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He was a man of prayer. He believed in prayer. He believed that there was a purpose in prayer. He believed in the sovereignty of God and that he understood that God ruled and reigned and was powerful, and he was utterly dependent upon God.

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I've said it a number of times in recent weeks on Renewing youg Mind that we all need help to grow in our prayer lives. I'm not aware of a single Christian who believes they've made it when it comes to prayer. And as a result, we can be quick to try and find shortcuts. And today we'll learn about a man whose prayer, which is recorded for us in 1st Chronicles, has been promoted by some as a kind of shortcut to prayer. But is that really the case? Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and this is the Wednesday edition of Renewing your mind. This week you're hearing messages from Derek Thomas new series who are lesser known characters of the Bible. And until tomorrow, you can own the entire series, its study guide and a Renewing your Mind notebook when you donate@renewingyourmind.org Jabez's prayer is far more widely known than the man himself. So who was Jabez and what can we learn from his prayer? Here's Dr. Thomas.

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Today we are going to look at Jabez, and we read of him in 1st Chronicles 4, 9, 10. So tucked away in an otherwise lengthy chapter, and it's a chapter full of names, as is the first four chapters of Chronicles is a list of names. I once said in a sermon I was doing a series on Romans 8, which was later published. I called it the best chapter in the Bible. And one of the members of the church took umbrage with me at the door and said, if you say one chapter is better than another, isn't that a denial, inspiration? And I said, look, you've got two minutes to live and I'm at your bedside and I'm going to read to you some scripture. Which do you want, the first four chapters of Chronicles or Romans 8? But tucked away in this list of the descendants of Judah, in verses 9 and 10, we read that Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, because I bore him in pain, Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, O, that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain. And God granted what he asked. Now, roughly around the year 2000, I'm not clear on the exact year of publication, but a book was published. It was a very small book, and it was based on these verses. It was about Jabez, and it sold, I think, 10 million copies. A subculture grew around this book of journals and backpacks and jewelry and other merch. Preachers and evangelists got on the bandwagon with a promise of revival. And Bruce Wilkinson said that he wanted to teach people how to pray. A daring prayer that God always answers. It's a very brief prayer, and as I said, it's tucked away. I suspect if you're reading through the Bible, you would be tempted, I think, to just pass over the first four chapters and dive in to First Chronicles Chapter 5. You wouldn't be much more refreshed in Chapter 5. But if you're the sort of person who reads death notices in the newspaper, I think this chapter, these series of chapters would appeal to you. They're there for an important reason, of course. But let's focus on Jabez. And the first thing I want us to see is that we're told something about his character. His character. We're actually told two things about his character. The first is that Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. What does that mean? This is Old Testament language for saying that Jabez was an upright man. He was mature in his ways, in his thinking, in his decisions, in the way he treated other people and his family. He was devoted to God. He loved the Lord. There was something genuine about him. He stood out. In 1 Chronicles 2:25, they named a city after him. That's big. There are lots of cities, I suspect, in Florida, but in the state of South Carolina where I live in, there are lots of cities that are named after famous generals. Part of the history of the Carolinas and the good, the bad and the ugly. And some of these names now, of course, are under suspicion because of the need to rewrite history and to call out those who failed in some form or fashion. And, of course, there's no end to that. Well, they named a city after him. He was named Jabez, we're told, because he was born. He caused pain in his birth, perhaps excessive pain. My firstborn, Ellen, she's over 40 now and has two children of her own. I was raised in an era that, you know, no one told me what childbirth involved. But I was also born in an era where there was an expectation maybe 10 years before there wasn't. But in the late 1970s, there was an expectation that the husband would be There for the birth. I was teaching. It was just between seminary and my first call. And I needed money and I needed a job, and I taught mathematics for a while. And I came home and Rosemary's in labor. My wife is in labor. And I said, when did it start? And she said, as soon as you left this morning. This was before cell phones. And I panicked. I said, we need to go to the hospital. The hospital was 40 miles away. So I said, we need to go now. And she was in labor for, like 40 hours, 42 hours. It was the weekend. It was a Friday night. We went there. There was shortage of staff, I think. And by the time Ellen was born, her head was stretched out. No one had told me about this. I called my mother on a landline and I said, mom, I think there's something wrong with her. And when I went back, maybe 30 minutes later, her head had shrunk back to normal. I didn't know these things happened, but. But we should have called her Jabez, because he caused much pain. Despite his name, God had his hand upon him. The second thing that we are told about Jabez is in the first part of verse 10. Jabez called upon the God of Israel. He was a man of prayer. He believed in prayer. He believed that there was a purpose in prayer. He believed in the sovereignty of God and that he understood that God ruled and reigned and was powerful. And he was utterly dependent upon God. That's what prayer is. Prayer is a sense of dependence. We cannot do it in and of ourselves. We need the Lord to provide for us our daily bread, to answer our prayers, to answer our prayers in accord with the way he wills and not in the way that. That we necessarily will. Well, that's what we are told about Jabez. Not a lot, but enough to know that he was a man of God and a mature man, a useful man, a man who walked in the ways of the Lord, a good man. Then secondly, we are told something about Jabez prayer. What did he pray? Oh, that God would bless me. That's a great prayer. You can pray that prayer. I can pray that prayer. What does blessing mean? And sometimes we sentimentalize the word and we think of patting a little child on the head and saying, you know, what a beautiful young girl you are, and so on. But blessing in Scripture has to do with covenant. There are blessings and there are curses. You can live inside the covenant, under the embrace of the covenant, and you receive a blessing. The last thing that we do at the end of a service, a Worship service is to pronounce a blessing, a benediction. It's not a prayer. There are many who close their eyes, particularly in the United Kingdom. It's more of a prayer in the United Kingdom. And the reason for that is that they're a little shy and suspicious of the role of the minister, that he's some kind of priest. But I'm not blessing these people. I'm pronouncing God's blessing on these people. So you should lift up your heads and open your eyes and know that the last thing that you hear in the worship service is, is the blessing of Almighty God. That you live in a covenant relationship with God and he intends to bless you no matter what your trouble, no matter what your trial, no matter what difficulty, no matter where you are just now. There is the blessing of Almighty God. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away. Oh, that God would bless me would favor me. The first blessing that you read of in the Bible is that of Adam and Eve. He blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply. He blessed the seventh day, the Sabbath day, as a day of rest and a day of worship. And God blessed the seventh day. He gives us a blessing in Numbers, chapter six, that Aaron the priest, Moses, brother, pronounces, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. That's a beautiful blessing, beautiful benediction, God's presence and favor. That's a prayer that you can repeat for yourself in a time of need, in a time of trial, in a time of difficulty, or even in a time of blessing, that God would continue to bless you. To know the presence of God in the midst of trial, in the midst of pain and suffering, it's a reminder of God's great favour to his people that we are found in the context of the Gospel. Now, more specifically, let's look at this prayer. He asks, enlarge my border. Enlarge my border. Now, let's remember to look at this in the context in which this is set. He is an ancestor of the King of Judah. Jewish records say that he founded an institution for the Levite children of Zipp. That was Moses wife. God had given a promise to Moses, to Joshua, regarding the land of Canaan. It was to be theirs. They had no home, they had no land. And God says, I will give you land, I'll give you a home. And you remember that God made that decision, because do you remember the expression the iniquity of the Amorites is full. Now, you will read earlier that the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full, Right? But there comes a tipping point where there is so much iniquity, there is so much godlessness, that God's anger, God's wrath, God's justice pours out. He refrains, he restrains, he waits. But there comes a tipping point and he comes in judgment. And he had promised to give this land to the people of God. Now enlarge my border. It's in a context where he's asking for a promise, a specific promise that God had given to his people be fulfilled. Now, God hasn't given us that promise. He's not said to you, I'm going to give you Arkansas, I'm going to give you Florida, I'm going to give you Nebraska or Maine or California or Mississippi. There's no such promise. So this is a very specific prayer in a very specific context. It makes it difficult to extrapolate from this prayer that this justifies praying for anything at all. Lord, give me money, make me rich. When I was first saved, and you need to understand, I was 18 and I was raised in a very, very secular home and a very secular education. And I knew nothing about the Bible. I'd never read it. I couldn't have told you what the books of the Bible were. I could tell you maybe a few stories about Jesus, but that was it. I was studying mathematics and physics. I could have told you about Einsteinian physics until you fell asleep, but I knew absolutely nothing about Scripture. So when I was first saved, I lived in a dorm, a men's dorm that had maybe 600 students in, was very plain, simple. In the first year, you had a companion, a roommate. But when you got to the third year, you got a single room which was heaven. And in the parking lot, I remember looking at the parking lot one day, one evening, when all the students were in the hall and there may have been four, maybe five cars. So I grew up at a time when it wasn't common for a 17 year old, an 18 year old, to have a car. So I didn't have a car, but I really wanted a car. And I prayed within weeks of being saved, I said, lord, give me a car. And he didn't give me a car. Well, we'll return to that thought in a minute. But I also want you to see in the prayer that your hand might be with me. That your hand might be with me. What is that? That's Jabez recognition that our lives are upheld and guided and provided for by the hand of God. This man has a robust doctrine of providence. I tell people that what makes you able to sleep at night is a robust doctrine of providence. Everything may be falling apart. You read the headlines of the news, you watch certain news channels and you think the world is all out of sorts of we've lived in an era in the last decade or so where we've seen the world turned upside down and things that were right are now wrong and things that were wrong are now right. And you lie in bed and you toss and turn and you fret, but God is in charge. And if you're a Christian, if you're a believer, the hand of God is upon you. That powerful hand. God doesn't have hands. He doesn't have a body. It's a euphemism. It's a way to help us understand that he guides us. When you're in trouble and somebody puts his hand on your shoulder and says to you, it's going to be okay, that's what Jabez is praying here, that he would sense the hand of God guiding him and directing him and providing for him. Psalm 16:11 at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 10:12 Arise, O LORD, lift up your hand. Do not forget the afflicted. Well then Fourthly, he prays, keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain. He wants God to enlarge his borders in a way that doesn't kill him or harm him in the process. Well, that's fair enough. God may say no. Let's think about God's answer to Jabez prayer. God granted what he asked, God granted what he asked. And the question arises, is this a template for us? Pray like this and you'll get what you want. Anything. Just name it and claim it. This is a prayer that the so called prosperity gospel. It's a prayer that has enormous consequences for churches in South America, for example. Well, let me point out a few things. First of all, it's in the Old Testament. Well, that's a shocker. What I mean by that is that Jabez lived in a theocracy, a land that was holy and set apart. And you can't import that into modern America. Context matters. Secondly, Jabez sits in a genealogy and these would provide for later readers an understanding of the faithfulness of God in their history. The faithfulness of God in their history. Thirdly, he was the royal son of Judah. Commentators point out that the record has no mention of a father. So if that is so, he would have had no place in the land. He would have been reckoned an outsider. And that needs to be understood and it needs to be understood in the context of his prayer. He did not let his past dictate his future. He gave himself to God and pled for mercy. It's a beautiful prayer. And there are aspects of this prayer, I think, that we can pray for ourselves, but there are also aspects of it that we can't twist and say name it and claim it, gab it and grab it. As someone once said.