How to Pray: It Doesn't Matter What They Said About You!

Join us in looking at the prayer of Jabez. How often do we want to pursue the blessings we might see another person have without understanding their process? Does God see us the way other people do?  Come on the next step of this prayer journey with us as we explore the scriptures and once again prove that prayer reaches every single situation.

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Transcript

PRESS means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Come on in. Let's get to it. We're in a new book of the Bible this week. We are in First Chronicles chapter four. And we're looking at a prayer that was actually made pretty popular a few years back. It's the prayer of Jabez. There is not a lot of information about Jabez. In fact, the word Jabez is only used three times in the Bible and is actually a place and a person. So you don't find out a lot of details, but let's get to it. First Chronicles chapter four, verse nine is where we will start. And the Bible says, and Jabez was more honorable than his brethren. And his mother called his name Jabez saying, because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed and enlarge my coast and that thine hand might be with me and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me and God granted him that which he requested. This little snippet of a prayer we find in the middle of a census really, it is documentation of the genealogies of these different tribes, these different people. And so Jabez is a descendant of Asher. Most people within this listing, within this chapter, really just have their names listed. You don't see too much. You see sons listed, an occasional daughter, the father's listed. But with Jabez, it references his mother and we get to see a prayer. What stands out to me about Jabez is his name does mean sorrow. And that's what his mother called him because she bore him with sorrow. That's how he was born. That's what his labor brought about. We don't know what kind of sorrow it was. We don't know what was happening with her. All we know is that when she looked at him, she saw pain. She saw sorrow. She saw sadness. This word sorrow can speak of a bodily pain or a mental pain. She was in travail and she was so in travail having this child that she decided to make it that child's identity. Can you imagine being called by your mother's worst moments or one of her worst moments your whole life? Can you imagine that being your actual identity? I know because of perhaps your dad or family or whatever, your mom did not connect to you and they identify you as the trouble in their lives. That is one of the saddest scenarios I see as a youth pastor when a parent can't love a child because of A, either the way they were born or the way they raised them, but that's a whole tangent. Sometimes they don't like what they produced, but it's always tragic when a child can't be identified or associated with goodness, happiness, joy. At this time though, because his name was given at birth or she did it according to the customs of the time, the eighth day after his birth, he really hadn't done anything to deserve the label that was put on him. 

He didn't do anything that would make him somebody she always had to look at with some type of regret associated with it. But what I admire about Jabez, even not knowing all his details, is the fact that the Bible says he was more honorable than all his brethren. However his life started, whatever the chaos was that it began with, even though the label was put on him, he did not let it define him. It is a powerful thing to understand that just because you were called something, doesn't mean that's who you have to be.

Because instead of being a pain or a regret or sorrow, the Bible says he was glorious, he was to be honored. He was somebody who deserved respect. This definition of the word also associates itself with heaviness to make oneself heavy, make oneself dense, make oneself numerous. He became somebody of influence. He had a voice, he had a demeanor or something about him that carried weight when he walked in the room. He deserved respect. No matter how he started, no matter what tried to define him, he deserved respect.

So we know his code of conduct was good. We know it was better than everybody else. But he also took the time to talk to God. And when this prayer became popular, it became popular because Jabez asked the Lord to enlarge his territory. And so everybody began saying, enlarge my territory, give me more, give me this, give me that. And they would pray and prophesy how the Lord's going to give you more. And I believe there's even a book called The Prayer of Jabez. But you can't skip the fact that this man carried weight, even though he was born in sorrow. I know a lot of people want to ask for the blessings and enlarge my coast, enlarge my territory, do this for me, do that for me. And they want the benefits of God. But not the testimony or the weight behind the request.

This man had to walk out some things from birth. He had to walk beyond what he was called, beyond what he was associated with from birth. How hard is it to be so different from your environment, to constantly stand out, no matter what they look at you and see. And then to turn it to the point that all they can say about me is, I carry weight, I carry glory, then I'm honorable.

You can't just ask for the blessing without being willing to take the path that produced it. His weight was not just with his brethren. His weight was with God as well. And I do believe it's tied to where his life started. And that's why his life and all the timeline and all the genealogies shown here is a little bit more described than everybody else's. Because it tells you how it started and it tells you what he asked for. Because they're connected. You don't just skip to the blessings without the process.

But when you go through the God process, when you have had to endure something in life and you've come out still wanting to talk to God, still recognizing who he is, still saying, I need you God, because that's what he communicates to God here. Keep me from evil. Let your hand be upon me. He didn't just ask for stuff. He said, Lord, enlarge my territory, but let your hand be upon me. God protect me from bad. I don't even want to go that way.