The
Prayer of Jabez
A Sermon Preached by Dr. James Flamming
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
January 7, 2001
Text: 1 Chronicles 4:9,10
For your New Year I want to give you a gift. It is a pearl, a pearl of a prayer.
A pearl is made in an unlikely place and is created from an unlikely beginning.
There is a pearl of a prayer that is found in an unlikely place and comes from
an unlikely beginning. It is called, the prayer of Jabez. Rev. Buddy Burgess,
minister to our Deaf Congregation, told me he has this prayer taped to the monitor
of his personal computer so every time he turns it on, he prays the prayer.
Bruce Wilkinson has a little book called The Prayer of Jabez. You might want
to claim this prayer as your prayer for your New Year.
The Prayer of Jabez is found in 1 Chronicles 4: 9,10. Chronicles is one of
the least read books in all of the Bible. Try to read it and you will understand
why. It chronicles the official family tree of the tribes of ancient Israel,
nine chapters of "begats" and "whowases." It is as exciting
as watching paint dry.
I don't know about you, but when I get to one of the genealogy sections of
the Bible, I skip over it and get to the good stuff. But in this case you would
miss the Jabez prayer. It is right in the middle of these nine chapters of names,
many of which I can't pronounce. For example, in 1Chronicles 4 there are forty-four
names listed before Jabez shows up. Look at verse 6 for example:
Naarah bore him Ahuzzam, Hepher, Temeni, and Haahashtari.
These were the descendents of Naarah.
Now that will thrill you soul won't it? If a person started daily Bible readings
with this verse he might give up in a hurry. But don't give up. Just three verses
later -
Enter Jabez. Who is this guy? We don't know. Why is his mentioned here? We
don't know. Who was the Chronicler and how did he know about Jabez? We don't
know. All we know is that Jabez is described as more honorable than his brothers.
That's good. But there are many honorable people. Besides, his brothers could
have been scalawags and anyone would have been an improvement.
No, it is not that Jabez was the best of the bunch that gives him a place in
Holy Scripture. It was his prayer life and the prayer he must have prayed day
in and day out. It is a prayer for all seasons:
Oh, that you would bless me
and enlarge my boundaries!
Let your hand be with me,
and keep me from harm. . .
Look at the prayer with me.
A Prayer Born of
Pain
We are told in a few sparse introductory words that Jabez got his birth name
for birth reasons. . "His mother had named him Jabez, saying "I gave
birth to him in pain." (vs. 9) In Hebrew, Jabez sounds like the word for
pain. Was the pregnancy or the delivery difficult? Was it a breech birth? Did
the child's father abandon her during pregnancy? We do not know the answer to
any of these questions, only that the arrival of Jabez was wrought with pain
and therefore Jabez became his name.
Hey, I feel sorry for this guy. How would you like to go into the first grade
with the name Pain? Can't you hear it now? Some guys out on the school ground
hollering, "Hey, Pain, why did your mother name you that? Are you a real
Pain in the whatever?"
Or, you are in the first grade and learning to print. Your name goes at the
top of the page, right? What kind of a self-image would you get when every page
you ever wrote you printed Pain at the top of the page? No wonder this guy grew
up needing to pray.
Obedient Asking
Notice the power of asking. Of the three petitions in Jabez' prayer is asking
for something.
Not selfish asking;
not panic asking;
not memorized asking;
not duty-bound asking; but,
Obedient asking with high expectation.
Jesus taught us: "Ask and it will be given you." (Matt. 7:7) Jesus'
brother, James, wrote to his brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, "You do
not have because you do not ask." (James 4:2) Why doesn't God just give
blessings out? It is a principle of relationships that if you give that which
is not asked for, it will never be appreciated. In matters of the spirit, nothing
happens until you want it, until you ask for it. Even salvation.
Now, asking is not the only kind of prayer. There is a silent, centering prayer
where we are still and listen to what God has to say to us. But my experience
is that we never learn how to listen to God until we learn how to ask of God.
There is a fable about a Mr. Jones who died and went to heaven. Peter is showing
him around the golden streets, the celestial places prepared for us. They come
upon an odd-looking, out-of-place building. It looks like an enormous warehouse.
It has no windows and only one door. Mr. Jones wants to see inside. Peter hesitates.
"You don't really want to see what is in there," he tells the new
arrival. Jones is puzzled. Why would there be any secrets in heaven? So after
the official tour he asks Peter to see inside the odd-looking building.
Finally Peter relents. Jones almost knocks him down in his hurry to get in
and see the building. It turns out that the enormous building in filled with
row after row of shelves, floor to ceiling, each stacked neatly with white boxes
tied with red ribbons. Then Jones notices that all of the boxes have names on
them. Turning to Peter he asks, "Is there a box with my name on it?"
Peter nodded affirmatively and said, "But if I were you I wouldn't . .
." but Jones was already racing for the J section. Peter follows, shaking
his head.
Peter arrives when Mr. Jones is slipping the red ribbon off his box and popping
the lid. Looking inside, Jones has a moment of instant recognition, and he lets
out a deep sight like the ones Peter has heard so many times before. You see,
enclosed in the white box are all the blessings that God wanted to give to him
while he was on earth . . . but he never asked.
So Jabez asks in obedience expecting God to answer. The last part of verse
10 footnotes that expectation. It says, "And God granted his request."
Look now at the three requests Jabez made.
"Oh, that you
would bless me . . .
Jabez' first request is for God to bless him. "Oh, that you would bless
me . . ."
Does that sound self-centered to you? Well, it could be. But it does not need
to be. From the Jesus point of view, when we bless others or God, God completes
the circuit by blessing us. When we ask, he has the great privilege of blessing
us.
Prayer is the echo principle. What ever we send out comes back. Besides, Jabez
does not tell God what the blessing must be, how it will come, when, or through
whom. The blessing is God's gift. Jabez' part is to ask. Part of the adventure
is being surprised by the blessing.
When you seek to bless someone else what do you do? You affirm, you encourage,
you share the Godness in your life with the Godness in their lives. You share
a piece of love from your life with a piece of love from their lives. That is
what blessing is about.
You are a parent and your little daughter has been learning to color in a coloring
book. She has been hard at work at it. Her fingers don't hold the crayon too
steadily. It is more like coloring with a fist. Finally, she is ready to show
it to you. With a big smile on her face she exhibits her work.
Now, predictably, nothing is right. The sun is purple. The grass is red. The
little boy in the picture has a blue face and two different colors of shoes.
Furthermore, in every item your daughter has colored outside the lines.
What are you as a loving parent going to do? You are going to pick that little
girl up and set her on your lap. You are going to admire her work and brag on
it. If you are wise you will say, "Tell me about it." And she will.
If you are a Daddy you might even take it to work and show it off and mention
something about Van Gogh's earliest paintings.
Unless you have a thistle for a heart and a perfectionist knife in your soul
you will not criticize your daughter's work. You will not say, "You are
a terrible artist." Grass is green not red. The sun is orange not purple.
Besides you are supposed to draw between the lines. You won't do that. What
will you do -?
- With a tear in your eye you know the time will come when she can't sit
in your lap anymore, and she won't be able to get away with making the sun
a gorgeous purple, and color outside the lines.
- You know the time will pass so quickly - So what do you do. You hug her.
You affirm her. You encourage her. What is the right word?
- You will bless her.
You know what Jesus would say? "If you being flawed know how to bless
your children, how much more your heavenly Father wishes to bless you."
If you are embarrassed to ask God for his blessing you haven't learned to see
God as your heavenly Father yet. You are living with an image of God that Jesus
despised - a God who is here to condemn you, pick at you, to keep books on you,
not to bless you. To pray for God's blessing is to affirm the God Jesus revealed
and proclaimed.
"Enlarge my
boundaries . . ."
The second petition is, "Enlarge my boundaries . . ." The word can
be translated territory, or boundary, or border, or coast. It is a plea, a petition
to God to enlarge the boundaries of your life - to stretch you - to make you
grow - to use you in new ways.
This is a plea to God that fits so many situations.
- I think of those who feel trapped in a situation that seems unbending and
never ending.
- I think of those who live with blinders on, never seeing beyond their narrow
vision.
- I think of those whose enthusiasm for life has diminished. Their excitement
in each new day has declined. "Enlarge the boundaries of my enthusiasm,
O Lord."
- A church might pray, "Enlarge the boundaries of our dreams, of our
vision . . .."
Too many of us, I fear, are like people who stand on the sandy shore of a lake
thinking it is the ocean. No wonder our Lord said, "Go into all the world
. . ." He knew our tendency was to have a shrinking vision and narrow concerns
instead of a world in our hearts. Enlarge our Boundaries!
"Let your hand
be with me . . . "
In the Bible the hands of God are a symbol, an image of his presence, his care,
and his guidance. God said through Isaiah the prophet, "You are mine. I
will hold you in the palm of my hand."
Picture a busy mall at Christmas time. A Daddy has taken his little daughter
to get a Christmas present for Momma. There are so many people. The rush is
everywhere. The waits are long. But the little girl handles it all. Why? It
is the hand of the father holding tight to the little hand of his daughter.
He doesn't walk as fast as he could, because she can't walk fast. He doesn't
carry her because she wants to walk. So hand in hand they negotiate the traffic
and tinsel of the mall.
It is not her hand that grasps and holds on to her Daddy that makes the difference.
It is her Daddy's hand, her Abba, her Father who is grasping her. She is as
dependent on him as we are dependent upon our Father in heaven. Why is it we
keep trying to negotiate the malls of lives on our own?
"Let your hand be with me . . ."
On that night the hands of our Lord took the bread
- With those hands he touched the leper;
- With those hands he raised the crippled and send him on his way, walking;
- With his hands he blessed the children;
- When they put him on the cross, the first hit of the nails were through
his hands. It was as if the powers of darkness were saying, "If we can
just get at his hands, we've got him." But on the third day the hand
of the Father moved the stone and raised the Son. Nothing has been the same
since.
On that night, the hands of our Lord took the bread, and broke it, and said,
this is my body, which is broken for you.
With his hands he took the cup and said, "This is my blood which is poured
out for you. Remember me."
Jabez of old prayed, "Let your hand be with me." May it be so as
we celebrate this first communion in the year 2001.
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