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Well, good morning and welcome to Prairie Lakes Church. Let's do this one more time. Are you ready? I'm glad to be here. How about you? We, uh, we get to do this together. What a privilege across Iowa, across all of our campuses and other places.

We're just really grateful to do this and never forget this, okay? About Prairie Lakes. We're a no matter church. And it, what that means is no matter who you are or where you've been or what you've done or what's been done to you, God does love you.

And we're walking up to Eastern the final proof, right? The final proof of God's total love for us is, is coming up this weekend, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus that we didn't deserve. So let me, lemme just encourage you with this, okay? Um, we have, um, uh, four services at this campus.

3, 2, 3, 4 other services, all the campuses, okay? Listen, get your invites on this week, okay? Uh, invite your, your little Iowa and your little Iowa is your neighbors, your friends, your coworkers, your relatives, the people that you go to the gym with, you sit at games with, right?

Just, just ask, okay? Just invite them. Come sit with me and, and I'll be there. And if you have to come to three services or two services with different friends, I will buy you, um, a soda. Okay? That would be so awesome.

And, and just take this from me, okay? Don't say no for anybody. Don't, don't, don't do that. Well, she's, she won't, she won't gom or he won't come. If they say no, they say, no, it's okay. It's okay. You do your part, you invite, say, just say, come sit with me, get in my arm and, and come sit with me.

So, uh, please, let's, uh, let's, who knows what God wants to do, right? And, and we wanna be a part of that with him. All right? So this is Palm Sunday, but we've been in this, we've been in the last week of Jesus' life for six weeks.

This is week number six of Lynch. So Palm Sunday for us was six weeks to ago when we started this last week of, of life. But we're gonna just keep walking down, um, this, this, this, this last week in looking at these scenes in, in, in the life of Jesus.

Now, last week, here's what Pastor Jesse did. He walked us through a look at, at the genuine Jesus. And then he said, Hey, if there's a genuine, authentic Jesus, then, then how can we know that we're following him and we're authentic followers? And he said, here's one of the tests right here.

If you're a generous life, you've become increasingly, increasingly more generous in your life. Time, energy, money, the whole nine yards, and love and forgiveness. And, and, and that's what we looked out the genuine Jesus. Uh, last week, this week, we're gonna sit in one more scene.

We're gonna, we're gonna sit at it together, and, and we're gonna see, um, a crazy thing that the disciples did. One of the craziest things the disciples did was they tried to create a Jesus that they could manage. Just hear that we're gonna see that disciples tried to create a Jesus that they could manage and hear this, any Jesus that we can create is not worth following.

It's not right. So, so, so here, here we go. We're we're, we're, we're in the last week right here. What we've done, we've witnessed, we've witnessed Jesus. He's, he's marching to the inevitable cross on a mission to save the world. And this isn't a, this isn't a soft kind of, kind of passive Jesus who's, who's being led by the events of the, of the day and the crowds kind of getting him.

And he's, he's not quite able to resist, right? It, it's not that we see a Jesus who's resolutely set his eyes to the cross. We see a Jesus who started this from eternity. And in three year, last three years of his life, he, he, he's been marching toward it.

We see an overwhelmingly strong, courageous, even dangerous Jesus who's staring down the barrel of death and walking right to it. He'd take our sin, he'd become sin. He was staring down not just a physical death, but a unimaginable spiritual battle that he had to win for the sake of the world.

It's hard for us to even grasp or imagine. And good Friday at every campus, we're gonna be able to sit in that moment. Just, just, if we could just grasp a little bit of the enormity of the task of Jesus. And since he's really too much to comprehend as the messiah and savior, and chain breaker and heart healer, and generous, no matter love giver, since it's so hard to comprehend that it's easier for us to create a Jesus that we can manage than kneel before the Jesus revealed in these pages, any Jesus that we create is simply not worth following.

So, so the scene this week in the earthly life of Jesus, some is a masterclass for you and me, okay? When it, when it comes to our desire to take a dangerous Jesus and dumb him down so we can manage him, how the disciples do it and how do we do it?

Let's go to the text together, okay? I'm gonna give you three, creating Jesus, okay? So for your notes, there's three. Here's the first one. Okay? Here's the first one. We are creating a Jesus that is under my manipulation. Okay? We created Jesus. That's under my manipulation.

Now here, this we, my wife, Kay and I, we have 11 grandkids, 11 and under. Okay? If you're one of my grandkids, you know, the greatest thing in your life right now is Grammy kay. And you wanna know why? Because they can manipulate her any way that they want to.

They're not even subtle about it anymore. I'm standing there. Hey, Papa, can I have a cook? Nope, Nope. Get outta here. Grammy. Oh, dear. What do you want? You can have a leader, it's fine, right? I mean, she, under, she, it's not even funny, okay?

I'm like, Kay, you're, you're, you're ruining them. This ain't gonna work. How crazy is it? Right? When you can manipulate somebody to do what you want, just pull over the wool over their eyes to, uh, gain some benefit in your Bible.

Um, let's, let's look at this text. Let's go to the Matthew passage. Okay? It'll be on the screen, but you can turn to the Matthew passage of Matthew 26. And this is that scene, right? This is the arrest scene walking outta the garden of Gethsemane, okay?

And, and, and here's what it says. It says, while he, this is Jesus, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the 12 arrived with him, with a, uh, with him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people.

Now, the betrayer had arranged a signal with them. The one eye kiss is the man arrest him. And going at once to Jesus, Judas said, greetings, rabbi, the traditional kiss and, and kissed him. So, right? Just, just put this picture in your brain, right? Judas actually thought that he could waltz in and play a game with Jesus, right?

Imagine the process, right? Imagine the process. Judas has got the chief priest and the elders around him, and he's like, everybody alright, huddle up. Come on, huddle up. Um, all right, gang, here's what we're gonna do, okay? Now listen, get the torches, let's have some LANs, let's have some weapons.

Okay? Everybody got that? All right? Now, let's get a little crowd going. Let's make a little bit of a mob scene. And here's what I'm gonna do, okay? He's not gonna know, he's not gonna know. I'm gonna walk up and I'm gonna, I'm gonna kiss him.

And that's the sign that that's the sign. And when I do that, you come get him, and I'll get outta the way, right? I'll get outta the way. And Judas, the whole time is think this, he's never gonna know. He's never gonna know, he's never gonna know.

And when he's walking up there, I guarantee in the back of his mind was this, he's gonna know, he's gonna know, he's gonna know, right? Imagine Judas thinking he'd pull the wall over Jesus' eyes, that he could manipulate Jesus the king.

I could just fool Jesus this time. I can have my cake, my 30 pieces of silver and do what I want. Now, that was Judas, right? But we right, we wouldn't do that at all. We wouldn't in any way, shape or form think that we could manipulate or fool Jesus, would we?

Now, we, we, we wouldn't do that. We're we're good Iowans, right? We wouldn't think we could get away with something, um, or just fool God somehow. I mean, none of us would, you know, confess a sin and not really confess and not really be sorry and not really be repentant for what we did.

But, but we said the words right? I mean, I did say the words out loud, so you know, it, it, it'll, it'll work. It'll work. I can, it, it'll work. I can get by with that one. Well, we were under the covers. I mean, he doesn't know what we're doing.

I mean, if I just write, if I just procrast, I know God's, I know God's asking me to do that. I know he is asking me to, to, to talk to that neighbor, to, to, to serve or to give. I, I know he is asking me to. But if I just procrastinate long enough, you know, if I just kind of put it off, then God either forget about it.

Right? You know, the God of the universe will kind of forget that he asked me to do that. Or he'll find somebody else to, to, to, to do it. And, and I'll be off the hook. How many I shoulds and I knows, do we throw out there thinking that God will just kind of get over it, that we can kind of fool him with?

Yeah, I know, I will. How about, how about this one? Well, I wanna stop. I know, I, I wanna stop that behavior and ah, it's just, it's just really difficult for me. And, and you, you, you know, God knows I'm only human and he knows how hard it is to be me, and you know, God, and I kind of have this agreement, right?

It's a little, you know, I screw up. I say, I'm sorry. And we kind of got the wink and nod thing going. And I, and, and, and I, I got Jesus, you know, right where I want him and my friends, just in case Judas really thought he could fool God, or just in case we think we can fool God, Jesus says, here's who I am.

And look what happens at the end of that passage, verse 50 in John, it says this. They say, who are you looking for? Jesus replied, do what you came for friend. Right? Judas thought, I'm gonna get by with this one. And he comes in and Jesus says, you're, you're not fooling me.

I'm allowing you to do this. Do what you came to do, friend. Hey, family, don't for a minute think that you gotta wink in a nod with God. Don't for a minute think that you're pulling the wool over his eyes, or he really doesn't know, or he really doesn't care that somehow you're fooling God or manipulating him.

If you're doing that, you're creating a Jesus that's easier to manage, but not worth following. And here's the advice that we learned from the gospels and from this story, stop creating a Jesus and just submit to the Jesus. So we, we see them, right?

We, we, we see them create this Jesus under their manipulation. Okay, let's, let's take it another step. Okay? Let's, let's, let's, let's stay in the scene, let's go another step. Not only that wanna create a Jesus under my manipulation, but, but they wanna create one.

Or we wanna create that's under, that's under my authority, right? Jesus would be a lot easier to manage if the roles were reversed. If I could just you, you know, um, have authority over him. If I could just kind of have power over him.

If I could be on top and, and, and, and, and he could be subordinate, uh, to me. Let, let's go to the text and just, just check this again now and just watch how this Jesus gets created. Now, Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place because he had often met there with his disciples.

So Judas came to the garden, uh, guiding the detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches and lanterns and weapons, and then catch this next bill part. Now, Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked him, who is it?

You want Jesus of Nazareth, they replied, I am He. Jesus said, and Judas a traitor was standing there with him. Now, just, just look at that for a minute. Just look at that. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen went out.

Jesus knew. And why did Jesus know? Because from the time the sin started in the Garden of Eden, from the time Adam V picked the apple and ate it, and sin entered all humanity, and all of us became sinners at that point, all of us were implanted, born with the sin nature.

All of us have a bent toward doing stupid things. All of us do. All of us will try to drive as hard as we can, as safe as we can, and we'll always get pulled to the ditch. That's our sin nature. All of us are built that way. All of us are, from the moment that happened from the Garden of Eden to the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and why?

'cause he's in charge. And we're not, because he's the authority. And, and, and you are not. And, and, and, and I'm not. Judas brought a crowd of, of soldiers and officials and religious leaders with torches and, and lanterns and weapons, and, and, and, and, and think about it, right?

We, we can bring these torches 'cause it'll make us look like we're like a big angry crowd, and we can bring lanterns to light up the night and we can have weapons to, to, to do our thing, right? Thinking this'll do, this'll do, right? The actual arrogance, think about this, the actual arrogance of Judas who thought he could detain God, like, like he could put the genie in the bottle and, and be in control of an authority over Jesus.

Gosh, if he's not over me, he's actually pretty easy to manage. If I can overpower him, that's a God I'd like to create. He can kinda just be at my command when I want something, when that's actually under my authority and not me under his authority.

But we wouldn't do that, right? We wouldn't think in any way that we're the final say or an authority over. None of us would do that. Well, EE except for those of us who, who kind of think it's our decision or not and our behavior or not, that gets us into heaven, right?

I'm, I'm kind of the final say on that. You know, I'm a good Iowan, right? You are a good Iowan, right? So, so what's a good Iowa to a good Iowa says, listen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the very best that I can. I'm gonna, I'm gonna work hard.

I'm not perfect, but I'm gonna work hard. I'm gonna do things right. I'm gonna, you know, treat others the way I want to be treated. And, and at the end of the day, right, at the end of the day, I think my goodness will get me past my badness and I'll get in, which makes me the authority.

And if you for one minute, think somehow you are in control of your entrance into heaven, you reverse roles with Jesus, you may be a really good Iowan, but Jesus is the one who decides, he's the authority. He's the one who's in control. He's the one who is over all things.

It's this, Jesus, you're, you're not, but, but we wouldn't do that, right? Or how about this? How about when it comes to forgiveness, right? When it comes to forgiveness. Now, I, I meet a lot of dudes, right?

I talk to a lot of guys. And here's, here's one theme of of several that I run into all the time with good Iowa dudes. Here's one thing I said, well, I've just done Pastor, pastor John, I've just done so much. I've got, I've got such a trail of stuff behind me.

I've got such a, a, a trail of stupid stuff I've done of, of bad things. I've, I've, I've said, and sins I've committed. And, and I'm, I just no way God could forgive me. There's just no way. I mean, he could forgive everybody else, but he can't forgive me for what I've done.

And you know, what's subtly underneath that? If I follow a Jesus that can offer me forgiveness, that means I follow with Jesus who can tell me what's right and wrong. And if I refuse his forgiveness, then I can refuse his telling me authority over me of what's right and wrong.

God can't forgive me. I've done too many bad things. That sounds kind of, kind of humble in a sense. You know, I just know, I know the depth of my sin, but you know what's underneath that? Here's the subtle sin underneath it. If he can forgive me, that means he has the right to tell me what's right and wrong.

And I don't want anybody telling me what I can do, what's right and wrong. You say you can create a Jesus, you can, that's under your authority, but creating a Jesus under your authority is not a Jesus that's worth following.

That puts you in the king or the queen position. And you and me are horrible at that. Amen. And then here comes Jesus, right? In that moment. Here's how, how Jesus reminded them that he's the actual authority. Just in case you, you thought I was under your authority to Judas, and Jesus said, look at the end of this passage right here it is, when Jesus said, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground, right?

Here they come. We can detain Jesus, we can control Jesus. We can get him in a cage. We can take this dangerous, we can dumb him down. And we got him. And all Jesus said to say was, I, am he? And they fell back to the ground as if they fainted. Listen, there's this Jesus who is the authority.

And this is such a big issue. This one's such a big one. When we put ourselves over Jesus and put Jesus under us, this is such a big deal that just some of the very last words in the life of Jesus, this is pre-loss. And this is pre resurrection, post resurrection at the very end of Matthew.

Some of you're familiar with this passage, Jesus called his disciples, said, come to the, he appeared to them for, for, for a number of days, right? And he called disciples, come and meet me on top of the mountain. And they came to meet him.

And here were the words of Jesus, some of his very last words. And what did he say to them in Matthew 28? He said, then Jesus came to them and said all, what's the word? Everybody? Say it out loud. What's the word? All what?

Authority. Authority, all authority has been given on heaven and earth has been given to me. And then he says, go, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I've commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. If you think you could control Jesus, if you think you have power over him, and you're the authority, you're over him and he's under you, you are worshiping the wrong Jesus. Stop creating a Jesus and just submit to the Jesus, stop it.

He is the authority. You and me. We're not. Let's hit one last one. Okay, let's hit one last one. Okay, so here's the third one, creating a Jesus that is under my agenda, okay? Created under my agenda a Jesus that'll get on board with the way I think things ought to go.

Jesus' will get on board with my agenda and my plan for my life that I've laid out and the life that I want, uh, uh, a Jesus that thinks things ought to be the way I think they ought to be. And it's, it's, this is one of the only spots in this whole arrest narrative.

Were all for gospel writers. All four of them hit this, this, this, this, this little scene right here. Okay? So let, let's look at it. Let's look at it here in John. So they came to get Jesus, right?

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant's name was Malki, by the way, of all the biblical names, a hundred bucks for the first person that names their kid, Malki.

Okay? Seriously, wouldn't that, can you imagine? He had, he didn't have to buy a beer in Jerusalem the rest of his life. Dude, you're malki. Tell me about that night. And then Jesus commended, Peter, put your sword away.

Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? Now, you sit, you sit in that, you look at that passage and you think, oh, you know, Peter was just trying to, you know, he was just trying to protect Jesus, right? He was just being a, you know, I want him, I want him to have my back.

Right? Was he though? Was he just trying to protect Jesus? Or, or, or was there more? Was there more going on? Or, or, or was it more like this? Peter had a preferred picture of the future, like all the disciples did, like, like all of Israel did.

They've been waiting for this moment. They've been waiting for the Messiah who's finally gonna come, right? And he is gonna fix everything, man, our Messiah. He's gonna come in, in a white horse, he's gonna have a big old sword, and he is gonna kick rear end and take names later.

All of our enemies are gonna be squished. That's the, that's the Messiah that's gonna come. So Peter's got a picture of a preferred future. Peter's got an agenda for the way things ought to go. Peter thinks his way is better than Jesus' way.

He thinks his agenda is better than the agenda of God himself. Now, he wouldn't do that, right? None of us. We wouldn't create a Jesus that like, like adheres to my view of how my life ought to go. We wouldn't create a Jesus that, you know, always kinda makes me end up on top, right?

We wouldn't create a Jesus that prefers my plan for my life over his plan. None of us would, would do that, would we? None of us would make major decisions about our business or about life situations. None of us would do that without, you know, asking Jesus what he's up to.

Would we, none of us would marry a spouse based on our criteria or date someone on our criteria rather than on God's criteria. WWW would we, we wouldn't think our plan is better than his, would we?

And here's what's really telling my friends. I love my plan over his plan. And do you know why? Because my plan is always comfortable. And my plan, I always win in my plan. It's always to my benefit with no pain and no struggle.

And you know what's crazy? Right in the middle of this scene? Here's Jesus who didn't pick an agenda that was pain free or comfortable for him. I mean, none of us would think we could control God's agenda.

Peter said, you need me to insert myself right now because I know the way things ought to go. And there's a lot of us that spend our lives inserting ourselves, saying, God, I know better than you. I want this, and I'm gonna get it no matter what I deserve.

And I'm gonna take, you're not gonna send my kid to Africa on the mission. That's for somebody else. You're not gonna send my kid into a hard journey That's for somebody else. You see, Jesus that you create, he just isn't worth following.

And if you think your plan is better, you've gotta understand this, that God's plan is always right, and it's always working, and it's always ready to go here. Here's who Jesus says, here's who I am. Are you ready? Look what, look what he, look what he says in this passage.

Matthew says that, he says, Jesus says, do you think I cannot call on my father and he'll at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures, my agenda, the agenda of God be fulfilled, that say, it must happen this way.

You see, if you take your plan for your life, your plan for your life has, you always end up paying free, comfortable in the top spot. But Jesus himself didn't pick the pain free, comfortable spot. He said, not mine, but yours.

May it be done, friend. Stop creating a Jesus. And as we walk into the last week, just submit to the Jesus of the Bible, submit to the Jesus of the cross, submit to the Jesus of the resurrection, submit to the Jesus who is the king over all things.

Any Jesus that you create is not worth following. So let's pray right now together, all of us, if you would just close your Bibles, uh, cross campuses. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna sit together for a little bit and lemme just pray for us right now.

Okay? So Father, we start with this. Would you forgive us? Forgive us for trying to create a Jesus that we can manage and handle and be in control of. Forgive us for that arrogance in our lives. And this week as we sit in the, the, the last hours before the crucifixion and the resurrection, God, would you reveal to us again the Jesus, the authentic, real Jesus, who is the king and authority over all things and all of us, and yet loves us and knows us, and cares for us.

So we offer this God to you this day, our lives. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Amen.