[SERMON] Six Rules That Change Everything | The Rules of Us

Pastor Cyle teaches that healthy relationships require intentional rules and boundaries, not just passion. Drawing from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and practical wisdom, he shares how "future us survives present us" through clear communication, quick repentance, faithful promises, prayer, and releasing bitterness. The message challenges listeners to apply biblical principles to all relationships—romantic, familial, and platonic—so they can love God by loving people well.

Transcript

 

3:30 Vision Campaign Update

Uh, we have, uh, it is the third Sunday of the month, which means anybody know what that means? 3 30, 3 30 update. We, we promise that every third Sunday we would do a three 30 update if you're new. Three 30 is our vision campaign for the future 2030 and beyond. It's three 30. We base it off of, uh, a Bible verse as well.

I'll get to that. But we have two campuses, so we are one church, two campuses. Brooklyn and Jackson. Uh, you can figure out which one you're at today. Um, pastor Matt is here from the, uh, Jackson campus today. Uh, and Matt's over here. Those of you who asked me, who's this Matt guy that contacts me. That's Matt.

So, uh, he comes over here about once a month and does announcements, so you get, get to know him. But he's our adult care and group pastor, and he is also over there and preaches, uh, along with Mark. And they do a great job over there. Uh, Ryan is preaching Ryan crawls over there today, so we're very excited about that.

He's covering for, for Matt to be here. So we're, we're excited about that. Uh, but things are going well. Update on, on Jackson. The Jackson campus in March goes to two services. So they've been growing and then we're excited about that. Woo. Yeah, so it's very exciting. Yeah. We're, we're excited about what God's doing over there.

One will be a little bit more traditional, one will be more contemporary, kinda meet the needs of the congregation over there. We're excited about that. And so, uh, as we're growing, they're growing. And so, uh, that's part of why we have a vision campaign because we can try to figure out as we grow, how do we navigate growth and how in limited space, so we have a vision campaign that's part of our vision.

But also it's a capital campaign, which is three 30. Uh, and so this is based off of John three 30, which is he must become greater and I must become less. We believe as individuals, it's more about making God known and glorifying him in the world and not ourselves, both individually and collectively as a church.

That's our goal, and we have a vision. We have three simple vision statements for the year 30, 30 and or 2030 and beyond. Also for 30, 30. But it's simple. We wanna boldly introduce our community to Jesus. That's a goal of ours as a church, the programming, the events, the activities we do, it's to boldly introduce our community to Jesus.

We wanna embrace the culture of honor. The way we treat each other matters as we love God and love people. If you don't know what that is, you can find our, our culture of honor on the wall over here. And then we wanna multiply through discipleship. We don't want to grow as a church. We want to grow because people are growing in Christ and they can't help but tell other people about it, and their life change makes people excited to get to know, well, I need to know this Jesus too.

That's what we believe growth looks like, and so we wanna multiply our church. Through discipleship, people growing in Christ. That is how we plan and program as a church. That's why we do so many different things. And this Friday was super busy. We had Gallant Times's for the youth group. Uh, girls we had game night at the other campus.

We had, uh, youth group boys over at an event. We had different small groups meeting. We had a ladies group meeting. We had all these things going on because we are a busy church because God is moving and it's exciting. And so we want you to just get plugged in today. There's pizza with the pastors. So if you're new at our church, you haven't got to know.

Some of us stop down after service. We have pizza and you can down on the other end of the building. And we would love to get to know you and connect with you and, uh, introduce you to some of the people on staff and that come to church with you. Uh, part of our campaign is a capital campaign. We want to raise $330,000 over the next.

30 months. Uh, and so we've asked people to take pledges of $33. We've asked, we want 330 pledges of $33 each month. So it's a whole three 30 thing. If you're new, we like being corny. Um, don't do the math of that. I promise you it does not add up to three, 330,000. It adds up to 327,000, 140 or something like that.

It's close, but we round up. Uh, it's important. And so part of that, we have raised currently $95,141. Uh, yeah. That's awesome. Those guys are great. We currently have pledged, actually the updated number's, like 53,000 something, uh, as of as of February. Uh, and so we are just, you guys have been very faithful giving.

If you'd like to participate, if you want to give to the campaign, you can. If you're new to our church. And you say, Hey, I'm all in. I want to be more in. You can give, there's these little cards, these are giving campaign cards in the back of your pews. You may give we're, you know, this is not a hard sell.

If you want to participate, it tells you how to give pledges monthly. You can do that through Tidily. You can use this card, you can fill it out. We'll contact you, but we, if you want to be in, you can be in. And so that'd be awesome. And help us, because as we look at things, we have, uh, we have all these different tiers of the next three stages.

We believe we need to do three campaigns of $330,000. Over the next seven to 10 years. That's really what we understand as we keep growing, we're running a space. We've already had to go to three services. I don't know if we can do four on a Sunday. I mean, if we have to, we will, but uh, we really need to figure out space issues and we need to figure out parking lot.

Uh, issues. So these are our tier. You can read 'em out in the lobby. If you have questions, you're welcome to ask me. I will answer any questions. I had my first question about, about these tiers a couple weeks ago, and it was like, Hey, can you tell me more about this one? And I was so excited 'cause no one ever asked me about it.

Um, I've been telling you guys, so I was like, yeah, ask me about it. But I have some updates for you. Parking lot update. We, we wanna put a parking lot out front because that's our biggest issue. Is parking, um, going to three services, made some room in this, this room for at least a time. But we have a big parking issue We are, we're aware of for all of our events Sunday mornings.

So here's the update. We have done our part. We're waiting on the township, and that's a very laborious process. Now we have to have a survey. Now we have to have like three more meetings. We started this back in August and it's gonna be August, probably before it moves forward, unfortunately. But it does look nice, uh, on paper.

Um, it does look nice on paper, so it'll get here eventually, uh, in God's timing is what I like to say. Uh, other updates we do, we did buy the house next door with a pole barn. We've already began the process of renovating that. Marshall and Amity Tracy are kind of leading the project. They've contacted those of you who have signed up or will be in the process of doing that to get your help over there.

We're kind of renovating the house. We wanna make it an awesome space for ministry. For small groups, for bible studies, for life groups, all those things. We're gonna move a few offices over there and the youth group's already been using it, so it's, uh, they've already gotten the benefit out of that.

They've had some, a couple events there. We're excited about what God is doing and having that space. We're also gonna be moving the office from out in the lobby and down to the other end so we can free up lobby space. 'cause we're outta lobby space. That's a thing. And then we, uh, this just recently we completed four HVAC projects.

One here. Uh, two at the parsonage and one at the other campus of broken things that needed fixed. So that's part of what was part of the campaign. So things are happening, although you may not see 'em. Oh, the other big thing is we're renovating the bathrooms. Uh, Harold and Stacy Wilkes are gonna lead that project up and contact some of you to help with that.

That's gonna get done in the next few months. Hopefully by fall we're gonna renovate these bathrooms. And so, yeah, I know if you use the bathrooms, you know, it's important that needs to happen. Um, so, but those are all things that are in process and we're just excited. But those are all ways that we, um. We want to come take care of this building and prepare for the future.

We also, Friday something amazing happened, I'll tell you in a month. So, uh, yeah, I'll tell you in a month at the next update. So it's too soon. Uh, but, but God is moving and you'll start seeing more things as these projects get done. As you have, get in these spaces, you'll begin seeing more with your eyes.

It's getting done, but we wanna make sure, you know, things are happening. Uh, all the things that we plan for as part of the campaign, we're moving forward with those projects. The big thing you wanna put in your calendar though, is on March 30th, we are doing a concert. It is the three 30 concert. We're gonna do it every March 30th.

Every year as we do this campaign, we're gonna have a big concert. A lot of this will be original songs that, that we have for our church. There'll be some of some of the songs that you know and love. We want you to come, want you to bring friends and family. It's just gonna be a great night, a great vision night of, of just an amazing concert.

So put that on your calendar. 7:00 PM on. Three 30, so it's gonna be awesome. And so thank you for praying about supporting the campaign. Thank you for giving the campaign. We're excited about what God is doing and continues to do, and we're just trying to be faithful as we respond to that, as we love God and love people.

Thanks.

Series Introduction: Rules of Us

I, I just tell every week. It's funny to hear all the giggles when the confetti goes off up, up here. So you guys need to grow up. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. We're continuing our series called Rules of Us. It's a series about relationships, uh, because we had Valentine's yesterday. Uh, we're really talking a little bit more about romantic relationships in this series, but everything that, when it comes to communication and how to set up healthy relationships is universally applicable across all relationships in your life.

So for those of you who are like, well, I'm not, I don't have a romantic relationship going on right now. That's okay. You can apply this with your mom and dad, brothers and sisters, friends, coworkers, classmates, you name it. It really does apply across the board for most of this stuff because healthy relationships look like healthy relationships, and you have to navigate them in a healthy way.

And so for us, what I call this is rules of us because my wife and I, we, we call this rules of us in our life and rules of us are really how future us survives present us. If you want to have a better relationship in the future, you have to actually make work on it now to make it happen in the future.

You can't just stumble in. Maybe you can stumble into health healthy relationships. Most of us stumble out of healthy relationships and, and do things that break those relationships. And so if you want to have a better relationship in the future. You have to plan for it. I don't know if you know this, but if you want to have a retirement in the future, you have to invest in it.

Now, that's the thing. It's the same way in relationships. If you want to have a good relationship with the future, you actually have to invest in it now and do things right, and so 'cause the relationship without rules, it's really governed by whoever is loudest. Some of you, you understand this, whoever is the loudest person in your house usually gets their way.

They're the bully, right? They're the bully. Yeah. You may not call it bully, but you're the bully. Uh, right. Finish this one for me. The squeaky wheel gets the priest. We all know that to be a phrase because the squeaky wheel is the loudest. And so that usually gets its way. It's, it's what it wants, right? You usually just want, I wanna shut that up, so I'm gonna give you what you want.

That's what happens. That's not a healthy relationship. Some of you think that's a healthy relationship. No. No, it's not so, uh, that you need to change, right? A relationship without rules is usually governed by whoever. Complaints of oath, whoever's loudest, whoever, yells louder. That's not healthy. We wanna create healthy relationships, and that's not just getting your way, but having a dualistic relationship that's 

Why Rules Don't Kill Love—They Keep It Alive

healthy.

Because rules don't kill love. They keep it alive. Rules are a good thing. I know we don't like rules. We like to be free and not have rules, but rules are a really good thing. 'cause they create boundaries. They carry create guidelines. You know who, who's right, who's wrong? I think rules are super healthy. I love sports.

And sports without rules is just church league basketball. Right? And it's a lot of fighting, a lot of yelling, and a lot of cussing. So, uh, it is. So I've been to those games, right? Because in church league basketball, you're supposed to call your own foul. What? They don't, and then they end up fighting, and then the cops come, it's a thing.

So it's, it guys laugh, but it's happened, uh, more than we want to admit, right? Um, but rules don't kill love. They actually keep it alive. This is really big in the world right now. Who is, who's following the Olympics? Okay. Alright. So, okay. You're like, I've been watching all day when you're supposed to be working and typing.

All right. Um, the Olympics are going on. This is actually a big thing that happened just this past weekend, uh, in the sport of curling, which I'm now a curling enthusiast. I love, I love watching those stones smash into each other. Uh. So curling considers itself, itself like the civil sport, right, where they self-police each other and they call their own fouls, kind of like church league, uh, basketball.

So, but here's what happened. Just this weekend, one of the Canadians, he, he flicked the stone and, you know, I guess you're not supposed to flick the stone after you push the stone away. And he didn't call his own foul. So the other team got mad. There was a lot of cussing. Uh, it really is like drift league softball.

Uh uh, but ultimately. So it became this huge incident. So much so that the Canadian government just made a statement on all social media about this. So this is actually like a big international incident because he flicked the stone and it was fighting about, they were yelling at each other. And because some of these rules were not really written down like they're supposed to be there.

'cause everybody's supposed to be nice and civil in the sport of curling until you got medals on the line. And so the problem is where there's no rules. There's no referee. And so because there was no rules for certain things and you just think everybody's gonna be civil about everything and everybody's gonna treat each other right, they didn't treat each other right and it became an international incident.

'cause there's really no way to referee it. Some of you have relationships, you're trying to navigate relationships with your kids, with your family, with your friends, with your classmates, with your spouse, with your neighbors, with the person that puts their dock too close to yours without any rules.

Without any rules. And the problem is where there's no rules. Nobody can referee. You can't referee. They can't referee and a third party can't referee. And it creates chaos and eventually they fall apart. Those relationships. And when RO and emotions run, hot rules keep the relationship from burning down like.

When you get frustrated, we often get angry. Like frustration usually is either shut down or angry. Uh, usually it's one person shuts down, one person gets angry, and then what happens is the emotions get too hot. There's no rules to keep the guidelines, so then the relationships just burns down. Some of you have a track record of broken relationships where they've been burnt to the ground, relationship after relationship after relationship, friendship, relationship with your kids, relationship with coworkers, classmates, you name it.

And they just burnt down where it was good at one point, but there weren't any rules to keep it good. So eventually somebody got mad enough, they just burnt the thing to the ground. Some of you, that's your relationship. Some of you're in the middle of burning a relationship down right now, and you're like, how do I fix this?

It's rules, uh, 'cause love without guardrails, without rules, it doesn't stay free. It just becomes fragile. It's that thing that at any moment could break because there's no way to protect it from breaking. It's like a bull in a China shop. I often get called a bull in a China shop. That's the thing. Um, 'cause I'm too big for those kind of stores.

So, so, but you, you, the realistic thing is if you, if you don't have the proper guidelines to protect something, it's eventually gonna get broken. When you put something in the mail and you don't put fragile on it. It is gonna come into you in pieces potentially. Like I'm, I'm going on an airplane today to, uh, um, Florida, uh, for a week.

And when I go, uh, if I were to put something fragile in my suitcase and not put fragile on it, there's a good chance it's gonna get destroyed. 'cause they're gonna destroy my suitcase. I'm, I know that's gonna happen. And so you need to put fragile on it. And that's the rule saying, Hey, the rule for this bag.

Don't break it. Don't break the thing that's in here. It's the same way in our relationship. If you want to protect it, you gotta put rules away around your relationship to protect it. Because love isn't proven a passion. It really is protected by discipline. Protected by discipline. Now we, we come out of Valentine's Day weekend when you're supposed to give gifts and do all these amazing things.

Like Cody had a pedicure yesterday. That's a thing. Um. I'm telling on him. Uh, he sent me a picture. It's his fault. Uh, so he's like, look at this. Uh, yeah, great, thanks. Yeah, but like, I love pedicures too, so they're fine. But love isn't proven in passion. So I had this whole dilemma this week. I was trying to get flowers for Patty, uh, because, you know, I've got a friend that was making flowers and he wasn't going to make flowers, so then I wasn't getting flowers and we had this whole conversation.

It was like, well, I was trying to get power flowers for Patty 'cause I wanted to, you know, show her passage, show her I love her. But then I, the whole time I've been thinking all week long, if I get flowers, she's just gonna hate it. She's gonna be mad at me because we're leaving for Florida in like seven hours.

So. The truth is I'll get her flowers, then we're leaving. They're just gonna wilt and die a home. And she's like, you wasted all that money and they're just gonna die anyways. And I'm not even gonna be able to look at 'em. And so that. That was the correct decision because I told her, Hey, I was been trying to get you flowers a week.

It didn't work out. I was getting you flowers. I just want credit for getting, getting you flowers, but not getting you flowers. I did say that. I said those exact words. Hey listen, you know, I'm, I'm honest up here. Uh, and she said that was the right decision because I really would've been thought that was a waste of money.

'cause we're leaving and so we can celebrate in Florida by being in Florida. And I was like, yeah, see? There you go. So, and the thing is like. Flowers and that kinda stuff. It's passion. But what I really understood is like the decision to understand who my wife is, that's the discipline of creating a relationship where we communicate and know each other because the right decision was not to buy the flowers.

Now I know some of you're gonna hear that and say, Hey, I, I didn't buy you flowers, and Kyle said was the right decision. I'm not saying you were right. I'm saying my specific one instance and not your instance, I was right. Um, but like you protect it by understanding who each other are and having the discipline to understand your relationship.

So we've been kind of looking into the rules that Patty and I have our relations to help you kind of see. Where the Bible and the knowledge of wisdom in the Bible can inform your relationship rules in whatever relationship that you have. So you can do better and be better. And you can show people how to love God and love people through your relationship.

So these are Patty's and I rules of us. She's, she's fine with me sharing all this. She was in the first services, so she's good. Um, number one, this is not by number one, by like. The best rule, it's we just put 'em down. They're not in any particular order, but it's just number one, keep 

Rule #1: Keep Communication Channels Open

communication channel open.

This is super important for any relationship. If it's a friendship, it's a workplace relationship. Any friendship, any relationship you have, this is important. You must keep the communication channel open. And, uh, because if you don't talk to each other, you can't figure things out and work it out. Now, I know.

Here's the thing. We all have these, right? Most of us have these, maybe some of our bill scores don't have these yet, but they're gonna get 'em soon, right? It happens. And what happens is we all know that when we send a text or make a phone call, you get it, right? Like anybody know the term ghosting. That means the communication channel is not currently opening.

Um, so, but like we get it and I have to not disturb on every day, but if all I have to go turn it off at some point, uh, it's just the way it works. 'cause I wanna sleep and, uh, when I forget, I, I will go through and see all the missed calls and all the missed texts. Oh, that was a lot. Especially when I'm on the phone for like 16 hours a day.

I am for seven days. I may not see all those missed calls until later, but I still see 'em. And so when you see 'em, the thing you wanna do is respond to people and connect with people and keep the communication channel open. What a lot of us do is just ignore people, or mute people, or block people. And so then there's no communication channel open, and that doesn't create healthy relationships, that doesn't allow you to move forward.

And if you get mad at somebody, just, just, I'm just ghost you. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm mad at you, I'm not gonna talk to you. I'm ignore you. I'm gonna ignore your text. I'm gonna mute you and do all the silence your text. All that does is create chaos and it burns down relationships and. Our goal for Pat and I, because we're married, we must always keep the communication channel open for my kids.

I always want to have the communication channel open and I pay for their phones. I know that they can get my text right, like I wanna keep their communication channel open. And this really comes outta understanding the Bible's view on communication and our part in communication. One of those verses that helps inform us in that is Proverbs 1813.

Scripture: Proverbs 18:13

It says this, remember the yell part's yours. If one gives an answer before he hears it, it it is his folly folly in shame. This is really talking about, we have another rule that kind of is very similar to this one too, that you want to have healthy communication. You want to hear people all the way through, and then you want to respond.

And if you don't, it's to your folly and shame that things fall apart and are broken and burned down. For us in our relationship, we wanna have communication channel where we can talk. Sometimes argue, sometimes it gets elevated. It happens, right? But we wanna have a proper communication and the opportunity to communicate.

And if we don't keep a communication channel open, it's to our folly in shame. If we communicate poorly, it's also to our folly in shame. Some of you, you go from broken communication method to broken communication method to avoidance, to, to whatever, and it's to your folly in shame, and it's to the other person's falling in shame.

And the reason why your commun, your relationship's not moving forward in the way you want. It is. 'cause you don't have a communication channel open with your kid, with your parent, with your coworker, with your classmate, with your friend, with your spouse. 'cause you're mad. And so I'm gonna just shut you out.

That's not healthy communication. And for Patty and I, no matter how mad we get, we always keep the communication channel open. That might be, it is through a text. It might be through, Hey, let's go, let's go somewhere and just talk and work this out. We keep a communication channel open and that's a rule.

We don't avoid each other. We don't ignore each other. We communicate. And even when we're upset, even when we're happy, we communicate. And it's important. And you need to as well in all your relationships, no matter how old you are, how young you are, you gotta communicate. Number seven, put thoughts in writing 

Rule #7: Put Thoughts in Writing

when you want to be accurate.

This is so important. I say this all the time. All the time. Write things down. We don't remember stuff. And when you do remember it, you remember it wrong. Right when I do counseling, this is how it happens every single time without fail. One spouse comes in, they tell me their version of what happened or what's been happening.

The other spouse comes in, they tell me their version of what's happened. They are completely different versions of the same event or the same happenings, and then I have to say, oh, those aren't similar at all. So the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The collection of both. And if I have a third person tell me their version of what's happened, the third person always is telling me a completely different version of the story.

Detectives have told me, Hey, when we, when we do an investigation, we have, we, we see all these people. We could get all their stories. It's always different versions of the same story, right, of a car wreck or whatever. It's because we're human, we're flawed, we live in a broken world. We don't all see things from the same perspective.

We don't all see things in the same way. I'm just gonna tell you. Four years ago, Michigan's, Michigan stopped Ohio State on the fourth and one. They did. That's my perspective will always be my per per perspective. If you watch the game, you know, we should have won. So like, this is like four or five years ago.

I was a big game. Like you can watch that as Ohio State fan. Like, oh, that is definitely, they got, they got through their line. No they didn't. It didn't you, you're lying, but uh, just kidding. I'm kidding. But we have different perspectives of the same football play. So it can be, and you're all watching the same replay video, but we see it completely different.

It's the way in life. We have to put things in writing when you were meant to be accurate. That way nobody can take a different account of what happened or say a different account of what happened. So we need to write things down. You need to put things in writing. That's why we wrote the rules down, because how do we remember what the rules are?

If we don't write 'em down, we literally have a Google Drive. Uh, it's been shared with you, I think, Matt. I made sure that you got, it went out this morning for you guys, like there's a Google Drive of our rules, because now we know what the rules are. It's like, well, that's a rule. Well, I don't know if it's a rule or not.

If I don't, it's not written down. And for us, put it in text, put it in writing, send it in an email, write things down so that you can be accurate and important. This comes from, uh, Habakkuk two, two. This idea comes from Habakkuk two. Two. This is important in the Old Testament. And the Lord 

Scripture: Habakkuk 2:2

answered me.

Write the vision, make it plain on tablets so he may run. Who reads it? Reads it. This is one of the reason. That our vision's plastered everywhere, all over the walls. That's why we have the Bible verse, why we have our culture of honor. The culture of Honor has been put up on the walls for 10 years here because it's part of the vision.

We're gonna write it down so we know it, so we live it. It's the same way in your life. The rules of us is really just a vision for our relationship. If I want details, what often will happen? I will say this phrase, I don't know. 'cause you didn't write it down. I don't know if you're right 'cause you didn't write it down.

Well, yeah, I, I'm, I'm right. I know what this happened, but I You didn't write it down. You didn't put it in a text. You didn't send an email. So I don't know. We even have this problem with staff and we'll say to each other, it's not in writing, so I really can't, it's your word versus somebody else's word, but it's not written down anywhere.

So how am I to adjudicate this? It's the same way your life with your spouse, with your family, with your friends. Write stuff down. Write stuff down, send a text. It's important. That way everybody knows the same vision and you can all run with the same understanding. It's important. You want, you gotta keep a communication channel open.

You gotta start writing stuff down. If it's important, put it in writing with your parents, with your family, with your friends, with your classmates, and then everybody knows and you can refer back to it. We can all search through our text and see what was written down. Number 36, this is a big one for people, if you would, if more people would do 

Rule #36: Say 'I'm Sorry'

this.

The world would be better. Who struggles? Let's just see who will admit to it? Who struggles with saying the words? I'm sorry. Okay. It's a lot of you and then there's a lot of you who do struggle with it Won't put your hand up 'cause that'd be admitting to it. That's okay. It's the truth. People struggle with saying, I'm sorry.

They do. If people would just say, I'm sorry and really, really mean it, the world would be different. I searched this, uh, before the first service. I searched my phone for the word. Sorry to see how many times I've said sorry. Uh, recently since this is not to like, to, I'm not bragging, I'm just telling you like this is a regular part, a thing I work on in my life.

Since February 1st, I have said sorry, 16 times in text, in writing 16 times. Yeah. I better, right? But I average about once a day. Uh, sorry. Right. Sometimes it's not a big deal. Sorry. Sometimes it's like, hey, I'm sorry I messed up, missed that. Um, with family, with friends, with, with whoever, with even strangers.

I'm sorry. Like, but say I'm sorry. More if you can text it that many times. How many times did I probably say it? Probably it's just as many times as I said it. 'cause usually if I text it, I try to say it in person as well. Uh, so say, I'm sorry. And we, we often mention it here as part of our like, way to kind of sum up sermons.

Go say, I'm sorry, please forgive me and I'll do better and mean it, and then do better. Like, it's important. Now, this happens in my house a lot where my kids will be like, well, I'm sorry. And they stomp up the stairs. I'm sorry they're gonna, and I'll be like, no, no, no. Do it again, but me at this time. Right.

Um, and the truth is, and I believe in my brain, if you slow down enough to process that, that wasn't really a, sorry, maybe you'll actually get to the place where you actually mean that you're sorry. 'cause you realize you messed up. That's what my parents would do to me. So my kids would like, I'm sorry, take you off.

Well, I make 'em slow down and say I'm sorry the right way. 'cause it's practice. We all need to say, I'm sorry not, we're not all good at saying, I'm sorry. There's probably times I should say, I'm sorry. I don't, but I try to say I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I'll do better, and then I try to do better. That's the important part.

And what, what annoys me greatly, it's like one of my pet peeves is when people say, I'm sorry, they don't really mean they're, sorry. They're just like a defense mechanism. I'm sorry. They're always sorry for everything, but they don't really change anything. That just annoys me to piece, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that, that drives me nuts because they're not really Sorry. If you're, sorry. Be sorry. Say you're sorry and don't say I'm sorry, but. You're an idiot, right? Like, don't say that because people try that, right? People say, well, I'm sorry, but it's your fault. Like, I'm sorry that you misunderstood me.

If there's an, I'm sorry, but there's an, I'm sorry that if there's anything, but I'm sorry for the thing that I did then it's, you're not really sorry. This the, I'm sorry, just to be, I'm sorry for this thing that I did or didn't do. I'm sorry. You don't need any of the other stuff 'cause then you're not really sorry.

You're trying to say that's the other person's fault and it's not your fault. We could be, sorry. I'm sorry. A lot I've learned in life to be sorry, to be sorry, to really, if I care about people, I'm gonna mess up. At times. I'm human and I just need to be, I'm sorry, and I need to get there as soon as I recognize it and make it right.

Am I perfect that? No, but I'm better than most and I think we all should be better than the average as far as Jesus Christ we're try for it. And this comes from like Jesus' own mouth. 

Scripture: Matthew 5:23-24 (Reconciliation)

In his, his most famous sermon. Jesus says, we talked about this a little last week, so if you're offering your gift at the altar.

And there, remember that your brother has something against you. Leave your gift there before the altar and go first, be reconcile, reconcile to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Jesus is essentially saying if you're, if you're coming to the, to the temple to give an altar to the altar to give a gift, and like you recognize you got an issue and with relationship, your gift's not gonna be accepted.

Leave it, go fix things and then your gift will be accepted. That means for us as believers who come to church every week to glorify God weekly on a Sunday morning, to praise him, to bring us as like we are the offering. Like we are the gift you and your glory, giving God his glory. That's the gift. When we come together, what, what Jesus is saying.

You can't do that without making things right in relationships. You're actually, your gift's not accepted. That's scary to me. I've lived my whole life with this understanding. If I go to a Sunday and I don't have things right in a relationship and I know that it's broken and needs fixed, I gotta do something to fix it before I can worship.

Really worship the Lord. Some of you, you need to figure this out in your own life and say, I need to, I need to make some things right. I need to say, I'm sorry, I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to do better so that then I can worship God and my gift will be accepted. That's important. That's why, sorry, matters.

And so I know some of you are like, I don't like to say I'm sorry, but saying I'm sorry was what allows you to be reconciled so you can worship God and spirit and truth. Number seven, four, keep your promises. This is a big one. Matthew 5, 3 7. That same sermon that Jesus is 

Scripture: Matthew 5:37 (Let Your Yes Be Yes)

Rule #74: Keep Your Promises

giving, he says this, let what you say say, be simply yes or no.

Anything more than this comes from evil. Let your yes be yes and your no, be no, no. We know that phrase, it's a famous phrase. We know it. Because of this. We need to keep our promises to everyone. If you promised your kids something, follow through. If you promised your friends something, follow through. If you promised your coworker something, follow through.

If you promised your spouse something, follow through. Some of you are promise breakers, not promise keepers, and if there was a big convention to go to for promise breakers, that would be your thing. It's funny if you know that Promise Keepers was a convention, so it's if you don't, sorry, you don't get my joke.

Alright? But we need to do better about keeping promises, little promises and big promises, right? We need to keep our promises to our friends, to our family. If, if, if my wife says, Hey, will you take the the garbage out? And I say, yes, then I need to do it simple, right? If I don't, then I'm a liar. Not that I forgot.

I'm, I'm a big thing forgetting You're still a liar. Just so you know. If I said I'm gonna do something and I forget, I lied. That is a big thing with me. It's a pet peeve of mine. You didn't forget you are a liar 'cause you said you're gonna do it and didn't do it. And so where, where we have an issue is my house is when I say yes, I'll do it and then my wife does it before me.

I don't think that makes me a liar. You just did. You took away my opportunity. Right. Um, I understand. This is true. It is true. So one of the things that we've worked on in our life is like if I say that I'm gonna do something, I try to do it as fast as I can right away, because then I wanna follow through on what I say I'm gonna do.

Like we have rules for a reason. This is one of our rules. Keep promises because we wanna navigate that. We can trust what, what each other says because that's the way to a healthy relationship. And so, uh, when, when I say I'm gonna do something that I need to follow through and do it, if I don't, I'm wrong and I need to ask forgiveness.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I'm gonna do better with that. And the reason why I've tried, we we're now trying to do things quickly when people each other ask is because we know there's been times we haven't followed through quickly and we forgot, and I have a propensity to get busy or I'm doing something and I'll get asked to do something and I, I'll forget later or I'll intend to do it the next morning.

And that's not in Patty's timeframe. Next morning is never the timeframe. So I need to do better at, at doing it faster. So, um, so this is a rule for some of you. Your life would be better if you just kept promises. To your family, friends, classmates, coworkers. Your workplace would be better if you just did the things you said you were gonna do.

Like your coworkers would like you more. Your friends at school would like you more if you did the things you said you were gonna do right? Your family would like you more if you did the things you said you were gonna do. Keep your promises. Let your yes bs and your no be No. It's okay to say the word no.

It is okay. We tell pre premarital couples, we always tell 'em this. We just having no plan is the plan sometimes. And so when your family or friends say, Hey, I want you to, what are you doing this weekend? And you say, I don't have anything going. They say, oh, then you can come to this. You can say, no, I don't want to go.

You're allowed to. I know we feel like we have all these with these, these obligations, but you can just say no. 'cause it's better to say no than to say yes and not go. 'cause now you're a liar. So it's better. Just be honest. No, I'm not. We we're not gonna do that. So having no plan can be the plan. You can say no.

Number seven, five. This is important. Pray together. Prayer matters. Prayer matters. We gotta pray more and we gotta worry less, right? We gotta pray together. Prayer, uh, it really matters. Philippians 4 6 2 7 says, do not be anxious about anything but in everything. Prayer and supplication 

Scripture: Philippians 4:6-7

Rule #75: Pray Together

with Thanksgiving.

Let your request be made known to God and the peace of God will guard. Guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Prayer matters. Prayer. There's something about prayer that changes things. When people pray with you, it's different. That means there's an intimacy in their, that friendship, that relationship that you don't have with other people.

Because if you're willing to pray with people, you are, you are connected on a spiritual level. You're not just, you're not just associates anymore. Now you're friends. Because you're praying for each other. You care about each other. You're trying to guard each other's hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And prayer brings peace.

It's okay to stop an argument and just say, Hey, things are getting heated. Can we just pray? Can we just pray and and just really just go to seek God in this? And then can we finish the conversation so that our hearts are guarded, our minds are guarded, and we can have peace? You can do that. You can do that in the middle of a fight.

You can say, Hey, can we just pray? Right. It's usually sounds more elevated when you're saying it. Right. Can I just pray now? Right, right. But you can, and you can pray and it changes things. You can do this with friends, you can do this with associates, you can do this adversaries. Like I've had some, some strange moments where people have prayed with me and it, it sticks out to me that there's something different about that moment.

Like I was up, uh, fishing and, uh, I told you my story, like I, only time I ever fished in Michigan, I caught a $250 ticket. Um, but in that weekend I wasn't fishing anymore, but I was with Rob Hut Smith and we were at the dam up, up near Frankfurt. And so everybody was, everybody was sail fishing. They were all on around the lake.

We just, both sides of the river, there's tons and tons of guys. I mean, there's, there's probably 150 guys just all crammed in fishing. And so we get up there. And there's this guy, and he's fishing. He's got all kinds of salmon. He's just, he's just, he's just doing a great job and he is standing in his waders in the water and my son was there carving with me.

Um, this was like about three or four years, probably four or five years ago. And, uh, so Rob starts talking to this guy, finds out the guy's a pastor, so he tells him, this is my pastor. So ends up, we have this conversation. The guy's like, can I pray for you? And so we, we stood in the water and it's like freezing cold October water, like the beginning 

Illustration: Prayer in the River

of October.

It is not warm water. And I didn't have waiters on 'cause I wasn't fishing anymore. So I was just looking at fish. So for 45 minutes, I swear it was 45 minutes. It might've been 15, but it felt like 45. We'll have to ask Rob for clarity, but Rob will probably tell you it's four, five. We stood in that water till my feet went numb.

They were tingling. I was so cold. I'm in, I'm in the river, and this guy's guy, his head on me, he's hand on me, up my head, hand on Carver's head. He's praying for us loudly, boldly with all these people, and we're just standing in the river and I'm just freezing and freezing and freezing, and he keeps praying and praying and praying.

I'm like, Lord, this is the longest prayer. And so. Like I feel the same way about prayers. Like they can feel weird at times in the different situations. And I'm a guy that that usually gets asked to pray all the time, but this guy was just, he loved the Lord and he just cared and something felt different about it.

It was this moment that was like, wow, that was really profound that he felt like doing that. He also gave me a whole bunch of honey and salmon afterwards, so it was like loaves and fishes. It was great. Um, that was just this unique, cool moment that happened and he just loved God and he just prayed with a stranger.

You can pray with strangers. You can pray with enemies, you can pray with people. I was, uh, this is probably 10 years ago now, maybe a little bit longer. I was in a mall and you know, mall, how malls are. This is an old mall, like a 30 foot ceiling, big old empty mall, CACO, you know, mall. It didn't have very many people in it, but there were people and there walking around and I saw a friend from like high school.

And then now the guy's like pastoring and he was so excited to see me. He's like, Hey man, brother, can I pray for you? And I'm like, sure. So in the middle of the mall he does, I know it's always a hand on the head thing. He puts his hand on my head and like, and he just starts praying for me in the middle of the mall.

And it's just echoing, echoing. And it is loud prayer. He is like, boldly. And I'm like, I remember these. But they were important to me. 'cause there's something that clicked. 'cause he felt, he knew I was a pastor and he had life change and he wanted to connect with me in the way we connected through prayer.

Prayer matters. Amen. It does matter. So pray with people. You don't have to. It doesn't have to be as weird as those moments. I'm telling you those 'cause those were a little bit awkward moments in my life. But there's been many times people have prayed with me and heals. It, protects it, guards, it brings peace.

So pray more, fight less, worry less. Amen. Number nine, nine. Don't look at porn. This is important one. If you're single, this is important. If you're married, way important, so. This is a rule we have in our life, and it comes out of that same sermon that Jesus preached that his most famous sermon, he said in that sermon, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit 

Scripture: Matthew 5:27-28 (Lust and Adultery)

Rule #99: Don't Look at Porn

adultery.

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed. Adultery, adultery with her and his heart. We talked about this last week, how we had, don't cheat, uh, first part of that. Now this one, we have a rule. Don't look at porn, because if we're looking at porn, we're committing adultery in our heart by looking at some woman or some man lustfully in a way that's inappropriate as God says, don't do it.

So we actually have a rule in our relationship. Don't do it. Don't do that. Don't look at porn. If you're single, you should have the same rule. If you're in a relationship, you should have the same rule. Right, because that's lost. So the way to protect yourself and protect your relationships is to don't do the things you, you shouldn't do.

Don't, don't part, participate in it. And it's everywhere. In our world, it's in every movie, it's in everything. Roblox is paying $4,000 to, uh, families because they've shown a bunch of children Porn. I know if you guys know this, you can get a, a Roblox judgment happened. They were showing young children porn.

Uh, and so they were seeing it at such a young age, like it's everywhere in our world. So. Don't do it. Create ways that you can do it. Make sure you have guidelines on your phone. Make sure you have blockers on your phone. Make sure you have ways to not do it because you value the relationships that you're in and your future relationship, because future US is, is worked on by present us.

So make sure you're protecting yourself. Number number 1 49. Let go of bitterness and grudges. This is in our culture of honor. We say release bitterness in our culture of honor is part of it because it's so important in relationships. And it's especially important in romantic relations. You gotta let go of bitterness and 

Rule #149: Let Go of Bitterness and Grudges

grudges.

You can't hold onto things because those things that you hold onto will destroy you from within. 

Scripture: Hebrews 12:14-15

In Hebrews 12, it says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will See the Lord see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble.

And by it many become defiled. For some of you, you got a lot of roots of bitterness in your life and your relationships. You're bitter towards family. You're better towards friends. You're better towards your coworkers. You're better towards your neighbor. You're better towards your enemies. You're bitter towards people who voted different than you and post about on social media.

You're bitter. You're bitter, and that bitterness is destroying you. It's destroying the relationships in your life and it's tearing them down from inside out. I recently, uh, was able to cut down some poison trees or. I didn't cut 'em down. I know they got cut down. I said, cut those down. Let's make that clear.

I didn't cut 'em down, but they were so poisoned from the roots up that you could poke your hole through the side of the bark and it just go into the, like a dead tree. 'cause the root was diseased and caused everything else to wither and die. For some of you, the bark, if we went up and poked you, a good finger would go right through because the inside has been rotted by the root of bitterness.

You want a better marriage? Work on the root. Let go of bitterness. Let go of the grudges. You gotta let go of 'em. You want a better relationship with your parents, your siblings, your kids. You gotta let go of bitterness. We can't control people. We can only love people and respond to them. So let go of the root of bitterness.

It springs up and destroys us and destroys relationships. My wife and I, we, we try to communicate and we try to let go of things that are bitter. Make us bitter toward each other doesn't mean that we don't get bitter. There's days that I do things amazingly that my wife doesn't like, so there's only a couple in the last 25 years.

But, um, no, but they, she has to work to not be bitter about those things that I do that frustrate her. There's been days. Where she does things that I don't like very much, and I have to work to not be bitter about those things. And when we do, we have, when we, when we feel that bitterness come up, we've kind of resolve it by saying, I'm sorry.

Please forgive me. We'll do better. And then we gotta work to do better. We gotta communicate with open channels, we gotta write things down. We gotta do all these processes and more to navigate relationships so that we can honor God as we love God and love each other. And so why are we taking time to teach all this?

What does this mean for you? I think the better that we understand how to love each other, we can also better learn to love God and vice versa. The better that we learn to love God, the better we can learn to love each other. It's a both and, and the rules of us can be created for any relationship in your life.

You want to have better relationship with a friend, set up rules, or you're gonna burn that relationship down. Some of you just go from friend to friend to friend to friend because, and you don't speak to any of those friends, previous friends because you burnt the relationship so badly down to the ground, or they burn so badly down the ground, there's nothing left, and so then you just move the next one and move the next one and move to the next one.

And you just kinda have a series of former friendships that were just destroyed. It's always the other person's fault, though. Like guys, I know, I, I hear it. But you should be able to go from friendship to friendship. And yeah, maybe you move on in life, but that thing shouldn't be burned to the ground.

That's unhealthy, and that's obviously probably a U issue, a bitterness issue that you need to resolve. You need to create these rules for any relationship in your life. Romantic relationships, platonic relations, familial relationships, relationships with strangers. So strong Christian relationships are built on this clear communication.

If you want to have a strong Christian relationship, you look at the Bible and recognize that we gotta, we gotta communicate clearly. We do. We gotta learn to love each other. We gotta learn to respect each other. We gotta learn to hear each other before we respond. We gotta learn to listen more. Uh, also, faithful obedience.

Faithful obedience to the guardrails, the rules that you set up for that relationship and faithful obedience to God's word. God gives us advice on how to love, love each other, and how to love him. We just need to ob be obedient to it. Part of that is for, um, you know, we've, I've said this to my kids. My kids would tell me like, daddy, I love you.

I'm sorry. I apologize. And the thing, what I would say was, if you love me, you'll be obedient because love is shown by obedience. The way that we love God is we're obedient to his word. It's clear in scripture that if you love God, you obey his. That's obedience. If you love somebody, you obey the covenant with which you have that relationship.

In a marriage, the covenant is marriage. We agree to love each other and honor each other and keep each other in a relationship with other people. You have to come to an agreement of what that looks like for each relationship. That means each is navigated differently. I love each of my three kids, but I love each of them and have a different relationship with each of them because they're each individual people.

If I treat them the same, it's not gonna go well. I have to treat them each individually. And I have to be obedient to what that relationship looks like now and in the future. Quick repentance. We have to have quick repentance. We gotta get to, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, and I'll do better as fast as we can with each other.

We have to apologize. We have to get give, get forgiveness, and then we have to have guard our hearts. And that's prayer. We gotta pray more. We have to guard our hearts. We gotta get to prayer first and the other stuff after, instead of getting to prayer after we've resolved things, if we ever get there.

And then we have to have relentless forgiveness for each other. We're gonna mess up. We are humans, which means we are flawed, we are stupid, right? We are called sheep for a reason. The Bible sheep are stupid. If you ever raised sheep, I haven't raised sheep, but I heard they're stupid. Alright? So I think it's a good comparison to us.

We mess up. You're going to mess up. So relentless forgiveness in your home, in your workplace, in your school, in the world, it matters. Just forgive people. Is it really worth it? There's a loss of a relationship worth you being right. It's not. It's not. Trust me. So this week, here's the challenge. I'm gonna give you a challenge.

Application: Five Relationship Challenges

I want you to pick one of these five things, and I want you, I want you to take out your connect chart. I want you to write in the back, I want you to pick a number. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I don't really care what you pick. I'm not gonna follow up with you. I am gonna pray for you, but I want you to write something down 'cause I want you to accept the challenge.

I want you to either open a conversation you've been avoiding. Uh, if you know that's somebody you need to talk to and you've been avoiding them, or a conversation, I want you to open it up. Someone in your life, family, friend, kid, whatever, and you say, Hey, listen, I love you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I want, I wanna tell you, I'm sorry.

I wanna just start a conversation. The best way to start it with, with, I'm sorry for what I have done now, I'm sorry, but it's your fault. I'm sorry. That, I'm sorry for what I've done. Please forgive me. You can just start the conversation that way. They may respond, they may not respond, but start a conversation or offer a sincere apology without excuses.

It's kind of the same thing for some of you. You're opening a conversation starts with apology. It should, you should be a one and two maybe, and then release a grudge. You've been carrying some. Some of us need to let the roots of bitterness die in our lives. You say it's not worth it anymore. Not worth it.

You just gotta let it go. You can, you can tell somebody we've, I've had, I've literally had a conversation with somebody at this church just years ago about. They said about another person. They were, they were at odds with in our congregation. They said, I have been mad at that person for, since high school.

And I'm like, high school was way over 35 years ago. So, um, that's a long time to be mad at somebody. It's a long time to hold a grudge. It's not God honoring to hold a grudge for 35 plus years since high school. Some of you, you've been carrying a grudge in your relationships. Maybe it's for weeks, maybe it's for days, maybe it's for months, maybe it's for years, but you've been holding a grudge.

You gotta let it go. You can tell somebody, hey, you can send a text and say, Hey, I've been holding a grudge against you and I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? I should never have let that build up against us. Please forgive me. A lot of it all goes to the same place. 'cause it's the Bible. Honoring God and honoring people.

Make a promise and keep it. Some of you are yes people who don't do it. You like, you're quick to say yes and quick to not do it. Um, maybe make a promise so we can actually do it. As fast as you can for those of you who say you're gonna do something and forget to do it later, don't let that be your week.

Just the first time you, you make a promise this week, just do it right away. Yeah. I take the trash away out, and I'll do it right now, right? I will do it right now. Stop whatever I'm doing, no matter how busy I think I am, and take care of that thing. Make a promise this week and keep it at work, at home, at play.

Maybe pick one in every one, and then last. Guard your heart and purity. Some of you need to stop looking at porn. In the church, 70% of men look at porn. That's the statistic. Stop doing it. Pursue, pursue purity. Guard your heart. Instead of doing that, pray instead of fighting. Pray, right? Instead of arguing, pray.

Maybe some of you just need to pray more in your life. Maybe some of you, instead of like being bitter or frustrated or mad, you just need to pray. When you start getting that way in your life, how can you change your norm? Maybe you need to pray a lot more. Now I'm the pastor. Every time I go anywhere, I always get asked to pray.

Because I'm a pastor, it's okay. I'm used to pray. I know that's not people's norm, but guarding your heart, guarding your mind, and having peace is something we should all want. So pray more. Take the challenge to pray more. For some of you, middle school and high school kids, pray more. Go home to day at lunch and pray more.

Right? Pray for the meal. Just get in the habit of praying. The reason why people don't like to pray in public is they're not used to praying. That's the truth. I have no problem praying in public. I pray all the time. It's like I'm elected at everything I ever go to, right? It's okay, but I'm so used to doing it.

It's okay. I didn't, I wasn't always comfortable being on stage. I used to shake my change in my pocket the whole time and it would just ring the whole time. 'cause I was so nervous when I first started doing this because 25 years ago, like now I'm comfortable doing it 'cause I've just done it so much. You wanna be better at praying, pray more, pray more, and then watch what God does in your life.

So here's my challenge. If you, if I want you to accept one of these, I want you to pick one I, and I won't remember what the five are. When I see your email come through, I just wanna know that you're gonna, you're gonna do something, write it down, one through 3, 4, 5, what? Not one, three. Yeah. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Write it down.

And then if you know that you need to do better in your relationships, just write rules. I'll just pray for this week. I don't know what that means, but I'll pray for you. I'll see your name come up. Uh, you know, uh, while I'm away, and I'll just pray for you as a staff, we'll pray for you that God knows what that means and that God through His Holy Spirit will empower you to do better in your relationships.

We'll pray for you as a church 'cause that's what we believe. We should be praying for each other as a church. So write that down, write rules, and then pick a number. And we'll just pray that as a church, we do better in our relationships this week. 'cause if we love God, we love each other. We gotta be obedient to creating better relationship rules in all of our relationships of our lives.

And so my prayer for you now as we close is just this. Let's just pray that as a, as a church collectively and as in as individuals, we do better in our relationships and we show God how much we love him and we're being his word, by we living it out amongst our relationships with each other. Let's pray 

Closing Prayer

Heaven.

Father, Lord, we just come today to glorify you, to praise you. We thank you for Jesus's famous sermon where he, he so gives us such good advice about how to live, how to love, um, how to be better people. Better followers of you, Lord. We just pray that we can each accept the challenges, what to do better in our relationships.

So, Lord, we know we're all broken. We all live in a simple world and we're all prone to mess up. But that means, well, Lord, we need to, we need, in those moments that we mess up, we need to make things right. We need to do better. We need to show people that they're loved by you and that they're loved by us.

And we need to be a, a, a, a model of what looks like to love God and love people, but we pray for opportunities. We ask that your Holy Spirit guides us, protects us, and encourages, and motivates us to do better in our relationships this week, to pray more to Lord, just ask for forgiveness more and just create relationships that are healthy, that have no roots of bitterness, Lord, that our hearts are, are guarded with peace.

Lord, we just, we just know that you're gonna go before us, Lord, to give us these opportunities and give us the courage to do and say the right and hard things so that we can love each other and build, build healthy relationships. 'cause we know those healthy relationships show our love for you and our love for for the world and the lost Lord.

We just pray that we can just serve you. We can make you known by the way we love each other, our spouses, our friends, our community, and more. Lord, we just pray this in Jesus Christ. Amen.