Sometimes I Don't Like People Series

Charlie Brown said, “I love mankind but people drive me crazy.” I identify with that idea. I do love mankind but people – well, people can be really hard to put up with.”

People are just difficult to live with. They do such stupid things that sometimes you want to just throw up your hands and walk away.

Why do some people insist on going past first few slices in a loaf of bread and grab the third or fourth one in?

Why do children when they eat bread with PB and jelly flip it upside down to eat it?

Why do people leave half a swallow in the bottom of the jug of water in the refrigerator rather than taking 60 seconds to refill it?

I watched a lady drive backwards through the post office parking lot this past Tuesday morning – why, I do not know.

VIDEO of two guys in the office

Besides all the foolish things people do in general there are the church people in the world

Let’s talk about Church people a little…

Christians can be judgmental and unforgiving.

Christians can be just plain weird. Some of the churchy kids in HS when I was a kid did far more damage than good because they were just strange.

But worst of all some Christians can be hypocritical. They aren’t real – they are posers.

Sometimes I really don’t like people – sometimes I don’t like you. But do you know what I’ve discovered to be the real problem? It’s not you. It’s not people. It’s me.

I’ll never forget a defining moment for me. It happened in band, fourth hour when I was in ninth grade at the Kalkaska High School. I was walking across the second level of the practice room and met Carol Kimbal at a narrow spot. I moved to my left to step out of her way just as she stepped to her right; they I stepped to my right just as she stepped to her left and I’m pretty sure that is when she exploded in anger. She said, “You think you’re so important!” and then walked around me. I was absolutely and completely stunned. How on earth did she get the idea that I thought that I was important? I knew that I wasn’t important. I was a lowly freshman and the son of a preacher man in a small town. I had spent most of my life trying to prove I was tough in spite of being the preachers kid – and getting beat up fairly often because I really wasn’t tough at all. When I ran home crying with blood pouring out of my bruised nose my mom yelled, “Don’t bleed on the carpet – stay in the kitchen! (She denies ever having said that – but I was there and those are the words I remember!) I knew I wasn’t important.

Still, over the years I’ve learned that peoples sometimes see me as arrogant and condescending. I have been accused of being aloof and arrogant. I’m really not. The more you get to know me the more you’ll discover I’m really a nice guy. Honest! Really! Am I trying too hard?

So why do I sometimes struggle with people? More specifically – why do I sometime struggle with you!

So how do you get around the fact that Jesus came to save people? Let me make a suggestion. You and I need to focus on the problem – no it’s not them – it’s me.

And if you are sitting there – it’s not me. It’s you.

Say it with me – “It’s not you.” “I’m the problem.”

Well – if you and I are the problem – what is the solution?

Jesus is our example:

Some of you are reading your sermon notes with transitional lenses or Bi-focals. Inventor? Benjamin Franklin, age 79. The computer, copy machine as the presses that printed our bulletin were powered by electricity. One of the first harnessers? Ben Franklin, age 40. Some of you here might of attended or know someone who went to an Ivy League school. Founder? Ben Franklin, age 45. Some of you have been to a library this past week. Who established the first library in America? Ben Franklin, age 25. Most of us received mail this week. The father of the US Postal Service? Ben Franklin, age 31. Who started the first fire department, invented the lightning rod, and designed a heating stove? Yep.. Benjamin Franklin. Wit. Economist. Philosopher. Diplomat. Journalist. Printer. Linguist (spoke and wrote 5 languages fluently). He did all of this until the age of 84. And he had exactly 2 years of formal schooling!

Isn’t that incredible? Inspiring? Yes! But it is a little unsettling too.

As Mark Twain once quipped, "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."