This church service at the fair took NTC Ministries out of its building and onto the Merrill Festival grounds during the Lincoln County Fair, and the message was simple: loving others. Pastor Paul Hohman teaches that when we open ourselves to the love of God, it flows through us to everyone around us, even neighbors who wrong us. He builds the message on the two greatest commandments in Mark 12 and the practical instructions of Romans 12.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, every Scripture linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway, a timestamped outline, answers to common questions and practical steps for loving others well this week.
Sermon at a Glance
This service was held under a tent at the Lincoln County Fair on the Merrill Festival grounds and posted on August 21, 2023. It runs about 49 minutes. The first quarter of an hour is outdoor worship, followed by announcements, an offering given to the church’s food pantry, the message on loving others, and an invitation to receive Jesus Christ.
Pastor Paul explains that this was the church’s normal Sunday service, simply moved to the fairgrounds, while senior pastor Dr. William Hohman was away in Indianapolis preparing to officiate a wedding. He admits he had never preached at a fair before and stumbled over a few words, but promised he would find his footing once he got into the Word.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Pastor Paul Hohman |
| Series | Stand-alone outdoor service |
| Main text | Mark 12:28–31 and Romans 12:9–21 |
| Key theme | Receiving God’s love so it can flow through us to others |
| Length | About 49 minutes, including outdoor worship |
A Church Service at the Fair: God in the Midst
Holding church at the fair came with distractions. Workers came and went through the tent, the light played tricks on the cameras, and fairgoers wandered by. Pastor Paul told the church not to let any of that bother them. They were there to worship Jesus, and this was a day the Lord had made to rejoice and be glad in (Psalm 118:24).
He reminded everyone that wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, Jesus is there in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20). It does not have to be a church building or someone’s living room. A tent at the county fair counts just as much.
He also observed that many kinds of spirits pass through a fairground over a week. So the church took the opportunity, right in the center of the community, to welcome the Holy Spirit, recalling God’s promise to pour out His Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17). When you invite the Holy Spirit, he said, He comes, and His presence makes a difference.
The fair board, which had invited the church and asked it to share the gospel, requested that the offering go to a charitable cause. So the gifts went to the church’s own food pantry, His Hands Extended, which Pastor Paul says serves around a thousand people a month. He prayed over the offering, thanking God that when we give, it will be given back, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over (Luke 6:38).
Then he named the theme. We are living in a time, he said, when we are not seeing as much love as we used to. Instead there is animosity, built-up anxiety and fear, which give Satan room to creep in and steal our joy. The church needs to be a beacon of hope and life in its community, and a church service at the fair was a chance to show and declare the love of God right where people are.
The Rice Farmer Who Watered His Neighbor’s Field
Pastor Paul opens the teaching with a story he attributes to the Chinese evangelist Watchman Nee. A Christian rice farmer had fields high on a mountainside. Every day he pumped water into his paddies. And every morning he found that his unbelieving neighbor down the hill had opened the dikes around his field to let the water drain into his own.
At first the Christian ignored it, hoping it was a mistake. But as the theft continued, his crop began to suffer. Pastor Paul notes that this is where Satan loves to plant thoughts: that no-good neighbor is stealing from you, you have every right to go off on him. Many of us would have marched down the hill and done exactly that.
Instead the farmer gathered his brothers and sisters in Christ to pray with him. Together they came up with a different plan. The next morning he got up even earlier, and before watering his own field, he filled his neighbor’s field with water. When the neighbor came out, his paddies were already full.
It went on like that for days, until the neighbor became a Christian. His eyes were opened. He knew he was in the wrong and expected to be confronted, but instead he was loved. Pastor Paul’s conclusion: that one man receiving Jesus Christ was worth every bit of the farmer’s lost water and extra effort.
He returns to the farmer later in the message. The farmer could have laid into his neighbor about how hard he was working. Instead he took a step of faith, brought the situation to God and asked for the right words and actions, even though his crop and his family’s livelihood were on the line.
The Greatest Commandments: Loving God and Loving Others
The main text is Mark 12:28–31. After the religious leaders tried to trip Jesus up with questions, a scribe who saw how well He answered asked which commandment is first of all. Jesus answered that the first is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
Pastor Paul admits that loving your neighbor can be hard, especially the unlovely, the ones who use us, mock us and try to get under our skin. That is exactly what Satan wants. Christians need to rise above it, and the only way to do that is to start with the first commandment.
When we open up to receive God’s love, it is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), not tucked away in a corner but spread abroad so others can see and feel it. Only total love for God, he says, can empower you to love rightly, both yourself and your neighbor.
That matters because thoughts come telling us we are not good enough, that we are a screw-up and should not even try. That is not God’s love speaking. It is the thief, who comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). Sons and daughters of God can answer that greater is He who is in them than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4), and that they can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13).
Jesus is the model. He was mocked, spat on, betrayed by His friends and crucified publicly while people shouted that He should save Himself. Yet He kept His eyes on what the Father asked of Him, because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). We are not asked to die on a cross, but we will meet people who are not kind, and when we love them anyway, it shows how much we love Him.
Instead of letting emotions take over and spill out of our mouths, he says, stop and pray, “God, I need Your love now more than ever.” Then think on whatever is lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8), or Satan will wiggle in and drive a wedge between us and God’s love.
Romans 12: What Loving Others Looks Like
Pastor Paul uses his own family as an example. He tells his wife and children he loves them every day, but they would rather he showed it, asking what he can do for them and how he can help. Without the love of God, he says, we might think we know how to love, but we really do not.
So he turns to Romans 12:9–21, where Paul spells out what love does. The table below follows the verses he highlights and how he applies them.
| Verse | Instruction | How Pastor Paul applies it |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | Let love be without hypocrisy | — |
| 10 | Give preference to one another | Consider others before ourselves |
| 12 | Patient in tribulation | Trouble will come; let patience do its work |
| 14 | Bless those who persecute you | Choose to bless even when you do not feel like it |
| 15–16 | Rejoice and weep with others | Associate with people; do not be wise in your own opinion |
| 17–19 | Repay no one evil for evil | Leave vengeance to God and live peaceably |
| 20–21 | If your enemy is hungry, feed him | Overcome evil with good, like the rice farmer |
On patience in tribulation, he notes that trouble is bound to happen, and that letting patience have its perfect work leaves us complete (James 1:4). We can always come back to God’s Word, His goodness and His compassion toward us, and then show the same compassion to others.
He is clear that he is not there to condemn anyone. We are human, we make mistakes, and the only perfect one is Jesus Christ. When we slip, we ask God to forgive us and help us speak and think the way He wants. Blessing a persecutor often means saying, “God, I don’t feel like it right now, but I’m choosing not to live by my feelings.”
That is a step of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). So if you feel unsure, stumble over your words and want to make excuses, he says you are actually in a good spot. That is exactly where faith gets to work.
Live peaceably with all, as much as depends on you. Do not avenge yourself, for vengeance belongs to the Lord. We have a loving God, he says, who will strengthen and protect us and make a way where there seems to be no way. Even walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we need fear no evil (Psalm 23:4).
Two Keys to Loving Others
Pastor Paul anticipates the objection. Some of us have short tempers. When someone attacks our family, the mama bear or papa bear comes out. So how can we love Jesus more than ever and let that love reach others? He offers two points from Romans 12.
First, ask the Holy Spirit to help. Just as the church welcomed Him that morning, we can ask Him to manifest His love in us so it flows through us to others. Before visiting someone you tend to butt heads with, ask Him for it, because love is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Jesus said to ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full (John 16:24).
Satan may whisper that you are too far down the hill or on the wrong side of the tracks to ask. Pastor Paul says you are never too far from the love of God. You are always one step from His arms of grace and mercy, where you find help in time of need.
Second, do what love does. Love is a commitment before it is an emotion. The New Testament never describes how it feels to love Jesus, but it tells us what we do: if you love Me, keep My commandments (John 14:15). When we obey His Word, he says, His love shows up and shows off in and through our lives. Its width, length, depth and height go beyond anything we can measure (Ephesians 3:17–19).
Part of doing what love does is thanksgiving. We are to pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:17–18). That does not mean thanking God for the bad things, he explains, but thanking Him in the middle of them for helping, strengthening and empowering us to endure.
He quotes a message Dr. William Hohman preached about a year earlier: most people wait until they feel right to do right. In Pastor Paul’s words, “if you wait to feel right to do right, we never do right,” but if you do right, you will start feeling right. That is the step of faith.
God Is Love: Greater Love Has No One
Pastor Paul reads 1 John 4:7–12: love comes from God, everyone who loves is born of God, and whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Since God so loved us, we ought to love one another, and His love is made complete in us.
Complete, he stresses, means we lack nothing. God does not hand out His love in bits and pieces. We simply ask for more of Him and less of ourselves. He follows with 1 John 4:15–16: we know and rely on the love God has for us, and whoever lives in love lives in God.
His final verse is John 15:13: greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. Serving others sacrificially, he says, is how we show our commitment to Christ. He called out his love even to the fair workers repairing vehicles nearby and to everyone eating at the fair that day.
He closes with a poem called “Others,” a prayer to live in such a self-forgetful way that even our prayers are for others, and that all our work is done for others. Then he invites anyone who has never known God’s love to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, leading a prayer of thanks for the cross, forgiveness, cleansing and a new life of showing God’s love by loving others.
His parting charge: you may be in a funk, but do not let Satan rob you of the love God has given you for others. Look for ways to bless people, and let your light so shine that it draws others to Him (Matthew 5:16).
Loving Others This Week
Here are the practical steps drawn from this church service at the fair:
- Start with God’s love. Ask each day to receive more of His love, because only love for God can empower you to love others rightly.
- Water your neighbor’s field. Think of someone who has wronged you and find one practical way to bless them instead.
- Pray before tense visits. Before seeing someone who rubs you the wrong way, ask the Holy Spirit to love them through you.
- Show it, not just say it. At home, ask your family how you can help them today.
- Do right before you feel right. When feelings resist, obey anyway as a step of faith and let the feelings follow.
- Give thanks in the middle of it. Thank God for His help in hard situations rather than letting complaint build a wedge.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 Welcome to church at the Lincoln County Fair
- 0:44 Opening worship
- 10:26 Welcoming the Holy Spirit
- 15:05 Greeting from Pastor Paul
- 17:08 Offering for the food pantry
- 18:49 Announcements
- 20:40 Prayer over the offering
- 21:29 Message title: loving others
- 22:21 The rice farmer story
- 25:05 Mark 12: the greatest commandments
- 26:54 Only love for God empowers love
- 27:52 Jesus’ example on the cross
- 29:56 Showing love at home
- 31:00 Romans 12:9–21
- 32:09 Bless those who persecute you
- 34:13 Vengeance belongs to God
- 36:19 Point one: ask the Holy Spirit
- 38:20 Point two: love is a commitment
- 40:35 1 John 4: God is love
- 42:42 Do right before you feel right
- 44:51 John 15:13 and the poem “Others”
- 45:48 Prayer to receive Jesus
- 48:07 Blessing over the fair and community
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did NTC Ministries hold a church service at the fair?
The Lincoln County Fair board invited the church and wanted the gospel of Jesus Christ shared on the Merrill Festival grounds. Pastor Paul explains that it was the church’s normal Sunday service, simply held outdoors under a tent. Because Jesus is present wherever two or three gather in His name, the fair was as much a place of worship as the church building, and a chance to be a beacon of hope in the community.
Where did the fair offering go?
The fair board asked that any offering go to a charitable or non-profit cause, so the gifts went to His Hands Extended, the church’s own food pantry. Pastor Paul says it serves around a thousand people a month in the community, and he also mentioned a community gathering that benefits several other local food pantries and ministries.
What if I do not feel loving toward someone?
Pastor Paul teaches that love is a commitment before it is an emotion. You choose to obey God’s Word, for example by blessing someone who mistreats you, and treat that choice as a step of faith. He quotes Dr. William Hohman: people who wait to feel right before doing right never do right, but doing right leads to feeling right. Asking the Holy Spirit for help is the first step.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Mark 12:28–31 — the greatest commandments
- Romans 12:9–21 — love in action
- Matthew 18:20 — where two or three are gathered
- Romans 5:5 — God’s love poured out in our hearts
- John 16:24 — ask, and you will receive
- John 14:15 — if you love Me, keep My commandments
- 1 John 4:7–12 — God is love
- John 15:13 — greater love has no one than this
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
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