Good morning, everybody. I'm
going to turn to your text this morning. It's 1 Chronicles chapter
4. 1 Chronicles chapter 4. If you want to pick up in verse
9, verses 9 and 10 is going to be our text. 1 Chronicles chapter 4, verse 9. 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, O that thou wouldest 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. Now the first nine chapters of
the book of First Chronicles is devoted mainly to a genealogy.
It is a long read. It is he begat him and he begat
him and he begat him for almost a solid nine chapters. But in
the middle of this fourth chapter, the scripture just pauses for
a second. It just stops with that genealogy. And it mentions
this man Jabez and a prayer that he offered unto the Lord. And
what's interesting is, we don't know a whole lot about David.
This is the only time in the scripture that he is ever mentioned.
And we think he's from the family of Harhal. That's what the previous
verse tells us. But it's really kind of not even
definite about that. This man is kind of a mystery.
But here's the part that caught my attention. This is what my
attention was drawn to. It was the last sentence. It
says, and God granted him that which he requested. I want to
start off by just laying out some simple, basic truths that
are very, very basic. And I want to see if you can
enter into this. There really is a God, and he is in heaven. He actually exists. The creation
testifies to that. This book testifies to that.
God is. He really does exist. And here's
a couple of his attributes. Number one, he is absolutely
sovereign. And here's what that means in no uncertain terms.
He is in absolute control of everyone and everything and every
happening at all times. Nothing happens that He is not
purposed. It is just His will coming about every second of
every day, and it can't be changed because He can't change. Not
only is He sovereign, He is omnipotent, and that means that He is all-powerful.
He has all-power. He is this powerful. If he wants
a nemesis, if he wants a creature to stand up against him as a
nemesis, he has to empower that creature to stand up against
him. And then when he does, he does that just so he can smack
him back down to show everybody how powerful he is. That's what
he did with Pharaoh. He said, for this cause, I've
raised you up. I'm going to make my power known in you. So I'll smack
you back down. And so everybody knows there's
a God in Israel. That's how powerful he is. None can stay in his hand.
Nobody can stop him, right? There really is a God. He's absolutely
sovereign. He's absolutely omnipotent. He
has all power. And He actually hears the prayers
of His people. He is in the business of ruling
and reigning and getting glory for himself in his son, Jesus
Christ. That's what this reality is all
about. That's what we're doing right now. We're getting glory
for God. He's in the business of doing that. And while he is
in that business of controlling all things and getting glory
for himself, when he hears the cries of one of his elect, he
stops and he bows down and he lends an attentive ear to their
cry. And this is the amazing part.
This same one actually grants requests. He hears those cries
of his people. He says, yes, we'll do that for
you. Now, sometimes the answer is no, and that is for our good.
It means whatever we were asking for was not good for us because
he only does good for us. But he hears prayer, and he grants
requests. And if I need a stronger motivation
to pray, I don't know what it could possibly be. I want to
talk for just a few minutes about this thing of prayer. I have
some needs and some wants in this thing of prayer, and I bet
you can identify with this. I want you to turn to Ezekiel
chapter 36. Ezekiel 36, and I want you to
pick up in reading in verse 25. There's two phrases in this passage
of scripture I want you to be very careful to pay attention
to. It is, I will, and ye shall. And this is the way the Lord
does business. He does, I wills, and then we shall. Verse 25,
Ezekiel 36. Then will I, who's gonna do it,
he is, sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. From
all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. Folks, is there any mistaking
who's going to do the cleansing here? No, he's going to do it. A new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of
flesh. Is there any mistaking who gives
that new man, that new nature? He gives it. Verse 27, I will
put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes,
and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell
in the land that I gave your fathers, and ye shall be my people,
and I will be your God. I will, and ye shall. This is
how the Lord operates. Now go over to verse 37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will
yet for this, be inquired of by the house of Israel to do
it for them. I will increase them with men
like a flock." Everything that the Lord has done for us. Now
we can use these terms interchangeably, has done and will do. They're
interchangeable and I'll tell you why, because everything he
will do, he's already done. Remember he's sovereign, he's
omnipotent. As soon as he willed it, it came
to pass, it can't change. Right? Everything he has done
for us and will do for us, he's gonna cause us to ask for every
one of those things. So here's my first need. Here's
what I want. I want the Lord to lay on my heart. Cause me
to ask for those things that you will do for me. I really
don't know what is good for me. I can't see into the future.
I do not know what is good, what is right, what is best, but he
does. So I ask the Lord this, just cause me to ask for those
things that you will do for me. Now, if you think about it, the
believer's life is spent asking the Lord for things that he has
already done for him. What is your daily prayer? Have
mercy on me. Do not give me what I rightfully
deserve. Now, my question is this. Who
prays that prayer? It is a man who has already been
shown mercy. The simple consciousness that you are a sinner sitting
at the feet of a sovereign savior who can do with you as he sees
fit, and you're in need of mercy, that does not come naturally.
That is God-given. You know who asks for mercy?
A man who's already been shown mercy. Save me. Save me from you. How can we be saved from God? He's gotta be just. Save me from
my sins. Save me. Save me all by yourself. Don't include me in this in any
way, shape, or form. You do every bit of it and just
lead me out of it. Save me. Who can pray that prayer?
Man whom the Lord has already saved. You see, the believer's
life is just asking for things that the Lord has already done
for him. So that's the first thing I want. I want the Lord
to cause me to pray for those things that he's already done
for me and he will do for me. Second thing is this. I want
to be heard. You remember the Pharisee and the public in the
temple. Pharisee stood, and he prayed thus with himself. His
prayers didn't get any further than the roof. And I don't want
that. I want to be heard. I want the
Lord to actually hear my cry. And he does. He hears the cries
of every one of his people. But to understand why, you have
to understand the gospel. Now, before just about every
service here, we have a man from our congregation get up, and
he reads scripture. And he prays, and at some point
in that prayer, just about every single time, 99% of the time,
he's going to say this, in Christ's name, we ask these things. We
ask that you would do these things for Christ's sake. Why does he
say that? Is that like some sort of magic
formula? No. John 16, 23, this is the Lord
speaking. He says, verily, verily, I say
unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he
will give it you. Now, what does it mean to ask
in his name? When the disciples went to the
Lord and they said, teach us to pray, what did he tell them?
How do you begin? Our father, which art in heaven. Not me,
not my father, our father, which art in heaven. Don't come as
a me, come as a we. Come in that consciousness of
that union with the Lord Jesus Christ. So, concerning prayer. This is our hope. This is what
we're hoping in, that the Lord Jesus Christ takes our prayer
as weak and as feeble and as sinful and as self-serving as
it is. And that's the truth, if you want to be honest about
me and you. He takes that prayer that is sinful and self-serving
in vain, and he takes it, and he's the one who brings it before
his father. And the father lends an attentive
ear to that cry. He's pleased with that prayer
because of who brings it. because his son brings it. It's
acceptable because of who brought it. Now, that's our hope and
prayer. This is also our hope and salvation. Now, you and I
cannot come into the presence of God on our own. Not and live. He is a just and holy God, and
he can have nothing to do with sin other than to punish it.
That is absolutely it. If you want to ask somebody,
ask King Uzziah. He tried. He walks into the temple. He
bypassed the priest. He said, I can offer incense
unto the Lord on my own. I can do this. I can be acceptable.
Lord turned him to a leper, and he died shortly after that. That'll
happen to me and you if we come without a great high priest,
without a mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jabez, preeminently,
is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest. Let me
show you this. Go back to 1 Chronicles. Chapter 4, look at verse 1. It opens with these words, the
sons of Judah. Chapter 4 is giving the genealogy
of the tribe of Judah, and that includes Jabez. Who else was
from the tribe of Judah? The Lord Jesus Christ was. Go
to verse 9. And Jabez was more honorable
than his brethren. Who is the one who is truly honorable
in the Father's eyes? Who is the one who is honorable
to his Father? That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, because we are in Christ, every member of the elect is
in Christ, we're honorable. Because all he sees when he looks
at the elect is his son. But somebody had to earn that
honor. We receive it, somebody had to earn it, somebody had
to do it. And he's the one who did it. He's more honorable than
his brethren. Keep on reading. And Jabez was more honorable
than his brethren. And his mother called his name
Jabez, saying, because I bear him with sorrow. Jabez was a
man of sorrows. That's what his name means. And
the Lord Jesus Christ was a man of sorrows. He came unto his
own, and his own accepted him not. This man knew sorrow in
a way that you and I will never know sorrow. He knew the sorrow
of sin. And it's a way that you and I
will never know it. Sin does not bother us the way it should.
We were born this way. Really, it's just normal to us.
But this man, this man was spotless. This man was blameless. This
man knew no sin, and he did no sin. And he lived a perfect life
for 33 years, and then he was made sin. Now, we're born this
way. It doesn't bother us very much.
But this man was holy, and he was blameless, and he was undefiled,
and he was made the sins of his people. The sorrow that caused. This man knew sorrow having his
father forsaken him. This one who he always had his
father's constant approval. Constantly in the presence of
his father having all favor, having all love, having all community
at all times. When he was made sin and he went
to the cross, his father turned his back on him. And it was time
for justice. Not mercy this time, it's time
for justice. And justice reigned now. And he no longer had his
father's Joyful praise, all he had was wrath falling down upon
him. Everything that was reserved for every sin of everyone to
be elect fell down on him. This man knew sorrow like no
one else knew sorrow. And this Jabez, our greater Jabez,
he prayed a prayer to his father. Jabez prayed, and the Lord granted
him what he asked for. And this is the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest, our mediator. He
walks into the presence of his father, making intercession for
everyone he died for. He walks in, he says, here's
the names. They're right here. Save them. He's not making a
request. See, he's earned something. You
make requests when you don't deserve it. When you've earned
it, you come to take it. Save them. I'm going to show
you why. Look at the nail prints on my hands. Look at my feet. Look at my side. They're acceptable
to you. You're satisfied. And the Father
says, yes, absolutely. This is the power of our great
high priest, our greater Jabez, the Lord Jesus Christ. He always
gets what he wants from his Father because of who he is and what
he's done. All right. Thirdly, concerning this thing
of prayer, I want the Lord's will to be done, and I want to
be given the grace to bow to His will, whatever it may be.
Now, if you look back at verse 10 of your text, 1 Chronicles
4, and Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou
wouldest bless me indeed. Now, if you have a marginal reading
there, if you look in the center, what does that say? If thou wilt. This is how Jabez approached
unto his God. If you're willing. And this would
be our attitude, approaching unto the Lord. And it reminds
me of another man who approached unto the Lord this way. And if
you turn to Matthew 8, we'll look at his story. He'll be familiar to you. This
is the leper that came to Christ. Matthew 8, look at verse 1. This
is the Lord Jesus Christ. When he was come down from the
mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, there came a
leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, Thou can
make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand
and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. Now, some things
we can learn from this man and how he came to our Lord Jesus
Christ, because that's how we come to him for salvation. Number
one, he came as a leper. And if you read Luke's account,
it says this, that he was full of leprosy. And I'll tell you
what that means. That means everywhere you looked on that man, he was
covered in leprosy from the top of his head to the sole of his
foot. There was not one clean spot of flesh in him at all. And that leprosy is a type of
sin. And this is when you and I will come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And not until this, until we see that we are covered in
sin from the top of our head to the sole of our foot, and
there is no sound of sinners. As long as we have just the smallest
scrap of clean flesh on us, it will not drive us to Christ.
It's going to drive us directly to the law, and we're going to
hang our hopes of salvation on that little tiny speck of clean
flesh. We're going to hang it there,
and we'll never come to Christ. But this is exactly when you'll
come, and this is when I'll come. When there is no sound to send
us, when we are full of sin, that's when we will come, not
a second sinner. Paul said this. He said, I know
whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able. to
keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. And
it was always the committed part that would mess with me. Have
I committed hard enough? Am I committed? Have I done what
I'm supposed to do? You know when you'll commit? You know
when I'll commit? When we have no place else to go. When we
have no one else to turn to and nowhere else to go and there's
not a spot of clean flesh on us, then we'll come to Christ.
Not a second before that. He came as a leper. Number two,
this man worshipped the Lord prior to him knowing whether
he would do anything for him or not. He simply fell down at
the Lord's feet and he worshipped him for who he was. You've heard
this probably a thousand times, because so have I, but it bears
repeating. God is to be worshipped for who he is, outside of what
he does for you and me. His character is so great, his
attributes so mighty, His perfect sovereignty, His love that actually
acts, His perfect mercy, His perfect sense of justice. He
will have everything just so. He's not like you and me who
will make exceptions. Make exceptions for others and certainly for
ourselves. No, He's gonna have everything just so. Everything
in His kingdom's gonna be perfect. Almighty in all power, this one
is worthy of worship outside what He does for you and me.
And we just fall down at His feet and we worship. This man
knew that somebody's will mattered and it wasn't his own. He said,
if you will, you can. Came down and said, listen, you
don't have to do anything for me. I'm in this mess. I don't have
any claims on you. We created this for ourselves.
As sinful state you and I are in, we created this for us. And
we have no claims on God. If you will, you can. He had confidence in the Lord's
ability. And that is simply faith. That's it. Now, you need to understand
this, the difference between faith and assurance. Assurance
is believing you're saved. That's assurance. It's not faith.
Faith is this, believing he is able. Now, I want you for a second,
just take this moment. Is Jesus Christ able to save
you with absolutely no help from you to the tune of his own glory?
Is he? You have faith. Trust him. This man was confident in his
ability. And the Lord said to this man the same thing he says
to everybody who comes his way, full of leprosy, falling down
at his feet, worshiping him for who he is, no claims on God.
You can do it if you're willing. He always says the same thing.
That's what I love about him. He's always consistent. I will be
that claimant. Now, turn over to Luke chapter 11. The last thing I want to consider
in this thing of prayer, I want to be given the grace to
be persistent in coming. So take a look at Luke chapter
11. The disciples had just asked
the Lord to teach us to pray. He gave them the Lord's Prayer,
and then he gave them this story. It's very interesting. Luke 11,
pick up in verse 5. And he said unto them, which of ye shall
have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto
him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey
has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from
within shall answer and say, trouble me not. The door is now
shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and
give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him
because he's his friend, yet because of his importunity he
will rise and give him as much as he needs. Opportunity means a shameless
persistence, an absolute shameless persistence. Now, I listened
to Bruce Crabtree recently preach at Genesis 32. You remember,
that's where the Lord wrestled with Jacob all night long. He
wrestled with him all night long. Comes down, he rustles with him.
The day breaks. He said, let me go. He said, I will not let you
go. Touch his thigh. Zap his strength. What's your
name? Jacob. Heel. So Bruce asked this question
I thought was interesting. He's like, why'd the Lord want
to rustle with Jacob all night long? I mean, it's not like Jacob
stood any chance of winning. He's rustling with omnipotence.
He's not going to win. Why was the Lord pleased to rustle
with this man all night long? Bruce said this I thought was
very interesting. He said, because he's a God who likes to rustle
with his people. He enjoys seeing that persistence. He enjoys seeing
that cleaving and that cry. I will not let you go until you
bless me. I have to have you. This is exactly
what we see right here. How am I commanded to come? How
am I commanded to pray? Come. I need mercy. Have mercy upon
me. Have mercy upon me. You notice
it says in here, he says he'll give it to him, not because he's
his friend. Friendship only goes so far. He's going to give it
to him because he wearies him. So I'm commanded, not just allowed,
to come and beat down the door every single day. Have mercy
on me. Save me. Have mercy on me. Save
me. He's a God who likes to wrestle
with his people. Now we'll use the rest of our
time to look at David as his prayer. Go back to your text in 1 Chronicles
chapter 4. This is Jabez's prayer, it comes
in four parts. Verse 10, and Jabez called on
the God of Israel, saying, oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed,
that's the first one, and enlarge my coasts, second one, and that
thine hand might be with me, third one, and thou wouldest
keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. That is a four-fold
prayer, and it begins with this, that thou wouldest bless me Indeed. Now the key word there is indeed.
Now we are physical creatures, right? And so we ask for physical
blessings. And you know what? There's absolutely
nothing wrong with that. We're taught to pray about everything.
And so you know what? Daily, I come with large petitions. And you do too. I want the Lord's
blessing in every aspect of my life. I want his blessing on
me as a husband, as a father, as a friend, at my job. I don't
want to bring any shame or reproach upon the Lord's name in every
place where I have a responsibility. Lord, bless me. Cause me to do
this for your glory, for your honor's sake, but bless me. And
if you don't, it'll be complete failure, but bless me. And you
know what? Be impertune about that. Bless me. I have a responsibility,
bless me in it. Because if you don't, I'll fail.
That's it. But there's more to the story.
Bless me indeed. There's a true blessing out there.
Turn to Romans four. There is a blessing indeed. And if a man has this blessing,
he needs nothing else. Look at verse six. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now this is a blessing indeed
that I would have the spotless righteousness of Jesus Christ
without my works, without me having to do anything to earn
it, it being completely and utterly by grace. That's a blessing indeed,
and that's what a sinner needs. He needs the very righteousness
of Christ without works. I don't have to earn it, you
just have to give it to me, free for nothing, and for him not
to impute my sins to me. Now how can that be? It seems
odd, right? I did it. How can you not impute
the sins to me that I did? It's very simple. Those sins
have to be no more. They have to be gone. They have
to be non-existent. That's the only way my sins cannot
be imputed to me that they aren't. So this is the second part of
this blessedness. That the Lord Jesus Christ bore my sins in
his body on Calvary's tree, and he put those sins away with his
shed blood, and they are no more. If a man has this blessing, he
is blessed indeed to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ
unearned, free for nothing, and to have no sin, God being satisfied
with him. That's a blessing indeed. Here's
the second part of this prayer. He says, enlarge my coast. Now
on the surface, what he's asking for very simply is more land.
He says, I want more stuff. And you know what? That's okay. If you want more land, if you
want a material position, Bring before the Lord. We're taught
to pray about everything. There's nothing wrong with that.
But there's more to the story. A coast. What it means is a boundary. An impassable point. Think of
a prison. There are men inside of it. There
are walls that go around. Constantino wire on top. Guards
on top. It is a point impassable. They
can't get by. It's a boundary. It's a coast.
He can't get past it. The way you and I are born in
this world, we have boundaries. Because of this sinful, evil
nature, those spiritual demands the Lord has for faith, for repentance,
for love, love for the brethren, love for Christ, we can't do
it. We have boundaries. We have a
point that is absolutely impassable. John 6, 44, no man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me draw him. I can't. And
those are demands. You must believe. You must believe.
No one can believe for you. You must believe. So what's our
prayer? Lord, enlarge my coast. Give
that new man, give that new nature and everything that comes along
with it. Faith, repentance, love for God, love for his people.
Enlarge my coast. Third one, that your hand might
be with me. Now what he's asking for on the
surface here, Lord be for me and be with me. I know exactly
what he means. When I'm in this world, to have
confidence, to have boldness in this world, I want to know
the Lord is with me, that His hand is upon me, that He's on my side.
And what I'm doing, I'm doing according to His will, that He's
with me, and we're charging forward together. I want to not only
have that, I want to be conscious of it. I want a consciousness
of it. But there's more to the story. Now you remember Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. They're in front of Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar builds an idol. He says, y'all gonna bow down
and worship that idol? They said, no, we're not. He said, I'm gonna
give you one more chance. I said, we're not careful to
answer you in this thing, old king. We ain't gonna do it. We
ain't gonna bow down to this idol. Now, you think you're in
control. You're not. Our God's in control,
and he's gonna deliver us out of your hand one way or the other.
Either he's gonna do something on this earth, he's gonna deliver
us, or we're gonna die in that furnace over there, and we're
really gonna be delivered, but we're not bowing down to that
idol. So Nebuchadnezzar, he says, fire up the furnace. Bounds him,
throws three men in, right? Nebuchadnezzar looks in. Didn't we put three men in there?
Didn't we bound them? There's four men in there now.
And nobody's bound. They're walking around, and they
have no hurt. What's going on here? The fourth one's in likeness
with the Son of God. What's the reason those men survived?
Because the Lord was with them, and he was with them. And that's
where I need to be, everywhere he's been. I was there too. When
he entered the covenant of grace with his father, when he stood
there and said, you look to me for everything you require of
them. Had to be me he was pointing to. He's with me. He's with me. You don't look to him for anything
you need. You look to me for it. I'm taking care of him. I'm
going to bring him back to you without a scratch on him. He's
mine. I had to be with him at the cross.
He had to be with me. I had to be with him. My sins
being made his sins. I had to die there. Understand,
the soul that sins must die. Why'd Jesus send his death? That's
it. That's where I had to die, with him on that cross. And on
judgment day, my name's called. Aaron Greenleaf, answer for yourself.
He says, nope, he's with me. He's with me. You don't call
his name, I answer for him. He's with me. Here's the final
one. He said, and thou wouldst keep
me from evil, that it may not grieve me. Now this sounds a
lot like when the Lord was teaching them to pray, he said, lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And we're taught
to pray that for this reason, it's because if we're tempted,
we'll fall. And it's for this reason, because evil is attracted
to evil. Not only is this, he's saying,
I want to be kept from evil. This is a confession. He's saying,
I am evil. Now, We use the term sin a lot,
and we use the term sinner a lot, and we get kind of, I think,
calloused to that word. It makes us think of naughtiness,
mischievous behavior, things like that, tomfoolery. Well,
let's use a stronger word here, evil. A man outside of Christ
That's what the father sees when he looks at him, because that's
what he is. He's evil. He is malicious. He has hurtful thoughts,
hurtful feelings, hurtful motives. That's you and me by nature.
We're evil. I'm about to prove that to you.
I want you to turn to two scriptures. We're going to close with these.
Turn to Luke 6 and Luke 11. Find Luke 6. And when you get
there, hold your finger there and turn to Luke 11. Luke 11, look at verse 13. If ye then, notice those next
two words, being evil. Know how to give good gifts to
your children. How much more shall your heavenly Father give
the Holy Spirit to them that ask? Notice he did not say you
that were evil. Few who are kind of bad, but
at least have the ability to get better. He said, you, you then,
being evil. That's what you are. That's what
I am by nature, evil. It's not too strong of a word. Look at
Luke 6 and look at verse 35. There's hope for the evil. Verse 35, but love you your enemies
and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward
shall be great. And ye shall be the children
of the highest, for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the
evil. I'm gonna leave you right here. If you are evil, like me, and
if this is your prayer, Lord, number one, bless me indeed. I need the righteousness of Christ
unearned. I need my sins imputed to me
not because they no longer exist. Enlarge my coast, give me a new
man, give me a new heart, sanctify me, cause me to do those things
you demand, to believe, to love, bring me to repentance, or be
with me and be for me. I need you. If you are an evil
man and that is your prayer, just like Jabez, God granted
him what he requested. A prayer never goes unanswered. Thanks for listening.