Is Jesus Angry at Your Church?

Is Jesus Angry at your church?

What makes Jesus angry? Who ticked him off?

Now if you are saying at this point that Jesus was perfect so he never got angry, I will say to you that you have not read the Gospels very carefully. Jesus was like his Father, both can get mad. (The Old Testament would call it wrathful. My Sunday school teachers called it righteous indignation.)

The people who set Jesus off were not the usual suspects, thieves, prostitutes, corrupt officials, or even Roman oppressors. Surely, he didn’t care for their actions, but he was very slow to condemn them because he didn’t think of them as “the damned.” He looked at them as people who needed to find forgiveness, hope, and the love of God. The people who set him off, he called “vipers” (Matthew 12:34 & 23:33) and “whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones” (Matthew 23:27). They were those who called themselves religious, and made it difficult for others to come into relationship with God.

So what would make him cross if he walked into your community and your church today? I think he would be heartbroken at the sin he saw, just as he was in the 1st century. He would walk around and observe our world and see how far it falls short of God’s plan. Jesus would be moved by the heartache people cause each other and themselves by their own actions and attitudes. Then he would visit the churches. At some he would be encouraged to see people sharing His love with others. He would be excited to see people finding hope and salvation and becoming disciples. But I’m afraid that would happen in only a very few churches.

I am afraid that what he would see in most churches might make him blow his cork. Suppose he saw some of these things that occur in most of our churches:
 Church people who put there own comforts and preferences (type of building, style of music, mode of dress, etc.), ahead of fulfilling his commission to make disciples.
 Church people who think it is their job to “control the pastor.”
 Church people who refuse to make friends with people who don’t know Christ and even avoid meaningful relationships with them.
 Church people who don’t participate in welcoming newcomers to the church.
 Church people who exclude new people from the true fellowship of the church.
 Church people who seem to think they have the gift of criticism.
 Pastors who are lazy and refuse to lead their congregations.
 Pastors who don’t set the example of developing relationships with non-Christians.
 Pastors who keep themselves and their people so busy on “church stuff” that they have no time left for meeting friends who don’t know Christ and developing friendships that might lead to making new disciples.
 Pastors and churches that are unprepared for the unchurched to show up.
 Church people and pastors who plan to “do evangelism” when they get time, or money, or around to it, instead of recognizing that bringing people to Christ is the whole reason the church exists, and that it needs to be done now and always.

These guesses come from what I read of Jesus in the New Testament. I wonder what Jesus would say and do if he had the attention of churches today. I do know this, many churches have died and many more are dying. Could this be because they are not what Jesus has in mind? What would he say and do to your church? By the way, how is it doing? Growing? Plateauing? Declining? More than that, how are you doing? How many people have you brought to the Lord? With how many potential Christians do you have a relationship? Are you doing the task he gave us to do?