I'd like us to turn to 1 Chronicles
and chapter 4, reading verses 9 and 10. Jabez was more honourable 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, O that thou wouldst bless me
indeed! and enlarge my coast, 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. If you read through the first
few chapters of Chronicles, you will see that there are a lot
of names to be read. and you know me and reading names
doesn't go quite as well as we would like. And so if you wouldn't
like to read it at home, it may be beneficial to you. The reason
why I read about Solomon, not only because of all the names
are listed in chapter four, but also the prayer and the outcome
of the prayer is very similar to that of Jabez. Jabez prayed
to the Lord and the Lord granted him his request. Solomon was
asked the thing that he most desired and he prayed for wisdom
and the Lord was pleased with his prayer, pleased with his
response to the gift of having all that he could have had and
so he prayed for wisdom to rule and govern the Lord's people. And so there is a similarity
that we will see between the two prayers that God hears and
answers and God is pleased with the prayers of his people should
they pray according to his own will. And also we would see similarities
between the Lord's prayer and Solomon's prayer as he, not Solomon's,
and David's prayer as he prays for an advancement or an enlargement
of the coast. He desired to see an advancement,
a movement, a spreading forward. And in the Lord's Prayer, we
see that thy kingdom come, thy will be done. And we see that
Solomon at Jabez prayed that he would be kept from evil. And in the Lord's Prayer, he
prays to be kept from evil. Lead me not into temptation,
but deliver me from evil. Jabez had a name that meant sorrow. His mother named him Jabez because
he was born with sorrow. The scripture tells us that all
that are born into this world are born into this world with
sorrow. We know the punishment laid upon
the woman, upon Eve right at the beginning of the scriptures
after they sinned against God. And she is told that in Genesis
chapter 3 in verse 16, unto the woman he said, I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow. Thou shalt bring forth
children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall
rule over you. And so all are born into this
world in sorrow. It is the part of the effect
of sin, part of the punishment of the rebellion against God
and we see it today. In our own land, every time a
child is born, there is pain and difficulty. And in other
parts of the world, where there's not such good health care, there
is even a greater sorrow and death and suffering. But Jabez,
there seemed to be a named sorrow. It seemed to be something particular
about his birth that his mother wanted him to remember or she
wanted to remember. Maybe it was a very difficult
time in her life that he was born. Maybe it was a very particular
difficult birth and so she named him Jabez. Not in our country
but in other countries children are named. to bring about a memory. In Kenya we had children that
were named Mvula, which means rain, or Kwekwe,
which means weeds, or we met one little boy who was called
Problem. And so they had been named to bring about a memory
of the time of year that they were brought or that they were
born or that something that was going on at that particular time.
And so Jabez seemed to have been named Jabez because of the sorrow
that was around at that time. But his name didn't hinder him. His name didn't hold him back. Sometimes people say, don't they,
that it's the reason why I'm like this is because of my upbringing,
or because my dad has done this, or because my mum has done that,
or because I wasn't born into a wealthy area, so I'm poor. And they begin to blame circumstances
for the reasons why they are like they are. Jabez could have
continued his life and said, well, my name is Sorrow, so I'm
going to continue living a sorrowful and a miserable life. I'm going
to live as my name states, a bit like Abigail's husband, Nabal. That was his name and so was
his nature. But Jabez didn't allow his name
to hold him back. He sought the Lord and he was
more honourable than his brethren. Remember the Apostle Paul, he
says that he was the chief of sinners, the chief of sinners. And because he felt himself to
be the chief of sinners, that didn't hold him back. He didn't
say, well, I'm such a miserable, wretched sinner, the chief of
all the sinners. Therefore, I'm going to be useless
to the kingdom of God. No. His chiefness, being the
chief of sinners, never held him back. But he was the most
useful man for the kingdom of God. And so we should not focus upon
are those things which we believe are hindrances or things that
we've been tarnished with to hold us back in our Christian
walk. Jabez, his name was meant sorrowful,
yet he wasn't held back by that name. The Apostle Paul, chief
of sinners, it didn't hold him back. He was used of God for
the honour and glory to bring multitudes of sinners to salvation. He may have been the chief of
sinners in his own mind, yet he came to the King of Kings,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is able to cleanse from all sin. No matter how bad you feel yourself
to be, no matter if you believe yourself to be the chief of all
sinners, yet Christ is able, his sacrifice is able to cleanse
you from all of your sins and do not allow your sin to hold
you back. Sinners, Jesus will receive. Be that forgotten never. And so his name never held him
back. And our condition as a sinner
should never hold us back from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is sinners. This man eats with sinners, they
say. And Jabez, he called on the name,
Jabez called on the God of Israel. Jabez was a man of prayer. We
don't read anything else about him in the whole of the scriptures,
just these two verses. Yet this is enough to tell us
that this man is a man who knows God. that his prayer has been
recorded in the leaves of scripture, in the pages of scripture for
all to read, that his prayer has been set aside as an example
of what type of prayer that God hears. It is a prayer that is extremely
simple, yet it comes from a heart that is humble, a heart that
truly knows God, A heart that truly knows their position before
a holy God and a heart that understands exactly what God can do and what
he can't do. So he comes as a sinner to the
throne of grace to ask God for things that he himself can't
control or can't achieve. And so he comes to the great
God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of
whom he knows all about, for he's a Jew. And so he comes to
the God of the Jews, knowing that the God of the Jews is able
to help him. And the God of the Jews has promised
the people of Israel a nation Jabez, part of the tribe of Judah. And if you read through the book
of Numbers you'll see that Joshua divides the promised land up
into the different areas where the 12 tribes would live. But they don't just walk in and
everything is open to them. They have to fight. They have
to win that land for themselves and there are times when the
Lord drives out the people before
them but there are times when they have to fight for the land. And so Jabez knows that this
land is covenanted unto them, it has been gifted to them by
God but he doesn't just relax and say, oh, well, this is, you
know, God is just going to do this all for me and there's nothing
that I'm going to have to do. I'm just going to waltz in there.
We're the Jews. No, he understands exactly what
is required of him. And so he understands in his
own strength, in his own ability, he can't achieve anything. And so he seeks for the Lord's
blessing. He comes to the God who is able
to help him and to prosper him and to bless him. And Jabez called
on the name of the God of Israel, the true and living God, and
saying, O that thou wouldest bless me indeed. He was seeking
God's favour. and blessing upon his life. He knew in his own strength he
could not achieve anything. He knew if he was to advance
into the promised land and to plant seed it would only bear
fruit, it would only germinate if God allowed it to do so. If God brought the rain, if God
brought the sunshine, if God germinated the seeds he would
only be able to win the battles if the Lord enabled him to do
so and so he asks for the Lord's blessing upon him and no doubt
upon others as well round about him. He wanted the Lord's blessing
upon not only his life no doubt but also his spiritual life. his temporal and his spiritual
blessings, his day-to-day life. He understood that he needed
the blessing of God, God's face to shine upon him. But without God's face shining
upon him, he would be walking in darkness and difficulty. and
how it is even in our own lives. We need God's blessing upon our
lives, God's favour, God's smile. Yes there are times we walk into
times of difficulty and we experience the seemingly frown of God. We walk in darkness, like walking
in the rain, the greyness. But even there the Lord smiles
upon his people. Even the clouds have a silver
lining for the people of God. And even in our difficulties
we can experience the blessing of God. Even in times of opposition
and hardship we can still understand the blessing of God in our souls,
the joy of the Lord in our hearts. And so he prayed for Oh that
thou wouldst bless me indeed and enlarge his coasts. In the book of Numbers chapter 33 and verse 50 the Lord
speaks to Moses by Jordan near Jericho saying,
verse 50. Speak unto the children of Israel
and say unto them, when you are passed over Jordan into the land
of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the
land from before you and destroy all their pictures and destroy
all their molten images and quite pluck down all their high places.
and ye shall dispose the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein. For I have given you the land
to possess it. And ye shall divide the land
by lot for an inheritance among your families. And to the more
ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give
the less inheritance. Every man's inheritance shall
be in the place where his lot falleth. According to the tribes
of your fathers shall ye inherit. But if you will not drive out
the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come
to pass that those which you let remain of them shall be pricks
in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the
land wherein you dwell. Moreover, it shall come to pass
that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them. And so that
was the the promise given that they were
to receive the land by lot and that they were to fight their
way through to obtain it. It was not going to be easy.
It was going to be a hard road for them. But the Lord
was with them and so he pleads that promise. that the Lord would
enable him, bless him and help him and that his coast or his
land may be enlarged. You could say that this is proud. He wanted to achieve much. But
we can guarantee that this was not the case because the Lord
granted him the request which he asked. You see, the Lord knows
our hearts and he knows our motives and the reasons why we pray for
the things that we do pray. And so if his heart was filled
with self-ambition that he wanted to have as much as possible,
then the Lord would not have answered him and given him his
request. And so we can see that this request
comes from a godly reasoning or from from right motives within his
heart. And so if Jabez was an honourable
man and he sought to have a larger place as possible, we know that
he was doing it for the right reasons. He wanted to have a
godly influence on a larger portion of the area. But in the Lord's
Prayer, The Lord Jesus tells us that in verse 13, for thine is
the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. So verse 10, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. And so the prayer
that the Lord Jesus teaches his disciples to pray has a similar
ring to it to that of Jabez. Jabez asked for the blessing
of God and then an enlargement of the coast, an enlargement
of his domain, his godly influence, an enlargement of the promised
land. And we can say that the Lord
Jesus also teaches his people to pray for an enlargement of
the kingdom of Christ. that the gospel may go forth
with power into people's hearts, that the kingdom of light may
gain inroads into the kingdom of darkness, that God's kingdom
may go forth and win people to the Lord Jesus Christ, that God's
will would be done on the earth as it is in heaven. And that
can only take place if people bow down to the gospel and bow
down to the Lord Jesus Christ and to seek to obey the scriptures,
the will of God, the revealed will of God. God's will is to
be done on earth. An enlargement of the coasts
but also personally in our own lives. As Jabez had to go forward
into the promised land and to fight wars, enemies, the enemies
of God. So we as believers, as we have
looked at, are in a war, a spiritual war. We wrestle not against flesh
and blood and there are times when we We experience much opposition,
satanic influences, worldly influences and fleshly influences. And the daily battle goes on
as we seek to war against the old nature, war against the flesh. And so we desire for an enlargement,
an enlargement of our hearts that God would cleanse us in
a greater way, that we would gain more victory over sin and
besetting sin and characteristic weaknesses. And Javis prayed then that he
would be blessed and that there would be an enlargement of his
coast, that his battles, that he would win. Isn't it our desire
that we would win battles over sin? Isn't it something that
drags the Lord's people down daily as they have to do war,
put on the whole armour of God that we may win against those
besetting sins? And then he prays that thy hand
might be with me the hand of the Lord in the scripture. Obviously
we know that God is a spirit. May that God is spirit. But he's
revealed to us as to having human attributes, human bodily parts, feet and arms,
hand. And we read in the scripture
that the Lord's hand can be with somebody. and his hand can be
against somebody. His face can be for or his face
can be against. And so Jabez understood that
he needed the hand of the Lord with him and not against him.
He knew that he would not achieve anything, any success, any victory
in battle, any spiritual progress if the hand of the Lord was against
him. And Joshua In fact, throughout
the whole of the Old Testament, there is loads of references
to the hand of the Lord. In the New Testament, I think
there's only three references to the hand of the Lord. But
Joshua chapter 4 from verse 22, after having come over from the river
Jordan, they put the stones there in the middle of the river and
then on the edge of the river. And Joshua tells them what they
are to say to their children. Then you shall let your children
know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For
the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan before you until
you were passed over. And the Lord your God did as
the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before
us until we were gone over. that all the people of the earth
might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that ye may
fear the Lord your God forever. And so what we witness as we
read through the account of the children of Israel coming out
of Egypt, what we see is the mighty hand of God delivering
them. And that is what Jabez wanted. He wanted to witness the mighty
hand of God going with him. He had seen the mighty hand of
God being against the people of Egypt. He'd seen the mighty
hand of God closing up the Red Sea upon the enemies of God.
And he desired that he may experience the hand of the Lord going with
him. to bless him, to assist him in the work that was given
him to do. He understood that in his own
strength and ability he was not able to achieve anything. And then he prays that he may
be kept from evil. Jesus says in that prayer, as
we've read, lead me not into temptation. Every true born again,
spirit filled child of God wants to be kept from evil. They hate sin. We have the hymn,
don't we, about fleeing from sin as we flee from a serpent. and his prayer was that he would
be kept from evil. We read through the scriptures
we see that we are warned time and time again of the dangers
of getting too close to sin, to temptation. Solomon as we
read was drawn aside by the multitude of his wives and grieved God. David his father who was tempted
with Bathsheba and the way in which God dealt with him because
he brought shame on the name of God and caused the enemies
of the Lord to blaspheme. You see sin does not just affect
us as an individual. Sin as a believer affects the
whole church. If somebody is caught in, exposed
as to having done a grievous sin, it brings shame not only
on that individual, but on the church and on the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so J-Best knew, is this something
that I have to pray for? that he would be kept from evil,
kept from being drawn aside by the idols of those people that
he was going to drive out, kept from running after the things
that they did, the sins that they committed. Why? Because he didn't want sin to
grieve him. It's different to how David says,
isn't it? David says, against thee and thee only have I sinned
and done this evil in thy sight. But Jabez says that it may not
grieve me. Does your sin and my sin, does
it grieve us? As we pray in the morning maybe,
O Lord, keep me from evil. then how quickly we step out
of the front door and maybe some thought crosses our mind, maybe
anger swells up within our hearts or maybe we're left to deny the
Lord Jesus Christ or there's some other sin that we commit
and which we strive to battle against and there we are. And you spend the rest of the
day grieved because you fail. We're so thankful, aren't we,
that our salvation does not rest upon us, on our ability to not
sin, but it rests completely on the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, where we are justified by faith. It is Christ who has
eradicated our sin. It is Christ who has paid the
price for our sin. It does not rest upon us and
our ability not to think evil thoughts, not to do evil things.
But out of love to the Lord Jesus Christ, we desire to walk a holy
life and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And when we do
sin, it grieves us because we know it grieves our Father in
heaven and it grieves our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet he still looks
and smiles upon his people, loved with an everlasting love. And
so Jabez understood. He desired the Lord's blessing
upon his life. He desired an enlargement of
his coast. He desired that the hand of the
Lord would be with him and not against him. He desired that
he would be kept from evil and we can say also from the appearance
of evil. That sin would not grieve him
and God granted him that God granted him that which he
requested. God was pleased with his prayer. It was a prayer after God's own
heart. It was a prayer according to
the will of God and God answered that prayer. What is it that
you and I really, really want? When we come to the Lord in prayer,
do we really speak the things that we really want? Or do we
just, as the pagans, spin a wheel, rumble off the same things that
we always pray? Or do we truly unburden our hearts? What is it that we really, really,
really want God to do? Jabez wanted the blessings of
God. He wanted a movement of the spirit
to enlarge the kingdom. He wanted the Lord's hand with
him because he knew I can't do it myself. He wanted himself
to stop from doing evil because he hated it. Solomon. Solomon wanted wisdom. Not the wisdom of this world
but the wisdom of God which comes from above that he may govern
the people of God that he may do it rightly and correctly in
accordance with God's ways and God's words that he may do it
justly as God is a just God and God says to him In verse 12, first of all God
asked him, what do you like? And in verse 12, behold, I have
done according to thy words. Lo, I have given thee a wise
and an understanding heart, so that there was none like thee
before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And so the Lord was pleased.
with the words of Solomon and may it be tonight as we come
to the Lord in prayer that the Lord may be pleased with our
words as we come to him through the Lord Jesus Christ we may
offer prayers that are acceptable in his sight in accordance with
his will that we may experience the blessing of God upon our
prayers that we may see the evidences of those answers to our requests
and we can hear those words, I have done according to all
thy words and God granted him that which he requested, O Lord
that thou would bless us indeed. may know the blessing of God,
that we may experience an enlargement of our coast, a moving of the
Spirit of God, an advancement of the kingdom of light, that
people may turn from their sin and hate sin as Jabez hated sin,
as all believers should hate sin and may the Lord give us
our request according to his will for his honor and for his
glory. We may hear this blessing. Amen.