When I sat down at my computer recently to check out the latest developments in the Major League Baseball wildcard races my eyes were drawn to a cover story with a theme that has become all too familiar in sports today. The story focused on the failed drug test of sprinter and 100 meter world-record holder Justin Gatlin. Make that ‘former world-record holder.’ Just days before it was 5 time Olympic medalist Marion Jones whose “A� sample tested positive for the banned endurance-boosting hormone EPO. This is “A� big problem in the track and field world. And it was not just the “A� sample but the “B� sample as well that stripped short-lived Tour de France champion Floyd Landis of his yellow jersey forever.

From track to cycling to baseball (remember that guy named Bonds?) the problem of cheating in sports seems to be ever increasing and the excuses that busted athletes are providing goes logic and borders on insanity. Some of the defenses that have been given so far include ignorance, corrupt trainers, too much beer, behavior medications, naturally high hormone levels, clear creams, and Krispy Cremes. Ok, I made the last one up myself, but the issue remains. Men and woman of amazing God-given talent are throwing away their character for the chance at fame and fortune. Their blatant moral compromising is destroying the credibility of their professions and in their failed role modeling they are leading multitudes of young athletes astray (like it or not Mr. Barkley).

But athletics isn’t the only place where people are tempted to cheat as a way of getting ahead. Cheating happens in all sorts of professions, from business to agriculture to education. Thinking about this makes me pause and ask myself, “Are we doing the same thing in our pulpits today?� Stop and think about it. It may take you a couple minutes to realize the connection between performance enhancing drugs and preaching but it is there. Do you see it?

There is tremendous pressure put on pastors today to produce quality sermons week after week. The proliferation of sermons available on television and through pod casts and vodcasts is making the temptation to preach somebody else’s proven stuff all the more alluring to busy pastors. Formerly contented individuals who used to just go to church week after week listening to the same pastor are now filling their Ipods and Tivos with preachers who have reached a sort of national celebrity status. To make matters worse, many of the very same pastors who are so widely broadcast and downloaded are now making their sermon transcripts and creative series ideas available for purchase.

You might think of these pre-maid, mail order messages as sermons on steroids. Any pastor with a credit card can get one and you won’t even need to turn a blind eye and have a trainer rub it on you. All you need to do is get online, find the one that sounds good to you, read over the manuscript a couple time and let it fly.

From far away it seems as though this is a convenient service that produces a win-win situation for all involved. Granger-eyed pastors with limited staff, smaller congregations and even smaller budgets are able to get creative, high quality messages and materials to use in their own churches. This works well because it allows over-worked purpose-driven pastors to continue caring for their parishioners and yet still appear to have spent large amounts of time planning, studying, praying, meditating and preparing God’s Word for the Fellowship of people. It is also a win for the large church pastors because selling their material helps keep their church budgets Pointed North and perpetuates their personal membership in what Shane Hipps calls “the papacy of celebrity.�

It might look good, but to me it just feels like cheating.

Let me be clear that I am not waving the anti-mega church flag. I have a mega place in my heart for the mega church and I think that those churches who have received a large measure of God’s blessing should be giving their resources away as a blessing to smaller bodies of faith (notice I said giving and not selling â€" anyone who sells their materials instead of giving them away needs to reread Genesis 12). The issue I am addressing here is not the ecclesiology of the church, but the temptation that exists for pastors who think they are saving time or effort by ‘pumping up’ their pulpit with sermons on steroids.

Many of us have experienced the elation of witnessing a great achievement. It is the feeling that occurs in your heart and mind when you see an athlete, musician or child give 110% of his or herself toward the completion of an endeavor. It is those Kirk Gibson, Rocky Balboa like moments that cause us to admire the individuals involved and that drive us to new heights of accomplishment in our own lives. However, we also know the feelings of deflation that come with the revelation that an athlete was cheating. It is like a punch in your stomach that robs you of all your air supply and leaves you feeling betrayed by the very people who were supposed to arouse the best in you.

Friends, our task in the pulpit is no different. Standing up in front of a group of people and preaching the Word of God is a communicative event like no other. It is the rare time when people gather together corporately to hear the words of Scripture and to be encouraged, rebuked, inspired, informed, strengthened, convicted and taught. More than a 30 minute lecture, preaching is a dynamic interaction between a pastor and his people, a place for the Spirit of God to move and do his work in people’s hearts by means of spoken words. It is our time to inspire.

Sadly, due to the vast amounts of resources that are readily available today in the form of downloads, curriculums, pre-packed message series, and for-sale message transcripts more and more pastors are simply buying sermons rather than baking them in the kiln of their souls. Not to mention the unbelievable amount of pressure pastors are under to hit a home run every time. It is safe to say that there are few other professions that give such ample opportunity for feedback. Emails, attendance numbers, weekly offerings, elder meetings and conversations after the service all provide avenues for people to give comparison and critique.

It’s no wonder so many pastors are purchasing pre-made, ready to preach sermons and message series. The temptation to placate the masses and turn the pulpit into nothing more than an entertainment platform is strong. It is much easier to purchase ‘sure fire winners’ from other speakers than it is to risk it and to wrestle long and hard in determining what God might want to say specifically through you in your own community context.

Even as I write this my inbox is bombarded with church ministries offering me the latest in sermon and message series downloads. Not all of it is bad. There is a place for gathering sermon illustrations, being guided by other interpretations of a text, sharing God’s creative ideas, and gathering inspiration and skills from the work of other gifted communicators. Occasionally other preachers have a different angle and take on a subject that is beneficial. But just downloading or purchasing someone else’s work can never replace the hard work that each preacher must undergo. The extraordinariness of the pulpit must be held in higher esteem.

Cheating in professional sports is nearing the point where people are simply choosing to turn sports off and turn on something else. No one is stirred anymore more because the line between amazing natural talent and BALCO is increasingly difficult to detect. May this never be the case in our preaching; we must fight against cheating in the pulpit. Only when we truly engage in this endeavor will our words ever be worth listening to, and only then will they be unleashed with full power to change people’s hearts and expand God’s kingdom.

Pastors we must return to a complete devotion to exegesis, meditation, commentary reading, prayer and study. Supplement as necessary but do so with great caution so that dependence and addiction never develops. We are charged by Scripture itself to study God’s Word, run it through the experience of our lives, and proclaim it with boldness, conviction and passion. Steroid sermons seem like a good temporary fix, but just like in sports, they can leave a pastor sterile and his hearers uninspired and disillusioned.

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