Read: Genesis 17

We come to a chapter about how God provided assurance of faith to Abraham at a crucial moment when he really needed it. The tension is that God expands and enlarges his promises beyond anything he has ever said to Abraham before, but everything about Abraham’s situation makes it almost impossible for him to continue to have faith in any of it. Have you ever felt like this? “God, this is who you say you are and what you say you will do, but when I look at my situation, it’s almost impossible to believe it.” In this passage, God shows us how to find assurance when our faith wavers.

1. Our Need for Assurance

In the first verse, we can see why Abraham needed assurance. Many years had passed since the Lord had last appeared to him, and he was now 99 years old. Like Abraham, we need assurance, and God knows we need assurance. The picture here is not one of Abraham having total certainty between these encounters. He is very likely wrestling with God, struggling to believe. Not only that, but God’s promises seem impossible, and his timing doesn’t always make sense to us.

God waited to do what was humanly impossible in order to show Abraham and all those after him where faith truly belongs- in Him alone. His power, not ours, His timing not ours, His way not our way. God knew this was hard for Abraham. He knows it is hard for us.

God did not dismiss the reasons why Abraham’s faith was shaky and uncertain. He acknowledged them and addressed them in appearing to him. he Bible does not teach that to be a Christian means having 100% certainty, no doubt, or a never wavering faith. As time goes on, we will struggle, our faith can weaken, and sometimes God will seem utterly silent. God does not condemn or scold us for needing assurance of faith but recognizes our need in the midst of doubts, fears, anxieties, and worries.

2. God Gives Us Reasons For Assurance

God knows our need for assurance and meets us in our uncertainty. He doesn’t simply understand our need for assurance, He also provides solid reasons as a basis for our assurance. Two powerful reasons given in this passage are as follows:

Who God Is - God reminds Abraham, “I am God Almighty” (v.1), and “I will be your God” (v. 7,8). Our God is God Almighty (El Shaddai) - omnipotent. There is no situation that is too impossible or hopeless for Him. Abraham’s focus was on himself and his circumstances. God was showing Abraham to begin not with who Abrahm is but who He is. We can see this in the passage: God begins, “As for me” (v4), then “As for you” (v9), then “As for your wife Sarai (v15), and finally, “As for Ishmael” (v20). In telling Abraham “I will be your God” (v7), God is saying he is not just a god out there but a God whose Almighty power is at work in Abraham’s life and situation.
Who God Says We Are - Sometimes, our struggle with the assurance of our faith is with God. Other times, it is with ourselves. The same is true for Abram and Sarai, so God renames them Abraham and Sarah. Notice that God renames them before their lives show any evidence, any measurable or concrete proof, that they really are a new Abraham and a Sarah. This shows us an important truth - God says we are not who we say we are; we are not who others say we are; we are who He says we are. When we don’t feel like we are worthy to call ourselves a Christian or a son/daughter of God, this passage tells us - our names/identity are not earned by our performance, they are given by God and received as a gift.

3. God’s Gift For When The Reasons Don’t Seem To Work

When we fall back on reasons, but they can’t seem to hold us up, God gives Abraham (and us) something even more. God gives us a sign, which is “a sign of the covenant between me and you” (v.11). A sign is something that points to something else. Circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant put on the man’s reproductive organ because a child was at the center of the covenant promise. In the sign, God declares the child of the promise through whom He will bless the world will come not by you (Abraham) - your power, your wisdom, or your timing - but by me (the Lord), my power, wisdom, timing. This sign would be not just for Abraham but for his descendants as a sign to live by faith in the God who keeps his promises.

Just as Abraham was given a sign to assure him when the reasons didn’t seem to work, so are we. It’s a different sign. The sign of the new covenant in Jesus Christ is baptism. The apostle Paul connects circumcision to baptism when he says, “You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Col 2:11-12).

Baptism is our sign that we have a new name: the same as Jesus’ - son or daughter of God. We have a promise: I will be your God and you will be my people. We have assurance that God is who he is and that he is our God. When all else fails, we need only to look back to the sign of our baptism to see that God Almighty (El Shaddai) has been there all along and he will carry us through.

QUESTIONS

What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?
Have you ever gone through an extended period of time where you felt a lack of assurance of faith? What does God’s appearance to Abraham in a time he needed assurance tell us about how God responds to the ups and downs in our faith?
Three reasons were given for Abraham’s struggle with assurance - 1) God’s timing is not our timing 2) Our ways make more sense to us than God’s ways 3) God’s promise seems impossible to us (in our situation, circumstance.
Which of these is most impacting your assurance of faith today? How?
Sometimes our lack of assurance has to do with doubts about God, how does this passage give us reasons to regain our faith?
Sometimes our lack of assurance has more to do with ourselves. How does this passage give us reason to regain our faith when this is the case?
What are some practical ways we can “use” the reasons God gives us when our faith is weak, assailed or ebbing? Discuss practical examples that have worked for you.
Have you ever been at a point that no matter how hard you tried to “use the reasons” God gives for assurance - they didn’t seem to work? How did you make it through this season?
God gave Abraham a sign to assure him when the reasons didn’t seem to work. The sign of circumcision was a physical, visible reminder of God’s covenant promise (when he doubted God) and Abraham’s place in God’s covenant (when he doubted himself).
In the new covenant, we are given the sign of baptism. Baptism is a physical and visible reminder of how God has fulfilled his covenant promises in Jesus Christ. It’s a physical and tangible sign that the promises are ours by faith.
How can baptism be a sign that assures us of God’s faithfulness - even when we don’t feel it? even when we don’t feel we deserve it?