Sept. 13, 2009 Sermon: ‘Why Are There So Many Messed Up People in the Church?’

September 13, 2009 by Roland
Filed under Faith

Rev. James Meeks, founder/senior pastor, Salem Baptist Church of Chicago.

Acts 1:8
Sermon title: “Why Are There So Many Messed Up People in the Church?”

- The church seems to be a magnet for disturbed, messed up people. We have people who fall over and over again.
- We have people in the church with relationship and marital problems; drug issues. We have people in the church with sexual issues. We have people with domestic abuse issues. We have people who have been abused and we have the abusers sitting in the same church.
- It’s hard for someone who has been abused to watch someone lift their hands in praise but never go back to the person they abused and appologize for their behavior.
- We have people in the church who are broke and broken.
- We have people who are paranoid.
- And we have people in the church who are plain old crazy.

The real question is why?

You would think that a church is a place of all good people, and where everyone has it together.

We must first discuss the purpose of the church to understand this.

In Acts 1:9, Jesus left His power to be witnesses. And the word witness is used 29 times in Acts. A witness is someone who can tell you what they’ve seen and what they heard. Read Acts 4:19

In order to be a witness, you have to see, hear or know something for yourself.

That’s all a judge even wants to know in court.

The disciples had a responsibility? And that was to tell the world about Jesus. Read Acts 1:21

If you don’t know what you are talking about, it’s best to shut up and keep your mouth closed.

Doing Jesus’ earthly ministry, he made it crystal clear who he is looking for. Read Luke 19:10

The earthly life of Jesus was a magnet for messed up people. Read John 4. He was dealing with a woman who was having sexual issues.

In John 8, Jesus meets a lady who was caught in the act of adultery.

Read Luke 15:2. A church is supposed to attract people with problems and have issues.

A church that attracts people with no issues, it does not reflect the ministry of Jesus and doesn’t have the Holy Ghost.

Why does the Holy Spirit draw people

We are supposed to tell people what Jesus is able to do.

We are to tell them that sanctification is a process. Church people are messing up the church because we are putting on the allusion that nothing is wrong with us. You will not be perfect the day after you join church. Every time you fall down you can get back up again. We are supposed to tell people that Jesus can heal the broken-hearted.

We are looking for people who had trouble in their marriage and Jesus healed it.

The reason so many people in the church are messed up because no one can deliver the message like Exhibit A.

The woman in John 4, when she heard about Jesus, ran into town and said I know you called me a whore, but now I got another man who has healed me.

On a daily basis, you shouldn’t be telling someone what God did for Peter, but you should be providing your own testimony.