Matthew 1:1-2, 16 Son of Abraham

And when you see your kids get excited and joyful and filled with life, I want you to preach to yourself, “That’s how I should feel about the promises and blessings of Christ.

Well what are those blessings? And how do we unwrap them? Celebrate and enjoy them?

If you remember from last week, we said that Christmas is a time where we celebrate God fulfilling all of His promises to save us in Jesus Christ.

That’s what we are remembering. That’s what we are giving God glory for. That’s what Christmas is all about.

And how we are remembering, this year, all of those promises and how God fulfilled them in Christ is by looking at Jesus’ Family Tree.

Because Jesus’ genealogy, His family tree, isn’t just a list of names.

It is generations of God’s faithfulness. Generations of God holding true to His promise to bless us with the gift of salvation.

And behind some of those names are the promises. And by remembering the promises, we are able to see the glory of Christ, and worship Him.

So to celebrate Christmas and glorify God for fulfilling His promises in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, this week we are going to look at God’s promises to Abraham, the father, through faith, of all God’s people.

Matthew 1:1-2; 16 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah…[and on down the list] Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

The Abrahamic Covenant, is fundamental to the Christian faith. As we will see, Paul even calls it the gospel. God’s proclamation of the good news thousands of years before Jesus was even born.

And here’s the BIG IDEA I want you to walk away with today.

The salvation of Christ is the fulfillment of God's promise to bless all the families of the earth.

That’s what the Abrahamic Covenant is all about.

But before we can get to the fulfillment, we need to see the promise.

And God’s promises to Abraham start all the way back to Genesis 12.

I. Abrahamic Covenant

The Abrahamic Covenant is revealed progressively throughout the book of Genesis.

That means the core of the promise is in multiple passages, but you get a full picture of that promise when you put them all together.

So to see the promise God made to Abraham, we need to take a survey, big picture view, of four different passages.

Genesis 12, 15, 17, and 22.

And as we move through these different passages, you’ll see that the core of the promise is in each one, but each passage emphasizes and amplifies and different part of the promise.

Genesis 12

Genesis 12 is the call of Abram.

God later changes Abram’s name to Abraham, so for simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to call Abram Abraham.

And here’s what God’s Word says...

Genesis 12:1-3, 5, 7 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”…And Abram took Sarai his wife...and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan...the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”

There are four basic promises God makes to Abraham.

First, God promises an offspring. He promises to make him a great nation.

This was a fantastic promise because at this point Abraham was already 75 years old, and he and Sarah were childless.

And God says, I’m going to give you a child.

Then God promises to bless Abraham. To be his friend and defend him.

To curse Abraham’s enemies, and bless everyone that blesses him.

God also promises Abraham the land of Canaan. A land of blessing flowing with milk and honey.

This is why its called the Promised Land.

And finally he promises to bless all the families of the earth through him.

And here’s what I want you to see.

The theme, the flashing red light you can’t miss from God’s promise to Abraham is blessing.

Five times in three verses God promises to bless Abraham and bless the nations through Abraham, and this glory of this promise only becomes evident when you stand it next to God cursing mankind for their sin after the Fall.

God’s original purpose for mankind was blessing.

Genesis 1:28 when God created Adam and Eve, when God created humanity, it says God blessed them.

And the purpose of God’s blessing was to glorify His Name.

That as God showered the blessings of His love, grace, life, peace, justice, and joy upon us, humanity, God’s children, would return those blessings back to God in praise.

But, despite all of God’s blessings, Adam sinned, and all humanity sinned in him.

We disobeyed God’s Word, forsook His blessing, and brought on us God’s curse.

After the Fall, God cursed Adam and Eve. He cast them out of the Garden of Eden. He cast them out of the Kingdom of God, the place of God’s Sovereign Rule, blessing, and life.

And threw them out into a world of curse, suffering, and death.

But now in these promises to Abraham, God is promising blessing once again. He’s promising grace.

He’s promising to redeem humanity from their sin and the curse and make them His people once again.

To bring them back into His Kingdom of blessing, a New Eden, and New Creation, to be their God and for them to be His people.

That was the whole point of Eden. And in these promises God is saying, I’m not going to let sin have the last word.

I’m going to finish what I started, and glorify my Name in all the earth.

That’s what the promise of the Land and the offspring are all about.

The offspring is about God making a people for Himself, and the Land is about establishing His Kingdom, a New Eden, on the earth to bless them and glorify His Name.

In fact, all of the promises in the Abrahamic covenant really drive at just one. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

This blessing is reconciliation with God and life in His Kingdom. That’s what we just talked about.

But God is saying, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Not just the Jews. Not just Abraham’s physical offspring.

All families. Jew, Gentile.

Paul actually quotes this line from Genesis 12:3 and calls it the gospel.

Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

In the Abrahamic Covenant God is preaching the gospel. He is promising to save mankind through the offspring of Abraham and restore His Kingdom and the blessing of God on His people.

He’s promising to fulfill His promise to the serpent and to Adam and Eve from Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

So when you think of the Abrahamic Covenant, yes, God is talking about establishing Israel, giving them the land of Canaan, God choosing Israel to be His people and for God to be their God.

But the point of all that, the point of Israel, the Promised Land, all of it, was to bring the Messiah.

The Savior of God’s people who would remove the curse of sin, reconcile mankind to God, and bless all the families of the earth with salvation.

That’s the big picture 30,000 foot view of the Abrahamic Covenant.

Genesis 15

That brings us to Genesis 15.

Abraham is between 75 and 86 years old, and at this point he still has no child.

God takes Abraham outside of his tent and says...

Genesis 15:5 “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

God says Abraham, you’re not just going to have one son. You’re going to have children as numerous as the stars. You won’t even be able to count them.

And Abraham believed God, and God counted it to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6).

Then God reiterates the promise to give Abraham the the Promised Land.

And this time, God swears all of these promises with an oath. Genesis 15 is where God actually ratifies, establishes or cuts the covenant with Abraham.

God commanded Abraham to get some animals, cut them in half, and make a path between the halves.

Then Abraham fell into a deep sleep and had a vision. In that vision Abraham saw a smoking fire pot and flaming torch pass through the halves.

This represents God Himself, so in this covenantal ceremony God was saying to Abraham, If I break my promise, may I be torn in half like these animals.

And since God never lies, and since God can’t be torn in half, God gave Abraham the greatest assurance that he would fulfill His promise.

Genesis 17

Then in Genesis 17, God amplifies His promises.

Abraham is 99 years old and his promised offspring, Isaac, is about to be born.

God promises Abraham that he wouldn’t just be a great nation, but that he would be the father of many nations.

That’s why God changes his name to Abraham. Abraham means Father of a multitude.

And then God says this.

Genesis 17:7-8 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.

So here, God explicitly expands His promise to include all of Abraham’s offspring.

The covenant God is making with Abraham is now a covenant God is making with all of Abraham’s children.

To bless them, bring them to the Promised Land, and be there God.

And God’s promise is that this will be an everlasting covenant.

And God gives Abraham a sign of that covenant. He said This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised (Genesis 17:10).

This sign fit the promises of the covenant. The promise was to Abraham and his offspring.

Circumcision, obviously, goes with what makes offspring.

And the sign of circumcision was a perpetual reminder of all that God had promised Abraham.

But it also pointed to something greater. Physical Circumcision pointed to a spiritual circumcision. The circumcision of the heart.

That just as you cut off skin, God wanted his people to cut off their sin. To repent of all their wicked ways and walk with God. Be His people, and worship Him alone as their God.

Genesis 22

Finally we come to Genesis 22. This is the famous story where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

God tested Abraham and told him to offer his son, his only son of his love, as a sacrifice.

How could God ask this? Wasn’t Isaac the heir? The offspring? The one through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed?

He was. But Abraham believed God, and if God promised he was going to do it.

So Abraham went to offer Isaac. He laid the wood on his back and let him up the mountain believing, according to Hebrews, that if he did have to kill Isaac, God would raise him from the dead.

When Isaac asked where the sacrifice was, Abraham told him that The Lord himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering (Genesis 22:8).

And God did. When Abraham raised the knife God said Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God (Gen. 22:12).

And Abraham looked, and the Lord provided a lamb.

Now I don’t want to get to far ahead of ourselves, but obviously this was pointing to Christ.

Jesus was the Son, the only Son of God’s love. And he bore the wood of His cross up the mountain to offer himself as a sacrifice.

But this time, he was the lamb that God provided. He died in our place for our sins, a sacrificial lamb, just like the ram took Isaac’s place the day Abraham obeyed God in faith.

And after this, God confirmed the covenant he made with Abraham.

Genesis 22:16-18 “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

This is the pinnacle of God’s promise to Abraham.

Not only does God promise Abraham, Hebrews tells us He guarantees it with an oath. By myself I have sworn.

God swears by His own Name to bring these promises to pass. There is no greater guarantee than that.

God stakes His Name on it. And like Hebrews also says, it is impossible for God to lie.

So let’s go through the promises.

Again God promises blessing.

Remember that contrast between blessing and cursing.

And God says I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the sea shore.

Remember this offspring will be the people of God. So think of Genesis 1:28 where God blessed them and said Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion.

In this promise God wanted to fill the earth with the knowledge of His Glory like the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).

And then God makes promises specifically to Abraham’s offspring.

Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

Now there was an earthly fulfillment of all of these promises. God multiplied Abraham’s offspring.

Hebrews 11:12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

God made Abraham the Father of many nations. Of course, Israel came from him. But so did the Midianites and the Edomites.

And God gave Israel the land of Canaan. Joshua 21:43, 45 Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there...Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

But all of those promises and the earthly fulfillment of those promises pointed to and laid the groundwork for the ultimate promise God made in the Abrahamic Covenant. Do you remember?

God promised Abraham that he would be a blessing to all the families of the earth and that in his offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3, 22:18).

What about that promise? Has God blessed all the families of the earth? All the nations?

Well on this side of the cross, God tells us how he has fulfilled that promise and how he will ultimately fulfill that promise through the true offspring of Abraham. The true blessing to all the families of the earth. His Son Jesus Christ.

II. Fulfillment in Christ

Paul says in Galatians 3:16.

Galatians 3:16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

Jesus is the ultimate, the true offspring of Abraham. When God promised Abraham that in his offspring all the families of the earth would be blessed, God was promising Christ.

And the promises that God made to Abraham and to his offspring, even though they had an earthly fulfillment to the people of Israel, were ultimately promises made to and fulfilled in Jesus.

They all pointed to Christ. Let me show you.

We are going to jump around a little bit, but let’s build off of the culmination of God’s promises to Abraham in Genesis 22.

First, God said I will surely bless you.

Bless means praise, adore, exalt, lift up.

This harkens back to the first promise made in Genesis 12. I will make of you a great nation A great people. and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

What does Philippians 2 say? God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Phil. 2:9-10).

God exalted Christ to make Christ a blessing.

Then God said I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse (Gen 12:3).

Remember the curse blessing motif? Those that bless Christ exalt Christ and God blesses them with salvation.

Those that dishonor Christ, reject His sacrifice and trample His blood underfoot, God curses. Why? They are still under the curse of death because they refuse to come to Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

The second promise, I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore (Gen. 22:17).

Remember this promise to Abraham was tied to God creating for Himself a people for his own possession.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

Abraham was also promised that he would be the Father of a multitude of nations.

Who will worship Jesus around the Throne? Every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 7:9-10).

Who does Peter say, we are as followers of Christ? You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession (1 Peter 2:9).

God fulfilled His promise. Through the gospel, through Christ, Abraham’s children, the children of faith are more numerous than the stars of heaven because God is faithful to save.

Number 3, your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies (Genesis 22:17).

This is tied to the promise of the Land. Remember, God promised to give Abraham and his offspring the Land as his inheritance.

And we said that this Land was God renewing His promise from Eden to build His Kingdom on earth.

Well what does this have to do with the gates of his enemies? When God promised this to Abraham the land of Canaan was filled with Pagans.

And in the book of Joshua this promise is fulfilled when Israel takes over the Land. A gate was the entry into a city. So if you owned the gate that city was yours. You conquered it.

And the Land was Israel’s promised inheritance. So to receive their inheritance, Israel had to go in, conquer the Land, and possess their enemies’ gates.

Well what was Christ’s inheritance? Psalm 2:8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.

Its the nations. All the nations of the earth. The true fulfillment of the Promised Land is not just some acreage in the middle east. Its the ends of the earth. The New Heavens and New Earth.

The world belongs to Christ. And what did Jesus say? I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

He said, Through the gospel, I will possess the gate of my enemy. Satan might be the God of this world, but I have conquered him.

I have crushed the head of the serpent, and the nations will worship me as my inheritance, just like God promised.

And this ties directly to the last promise, because it is through this gospel, through saving the nations and possessing the gate of His enemy, that Jesus blesses all the nations of the earth.

This blessing is the gift of salvation. That’s exactly how peter defines it in Acts 3.

Acts 3:25-26 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.

God blesses us in Christ, by turning everyone that trusts in Him from their wickedness.

He reconciles us to Himself, fills us with the Holy Spirit, and gives us eternal life.

And this blessing has gone out into the world and all the nations just like God promised. Jesus commanded us...

Matthew 28:18-20 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

This blessing is being saved from our sin, reborn as new creations, forgiven and adopted by God through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Spiritual Inheritance

And here is what is amazing about that blessing. In the blessing of salvation, God takes us for himself to be His people.

And when God takes us to be his people and adopts us as sons and daughters in Christ, He makes us heirs of all of God’s promises in the Abrahamic Covenant.

Galatians 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Heirs according to the promise. That means Abraham’s inheritance, in Christ, becomes our inheritance.

Paul says in Christ we have obtained an inheritance, and God has sealed us with the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it (Eph 1:11, 14).

Well what was the inheritance promised to Abraham’s offspring, to Christ and everyone in Christ?

There’s two. First, blessing. Salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation with God. All the things we’ve been talking about.

And second, the Land. The Promised Land. The Land flowing with milk and honey.

Now you might say, Well hold on a second! Those promises were to Israel. Christians don’t have a Promised Land. Are we all just supposed to up and move to Israel?

No. What I’m saying is the Promised Land is a type. It points to something greater than itself.

Even Abraham knew this.

Romans 4:13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the…world. Not just the Land.

Hebrews 11:9-10 By faith he went to live in the land of promise...For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

The earthly Promise Land pointed to the true, spiritual Promise Land. The New Heavens and New Earth. The fullness of the Kingdom of God.

That’s our inheritance. Did not Jesus say The meek shall inherit the earth? (Matthew 5:5). Interestingly, earth can also be translated as land.

Well what am I getting at here?

As Christians we have a Promise Land. A heavenly Promise Land. That’s our inheritance. That is God’s promised blessing and gift to us.

Hebrews 3 and 4 constantly hit at this idea of Rest. And it compares this rest to the Promise Land, urging us to trust in Christ and enter God’s rest. God’s Kingdom.

Think about it. What did the Promise Land represent to the people of Israel.

Blessing. It was a Land flowing with milk and honey.

A relationship with God. Living in His Kingdom where instead of curse and death they would live under the blessing of God’s life, grace, justice, joy, and peace.

All this was rest. Imagine spending 400 years in slavery in Egypt. 40 years wandering in a desolate wilderness. To finally having a home under God’s blessing, untouched by your enemies.

That is a small, vague, shadowy picture of what God has promised us in Christ.

Eternal rest from all of our enemies. Sin, Satan, and Death. Eternal life in the fullness of God’s Kingdom to walk forever in His blessing, righteousness, and peace.

That is what Christ is preparing for us in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Oftentimes our view of salvation is too small.

We just think about our own personal justification and forgiveness.

And its true, salvation is not less than that.

But its so much more. Think of the joy and life you have personally in Christ.

Now imagine that everywhere. No sin, no curse, no death.

And here’s how amazing that inheritance is. You can’t imagine it. God says No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).

So when we talk about being offspring of Abraham in the true offspring, Jesus Christ, and what God has promised us as our inheritance in Him, here’s what I want you to remember.

Blessing and Promise Land.

Salvation and the forgiveness of sins and Eternal Rest in the Kingdom of God.

That’s our hope.

Heirs of the Spiritual Inheritance

And how you receive that inheritance is just like Abraham, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Time and Again the Bible tells us Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness (Romans 4:9).

The only way you can have your sins forgiven and inherit the Rest of eternal life is through faith in the sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And just like how, under the Old Covenant, Abraham and all of his offspring, anyone who would inherit the promises of the covenant, needed to be circumcised or else they would be disinherited and cut off from God’s people, anyone that would inherit the promises of God today in Christ also needs to be circumcised.

And just like how, under the Old Covenant, Abraham and all of his offspring needed to be circumcised to inherit the promises of God’s covenant, so too, anyone that would inherit the promises of God today in Christ also needs to be circumcised.

Not with a circumcision made by hands, but with the circumcision of Christ. The circumcision of the heart.

God had said in Genesis 17 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.

This is what caused so much confusion in the early church. This is what the book of Galatians and all the talk about circumcision and the Judaizers is about when you read the NT.

False teachers taught that to be part of the covenant and inherit its promises, you needed to be circumcised.

Without circumcision you were disinherited. Cut off from the promises of God.

Circumcision became a gospel of works. God’s grace, forgiveness, salvation, rest and blessing becomes something you earn, not something you inherit.

But what they missed was that the promises were given to Abraham and his offspring by God’s grace.

And physical circumcision pointed to a greater spiritual circumcision of the heart.

Deuteronomy 30:6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

God is the one who cuts off our sin, takes out our heart of stone and gives us a new heart that loves Christ with new desires to obey Christ.

And that circumcision, that gift of faith which is a perpetual sign of all of God’s covenant promises to us in Christ, is solely and entirely a work of His grace.

We do not earn God’s promise of salvation by our works. You cannot earn it by circumcision.

As Paul says For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation (Gal 6:15).

Just like a baby circumcised on the 8th day under the Old Covenant contributes nothing to his physical circumcision and inheritance of the promises, so we too, under the New Covenant, contribute nothing to our spiritual circumcision.

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Do you want the forgiveness of sins and eternal rest for your soul? Believe God.

Come to Jesus the promised blessing to all nations.

Trust in Him, and he will give you a new heart. He will cleanse you and make you born again. Adopt you into God’s covenant people and give you the inheritance promised to Abraham.

And for those that have trusted in Christ, those promises are ours and we can rejoice in the hope of God’s amazing grace.

Conclusion

The salvation of Christ is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham to bless all the families of the earth.

Abraham lived thousands of years before Christ came to earth. Imagine that.

God kept his promise day after day after day. Despite all of Israel’s sin. Despite all their rebellion. And despite all the sin of the nations.

God was so patient, so gracious, and so true to His Word that nothing stopped His promise to bring from Abraham an offspring to bless all the nations of the earth.

To bring salvation and turn the curse of death into the blessing of life through the death of His Son Jesus Christ.

And in the spirit of Christmas, God actually reminds us of this promise in the Christmas story.

Matthew 2:1-2 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

The wise men were pagan astronomers from the east. They were not part of the people of God. They represent the nations.

And in His grace, God shows them a star that carries an invitation, “Come worship Christ! Come worship the blessing to all nations”

And the wise men came.

It says...

And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him (Matthew 2:9-11).

It’s interesting who God tells us are the first people to come and worship Christ.

Luke tells us about the shepherds. People who in that culture would’ve been considered unclean. Unfit to draw near and worship God.

Yet, that’s who God sends the angels to.

Then you have these wise men. Pagan Gentiles. In the birth of Christ God is telling us, He welcomes the unclean. Those made unholy by their sin.

And He welcomes the nations. He calls all people to come and bow at the feet of Jesus.

And what do the Magi, the nations do, at the good news that God saves sinners in Jesus Christ?

They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

Jesus is the joy of the nations. He is the promised blessing.

In Him and Him alone, God offers forgiveness and rest.

That is the gift of God’s grace. That is the gift God God has promised to us in Christ.

And that is the gift of Christmas that invites us to open by putting our faith in Jesus and with all the nations and all the families of the earth, rejoice exceedingly with great joy.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Luke 1:68-69, 72-75 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us...to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”

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