Word of Salvation – Vol.41 No.43 – November 1996

 

A Godly Prayer

 

Sermon by Rev J. A. Haverland on 1 Chronicles 4:9-10

Scripture Reading: 1Chronicles 4:9-10, 38-43

 

Congregation,

There are times when our lives seem to get stuck in a rut.  When we seem to have slipped into a pattern, and we don’t seem to be able to dig ourselves out of it, and everything seems to be against us.  We get discouraged, and we get down, and we get depressed, and our minds are full of doubt, and we don’t seem to have any hope for the future.

Now there are a number of things that we could and should do in a situation like that.  We could, and should, go and talk to somebody and seek their advice and their help.  We could also see if we have allowed some sin to get hold of us in our lives that is keeping us down and depressing us spiritually.

But another thing that we can do, when we get caught in a bad pattern like this, is to turn to the Scriptures and try to find examples and patterns of other people who were in similar situations.  These examples will teach us lessons that can help us climb out of a bad pattern.  And, we can pray.

Now in this passage we find an example that should be able to help us in our Christian life.  An example of someone who did pray to God – who prayed that his life wouldn’t be stuck into a bad pattern.

CONTEXT

This book was written in the 5th century BC, and it was written to the post-exilic people.  That is, to the people who had returned from the exile.  They were trying to rebuild themselves and re-establish themselves in the land of Israel.  But things were not good for these people and they were discouraged and they were down and they seem to have got caught in a depressed state.

And so the writer begins with these long genealogies to show them that they had a history – a long history – of God at work in their nation.  That gave them some encouragement: If God had been busy with them in the past, then he was also busy with them now; and they had a great future ahead of them as well.

In this long list, most of the names are simply mentioned one after the other and we don’t often find much detail given to any one of these people.  But here and there we get a glimpse into the lives of one of these people.  in Chapter 4 we get an insight into the life of a man called Jabez.

We will see that he had…

1.  An unfortunate name,

2.  He prayed a believing prayer, and

3.  He had a gracious God.

The first point to notice here, then, is that he had

1. An Unfortunate Name

a)

Many of the names in the Old Testament had a special meaning;  when a child was born or as people lived they were given names that were associated with particular things.  Jabez had a name that was associated with his birth.

When he was born his mother gave him the name Jabez because it sounds like the Hebrew word for pain.  And she gave him this name saying, “because I gave birth to him in pain.”

All the women who have had children will know that pain is not an uncommon feature of giving birth.  There must have been something unique about the birth of this boy that caused his mother to give him this name, but we are not sure what that was,

There are other examples of people who were given names in the Bible that were associated with their birth: For instance, the name Samuel means “heard of God”, because his mother had prayed for his birth.

There was another boy called Ichabod, which means, “the glory has departed.”  You might remember when the Ark of God was taken into battle against the Philistines, that Hophni and Phinehas were accompanying the ark as priests.  But the ark was taken and Hophni and Phinehas were both killed in the battle.  Then word came back to the wife of Phinehas, who was pregnant.  And the terrible news of her husband’s death and of the ark being taken caused her to go into labour.  As she was in labour and gave birth she gave her son the name, Ichabod, “the glory has departed.” So, names had a special meaning.

b)

But they also has special significance for the person.  Sometimes a name represented the office or the position that a person was going to hold.  For instance the name, Jesus, means, “God saves” or “God is our salvation.” That’s exactly what Jesus had come to do – he had come to save people.

Or take the name, Nabal, the husband of Abigail, who later on became David’s wife.  His name meant “fool” – even his wife said that he was rightly named!  And so, names had both meaning and significance.

c)

Even more than that, names were thought to have a special power over people’s lives.  People believed that names had an influence on their life and experience and character.  That could be a good effect, or it could be a bad effect.  It could be a help to a person, or it could be a handicap to them.

Now Jabez did not like his name.  And he was convinced that his name would be a handicap in his life.  Who wanted a name that sounded like pain?  And so Jabez turned to God in prayer.

And so, we see that he not only had an unfortunate name but that he prayed…

2.  A Believing Prayer

You should notice here that Jabez prayed.  Now that’s a significant thing.  He was in a difficult predicament, or so he thought, and he had things against him.  But rather than struggle along on his own, he turned to God in prayer.

Now there is a lesson here for us.  When we go through struggles, how often don’t we just putter along on our own?  Trying to do things in our own strength?  Trying to muddle along helping ourselves, rather than going to God in prayer?

And sometimes things have to get really desperate before we turn to God in prayer.  But here is a man who went to God for his source of strength and help for the future.  And he was earnest in prayer.  So earnest that he “cried out to the God of Israel.  There was passion in his prayer; it came right out of his heart.

And we, too, need to pray earnestly, out of faith, with passion to God, believing that he will hear our prayer.  But notice especially the content of his prayer.  This man prayed for four things and each of these is significant for us as well.

a)  God’s Blessing

 He prayed first of all for God’s blessing on him.  Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “O that you would bless me.”

We often use that word “bless” as well, also in prayer.  “Lord bless this food, bless me, bless so and so.” But what are you actually saying when you pray that?  What do you mean by these prayers?” Well, to pray for God’s blessing on someone, or on ourselves, is to pray for the favour of God.  It is to pray that God will extend his kindness and his mercy and his goodness.

Jabez knew that he could pray for this because he was praying to the God of Israel.  He was praying to the God who had made promises to the people of Israel.  Promises that began right back in the days of Abraham, because God had promised to Abraham that he would bless him and that he would make him a blessing to many nations.  Jabez knew that because he was part of the nation of Israel, he was an heir to all of those promises that God had made to Abraham, and to Isaac, and to Jacob.

And you, too, are heirs of the promises of God.  You, too, because you belong to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ; you are part of God’s covenant family.  Which means that you have God’s promises given to you as well.  And you can pray to the God of Israel on the basis of his promises asking that God would bless you and give his favour to you as well.

b)  God’s Kingdom

But this man did not leave it general and broad like that.  No, he made it more specific and he prayed for a second thing as well.  Not only for God’s blessing but also for God’s kingdom.  He said, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory.” This could also be translated as, “enlarge my border”.

Remember that the people of Israel were living in the land of Canaan, a land that they had entered in the days of Joshua.  They had come into the land because this was the land that God had promised to his people Israel.  God also wanted to use the entry of the people of Israel as a judgment on the terrible immorality and evil of the nations that were living in Canaan at that time.  He used the people of Israel as an instrument of his judgment in the land of Canaan to clean out these nations, and to give the land to his people.

But we know from the books of Judges and Joshua that the people of Israel didn’t finish the job.  They left some people in the land.  And so the people of Israel, through their history, had to keep struggling to try and possess the land properly and thoroughly.

Jabez was in a situation where there were still other people, other pagan and heathen nations living around him.  And he wanted to enlarge his border.  We are given an example of that at the end of chapter 4.  And that’s why we read that passage about the tribe of Simeon who drove out the Hamites and the Meunites and the Amalekites.  They enlarged their border; and Jabez wanted to do the same thing.

Now he could have prayed an easier sort of a prayer.  He could have said, “Lord make my borders secure.”  Or, “keep me comfortable.”  He could have prayed for prosperity in the little area of land he already occupied.  Or if things were difficult he could have prayed for a transfer.  He could have prayed for a less difficult area.  But he didn’t do that.  No, he prayed that God would help him to enlarge his territory, to extend his border.

We need to remember to whom this was written.  This was written to the post-exilic people who were a small struggling minority in the fourth century BC.  And maybe the last thing on their mind was extending their borders.  Maybe all they had in mind was just maintaining their position.

But here was an example for them of a man with vision.  Proverbs 29:18 says, ‘where there is no vision the people perish.”  The post-exilic people needed vision.  They needed to pray prayers like this, that God would help them to extend their territory.

And you and I need to pray these prayers.  We need to pray like this.  You need to pray that God would help you to enlarge the territory of God’s kingdom – in the place where you are living.  Of course we don’t mean this in a physical sense, because we don’t live in the land of Israel anymore.  That was the Old Testament.

Today in the New Testament the whole world is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And we are to pray that the Kingdom, the borders of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus might be extended in this world; that his reign and rule may be recognised; that his kingdom may come.

You need to pray that for your home, for the University where you are studying, for the school that you attend, for the office or the factory that you work at, for the community that you live in, for this nation that we are part of; wherever you find yourself and in whatever place the Lord has put you.  You need to pray, “Lord, enlarge my territory; extend the reaches and borders of your Kingdom through my work for you; make your kingdom expand and prosper; may the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ increase; Your Kingdom come!”

So pray for God’s blessing, but pray also for God’s Kingdom.

Then the third thing that Jabez prayed for was God’s power.

c)  God’s Power

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ” let your hand be with me.”  Of course, God does not have physical hands, because he is a Spirit.  What we have here is a human way of speaking about God.  God’s hands in the Bible are a picture, a metaphor, a symbol of God’s power, of God’s strength, of God’s might.

You get a very similar reference to this at the end of Chronicles in 29:12 where it says in another prayer, “In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.”  You see, when Jabez prayed that God would help him to enlarge his territory he knew that he couldn’t do that on his own.  He knew that he was weak and frail.

He knew that only God himself could give him the power and the might to be able to do that.  And so he prayed for God’s strength.  And you too need to do the same thing.  You can’t extend the rule and the reign of Christ on your own.  You can’t go against the forces of Satan by yourself.

No, you need the power and the might of the God of Israel to be able to do that.  And so you need to pray, “Let your hand be with me.”

God’s blessing, God’s kingdom, God’s power, and then finally he prayed for God’s protection.

d)  God’s Protection

“Keep me from harm, so that I will be free from pain.”

Remember that names had meaning.  People then believed that names had the power to shape their lives.  Jabez knew that he had a name that was not positive.  So he prayed that the consequences of his name would not be played out in his life.  He prayed that his name would not be self-fulfilling.  He prayed that he wouldn’t have a life that was in keeping with his name.  He prayed that his name would not lie like a curse over his life; that he would not live in the paralysing fear of his name; that his life wouldn’t be lived in this sort of a rut.

Now you may not like your name, but today don’t believe that names have that sort of power over us.  But you may have something that is keeping you from being effective and living powerfully before God.  You may have an attitude or an outlook that is restricting your life before God, in his Kingdom.  You may have slipped into a pessimistic or a negative frame of mind.  You may have developed a bitter or gloomy outlook and attitude.

These sorts of attitudes and perspectives can keep us from doing the work that God calls us to do in His church and Kingdom.  These things can have a negative effect on our Christian walk.  We need to pray that God would keep us from the harm of these things.

3.  A Gracious God

Notice that God heard this man’s prayer.  He had an unfortunate name, but he prayed a believing prayer.  Then he found that he had a gracious God.  A God who answered his prayer, a God who heard his requests.  These two short verses show us that the threat of evil in our lives can be overcome by believing prayer and by the powerful hand of a gracious God.

That really is the lesson of the whole of the Old Testament.  Because the Old Testament really isn’t so much about the lives of these people.  Many of them are mentioned only by name.  Yet each one of these people were significant in God’s plan and God’s purpose.  The message of the Old Testament is about how God was at work in their lives; how God could take these people and use them as instruments of his purposes.  God is the main actor, God is the chief character.

The Old Testament is a book about God and his life and power in people’s lives: in the life of Jabez, in the life of the post exilic people that this book was addressed to, in your life, and in mine.  It is the story of how God is at work building towards the coming of the kingdom of His Son, which we can be part of.

You may well be caught in a rut, ground down into an old familiar pattern.  You may be doing little or nothing in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.  You may have become discouraged and despondent, and hopeless.

You must pray – pray for God’s blessing, his favour; pray for God’s power to help you enlarge your territory; pray that God’s kingdom may come in and through the rule and reign of Jesus Christ; and pray for God’s protection.

Pray that God will give you everything you need so that you can do his work and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world.

And pray with faith, pray with trust, pray believing that God will answer.  Because the Old Testament stories tell us that we have a God in heaven.  A God of all power.  A God who answers our prayers.

Amen.