"Go Ahead and Ask!"
Last week we began looking into the prayer of Jabez for a deeper understanding of how to pray and gain a fuller blessed life.
"Frequently these short cameo appearances by seemingly unknowns reveal deeper insights into the word of God." -- Carl Hagensick
-Jabez believed God hears and answers the prayers of His own.
-Jabez left the answering of his requests up to God.
-Jabez wanted to be more and do more for God.
With those revealed insights in mind and heart let’s venture into the four part prayer of Jabez with the first request asking to be blessed.
Have you asked God to bless you of late? Probably so … because we are people who ask God to bless, the missionaries in the world, to bless our kids, to bless our food and even our sneezes!
So maybe the better question is … Have we watered down the emphasis and impact of what it is to be blessed by God? Probably so … and with it we make vague and general requests of God with no desperate cry of the heart as we hear from the mouth of Jabez.
Blessed means (barak) … to invoke divine favor upon … to bring the benefits of God upon.
Bruce Wilkinson suggests … 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.
Asking to be blessed is asking for the unlimited and unfathomable riches of God’s goodness to laid upon our lives … that take us into realms that are beyond the temporal of our lives.
Proverbs 10:22 GWT It is the Lord’s blessing that makes a person rich, and hard work adds nothing to it.
To seek the blessings of God has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with God.
-The Lord will bless His people with peace … Psalm 29:11b
-For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth … Psalm 37:22a
To ask for the blessings of God is asking for "Nothing more and nothing less than what God wants for us." -- Bruce Wilkinson
So with that qualifying thought in mind … go ahead and ask … recognizing your need to be blessed, the One who will bless you, knowing with certainty you will be blessed.
1 Chronicles 4:10a And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed,
1.Go Ahead and Ask ... Recognizing the Need to Be Blessed
Jabez prayed … Oh, that You would bless me indeed
As Jabez looked at his own existence … perhaps thinking that there had to be more to his life that what he had lived to this point …and cried out, "Oh bless me!"
-His cry was in recognition of the need to be blessed.
-His cry was an attempt to receive the supernatural favor of God.
Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives, but God is not helpless among the ruins. Our broken lives are not lost or useless. God’s love is still working. He comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out his wonderful plan of love. -- Eric Liddell in Disciplines of the Christian Life
Jabez … his name meaning pain and sorrow … recognized at some point in his life he needed God working heartily in his life … something he could not gain on his own.
Do the circumstances of your life lead you to encounter God for the soul purpose of securing not the tangible things of this life … but the weightier and eternal work in your life that only God can produce?
Jacob … his name meaning "supplanter or one who tricks" … had tricked his brother out of the blessing of birthright. In fear he fled and now years later he is coming to meet his brother to make reconciliation of the relationship. In Genesis 32 … we find him alone with God.
Genesis 32:24-28 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. 26 And He said, "Let Me go, for the day breaks." But he said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!" 27 So He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob." 28 And He said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed."
-Jacob was alone with God.
-Jacob recognized and desired to be blessed by God.
-Jacob wrestled with God.
-God allowed Himself to be overcome by Jacob.
-God changed Jacob’s name … and future. (Jacob to Israel … meaning "he persists with God and prevails")
Are you a Jabez or a Jacob … recognizing your need to be blessed with the supernatural favor of God that you cry out with a unmistakable cry of "Oh bless me!"
2.Go Ahead and Ask ... Recognizing the One Who Blesses
Jabez prayed … Oh, that You would bless me indeed
From the cries of "Oh" … Jabez moves us into recognizing the One who blesses. There was no question in Jabez’s heart who does the blessing … he was looking in only one direction … to God.
I believe that is one of our problems … we look to too many other sources, be they family, friends, fancies (social standing) or finances, for the source of our blessings.
He cannot bless us unless he has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There’s no bargaining with Him. -- C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory.
God desires full recognition of Himself as the source to which we long to be blessed.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
God says He rewards … blesses with restoration … the one who looks to Him. The blessings of God awaits those who come to Him!
Why seek a glass of water from a foreign source when God is the River of Life! God not only asks you to drink from river, but to jump in and be swept away by the currents of His grace and power to bless.
In doing so you recognize:
-God’s will … what He is trying to do in you.
-God’s power … what He is trying to do through you.
-God’s purpose … what He is trying to around you.
1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
God is the source of the blessed life! Seek Him … look to Him … call out to Him … "Oh that You would bless me!"
3.Go Ahead and Ask ... Recognizing the Certainty to Be Blessed
Jabez prayed … Oh, that You would bless me indeed
From the recognition of the need to be blessed and the One who blesses, Jabez turns to the certainty of being blessed. Jabez as he cried out … "Bless me indeed!" … knew it was God’s nature to bless.
Sometimes my boys will come to me asking in this fashion … "Dad will you …? Oh never mind. You probably won’t anyway."
At times I am like my boys when it comes to seeking God’s favor. I want something (a blessing) and I know He can get it for me … but I come with low expectations of getting what I want.
The devil cannot take from the soul the light of faith: he, however, removes the light of consideration; so that the soul may not reflect on what it believes. -- Ignatius, Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 1.
Do you believe you are a candidate for God’s blessing? God says you are!
Psalms 5:12 For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; With favor You will surround him as with a shield.
Do you believe God will bless you? God says He will!
Ezekiel 34:26 NLT I will cause my people and their homes around my holy hill to be a blessing. And I will send showers, showers of blessings, which will come just when they are needed.
As a child of God you lack only for not asking. Because God has blessed you with every (not lacking) spiritual blessing.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
Jabez was blessed simply because he refused to let any obstacle, person, or opinion loom larger than God’s nature. And God’s nature is to bless. -- Bruce Wilkinson
You and I have to believe God will certainly bless us … when we ask Him.
Conclusion:
The book of James reminds us … the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. (James 4:2b NLT)
I love how Bruce Wilkinson describes Jabez asking and God’s anwering.
In my mind’s eye, I picture Jabez standing before a massive gate recessed into a sky-high wall. Weighed down by the sorrow of his past and the dreariness of his present, he sees before him only impossibility - a future shut off. But raising his hands to heaven, he cries out, "Father, oh, Father! Please bless me! And what I really mean is … bless me a lot!"
With the last word, the transformation begins. He hears a tremendous crack. Then a groan. Then a rumble as the huge gate swings away from him in a wide arc. There, stretching to the horizon, are fields of blessings. And Jabez steps forward into another life.
1 Chronicles 4:10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed,
Go ahead and ask!
Amen!
The Prayer of Jabez sermons are a result of having read, The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, by Bruce Wilkinson. Some ideas, thoughts and quotes have been gleaned from the book. Outlines are original with R. AuBuchon Jr, Other materials from various sources have also been gleaned and added.
