Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Every year, for the past few years, my family remembers the Christmas story by daily putting out a piece of a nativity set.

Starting with the least important figures, like the cow, lamb, or donkey, we hide the figurine, and then once it is found, place it in its spot and talk about its significance.

So, if it is the cow, we’ll talk about the cow—the bull—would be used as a sin offering and how Jesus is our lasting sacrifice for sins.

If it is the lamb, how the lambs were used on the Day of Atonement and how Jesus is our atoning sacrifice.

We do this all the way to baby Jesus himself.

But there is one figurine that is never hidden because it is never presented as a figurine.

And that is the Christmas star.

But it is the Christmas star that calls on us to surrender our lives, follow after Christ, and hold fast to our doctrine and faith.

My hope is that you catch hold of that idea today.

So that when you place the star on top of your tree, or look up at the sky on a cold winter’s night and see them twinkling there, you’ll remember that it was and is the Christmas star that beckons us to Christ.

After all it is “his star.”

The Stars of Abraham

To fully appreciate the Christmas star’s calling to us, we must first go back about 2,000 years before the Christmas star appeared to understand the stars of Abraham.

Abraham had been called out of Ur to follow after God, leaving behind the land he knew for one he had never been.

While doing so, a dispute had arisen between his men and his nephew Lot’s men, and so Abraham and Lot parted ways.

Lot went into the valley, which was away from God and toward the city of Sodom, finally settling there.

Before long, Lot along with others from Sodom were taken as prisoners of war, and Abraham and his men, had to save them, and did so handedly.

On the way back, a tithe was given to Melchizedek and the rest of the plunder from battle was given to those whom he had rescued.

And here is God now speaking to Abraham who had fought a battle against the fiercest kings of his day, saying, “I am your shield,” and Abraham had given away all the riches to those whom he rescued, and he says to him, “your reward will be very great.”

Wonderful news, except what difference did it make if it wasn’t staying within the family?

He had no son.

Instead Abraham planned for Eliezer to receive his inheritance.

But God told him this was not so.

Instead, he would have a son who would be an heir and in time, he would have descendants as numerous as the stars.

Later in Genesis 26, the same promise is given to Isaac.

And what we see here is that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him,” (1 Cor 2:9, ESV).

Imagine having your life planned out.

You’re over 75 years old and not getting any younger.

You’ve made your final arrangements and God comes along and changes your plans!

All of us can sympathize with Abraham.

As happy as he is that he will have a son, his plans are abruptly changed.

True, they will be better plans, greater than he can imagine, but he has no idea how this will come about.

But he had the hope of God every time he looked upon the stars.

Long before the Christmas star appeared in the sky, Abraham was given the stars as a sign of God’s promise and God’s hope.

And we are given no less hope.

The Star of Balaam

But to fully appreciate the Christmas star’s calling to us, we need to go further and see the star of Balaam.

Hundred’s of years later, we find that Abraham’s descendants had grown.

They had entered into Egypt with 70 in their family and came out four-hundred-thirty years later with millions.

They were headed to the Promised Land.

One by one, kings and kingdoms were falling to this numerous people.

Kings Sihon of the Amorites and Og of the Bashan had been defeated and Balak, prince of Moab, thought himself to be their next target.

He sent word to Balaam, whose name means “destruction” to come and curse Israel.

Listen to his words:

Notice how he described them.

“They cover the face of the earth.”

It would seem that God’s promised future had come true.

They were as numerous as the stars and Balak was scared.

He called Balaam to do as his name indicated: destroy Israel—destroy what God was doing.

Notice the words he used for Balaam reflect God’s first words to Abraham.

“He whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

While we don’t know much about Balaam, we know that he was not a Moabite.

He lived about four-hundred miles north of Moab, in what is modern-day Iran.

Balaam finally relents and comes to Balak telling him that he can only say what the LORD puts in his mouth.

And on three different occasions Balak tries to get Balaam to curse Israel and each time out pops a blessing.

And as Balaam is about to leave, he has one more word for Balak, one more prophecy to make.

Someone is coming, but it would be in the distant future.

He will be a star out of Jacob.

Abraham’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars.

Isaac’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars, but there will be one star out of Jacob who will rise up and rule and crush Moab, Balak’s people, but not just Moab, but what was the known world.

One star from Jacob would come.

Moses recorded this conversation; he recorded this blessing for the benefit of his people and for us.

But they and we must look for the Star of Jacob.

Every single one of us who has put our faith in Jesus is walking in this wilderness waiting for the the Promised Land.

And maybe things are finally going our way, but we are just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

By now you’ve heard of the omicron variant.

Will that be it?

Is the country going to shut down again?

Perhaps its your own health or the health of someone you love.

Don’t forget the star of Jacob.

Don’t forget

It would be through this star that evil will be conquered.

It was through this scepter, this rod that God’s kingdom will be fulfilled.

There is no blessing of the nations without this star arising from Jacob.

The Star of the Wise Men

While many desired for the star to come; few were looking for it.

But there were some men in a far away land, coming from the Parthian Empire, modern-day Iran who were looking for it and saw it—the Christmas Star

Balaam was not only known in Israel.

He was not only known in Moab.

He was known, it seems, throughout the Middle East.

In 1967, an inscription was found in modern-day Jordan about “Balaam, son of Beor, a seer of gods.”

So it is not surprising if the Magi in the East knew of the coming star of Jacob.

In fact, there would be no reason for the wise men to come to Jerusalem unless they believed the star to be the star of Jacob.

Though “star” was a sign for the coming king, it was common among the people to see a correlation between stars and births or deaths of important persons.

God created the stars to be signs as we see in

And while those signs were meant to be guides while journeying; think the North Star and not astrology which is forbidden, this new star became a guide to Jesus, the one whom the star represented.

The wise men of the Parthian Empire saw the star rise, but not just any star: his star.

Many wonder about this star.

Some say it was Jupiter which was the so-called King of Planets.

Some say it was a merging of Jupiter, the king of planets, and Saturn considered a sign of the Jews since the god Saturn was worshipped on Saturn’s Day (Saturday) and that was the day the Jews worshiped as well.

Some say it was an exploding star.

Some say it was a star who’s light finally reached earth.

But the way Matthew wrote it, this was none of those things.

This star was a miraculous star.

It seems to have appeared long enough for the wise men to set off on their journey, and then disappeared, until hearing the prophesy.

Then it reappeared once they left Herod’s palace and led them to the home which Jesus and his family were staying.

And look at their reaction:

This star was only a sign of the true star they were after, the true King of Israel—the Savior of the world.

By following it, they were led to his home.