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Speaker 1Thinking we have, and may we be passionate about what you are passionate about in the name of Christ. Amen. So we're gonna open to Mark in just a moment. But let me set up where we're at. So Jesus has been mocked.
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Jesus has been spit upon, punched in the face, made fun of, whipped, beaten. Thorns have been crushed onto his head, crammed onto his head. Jesus has been tortured. Jesus is finally nailed to a cross, hands and feet. Have you ever heard this before?
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Speaker 3Don't let it get old.
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Speaker 1Jesus has been nailed to a cross, hands and feet. Jesus has cried out to the father, why have you forsaken me? Jesus dies. Jesus is taken and putting in a he's put in a tomb, and it is a very dark, dark moment. And then and then things change.
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So if you would please open up to Mark chapter 16. Mark 16 verse one. And look what happens next. Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene and Salom and Mary the mother of James went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus' body. They were they were they were preparing to take care of the dead body.
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Verse two, very early in the first day of the week, Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they were asking each other, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb? But as they arrived, they looked up and saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled aside. When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in white robes sitting on the right side. The women were shocked.
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They were scared, frightened. But the angel said, don't be alarmed. You were looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He isn't here. He is risen from the dead.
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Amen to that? Look, this is where they laid his body. Now go and tell his disciples including Peter that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there just as he told you before he died. Verse eight, the women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.
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After Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday morning, the first person who saw him was Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went to the disciples who were grieving and weeping and told them what had happened. But when she but when she told them that Jesus was alive and she had seen him, they didn't believe her. Afterward, he appeared in a different form to two of his followers who were walking from Jerusalem into the country. They rushed back to tell the others, but no one believed them.
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And then verse 14, still later he appeared to 11 disciples to the 11 disciples as they were eating together, he rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead. And then listen. And he told them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel. Go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone. Go.
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Jesus says I mean, just this the scene is is incredible. He's resurrected. He's alive and well. He's appeared to the to the disciples. They've seen him.
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They go from weeping and crying and mourning to, woah, Here he is. And the next thing Jesus says is, listen, I have a job for you, a very important task. Go and proclaim the gospel to everyone. Now Jesus in Luke nineteen ten, which I'll have come on the screen. He said, for the son of man came to seek and save those who are lost.
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Now let's just remember this morning, who is lost? Just raise your hand if you're lost without Jesus. For the son of man, Jesus said, I came to seek and save those who were lost. Who is lost? Me and you and your grandson
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Speaker 3and your coworker
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Speaker 1and your neighbor and your sons and daughters. We're all lost without Jesus. If you have not heard or don't remember, Romans three twenty three says, for all have sinned and all fall short of God's glorious standard. So I'm here to to give you this important news because to hear the good news, you have to hear the bad news. And that is we are sinners and we fall short and we deserve eternal separation from God.
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I do and you do. We are lost. We are sinners. And they would be completely hopeless except for the son of man came to seek and save those who are lost. Romans five verse six puts it this way, when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.
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It is not about clean yourself up and come to God. It's God came for us. He came and he died for us when we were separated and apart from him. And Romans five eight puts it this way, but God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. This is the
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Speaker 3gospel. This is the good news. We're
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Speaker 1sinners. We're completely lost. All around us are totally lost, but we have one who can save us from our sin. And this is obviously a really big deal, a very important thing to God almighty. Now let's go back to Mark 16 verse 15.
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And he told them, go into all the world and proclaim, announce, preach the good news to everyone. In verse 16, anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, but anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. Friends, I hope you've heard this. We need this every day. We need the gospel.
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We need to preach it to ourselves. And certainly our neighbors need to hear it. And that is we are totally lost and we need a savior. And without Christ, we are condemned. That's the truth.
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That's a harsh reality. But apart from Christ, we're completely lost. But if we believe in Jesus, If we put our trust in who he is, savior and lord, the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father except through him. We believe, Roman says, if we confess with our lips, believe in our heart that Jesus is the Christ, we will be saved.
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Then we will be saved. And I have to tell you, there are many, many here, here in Jackson and all over the world who still do not know this good news that we are called to proclaim. Part of what blows me away when I read this, let's skip down to verse 19. Mark 16 verse 19. When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.
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And the disciples went everywhere and proclaimed, preached, and the Lord worked through them confirming, worked with them, confirming what they said by many miraculous signs. Here's what is just amazing. Just fantastic. Is that our God who can do anything, there's absolutely nothing impossible for God. Luke one thirty seven says, for nothing is impossible with God.
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He can do anything, but what he chose to do was to use these these regular guys, sinners, imperfect guys, and he gave them a task. I came for you. I'm the light of the world. You now are the light of
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Speaker 3the world. Go proclaim the good news.
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Speaker 1And if you've ever read acts, you know something crazy happened. God spoke in power through Peter and the church took off and he started moving in a powerful way. And he chose to use just regular guys. And who does he use now? Just look at your neighbor.
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We're not that spectacular. Right? I mean, you know, I mean, if we cleaned up a little bit for church but and yet God is saying,
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Speaker 3go do it.
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Speaker 1Todd, proclaim my gospel to your coworkers. Proclaim the gospel to your family. Proclaim the gospel at Pearl Street Bagels. Proclaim the gospel because all around us are folks who don't know Jesus, who need Jesus. With that said, let me ask you an important question.
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How are you contributing to this great most important call to proclaim the good news? How are you contributing? Raise your hand if you would say you were a Christian. Raise your hand. Do you know what you just said?
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You're a follower of Jesus. And if we're a follower of Jesus, we have a task. Now we all have unique gifts. We're not all evangelists. But we are all to be a part somehow in proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.
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How are you contributing? How is the Lord using you to proclaim the gospel? I wanna share briefly that for us icons, we we know through through a long process of seeking him, and we know it's become very clear to us that the Lord is calling us to proclaim the good news in Littleton, Colorado through a church plant. I just wanted to tell you some things about Littleton. In Littleton, just in the zip code, the 80120 zip code, 30, there are about 30,000 people.
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This is just one area of Littleton, 30,000 people. And they call Littleton their home. And studies show that 90%, this is conservative, 90% of those people are unchurched and do not know Jesus. Studies also show that in that area, there's only one evangelical church for every 7,000 people. And so the bottom line is there are a lot, a lot of lost people in Littleton and far too few churches to effectively reach and disciple and shepherd these people.
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And with that said, a good friend of mine named Mark Hallock, who here might know Barbie Stanfield? Does that some of you know Barbie. She she used to be here, Barbie and Tom. Barbie's son, Mark, great friend of mine, is a pastor. And little over three years ago, he was called to be a part of Calvary Church in Inglewood, Colorado.
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This
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Speaker 2was
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Speaker 1a church that was dying, was barely hanging on, to tell you the truth. And he felt called to it. And by God's grace, he has done an amazing thing through through this church. Just revived it, and God is just moving in power. And they were having days, you know, of thirty, forty people would come if, you know, on a good day.
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And now by God's grace, that church has taken off, and they have no room. You know, there's over 600 people and two services and people have been saved and are being baptized and being discipled. And God is just moving in in a unique way that can't be fully explained as they're preaching and praying and loving people. And they've come to a point where they knew they had to do something that they don't feel called to build bigger and have this mega church. But through their process of seeking what the Lord would have them do next became very clear to them that they wanted to be a church planting church.
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A church that would take people who felt called from Calvary Inglewood and begin planting. And so the first church plant that will take place will be Calvary Littleton. We were at Dan Frank is gonna become the lead pastor, and he asked me to come be his co pastor to lead to lead the worship music, to pursue people, to love and shepherd people, to preach some. But for the two of us together to to go and and plant this in connection with Calvary Inglewood to plant Calvary Littleton. Now here's what I wanna say.
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The Lord, though he does not need us at all, he has chosen to use his church. Right? He's chosen to use his church. Let me ask you a question. Has God used the church to help you grow in your faith?
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Just raise your hand if that's true. Has God used the church to help you grow in your relationship with God? Has God used this church to help you grow in your relationship with God? What if this church had never been started? Hundred years ago, someone felt called to plant a church here in Jackson, and look what God has done.
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The icons. We've wondered this since my wife and I got married, if the Lord would have us be a part of a church plant. And we're excited. We're scared. Sometimes we look at each other and I think we're crazy.
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What what are we doing? But we we are so excited to be a part of this church plant that will officially launch September 22 in Littleton, Colorado. And by the way, we start already in June. First Sunday night in June, we'll be meeting every Sunday night, preparing the way, and we expect about 50 to 75 people from Calvary Inglewood who will feel called to go and plant this church together for the glory of God to proclaim the gospel in in Littleton, Colorado. And so I'd I'd just say to you, I'll just bring this up that if any of you feel led to partner with us, number one number one through prayer, just lifting up the Eichen family, the church plant for God's glory, for people to be saved in Littleton, Colorado, we would we would love for you to partner with us in prayer.
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We would come talk to us or just start praying. We don't need to know. Just start praying. And also, if you feel led to partner with us financially, praise be to God, we would love to talk to you about that as well. But most importantly, let me leave you with this.
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In Mark sixteen fifteen, Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the good news. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, but anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. Brothers and sisters in Christ, how are you in some way a part of proclaiming the good news? It was given to you. How are you giving it to others?
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If you're doing it at work, praise the Lord. If you're sharing with your family, praise the Lord. If you're working through first b, I just challenge you, do something to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Please pray with me.
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Lord God, we are your people who have sinned against you. We've turned our backs. We've all fall short, every one of us. We are so grateful for your love, your unfailing love, your kindness, Jesus, dying on the cross for us, for for conquering death and rising on the third day. You are our hope, Jesus.
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We are so thankful for this good news. And, Lord, I pray that every one of us would join in to proclaim the good news in word and deed. Thank you. Praise you. We love you.
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In Jesus name. Amen.
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Speaker 3Amen. Thank you, Scott. We're going to, if y'all would stand with me, we're going sing one song and Scott mentioned a couple of things. There's there's an old song that kept coming to mind about, we don't, we didn't clean ourselves up. You don't need to clean yourself up to come to Christ.
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If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all and that's true. But this song that we're going to sing is cleanse me. We're calling out to God almighty. The only one that can through the blood of Jesus save us from our sin. So, we're going to Imma ask you if you'd sing with me.
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Cleanse me.
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Speaker 2Search me and know my heart today try me your savior know my thoughts I pray see if there be some wicked way cleanse me from every sin and set
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Speaker 3me free. Notice the sequence of this song. Search me and cleanse me and now,
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Speaker 2I praise thee lord for cleansing me from sin thy thy where with shame grant our desire lord grant my desire to magnify thy name lord take my life and make it holy thy great love all my will my passion self and pride surrender lord in me
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Speaker 3abide we sing the last may this be your prayer
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Speaker 2revival comes from thee revival start the work in me thy word declares thou wilt supply our need for blessings now I Amen.
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Speaker 3Thank you lord for this beautiful morning. Thank you for beautiful message. God, as we've been studying the gospel of John for so long and we're looking over Jesus's life and his authority and his divinity and all of that lord and we're just seeing how he acted and how he was and we're knowing that why he died was to save. And then he gives us all authority has been given to me. Just as the father has sent me, I'm sending you.
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Have that reinforced with the wisdom of Solomon the past few weeks, lord. Everything is pointing us towards you. It's all hopeless without you, lord. God, we are going to be studying Acts and we're going to be looking forward and this message fits so well in with that, lord. Thank you.
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Thank you that you do have a passion. It is for souls of men and women. Call them into your kingdom. Call them into your work, lord. I praise you and thank you and I ask for your blessings to be on Scott and Pam and the kids as they go forward in this new venture.
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Every day is an adventure with you and nothing is impossible with you. I pray that you take care of all of their needs, that you would pass along your love to those folks in Littleton that don't know you lord through them. It's in Jesus name, lord. Amen. I have one more quick announcement.
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I see the the little thing out in the back right there, the circus theme. VBS, Vacation Bible School this year is going be in June and there are bunch of little rubber duckies back there and on the bottoms of all of those little bitty rubber duckies,
