Blocks Conference

January 1st

Pastor Sarah Blount

First Time Guest? Let us know!

Night 1

Annie Druyan
Part of what we wanted to capture in the Voyager message was this great longing we feel.

There is a lack of passion in the Bride.

John Piper
The Bridegroom left on a journey just before the wedding, and the Bride cannot act as if things are normal. If she loves Him, she will ache for His return. Saving faith says, "Thy kingdom come! Come back, O precious Bridegroom. Come, reign as King. Come, vindicate your people. Come, marry your Bride.” If she loves him she will ache for his return. She will ask for His Kingdom to come. She won’t be lured to sleep by the world. Or caught in the act of adultery with another lover.

Storge
Familial Love. Like the love a mother has for her child.

Philia
Brotherly Love. Like how you love your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Agape
Unconditional, Selfless Love. Like how Christ loves us.

Eros
Passionate, Burning Love. Like how a groom loves his bride.

In the world, we find EROS without AGAPE.

In the church, we find AGAPE without EROS.

Plan 1: The Squelch Diet

The shutting down of any and all indulgence of desire.

Squelch = forcefully silence or suppress

To squelch our desires is to hinder our seeking.

To ignore our longings is to ignore the one who can fulfill our longings.

John 1:35-39
The following day John was again standing with two of his disciples. As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” When John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus. Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them. They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come and see,” he said.

Behind all of our misdirected desires, there is a legitimate desire God put there and wants to satisfy.

Christopher West
What’s needed to progress on the journey of the Christian life is DEPTH of desire, not DEATH of desire.

What if instead of training yourself to ignore longings, you let your longings train you?

Plan 2: Fast Food Diet

The promise of immediate gratification through indulgence of desire.

C.S. Lewis
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to make mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Those on the fast food plan are trying to suck infinity out of finite things.

Plan 3: The Banquet
The promise of eternal gratification through indulgence of desire.

Song of Songs 2:4
He brought me to his banquet hall and raised the banner of love over me.

Isaiah 25:6
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

Luke 22:14-15
When it was time to eat the Passover meal, Jesus and the apostles were at the table. Jesus said to them, “I’ve had a deep desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

John Eldredge
Jesus knows the dilemma of desire, and he speaks to it in nearly everything he says. He knows that ecstasy is not an option; we are made for bliss, and we must have it one way or another.

Psalm 63:1-8
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Jeremy Foster
For I have seen You I've beheld Your glory. And I am ruined For there is none to compare. And I long to know You And the depths of Your love That always leave me Time and time again, undone.

Spurgeon
God will never do anything with us till he has first of all undone us.

G.K. Chesterton
And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

Psalm 81:10
For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things.

Psalm 23:5
You prepare a banquet for me while my enemies watch. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

Psalm 34:8
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Psalm 78:29
They ate and were filled; the Lord gave them what they wanted; they were not deprived of their desire.

Song of Songs 5:1
…Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fill, O lovers.

To Enter Into The Banqueting, Passionate, Burning Life:

1. Get to the bottom of your desires.

Ask: What am I longing for above all else?

2. Trace your desires back to their original longing for God.

Ask: Why am I longing for that above all else?

3. Enter the refining fire and allow anything you’re clinging to that is not God to melt away.

Ask: Am I willing to not want what I am clinging to?

4. Desire to burn with passionate Eros.

Ask: Am I willing to be ruined and undone by the depths of God’s love?

5. Say yes to the invitation.

Matthew 22:2-8
“God’s kingdom,” he said, “is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn’t come! “He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, ‘Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!’ “They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop. The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them. The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city. “Then he told his servants, ‘We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren’t up to it…

The limitless, infinite God who created you to experience bliss and ecstasy has invited YOU to banquet with him.

WORD DECLARATION

1 John 4:13
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us his Spirit.