Why would I want to go to church? It's full of hypocrites!

    "Why would I want to go to church? It's full of hypocrites."
    I can say with all honesty that if anyone were to make that charge against the church I serve, that they are absolutely wrong. We are far from full.
    That half of the charge having been put aside, what about the claim of hypocrisy in the church? If those making the charge are saying that hypocrisy is defined by people who go to church to assert their sinlessness to the rest of the world, I would have to again call, foul. There may be church-going people who look down their noses at those who do not attend worship, but that isn't what we teach here.
    What we teach and accept is what the Bible says about us: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and His word is not in us" (1 John 1:8, 10). The reason any of us should be going to church is because we know the truth about ourselves, that we are sinners. Martin Luther said it this way in his catechism, "We daily sin much, and deserve nothing but punishment."
    With these facts, then, our situation looks pretty bleak. But you may have noticed in my quote above from 1 John, that a verse is missing. And this verse holds the key for why one would want to go to church. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Jesus gave us the Church that we might have a place to gather together, all us broken sinners, to confess our sins, to receive the healing balm of His word, to be washed in the waters of baptism, to be fed His very body and blood at His supper, and to console one another as we daily struggle against sin.
    Why should you want to go to church? Because you're a sinner like the rest of us. And trust me, there's room here for plenty more.