Powerpoint Pictures: Tiger Woods; Lady Gaga; Lulu; Charlotte Church; David Walliams

Here are the names of some people who have changed their names.  Can you tell me who they are more commonly known as?  [Eldrick Woods, Stefani Germanotta, Marie Lawrie, Charlotte Reed, David Williams].

There are lots of different reasons why people change their names.  In the next part of the true story of the Bible we see that someone has their name changed by God.

We’ve seen how God had made some incredible promises to Abram.  The promise of a great nation, a great big family, made up of as many people as the stars in the sky.  He also promised that out of this great family would come one who would be a rescuer, the Saviour of the world.  But there was a problem.  His wife couldn’t have children.  How on earth is God going to keep His promise?

More years passed by and still no child on the horizon.  Abram and Sarai got tired of waiting and so they tried to sort out the problem themselves.  “Abram you need an extra wife!”  Abram took Sarai servant Hagar as a second wife and she got pregnant and gave birth to a son named Ishmael.  It looked like everything was sorted.

But it wasn’t.  Ishmael was not the child God promised.  The child God promised Sarai would give birth to.  God appears to Abram again and repeats his promise.  “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” (Genesis 17:5)

Just to show how certain it was that God was going to keep His promise, he changed Abram’s name to Abraham which means ‘father of many’.  But the question still remains: “How is He going to do this?  Will God be a promise keeper as well as a promise maker?  Can God be trusted?”