Connect with God

Good morning! So thankful for athletic Sunday today. I love athletics. I believe sports has the opportunity to teach so many positive things. Every time I get to coach a sport here at Bridge of Faith I am reminded of this.

Sports teaches kids:

Following directions

Respecting coaches and umpires

Thankfulness to coaches and parents

Determination

Overcoming and Dealing with failure

How to handle victory

Active listening

Following rules

Perseverance

and so much more...

One of my many favorite stories was Jackson Smith last season and his willingness not to quit.

I love what God is doing through our athletic program!

The single biggest reason we have an athletics program is to get families and children to connect with God.

When I think about connecting with God, my mind goes to the greatest sport and that is baseball.

I love baseball! I played baseball. My favorite thing about baseball his hitting. I played the field so that I could hit.

Do you realize how hard it is to hit a baseball? If you are a professional baseball player and you can connect or hit that baseball 3 out 10 times you are a really good hitter.

This means you fail 7 of the 10 times. It takes a lot to connect or hit the baseball.

Check out this video

(Show video)

In hitting, it is so hard to connect with the baseball.

Today on athletic Sunday I started thinking about how hard it is to connect with a baseball.

Our goal for the athletic program is that we connect families with God.

Watch the video again and this time make it more spiritual. As you watch the video, let me encourage to think about connecting with God.

(Show video)

In your mind was you the ball or the hitter trying to connect with God?

As I first thought of this concept of connecting with God, I thought I was the hitter and the God was the ball and I have to work hard to connect with God.

After some study of scripture, I quickly realized that God is the hitter and I am the ball but the batter is God the creator.

Ephesians 2:18–19 HCSB

18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,

Romans 5:10 HCSB

10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life!

2 Corinthians 5:18–19 HCSB

18 Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

Colossians 1:20–22 HCSB

20 and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven. 21 Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions. 22 But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him —

Hebrews 10:19–22 HCSB

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh ), 21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.

Truth: We connect with God not because of our ability but we connect with God because of God and Jesus’s death on the cross.

When it’s clutch time in a big game, then we want the best hitter at the plate.

The game is not baseball. The game is life and death and connecting with God. I want the best hitter at the plate for the game of life.

Do you want to rely on your ability?

NO

These verses tell us that this is God’s story and he is wanting to connect with you and he is making this possible.

How do we want to connect?

Hitting a homerun in a silo!

John 15:1–17 HCSB

1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vineyard keeper. 2 Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. 6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples. 9 “As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in My love. 10 If you keep My commands you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. 11 “I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. 17 This is what I command you: Love one another.