(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. You In 1st Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1 where we have the qualifications for a pastor one of the things that comes up is that he's not to be a brawler and then it specifically says no Striker now, even though those are the qualifications for a pastor These are things that every Christian should be doing obviously the pastor is picked from amongst the general group of Christians but you see a lot of people falling into the trap of Whether it be through pride or losing their temper, you know getting into fistfights Yeah, absolutely and a good story is my children, you know, obviously they're young, you know I got eight children all under 13 and this one time I was following my wife She was going to another member's house and I was just right behind them And so sure enough I'm just driving and I noticed these arms just swinging everywhere and I wanted to myself What was that? Was that fighting? What in the world was going on? So then sure enough she ends up pulling over and I walk up to the vehicle Opened the doors and I see two of my kids with bloody noses and I'm thinking whoa. What is this? Oh hit hit me no, you hit me they both just got into a fistfight and so, of course I thought look this isn't right You know, it's like a obviously I spanked them for it because that's not something that allowed my house So then it just get into fights for no reason But then I explained to them look the big problem here regards who started it is just pride because only by pride come with contention And that's something that we need to learn early on as Christians because if not we can end up getting ourselves in situations Where we can get physically harm So when it came to me teaching my kids I sat him down and for an hour just went over pride Try to give him like the simplest definition of pride that I could think of and also giving them the simplest definition You know of humility which that was the thing that was lacking when they got into a fistfight in the van while my wife is Driving, you know I've heard of a teenager that ended up bumping into a guy at just a little convenience store Well, the guy hits him in the back the guy turns around and he start mouthing off to each other Sure enough the guy that got bumped into which wasn't really in the wrong He ends up sucking the other guy and the fight is on so the end of wrestling themselves all the way outside the convenience store and then sure enough when they get up a The one that ended up just pushing the guy in the back who actually it was kind of his fault You know, he ends up just getting a gun pulled on them and that guys get shot in the stomach, you know But why what was the problem? The problem wasn't that the guy was in any danger defending himself? It was just pure pride just started with something stupid literally have one guy bumping into another that's all that It just keeps escalating escalating and I think of the verse that says behold how great a matter a little fire kindling It's that little spark of just bumping into somebody next thing you know guns are drawn because all it takes is talking to the wrong person mouthing off to the wrong person and This can cause you to end up in the hospital like that 18 year old that teenager spoke about all you have to do Was hey, I'm sorry, man I didn't mean to bump into you but instead he mounts off to the guy the guy socks him in the face to get into a wrestling match and then sure enough They get up and the guy puts a gun on them and puts a couple of bullets in his chest ends up in the ICU And he'll never be the same again, but all could have been avoided If all he had was a little humility and just said the simple words I'm sorry and just try to be a peacemaker soft answer turn it the way rap Absolutely. And what if it wasn't even your fault? Is it gonna hurt to just say sorry anyway, absolutely not Absolutely not it's not gonna hurt at all You should always just be the humble individual if you can, you know, because that's the thing that's gonna get these things solved right away It's just a simple. I'm sorry, that'll fix it before you know it. So let's go through some practical situations. Okay? somebody It's offended by you Let's say you cut them off in traffic, but let's say you bump into them and the convenience store like that story why accidentally offend someone by bumping them or Cutting them off and traffic, you know, and they get angry and blow up in me. Well, how should I react to that? Well Christ told us to turn the other cheek in other words Just walk away and that happened to me one time when I was working for cost communications You know I did my best just to be considerate one day and I was just looking for a spot where I can park that I felt Like a nobody owns this spot So then I ended up went to some farming complex and so I ended up seeing the spot where it even had an overhead cover But it was basically broken. It looked like he can fall on you at any time, you know But I feel like hey, this is probably why it doesn't have a number because all the spots seem to have an apartment number So I figured maybe the manager just whited it out So nobody parks there so I decided to park there cuz I had a beat-up band I didn't care if it caved in I just want to get the job done and just go home Well, I went inside the customers house came out and as I went to my vehicle, I hear somebody yelling in the background Hey, hey, hey you and I thought no way to talk to me, but I turn around and the guy points right at me He said hey you Me like yeah you and then he starts kind of waving his arm and saying hey these spots They're all taken you're in my spot and the guy had a Mercedes Benz and I'm thinking man I would never park my Benz in that spot You know But he literally comes up to me and he says you need to move your car right now and I have my tools with me And I'm like, oh no problem, man You know, I'm sorry about that and I don't think he heard me say that but I was just trying to apologize and walk away But literally who came right up to me and he gets up to me to where you can almost touch me with his nose He says you know what and he just starts, you know saying bad things to me You know what like a blank you and I just said whoa He was up in my face and I'm thinking this guy's about to swing at me and he had a tank top He said he was muscular. So he definitely had some confidence that he could fight and I literally just said look man I'm sorry. He said get your car moving on my way and I just can say look I'm serious. I'm absolutely sorry I didn't mean to do that and I got him a car moved it away Well, then I went to go through cable and I'm sitting outside the customer's house It seemed like the box that box cable for the apartment complex was next to my customer and I'm just working on it And then all of a sudden a door opens and I could see from my side somebody comes out So I quickly kind of looked over and right away I noticed that it was a guy that was in my face earlier and I didn't get to myself. No stinking way What are the odds he's lives right next to my customer and as I'm sitting there I could tell he's walking in my direction Next thing, you know, he sucks me in the back He just hit me right in the back and I'm thinking no way and when I looked up He just looks at me and he says hey man Earlier, I just want to apologize for that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it man I've been having a bad day And I'm like no problem. And he's like are we cool and I'm like, we're cool And then he literally just said sorry about that man and he left and I was about it and then when he came back I'm still working outside. He looks at me. I look at him and he's like, hey and he's just you know, what's cool But don't you think that there are some people who just they go around? Just showing how tough they are. You probably saw this in the military We see it all the time in high schools and everything where people just have to show how tough they are And they're constantly talking about you know I can kick his butt and and my daddy was boxer and I'm gonna kick your butt and just kind of Showing how tough they are all the time like they have something to prove and maybe they're overcompensating Yeah, absolutely and the mistake they can make is that I can take this guy. You don't know what that guy has on him You don't know if that guy's a black belt in any type of martial arts But even then be careful with a guy who's skinny but looks like he's weak has a big mouth He's either really good at martial arts or he has a weapon like that one kid that got shot in the stomach or in the chest He they either have a weapon or they have their buddies right around the corner and I've seen guys mouth off and their buddy comes Around and hits them with a bottle and they're out cold and we're picking them up off the ground Trying to keep things cool and even if it doesn't happen in the military that often happens all over the place Well as a pastor myself This is really important to me to stay qualified and make sure that I'm not a brawler that I'm not a striker So I made a decision a long time ago that if certain things happened I would not fight if someone shoves me physically somebody just physically shoves me hard. I will not hit them I will not fight I will turn the other cheek and walk away or if somebody slaps me across the face with their open hand I'm gonna walk away now Like you said, you know, I believe in self-defense if somebody actually balled their fists and punched me in the face or really You know put me in danger pulled a knife pulled a gun. They're actually throwing real punches, you know, then there's a real danger But you know and I know from growing up when somebody just shoves you it's more just about hurting your pride It's more about ego It's more about just making a point than actually trying to harm you or if somebody slaps you with their open palm It's more about humiliating you look I've had people spit in my face literally Just even out soul-winning or just in my job as a pastor. I've had people slap me in the face out soul-winning I've had people shove me. I've had somebody spit on me one time this kind of an extreme example I was talking to this old man on his porch and I was standing in front of One of those really thin glass windows the single pane and I kid you not This guy shoves me into the window and the window broke I got shoved it but here's the thing. What if I would have just said, oh, well, he started it He shoved me. What if I would have just pulled back and just sock that guy in the face Well, here's the thing then the story would have been Pastor Anderson goes around beating up older men or Pastor Anderson goes out soul-winning He just screams and yells and pretty soon if they don't listen. He just beats him down Is that the kind of reputation that I want to have because guess what even if you're a hundred percent in the right? you still might get blamed for a fight and so therefore the best thing you could do is to avoid a fight and Thank God over the last 20 years of my life. I've never been in a fistfight during that time Because if somebody shoved me or slapped me or pushed me I just turned the other cheek like the Christ commanded us to do now like I said, if there was a real danger all respond to it now used to be in the military and John the Baptist had something specifically to say to those in the military That's right. He told soldiers to be content with their wages and to do violence to no man when it comes to Violence I think about the first four letters violence. It's sort of like violate First time you see the word violence is in Genesis and it says that the hurt earth was filled with violence And that's why God destroyed the earth, you know, so of course God hates it. That's why he flooded the whole world You know He killed off who knows how many people? Because they were just harming each other in the days of Noah and he flooded the whole world and started all over again So God does hate a violent person and who wouldn't you know harming innocent people? That's not something that's good That's something evil. It's wicked So as Christians we need to know that right away that you know, what violence is not two guys You know practicing self-defense doing karate and a dojo or whatever the case may be And I remember as far as I can go listening to Jehovah's Witness telling me how it's wrong to participate in karate tournaments To participate in self-defense classes, you know when it says violence, it's talking about you hurting innocent people, you know So we should be people that have compassion in our hearts that don't want to do harm. We want to do good So, what do you think the Bible means when it says no striker So we shouldn't be the person that's considered a this guy's a hothead, you know can't control his temper You know because the Bible says not to have anything to do with them This is gonna get you in trouble. You're gonna become just like them an angry individual But that's not who we should be as Christians We should be peacemakers not people that are ready to strike like the Bible says don't be a brawler Don't be a striker and that's that's the biggest problem these days is that people you know are confused about that subject Because the worst striker makes you think you're striking someone now I'm thinking to myself It's a simpler to hit someone and so I was confused about it and I got the brawler part really quick It's like okay these are people that get into fistfights and just common sense It's not a good thing to get into fistfights. You can get hurt physically the striker part confused me a little bit in Psalms It says that the Lord teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight That's why I don't think it's wrong. Like you said to train in karate judo Muay Thai Jiu-jitsu, whatever Well, don't you think that most conflicts can be avoided and then most of them are just a result of just pride Or just people being quick to anger and what is the rude reason? Well, the Bible tells us what it is pride Only by pride come with contention. So it's a great lesson to learn It's a great fundamental, you know to work on our pride, you know to be peacemakers Because that's what God wants us to be and not just that but don't lose your cool Don't don't harm innocent people, you know, so that's what violence is. It's just harming innocent people And so at the end of the day, yeah, we could pick a fight with the wrong person We could blow off our mouth to the wrong person and get our rear ends handed to us But more importantly than the consequences of our actions is the fact that we don't want God to be displeased with us and if we're gonna be a godly Christian with whom he is well pleased we've got to be Peaceful and the Bible says blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. That's right