The Search | Looking In The Wrong Places - John 4:1 - 15 - Clint Leavitt

Sermon Resources: Scriptures - John 4, John 2:24-26, John 19:28 1. “Our stories are all stories of longing. We long for a good self to be and for good work to do. We long to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We long to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we long to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live…The word longing comes from the same root as the word long in the sense of length in either time or space and also the word belong, so that in its full richness to long suggests to yearn for a long time for something that is a long way off and something that we feel we belong to and that belongs to us.” -Frederick Buechner, "The Longing For Home" 2. “The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.” -John Cheever 3. “Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God.” -A.W. Tozer, "The Pursuit of God" 4. “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country.” -C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" 5. “You have made us for Yourself; and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.” -Augustine of Hippo Sermon Stat Correction: Suicide rates increase exponentially upon retirement age, doubling rather than going up by "three times," as stated. Source Statistics can be found on: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db483.htm