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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Chris Buttery

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It is awesome to be with you here at the Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist Church.

If you don't know what a tomato is, I'm sure Pastor Mike has educated you with regard to what a tomato is versus a tomato.

A tomato is bigger and juicier and tastier.

But as a matter of fact, I like the indomitable city better than the big tomato.

That's what Sacramento is known as, the indomitable city.

And may this church be indomitable for the Lord Jesus Christ amen we I look a whole lot better up here with my wife to be honest with you she is so much prettier and and more winsome and when we left our previous district they were sorry I'm not sure they were too sorry to see me go but they were sorry to see my wife and my kids go you're gonna enjoy them and learn to to love them and appreciate them and as I do they are dear to my heart and they are sorry they couldn't be here.

They have my iPhone, which they're using as a hotspot this morning and trying to get this live and so they are at home recovering.

We like to share the love of Jesus with others, that's what we do as a pastor family, but we didn't want to share with you the flu that we had and so they are home and they are, my wife is taking care of our kids who just haven't haven't been too well these last few days.

We have literally traveled over a couple of thousand miles to be with you here this morning and we don't plan on turning around and going back, we're here.

We've traveled through swamp and through mountains and over rivers and driven through deserts to be here in sunny California, Although the sun wasn't turned on when we came here, so we're still wondering what happened with that.

My home is Australia, Adelaide, Australia.

And some of you probably have read a little bit about Jen and my biography and the church paper, the Connections, is that right?

And Connections, not the, just Connections.

And you learned that she's from North Carolina, I'm from Australia, and when I came to the United States, I decided I was going to go to 1 of either 2 schools, but the 1 school I decided not to go to, because it was right here in California.

The last place on earth I figured I'd end up in would be California.

But when God calls, God calls, and it's interesting where you end up when you let God lead your life.

Now, nothing personal against California or Californians or sacramentans, but here we are.

Although we've left many a good friend and a lot of our family on the East Coast, we are honored to be here serving you as 1 of your ministers and looking forward to working together to advance God's cause in this area, joining hands with those that are serving in various parts of this state and this country and all over the world in preparation for the soon return of Jesus.

That's why we are here, that's why we do what we do.

We are leading others into a relationship with Christ in preparation for that great, great day.

If you still have your Bibles, open to John chapter 1, and if you don't, please turn back there with me.

Before we do, I'd like to ask that you bow your heads as we pray just 1 more time.

Father in heaven, we come to you and to your word and we're asking that your Holy Spirit would be here to teach us, instruct us, open our hearts that we might be drawn nearer and still nearer to Jesus.

Thank you for the awesome privilege to serve you and to be here together to worship freely as we can and as we do this morning, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

John chapter 1, and I'm feeling a little more comfortable with you this morning, I don't think I need to talk too slowly.

Pastor Mike Thompson, originally from England, has probably acquainted you with the funny accents we have from those parts of the world, but his is a little funnier than mine, though, being he's from England.

Alright, John chapter 1 and we're going to read here verses 1 through 5 and then 9 through 11.

The Bible says in the beginning was the Word, that's origination, And the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God, that's association.

And all things were made by him, that's creation, and was not anything made that was made.

Verse 4, in him was life and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness, that's clarification, and the darkness comprehended it not, that's deprecation.

Jump down to verse 9, That was the true light, verification, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, that's occupation, and the world was made by him and the world knew him not, that's refutation.

Verse 11, he came unto his own, that's invitation, now for the most remarkable words in the entire Bible, he came unto his own and his own received him not.

Where I'm originally from, royal visits don't happen very often, but when royal visits do happen, they're a big deal.

As a matter of fact, technically, the whole country sits up and pays attention.

Whatever or wherever the Queen goes, the Queen of England that is, goes, great crowds gather, people straining to behold this very august personage.

When the queen gets off the plane, she's greeted by well-wishers straining to take a look.

Now, of course, preparations for the royal visit are quite extensive.

Before the queen comes to town, I understand Secret Service agents scatter everywhere, lifting up manhole covers, looking in drains, up trees, behind bushes, they go all over the place in preparation for royalty.

And then of course the town is spruced up and years of planning come to fruition when the Queen finally comes to town.

You see, when the Queen comes to town it stirs up excitement, everybody's attention is roused and you would think then if the King of the Universe were coming to town that it would generate infinitely more attention.

This is the Christmas season and here we are, we're reminded of course of the Christmas story.

Our hearts are warmed with thoughts of the King of the Universe coming as a babe in a manger.

In a special sense, the story is of when the most important monarch came to town and was unrecognized and unaccepted by the people that he himself had come to visit.

Now The Bible says that Jesus came to the world as the Word of God.

That tells us not just who he was or what he was, but why he was here.

As speech is to thought, that's what Christ was to the invisible God.

He came as the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, the scripture says.

Jesus was the thought of God made audible, the thought of God expressed.

For millennia, the universe, of course, had been waiting for heaven's purposes to be wrought out in types and in shadows and in symbols.

God had demonstrated his intentions but now the great original had come.

Once he had been demonstrated as a in a burning bush, a lowly shrub enshrining the infinite but now he would be poured out into human form.

God would come in the flesh once he dwelt in a sanctuary made, just made for him, and he pitched his tent by the tent of others.

He dwelled in the midst of his people but now Jesus comes in the flesh as John wrote in verse 14 of John chapter 1, as 1 who tabernacled among us.

This was Emmanuel, God with us, Not the President of the United States, not the Secretary General of the United Nations, not a celebrity, not a star, not even the Queen, but this, my friends, was God Himself.

If God came to town, you would expect that people would sit up and pay attention and take notice But when Christ came to be born in Bethlehem only a handful of people Knew or were ready to meet him.

He came unto his own the son of David born in the city of David but as the Bible says in Isaiah chapter 53, he would be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

He came unto his own, his own received him not.

The President of the United States makes a surprise visit to some nation.

No 1 knows about it because it's top secret.

An earthquake rocks some country and few people are ready for it.

Nobody was ready because nobody knew the thing was coming.

There was no early warning system in place.

But the Old Testament alone predicted by some estimates the arrival of the Messiah around 300 times.

And you've got to understand about the people living in the time of Christ.

They were reading the predictions, they had them memorized, they had them drilled deep in their gray matter.

They knew that the Messiah would come and they were anxious to welcome him.

If you would take a walk down Bethlehem, then somebody would have known it was about time for the Messiah to come.

If you'd gone down to Jerusalem and talked to the doctors of law, they would say yes, according to our calculations and looking at Scripture, it looks as though the Messiah should be here any time.

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