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<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px; COLOR: #ffffff"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman, Times, serif"><strong>Proper 12</strong></span></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px">John 6:1-21<span> - <strong>"</strong></span><strong>Are You a Satisfied Customer?"</strong></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px">John 6:1-21 <span>-<strong> "</strong></span><strong>The 4 Spiritual Flaws"</strong><span> by Leonard Sweet</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span><br>
</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_________________________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>John 6<font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">,</font></font> the sermon title "</span>Are You a Satisfied Customer?<span>" </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Did you know that
neon signs can be hazardous to your health? There is one neon sign that
is hazardous to mine. It is the one that flashes "hot" in bright red on
the window of Krispy Kreme. If you have ever eaten, some really great,
hot, Krispy Kreme doughnuts oozing with that glaze that is so wonderful
for your cardiovascular system, you know there are always two problems
in that box of doughnuts: (1) one is never enough (2) no matter how many
you eat eventually you'll always want more. <br>
<br>
For so very many
people, life is just like that. There is a never ending quest for
fulfillment. There are so many people in this world who have found
success, but they have not found significance. <br>
<br>
This world is
filled with people who are desperately trying to find purpose and
meaning, fulfillment and significance in their life. The truth is when
it comes to living and life, most people are not satisfied customers. It
was the great philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, who once said, "The
mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." <br>
<br>
People are hungry and they are hungry for two things primarily...</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining <a shape="rect" target="_blank" __removedlink__1533044081__href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001m5OSuBuqgyO4bXuY_fTgX-fMwvs6YepwVzyjBKuGQp_bLvSta7BExDAT8UBHyJCksGDqdbxKpobVUTkXUnVi3u_YGj6bMN0zoUwkM_rmbaM3gklKsUi6D5-KQKIFDW1s">http://www.sermons.com/signup</a> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_______________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">J</font></font>ohn 6<font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">,</font></font> the sermon titled "The 4 Spiritual Flaws" by Leonard Sweet </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Want to attract
young, floundering, post-high school people to a life of faith,
fulfillment, and commitment? Would your first thought be to offer that
age group a solid set of "divine directives"-- aka "Four Spiritual
Laws?"</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Probably not.
Unless you were Bill Bright in 1952, when he offered that gleaming,
golden nugget of insight to a new generation of spiritual seekers. But
the "laws" Bill Bright proposed were far from rude and reactionary.
Instead they were redeeming and revealing. And they have touched many
new generations of searching young men and women, people seeking to find
a direction and meaning for their adult lives. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>If it's been awhile--or never--Bill Bright's "Four Spiritual Laws" are as follows:</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>2. Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>3. Jesus Christ is
God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and
experience God's love and plan for your life.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>4. We must
individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know
and experience God's love and plan for our lives. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>These guidelines continue to be the mainstay of the evangelical outreach of the Campus Crusade for Christ to this day.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>But that doesn't
mean we don't still get it wrong, everyday, everywhere, whether we are
teen-aged, college-aged, middle-aged, or elder-aged...</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>___________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Need Happens 24/7</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span><br>
A few years ago
in the city of Chicago, a crowd of community residents did something
unusual. They picketed the churches in their community to do something
other than have church. They picketed them to be church. They seemed to
say the Christ you claim and proclaim each Sunday seems more than enough
in the sanctuary, but never seems to get out in our neighbor-hoods. Why
are you open only on Sunday? Need happens 24/7. There are six other
days in the week, but you're closed.<br>
<br>
Ozzie E. Smith, Jr., More Than Enough<br>
________________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Jesus Takes Command</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Only one miracle
made it into all four gospels. It transpired on the grassy hills by the
shores of the Sea of Galilee at a time when Jesus' popularity--and also
his vulnerability--was cresting. Wherever he went, a throng that
included many deranged and afflicted trailed behind.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The day before the
big miracle, Jesus crossed the lake to elude the masses. Herod had just
executed John the Baptist, Jesus' relative, his forerunner and friend,
and Jesus needed time alone to grieve. Doubtless, John's death provoked
somber thoughts of the fate awaiting him.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Alas, there would
be no secluded retreat. A huge swarm of yesterday's multitude made the
ten-mile journey around the lake and soon hundreds, even thousands of
people clamored around Jesus. "He had compassion on them," says Mark,
"because they were like sheep without a shepherd." Instead of spending
the day renewing his spirit, Jesus spent it healing the sick, always an
energy drain, and speaking to a crowd large enough to fill a modern
basketball arena.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The issue of food
came up. What to do? There are at least five thousand men, not to
mention the women and children! Send them away, suggested one disciple.
Buy them dinner, said Jesus. What? Is he kidding? We're talking eight
months' wages!</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Then Jesus took
command in a way none of them had seen before. Have the people sit down
in groups of fifty, he said. It was like a political rally--festive,
orderly, hierarchical--exactly what one might expect from a Messiah
figure.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Unavoidably, we
moderns read Jesus' life backwards, knowing how it turns out. That day,
no one but Jesus had a clue. Murmurs rustled through the group on the
packed hillside. Is he the one? Could it be? In the wilderness, Satan
had dangled before Jesus the prospects of a crowd-pleasing miracle. Now,
not to please a crowd but merely to settle their stomachs, Jesus took
two salted fish and five small loaves of bread and performed the miracle
everyone was waiting for.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Three of the
Gospels leave it at that. "They all ate and were satisfied, and the
disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and
fish," reports Mark with masterful understatement. Only Jon tells what
happened next. Jesus got his time alone, at last. As the disciples rowed
back across the lake, fighting a storm all the way, Jesus spent the
night on a mount, alone in prayer. Later that night he rejoined them by
walking across the water.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 175-176.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_______________________</span></div>
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