Fightin' Words

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Tonight's sermon is entitled, Fighting Words, and I'm sure you're probably familiar with that phrase from old movies and such where somebody would say something and a person would say, well them's fighting words, which meant it was time to throw down.
00:19
And I want to kind of give you the reason behind this.
00:24
There is a reason behind that name.
00:26
There's a reason behind all of this.
00:27
Tonight we're going to be talking about how words can be used to escalate situations or words can be used to placate or deescalate situations.
00:44
And we're going to be talking about just how important our words can be.
00:50
And I want to warn you from the outset, maybe not warn, maybe that's too strong of a word.
00:55
See how important words are? I'm not even saying the right word.
00:58
But I want to give you a little bit of a, just a thing to consider.
01:06
We're going to be looking at Proverbs 15 verse one, just one verse.
01:11
Years ago, I, as many of you know, I do martial arts.
01:15
Years ago, I was certified to give a seminar on this verse as a seminar for teaching people how to use words to deescalate violent situations.
01:29
And so tonight my sermon is still a sermon, but it's going to include some of the information from that seminar because I thought it was so good and so helpful and such a really applicable way to look at this text.
01:42
And so if this seems a little different than the norm, it's by design, it is a little different than the norm.
01:48
But let's read the text and then we will begin the message.
01:54
Proverbs 15 verse one in the English standard version says this, a soft word, excuse me, I'm sorry, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
02:12
This is the word of the Lord.
02:16
When I was a kid, survival knives were all the rage.
02:24
And if you don't know what a survival knife is, they were made very popular in the Rambo movies.
02:31
They were these big long knives with saw blades etched into the top part of the blade.
02:38
And in the handle, there was all kinds of things that were used for survival.
02:43
There was fishing line and weights and there were hooks.
02:46
I even had one one time that had a snake bite kit.
02:51
And it was all packed away into the handle of the knife.
02:57
And the idea was if you were ever caught in a situation where you had to survive, you would want to have this knife.
03:04
This is the knife that would carry you to safety.
03:09
Well, survival continues to be a very popular topic today.
03:15
Many people focus on having safety nets for themselves in the event of catastrophic conditions.
03:23
Some people plant gardens or other people learn skills like canning or medicine or things like that, that they can make their own medicine out of herbs and things like that.
03:34
All this for the purpose of protecting oneself and one's family.
03:38
And it's become sort of a cottage industry now.
03:40
There's a lot of people who are doing this and making that their thing.
03:44
And as many of you know, I teach personal protection classes.
03:49
I teach hand-to-hand self-defense.
03:53
I teach firearms.
03:54
I'm certified to the National Rifle Association to teach personal protection with firearms.
03:59
I'm certified also to teach stick and knife fighting.
04:03
I know that seems very weird for a pastor, but I do have those certifications and have had them for years.
04:10
But years ago, I was certified to give a verbal skills seminar which pertained to dealing with human aggression.
04:19
And it was part of a system that I was practicing at the time, and it was called Survival Communication.
04:26
That was the title of the course.
04:29
That was the title of the seminar that I would give.
04:30
It was called Survival Communication.
04:33
The idea was that it's possible that any of us may one day face a catastrophe, right? There could be a supply line dry up or some kind of a bomb or something that we may have to survive.
04:45
But it's much more likely that we're going to come into conflict with someone and need to have the proper communication skills to be able to overcome that situation safely.
04:58
I mean, is it possible that tomorrow the bottom could fall out and the economy goes south and everything go bad and we'd be all, you know, yeah, that could happen.
05:05
But what's more likely is tomorrow you're walking into a movie theater or a grocery store or something, you step on somebody's foot and somebody goes absolutely crazy and starts screaming at you and you have to deal with that moment.
05:16
What are you going to do? While many people prepare for catastrophes, not too many people prepare for what's most likely to happen.
05:27
And the foundation for this skill set, I believe, is found in the verse for tonight.
05:31
And I want to address some of the practical applications of this verse.
05:38
I'm not going to teach everything I taught in the seminar.
05:40
I don't have time nor is all of it appropriate for a sermon, but I do hope to show you when this verse is properly applied, it can lead to a better handling of situations, especially those which turn aggressive.
05:53
So the verse says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
06:01
Some people are aggressive for no reason, amen? Some people just get mad and are aggressive for no reason.
06:09
They're violent by nature.
06:10
They need no provocation to attack other people.
06:13
These people have no sense of morality or remorse and they usually go by the terms of sociopathy or psychopathy, right? If you have a guy who is totally out of his mind all the time and has no concern for other people's feelings or emotions, you say that guy's a sociopath or he's a psychopath.
06:30
And there's still debate in the psychological community about what the difference is between those two.
06:38
The average person is not aggressive by nature, however, most people can be provoked to aggression.
06:47
And often what leads to the provocation of aggression is verbal instigation.
06:55
Words quickly lead to blows.
07:01
I highlighted that in my notes because I thought that's important to say because any man in the room who's ever been in a fist fight, you know it didn't start by just running up and hitting somebody.
07:12
It started because some, well maybe it did, Lance kind of looked at me there, I don't know, maybe he just did.
07:17
But in general, it started with words.
07:21
In fact, there's another proverb, Proverbs 18 verse 6 says, a fool's lips walk into a fight and his mouth invites a beating.
07:32
A fool's lips walk into a fight and his mouth invites a beating.
07:40
Isn't that funny, just the way that's worded? We see this when two men argue.
07:47
And I say men not to leave the ladies out, ladies you're good at arguing too.
07:50
But I'm going to be mentioning men specifically because I'm thinking about violent aggression and that tends to be more of a masculine trait.
08:00
One says something moderately offensive, the other escalates with an even more insulting offense.
08:07
They build upon one another's aggression until finally, like a steaming kettle, one flies off the handle and then a fist moves from one to the other through the air and it strikes.
08:24
Now, I want to show you, I brought the white board with me tonight because I want to show you something.
08:30
This is called the ladder of escalation.
08:36
Now this isn't anything, this isn't anything too mind blowing, but when I first saw it, it was helpful to me.
08:44
So hopefully it'll be helpful to you.
08:46
It's not something that you probably couldn't imagine on your own, but when you see it in a picture form, sometimes it makes things make sense.
08:53
So if you imagine sort of a step ladder that goes up like this and another step ladder that goes up like this, down like this, and you have two people, we'll just have this guy over here and this guy over here.
09:11
So what happens, two people begin to use their words against one another because of some type of altercation that has occurred, some type of interaction has occurred to create this moment of instigation and one man says something harsh and he has taken a step up the ladder.
09:32
Now at that moment, this man has a choice.
09:37
At that moment, this man will choose based upon his emotional state, his psychological well-being or whether or not he had a bad day.
09:46
There's all kinds of things that can lead to his choice, but the next decision he makes will determine what the other guy does because this guy has already showed his willingness to be aggressive.
09:56
He's already gone there.
09:59
And so what happens is guy number two, if he decides to go here, what he has done is he has invited the participant or he has invited the opponent to become his or to escalate to the next step.
10:17
Because he went here, this guy naturally will go here.
10:21
Now I know there's a kind of a kid's way of looking at this.
10:24
We used to talk when I was little about the dare and then the double dare and the triple dare.
10:32
That's a childish way of looking at this, but that's sort of what's happening.
10:37
Is this man says something that this guy doesn't like so he responds in kind and because he's already hot, he's already fuming, he's going to step up that ladder and eventually they're going to continue on until they meet at the point of physical altercation.
11:00
Imagine, I'll give you an illustration.
11:04
And I already mentioned stepping on somebody's foot, but I think about this a lot.
11:08
Maybe it's because I'm big, I don't know.
11:09
I think about stepping on people's feet.
11:11
I think about going into a theater, walking to my seat.
11:18
And I use this illustration a lot when I'm teaching my kids in karate.
11:23
I say, imagine you're walking to your seat and you step on a guy's shoe and he immediately loses his all sense of propriety and he stands up and he begins to curse at you.
11:43
So immediately he has what the text calls wrath.
11:48
He is already exploding his wrath and maybe his spittle is meeting you.
11:54
Maybe you're feeling it on your face and to be honest with you, the very natural desire of the human man is to do what? You're not going to treat me that way.
12:06
You're not going to yell at me.
12:07
You're not going to scream at me.
12:08
You're not going to spit on me.
12:11
And the natural man will want to erupt with his own escalation, knock his popcorn out of his hand.
12:22
I don't know, whatever.
12:24
Maybe he's not ready to slap him, but he's ready to do something.
12:29
And when people get upset, there's usually a lot more going on than we realize.
12:39
This guy's upset.
12:41
We think it's because we stepped on his foot.
12:42
We don't know that for sure.
12:45
But we've stepped on his foot.
12:46
He stood up.
12:47
He's let you have it with both barrels.
12:49
And if you return fire and you hit him with an equally livid retort, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think it's going to get better? If he gives it to you and you give it back to him with both barrels, is it going to get better or worse? That's again, getting back to Proverbs 15.
13:06
That's what this is about.
13:09
Jen, actually, I was, I was talking to Jennifer about this because a lot of times I'll talk to her about my sermons before I preach them, just making sure I'm being clear.
13:18
And I sat down and talked to her about this one.
13:19
And she said, this happened to us.
13:22
Not the movie theater thing.
13:24
But she said, you remember when we worked together at Bell South? Now this was, I was 21.
13:31
We, we got married at 19.
13:33
So that was 21 years ago.
13:36
So no, I don't remember.
13:39
But she remembered.
13:40
She said, Keith, we were driving and for some reason you had pulled in front of a man and you didn't realize it and had cut him off and he followed us.
13:52
I said, really? I don't remember this.
13:54
She said, yeah.
13:55
And he pulled up right behind us.
13:57
And when we got out of the car, he was cursing at you.
14:01
And she said, and you said you were sorry.
14:06
And he drove away.
14:09
And I thought back, I don't even remember that.
14:11
Again, I'm not making myself the hero of the story.
14:12
I'm just like, I really don't remember doing that.
14:14
But what would have taken place had I begun to respond with cursing? Now am I confident in myself that I could have maybe thrown dukes with him at 21 years old? I was pretty confident in myself.
14:28
Maybe not so much now.
14:29
But at 21 years old, I probably pretty, I felt pretty confident in my ability to lay it down or throw it out there.
14:39
But I knew better.
14:42
This, this verse, do we know better than to continue to escalate when someone is using harsh words against us? And somebody might say, well, it's unreasonable for him to get upset and cuss at you.
15:01
It's unreasonable for a guy to follow you.
15:03
It's unreasonable for somebody to yell at you just because you stepped on his foot.
15:07
That's true.
15:09
It is unreasonable.
15:10
But is it right for us to be just as unreasonable and make matters worse? As I said earlier, and I kind of jumped ahead of myself, you don't know what's going on in that man's life.
15:26
You never know if you, if somebody starts yelling at you or cussing at you or screaming at you, you don't know what has happened in their life.
15:33
Maybe they just recently lost a loved one and it just so happens that you had, you stepped on his foot on the wrong day and all of the emotions of his loss are now being poured out on you.
15:47
Maybe he just lost his job and this is the last movie he's going to be able to take his kids to for a long time because he now is not going to have any money and he doesn't want his kids to know that he's going to be broke very soon, right? We don't know what someone is going through.
16:02
So when someone explodes on us and our desire is to explode back on them, what we're doing is we're escalating the situation unnecessarily.
16:11
They've already started it and if our attitude is, well he started it and I'm going to finish it, that's not the Christian attitude.
16:18
Even though it's very American.
16:21
The American attitude is, he started it, now I'm going to finish it.
16:24
John Wayne, you know, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Stephen Scott, I'm going to get out there and I'm going to wear them out.
16:34
It shows wisdom and not wimpiness to deescalate a situation even if you appear cowardly in doing so.
16:49
That's the thing men do not want.
16:51
Ladies, it's not that you don't have this issue, you do, but men, I would say, are considerably worse.
17:00
We do not want to be made to feel inferior.
17:05
Inferior.
17:06
We do not want to be made to feel like a wimp and I know that's such a silly word, but men, when you were a kid and somebody said, you're a wimp, or worse, they used more colorful and hateful language to express something that you are just a wimp.
17:23
You didn't like that and you wanted to prove yourself.
17:26
This is why men jump off of high things and swing off of, because they want to prove that they're not that.
17:32
I'm not afraid.
17:34
I'm not a coward.
17:36
Am I telling the truth? Just a few weeks ago, I watched a video.
17:48
I'm part of a couple of groups online that talk about self-defense and stuff and one of the guys showed the video.
17:55
He said, watch this video and it was a mall that had been pretty much abandoned, sort of like Regency Mall.
18:05
If you've been to Regency Mall, it's basically, well, at least it was abandoned last time I went.
18:09
They may have some stores now, but Regency Mall, when I was a kid, everybody went there.
18:13
Now if you go there, it's like a ghost town.
18:16
Well, it was like that and there was a group of teenagers walking through the mall and another group of teenagers began to curse at them and they were arguing and agitating one another.
18:28
Well, those words, as the escalation grew, as this ladder began to go up, they began to escalate and agitate one another until finally one of them pulled out a knife and he just began doing this, just this sort of figure eight slash.
18:47
Well, there was a young boy, I say young boy, he's probably late teenager and he was my size.
18:54
He was at least six foot tall, heavyset boy and I guess he didn't see that the guy had a knife or he didn't care that the guy had a knife.
19:06
By the way, if you think a knife isn't deadly, you're out of your mind.
19:11
Knives are, I would say, in a sense, more dangerous than guns.
19:14
They are dangerous in every direction and they never run out of bullets and you don't have to know how to use them to make them dangerous.
19:23
So he was just doing this with a knife and this big guy got close not realizing it and what you see in the video is the guy got close and then he backed up and he went and he looked down and the guy had nicked his carotid artery and he went and he stumbled three steps and he fell down in a puddle of his own blood and he died right there because of a stupid, ignorant altercation that started with words that didn't matter at all.
20:04
Physical altercation is always a bad idea if you have any other option.
20:08
Now I'm not saying that there's never a time to defend yourself.
20:11
I teach it so I couldn't possibly be saying that and I want to write a book one day on benevolent violence and how violence can be something that God uses to protect life.
20:20
Police officers use it, military people use it, fathers have to protect their children.
20:24
I'm not opposed to any of that.
20:26
I'm opposed to stupidity parading as masculinity.
20:33
That's a problem.
20:37
Consider the words of Christ.
20:41
Matthew 5, 38, you have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also.
20:53
How many times have we heard the phrase turn the other cheek? In the context of Jesus' words that is in fact an insult and that's what slapping the cheek was, was an insulting thing.
21:05
And if we compare Matthew 5 with Proverbs 15 verse 1 they're both saying the same thing.
21:11
You have a choice at the moment of insult.
21:14
Now I may not have a choice at the moment of personal protection when it comes to my family or my kids.
21:18
Somebody may, somebody breaks into my house at night we're going to go right to Exodus 22.
21:23
If you don't know what that says, it says if a man breaks into your house at night and he is struck so that he dies you are not guilty of his blood.
21:32
So don't break in at night because you are bringing judgment upon yourself according to scripture.
21:40
If you die that's on you.
21:44
But when we come to the subject of insult, the subject of minuscule provocation, this type of escalation we are at that moment faced with an opportunity for wisdom and what our friend Andy and I have been talking about through all of this series in Proverbs.
22:01
That choice between being the fool and being the wise.
22:06
And that's what Proverbs 15 is telling us.
22:11
Soft word or soft answer turns away wrath.
22:13
That's what the wise man does.
22:18
But a harsh word stirs up anger.
22:20
That's what the fool does because the fool likes that escalation.
22:26
You know people who just love that drama.
22:29
They just love that hatred.
22:32
No matter what they do or who they are doing it with they are always stirring up contention because the fool loves it.
22:43
And as Christians we should be able to recognize that someone's insults are not always worth and really not ever worth attacking them back.
22:53
Even though there is a desire in our flesh that wants to.
23:00
Now I want to move on to another thought.
23:05
This verse and this concept that I'm talking about tonight isn't just something that happens in the world.
23:14
This same ladder of escalation can be used to talk about marriage.
23:21
It can be used to talk about relationships between friends.
23:26
It can even be used to talk about church members.
23:31
Yeah, church members get angry with one another.
23:33
And you know what often happens is one will say something the other one doesn't like.
23:37
And so the other one says something and it provokes the other one to anger.
23:40
And they build on that rather than showing love and deference to one another.
23:45
Rather than showing mercy and grace to one another.
23:47
Rather than being willing to say hey I didn't mean for that to hurt you or I'm sorry that that hurt you.
23:52
Can we find a place of agreement? Man, I've been in meetings in church and I've only been in one church so yeah, this church.
24:02
Thankfully not anytime recently but I've been in meetings in this church where I had to get between people.
24:07
Because they were screaming at one another.
24:12
Pat would know the names of the people if I mentioned them but I'm not going to.
24:16
She's the only one, her and dad are the only ones besides me I think in this room been here that long.
24:21
I've been yelled at in meetings and I had a choice.
24:27
What do you do? Do you escalate it? By making it worse? Somebody just walk in.
24:37
Okay.
24:40
See I always have that protected.
24:46
So again it doesn't always have to be physical.
24:49
Sometimes it just escalates to the loss of friendship.
24:52
Sometimes it escalates to people leaving churches.
24:55
Sometimes it escalates to families who no longer talk to each other.
24:58
Husbands and wives that only see each other when they pass each other in the hallway and it's to give each other a dirty look.
25:12
And here's the thing to keep in mind.
25:13
At any time if one of those two people would choose to use a soft word rather than a harsh word it could be the catalyst to bringing healing.
25:30
That's the point in all this.
25:33
We keep using harsh words.
25:35
I've been married 23 years and there are things that I have said to my wife that I wish I had never said and I have many times had to repent and say honey that was a terrible thing to say.
25:49
Now I'm thankful I have a wonderful relationship with my wife.
25:51
That's not a common thing with us but yes I've said things I wish I could go back and not say.
25:57
Words hurt, words are escalating and how we deal with them is important.
26:03
The text tells us soft words turn away wrath but harsh words stir up anger.
26:08
We know this is a proverb so we know that it's a general truth.
26:13
It's not always that a soft word is going to turn away anger because sometimes if somebody is mad at you they're just bent on being mad at you and if you give a soft word they're just going to keep being mad at you and they're just going to keep coming.
26:21
But I will tell you this.
26:22
The second half of the proverb is almost 100% true.
26:26
If you have someone who uses a harsh word against you and you choose to use a hard word against them it will almost always escalate the situation.
26:34
So the first half of the proverb I would say is not a certainty but the second half is almost a guarantee.
26:42
If somebody says what if I use a soft word and he keeps coming well keep using soft words as long as you can.
26:48
Keep trying as long as you can.
26:51
But know this.
26:52
As soon as you take that step you have given him permission to take this step.
27:00
And as soon as he takes this step if you choose to take the next step you've given him permission to take the next step.
27:05
And eventually it's either going to lead to violence, loss of friendship, separation.
27:15
Nobody ever gets divorced after one fight.
27:19
Well I don't say nobody I guess it has happened but it's almost always this over time.
27:29
People don't leave a church after one thing it's this over time.
27:38
By the way there's other things that we need to consider too and that is the idea of passive aggression.
27:47
Do you all know what passive aggression is? Passive aggression is people who use words in a way that is indirectly cutting, subtly painful.
28:00
Southern moms love to say well bless your heart.
28:03
They don't bless your heart at all but that word is intended to cut you deep.
28:09
Well sometimes it's funny but often you know that happens in marriages a lot.
28:18
I sat in a counseling I've sat in counseling rooms with folks and I've never heard more awful things said and I've counseled all kinds of different people in different times.
28:28
I've never heard worse things than husband and wife arguing and the escalation gets so bad.
28:35
I remember telling a woman I said he because he wanted a divorce.
28:39
They weren't members of the church but those people I was counseling and he wanted a divorce and she was so harsh and her words were so harsh and I told her I said look I said he has no grounds for divorce.
28:53
You haven't cheated on him.
28:54
He doesn't have grounds for divorce.
28:55
I said but if you keep doing this he's going to leave you.
28:59
I said he may not have biblical reason and I can't support him leaving you but you are just building hell for him all the time.
29:11
He comes home and he lives in a constant state of escalated words.
29:19
He's living in his own personal hell.
29:32
Proverbs 25 11 says a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and settings of silver and Proverbs 12 8 says there is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
29:44
It's the words that matter and as I said sometimes people use their words in such a subtle way that you don't even see it coming but they cut you deep and they cut you harsh and you have to decide at that moment how you're going to respond.
29:58
My wife and I we've told this story before but there was a person in my life very early in ministry who loved to use cutting words.
30:06
She was very intentionally hurtful to myself and my wife.
30:11
She wasn't happy that I was the pastor.
30:13
She wasn't happy with my preaching.
30:14
She wasn't happy with anything.
30:16
Anyway, one day I went to a funeral.
30:22
She was there and my son Cody was wearing a pair of pants that were a little too short.
30:32
He was a tall kid and he grew like a weed from the moment he was brought into our home.
30:37
He was adopted when he was four years old and he went from this tall to this tall very quickly so keeping him in pants that fit were difficult and I remember this person coming up to my wife and saying a child's clothes that don't fit is the sign of a bad mother.
31:02
Now that comment hurt my wife's feelings and it angered me but by God's grace my wife did not strike back at her.
31:13
I don't remember exactly what she said but I know it fits with this proverb.
31:18
Proverbs 11, 12 says whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense but a man of understanding remains silent.
31:25
Sometimes it's better to just let them be.
31:28
They're going to do that.
31:32
Proverbs 15 verse 1 is all about stopping an escalating situation.
31:36
Whether it's an altercation with a stranger, an argument with a fellow believer or a time of disagreement with the person you love most in the world and you have a choice whether to be wise or foolish in that moment.
31:47
The wise person will always choose to deescalate.
31:50
They will always choose to try to use the words that will cause the situation to come down rather than up and the fool will make it worse.
32:03
Now as I said this is not a normal sermon for me but I couldn't rightly preach tonight without bringing the gospel in so I do want to ask this question.
32:15
Where's the gospel in all of this? I said from the beginning tonight was very practical and I do think it is practical.
32:26
Hopefully some things have been practical to apply to your own life but I do think we need to understand that all of this comes back to the gospel because when we engage with others, when we demand our own way, when we struggle for first place, when we get angry and throw a fit, we are not living in a way that shows forth the light of the gospel.
32:43
We are living in a way that shows forth the desires of the flesh and every one of us is an ambassador whether you are in public or you are in private.
32:58
If you are in Christ you are an ambassador of Christ in that moment and we're either going to be a good ambassador or a bad ambassador.
33:09
If we are people who are known for always having a sarcastic word, always being ready for the argument, always being the jerk, well then you're not a very good ambassador.
33:23
It brings shame upon our savior and it makes his gospel very unappealing.
33:32
Years ago, I was a youth leader here and there was a boy whose father was very heavy handed and I remember counseling with this boy because he had a difficult life.
33:54
I knew his father was heavy handed because he was heavy handed with me.
33:57
He was heavy handed with other people.
33:59
I went to his job one time and I got to see how he treated his employees.
34:03
He was heavy handed with them.
34:08
One day I was trying to counsel this young man because he was going through a time of depression.
34:14
I get why.
34:15
He had a difficult home and he looked at me and he had tears in his eyes.
34:20
I am not exaggerating.
34:21
I remember his face because he looked at me and he said, Keith, if that's what a Christian is, I don't want to be one.
34:35
If we live by a gospel that has supposedly saved us from the penalty and the power of sin, it should affect how we act, how we speak, and especially when faced with the opportunity to respond to someone who is trying to incite us to anger.
34:48
The words of our mouth should be so saturated with the gospel that they cannot help but seek reconciliation when faced with an altercation.
34:57
That's what it is to live out the gospel in our lives.
35:03
So I hope tonight has been helpful.
35:05
I hope it's been encouraging.
35:08
We have a few minutes left and I did think tonight might be a good opportunity if anybody has a question.
35:16
Does anybody want to ask a question before I pray and conclude the service? I didn't tell you I was going to do this, so maybe you didn't prepare.
35:23
Does anybody have anything you'd want to ask about what we talked about tonight? I didn't prepare y'all, so maybe I should have said something.
35:34
Was it helpful? I know that's different than a normal sermon of mine, but hopefully you understand why I thought that was useful.
35:43
As I learned this years ago, learning this seminar and teaching it to many people was helpful to me.
35:49
So hopefully it's been helpful to y'all.
35:53
If there is nothing, then we'll pray.
35:57
Father, thank you for your word.
35:59
Thank you for your truth.
36:00
I pray, Lord, that now you would lead us from this place with joy in our hearts.
36:04
And Lord, when faced with the opportunity to have to face people who may come against us with their words, Lord, help us to be people who know how to employ a soft word, who know how to be willing to ask forgiveness, to know how to be willing to allow love to cover a multitude of sins.
36:26
Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.
36:29
Amen.
36:31
All right.
36:32
Well, we're going to take a break.