Note: some of the illustrations in this series are not acknowledged - this is due to the loss of my notes, not out of a desire to deny any sources. Thank you!
Prayer of Jabez #1:
The Who, What, and Why?
1 Chronicles 4:9-10
(December 30, 2001)
Introduction
There are many, many prayers in the Bible, some of which are rather lengthy, and others that are remarkably brief.
And many sermons have been preached on the topic of prayer.
Why do you suppose that is? I would think that it’s because prayer is important. God invites us to pray, and it was certainly modeled in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So prayer is important.
And we can learn a lot from studying the prayers of the Bible. We can learn a lot about attitudes of the people praying, and how God responds to the prayers of His people.
Today we begin to look at those same things as we start a series on the prayer of Jabez.
My inspiration for this series is the book by Dr. Bruce Wilkinson by the same name.
When I was first introduced to this prayer from Scripture, I was rather skeptical, and I will outline some of those reasons a little, later.
But as I read Dr. Wilkinson’s book, and looked at how we could implement some of the principles found in the prayer, I got more and more excited about what God can do through this body of believers.
Over the next four weeks we will examine the four parts of this prayer. This morning, however, we are going to take an overview of the life and prayer of Jabez, in order to lay some background for our studies the next four weeks.
My hope is that you will be as encouraged about the might of our God as I have become. My purpose is to introduce you to a person and a prayer that can have a significant impact on your relationship with God, if you will allow Him to work in you as He did in the life of Jabez.
I have the passage printed in your bulletin, so I would ask that you follow along as I read it.
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.
I want to focus on three aspects of our passage today, and the first one is the…
I. Who – The Person.
A. His name.
Last week we took some time to discuss the name of the divine baby, and I mentioned that names in Bible times had meanings, and those meanings were taken very seriously when naming children.
I also mentioned that that there are names in Scripture we should probably avoid, such as Ichabod.
Well, the main character in our passage had one of those names. His name is the Hebrew word for pain.
Now there’s a name for you! Can you imagine walking down the street and have someone calling you?
Hey, Pain! Wait up! Let’s go out for a pizza!
How many friends do you think a guy like that had growing up? Children are cruel sometimes, and I can just imagine this poor guy being the butt of kids’ jokes and schoolyard songs.
Although we can only speculate here, his birth must have been remarkable in the amount of pain it caused his poor mother.
And so she named him in such a way that would be a constant reminder of that pain.
Now I don’t know about you, but I can think of a lot better things to remember my children by. Every time his mother called him in for dinner, she must have thought about that pain.
“Hey, Pain! Supper! Come and get it, you little pain-causer!”
His name is worth noting, and we will talk a little bit more about it later in the message.
But now I want to talk a bit about…
B. His circumstances.
From what I can gather from the research I have done, Jabez, at the time of his request, was in the process of expelling the Canaanites from the land the Lord had promised Israel.
He was doing the work God had given him to do, and so he was asking the Lord to help him accomplish it.
You may remember that removing the Canaanites was no easy task. It was a long struggle, and in fact, some were not pushed out, because the Israelites lost heart, or turned to idols.
So here we have Jabez, trying to do what God commands, and He cries out to God for help.
He wasn’t just looking at his holdings, like the rich fool in Jesus’ parable, who had so much, he tore down his barns to hold it, not aware that God would take his life before he could enjoy his holdings.
Jabez was asking for all that God had for him, and for God’s help in doing his part.
But here’s the key: we find it in the first part of verse 9:
Jabez was more honorable than his brothers.
*The key is his character.
Now we’ve already talked about his name, and about how the context of names could determine the outcome of one’s life.
If there ever was a guy who could be bitter, it was Jabez. His very name could have driven him to a life of hate and bitterness.
We are all familiar with that famous hymn of the church, A Boy Named Sue, by Johnny Cash.
It’s the story of a boy who was named Sue, as in Susan, and it drives Sue to become bitter, mean, and tough, and he seeks revenge on his father who named him this awful name for a boy.
He finally finds the father, who had long since abandoned the family, and beats him up in a bar, and comes within a breath of killing him.
The father then explains that life is tough, and he named the boy Sue so he would learn to be tough in this mean ol’ world of ours.
I would venture to guess that we could all think of better ways to toughen up our young ’uns.
But Jabez, rather than letting his name determine his destiny, rose above his name, becoming a man of noble nature.
What does that tell me? It tells me that your past does not have to determine your future.
By giving yourself to God you can become all that God wants you to be, and wants to make you.
Jesus said in his parable of the sower that the good soil represented those with a noble heart, who hear the Word, retain it, and with perseverance produce a crop.
Apparently, Jabez was just such a guy. And that is why, in the midst of 9 chapters of genealogies, he gets special mention.
He was a man of noble character.
That’s the who. Lets move on to the…
II. What – The Prayer.
I want to take just a few moments to look at his prayer, but I don’t intend to get too far into this, as this is where we will be spending the next four weeks.
But I want to point out first that the prayer has…
A. Four parts:
1. Oh, that You would bless me!
Here, Jabez is asking God to open his treasure store of blessing for Jabez.
It is not wrong to ask for God’s blessing, by the way. What should we ask for – His cursing?
The next part is…
2. Enlarge my territory!
This is his prayer for God to help him as He staked out his property in the wake of the Canaanites leaving the country. This part of the prayer also has other implications, as we will see in the coming weeks.
The third part of the prayer is…
3. Let Your hand be with me!
This is a recognition of Jabez’s need for God’s working and his reliance on God’s power and provision of strength and resources.
And lastly,…
4. Protect me!
This is an obvious plea for protection from pain and harm.
Those are the four parts of the prayer that we will cover in more detail in January.
But I want to move on to a very brief analysis of the prayer, because I want to help us get a clear picture of the nature of this prayer.
B. Analysis
First, I want to take a look at…
1. What the prayer is:
This prayer at its most basic level is a plea to the Almighty God to move on the behalf of Jabez.
It is a recognition that without the hand of God in his life, he would have a mighty tough time of it, and I don’t just mean the removing of the enemies from the promised land.
It is a cry to the only One who could make mountains move, go before Israel, and bring the blessings promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and renewed through Moses.
It is a prayer to acknowledge his helplessness in the face of the task.
It is a prayer admitting His need for God to work. A request for God to intervene so he could accomplish His work.
That’s a bit of what the prayer is. Now I want to talk about…
2. What the prayer is not:
If you are like me, you were a bit skeptical about this prayer, and all the publicity it has received the last couple of years.
I remember the first time I heard about it.
I had begun my interim-pastorship at Bristol, but was still working full-time back at Central Business Supply.
There was a certain godly gentleman who would come and visit me at my desk when he was in the area. And we would talk and pray.
One day, as I was walking him to the door, he put his hand on my shoulder and told me he was praying the prayer of Jabez for me, and then he quoted it for me.
I didn’t quite understand the prayer, and I took it as the nice intentions of a godly old man who loved me and wanted me to prosper. I appreciated that, but I decided that I didn’t need that type of prayer in my life.
My first impression is the one many have, and that it is just another proof-text of the health, wealth, and prosperity bunch, the name it and claim it crowd, who feel that they can make demands of God for blessing.
I’m here to tell you that this prayer is not that at all.
As I’ve said earlier, it is a plea for the Lord to intervene so we can accomplish His purposes.
It is also not a mantra-type of prayer that we are to recite mindlessly in hopes of God answering because we are faithful in reciting the words just right.
Many have accused Dr. Wilkinson of promoting just that. He does encourage us to pray this prayer everyday, but not as that mindless mantra.
Rather, it is a daily reminder and invitation to allow God to work in us and through us.
It is also not some magic formula to get God to act on our behalf. It is merely the acknowledgement of God and His power to act, and asking Him to do so, not for our glory, but for His, as we seek to accomplish His work.
Remember, God owes us nothing, and we cannot hope to manipulate Him by praying any prayer.
1 John says that the kind of prayer that God hears and answers are those that are prayed according to His will.
So before you go and pray this prayer, check your motives and ask God to help you in your prayer life to pray with God-pleasing motives.
When I pray this prayer every day, I am constantly reminded of the might of God, and awed that He would allow me to be a part of His mighty working here and around the world.
A God-sized working around the world that needs God-sized working in our individual lives.
Here’s the key to this prayer:
*The key: Trust in God, who is able.
We’ve looked at the who, in the person of Jabez, and the what in the form of the prayer, but let’s move on to the…
III. Why – The Purpose.
Why look at this prayer in this kind of detail, and why pray this prayer? What is the purpose? First, I want to look at…
A. Jabez’s purpose.
We have covered this in a good bit of detail, but let me just summarize by saying that his purpose was to invite God to do His mighty work as Jabez sought to conquer the land promised by God to the Israelites, recognizing his need for the hand of God in his life.
But now let’s look for a moment at…
B. Our purpose.
In other words, why should we pray this prayer?
The answer is really very simple. We have a huge work to do in this area, and without the mighty hand of God working in our individual lives and in the life of this church, we might as well give it up.
Listen to this very familiar passage:
Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.
2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat--for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Again, it is a conscious invitation to God to work, and a confession that without Him we don’t stand a chance to reach this area for Him.
Here’s the key –
*The key: we pray to the same God!
Conclusion
Why not ask Him to work? We need Him to work in our lives to make us clean vessels, and to work in the lives of those out there in danger of an eternity in hell without the life-giving gospel of Christ.
Folks, let me encourage you to make this prayer a daily part of your prayer life. Again, not as some sort of magic chant, because Jesus told us He hates prayers said out of repetition in hopes that God would hear.
Repetition is not the issue. Trust is the issue.
Can you pray this prayer trusting God to have His way in you and through you?
I am asking God to work in ways bigger than I can imagine in bringing people to Himself.
And I am seeing results. Because of my repetitious prayer? No, because God wants to act in and through people who trust Him to do it.
God has allowed me to share the gospel with people I would never have approached on my own, and allowed me to minister to people who are outside my normal circle of influence, and that is awesome.
Are there other prayers you could pray every day instead of this one? Absolutely.
The Lord’s Prayer for one. But even the Lord’s Prayer can be recited mindlessly and repetitiously for the wrong motives.
Believe me, I know. I grew up praying a bunch of prayers that way.
So I can tell you that I don’t encourage you to pray this or any other prayer without deep thought and reflection, but rather with somber reliance on the God who can make it happen.
As we close, let me just remind you of the three keys to this message:
First, the reason God answered the prayer of Jabez is because Jabez was a noble person.
God is the one who makes that happen, by the way. Ask Him to do it. He will.
Second, the prayer of Jabez is not a prayer of greed, but rather a prayer of trust in the God who is able to make anything happen for His glory.
And third, we pray to the same God as Jabez. This same God wants to make us noble people who trust God to move for His purposes.
Lift up your prayer to God, won’t you? Does it have to be the prayer of Jabez? No. In fact, if you find that you are just praying this prayer out of habit, and not out of a real desire for God to move, I would stop!
But I would invite you to use this prayer as a guide, much like the Lord’s Prayer.
Pray that God would move. In you, and through you. And watch Him do it.
Let’s pray.
