I do not think it is particularly useful to focus sermons on particular sins, it breeds a sense of self-righteousness, and such behavior is a sin of its own.

I am not saying trust scholars over what the Bible says, but rather use that scholarship to better understand scripture. Let's use a primitive example... the Bible verse regarding a wealthy man going to heaven vs a camel fitting through an eye of a needle makes no sense, unless one understands "the needle" is small door in city gate that camel entered through at night on their knees. The understanding does not contradict scripture, it helps to understand it.

Lastly, the question regarding why God made people like he did applies to everything.

People are always asking why God made them as he did and why evil exists in the world. If God is perfect, why does He allow sin. The best theological answer to your question is that ever since man first rejected God in "the garden" every generation there after bears the burden of that original sin in some form or another at birth. The difference between us is how that sin expresses itself in our lives.

The Good News is that regardless of how that "original sin" expresses itself in each person, God still desires a relationship with that person and provided the means for that relationship to happen first through the death of Jesus on the cross and next through the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Yet the power of sin is such that even as we strive to grow our relationship with God, we continue to experience the "pull" of sin. In a way, I relate to Adam and Eve in the Bible, even with the most amazing relationship with God in the history of man, they still gave in to the temptation of sin, I do likewise.

We are not "mistakes". We are born into sin and then for those of us that desire a relationship with God, we are a work in progress, that is never fully realized in this life. In that sense, our focus should be our own sins (the log in our eyes) and not "the splinter" in someone else's.