Sermon Series: The Prayer of Jabez 

Asking for Blessing

 1 Chronicles 4:9-10

In a nutshell: Despite our backgrounds, our past, or our opinion of ourselves, God wants to bless us. All He wants us to do is to ask for that blessing.

I. Introduction

A. Present picture of a blessing

Last Thursday, I rode my motorcycle home from an early morning meeting, to retrieve our SUV and trailer, so I could haul three grills from my house and Pastor Darrell's house to church, for our Biker BBQ. It was about 10AM. My next door neighbor, Wes, was standing outside talking to the guy who had just cleaned his carpet. As the carpet guy was packing up his stuff, Wes came over and asked me what I was doing. I told him about our Matthew Party for some of the bikers during last week's Palm Springs Motorcycle Weekend, and that we needed my grill and others to cook the meat for the BBQ. He said, "That sounds interesting." And walked back to his driveway, got in his vehicle and drove off to work.

Five minutes later, he pulled back into his driveway. He got out of his vehicle and asked, "Do you need any help? I'd like to help you. I don't need to go into the office today." I thought for a moment, "I really don't need any help." But then I recognized a "God-thing" was going on. So I said, "Sure, come on along." So Wes quickly changed clothes and we started out the driveway.

As we were pulling out of the driveway, I saw something down the street that concerned me. There was a fire engine and an ambulance parked outside Ralph and Ella Mae Rawlings' home. With Wes in my vehicle, I drove over to their house, just in time to see Ella Mae being taken out on a gurney. Ralph told me she had fainted, and was going to Desert Hospital. After assuring Ralph that I would be there later in the afternoon, I headed back to the SUV. I asked Wes if he minded me praying for Ella Mae right there in the vehicle, while he listened. He said, "No." So out loud, I prayed for her recovery, for Ralph's peace of mind, and for her safety during transport. Afterwards, Wes said, "Wow, I've never heard anyone pray like that-so intimate with God!"

Then we proceeded to church to drop off the first grill. Then Pastor Darrell got in the vehicle and we went to his house to pick up his two grills. Once we got the grills to church we called the hospital and found that Ella Mae was not in critical condition, and I knew Pastor Greg and Darrin would be over there shortly, so we decided to get the rest of the errands done, before I'd clean up and head over to the hospital.

All the while, Wes is asking questions about our church, about faith in God, and telling us of his story of problems and difficulties that were of his own making. We went to lunch and I wove the plan of salvation into the conversation, but didn't push for a decision at that time. Wes was intrigued, and kept asking questions about faith and about God.

After we dropped Pastor Darrell back at church, I planned to drop Wes off at his house and continue on to Costco to purchase all the meat, buns, etc for the BBQ. But when we got to his house, he said he'd really like to continue on with me to Costco. So, I said, "Fine, let's go." While at Costco, Wes continued to ask questions about the differences between the Baptist church and the Lutheran church, where his wife and daughter attended. I didn't get suckered into that detour. I simply said, "As long as the main thing is kept the main thing-Jesus Christ must personally be accepted as the forgiver of your sin and the leader of your life-then all the other differences are not that important."

As we got into the check out line, Wes floored me. He said, "I want to pay for all this." I said, "Wes, there's more than a hundred dollars worth of stuff here. I can't let you do that." But he insisted. He said, "I have had such an incredible day today, with you, that I want to say 'thank you'. Please let me do this." Sensing God at work, I said, "OK". And that's how all of our meat, buns, plates, flatware and napkins were provided. But it gets even better.

When I dropped Wes off at his house, I asked if I could pray for him. He said, "yes." So I did. After our prayer, Wes was in tears. Sensing I needed to go deeper, I said, "Wes after hearing all this talking about Jesus wanting to be the forgiver of your sins and the leader of your life, would you like to do that right now?" And he said, "No, not yet. I don't want to be a hypocrite. Not yet." So I left it at that.

The next day, Friday, I had to be in San Diego in the morning. Wes stopped in the office to talk. But since I wasn't there, he left his private office phone number and asked that I call him as soon as possible.

When I did later that afternoon, Wes said, "Tom, I wasn't ready yesterday, but I'm ready now." So in the privacy of his office, Wes prayed to receive Jesus Christ as the forgiver of his sins and the leader of his life. He went to church willingly for the first time, with his wife and daughter, last Sunday.

B. Blessing

I have been on Cloud 9, ever since. I've shared this story with many of you, over this past week, and I still get goose bumps when I tell it. This was something that only God could orchestrate, and I got to be involved in it. It was one of the richest experiences of my life. I was blessed!

Now, that word blessed is one of those great Bible words, that has lost it's greatness because we have watered down it's meaning over the years. Someone sneezes, so we say, "Bless you". We say, "I am blessed", when something good happens to us that came as a result of our own intuition or wisdom.

But that's not the Biblical meaning of blessed. On the front of your WIG's this morning, is about the best definition I've ever heard concerning the Biblical idea of blessing. It comes from Bruce Wilkinson's best selling book, "The Prayer of Jabez".

"To bless in the biblical sense means to ask for or to impart supernatural favor. When we ask for God's blessing, we're not asking for more of what we could get for ourselves. We're crying out for the wonderful, unlimited goodness that only God has the power to know about or give to us. This kind of richness is what the writer was referring to in Proverbs: "The Lord's blessing is our greatest wealth; all our work adds nothing to it." (Proverbs 10:22 TLB).

C. Transition

Now, I tell you all that, because this week, we are kicking off a four part series based on two verses from the Old Testament book of 1 Chronicles, and the best selling Christian book that many of you have read recently, The Prayer of Jabez.

And the idea of blessing, and understanding biblical blessing is crucially important to understanding and applying the prayer Jabez prayed, and realizing the power of that prayer in your life, today. So, let's start at the beginning…

II. The Background of Jabez

A. Who is Jabez?

By now, if you haven't read the book, or read 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, you're probably wondering, who is this guy Jabez?

If you're into genealogies, then you'd love reading the first 9 chapters of the Old Testament book of 1 Chronicles. It starts with Adam and traces the entire history of the nation of Israel, all the way to their first king, Saul. It contains names like Seth, Enosh, Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, Shobal, Koz, and so on. Plus a whole host of names that are beyond difficult, to pronounce.

But if you're not into genealogies, then those first 9 chapters are about as interesting as watching paint dry.

However, right in the middle of all these begats and sons of … are two verses that throw the spotlight of Hebrew history on one single man-a man of great distinction and character-his name is Jabez…

1 Chronicles 4:9-10 9 Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

B. Importance of the name

Verse 9 tells us his mother named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." Maybe Jabez was a "breech" baby. Maybe he weighed 12 pounds at birth. Maybe his father had left his mother or died before the birth. The bottom line is, we don't know what the problem was. All we know is that Jabez's birth caused his mom pain-and she wasn't going to let her son forget it. So she named him "pain".

Today we give our children names because of current fads, or we name them after relatives, or we choose a name just because we like the sound of that name. But it's interesting how a name can have an impact on a child. Consider this paragraph from an article I have in my files…

"A lot of people subconsciously predict career success based on a name, according to James Bruning Ph.D., a psychology professor at Ohio University. In his study, participants forecasted that girls with feminine names like Emma and Winifred would be more successful if they pursued traditionally female occupations like nurse and hairstylist, while boys with names like Boris and Bruno were expected to succeed in traditionally male careers, such as plumber and truck driver." ("Child Magazine", What's In a Name?)

A name can have a lot of impact on a person-even today! But in Bible times, the name given to a person was huge! It often meant the character or the path in life that that person might walk in his or her lifetime. For instance…

-Jacob means "one who tricks"-and sure enough, he tricked his brother Esau out of his inheritance. -Jeremiah means "God throws"-and the Bible tells us that Jeremiah was thrown into the middle of God's chosen people during a time of ungodly self-righteousness, to prophesie against them. -Jesus means "God saves"-and through His death and resurrection, that's exactly what He does. He saves us from the consequences of our sin.

So, imagine poor Jabez, having to carry the burden, all his life, of being a "pain". What a tough future this guy had to look forward to!

C. Honor

But surprisingly, he overcame the name, "pain", and all it's implications for his future life. Look at the first part of verse 9 again… "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers."

Something happened in his life-something happened that took him from being a pain, to being a man of honor. What was that something? Folks as I read these two verses and as I read what Dr. Wilkinson says in his book, I have to come to the conclusion that the single thing that made Jabez rise above his family circumstances, his heritage, and the predictions that were made about him at an early age, was the simple fact that he wanted to do something extra for God, beyond what those around him were doing.

Now, I say that because verse 9 says that Jabez was given the distinction of being more honorable than all the other people around him. Now that word "honor" is the Hebrew word, kabod. It literally means "to be heavy".

In the negative, this word means burdensome or severe. In the positive, it means great, magnitude or magnify, and glory.

In other words, having an honorable character means that you magnify someone else to greatness, or you bring glory to someone else-not yourself. And in this case, the one whom Jabez chose to honor was Jehovah God.

And don't miss the difference that happened in this guy's life because he wanted to do something extra for God. He went from being a pain, to being a man remembered for his honor-in fact, he was more honorable than anyone else around in his generation.

Now the single thing that tells us how he went about doing something extra for God-more than anyone else around-is the prayer he prayed in verse 10.

1 Chronicles 4:10 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

There are four parts to that prayer: -Bless me; -Enlarge my territory; -Be with me; -And Keep me from harm and pain.

During the next four weeks, we'll be examining each of these phrases in depth. Because my hope is that each one of you will start praying this prayer for yourself, with understanding, conviction and enthusiasm, so the God-sized things-things like what happened with my neighbor Wes and me this past weekend-will not just happen in my life, but will start happening in a variety of ways in your lives and the life of our church in the days, and months and years to come.

But the first thing we have to understand is what it means for us to ask God to bless us. As I've read review after review of the book, Prayer of Jabez, it's this idea of blessing that hangs the critics up. But after examining it myself, I believe that if you understand blessing, biblically, you'll see that it is a very good thing to ask for, and not a selfish and self-centered thing, as some have taken it to mean.

I started to describe this idea of blessing at the beginning of this message by telling you about my adventure with my neighbor Wes. But let me continue to define it now…

III. The Meaning of Blessing

A. Radical Aspect

There is a radical aspect to Jabez's prayer, when he asks for blessing. If you'll notice, …he doesn't tell God what that blessing should look like, …nor does he try to define a blessing, …nor does he even try to list areas of his life in which he wants God's blessing. The radical aspect of Jabez's prayer is that he leaves the definition, and the when/where/and how of God's blessing totally up to God!

What Jabez demonstrated was a total and radical trust in God's good judgment, alone!

Most of you have heard of people who say that there is nothing wrong with praying for a new Mercedes, or a six-figure income, or a bigger house. In fact, this past weekend, one of my Southern Cruiser friends told me I should be praying for a different motorcycle, so Diane could ride with me more often, since mine was really made to carry only one person. He said, "Hey, after all, you've got connections with the guy upstairs!"

But folks, understand, when we start naming the blessings that we think God should give us, we are telling God what we want, and we are not considering in any way, shape, or form, what He wants to do to bless us. The Jabez-type blessing zeroes in on nothing more and nothing less than what God wants for us-period.

In the Prayer of Jabez book, the author, Bruce Wilkinson makes a powerful statement that really opened my eyes, and I hope it opens yours as well…

"When we seek God's blessing as the ultimate value in life, we are throwing ourselves entirely into the river of His will and power and purposes for us. All our other needs become secondary to what we really want-which is to become wholly immersed in what God is trying to do in us, through us, and around us for His glory." (p. 24)

And friends, let me tell you, when you start asking for God's blessings on His terms, something happens-I guarantee it-Your life will become marked by miracles.

When you ask for blessings on God's terms, God's power is unleashed to accomplish unbelievable things in your life. When you asking for what He wants, and wanting only His desires…, suddenly the unhindered power of all of heaven can come to bear on God's perfect will for your life. And you'll be the first to notice.

When Wes said to me on Thursday of last week, "Can I go with you and help?" I recognized that question as a "God-thing"-something only God could orchestrate. And even when I didn't need his help, I still took it, because I recognized that God was about to do something miraculous in Wes's life, and He wanted to use me as the vessel to bring it about.

B. Fable

There is a fable that has been the favorite of pastors and Bible teachers for years. Dr. Wilkinson uses it in his book, to illustrate this point…

Story: It seems that a man, by the name of Jones, dies and went to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the "pearly gates" and takes him for a tour. He shows him the streets of gold, the mansions prepared for God's children, and the beautiful scenery. But in the process of their tour, Mr. Jones noticed an odd-looking building. To him, it looks like an enormous warehouse-no windows and only one door. But when he asks to see it, St. Peter hesitates. "You really don't want to see what's in there." He says.

But Mr. Jones persists, so finally St. Peter shows him inside. Inside the building are row after row of shelves, floor to ceiling. On each shelf were many boxes, each stacked neatly, side by side And each box was tied with a red ribbon.

Mr. Jones noticed that each box had a name on it. So he asked if there is one with his name on it. St. Peter reluctantly says, "Yes", and takes him to the "J" section, and helps him find his box. When Mr. Jones finds his box, he immediately removes the ribbon and opens the lid-then he begins to weep. Because inside that box were all the blessings that God wanted to give him while he was on earth… but for which Mr. Jones had never asked.

Friends, Jesus promised…

Matthew 7:7 7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

And the apostle James wrote…

James 4:2 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.

And the sad fact is that if you didn't ask God for His blessing yesterday, you didn't get all that you were supposed to have.

My time with Wes is one of many "God-things", or miracles, that have happened to me in the past year. In fact, I've seen more "God-things" happen to me so far this year, than just about my entire 49 previous years, combined.

What's the difference? The only difference is that I have started every day, since January 1 of this year, praying the Jabez prayer and I mean it when I pray it-Lord, please bless me and extend my lands. Be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and from pain.

IV. Conclusion

Friends, this prayer isn't magic, it isn't an incantation, it's not self-serving theology, and it doesn't supplant the Lord's Prayer as our model prayer.

But what we have here is the example of a man who was transformed from being a pain to a man who held a special place in God's history-He was a man who prayed for God to bless him, God did!

And this happened for only one reason friends. Don't miss it-he stopped thinking selfishly like all those around him, and he made up his mind that he wanted to do something extra for God, on God's terms.

Think what would happen if the people of Palm Springs Baptist Church would stop thinking like everyone else around the Coachella valley, and started to ask God to bless us, on His terms. What would that picture look like? Well, quite frankly, we won't know until we try.