[SERMON] HOTL 101: Why We Do What We Do at our Church

Pastor Cyle challenges Heart O' The Lakes Church to embody their vision of loving like Jesus by genuinely caring about what matters to others. Drawing from Galatians 6:2, Philippians 2:3-4, and the example of Christ, he teaches that biblical love isn't just handshakes and smiles—it's noticing people's needs, listening to their hearts, and stepping into their world with intentional care. The message calls believers to move beyond self-focused living and adopt others' priorities as Jesus did when He went to the cross for us.

Transcript

 

Introduction: Church Vision & Growth

Uh, starting this year, we decided that we would do a series as we've been growing as a church, kind of talking about who we are and why we do what we do, because it's really important why we do what we do. For a lot of the newer people that have been coming, we have, we are one church and two campuses.

We have three services here. We're gonna eventually have a second service here this spring at our other campus that's been growing. And so in North Jackson. So what five services every Sunday. God has just been blessing us as we've just had amazing things happening in people's lives and life changes been happening and so there's also been with the good, there's also the bad.

We go through hard times with people's lives and walk through difficult situations with people and under underlying why we do all what we do to support people in the good times and the bad is kind of why we exist as a church. Uh, we exist to love God and love people. And for us as a church, uh, we have a vision.

That vision is three 30. This is the vision we launched, launched in October for the next five years. 

Vision 3:30 - He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

Our vision three 30 is based off of John three 30, which I don't have a slide. It's just over here. Oh, Linda created a slide. Good. Good job, Linda. Thank you. Awesome. That's magic. Um, so here's the verse. He must become greater.

I must become less. That's our vision. We believe as a church that as we do life. God must increase and we must decrease. That's not just on the one hour of Sunday Church where we come together and pretend like everything's good. It's seven days a week, 24 hours a day that God becomes greater in our life and we become less in our life.

We believe this fully as a church. Church is seven days a week. Sundays when we gather is all about coming together as a community to corporately glorify God. That is the purpose of Sunday morning. That's what we believe the purpose of Sunday morning is. That's what the Bible says. We come together to glorify God Sunday morning.

Church is not about you. It's not. It's not about me. It's about him. Be rest of the week is all about him. You should be growing in relationship with him. You should be growing in knowledge of him. You should be in Bible studies and life groups, personal study devotions, reading your word, spitting life together.

The people glorifying God in those ways, in learning to grow more like him in the different ways that you can get involved with affinity groups in those type of things. Women's studies, men's studies, whatever it may be. We believe being a Christian here at Heart Lakes is. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day when we come together on Sundays.

It's just a, it's really the manifestation of our week of growing closer to God where we come together and we glorify God in the good moments and in the bad 'cause. Some of us are here today with bad moments, and some of us are here today. It's still been good and that's kinda why we exist to do what we do.

And part of our vision in three 30, uh, which you, the black posters on the wall are about our vision of who we are as a church. One of them over here, uh, says, boldly introduce our community to Jesus. That's our goal. We want to be a church where we boldly introduce our community to Jesus. We want to be different.

Uh, we do things different. We know that we go by Hoddle, which could be hot L if you're Kevin Sorbo. Um. Kevin Sobo. We paid him twice to do a cameo. Twice. He's got the name of our church wrong. And we even told him both times exactly how it was, how he got it wrong, and how he should do it again. Still got it wrong.

So, uh, yeah. Um, we're gonna do a third time this year. We're gonna see how it goes, uh, for Hollywood this year. We're gonna get it right, Kevin Sobo. We're gonna do it. Um, but for us, the church, we, we definitely do our own unique thing. We know who we are, we know who we're not. And we are pastors and staff who are a little corny.

We, we are into cornier things, so we like the corny things like hotdog and hot wood and hot con and all that stuff. We love that. And so we just kind of have our unique blend of who we are. And when I came here and Cody came here a year later. We really talked about just pastoring a church that our family would want to attend and be part of.

And that's kind of the goal of how we kind of, kind of, we're our unique blend as a church, but underlying all of that, we stick to our vision. We have a, a really detailed vision, and we follow that vision. We think about that vision. We program through that vision. All of our events and things that we do are filtered through that.

Although sometimes we may have corny names, like pastries with the pastors or pizza with the pastors. We do love alliteration around here. It's always to get back to the core vision of. Introducing people to Jesus. That's our goal, and the way that we really do that as a church is we love like Jesus. 

Loving Our Community Well

We want people to know that we love Jesus and we wanna love like Jesus.

That means people inside the walls of this church, and especially the people outside of the walls of the church, that's our goal. We want people to know who Jesus Christ is and that you can love people in a way that's real and intangible, and that can be different. I want people in the community to say there's something different about people that go to Heart Lakes, and the difference is we love them.

We really genuinely love people. I love our community. I want to be part of our community. I love it so much when new businesses open up, I go introduce myself to to people, and I say, Hey, I'm Cyle. I the pastor, heart Lakes. And they're like, what? It's that. So I usually say Hoddle, they have no idea what that is.

And then I explain it and they still have no idea what it is. But we get there and uh, I, I, I'll usually make a video just trying their food and walk around their store, just sharing it. Because one of the ways to care about people is to love 'em, is just care about their thing. If they open a business, we should care about it.

Like, I'm excited Jimmy John's is coming. I'm gonna be there and we'll make a video. It's gonna happen, but we can love like Jesus. And the way you love people is just generally just caring about people. That's what love looks like, and we want our community to really truly know that we love them. It's one of the the reasons why we're intentionally, as we're growing, we're trying to reuse as much of our space in different ways and reorganize before building a big building.

Uh, it's one of the reasons that we've partnered with the Star Theater to do something downtown that's solely not about us. It's about loving our community because our community matters and we want them to know that they matter. Like yesterday, I was driving back from a movie. My son was driving. I was, I was not driving, I was riding.

That's why nothing hit us. Uh, so that's the thing. Um, so I was watching a TikTok video of this church somewhere, uh, somewhere out in the Midwest, um, or in Middle America. And they were posting, uh, they're doing a video every week of their $11 million. Project and they were kept talking about how much money they was, like $11 million, 11 million is showing their land and all that, and updating, and all I could think about was as a, as a pastor and as a person, I, all I could think about was.

What does their community think of these videos? Because it's just like an exorbitant amount of money to build a building, right? And they're just bragging about how much it costs over and over again. A video and the way algorithms work on social media, it shows it to the people around you first. So it means everybody in that community knows they've taken $11 million to spend just on them and not on the community.

I don't wanna be guilty of that as, as a pastor at this church, I want our community to know that we love them and we care about them. And you know, so much so that when Cody had his surgery and he did a video talking about it, like 400,000 people watched it. But a lot of people in this community, and they would ask me when I was out in town about Cody, they don't attend this church, never attend this church.

But they know that we care about them. So they were asking about him because since they know we cared, they cared, they cared that Cody was okay, and uh, he is okay. Obviously, he's up here singing and doing a great job, but it, it is great to be part of a community where people know that we love them intentionally.

As the pastors of the church and, and vicariously this church, we love them. We want people to say, Hey, you go to that church with all those signs in the yard. That's awesome. There's something different about that church. Yes, we want love like Jesus. That's our goal. And 

What Real Love Looks Like

you truly cannot love someone without caring about what matters to them.

That's the truth. If you wanna really love someone, it's not high fives and hugs and handshakes. It's really caring about what matters to them. That's the nature of it. And so I, I think about this. I spent 18 years living in Ohio and 18 years living in Ohio before I moved back to Michigan. And it was miserable.

18 weekends a year when Michigan lost to Ohio State, and now actually, I think it was 16 times out of the 18, two of 'em, it was okay. But people were brutal about it. They were brutal and they, they, what they didn't realize is I. I care deeply about my team. They care deeply about their team, but they didn't seem to care about me and my cares when they were ridiculing me on a Sunday as a pastor who I didn't have any choice but to show up to work, right, and put up with with that.

And so it's one of the reasons why we stand up here on stage. I don't wear Michigan stuff on stage. That's not a thing. I don't wear it. You don't ever see me wear Michigan stuff on stage because I don't want to come across as that way. Because when you care about people, you care about their thing. We have a lot of high state fans here.

We have a lot of Michigan State fans. We have a lot of fans. We don't ridicule teams from stage because it's not loving, it's not caring about what people care about, care about. I'm glad when your teams win. I'm just a little bit more glad when my team wins, but I'm okay if you team wins and it's taken some growth and maturity over these last 25 years since college, but it's truly the thing.

Like you gotta care about what matters to other people to truly care about them. That's what matters because love just is an affection. Love is attention. It's attention to people caring about their things, seeing who they are, recognizing what their interests are, what what they're into, and just caring, not just a smile as you open the door.

And I love that person 'cause I smiled at them. That's the love. Right. Love is really paying attention to details and to people and see Jesus. He didn't dismiss people's needs. He stepped into them. When Jesus met the woman at the well, she was a horrible sinner. He could have said, oh, be gone for me horrible sinner.

Right? He didn't. He had a conversation. He stepped into her life, into her needs 'cause he cared about her. He loved her. She mattered. That's the job of people who love different, who love like Jesus. 

Scripture: Galatians 6:2 - Bear One Another's Burdens

Galatians six two tells us this, remember the yellow part you read out loud and problem bear one another's burdens and self fulfill the law of Christ.

And for those of you, so we'll use this one. For those of you who don't like to read the yellow part out loud, care about what the people care about, care about, I care that you read out loud. See, some of you out there are like uhoh. Um. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill all of Christ. This is scripture.

It's not a suggestion. It's a lifestyle. We're supposed to bear one another's burdens. We're supposed to go through life carrying each other's burdens, caring about what the other people that we care about, care about. That's scripture. This goes all the way back to the Old Testament and the New Testament all the way through the Bible.

This is how you love people. You care about them. And 

Jesus: Our Greatest Example of Love

Jesus cared about people. Jesus healed people who were sick, who were lame, who were blind. He fed people who were hungry. He forgave people and Jesus wet with people when they were grieving. He wept when his best friend died, and his si, his best friend's sisters were there weeping.

He wept with people. Jesus was in people's lives, caring about people, and he's our greatest example of what love looks like because love notices. Love cares and love acts. That's love. That's more than a handshake. That's more than a high five. That's more than a hug. It's more than a smile. It's something more, it's actually being invested in people's lives.

You have to notice, you have to care, and then you have to do something about it. You have to act. And 

Culture of Honor: Care About What People Care About

that's why in our culture of honor, which is over here on this black poster, we have five things. The first one is care about what the people you care about, care about. I know we could probably shorten it.

We're not going to 'cause we're heart lakes and we like it. Um, so I think it rolls off the tongue. So care about what the people you care about. Care about. Yeah. Do you wanna add another one? Yeah. Care about what people care about. Care about. Alright. Um, ultimately this is something that I live in my life.

This gets brought up in my home by my kids most often. Hey dad, you're not caring about what the people care about, care about, usually when they wanna get away with something. Um, but I think about this when I'm at home and I could be doing something else and someone's going through a horrible moment or they need counseling or they need help, and I could be like, oh, I could just like not answer the phone when, if I really generally care about what the people I care about, care about, I gotta care about what they're going through, their hurts, their situations.

And guess what? I don't just do this 'cause I'm paid as a pastor. We're all ministers of the gospel. The great commission is a challenge to all to go into the world and make disciples. That's all of us, not just me. All of us are to go into the the world and make disciples caring about people and reach them with the good news of Jesus Christ.

That's that's the Bible. So we all gotta do this. We think about this in my life. I think about this on a regular basis almost daily. Am I caring about what the people I care about, care about? That's life. 

Illustration: 25 Days of Board Games

My family's actually, uh, participated in this. My children and my wife have been caring about what I care about all December long because we, we decided as a family, mainly me, and then they agreed.

We decided we would do a 25 day. Board game, advent Christmas tree. I built all my big board games in New Christmas tree, decorated it, and then we played one a day. Now that sounds maybe not like fun to you. Sounds really fun to me. Some of those games may take four hours, seven hours, some of 'em take 30 minutes.

Um, so we had to navigate it a little bit. And uh, there was a, there was a couple days in there where we got like, almost to the end and my kids were like, did you really mean like every day we had to play a game every day for 25 days? Yes, that was the deal. Right? And, but they did it. They did it. We played 25 days of games together as a family.

Now, I'm just gonna tell you, and, and this is what I keep telling my kids, you know how many parents and families would love to sit down with your kids for every day, for 25 days and spend time playing a game? Sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for four hours. Uh, just doing it as a family. My wife never won one game, never even came close.

Um, I don't think she ever got above third place, but. She does not like board games anywhere near as much as the rest of us. She played 25 days because she cared about what I care about. It was important. We practiced this in our own home. Now, I'll give you another example because maybe you don't like board games.

Illustration: Making Soap with Middle School Girls

When I was a youth pastor years ago, in my early twenties, I'd have like 80 or 90 kids in my youth group at the time, and the majority of them, two thirds of them were girls, most of them middle school girls and I early twenties. Mid twenties. I'm outta college playing football. I'm married, I got one kid, one on the way, and I'm into all boy things, right?

Football, wrestling, like the, like, I like sports. That where people hit each other. That's what I'm into. Middle school girls not, they're into friendship. Bracelets, beads, all things I'm not into. 'cause my hands are way too big for that type of stuff. So hair braiding, I don't have hair to braid. So I've had this hate sitting hair cup for 25 years.

Uh, that's the way it works for me. And so I decided at that point if I wanted to really care about those girls and share Jesus with them, I actually had to find a way to plug into their life so that they knew I cared. And so I could open up a channel where they would listen to me about the gospel. And so here's what I did.

I made soap. I made lots of soap. I have a soap cauldron, so I dunno if it's called a cauldron, but that's what I like to call it. A soap pot where you actually put your glycerin in and your shea butter and your COA butter, and you melt it all together and then you put it in molds and you put apricot seeds and you exfoliate your skin.

You put tea leaves and all this stuff. I could sense a lavender and jasmine, and you name it. I'm into soap. If you wanna make soap. I'm your guy. Now, I wasn't into soap before this. But I recognize if I wanted those girls to know that I love them and I cared, I had to be into what they were into. Still not into friendship bracelets.

So though my hands are too big for that, but I had to find a way to care about what they cared about, find a way to plug in. And so I would, we would have soap making parties. I always like to pampered Chef. Uh, so come over and make soap, but it worked. I built relationships across generational barriers, across gender barriers with girls that I didn't have a lot in common with the things they were interested in.

Uh, but I learned about Twilight and all kind like that's when Twilight first came out. Yeah. I sat in a bus, had a middle school girl. Tell me all about Twilight, because I connected with her through soap and now I got into her life. And learned about all this stuff. And now I was like, I feel like I was the cool guy.

'cause I learned about Twilight before anybody else because I was connected with middle school girls at the time. So, but like, ultimately that's what it looks like to care about with people who care about, about, I was not into SOAP before and I'm, I mean, I'm, I don't make soap. That's not like a weekend thing for me.

I haven't made soap in years. But it was important to them and it was important to me when, so when you care about somebody, you care about the things that they're into. 

When We Don't Care: People Feel Unseen and Unloved

When we don't care about someone, cares about the opposite happens. Those middle school girls, they felt seen, they felt valued. When you don't care about someone, they feel unseen.

They feel unvalued, they feel unloved, and they feel distant. It's really hard to do ministry to anyone. If they feel unseen, unvalued, unloved, and they felt distant. It's hard to have a relationship with them and so it, Maya took soap, but I was able through soap to make those millville girls feel seen, valued, loved.

And close because they cared. 'cause they cared. I also painted nails, but that's a whole other thing. So biblical love does not stay distant. Biblical love does not stay distant. It stays close. 

Scripture: Romans 12:15 & Ecclesiastes - Rejoice and Weep Together

Romans 1215 tells us, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep, weep with those who weep. We're told this in the, in the New Testament.

This is also in the Old Testament Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes, we're told to mourn with people who mourn, cry with people who cry, laugh with people who laugh. We're told to do life together and to take interest and to notice each other, and to do life together. Weep with people, cry with people, rejoice with people, hurt with people.

Heal with people. All of those things. The Bible tells us what love looks like. Jesus is our best example because love looks outward. It doesn't look inward. 

Love Looks Outward, Not Inward

The problem is we live in 2026 America, where love is inward. It's all about me. It's all about what I can get from things. And if you want me to love you, you gotta love me the way I wanna be loved, then I'll love you back.

Now, we don't ever say those words, but the way we say it in America is I'll respect you. When you respect me. Respect me. Anyone ever said that before in your life? Yeah, lots of you have. Like I was a middle school kid. I said a middle school kid. Um, but the truth is, in our life, we, that's inward love. I want you to do it for me and then I'll do it.

Our love is, I'm gonna love you regardless of the way that you love me. I'm gonna love you because I care, because I care about what you care about. 'cause I care about what the people I care about, care about. That's what love looks like, and you can't do this unless you know what people care about. That's the truth.

You have to get into people's lives. That's the way it is. You have to be invested. My kids are all into different things. I'm not into all the things that they're into. My son likes rugby. It came outta nowhere. Now I like rugby, so like I go to rugby matches and do those things. It wasn't something I was into, but you learn.

You do this with your spouse. You do this with your kids. Do this with your family. You do this with friends. You've gotta get invested in people's lives, but you can't get invested. If you don't know 'em, you don't notice them. You don't see them. And so this is what, what, what love does. 

Scripture: Philippians 2:3-4 - Count Others More Significant

Philippians two tells us, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more, more significant than yourselves.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I feel that, um, you guys did it, but each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. To the Bible tells us how to love. We're supposed to in humility, value others more than ourselves. That means put them before us and. Look to the interest of others.

The problem is in 2026, America, we look to our own interest. I'll take care of me and then maybe I'll, I'll take care of you. But that's the American way. We'll take care of us. That's really just the modern way of the entire world. We'll just take care of me, my needs, anything else but me. And don't worry about you, my time, my talent, my treasure.

It's mine. And then maybe if there's something else I'll care about you. But the Bible's the opposite. We're supposed to take our time or talent and treasure and invest in our people, and then what's left over. We take care of our own interest. It's flipped from the world. The problem is we're trapped in the world.

Where that second part of that verse is really the world we live in and where a lot of us are trapped in. And you know, if you're trapped there, we're supposed to be counting others more significant in ourselves. We're supposed to be finding the value of those people and investing in it and caring about it because we love when we care.

We love when we notice. We love when we listen, and we love when we enter someone else's world. 

Practical Application: Listening Across Differences

Do you know that you can love people who vote differently than you just by listening to them? Do you know? I, there's plenty of people who I, I know probably voted differently me, but I just sit and listen to 'em, not argue with them on the internet.

I'm not a Facebook warrior, but I just sit and have a coffee and just, they tell me why they vote the way they vote and listen to 'em. I get their perspective. I care about what the people I care about, care about, doesn't mean I'm gonna vote the same way. Him, but I care about him enough to hear 'em out, hear why, to listen to notice.

One of the things that we try to do as a church is we try not to get overly involved in politics because we have people who all over our, our services vote differently. I know they do. And what we try to do is to say, just love people. Have conversations and see where it goes. Because we're gonna be in heaven when people vote different.

We're gonna be in heaven. We're gonna be in heaven. People who have different sports teams that they favor maybe. So we're gonna be in heaven with people who are see the world way different than us in lots of different ways. We need to figure it out now. How do we care? How do we notice? How do we listen?

And then how do we enter someone else's world now, not just the people we already love. Some of you say, well, I'm really good at that with my kids or my parents. They're like, how do you do this with your enemies? How do you do this with your coworkers? How do you do with a neighbor that you don't like who keeps park parking their boat too close to your slip?

Right? How do you do this with the people in your life? How do we do this with people in the community to let them know that our lakes loves them as a church? How do we do it? 

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:26 - Suffer and Rejoice Together

One Corinthians 12 says that there may may be no division in the body, but that the members may have. The same care for one another.

If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. See, the goal of the Bible keeps telling us over and over again how we are to collectively do all this stuff together. We're to suffer together. We're to rejoice together. We're to do it together As a church, as a community, as a family.

When we, when we hurt as a community, we should all hurt together. When someone's suffering in a community, we should all hurt. When we rejoice, we should all rejoice. That's life. And so we have to be living this out and we come together collectively as a church. We should all come to rejoice the Lord together, but we have people who today are hurting.

They've got loss of their family, they've lost loved ones. It's not always easy. These holidays, a new year. And so we gotta suffer together and we gotta grieve together. We gotta do those things together to care about people. 

Jesus Loved Us Close, Not From a Distance

Because Jesus did not love us from a distance. He stepped into our pain. He stepped into our fear.

He stepped into our sin, he stepped into our brokenness. God could have loved us from afar, but he sent Jesus into the world to have the experience of us to experience humanity. All the ups and downs of humanity life. He sent Jesus in as an answer and he loved us close, not from a distance. That's what it looks like to love somebody.

You gotta love him. Close. 

Scripture: John 13 - Love One Another as I Have Loved You

John 13. Jesus says this, A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Our perfect example was Jesus Christ. That's our perfect example of God's love. And so the way that we love should be the way that he loved. That's it. We have to love the way he loved.

We have to, and if you struggle with it, yeah, you struggle with love. Some of us haven't been loved very well in our lives, let's be honest. And some of us aren't very loving because of it. How do we change it for Jesus? 

Our Needs Matter to Jesus

Our needs matter to him When we need healing, Jesus heals. When we're hungry, Jesus feeds us.

That's the bread of life. The Bible calls it. Jesus feeds us the bread of life. When we're thirsty, Jesus gives us the living water. When we need forgiveness, Jesus gives it and death that we all are gonna face. One day Jesus conquered it to give us life everlasting. See, our needs are human needs, married to Jesus.

We also see examples in scripture of Jesus meeting these needs. The people he came in contact with, the ministry. People matter to Jesus. So what does this mean for you? 

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13 - Love Does Not Insist on Its Own Way

One Corinthians 13 tells us love does not insist on its own way, way. You wanna love people, stop insisting on your own way. Stop saying, I'm gonna love you.

When you love me. I'm gonna respect you and you respect me. And just love people. Just love people. It changes your priorities, changes your feelings, changes the things that matter to you. Just love people. Love doesn't demand shared priorities. Love adopts them. That's the reality. The problem is we're so good, as is cultural Americans that we're really good about saying, ah, it's all about our share priorities.

You share my priorities. I'll love you back. If you're interested in things, I'm interested. I'll love you back. It is not what it's supposed to be. We're supposed to love people. 

Every Person Matters to God

Every person matters. Every single person matters. Whether you like 'em or not. They still matter. They still matter. 'cause it matter to God if it matters to your spouse.

It matters if it matters to your child. It matters if it matters to your friend. It matters if it matters to your neighbor. It matters. If it matters to your church family, it matters. And I, I'll add, if it matters to your enemies, it matters. It does because they matter. 'cause they all matter to God. Jesus didn't come into the world for the only people he liked.

He came for the entire world. And so as followers of Jesus Christ. We don't if we're gonna love like Jesus, we don't get to choose who we like in our community, who we like in our neighborhood, who we like in our school, who we like in our workplace. We're just supposed to love people regardless of whether they're very likable all the time.

You're supposed to love them. And it's hard sometimes I fail at it. I'm trying to be really good at right now in life, um, dealing with just my broken everything situation, but I'm just trying to love people. Who are unlovable, and it's a lot easier when you just kind of go through life recognizing, oh, well, I'm gonna love you anyways.

Whether or not you deserve it, I'm still gonna love you. It changes things. It changes. It changes your heart. It really does. 

Jesus Went to the Cross Because He Cared

See Jesus cared about what mattered to us so much that he went to the cross. That's the key. And love steps into someone else's priorities the way that Christ stepped into ours.

That's what love looks like. You really wanna love like Jesus, step into someone's life. Care about what the people you care about, care about. That doesn't mean that they get their way. That's a big important part of it. People always say, oh, just tell me they get their way. No, it doesn't mean they get their way.

It just means I care about their perspectives, their priorities, their their opinions, and I take all that into account before I make my decisions in life. I try to value people. I even try to tell 'em, Hey, I know that maybe you don't like, you won't agree with this decision, but I thought about you and your thoughts, interests, whatever, and I'm still gonna go this route, but I just want you to know I hear you.

I see you, I notice you. It takes more time to care about people. You can't just do whatever you want all the time because it's gonna affect somebody. You actually have to have conversations with people to let 'em know that they're noticed, they're seen, they're heard, and you care. As a church, we care about what the people care about, care about.

That doesn't mean everybody gets their way. Everybody gets their style, everybody gets their color of pain or whatever. It just means we try to take every perspective we can into place before we make decisions. Are you all gonna agree with everything we do as church? No. Am I gonna agree with everything you knew?

No. I've seen your Facebooks so alright.

But I care. I love you. I'll make soap with you. So. But we're trying to, as a church, be like Jesus, so that our community sees Jesus. That's the goal. And if this is your church home, it's awesome, but if it's your church home, you gotta love people and you gotta change. Like you've gotta find a way to love people different than the way you did before you started attending Har Lake's Church.

If not, this may not be the church for you. You can go be unlovable somewhere else. That's okay. Just not here. But we really want to be a church where this matters. This matters because it matters to Jesus. Caring about people was always something that married to Jesus. We see it over and over again 'cause he loved them and he wanted them to know him and have a relationship with him.

And the reason we do this isn't about us. It's always about pointing them to him to glorify him. 

Challenge: Who Will You Care About This Week?

So the question I'm gonna leave you with is, who in your life need you to care about what they care about this week? Think about it. There's someone in your mind that you think, oh man, I need to do better with this person.

Maybe it's an ma, maybe it's a coworker, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a classmate, maybe it's spouse. Who in your life needs you to care more about them this week? And if you got something in mind, got something in your heart, you need to do something about it this week. And if that's you, if you got something, I want you to do this.

I want, don't wanna challenge you. Take out your connect connection card in the back. Don't write the name. I'm not gonna do that. Just write the word care. That's it. Just write the word care. We'll pray for you as a staff this week in staff meeting. That God gives you the opportunity to care about that, that person this week, maybe it's text, maybe it's a phone call, maybe it's spending time with 'em, maybe it's making soap.

I don't know. Maybe it's when their football team's playing this week. You tell 'em good job when they win. And even though it's not your favorite, whatever, um, I don't think any of us had teams playing anymore, but so go Indiana. Um, so but who are you gonna care about more this week Intentionally, because you're trying to show them the love of Jesus.

That's the, that's the challenge. 

Closing Prayer & Response

So as we pray to close, our prayer is gonna be simple as a church in 2026, heart of the Lakes. We want to continue to be a church where God increases and we decrease and we love like Jesus. So we can boldly introduce our community to Jesus Christ. That's the goal. You all are part of that.

We all have to do this collectively together. If you are someone who Cars Hard Lakes home, you are an example of the love of this church and this community. We need you to, to step up and say, you know what? I'm representative of a church that trying to care about people and care about what they care about.

I'm a representative of Jesus Christ and I want people to know Jesus Christ. We've gotta do this collectively and individually so that Jesus Christ can be glorified and people can see the love of Jesus in a real intangible way in this community. That's our goal and that's our prayer, that we can do that individually and collectively as a church.

But also for those of you who have that name in your mind, your heart, lemme pray for you this right now, this week you find a way to care. Really care. Notice, listen. Get involved in someone's life and care about 'em This week, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just pray that we can be at church. Lord, we just don't glorify you with words, but we actually live it out in the relationships that we have in our community, with the businesses, with the people, and the school in our workplaces.

And then we come here together, Lord, we, we come to glorify you. That we, we understand that loving like Jesus means living like Jesus and being like Jesus in relationships. And we pray for more opportunities to love intentionally and to care intentionally to go outside of our own comfort zone and to care about what the people we care about, care about.

But right now, if there's anybody who just has a name in their heart and their mind that they know they need to do better, they need to care more this week. I just pray you give 'em the opportunity in a real and tangible way to show that love and to show Jesus. Lord, we just thank you for the example of Jesus Christ in our lives, in your Word, and that we can be more like Jesus and we just pray this in His name.

Amen. Take a moment, we'll up these connection cards off together. Count 3, 1, 2, 3. You can put these in the black boxes at the doorway or in the black box.