Oh No! I’m Becoming Mean! Help Me! Series

In your bulletin you have an insert about the family summer family nights. Notice that one of the

choices you have for adults is the Complement option. I'm concerned about your marriage. It's a

small group about marriage. And I would encourage you if you're married to sign up for that. I

was talking with Manny Capizzi this week and he said this. I asked him if I could quote him and

he said I could. He says, “I'm falling in love Michelle all over again.” Such a sweet statement.

He says, “You know, you get busy paying the bills, and earning a living, and taking the kids

from here to there, and you tend to drift apart but I've fallen in love with my wife all over again.”

So special. And I appreciate that. [garbled] in marriage and the rule is this: If you do not work on

intentionally coming together, you will drift apart. We must do that. So I'd encourage you if

you're married sign up for that particular group.

There are five others that you might consider signing up for, if you would like. We call them

Summer Family Nights, but I don't want you to think this is just for if you have kids you come.

Although there is a great children's program and there's a youth program going on. But there are

several electives and you can choose from any one of those. This is our church family coming

together, enjoying the relationships that we have together.

I encourage you today when you go down to the Ministry Fair to sign up for one of those

Summer Family Night electives. Or you can do it online. You can just click the link there and

you'll be able to sign up for whichever one you'd like to be a part of. I think you'll find it to be an

inspiring time this summer as we just grow more in our discipleship with Jesus Christ.

Let's pray together.

[PRAYER] Heavenly Father, I thank you for our opportunity to open your word now. We ask

that you would speak through your word and teach us. We pray that you would give us an

opportunity today to see ourselves in who we are and help us to understand more about what you

want for us. Lord, give us a vision for the next steps in our lives, for where you want us to go and

who you want us to become. So we now open your word and ask for you to speak through it. In

Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

I saw this note. I think you're going to find this interesting. I saw this note on Reddit (which is a

social media site) this week. Here's what someone says. I don't know if it's a man or a woman.

But here's what this person says: “I feel like I'm becoming a mean and bitter person. I don't want

to be. I want to be nice again. But sometimes I'm just so rude and I don't know what it is about

me that makes me react in the way I do to people. I don't like being like this. A lot of stuff has

happened to me in the past few months. A lot of stuff I don't think I deserved. But I don't know

why I'm being like this. And it makes me feel terrible. I don't know what to do.”

Oh I can identify with this person's feelings about this. She's struggling or he's struggling with

this whole concept of becoming mean. Sometimes I'm working with a family and a family will

say, “We have a child who's just mean. I don't know where this child gets this. Because my wife

and I, we're not mean. We're gentle, we’re gracious people. But our son just has this mean streak.

We don't know where he gets it.” I'm going to tell you where he gets it right now to remove the

mystery of this. It comes from what the Bible calls the sin nature. We all have a sin nature, which

is a propensity to move towards sin, to move towards selfishness, to move toward meanness.

And today we're going to see in our passage some guys that are just plain mean.

I want you to look at this story. I want you to get yourself into the story. Because I think when

we do, we end up coming away with some applications that we could have in our own lives

because we do not want to become mean people. The solution for the sin nature is not more

willpower. The solution for the sin nature is the saving blood of Jesus Christ, the gospel that

comes in to rescue us, to save us from our sin.