The Star of Bethlehem
Category: Special Seasons
Key Passage: Matthew 2:1-10
Speaker: Anthony Aaron
Date: June 7, 2024
If you got your Bibles, let’s turn to Matthew chapter 2. We’re going to look at a couple verses here. When the preacher first told me that I would be preaching tonight, the first reaction is, “Oh man, all right, oh great.” I was trying to think of some subjects to preach on for Christmas night.
You’ve got a lot going for you on Christmas. You have the birth of Christ, but you have a lot of things to preach on. Do you think about gluttony? Gluttony—I’m sure everybody kind of overate a little bit today. I know I did my fair share of eating, so I was like, well, I can’t really do gluttony because I’m guilty of that too. And then I’ve got coveting. Maybe you didn’t get what you wanted; you’re looking at somebody else’s gift and you really wanted that one. That’s probably a good one to go off of.
Maybe you saw somebody you didn’t really like to see this Christmas season. So maybe you need a little bit of kindness, maybe a little message on kindness. That probably would have helped out a little bit. Maybe a little selfishness. Maybe you kind of thought, “Man, how many more presents do I get to give?” I know when we were kids, I had two younger brothers, and I played that system pretty well because they didn’t really understand. They thought more gifts was better, so I always gave them. I traded. We did some trading on gifts, but they figured it out pretty quickly the older they got.
But we’re going to be preaching tonight about the Star of Bethlehem. That’s the title of this message tonight.
I want to do a quick shout-out to my grandma. She’s watching tonight. She said, “I wanted to watch you preach for Christmas. I didn’t want to come to church, or my own church. I wanted to watch you on Christmas.” So, hi, Grandma. I appreciate that. She sent over some LSU stuff. I don’t know what you think about LSU or not. She got me and Couture a beanie and a hoodie of LSU. I thought about wearing it tonight, but I didn’t want any tomatoes thrown, so I thought I’d leave it at the house. But no, I appreciate it. My wife and I are flying up to Pennsylvania right after this. Back in October, we were looking for some cheap tickets to go to Pennsylvania. Last year we went right after Sunday night service, we left, and we were able to make it to the airport in plenty of time. I thought, “Okay, that’s great.” But I didn’t realize when we planned this year that service starts at seven instead of six like Sunday nights does. So we’re going to be pushing this. I have three points. We’ll give them to you real quick. No, I’m just kidding. I am thankful for you to be here. I wanted to be worth your time. I know some of you went to great lengths just to come to church on a Wednesday night. It is Wednesday night, but it’s also Christmas. You probably had family you didn’t want to see anymore, so this is probably the best option. But, no, I’m just kidding.
We’re going to get started here. If you want to stand with me, we’ll read a couple of verses. Matthew chapter 2. We’ll start in verse number one, and we’ll read down to verse number 10.
Verse number one, the Bible says: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him.’”
When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him.
When he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
They sent word to him in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet (this is Micah): “And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor, that shall rule my people Israel.”
Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.”
When they had heard the king, they departed. And lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. Just a lot of truth there.
Verse number 10 is to be our last verse. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
The star—it is Christmas time. I’m thankful for Christmas. It’s one of my favorite times of the year. Again, I’m an LSU fan, so this will be my last plug. I’m an LSU fan, and I was keeping up with them. They’re supposed to be playing this Saturday. The coach of the LSU Tigers said they would be doing workouts on Wednesday, Christmas, but it is the day that the Lord Jesus Christ was born. I just think that’s neat, still in the world, that we still take time in America to stop and still think about our Savior being born here on the earth. It’s just such a monumental thing, and I don’t really want to get too much into that, but it’s just amazing. I love the spirit people have at Christmas. When you walk out of a store, “Merry Christmas.” I love hearing that. Around here, we say “Christmas,” because we have to keep the Christ in Christmas. I just love Christmastime.
There’s an object in the Christmas story that kind of gets overlooked, and that’s that star. When I was a little kid, we would do plays at our church, and nobody really wanted to be the star. You’re just kind of, “Here I am, I’m the star.” But the star plays a very important part. I think it’ll make more sense the more we get into the message here. I just want to take a couple of minutes tonight and just do a quick lesson of preaching about the Star of Bethlehem.
Go ahead and look in your Bibles to Matthew Chapter 5. Like I said, there will be three points. Just a couple pages over, Matthew Chapter 5. We’re going to look at verse number 14.
Matthew chapter 5 and verse number 14. The Bible says, “Ye”—let’s talk to Christians here—“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.”
Glorify your Father which is in heaven. Our job as Christians—why God left us here on earth—is not to walk around and say, “Here I’m a super Christian. I read this many chapters in my Bible. I go to this church, and I’ve never missed a service, whatever.” That’s not what our job on earth is to do. Jesus is telling the believers here, “You are the light of the world.” Our world is a dark place, and God says you are the light of the world. Ye are the light of the world. That’s just an amazing promise that God has. He said, “You’re the light.” This world without you, without Christians—if you were to take Christians out of the world, it would be a very, very dark, dark, and gloomy place. It would be a horrible place. But we are the light. We’re the light.
My first point is this: Shine for Jesus. We’re kind of relating to the star here. This star shone for Jesus. Look back at Matthew chapter 2, verse number nine. The Bible says this: “And when they had heard the king, they departed; and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.”
Where Jesus was. Now, this star shone not to shine a place maybe of a gas station or a local inn of Jerusalem or Bethlehem there; no, it shone where Jesus was. As Christians, we’re supposed to shine, not for ourselves.
The verse we just read there in Matthew chapter 5: “that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.” Not so we can go around and say, “Man, this is what I’ve done. This is me as a Christian. This is what I’ve accomplished. I’ve got this many years of service. Look at me.” No, no, no, no. Our life as a Christian is supposed to be pointing others to Jesus Christ. We are to shine, not for us, not for the church, not for the preacher. We’re supposed to shine for Jesus. Everything that we do should be shining for our Savior.
When I was a little kid, I was a certified flashlight holder for my dad. We grew up not in the best of wealthy environments, and we had a lot of beater cars, and my dad was a great mechanic. He just needed somebody to hold the flashlight. That was before the headlamps came out, back in the Stone Ages. My job as a nine or ten-year-old boy was to hold that flashlight for my dad. That was my job.
I don’t know about you if you’ve ever been there before, but sometimes it gets a little boring, watching your dad work on this one little bolt over and over again. You’re like, “All right, this is boring.” You kind of move that flashlight over just a little bit, and you can make some pretty cool puppets, some pretty cool shadow puppets. I would often be holding light for my dad, and I’d kind of come over and make some cool puppets, and my dad would say, “Anthony, I’m sorry,” and you’d get back on focus.
As Christians, our focus is to point people to Jesus. That’s what we need to be. But so many times our focus gets turned. Our focus gets changed on other things. The church building is nice, and we’ve got a new property that we’re going to be doing a lot of building here soon, but that’s not the focus. The focus is to point people to Jesus. The ministries that we have here are great, and we do have lots of ministries, but if they’re not pointing people to Jesus, then they’re not doing what they need to be doing. We as Christians are supposed to be pointing people to Jesus. That’s what we’re here for. We are supposed to shine for Jesus. That’s our main focus in life: to be a light, to shine people to Jesus. That’s what we need to do. So that is number one: Shine for Jesus.
Here’s number two: Shine faithfully. Go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 24. Pretty familiar story. Matthew chapter 24, and we’re going to look at verse number 21—just kind of take one verse out of here. Matthew chapter 24, verse number one, the Bible says, sorry, one prayer. The Bible says this: “For then shall be the great tribulation, such as we have not seen from the beginning of the world to this time.” Let me see. Am I in the right place?
Anyway, that’s not what I was looking for. That’s not the verse I had.
You know the verse. The Bible says about a rich ruler. He comes to three of his servants and says, “Here, I’ve got talents for you. I’ve got measures for you, and I want to give each measure to each of the servants.” He gives the servants—one ten, one five, and just one talent—and says, “All right, I need you to take care of these, and then I’m going to go, and I’ll be back.”
When the master came back, the rich ruler came back, what did he do? He said, “All right, now, what did you bring with what I’ve given you?” One of the servants came and said, “You gave me ten, and I gained ten beside. I’ve got ten extra.” And what did God tell him? God said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Well done, thou good and faithful servant. We are supposed to be faithful. God wants faithful Christians.
I went to Bible College in Kentucky, and you would see those freshmen. They would come into Bible College, and man, they were on fire, and they just wanted to do everything. They said, “I’m going to take 25 credit hours, I’m going to work two full-time jobs. I’m just going to do this,” and they’d be a flash in the pan, and they’d be going crazy, and then about a semester into it, they would go home for Christmas, and they would never come back. As Christians, God wants us to be faithful.
One of the amazing stories I hear is people saying, “I’ve been in church for 50, 60 years.” In college in Kentucky, there was a man named Louis Arnold. He started the church that the college was founded off of, and he was preaching for 90 years. He started—he was 100, I think 102 when he passed away. He was preaching for a long, long time. Even at the end of his life, his mind was kind of slipping a little bit, and they had these card memory things they were trying to do for him, a little game. And he said, “No, I don’t play cards.” They were like, “No, it’s just a memory game.” He said, “No, I don’t play cards.” Even at 101 years old, he was still faithful. He didn’t let anything turn him aside. As Christians, we are to be faithful.
A dime a dozen are people that come in. The average Christian lasts in a church about two years. God wants us to be a little bit more faithful than two years. God wants us to be faithful for the long haul.
There is a light bulb called the Centennial Lightbulb. It is in California, and it has been burning since 1901. Since 2019—no, I’m just kidding—but since 1901, it’s been burning for over 100 years, this Centennial Lightbulb. You know what the secret is? This light bulb is not a very bright light bulb. There is actually a website that has a camera devoted just so you can look at this light bulb. They said the secret is that it’s not a very high-power light bulb, but it is never turned off.
There’s a lot of truth to that because as a Christian, you know how easy it is for me to turn that light switch off? You know how easy it is for me to wake up in the morning and go, “Well, I woke up a little bit late. I’m not going to get my Bible in today,” or, “Church is coming up. It’s Wednesday night, it’s Sunday night, it’s Sunday morning, and Sunday school’s coming along, but I just don’t want to do that.” We turn that light switch off. The thing that takes light bulbs out the most is off and on, off and on, off and on.
Sometimes as Christians, we’re going to make mistakes. I make lots of mistakes. But that off and on is what kills most Christians. It’s because it’s easy to turn a light switch off, but it’s harder to get that light switch turned back on. This light bulb has had a direct power source to it, and it stays at a very low power. As Christians, we need to be faithful. God wants us to be faithful. Anybody can be a flash in the pan, but it takes a true, hardworking Christian to shine over the long haul. God honors faithfulness.
In Hebrews chapter 3, verse 5, God leaves a whole verse just talking about Moses’ faithfulness. That’s amazing, but God loves faithfulness because God wants us to be faithful. God is so faithful to us. Revelation 19:11 is our verse for the month of December. What does it say? “He was true and faithful.” I saw him sat on the white horse. He’s called True and Faithful. God is faithful. God has set himself as our example, and we are to be faithful as well.
Sometimes you’ve got to be faithful to see people saved. There are some people who have seen Christians come and go, maybe in your workplace. They’ve seen Christians come and go, and they’ll come for a little bit, and then they’ll just die out. But to see a Christian—places like the military—to see a Christian that will just stay faithful, say, “I’m not going to turn, I’m not going to change, I’m going to stay faithful.”
I worked at a place; it was Sprint customer service. I came in there green. This was one of my first jobs in college. I was pretty green when it came to the outside world. When I came in, the crew joked, they were using the Lord’s name in vain, all this was coming around me, and it was a very dark place. But when I left that place, you wouldn’t hear any of that stuff. It took time. But when I came in there, you just heard this garbage all over the place. It’s a dark place, but God puts a light bulb there because he wants us to shine, and he wants us to shine faithfully.
One of my supervisors before I left there was out of church; she was just a wild lady. Before I left there, I asked her, “Do you know for sure that if you died, you’d go to heaven?” She said, “You know what? You came in, and you motivated me.” She never told me this until my last day of work, but she said, “You motivated me to keep going to church, to get back into church.”
There was a man I texted yesterday. He was one of my coworkers. He was a little bit of a tough case, a tough guy kind of thing, but I was able to work with him. We talked a lot. We sat right next to each other, and he got saved. Praise the Lord. He got into church, got baptized, was going to Sunday school class. He’s texting me yesterday and said, “Hey, I’m dating a girl, and we’re back in church.” Shining faithfully. There are so many Christians today that don’t shine faithfully. We turn off and on. God wants us to stay on for the long haul.
So, number one: Shine for Jesus. Number two: Shine faithfully. And here’s the third thing: Shine for all to see. Go ahead and look back at Matthew chapter 2. We’re going to look at that second verse. Matthew 2:2.
Shine for all to see. Matthew chapter 2 in verse number 2, the Bible says, “Saying, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east.’” They were in the east. They were shining for others to see. This star not only shone faithfully, he not only shone for Jesus, but he shone for others to see. He shone for others to see.
I had a dream the other night. I’ve been working on a house that we bought, and it needs a lot of plumbing and electrical. I was underneath the house with my little headlamp—my trusty headlamp that I got a couple years ago, one of those LED ones. It lasts probably about a couple hours; it’s dying out on me. I was underneath the house Monday or Tuesday, putting plumbing in, cleaning everything out. You don’t realize how many spider egg nests are underneath a house. I’m just thankful I’m doing it in December and not in the summer.
I had a nightmare that night. My little daughter, two years old, was underneath there with me. She was pushing the plumbing up, and I was pushing it to her. She was pushing it up through the hole, and she was helping Daddy out. But then my headlamp that was looking at her cut out on me. There she is in the dark, and I hear her fall and scream. All I’m thinking is spiders, and I’m waking up in the middle of the night.
We’re shining for others to see. It’s easy to shine in a room full of light. If we turn all these lights on in the auditorium and we were to hold up our cell phones with a flashlight on it, it really wouldn’t make much of a difference. It’s easy to shine when there’s a room full of light, but the true test, the true challenge, comes when darkness comes.
It’s easy to come to church and fill your seat, sit down where you need to be, dress the right part, and act the way you’re supposed to. But when it gets down to the dark, when there’s not Christians all around, when you’re in a dark place, that’s where the true test comes from. That’s where the true challenge comes. It’s not in the light. Nobody goes, “Hey, Brother Dylan, have you been reading your Bible lately?” But when we get out of the church, when we go home, what is our light like at the house? What is our light like with family members? What is our light to our friends, to our coworkers? Are we bright? Or do they not even know that we’re Christian?
This star shone all the way across to wherever the east was where these wise men were coming from. It was shining brightly. The verse we read there in Matthew chapter 5 and verse number 16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.” That’s our job: to shine for Jesus, shine faithfully, but we are to shine for others to see, not just in church, not just where it’s easy to do it. We’re supposed to shine in the darkness.
When I was younger, we had these big, bulky, square flashlights. You would keep them for emergencies if the power went out. They were never really in their original spots. When the power did go out, you thought you knew where one was, you go to grab it, and it’s not there. You’re busting your toes up trying to find one. You finally found one, and then you hit that button, and nothing’s going on because you’ve used it for whatever else.
What is a flashlight supposed to do? It’s supposed to shine. When a flashlight doesn’t shine, you toss it. If it’s not doing what it’s supposed to be doing, it’s not really that good unless you want a giant flashlight paperweight. The challenge comes in the darkness. We need to work hard at keeping our light shining brightly. That’s our job. Our job is not just to be light. That flashlight is a light, but if it’s not shining brightly, it’s not really doing me much good.
With my little headlamp, I’d be underneath there, and it starts getting really dim, and I’m like, “All right, here we go, it’s about to cut out. I’ve got to hurry up and get whatever I need to get done real quickly.” As Christians, we need to keep our light shining brightly. We need to keep that light shining brightly. How do you do that? You keep those batteries charged. It’s so easy just to live life, waking up, “Well, okay, it’s just another day. We’ll just keep going.” God has somebody that needs to see your light that day, and we don’t charge our batteries. God has somebody that needs just maybe a little bit of kindness, maybe a Christian brother you can encourage, maybe somebody that’s lost that needs to be pointed to Christ, and God wants to charge those batteries with your walk with him, and we just say, “Well, I’ll just get it another day.” God says, “No, no.” God wants us to be that light for all to see, not just for our church, but for everybody to see. You don’t leave your flashlight in the light; you bring your flashlight with you into the darkness.
Another thing that happens is our flashlights get dirty. You need to have a flashlight that’s clean of dirt. A lot of times our lives, we get marred because of the dirt in our lives. God wants to clean us, but we’ve got to go to God on a daily basis: “Lord, I want to be a light today. Lord, I want to share the gospel today. Would you please clean my light? Would you keep me clean? Would you help me to be able to shine brightly for somebody to be able to see you, see the Savior?”
Also, we need to have our lights accessible. We don’t leave them here at church. We don’t leave our Christianity where everybody—leave it at home, and then, “I’ll come back to it when I get back from work,” or leave it at church, and then, “I’ll see you next Sunday.” No, we take our lights with us. We take our lights everywhere we go. Whether it’s Walmart, and Walmart’s a pretty dirty place as it is, whether it’s Kroger, whether it’s the bank that you go to, we are supposed to take our lights everywhere we go.
God left us here, and you know what the amazing thing is? We do make mistakes, but God knew that we could still be a light. If God didn’t think that we could shine for him, he wouldn’t have told us to be a light. He knew that we could be lights. Through him, he’ll strengthen you. He’ll give you the battery that you need. He’ll give you the light that you need to be able to help somebody. We’ve got to go to God on a daily basis: “Lord, keep me clean. Lord, help me to be able to give light to somebody.”
I’ll close with this quickly. The story of Jesus: He was walking through the multitude; he was with his disciples. A lady that had a disease for multiple years reached out and touched Jesus. Did Jesus slap her hand away? Get away from me? No, he didn’t say that. Jesus said, “Somebody touched me. I feel a virtue gone out of me.” If virtue went out of Christ, that means he had it in there to begin with. Sometimes somebody needs to see our light. If we don’t have a light shining, what does the world have a hope for? Where is there hope in the world if we’re not as Christians shining for our Savior?
Those are the three things that we’ve learned from this star: You shine for Jesus. You don’t shine for anybody else; you shine for Jesus. We point people to Christ. And you shine faithfully, day in, day out. I love seeing older gentlemen that have just worked at a place for 30 years. That doesn’t happen anymore. Basketball players nowadays just follow the money; they’ll be with a team for a year or two and then hop to another team. But 20, 30 years ago, they didn’t do that. They stayed and said, “No, this is my city, this is my team. We’re going to build it.” Staying faithful.
And then shine for all to see. It’s not about us. We’re shining for everybody to see. We’re being a light. Not, “Hey, I’m a Christian. Don’t you be smoking over there. Put that cancer stick out. Come on, we’re Christians around here.” No, that’s not what we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to be a light, pointing people to Christ.
One of my favorite songs, which we sing with the junior church a lot, is “This Little Light of Mine.” I’m going to let it shine.
Original File: The Star of Bethlehem - Brother Anthony Aaron 122519