This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Well, good morning. Hello and, uh, welcome to Prairie Lakes. We are, uh, as we are every single weekend. We're live and we're live across Iowa. Okay. And, uh, and wherever you're joining us from, also online, we're just really glad that you're, you're, you're joining us.

Okay? Uh, so just, just a quick reminder as we get going this weekend, um, and, uh, I, I know I need this reminder, I think you may too. Every single weekend we gather as Prairie Lakes Church, every single weekend we gather there are around like 3000 of us or so.

And, uh, and we, we actually, as we gather, we're covering about one third of our whole state. Um, which, which is, which is just, it's just hard to wrap your mind around, you know, but we geographically, okay. We've got, um, uh, Decorah and Osage and New Hampton joining us in the north.

We've got, uh, Fort Dodge and Grinnell about in the center. We've got Cedar Falls and, and, and Independence, uh, in the, in the eastern part of our state. And then online, a a bunch of other places every single weekend.

One church, one church in multiple locations across Iowa. Okay? And we have a vision to keep on launching churches, um, across our state and maybe even beyond. Okay? So, um, I think that's a, a, a needed reminder. I think it's a, I think it's a good reminder.

And, and here's why. You know, there is every single day, every single day, plenty to, to look out across our state and nation and world, plenty to be legitimately concerned about. Okay? Um, you, you don't have to look very hard, um, but with, but with everything that's going on in our world all the time, I think it's easy.

At least for me, it's easy to kind of catastrophize. It just is to, to kind of get so wrapped up in everything that isn't as right as it ought to be or should be, or what could go wrong or could be different or whatever, to just get so wrapped up that you, you almost, you almost don't see God in the midst of it.

Um, and, and I'm not, not trying to minimize the, the, the weight or the seriousness of anything that's going on, you know, right now, or suggest we kind of just shr shrug our shoulders and say, oh, God's got it. And then, you know, ignorance is bliss. I'm not, I'm not saying that, but I am saying is maybe this weekend what you need is a little bit of an invitation, maybe some permission to just allow your perspective, just, just to shift for a little bit, to allow your focus to go to a different place just for a little bit, um, to maybe consider that what is normal for us.

Every single weekend at Prairie Lakes, 3000 people, one third of our state, what's normal for us isn't normal. Maybe that's God doing what only God can do. And, and, and maybe if we allow our perspective to just shift there, we'll, we'll start being thankful even in the midst of the craziness.

And we'll start being, you know, peaceful even in the midst of everything to be, to be worried about and concerned about, even in this crazy broken world that we live in. Okay? Um, so one, one more time. Welcome to Pray Lakes. Welcome to Pray Lakes.

We're really, really glad that you're here wherever, no matter where you're joining us from. Okay? Alright. Hey, this past Wednesday, you may have noticed some people, maybe at work, um, or around town or even on TV who had a, uh, kind of a darkened cross shape on their forehead.

Um, this of course is because this past Wednesday, um, was, was Ash Wednesday. And, uh, and Ash Wednesday marks the, the beginning of a period in the Christian calendar that we call Lent. Uh, now, sometimes at Prairie Lakes, we celebrate Lent, um, meaning we, we talk about it a lot and we even like build sermon series around it, you know, talk about it on Sundays.

Sometimes we do that, and, and that's what we're doing this year, but other years we don't, we don't seem to talk about it at all. It's like, it doesn't exist until we just get surprised by Easter, right?

So, so why is that? Why are we so schizophrenic about, about, uh, uh, about land? Well, it, it really is because of where we fit as a church in the, uh, the Christian family tree, okay?

Now, uh, you may not know that, that there is such a thing as a Christian family tree, and it's a weird dysfunctional family. I'll grant you, okay? Um, but, but, but you know, you, you, you, you start kind of at the bottom with, with with Jesus, and then you get all of these branches, right?

And so if we, if we kind of zoomed in to kinda see where we are at, all, right? If, if you look at like all of the Christian kind of traditions and denominations on my right, your left, um, these are, these are the Lent people, okay? Meaning they celebrate the Christian calendar all the time.

Um, epiphany and Pentecost, and Lent, and advent and normal time and ordinary time and all these things, right? And then if you, if you go on this side, um, it's kind of a crapshoot, you know? So, so, so where, where, where do we fit in?

Well, you know, if you climbed up like this branch, if you climbed up that branch and then you just jumped straight up and then kind of crashed all the way down through the tree, that's kind of us. Does that make sense? I mean, we, we, we are affiliated with a Baptist kind of denomination, but like most of us are just mutts.

We just, we just are. Um, and, uh, and so sometimes we, we, we, we, we celebrate Lent and we lean in. Sometimes we don't. But if you grew up Catholic or Lutheran or Methodist or Presbyterian, it's likely that you did.

Um, and so when you got to this time of year, lent you, you kinda locked into a few different predictable practices, right? If you grew up in this kind of tradition, right? What, what were some of those? Well, here's some Lenin practices, okay? Boom. See that?

I'm totally in control of that, okay? Um, so, so some of us, we, we, we fast on Len, especially from meat on Friday, so thank God for all you can eat fish fries, right? It's great whether you celebrate Len or not, I'm a huge fan, okay?

Um, for Lent, maybe you give up advice. Maybe you attend special church services, uh, maybe you gave towards a special offering. But, but it's all in an effort to do this, to kind of prepare yourself to spiritually encounter the meaning of Lent, which really points us to like Good Friday and, and Easter.

And I think that regardless of where you kind of grew up or fall in the Christian family tree, that's something we can all get behind. Um, just spiritually preparing ourselves to receive the meaning of what Jesus did for us at, at, at, at, at, uh, at Good Friday at Easter.

Okay? So, 'cause he essentially, if I were to boil this whole Lent thing down to, to maybe a couple of sentences, here's, here's what we're kind of journeying together for these next 40 days. Lent invites us to shift our focus from being the savior to needing one Lent invites us to shift our focus from being the savior, from needing to fix everything, from needing to worry about everything we need to hold onto everything from needing to be concerned, shift our focus from that to just needing a savior, to just needing one.

And then it invites us to lay down our lives like our savior laid down his. So every single weekend during this time of year, this is what we're gonna do here at Prairie Lakes. We're gonna, we're gonna shift our focus. We'll unpack that a little bit more, right?

Um, but March nine, just today through April 13th, so six Sundays in total we're gonna be doing, is focusing on a, a different story from Passion Week, which is the last week of Jesus' life documented in the gospels. Just a, a, a different vignette, Lenin vignette, so to speak.

And, and here's what we're hoping, we're hoping that as we do, as we look at these stories from Jesus' life, we, before he goes through the cross, we're hoping God's gonna just shift our focus, just shift our focus a little bit, you know, to, to invite us into a deeper understanding of what does it mean to just need a savior, to just need one, you know, and then to live accordingly as we prepare to encounter Jesus at his, as his death on Good Friday.

And that's resurrection on Easter. So here's what this means for you. It means you can miss a week over the next six weeks and be just fine. Each week's gonna stand on its own. But we really do encourage you to prioritize just getting to church.

And let's take this journey together. Remember our rally cry for, for 2025. That's what year it is. All right? I got one less hour of sleep like the rest of you guys, all right? But deeper relationships in the right direction, deeper, let's do this together.

Let's prioritize. That's really what the Lent invites us to do. Put your schedule aside. Put your priorities aside. Put yourself aside. Put yourself aside, and, uh, let's just kind of focus our, on our savior, who he is, what he's done, and what, what that means for us.

Okay? So, uh, where we're gonna be, where we're gonna be, uh, as we start our land journey is we're gonna be in John 12, and we're looking at verses 20 through 26. John 12, 20 through 26. John is the fourth book in the New Testament, and it's the fourth Gospel.

So Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, um, and these gospels just tell that they just focus on Jesus, who he is, what he said, what he did. Okay? We're, we'll start reading together, um, here in, in, in verse 20, all right? And so we're gonna helicopter down into a story, and I, and we, we will unpack the context here in a little bit.

But, but read with me verse 20 through, uh, through 22. Now, there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. Uh, they came to, to, to Philip, who was from Beseda in Galilee with a request, sir. They said, we would like to see Jesus.

Philip went to tell Andrew, Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Okay? So let's just unpack a few things that, that are, that, that are going on in, in this verse, all right? Um, let's, let's, let's look at that word festival first. What, what, what festival are we talking about? What?

Well, it's, it's the Passover festival. It's the, it's the time of year, annual annually, where Jewish people from all over the, the known world would travel to Jerusalem and they would celebrate, um, how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt.

And so that's what they were doing, okay? That's, that's why everybody was in, was in town. Um, Greeks, let's unpack that second. Uh, who are these people? Well, we don't know. We just know that they were not Jewish people. That's a designation for a non-Jewish person.

They were Greek in some way. Were they Greek converts to Judaism, and that's why they were there for Passover, perhaps. Were they just kind of Greek people that were kind of coming and wanting to meet Jesus? Also could be the case, right?

Um, but what, what we know about them is that they wanted to see Jesus. And, and that word really just means meet. Could you get us an audience with Jesus? Could we meet him? Right? And, uh, here's all what also we know about them. And this is really important.

'cause if, if you would've lived 2000 years ago and read this story, this would've been very intuitive to you. Um, they're on the outside. They're on the outside, and they're not gonna get in unless someone lets them in.

It's true for the temple. It's true for the community. Jewish people were notorious for keeping themselves separate from non-Jewish people, all right? They were on the outside looking in, which is, which is why they went to Philip, who we're just gonna lovingly call Phil, okay?

From this point forward. And there's a reason behind that, right? But there's other disciples they could have gone to. They could have gone to Judas. They could have gone to Nathaniel, okay? They could have gone to Bartholomew, right?

They went to Phil. Why'd they go to Phil? Well, Phil has a name like them. Phil's a Greek, Philip's a Greek name Philip's from Galilee. He's from where they're from. If they got a shot to get in, they're gonna go talk to someone who's like them.

That's what's happening here. Okay? Now, we started reading in verse 20. We helicopter down. Um, there's some context of verse 20 that's really, really important. That's gonna help us understand why this encounter with these Greeks and Phil, and eventually maybe Jesus, why this encounter is so significant.

So jump up to, with me, to, uh, to verse 17. This is what happens right before, and what causes these Greeks to really wanna meet Jesus. Okay? Verse 17 reads, now, the crowd that was with him when he, when Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to spread the word.

The crowd spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that Jesus had performed this sign. Many people went out to meet him. So the, so the Pharisees said to one another, let's make sure we go spread the word, because this is obviously the son of God.

They did not say that. He said, this is getting us nowhere. This is getting us nowhere. Look at how the whole world is gone after him. They get really worried how popular Jesus is getting. So these Greeks had heard this guy, Jesus, they heard that he literally raised someone from the dead, and, and now they're willing to cross all kinds, all kinds of cultural lines and all kinds of tribalism and, and endure the, the judgment and the potential rejection, the likely rejection that they're gonna get from Jewish people who are notorious, again, for keeping themselves separate from non-Jewish people.

And they're gonna do this just, just for the chance to meet this guy, the guy who everyone said performed these like miraculous signs. And of course, of course, right? The people who were the most concerned, the most anxious about all of this were the Pharisees, the, the, the, the pastors, the religious scholars, the, the counselors, the, the prominent church leaders of the day.

That's who these people were very concerned, distraught, even because they witnessed, they witnessed, it's been a while. Friends, I get, I get good streaks going. I get about five or six weeks, and then there's just, uh, this is where we're gonna switch to this, okay?

All right. Here, here we go. Um, these pharisees witnessed, not, not only their world, they witnessed the whole world going after Jesus, right? So, so just hit pause, okay?

Just, just, just for a second, just hit pause with me. Um, can you imagine, can you imagine not only everybody in your world, but everybody in the whole world in 2025 going after Jesus? Can you, can you even imagine that? Right?

And I'm not talking about some like watered down version of Jesus, you know, this, let's get back to our Christian heritage version of Jesus. No. Like the person of Jesus, like, like, like the whole world pressing into know whether or not this guy was who he claimed to be, wanting a, a, a deeper relationship with Jesus to discover if he truly was the son of God.

Can you imagine that? I mean, that's a vision. It's, it's, honestly, it's, it's, it's really hard to even it imagine. Okay? No, it's even harder to imagine than that, that there would be a group of people who would have a huge problem with the whole world going after Jesus.

And that group of people is church people. That's what's happening here. The very people who who claim to be closest to God are the people who are the most concerned about going after Jesus. So that's, that's the setup, okay?

Um, and that setup, I think begs a question that you and I probably need to wrestle with as we continue to read this story, uh, on, on this, the, the first Sunday of Lent. Okay? Here's the question we need to wrestle with. Am I, are we the type of people who grant access to Jesus?

Or are we the type of people who get in the way? Am I a Phil or am I a Pharisee? Phil Grants access, the Pharisees get in the way. Who are we? Who are we? Well, I mean, how do you know?

How do you know who you are, right? How, how do we know which one of those we are? Because we, we all wanna be a Phil, right? I mean, nobody, nobody sets out to be a pharisee. I mean, which, which one of us would knowingly, intentionally stand in the way of someone going after God in the flesh?

Well, here's what you have to remember, okay? Uh, if you were a Pharisee, you, you did not believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, you did it. You, you thought he was an imposter. You thought he was a blasphemer. You thought he was someone who claimed to be God and claimed to be godly, but who, in your opinion, said and did things that you deem to be ungodly and untrue?

Okay? So I think in order to answer our question here of whether we're a Phil or a Pharisee, we kind of have to get ourselves in the mind of a Pharisee. And maybe once we understand them and their mindset, maybe we can see a little bit more clearly whether or not we're like them, whether we have the same mindset or not.

And we've already got our first clue of the Pharisees mindset in verse 19. Okay? So let's just read that one more time together. Okay? Uh, the Pharisees said to one another. See, this is getting us nowhere. This is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him.

What is the, what is the this that they're talking about? What was basically everything that they were trying to do to keep people from following Jesus? Uh, all the confronting, all of the trapping him in his own words, uh, the dilemmas they would put before him, misrepresenting what he was saying, calling him out for breaking tradition, conspiring in private meetings.

All of this was the stuff that they were, were doing. And, and all of it reveals, I think, three main distinctives of a Pharisee's mindset. If you're a pharisee, here's, here's what you were thinking about. You were, you were just worried about losing your influence in the world.

You were constantly worried about losing your influence in the world, which meant you were gonna lose your influence over the world. Very concerned about that. They, they believed they needed to win, and they needed to win in their minds, for God's sake.

Which, which also meant this, that if they lost, they believed the world was lost, worried about losing their influence had to win, worried about losing and everything that was at stake if they, if they did. And the irony of this, right, is they became gatekeepers of the gate.

It prevented people from the way because they were worried about losing their own influence. They were worried about winning. They were worried about losing. So, okay, I ask you again, right? Just look at those phrases up there. Is that your mindset?

Are you a Pharisee filler? Pharisee, do any of those reflect your mentality? Think about this. Okay? Think about the people that you cheer on. Maybe you cheer 'em on in the media. Maybe you vote for them. Maybe you read them.

You, you listen to them, you follow them on social media. Are they the type of people who are primarily worried about losing their influence? Are they the type of people who feel like they desperately need to win? Are they the type of people who constantly talk about if they lose the world is lost?

Do you feel this constant pressure to win? Do you feel that to persuade, to gain influence? And, and do you worry what's gonna happen if you or your side does not? See, there's a lot of ways that this mentality can creep in into our mentality in 2025.

Are you a Phil or do you have some pharisaical tendencies? Um, we're gonna move away from the Pharisees mindset here in, in a second. Um, and we're gonna contrast that with Jesus's mindset. 'cause it's so very different as we continue through John 12.

Um, and, and it's a, it's gonna be a pretty sharp and pretty dramatic, uh, contrast because this next verse that we're gonna read in John, which is verse 23, it's a little bit of a fulcrum. It's a little bit of a, of a turning point, you know, a hard right turn almost.

'cause Jesus is gonna paint a very different picture of how he plans to gain influence. And he paints a, a very different picture of what it means to quote unquote win. But he's gonna begin in a place that doesn't sound all that different from where the Pharisees begin.

So look at what he says in verse 23, okay? Jesus replied, the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. So let's, let's unpack this a little bit. Replied literally means Jesus answered them. Who's the them? Well, it's the Greeks.

Phil got these Greeks in front of Jesus. So he's talking right to them. Now. Jesus answered them, okay? Um, these are people again, right? That had been on the outside forever. And now they were in the inner circle.

They, they were, they were within earshot of God in the flesh. People who had likely followed none of God's laws to that point, were now standing with an earshot of the, of the one who created everything. And Jesus says to these folks, the hour has come.

The hour has come. This is really significant in the gospel of John two, because if you had read it up to this point, all Jesus has said to this point is, my hour has not yet come. First miracle he does in, in Cana at a wedding, they run outta wine.

Jesus' mom comes in and says, you gotta do something. Jesus looks his mom and says, uh, my hour has not yet come. But then he obeys his mom. Um, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman and they start talking about this thing like, you know what? Where's the right place to worship?

Is it in Jerusalem or is it in this mountain in Samaria? And Jesus looks at it and he says, there's, there's gonna be a day. It's not yet now. It's not yet come, but there'll be a day where you're not gonna worship on that mountain or this mountain, but you're gonna be worshiping in spirit and truth.

It's not, but it hasn't come yet. And then, and then a couple of times, the Pharisees try to seize Jesus, but he slips away and John says he slips away because his hour had not yet come. But now. But now Jesus says, now's the time something's about to happen.

And he says, what's gonna happen is the Son of man is gonna be glorified. Son of man was Jesus's favorite title for himself. And he says, it's time for the son of man, this person that God chose to be glorified. And I'm sure when the Pharisees heard glorified, they went, a man, it is about time.

Jesus. Let's do some winning together, right? And then Jesus goes on to paint a very different picture of what it means to win, at least in, in God's estimation. Verse 24. Here's what Jesus says. Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it. While anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. And don't get confused about that word hate, okay? They just use that word a little bit differently back then.

It just means deprioritize or do not place as much value in what, what a, what a different mentality Jesus has here. What a different mentality, right? Than, than than His, than the Pharisees, uh, mentality. Right? What a, what a different way.

'cause remember the Pharisees mindset, right? What was it? It was, we we're worried about losing our influence. We gotta win. We can't lose. If we lose, God loses the world, loses. Everybody loses, right? But Jesus' mindset is so very different. Think about this.

Right? Here's the picture that he just painted. Jesus chose to die for the world. Death was a defeat for Pharisees Jesus. That was his purpose. Jesus knew he needed to lose for God's sake. He wasn't there to win. He was there to lose.

And he believed Jesus did that. If he lost, the world would win. It's like everything on its head. Everything that the Pharisees thought, how they thought the world worked, how the world thinks the world works, Jesus turns on its head right now.

I remember Phil Phil's just ushered these Greeks into the inner circle. Strangers from a different culture with an earshot of the Son of God in their first meeting with Jesus. This is his first sermon to them.

And then he says this to them, okay, whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant will also be, my father will honor the one who serves me. Jesus basically saying, Hey, you wanna know what the inner circles like with me?

You wanna know what it's all about. You wanna know what this life is like, it's this. If you wanna live like me, you have to die like me. If you wanna live like me, you have to die like me.

You can either live a life that tries to win, that hates to lose, that fears, losing influence. Jesus says, you can hop on the path that I'm walking. You can lay down your life on your own terms and you can follow me on mine. And if you lay down your life and you follow me, Jesus says, your life will produce many seeds, meaning a bunch of other people that were on the outside will become part of the family.

So once again, okay, here's our question. Am I a Phil or am I a pharisee? Do I give access to this Jesus who makes this invitation? Or do I get in people's way? See, Phil, he made his decision to lay down his life and follow Jesus three years prior to this story.

This, this is Phil's origin story, okay? In John one, here's, here's Phil's origin story with Jesus. The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. That's where Phil's from finding Philip. He said to him, follow me. Philip, like Andrew. And Peter was from the town of Beseda.

Philip found Nathaniel and told him, we found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and to and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Josephs. What's the first thing that Philip does after he makes this decision to literally lay down his life and literally followed Jesus in his footsteps?

He goes, and he finds Nathaniel, right? And three years later, the first thing when these Greeks say, Hey, can we meet Jesus? He goes, yeah, I've been doing that for three years now. I'd love for you to meet him.

Here's the thing, when you die, when you die to yourself and you follow Jesus, when you die to yourself and you follow Jesus, you will point people to him. When you don't die to yourself, you won't. If you're wondering, Hey, it's been a long time since I've invited anybody to church.

Hey, there's been a long time since God used me in someone else's life. Hey, it's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's probably 'cause there's probably because there's something that you need to die to that you have not.

Listen, 2025, there's a lot of battles to be fought. There's a lot of invitations to fight. But Jesus didn't come to fight. Jesus came to die. Jesus doesn't, Jesus didn't come to win. Okay? He came to save. Jesus doesn't need us to fight for him. Jesus invites us to follow him. That's the thing.

That's the thing. So, so here's what I wanna leave you with, and we're gonna set up a time of communion, okay? The question is this, or maybe it's a statement. I need to die to what? So that I can die for who all of us have a who, all of us have someone in our lives that God is placed that doesn't know Jesus on the outside looking in.

And we could be the access, we could be their Phil, right? But in order for us to be Phil and not a Pharisee, there's probably something that we need to die to. We probably have a what? I need to die to what? So that I can die for who? Let me pray for us.

Father in heaven, we're about to enter in this time where we celebrate Jesus, your death. And we know Jesus, that your death was for us. We know it was, and you're inviting us to die in the same way. God, the temptation to just go fight and win and, and win influence and try to avoid losing.

It's, it's great. And, and it just gets greater and greater. And this, this invitation, Jesus, that you have, and not just invitation, this command that you've given us to, to die to ourselves and follow. You can feel so counterintuitive. Losing is so counterintuitive.

And yet, this is how you've produced many seeds, people in our little Iowa who, who need access. So God, would you help us die to ourselves so that we can die for the people that you died for? And Jesus would pray this in your name. Amen.