The Prayer of Jabez
January 07, 2001	Sermon by DRW	Passage 1 Chronicles 4.9-10

What could I bring to you today, this first real Sunday of the Millennium? I was thinking that I could offer you seven steps to being a great student. Maybe, how to deal with parents with three easy words. Or, 4 ways to wisely choose friends. But, as I thought about these things, I began to think about you. What is your greatest need? It isn’t success in school or at home or with your friends. What is it that will bring about the greatest change in your life, whether it is school, home, or friends? We learned three weeks ago that Jesus is the only option we have in this area. But what can I bring to you today that will effectively bring this about? When you become my age, I want you to be able to look back over your lives and see the pivotal points in your life. I want you to be able to see the handful of people who have brought you to those pivotal points that turned you around to become the people you will be. And, I want this time to be one of them.

I want to direct your attention to a little prayer in 1 Chronicles 4, verse 10. I would like to read it to you. There is a long set of people’s names that the Bible gives us, then it stops at this person and say this:

He was more honorable than his brothers.

The writer then writes one sentence about him and then continues with his long list of names. Wouldn’t it be incredible if God were to stop at your name and say that you were more honorable than the rest? Wouldn’t you want to be known as the one who stood out in your generation, who God used to change the lives of many people?

At the end of today’s message, I am going to ask you to join me in the prayer of Jabez. I will read it to you now. It has four parts and each of these four parts are exactly the opposite of how we have been taught to pray.

“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 not cause pain.”

Take a look at the first one: “O that you would bless me indeed!” We don’t ask God for blessings because we feel He already does. We feel that there is a limited amount of blessings and that God dispenses only as He feels like it. Jesus tells us there are innumerable blessings that we don’t receive because we don’t ask for them. [Mr Jones story?]. Somehow we think it is wrong to ask God to bless us. I can only imagine what I would do if Joshua would come up to me and ask me to bless him. There would be an emotional charge going through me. This is how I imagine our Father in heaven might feel when I go to Him to ask Him to bless me. When you ask God to bless you, really, time will pass, as you are praying for His blessing, that you will sit down and will think about the blessings that God has given you and you will weep over the knowledge of the fact. There may even come a time when you will ask God to stop giving the blessings, because you are overwhelmed by them.

“God, my Heavenly Father, will you bless me a lot.” Don’t specify what the blessing should be but pray for His blessing. He will bless you. I can almost imagine that most of you haven’t prayed for a blessing today. That you haven’t asked God to bless you today while you are here.

The second part is for God to enlarge his business, his borders, or whatever. It is right for me to ask God to increase the amount of people who come here. It is right to ask God to bless my wife’s work. It is right for me to ask for more ministry opportunities today. When was the last time you asked God to give you more ministry?

Let me tell you a few stories about how God helped me to have more ministry. There was a woman at the Chevron station by my house. I had prayed that God would bless me with an opportunity to minister to someone that day. This woman got out of her car and began to swear over the Camaro. I was remembering my prayer of the morning and, looking to heaven, I thought that this couldn’t be it. God wouldn’t want me to minister to this cranky, cursing woman. So, I continued to pump the gas and she continue to swear at the car. I was getting ready to go. I thanked God that this wasn’t the ministry opportunity that He had for me. But, being the nice guy that I am, I asked Him one last time: “God, if this woman is someone that You put into my path, let me know that she is without a doubt in my mind.” Don’t ever do that, because God will answer that prayer. The woman quit swearing for a brief moment and look around the gas pump and looked at me. She asked me to help her. I did, she was still cursing at the car. I left that area not telling her about Jesus, but I did help.

Another time, I was praying on Christmas for opportunities to help people. I find it hard to be around Karen’s grandma because of her mental condition. But that night, she was walking around frustrated and confused, so I talked with her. I then found myself doing something that I thought that I would never do, I hugged her. It was so difficult for me, but that was what God had planned for me.

One last story, I have been praying that God would bless this ministry. About four weeks ago I specifically asked God to bring people to FNF. I decided to set up 12 chairs to see what would happen. Well, 12 people came. That next Sunday, I printed 31 bulletins (I normally make 25). I had asked God to bring more people. He brought 31 that day. The next Friday, the amount of chairs I had set up was the amount of people that came. The next Sunday, the amount of bulletins I printed (35) were the amount of people present. I don’t know what that means, but Karen told me to print 1,000 bulletins. I guess she has more faith than I do.

The reason God left you here on earth was for more ministry. Don’t define how the ministry should come but merely ask for more opportunities. Beg Him for more. Tell Him you want to do more for Him. He will bless you with that ministry. Press beyond your comfort zone and ask God to enlarge your ministry. That He would give you more opportunities. Think of Isaiah 6. “Who will go for us, who can we send?” He is looking for people to be used in miraculous ways. There are so few people who are willing to say, “Here am I, send me!” Beg Him for more ministry. That He would put people within your borders, that He would direct people to you; that He would bring the opportunities to you! He will! “Lord, give me somebody who needs You.” He will bring somebody to you that has a need that needs to be met. When that person comes, ask them what you can do for them. Ask them, “How can I help you?” That person is your ministry for that moment. You have been called to meet his need. Then you tell them, “That’s why I am here!”

I remember just this past week. I was asking someone how they were doing and they wouldn’t answer me. I thought about it for a bit, I asked them, “How can I help you?” It was at this point they started to share with me how I could help them. It was interesting to watch God at work.

When was the last time you asked God to send somebody to you that needs Him? He will send the ministry to you. God will send you this appointment, if you ask Him. God won’t send someone to you that you are incapable of helping. He knows your abilities.

What would your life be like if you started praying this on a daily basis? God would give you the wisdom and the knowledge to help those He sends to you.

You need God’s blessings, so ask for them; you can have ministry opportunities that He will bless you with, if you ask Him for them. This will get you to live beyond your box of comfort. He will enlarge your borders. This will bring you to your uncomfortable zone. In the box, you are comfortable. When your borders are enlarged, you will become uncomfortable and you will feel fear and you will be overwhelmed. You will be uncomfortable, as I was hugging Karen’s Grandma, because you have never been there before. It is not a pleasant feeling and will make us not to want to go there. We don’t want to go there because we are so used to comfort and peace that we don’t want to step out of it and begin to lose control of the things around us. You are telling God that you want to enlarge your ministries, to move you out of your comfort zone. God is excited about this and He gives you the opportunities. Now you are faced with giants that you have never faced before. This is why God always told the leaders before He sent them out not to be afraid because He would be there with them (Joshua 1).

Listen to this, it is so important. When you break through from the comfort to the discomfort zone, that will become the comfort zone. And God can now use you in this bigger box. If you don’t stop and you continue to ask Him to give you more ministry, your box will grow larger. You will find yourself saying, “Change me so You can give me more ministry.” God will then give your ministry and will change you and you will grow. “Take me from the comfort to the discomfort zone.” The fear of being overwhelmed comes at every single point that you are about to break through from comfort to discomfort. It doesn’t matter how many giants you have killed before, they will get bigger. Most people become uncomfortable and think that God couldn’t be calling them to this and they back off. This is not true. God takes you to the uncomfortable so you can rely on Him to break through in your life and the lives of others through you. Through this come miracles in our life. How many times has God sought to move you and you refused because you thought you weren’t able to do so? He will then ask, as He did with Moses and others, “I created all things and I can use all things, so let Me! If I can use a donkey to convince Balaam, I can use you. I indwell you, what makes you think that I can’t do this? Get your eyes off of yourself and get them on Me!” If you do this you will never question whether your life is significant or not. But, you have to ask for God to bless and enlarge your sphere of influence.

The third part of that prayer sounds wrong if we focus on the prayers of today. Lord, bless me greatly. Lord, give me more ministry. Think about this next statement. See, when the Lord blesses us and gives us greater ministry opportunities, we will be overwhelmed. We will be so overwhelmed that we will shout out that we cannot do it. This is where you will pray the statement that Jabez prayed next. “That Your hand might be with me.” When was the last time that God expanded your ministry so much that you had to exclaim, “Lord, unleash Your strong arm on my behalf. I can’t do this!”

Think about this: when was the last time you were so overwhelmed with what God had for you to do that you had to fall down and exclaim, “God help me!” The problem with Christianity today, not all Christians but Christianity in general, is that she doesn’t live this way. The majority of Christians in the world today will shrink back from the feeling of being overwhelmed until they get back to the point where they feel they are in control, where it is comfortable. God is calling us to live beyond this, He wants us to be Spirit led and not led by the flesh. Any point that we are in control of our lives, we are in the flesh. Any point where we are so overwhelmed with life and ministry that we call out to God for help, we are living by the Spirit. We wonder why we don’t see the mighty hand of God at work in our lives. Here is the reason: we won’t let it.

What does it take for God to do this. God says that He is searching throughout the earth to find a heart that is loyal to Him so He can show His arm strong in his behalf. The arm of God is shown strong as we expand our borders and our ministry. It happens when we get to the point where we say to God, “Father, I can’t do this on my own. It is too big for me. I need Your help!” There are times when Joshua realizes taht he has gotten into something to big. That is when he begins to scream and look to Daddy or Mommy to come and help him. When nothing is in his way, he is running around like crazy. He doesn’t need me there. He is comfortable. It is only in the places where he feels out of control, uncomfortable that he calls on me. When was the last time you needed God’s help? When was the last time you called out to Him to be there to help you do His work? That is what life is all about.

You ask God to bless you and He will. You ask God to expand your ministry and He will burst through your borders and allow you to influence people and change this old world. He will give you exceeding abundantly beyond what you can even imagine. If you were to pray this prayer everyday, you could never begin to imagine what He will do through you. When you ask Him to have His hand on you, here is what takes place: God will bless you, expand your borders of influence, and He will be with you.

You will go from here into darkness, to a place you have never been before. As you go into the darkness you will bring back those people who have strayed, who need your light. God will only send those people to you that He knows You can help. This will become normal for you. As you move out into the darkness, you are really moving out into the darkness. You are now in Satan’s territory. Here is what happens here. You will feel the enemy coming after you. That is why the last part of the prayer is there. The fourth part of the prayer: “Keep me from evil,” he says. Why? Because that is where you are going. Most people don’t pray this way. When was the last time you prayed to God, “Lord, keep evil away from me!” We don’t pray this way. We are not to pray to be kept through temptation. When Jesus was asked how to pray, He didn’t say, “Lord, keep us in temptation.” He said, “Lead us not into temptation.” He was praying what Jabez prayed: Keep me from evil! Keep evil away from me!

The more you do these things the more miraculous your life will become and the more you will give God glory. If this church really did this, if you really did this, you would never go back to the mundane life you had before.

This is your life as a Christian. I just want to say, “It is time for you to enjoy it.”

I am asking you to commit to praying this prayer of Jabez for thirty days. If you do commit to this, please stand. Please keep standing. Our usher has a gift for you. It is a little book called “The Prayer of Jabez.”

Please be seated. Let’s all pray this prayer together.

Dear God,

please bless me a lot,

give me more ministry,

put your hand on me

and keep me from evil.

 

Now, with your eyes open, look up and ask Him, mean it:

Dear God,

Would You please bless me a lot

Give me more ministry

Put Your hand on me

And keep me from evil.

Now, Father, I stand as your minister here at Cerritos and ask that You truly bless this church. That You would cause us to grow spiritually and numerically in this community. Give us a double portion of Your blessings. We ask Father that You would give us the ministry that would affect our community. We pray Father that You would keep us from evil and help us to be a light to those in darkness. Father, we cannot do any of this without You. Be with us and guide us, in Jesus name, amen!

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Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By David R Williamson. ©2012 Teach for God Ministries. Website: www.teach4god.com