he cheat to help a friend. Karen will she cheat to go after a dream. Ronald-will he cheat in order to get some money. Each one of them is faced with giving up their integrity to gain an immediate reward.
In our Old Testament reading, God had told Saul to destroy everything about the Amalekites. God’s judgment was on the Amalekites because they had attacked the children of Israel when they were weak coming out of Egypt as former slaves. Nothing of the Amakelites was to survive. King Saul however decided to cheat and save the best of the animals to sacrifice to God. He also left the king of the Amalekites alive to sort of show him off as his trophy. Saul cheated in his obedience to God, thinking he could somehow pay God off. His cheating cost him his anointing to be king of the nation. There is always a price to pay in cheating.
Andy Stanley, a pastor in Atlanta, recently wrote a book, Choosing To Cheat which indicates that all of us whether we know it or not, are cheaters in life. He pointed out that sometimes cheating certain people or certain things can be good. He defined cheating, as trading off one thing for something else.
Cheating in the negative sense of the word is a trade off. John was trading obedience to God, with a desire to help a friend, Karen was trading a commitment to Robert for a chance with Dave, and Ronald was trading being honest for few dollars. At that precise moment they could not have it both ways. Most times in life, we cannot have something both ways.
Now let me show you how we can positively cheat. If we want to lose weight we have to cheat our appetites. Our body has a normal built in mechanism to make us eat. It is called hunger. If we do not eat we get hungry. Just because we want to lose weight, it does not mean our stomach quits crying out. Feed me! Feed me! So we decide, even though this is a legitimate pain and call for us to do something, we are going to cheat it because we have a higher goal of losing weight in mind.
How many of you feel as though, you have more to do than you have time to do it? Let’s suppose you want to be a great piano player or a great basketball player. A key to either of them is practice. If you practiced 14 hours each day, chances are you are going to get pretty good at it. But if you’re practicing 14 hours a day, you are cheating someone or something to make it happen. Who has to be cheated, in order for you work dedicate 14 hours a day in practice?
One of the most important things, the Lord has given us is family. Family is all about relationships. Most people will say, my family is the most important thing I have. But then choose to life like it’s no big deal. A good family takes time and energy to produce. There are many things that call us to cheat our families. We all have the same number of hours, and we want to be good parents, good spouses, good workers, good friends, good members and good neighbors. Plus we have our hobbies and our sporting events we want to be in along with all the extracurricular activities in life. Then there is also the desire to be a good Christian.
We all have to chose to cheat between some of all these things in order to please God and love our family. A lot of things, cry out for our time, just like our hunger did when we wanted to go on a diet. Unless we have a higher goal in mind, we will cheat that which is most important to satisfy that which is making the loudest demand. Our goal should be to invest in people and use things, but far too often, we use people and invest in things or events.
As Christians, we have to be intentional about our family life and our commitment to follow Christ as a family, because the world and all it offers pulls away at it ripping us apart. We have our own CD players which allow us to go on trip for hours and never have to talk with anyone in the car. We have our own tv’s in our room which allows us to be at home and still be a 1,000 miles from each other.
We have sports schedules which force us to drive from here to there and there to here to keep all our kids involved without asking what’s the real cost involved. We have work schedules and overtime schedules that say my investment in my job is more important than my investment in my family. Yes saints, we are always being forced to cheat somebody somewhere to obtain the approval the world wants to give us, and we are far too eager to accept.
It was a probably a nice sunny day. Jesus had just finished teaching on the parable of the good Samaritan. It was the story of how a man had been beaten by robbers and left for dead. Two religious leaders, one a pastor or priest and the other a church worker had walked by the guy and left him alone. But then a third guy, who was of different race stopped and helped the man and even paid for his medical expenses and lodging to help the man get back well. The third man had cheated himself of his time, his fear, and his money in order to help this beaten, robbed and abandoned man.
Jesus and the disciples were a couple of miles outside of Jerusalem. When they reached the village of Bethany, I can see Jesus telling the disciples, “Guys let’s just stop by and say hello to some good friends of mine. They live over there in that nice house. It would not be right for me to be so close and not just say hello.” When they get to the house, Martha comes to the door and she’s delighted to see Jesus. Mary, Mary come quick, it’s Jesus and his disciples!
Jesus says to her, ‘well we were in the neighborhood, and I just wanted to say hello. Is Lazarus around.? Martha says, “no our brother isn’t here at the moment, but I insist that you stay and have dinner with us.” Jesus says, “oh that’s okay, we really didn’t want to impose on you. 13 guys is a lot of people to feed.”
Martha says, “nonsense, you can come in here and sit down and rest, teach and whatever you want to do. It will give us plenty of time to get the food ready.” When Jesus saw that Martha was not going to back down, he gave up and the disciples came in to eat.
Now when you’ve got Jesus over to your house, you’re certainly not going to want to simply serve some peanut butter and jelly. You are going to want to bring out the turkey, the chicken, the yams, the dressing, the cornbread, the greens, the corn and you haven’t even gotten to the deserts. Not only that, you have 12 other mouths to feed plus yours and your sisters. This is going to be a lot of work.
All of a sudden, Martha finds herself under a tremendous amount of pressure and stress. She’s got to get the pans going. She’s got to make sure there is enough of this and that. She’s got to figure out how much of this ingredient is needed to make enough for 15 people. She wants to be the perfect host and then some. Let me ask you something, in this great thing that Martha wants to do for the Lord, who places her under the stress she is feeling?
How many of you believe that Jesus would have accepted a bowl of soup and some crackers and got full off of it? I know that Jesus would have accepted it, and so would the other disciples because in verse 7 and 8 of the same chapter, he had taught the disciples, when you go to a person’s house, eat whatever it is that they give you to eat.
So often we tell ourselves, we have to do things that we really do not have to do. We are juggling all kinds of balls, when its nothing but our pride that keeps things going. Just because a club or an organization asks us to come do this, come join here, come lead this, does not mean we should cheat our families to do it. We may even become spiritual by saying, but this will give me a chance to win them to the Lord. So we cheat, supposedly to do the Lord’s work, when in reality we simply want the approval of others. Our way of doing ministry for the Lord, is not necessarily God’s way of doing ministry.
Do you remember Saul. The guy who wanted to do the good thing of sacrificing as many animals as possible to honor God. But God said, that’s not what I told you to do? How often are we like Saul and get things mixed up. We tell God, look what a great job I did for you out here in ministry. But God is saying, but I told you to start at home, be my witnesses first at home. Don’t cheat at home. Then you can go out there and do it.
Let me tell you a little bit about the history of the moment. Jewish women did not have the luxury of being taught by great teachers. Many were not given the chance to learn. Jesus changed all that when he came and actively taught women as well as men. Mary realizes that she has the opportunity of a life time to sit and listen to what Jesus has to say.
Now for Mary to listen to Jesus, she is going to have to do some cheating. First she has to cheat on what the society says her role in life must be. As a woman, she should not be sitting at the feet of Jesus, for she had been called to cook, clean, and serve the men. Second she has to cheat on what she thinks others are going to say about her. No doubt some of the disciples may be looking down on her. Here she is sitting and learning, when she could be helping to get that food cooked a little earlier. Third she has to cheat her sister. She has to say, “sis I love you, I want to help you, but this vision for this meal is your vision. My vision is to get to know Jesus.”
Now Martha has some great plans. She recognizes that she has Jesus in her house and she wants to do something wonderful for him. But in order to do something wonderful, she’s got to do some cheating. She makes that bad decision that we so often make. We think that doing something great for God is worth cheating God out of a relationship with us. God always wants to change us, before He uses us to change the world.
Look at what the word says in verse 39 and 40. Luke 10:39-40 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
I can see Martha in the beginning saying to her sister, “now you go in and give them this.” Mary would go in and hear the tail end of something Jesus was saying to the disciples as they all laughed. Martha would then tell her , “now go make sure everybody has water to drink.” Mary would have to make several trips in, and she kept getting bits and pieces of the lesson Jesus was teaching. Finally when Mary put down that last glass, she sat right at the feet of Jesus to listen to what he had to say.
After a while, Martha notices Mary is gone. She’s calling Mary! Mary! All of a sudden there’s a roar of laughter coming out of the room where Jesus and the disciples are. Martha is looking at the clock, shaking her hands, and wondering what on earth could have happened to her sister.
She goes into to see if perhaps Jesus sent her to get something. When she sees Mary sitting in the room at the feet of Jesus listening to what he was saying, and still smiling from the last big laughter, it got on her last nerve. She could not believe what she was seeing.
Now she wanted to say, “Girl if you don’t get your behind back into that kitchen, and give me a helping hand, I’m going to break your neck.” Now don’t forget, Martha is doing something great for God. But since Jesus and the disciples were there, she tried to handle her anger and frustration more appropriately. She said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself.? Tell her to help me.”
Remember I said, we are to invest in people and use things or events, but the temptation is to often use people in order to invest in things. The most important thing to Martha at this moment is her investment in her dinner ministry. She is not interested in the cost involved to Mary. She simply wants to use Mary, to make sure her investment in her dinner is going to be a success. Now Martha is not the only person who does this.
We all let our pride get in the way to the point of using other people. Kids, do you love your parents so much that you would do what they ask you to do without complaining? Or do you see your parents simply as people you can use to give you what you really want such as designer clothes, a cd/player or a car.
Parents, are your kids free to become who God intended them to be, or are you trying to live your dreams through them when it comes to academics or sports. In your marriage is it more important to you that your spouse does what you want them to do to make you happy, or is it more important to support him or her in what God may have in store for the person.
Notice that Martha is willing to cheat her relationship of being a sister, in order to succeed in what she wanted done. Did you notice how she smiled at Mary, and said Mary, come here can I see you in the room for a minute?
On Sanford and Son, when they had company over and one didn’t like what the other said, he would say, “ah Pop can I see you in the kitchen in for a moment.” Fred would say, “excuse me for a moment while I discuss a matter with my son.” They would leave the living room with smiles on their faces. Once in the kitchen you would hear yelling and screaming at each other. Then they would return to the living room with both of them wearing smiles.
Now what they valued was their father/son relationship. They had an unwritten agreement not to embarrass or humiliate the other person in front of guests. They were not willing to cheat the relationship for personal vengeance. Do we have unwritten rules not to embarrass or humiliate each other in front of others.
Not only did Martha not ask Mary to come into the kitchen, Martha would not even speak to her. Do you see why we need to get saved and then know what it is to repent again and again. Here Martha is trying to do something great for God, and she will not even speak to her own sister.
Her statement to Jesus has basically declared to all 13 men, that her sister is a lazy, irresponsible hostess who does not care about anybody but herself. The tragedy is, Martha feels good about saying it. She gets to say what a great job she is doing all by herself. Look at the sacrifices I’ve made. People do not care about all our sacrifices if they are not sure, we loved them. You see our sacrifices could be to please us, benefiting the other person was just a by product.
How on earth do you think Mary feels to be humiliated like this before all these guests? How in the world could her sister make her looks so bad. But Martha is not through with her attack. I mean she is livid. She’s even upset with Jesus, “Lord here I am trying to do this great thing for you, and you don’t even care enough to send me the help that anybody in there right mind can see that I need. Now it’s obvious Mary is not going to come back on her own, so you tell her to get up and help me.”
Martha has forgotten, this great meal was not Mary’s vision, nor was it Jesus’s vision. It was Martha’s vision to have a huge dinner. Martha got so caught up in the vision, that she forgot to be Christlike to those who loved her the most and to those whom she claimed to love.
Now Jesus had every right to be angry at Martha’s ridiculous charge, but he cheated his anger and responded in love to preserve the relationship between him and Martha, and to exalt Mary out of her pit of humiliation she was experiencing. He said in Luke 10:41-42 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
In other words, “Martha, you have chosen to something good. A great dinner is wonderful. But you have lost focus on what is the important thing. The one thing that is really needed in life is to have a relationship with me. Mary has chosen a relationship to me, over service for me. The relationship she has will never be taken away.” 200 years from today, whatever you have done for Jesus will be history, but your relationship with Him will still be going on.
Think about this. After Jesus died, nobody was going to be asking Martha how did Jesus like his beans, or how did he chew on the corn, or did he prefer turkey over chicken. But quite a few people would want to hear from Mary again and again, “what did Jesus say when he was over here. How did he say it applied to our lives. Was there anything else he said that we should know about? What was it like to have a personal relationship to Him.
What is cheating you out of building good relationships with your family? Like Martha, a lot of times its something that’s good, so we don’t even question the negative impact its having on us, and on those we’re cheating. There is even a larger question that what’s cheating us out of our family, and that is “what’s cheating you out your relationship with God.
So many people will say I love God more than anything, and yet cheat Him out of everything they possibly can their whole lives, and then can’t understand why they die and spend eternity in hell.
1. We can cheat God by refusing to give our lives to him, even though He sent Jesus Christ to die for us to have changed lives. 2. We can cheat God by verbally accepting Him with our mouths, but never allowing Him to change our lives. 3. We can cheat God by accepting Him, but only allowing Him to change us but only in certain areas. 4. We can cheat God by substituting doing something great for God, while refusing to let God have his way in our lives right at home.
You cannot do all that God requires of you, and surrender to the many good voices from the world of things that you ought to do. There simply isn’t enough time. So you’ve got to make a choice. Who or what are you going to cheat in order to be the person God intends for you to be in Jesus Christ.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick 10/26/03 NLF
Who Or What Are You Going To Cheat
1 Samuel 15:13-23 Luke 10:38-41
A. People Who Are Dealing With The Cheating Issue
1. Randall & John—The History Test
2. Karen, Robert & Dave The Commitment Test
3. Ronald The Cleaner-The Honesty Test
4. Saul, The Amelekites, Obedience Test
5. Price To Pay To Cheat
6. You Can’t Always Have It Both Ways
B. Can Cheating Be Thought Of In Good Terms
1. Andy Stanley, Choosing To Cheat
2. Trading Off One Thing For Something Else
3. Cheating Our Hunger For A Greater Cause
4. Feed Me, Feed Me
5. Help I’m Running Out Of Time
6. The Price To Pay To Practice 14 Hours A Day
C. Is Cheating Necessary To Save The Family
1. The Family Is A Gift—Hard Work For A Good One
2. Many Voices Call For Us To Cheat The Family
3. Hey, We Want To Be Good…
3. We Cheat Families To Gain The Approval Of Others
4. What Yells Loudest Gets The Attention
5. Choosing To Be Intentional About Family
6. The CD’s, The TV’s , The Sports, The Schedules
D. Jesus Stops By To Visits Some Friends
1. Near Jerusalem But Entering Bethany
2. Mary & Martha Pleasantly Surprised
3. Mary Has A Vision For A Ministry Meal
4. Wanting To Offer Jesus Far More Than Jesus Asked
E. When The Pressure Starts To Show Up
1. Trying To Plan For 15 Is No That Easy
2. What Would Have Jesus Found Acceptable 10:7-8
Luke 10:7-8 Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. 8"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you.
3. Pride Can Cause Us To Juggle More Balls
4. Our Pride Can Be Covered With Spirituality
5. King Saul—Wanting To Do Good Almost
6. Start The Witnessing Part At Home
7. Jewish Women Not Allowed To Be Taught
8. Mary Makes A Decision But Has To Cheat Three
9. Roles Of What A Woman Should Do & Be
10. What Others Think Of Me
11. Sister I’d Love To Help But
12. A Vision To Get To Know Jesus
13. Martha Has great plans
Luke 10:39-40 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
F. Martha Begins To Have A Problem
1. Mary The Errand Runner Is Too Tempted
2. What Happened To Mary
3. Martha Wants To Go Off
4. I’m Ready To break Your Neck
5. My Ministry Is More Important Than You
6. Invest In People, Use Things, Not Vice Versa
7. Kids, Are Parents To Love Or To Use
8. Are Kids To Love Or To Live Through
9. Are Spouses To Please Or Seek The Best
G. Martha Cheats The Sister Relationship
1. Did You See How She Smiled At Mary
2. You Can Learn From Sanford & Son
3. Pleasant In Living Room, Fight In Kitchen
4. Valuing The Relationship Of Father Son
5. Unwritten Rules Can Be Helpful
H. Martha Makes A Bad Decision With An Attitude
1. First Get Saved, Then Learn Repentance
2. Refusing To Speak To Your Sister
3. Lazy, Irresponsible Hostess, & Selfish
4. Was The Sacrifice For Real Or For Us
5. Why Make Mary Look So Bad
I. Martha Decides To Attack Jesus
1. Jesus If You Would Only Open Your Eyes
2. Use Your Authority To Rescue Me
3. Who Had The Vision For The Ministry
4. Forgetting To Be Christlike At Home
J. Jesus Cheats His Anger To Show Mercy
Luke 10:41-42 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
1. Prefers Relationship To Anger
2. Seeks To Lift Up Mary From Humiliation
3. Martha What You Chose Is Good But Not The Best
4. What Mary Found Was A Relationship
5. 200 Years From Now—Event Gone
6. Nobody Wants To Know What Jesus Ate
7. Many Want To Know What He said
K. More Self Evaluation Of Ourselves
1. What If Anything Is Cheating Us Of Family
2. Being Good Will Allow Us To Miss It
3. Making The Decision To Cheat God
4. Professing Love But Cheating All The Same
L. Four Ways To Do It
1. No Confession At All
2. Confession But No Change
3. Change, But Only Here & Not Over There
4. Change There, But Not At Home
M. Nobody Can Do It All & Serve God
1. Everybody Has Got To Make Choices
2. You Must Cheat To Be Obedient To God.
