God's Math Series

“Enlarge my Territory” – to multiply or increase the

confines of a place

I. Our Evasion

A. How we add it up: My abilities + experience +

my personality & appearance + my past + the

expectations of others = my assigned territory

B. ‘Honorable’ in vs. 9 is more accurately

‘burdensome’ (lit. heavy, for good or bad

according to context); hence his mother’s choice

of his name

C. Not God through us, but God in association with

us

D. We forget Zech. 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power,

but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts”

II. God’s Equation

A. How God adds it up: My willingness & weakness

+ God’s will and supernatural power = my

expanding territory

B. Expression: Colossians 1:29 (NKJV), “To this end

I also labor, striving according to His working

which works in me mightily”

1. E. Stanley Jones “Most people plot and plan

themselves into mediocrity, while now and

again somebody forgets himself into

greatness.”

2. Psalm 123:2, “Behold, as the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes

of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our

eyes look to the LORD our God, Until He has

mercy on us”

C. 1 Chronicles 4:23b “dwelt with the king for His work”

III. An Ideal Situation

A. ‘Hand would be with me’

B. ‘Keep me from evil’

C. ‘Not cause pain’ (to carve)

1. Play on words w/ Jabez (sorrow)

2. Not be a source of grief to:

a. God

b. Pastor

c. Church

d. World