Month: March 2023

If you would like to send your offering through the mail, our mailing address is:

CrossPointe Community Church
P O Box 126
Chippewa Lake, OH 44215

CALL TO WORSHIP

For Lent, we have been examining the word ‘atonement.’ May I remind you that atonement means at-one-ment and refers to the fact that through our faith in the death of Christ, we are at-one-ment with God. We have already examined the word ‘atonement’ as covenant and reconciliation. Next week, we will look at it as sacrifice. And today, we are going to cover two descriptions of the atonement; redemption now and justification a little later.

Redemption took place in ancient times when one army would conquer another people. And when the battle was over, the victors would sift through the survivors looking for people to take back to their home country as slaves. After getting back home, if they found that they had someone of value to the conquered; say a town official or a wealthy person, they would send word to the conquered people that they had so and so and if they were willing to pay a price, they could buy them back. If the conquered people could come up with the money required, they would redeem or buy back the person in question. The sum of money was known as a ransom. This describes the process of redemption. Why New Testament writers chose this word to describe one aspect of the atonement is clear.

Human beings were taken captive by the evil one. We were made subjects of his domain. If God were going to buy us back or redeem us, He would pay a ransom. In our case, the ransom paid was the death of Jesus. Jesus said, “For I came not to be served, but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 28:20).

He (God the Father) has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:13-14

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If you would like to send your offering through the mail, our mailing address is:

CrossPointe Community Church
P O Box 126
Chippewa Lake, OH 44215

CALL TO WORSHIP

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Romans 5:6-11

Reconciliation is perhaps the easiest way to understand our keyword for this Lenten series: ‘atonement.’ Unlike last week’s word, ‘covenant,’ or ‘redemption,’ or ‘justification,’ which we will consider as part of this series, ‘reconciliation’ is a term we use much the same way today as it was when Paul used it. Allow me to remind you that ‘reconciliation’ occurs when two parties who were at odds with one another over some issue decide that the issue is not going to destroy the relationship, so they deal with the issue and makeup with one another.

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If you would like to send your offering through the mail, our mailing address is:

CrossPointe Community Church
P O Box 126
Chippewa Lake, OH 44215

CALL TO WORSHIP

But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.

John 4:14

SCRIPTURE

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.

“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

Jeremiah 31:31-34

When the time came, Jesus and the apostles sat down together at the table. Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”
Then He took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”
He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then He broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
After supper He took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and His people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.

Luke 22:14-20

Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why He is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.

Hebrews 9:13-15

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