Text:                HEBREWS 11.1-2

By:                   WHISKEY, JOSHUA

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Once upon a time, in a small town, there was a group of friends who loved doing puzzles together. One day, they gathered around a large table, excited to solve a particularly challenging puzzle. They began piecing it together, diligently searching for each puzzle piece. As they worked, they noticed that one crucial piece was missing.  Without it, the puzzle would remain incomplete. They searched high and low, under the table, between the couch cushions, and even in the surrounding rooms, but the missing piece was nowhere to be found.

Feeling disappointed, they were about to give up when a wise old man passing by stopped to observe their dilemma. He asked what the problem was, and the friends explained their situation.

The wise old man smiled and said, “I believe I can help you with your missing puzzle piece.” Curious and hopeful, the friends watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the missing piece.

With great excitement, they placed it into the puzzle, and suddenly, the picture was complete.

Amazed, they thanked the old man for his help. One of the friends asked, “how did you know you had the missing piece?”

The wise old man replied, “you see, my dear friends, I am the one who designed and created this puzzle. I knew exactly how it should look and what each piece represented. I had the missing piece all along because I am intimately connected to the puzzle.”

This anecdote beautifully illustrates our connection to the “Great I Am.” Just like the wise old man who designed and created the puzzle, God, the Creator of all things, intimately knows us and our purpose. He holds the missing piece that completes our lives and gives us true fulfillment.

Through our connection to the “Great I Am,” we can experience a sense of wholeness, purpose, and meaning. When we invite God into our lives, he guides us, provides for us, and reveals our identity and purpose. We are not lost or incomplete; rather, we are connected to the one who knows us intimately and holds the missing pieces that bring everything together.

Our topic is “Connection with the Great I Am.”

In Exodus 3.14 God revealed Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM.”

Yahweh is therefore the “I am.”

This lesson is to help us see the benefits of being connected with God.

Life is helpless and hopeless without connection to the great “I am.”

In 1 Chronicles 29.15 King Solomon says,

“For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, As were all our fathers; Our days on earth are as a shadow, And without hope.” (NKJV).

Apostle Paul also says of a life without God,

“That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world”

(Eph 2:12 NKJ).

This is the reason one needs to be connected to the great I am.

Hebrew 11:1-2 tell how connection with the great I am possible.

It begins with faith.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.”

As simple as this passage sounds, it is laden with great thoughts.

The elders (that is, God’s people of old) were connected to the “Great I am” by faith and being connected, they obtained good testimonies.

Since with God all things are possible, connection to the “Great I am” opens up a lot of possibilities.

• Connection to the “Great I am” takes a man to where men can never go.
• Connection to the “Great I am” makes a man do what men can never do.
• Connection to the “Great I am” removes fear.
• Connection to the “Great I am” removes doubt.
• Connection to the “Great I am” does not make man passive rather it makes a man active.
• Connection to the “Great I am” makes a man to empty himself believing that he has nothing to lose.
• Connection to the “Great I am” makes people to be heroes and heroines.

Let us consider some examples of what men were able to do because they were connected to the “Great I am.”

What these people did is said to be their testimonies.

Hebrews 11.4:

By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks” (NKJ).

Because Abel was connected to the “Great I am” he offered a more excellent sacrifice.

He gave what was pleasing to God and cheerfully.

And so God testifies of his gifts.

I think we need to think of our gifts to God whether they show that we are connected to the “Great I am.”

Hebrews 11.5:

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found, because God had taken him’; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

In Genesis 5.21-24 we have this record about him:

“Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah.  22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.

Genesis 5:23-24

23 So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.  24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”

Enoch was so connected to God that his flesh needs not to die.

We are told that Enoch walked with God.

He was so connected with God that he walked with God.

For that reason, God took him, and he did not die.

Another person we read of that did not die also was Elijah.

Elijah was so connected to God to the extent that he could just command things to happen, and they happened.

Remember, he was the one that stop rain from falling in the land of Israel for three and a half years.

Elijah was found to appear and disappear (1 Kgs. 18.12).

He was the one that called fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice that the water ran all through the altar (1 Kgs. 18.32-38).

More of his acts are recorded in the book of First Kings.

Because Noah was connected to the “Great I am” he was able to build an Ark that delivered his family.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were connected to the “Great I am.”

That was the reason, they did what they did.

When Jacob was to move to the land of Egypt, he was afraid but see what happened when he got connected to the “Great I am.” 

In Genesis 46.2-6 we have the following records:

“Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, ‘Jacob, Jacob!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’  3 So He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. 

  4 “I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will put his hand on your eyes.”  5 Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little ones, and their wives, in the carts which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.

6 So they took their livestock and their goods, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him.”

Because the parents of Moses were so connected to the “Great I am” see what they did.

• First, they hid Moses for three months not being afraid of the king’s command.
• Second, they decided to keep the baby in a place where Pharaoh’s daughter would see him.

The intention here is that even though, Pharaoh did not like Hebrew male children, Moses would stay in his house.

Pharaoh would be responsible for raising Moses to adulthood.

• Third, Pharaoh’s daughter agreed for a Hebrew woman, to be the nurse for the baby that would be her child. Exodus 2.1-10 has the record.
• When Moses was not connected with the “Great I am” he did not know his potential.
• Listen to him in Exodus 3.11:
• “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’”
• In verse 12 the Great I AM, showed to Moses that He has been connected with Him for that reason, there is nothing to fear.
• “So, He said, ‘I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
• Because of his connection to the “Great I am,” Moses could perform the plagues that came upon the Egyptians.
• He was able to divide the Red Sea for the people to walk through.
• Through him the manna was given to the children of Israel for forty years.
• In fact, the Bible says that Moses spent 40 days and nights with God on the mountain.
• He was the one that received the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God.
• By marching round the city of Jericho for seven days, the walls collapsed.
• Because of connection with the “Great I am,” Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego quenched the violence of fire.
• Because of connection with the “Great I am” Daniel was with the lions, and nothing happened to him.
• In the New Testament, we see that Jesus is the “Great I AM.”
• For that reason, any one not connected to Jesus is helpless and hopeless.
• Such a person has no God in the world.
• Because of connection with Jesus the apostle writes,
• “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” ( 4.13).
• The examples are inexhaustible.

Connection with the GREAT I AM has to do with great faith in God. It is only when we have faith in God that we will start to see things in a different perspective.

Faith in God makes us to do the extraordinary.

Faith in God makes one to do the things with ease.

May God be with us and bless us. Amen.

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