Focal passage: Matthew 1:18-25
Have you ever made a promise that you just could not keep? Maybe you promised to arrive for a meeting early, but on the way you got stuck on a one-lane road behind a school bus.
Finally, after the bus turned off, you were able to pick up the pace for a mile or so only to come upon bumper-to-bumper traffic caused by an accident.
You promised to be early and you gave your very best effort, but you just couldn’t overcome the obstacles.
We have all had an experience of breaking a promise that we intended to keep.
God, however, has never had this experience.
Every single promise that He has ever made has come to pass or will come to pass. For God, every promise made is a promise kept.
The opening verses of Matthew’s gospel account display God’s faithfulness to His promises.
Matthew walks through the lineage of Christ from Abraham to David in order to demonstrate God’s great grace to His people and His great faithfulness to His promises.
From the opening pages of scripture, God promised that the Seed of the woman would reverse the curse of the fall by crushing the head of the Serpent (Genesis 3:15). He continued this promise through the seed of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 15:1-6; 21: 1-3; 22:15-18).
Matthew wants us to revel in God’s faithfulness from Abraham through David so that we may see that this Jesus, is the Christ sent, “to save His people from their sins” (1:21).
The baby born to the virgin is the kept promise of Isaiah 7:14; He is God with us.
Matthew is shouting, “The promised Seed sent to save His own has arrived; the Serpent’s head will soon be crushed.”
God never has and never will run into an unforeseen problem that prevents Him from keeping His promises. He sent His Son to be broken in order to keep His promises unbroken. May we, as His people, be those who see and celebrate the promise-keeping God in His Word this Advent season.