WHATS IN A NAME?

GENESIS 17

Pastor Rick Jackson

Shakespeare wrote, "What's in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet" meaning the name of something doesn't chang it's intrinsic nature. Abraham Lincoln agreed and posed the riddle, "If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does he have?"
After someone said "5" Lincoln said, "No, it doesn't matter what you call his tail, a dog still only has four legs."

People can call evolution science but it's still a failed theory full of holes and hypocrisy. People can label Christianity a myth but it is still true, they can say the Bible was written by men but It is still God's Holy Infallible Word, they can say Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Jewish woman but He is still the virgin-born Saviour, God incarnate.

People cannot change the fundamental nature of something by renaming it but names are important. The brand name "Kleenex" has so firmly implanted itself in the minds of most Americans they call facial tissues "Kleenex" even when they are using another brand. The same thing can be said of "Scotch Tape" and "Coke." Names are powerful, names mean something, names matter.

When God uses a name it means something. When God changes a name, it means something? Let us apply the question, "What's in a name?" to our text Genesis 17.

I. THERE IS POWER IN A NAME! [v. 1-2]

Abram at 86 could still sire children but at age 99 that was no longer the case.

Romans 4:19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:

Hebrews 11:12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable

It is at this point God appears to Abram again and calls Himself for the first time "El Shaddai", Almighty God. When Abram was helpless God said I have all the power necessary.

The same truth applies to our salvation, God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Romans 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. There is power in a name.

II. THERE IS PROMISE IN A NAME! [v. 3-14]

In this case, there is the promise of:

1. FRUITFULNESS [v. 3-6]

2. FAITHFULNESS [v. 7-8]

3. FRATERNITY (a brotherhood) [v. 9-14]

III. THERE IS PURPOSE IN A NAME! [v. 15-19]

IV. THERE IS PRECISION IN A NAME! [v. 20-27]

You might say, but Ishmael's name wasn't changed. And that would be precisely the point. Ishmael represents the works of the flesh which doesn't change. Galatians 3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? [Gal. 4:22-31]

Note the faith of Abraham as he obeys God and has to depend solely on God for protection while all the men recover. [v. 22-27]