The shepherds who were there when Jesus was born were looking up at the stars, just as Abraham had been all those centuries before, when God made him the most amazing promise. Yeah, they were looking up and also back to that amazing promise, that through Abraham God would bless all the nations. Christmas Night is, I think, the most amazing night. You know we sing that song, "O holy night, the stars, the stars are shining", and you think of the shepherds and the angels and Mary and Joseph and that baby, Jesus, God in the flesh. Part of me wishes I were there. I wish I was there and could see it and be part of it, and yet there’s another part of me that’s glad I know Jesus the way He always intended me to know Him – that is through the presence of God, the Holy Spirit in me. When we strip away all the rubbish of Christmas, and please; I don’t mean to denigrate the whole giving presents, families getting together, celebration, holiday – they are all good things. But there’s this dimension to Christmas which is a Santa Claus, which is trying to fool our kids into thinking that these presents were brought by a guy in a red suit and reindeer and down a chimney that we don’t have, and … you know … there’s that sort of big con thing, and all the big department stores, all the shops are on the bandwagon to make money and the whole success of Christmas is measured by the retail sales figures … Give me a break! That’s the part of Christmas that I think: Aren’t we missing the point here? When we strip away all of that rubbish, Christmas itself is the most wonderful of all celebrations. But it’s struck me how often we skip over the beginning of the New Testament, the very first chapter, the first verses in the first chapter. It begins like this: An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David and the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac was the father of Jacob and Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers. And it just goes on, and it goes that Uzziah was the father of Jotham and Jotham was the father of Ahaz and on and on and on. And Eliud was the father of Eleazar, and I think, "Hang on a minute. If I was going to write the first chapter in the first book of the New Testament, which is about the story of the coming of the Saviour – of Jesus, would I have picked that?" I mean, excuse me, but it’s pretty boring, isn’t it? You and I look at it and we go, "Hang on. Why is it that You start the New Testament – this wonderful story about the coming of Your Son – with a long, tedious list of Perez and Zerah and Tamar and Hezron and … Why do You do that God?" I mean, when was the last time (if you happen to be a churchgoer) you went to church (you know how they have the Bible-reading before the guy or the woman get up and preach), when was the last time you heard someone read through a genealogy? So here we have it. If we put Matthew and Jesus and Christ together, this is kind of what God I think is saying in this opening chapter. Here’s a gift from God – His anointed Saviour, Jesus, and that got me to thinking: Why a genealogy? What is God saying to us when He talks about Christmas through this long, tedious genealogy? It’s the bit that you and I want to rush over. When you get to a genealogy in the Bible, and there are a few of them throughout the Bible, I mean, I know I don’t tend to read them word for word. I say, "Ok. There’s a genealogy; are there any interesting people there that I know? Ok, let’s move on", but God chose a genealogy to open up the book of Matthew – the first book of the New Testament. What was He saying? Genealogies, it turns out, were significant to the Jews. They were about the purity of lineage. There were three things that were important: Firstly, land and residency. They wanted to know that a Jew was a Jew; they wanted to know that this person had a right to be a resident and to own land. The second thing they needed to know was where there were priests involved because there were some people in the Jewish nation who were set aside to be priests, and their priestly authority came from their lineage (their heritage), and the third where it was really important was legal standing. Where there was a claim to royal succession, they wanted to know legally that a person was entitled to be the king if that’s what he claimed, and the public records were kept by the Sanhedrin, the sort of quasi-religious/secular ruling body, in the temple in Jerusalem. So this isn’t just a boring list of names to the Jews, but this lineage is quite fascinating and there are three main characters in the lineage. It begins with Abraham. Abraham is the father of the Israelite nation. Halfway through, it talks about King David – the greatest king that Israel ever had, and then right at the end it comes to Jesus – the son of God. And in the case of Abraham and David, I believe what Matthew is doing is pointing back to the promises that God made to Abraham and David. We’re going to specifically go and have a look at those promises today. Let’s flick back and have a look at what God said to Abraham. If you have a Bible, open it at Genesis 12:1. This is what God said to Abraham: The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 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 the one who curses you I will curse’. And here’s the blessing in the tail of the blessing: And in you, all families of the earth shall be blessed. So, about 1,950 years before Jesus was born, God makes this initial blessing to Abraham – that in him, through his lineage, through his seed, all of the nations in the world will be blessed. Man! You know, Abraham was an old man. He was seventy-five when that promise happened; he didn’t have his first kid until he was a hundred years old. Here was this man: His heart was aching for the land that God had promised him and the son that God had promised him, and … he was just aching. And just a few pages on, if you go to Genesis 15:5, God brings Abraham outside and says: ’Look towards the heaven and count the stars if you’re able to count them.’ Then He said to Abraham, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And Abraham believed the LORD, and the LORD accounted that to him as righteousness. What a beautiful picture! What a beautiful, tender encounter with God. Here’s this man Abraham who got a promise from God that he cannot begin to understand how it will be fulfilled, and he’s standing under the same sky, the same stars that were shining on that night two thousand years later in Bethlehem, and the Jews knew about that promise. It was the beginning of their belief in a Messiah, someone that God would send to set them free. There was another key promise. Halfway through that genealogy in Matthew, he talks about King David who is part of Jesus’ lineage, and the crux of that promise happens in 2 Samuel 7:12-16. This is what it says:  ‘When your days are fulfilled’ (says God to David) ‘And you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom’ (so here God is promising him a son; that son was Solomon). ‘He shall build a house for My name’ (which Solomon did; he built the temple, but have a listen to this) ‘And I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever’ and ever and ever – for all eternity. ‘I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to Me. When he commits iniquity’ (which Solomon did), ‘I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use’ (with blow...

Released on 12 Dec 2021