Lord Teach Us To Pray Part 1 of 2

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place, Osoyoos

Pulpit Series Volume 20 Issue 11 June 20th, 2010

Would you like to know how to get your personal prayer needs answered?  James tells us to pray for ourselves… I fear that few of us know how to do that.  Jabez knew how to pray for himself.

The only mention of Jabez in the Word is I Chronicles 4:9-10 And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren; his mother called his name Jabez, because she bore him in sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, oh, that You should bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me and that You would keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him his request.

What was it about Jabez and his prayer that resulted in an answer to his prayer?

This is important - because too often we feel that some people  get their prayers answered because they are so special.

We are wrong to think that some folk are unique, that something in their make-up puts them in line for God’s blessing.

That isn’t true of Jabez and its not true for you and me. Thank God!

The Bible does say, Jabez was “more honorable than his brethren.” But what made him more honorable? Let me just say it right out, Jabez’s claim to fame was his prayer; nothing else.

Basically Jabez was nothing without his prayer.

His mother named him. That in itself was different due to the fact that fathers named children in those days. She named him Jabez: “because I bore him in sorrow.”

Did she name him because there was no father to name him? Had his father died before his birth?

Was he an illegitimate baby? We don’t know. But some sorrow was associated with his birth.

“And Jabez called on the God of Israel.” That ‘s what made him more honorable. He was a man of prayer.

Look at his prayer: “Oh, that You would bless me indeed.”

Being blessed is one thing. We all are. Being blessed indeed is another. It’s the difference in being blessed and really blessed.

What specific blessing does he want? “I want you to enlarge my borders.”

He is praying for increase in the size of his holdings He is praying for real estate! He is praying for that kind of growth.

It could be translated, “Increase my coastline”

He then prays for guidance: “That Your hand would be with me and on me.” Jabez had a desire for the good things of life.

God’s good things. He had a heart for God. He didn’t ask for God’s blessings without God. He wanted in his life what God could bring into it with His presence.

Then He prays for godliness: “That You would keep me from evil, and that it may not grieve me.” 

No wonder he got God’s attention!

Our heavenly Father is touched with the feeling our weakness when we pray as Jabez. “Lord, keep me from an evil life. Keep me from the consequences of an evil life. Keep me pure. Make me a Godly man.”

That’s Spirit controlled self-concern,  “godly selfishness”

“And God granted him that which he requested.”

We need a JACOBIAN Attitude: Jacob between the grunts and groans of wrestling, holding on to God’s messenger blurts out,    “I won’t let you go until you bless me!”

That’s the key….  “I won’t let you go until you bless me!”

Now let’s look at Jabez’ prayer for some doable applications.

In his prayer for growth he prays that God would bless him indeed. Jabez said, “Lord, bless me. Ascribe to me the honor and glory due my name. Look upon me as a person worthy of honor.”

That is confident praying that comes from a confident, intimate relationship with the Almighty. The problem with us is that we see that prayer as being brash - egotistical - we shout out - we are but worms have mercy on us!

Jabez however asks God the Father to look on him as a person worthy of God’s attention and God heard the prayer of Jabez!

Jabez came at God as though God were a blesser.

Therefore Jabez was in a “blessing relationship.”

Very few people pray like that. They are uncomfortable….in sin.

Sin separates, breaks fellowship, destroys a sense of acceptance and intimacy. But when our sins are forgiven up to date we can come with liberty, freedom and openness to the Lord as though He were a blesser.

Have you not read the scriptures where God invites us to come “boldly to the throne….”    It is God’s nature to bless.

You may think it spiritual to never pray, “Lord bless me, really bless me,” but actually it is more like asking God to ignore us!

We need God to enlarge the investment of our lives, we must pray for growth in influence.

Vance Havnar wrote a prayer I use sometimes. It goes like this, “Lord, give me a ministry where a little bit goes a long way.”

There was a little boy of pre-school age whose older brothers and sisters could do things which he could not do. Everybody kept saying, “When you get big you can do those things and have this or that”.   One night he was heard to pray….

“And Lord, make me big…..Soon!”

Listen to this prayer by Oswald J. Smith written by him in his early years: “Lord, use me. Make me a soul-winner. Send me out as an evangelist. Let me see revival. Don’t let me settle down in an ordinary pastorate and accomplish nothing. I have only one life to live and I want to invest it for thee. Let me live for others. Enable me to win lost men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let thy blessing rest upon my ministry.”

Jabez prayed also for guidance. “…and that Your hand might be with me to guide me…”

The blessings of God, without the guiding hand of God, and sometimes restraining hand of God, can do more harm than good.

You and I could name several people who have had such blessings from God that they appear to be constantly standing directly under heaven’s open window. However, there is little or no evidence that they even give God more than a thought, let alone give a tithe.

Blessed, but not indeed.

Blessed but empty.                                    Blessed but disconnected from fellowship with God.

First Jabez prays for godliness. He puts it this way, “that You would keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.”

How radically different is this thinking from the mind set of someone planning to go into sin.

Anybody who goes into sin willfully, thoughtfully, looking lightly on the death of Jesus is going to come under the slow and fine grinding wheels of God’s judgment.

What a difference to Jabez’ mind set and prayer.

He is not praying to get out of the consequence of his misdeeds.

He is not praying to try to get out of something.

He is praying to stay out of anything that might later lead to grief!