Valley View Chapel May 6, 2012 A Prayer for Everyone I Chronicles 4:9-10. Introduction

Transcription

1 1 Valley View Chapel May 6, 2012 A Prayer for Everyone I Chronicles 4:9-10 Introduction Johanna Spyri said over a hundred years ago: Oh, I wish that God had not given me what I prayed for! It was not so good as I thought! I for one am glad that God hasn t always given me what I prayed for! When I was eight years old, I presented with passionate enthusiasm two prayer requests before the Lord: 1) that I would never ever, ever get married; and 2) that I would grow up to be a cowboy. Today we re going to look at a man who asked God for the right things and the Bible tells us that he got them. We find his story tucked away in the oft-neglected book of I Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 4: 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. (NIV) What was so special about Jabez? We don t know about his family history or where he lived. We don t know if he was young or old, rich or poor, educated or uneducated. All we know about this mysterious man is that he believed in prayer and he knew four things about prayer. First: he knew that he needed to pray. This is self-evident because he prayed. Second: he knew to whom to pray. He prayed to the God of Israel. Third: he knew what to pray for as we ll see a little later when we look closely at his prayer requests. Fourth: he knew how to pray. The text tells us that Jabez cried out. His was no hastily mumbled, superficial prayer. It was a passionate prayer from the depths of his heart. Jabez s prayer was not only passionate, it was personal. Notice the personal pronouns in the tenth verse: "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."

2 2 Jabez believed in praying for himself. In a prayer of only 29 words in English, 5 of those words were personal pronouns. Though Jabez s prayer centered on his own needs, close examination reveals that he prayed in the center of God s will. Leonard Ravenhill, once said: Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move ourselves his way. Jabez cried out to God: Move me your way! Help me to be what you want me to be and do what you want me to do! For the remainder of today s message, I want to try to show you that the prayer of Jabez is a prayer for everyone. What did he pray for? The first of his four requests was: Oh, that you would bless me. He Prayed for God s Blessing The word bless is one of the most over-used and least understood words in the Christian vocabulary. Have you ever prayed like this? I have: Bless me and my family. Bless the food. Bless our church. Bless the missionaries. Do we even know what we re asking when we pray like that? Bless has become a sort of verbal filler, something to say when we don t what else to say. Yet bless is a powerful word but we need to use it intelligently. When used the way that Jabez did, bless suggests a level of intimacy with God unknown by the average person. Blessing conveys a knowledge of God that is deep, personal, experiential. I may know you well, but I don t know you as well as your husband, your wife or your best friend knows you. That s the kind of personal intimacy that Jabez wanted to have with God. The ultimate blessing for Jabez was to know personally and deeply God s character, his priorities, his burdens and his purposes. Jabez wanted to know the height and length, the breadth and depth of God s love, mercy, grace and forgiveness. Oh, that you would bless me! Lord, I want to know you experience the fullness of your love, your forgiveness, your grace, and your power. The prayer of Jabez forces me to confront an uncomfortable question: Do I want more of God or more of his blessings? Jabez prayed: Lord, I want more than material blessings. I want more than an emotional high. I want more than the gifts you can you give me. I want more than physical healing. I want more than financial prosperity. I want you! That s what it means to pray for God s blessing! The founder of the C&MA, A.B. Simpson wrote a hymn that captured the heart of what bless means.

3 3 Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord; Once it was the feeling, now it is His Word. Once his gift I wanted; now the Giver own; Once I sought for healing; Now Himself alone! Oh, that you would bless me is the prayer for a growing, intimate, personal relationship with God. He Prayed That God Would Enlarge His Territory Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! This was not a selfish prayer for more real estate. This was a prayer for added spiritual influence. In his book, Prayer: Life s Limitless Reach, Jack Taylor told us what Jabez meant by this request: Jabez was praying for extended responsibility, lengthened influence, [and] heightened opportunity... Did we hear that correctly? Long ago and far away someone actually prayed for more responsibilities in the kingdom of God! More opportunities for service! I have been a pastor for over thirty-eight years and rarely have I heard someone ask God to give them more to do! There s not a staff member or a ministry leader at Valley View Chapel who hasn t heard a variation of the same theme when trying to recruit volunteers: I ve got to do less. I m over-committed. I need more space for myself. In other words, I don t want God to give me more territory. I want him to take away some of the territory he s already given me! But God s ears perked-up when he heard Jabez cry: Enlarge my territory! Even back then, God didn t hear his people say this very much. Jabez wanted to be a voice for God and an influence for righteousness. He wanted to lead others into a deeper relationship with God. He wanted to be God s tool in God s hands employed in God s service for God s glory. It s been a long time since I ve heard anyone say: Lord, enlarge my territory! Give me a class to teach! Give me a person to visit! Give me more opportunities to share my faith! Give me a chance to use my musical gifts! Give me someone to whom I can show some compassion. Give me a hurting person for whom I can be a listening ear and lend my shoulder for them to cry on! It s been a long time since I ve heard a believer say, I don t want less territory, Lord! I want more! His first request was bless me. His second was use me. His third was empower me.

4 4 Let your hand be with me. The word for hand - yad, (yawd) - denotes an open hand, not a closed hand. God s hand is always open to his people. He is always willing to give us everything we need to be joyful and satisfied. When he prayed, :Let your hand be with me, Jabez confessed his weakness and God s sufficiency. If he was going to be used to bless others, it would have to be done in God s strength and not in his own. God s work must be done God s way. A.C. Dixon told the church of his day: When we rely on organization, we get what organization can do. When we rely on education, we get what education can do. When we rely on money, we get what money can do. When we rely on people, we get what people can do. When we rely on the Holy Spirit, we get what God can do. David Roper issued a much-needed warning: The problem with many of us is that we re much too gifted; we re perilously adequate. And so we go our way, believing in ourselves and our power and personality, relying on our own strength and show. But our self-confidence is our stumbling block. We re so good at what we do we re no good at all. If you rely on talent, training and giftedness, the class you teach may be impressed with your learning, but not changed in their thinking. The people to whom you sing may be entertained for three or four minutes, but never brought into the throne room of heaven. Those to whom I preach may be interested in what I have to say, but leave the service untouched and unchanged. Nothing of eternal significance can come from work done in human power alone. That is why God longs to hear us pray: Let your hand be with me. Keep Me from Harm Jabez s fourth request was: Keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." It would be a mistake to interpret this request to mean that Jabez was merely asking God to keep him from danger and suffering. The word translated harm in the NIV is the Hebrew word Rà, which means bad, evil, or wicked. Some Old Testament scholars think that the word is a derivation of a more ancient word which meant to smash, to break to pieces, to crush, or to bruise. So Jabez prayed: Bless me; use me; empower me; protect me.

5 5 Protect me from everything that has the potential to crush me spiritually. If Christ lives inside us and if God s hand is upon us, the question is never: Can we resist temptation? The question must be: Do we want to resist temptation? Jack Handey in his book, Fuzzy Memories recalled a story from his boyhood: There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons, but they cost $20 a lesson. It was cheaper to pay the bully, so I gave up karate. For many Christians, it s cheaper to pay the bully than to fight against sin. So they yield to temptation because they re not willing to pay the price of resistance. While it may be cheaper to pay the bully in the short-term, it s much more costly in the end. I believe it was Ron Hutchcraft who said: Sin will take you further than you want to go; keep you there longer than you want to stay; and cost more than you want to pay. When Jabez prayed, Let your hand be with me, he was saying: I m not going to pay the bully. I m going to use God s strength to resist evil. Conclusion Jerry Kirk is the founder of Pure Hope, an organization that fights against pornography and sexual exploitation. He told about an experience he had on a business trip. I travel alone a lot in my job, and I stay in a lot of hotels with cable TV. I sometimes struggle whether to watch pornography while in the room. One time, I was flipping through the channels to find the World Series. While flipping, I came across a movie with highly charged sexual content. I flipped back to the baseball game. Ten minutes later, I flipped back to the movie, and then quickly back to the World Series. I did that four or five times before I shut off the TV. I was unnerved at the power of temptation, especially since I've given my life to combat pornography. I've had to come face to face with the Lord and plead for mercy: Lord, how is this possible? I began to lose confidence in my prayers. God reminded me, Jerry, I'm not surprised by your sin. I've known all along you were a sinner. I've known all along that you were weak. I needed you to know that you were weak. And I need you to know that I alone will make you strong. As long as we know that we are powerless in the face of temptation, and as long as we live in the continual awareness that he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world, we can stand triumphant against the bully by the power of the indwelling Christ.

6 6 The level of our fruitfulness for God and our joy as individuals will depend on our moral integrity. God fills only clean cups, never dirty ones. That s why the prayer of this ancient man of God is a prayer for everyone: Bless me; use me; empower me; protect me.