The Cross

Description

God is a God of love who doesn’t want to punish people.  But God is also a God of holiness and justice; he must punish every sin.  In the cross, God solved this problem by having Jesus serve as our substitute.  When Jesus bore the punishment that our sins deserved, he absorbed the full measure of God’s wrath the should have fallen on you and me.   As such, God punished our sin without punishing us.  He also freed himself to offer us forgiveness and eternal life to those who respond to Jesus in faith.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote about this.  God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:25-26 NIV).  

Twice in the message Pastor mentions a video clip.  In the service, he showed the following video illustration in two parts.  For ease of viewing, we include it here in its entirety. Please click on the link to view the video: The Files.