Part 1: Connecting With God Series

Series Introduction

A favorite activity of mine as a kid was a Connect the Dots page from a coloring book or activity book. Before you start, you may have an idea of what the picture is going to be, and sometimes you may not. But you start with number one, and draw a line to 2, then 3, and so on until you get to the end. Then, the picture is revealed.

Sermon Introduction

We use this phrase “connect the dots” in other areas of life. I like mysteries—either books, TV shows or movies, and even in real-life situations—detectives collect some clues, and you know the clues are important, but they don’t make sense to us at first. But when the detective “connects the dots” we can see the solution to the mystery.

Throughout our lives, we have collected bits and pieces of information that affect us spiritually. If you’ve been in Sunday School, you’ve studied the Bible to some degree. You’ve probably listened to numerous sermons, and while you may not remember any particular sermon, I’m sure you’ve gathered some tidbits of information from many of them. The hymns and Christian songs you here or sing add to this spiritual knowledge that you have. Radio and TV ministries have given you additional information.

So, we may have all these bits and pieces of spiritual information from all these different places, and yet we often still feel like God has little or nothing to do with our lives. We feel like He’s a million miles away. We’re so busy with school, work, family, friends, or leisure that we fail to connect with God. We’ve got a lot of the dots there, but things are so scattered in our minds and hearts and lives that we can’t connect with God the way He wants us to.

I want to share with you three ways to help us pull these “dots” together, so we can consistently connect with God.

Love God More

I want to do a little participation here: If you LOVE chocolate, raise your hand. (Wait.) Now, before I go any further, look around at those whose hands are not raised—these are the heathen, non-chocolate-loving people! Now, if you have your hand raised, and you have had some chocolate at least once in the 12 months, keep your hand up; if not, put your hand down. [Continue with “6 months, month, week, day, at breakfast.” If any hands are left up…] These are the ones who REALLY love chocolate!

If I changed the question and asked, “Is there a person that you LOVE—husband, wife, mom, dad, kids, grandparents, grandkids? And then I asked, “How often do you see that person—once a year, twice, once a month, once a week, once a day?” I realize that distance may hinder us from seeing some of the people we love as often. Or “How often do you talk to that person—once a year, twice, once a month, once a week, once a day?”

The truth is—when we LOVE someone, we want to SEE them, TALK to them, and LISTEN to them.

The same thing holds true with God. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 6: 5, “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.”

Jesus said that THIS is THE most important thing in connecting with God.

If I asked the question, “Do you love God?” most everyone here would say, “Yes.” So, why do we feel like God is a million miles away? Why don’t we give more consideration to what God wants in our day-to-day living? Do we REALLY LOVE God with all our heart, soul and strength?

For those of you who are married or have been married—do you remember your dating relationship with your future spouse? You were on the phone for hours, talking about nothing, but you didn’t want to hang up. Or when you were out on a date, and it was time to go home, you didn’t want to say goodbye. And you did little things to show how much you loved each other.

I don’t remember how long my wife and I had been dating, but I invited her over, and I was going to cook a meal. I had two other roommates, so I was going to cook for everybody. Somehow, I settled on pizza. I remembered that the first lunch date we ever had was at a pizza place. You can’t go wrong with pizza. I wasn’t going to buy one of these frozen pizzas. Uh-uh, I was going to make it from scratch. How impressive is that?

I made the crust and the sauce, so I’m pretty well committed to pizza. However, being a seminary student, money was very tight. and I guess at this point, I realized that I had not gone to the grocery store to buy any meat, vegetables, or mozzarella cheese to go on this pizza.