A Prayer For God’s Direction
1 Chronicles 4:9-10
Preached by Pastor Tony Miano
Pico Canyon Community Church
March 11, 2001
Introduction: As some of you know, Mahria and I had the opportunity to go to a pastor/spouse retreat at the end of January. We spent a few days in Pismo Beach with other pastors and pastor’s wives from different areas of southern California. It was a great time of fellowship and good, old-fashioned “R & R.”
At one point, Mike Livingston, the Superintendent for the Western District of the Missionary Church denomination, shared a passage of Scripture that was unfamiliar to me. I had no idea at the time how significant the impact of this passage of Scripture would be on me personally, and as you will discover today, how significant its impact will be on Pico Canyon Community Church.
Although I don’t want to build up too much hype about what I am going to share, I believe today’s message may be one of the most important I preach regarding the future of our church. I’m going to let you stew on that for a little while.
The passage of Scripture Mike Livingston shared with us at the retreat was 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. Now 1 Chronicles is probably not a book in which you are going to spend a lot of devotional time. It’s sometimes known in church circles as “one of those ‘begat’ books.” You know the kind—long lists of genealogies, filled with names you can’t pronounce.
But in the fourth chapter of 1 Chronicles, nestled in the midst of Judah’s family tree, we find a man by the name of Jabez.
Who is Jabez?
We know next to nothing of this man, Jabez, beyond what we are told in these two short verses in a book of the Bible not often read by the average layperson in the church. In verse nine we read, “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother named him Jabez saying, ‘Because I bore him with pain.’”
We know that Jabez’s father’s name was Koz. We know he had two brothers by the name of Anub and Zobebah. We find this information in verse eight. We don’t know his mother’s name. We don’t know how large his family was. We don’t know what Jabez did for a living or if he ever had a family of his own. We probably wouldn’t find Jabez ever listed in “Who’s Who Among American Citizens” if he lived in our country.
As verse nine indicates, the name “Jabez” literally means, “I bore him in pain.” Yet Jabez was considered more honorable than his brothers. The word “honorable” in Hebrew is kabod. This Hebrew word has both a positive and negative meaning. In a negative sense, the word means, “to be heavy.” But the word has several different positive meanings, such as, “to abound more; great; magnitude, or glory.”
The word is used with a positive meaning in our passage. Jabez’s life was more abundant, of greater influence, and even glorious in comparison with the lives of his brothers. This seems to be a paradox when we consider that Jabez’s name was supposed to destine him to a life of misery.
What made Jabez more honorable than his brothers? How is it that someone who is named after the pain attributed to childbirth can be someone honorable enough to be mentioned in Scripture with such high esteem? It’s important to note that choosing a name for a child was of great importance in ancient Hebrew culture. In Jabez’s case, his name was intended to serve as a testimony of what his mother remembered most about giving birth to him, and what she expected his life to amount to.
Considering what the name “Jabez” meant, it’s significant that the writer of Chronicles would mention his name in the lineage of Judah, the earthly family tree for Jesus, and serves as proof that Jabez’s life was unique and special. This is why.
In verse one of chapter four, the writer of Chronicles starts by identifying “Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal.” But Judah had two sons who were born before Perez who are not mentioned in chapter four.
We can find the first two sons of Judah in Genesis 38. Their names were Er and Onan. In verse seven we learn about Er’s fate. “But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord took his life.” Onan, Judah’s second son faired no better. We learn what happened to him in verse ten. “But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; so He took his life also.”
So why is Jabez not only mentioned, but given the most attention in the entire chapter? Well, look at what he did to avoid the misery of life that his name predicted would follow him. He prayed. Look at what he did in order to experience the abundant life promised to those children of God who seek to live within the beautiful confines of His will. He prayed.
Jabez’s life became a contradiction of his name, a contradiction that came as a result of his prayer and the way God answered it. And it is this prayer, this simple yet super prayer, which is going to serve as our compass over the coming months, possibly the coming years, as we seek the Lord’s direction in planting our roots firmly into the communities we are trying to reach.
I want to share with you what has the leadership of our church so excited. Earlier in the week, Paul and I had an opportunity to sit down with a person of significant influence in the development of the next phase of the Stevenson Ranch community. When this individual initiated the meeting, he told me he wanted to talk about the future of our church.
I apologize for sounding vague. I need to make sure that as I share with you the content of the meeting, everyone understands that we are only in the preliminary stages of casting vision and no promises or commitments have been made on either side of the table.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possibility of securing land in order to build a church in Stevenson Ranch. The discussion focused on the next phase of development in Stevenson Ranch, which should be completed within the next three years.
The leadership of our church is about to begin the process of developing multiple proposals, which will first be presented to the Church Planting Committee of the Missionary Church, on March 20. Within the next two to three months, we will begin serious discussions with the developers of Stevenson Ranch to determine the feasibility of establishing a permanent church home in Stevenson Ranch.
With our study of the prayer of Jabez, we are beginning what we will call the “Navigating For The Future” campaign. The first step in this campaign is to share the vision with you, the church family. You know, Pastor Dave DeVries, of Lake Hills Community Church, has often reminded me that, “change is not an announcement.” That’s why we are going to focus on prayer this morning, and not the plan for how we’re going to see the vision realized.
We all must begin to pray. If we are going to set a course for the future of our church, if we are going to navigate in such a way that we stay on the course of God’s will, we must be a people who pray. In the prayer of Jabez we have a model for prayer that I believe God is going to use to prepare us to plant permanent roots in the community and realize the extent to which God will use this church to impact the world around us.
After our meeting on Monday, Paul and I sat in Starbuck’s, in Stevenson Ranch, with looks of stunned disbelief on our faces. We were amazed by how obvious it was that our meeting had been a divine appointment. We were both convinced that God was about to do something extraordinary in our church.
Now that the wheels had been slowly placed in motion, we began to brainstorm about what we needed to do to keep the momentum moving forward. We were bouncing ideas off of each other as if we were paddles in the old, simple Atari game of “Pong.”
I had tears in my eyes because I was completely overwhelmed with thoughts of where I believe God is going to take us as a church. I looked at Paul very intently and asked him, “Is our church ready to hear what we believe God wants us to do? We are so young and small. Are our people ready to hear our vision for the future?”
Paul immediately said, “Yes.” Then he leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment about what he just said, as if he surprised himself with his response. But then he leaned forward and said—and I will never forget these words as long as I live—he said, “You can never share vision too early. You can only share it too late.”
We are obviously not ready financially, numerically, or logistically to build a church in Stevenson Ranch today. But we are ready to begin navigating for the future.
Now if you are at all like me, the way I was earlier in the week after the meeting, then your head might be spinning a little. You might be thinking, “Why is Tony talking about land when we’re still trying to reach a membership of fifty people? Isn’t he thinking a bit too far ahead?”
You’re right. We are a very small church. We aren’t anywhere close to the millions of dollars it will take to see this vision realized. In fact, as I stand before you this morning, I look to the horizon and I don’t see how God plans to pull this off. But as I look ahead, far ahead, two to three years down the road, I do see God doing it, even though I may not know all of the details today. That’s what vision is.
Vision is not a looking into crystal ball or making outrageous predictions about the future. It is the belief in one’s heart that God is going to do something that is consistent with His Word and consistent with His will, and believing that what God is going to do will have an amazing impact on your life.
Having vision is having the confident belief that the promises of God are going to be realized in the future of our church. My confidence does not come from the number of people who are here this morning. My confidence is fueled by the knowledge that God is going to use us to touch the lives of people we have yet to meet with the gospel.
My confidence does not come from opening the offering box after church each week, although I am certainly encouraged by the way God has unexpectedly blessed us over the last year with timely gifts of generosity. My confidence comes from God’s Word, which makes this promise. “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).
Let me give you a tangible and recent example of this promise at work. After Paul’s feet and mine came back to the ground, I walked over to our church’s mailbox to check the mail. What I found waiting for me in the box was almost $4,000 in giving from supporters outside our immediate church family, the lion’s share of which was from Granada Hills Community Church. And more has come in since then. It was amazed, although I shouldn’t have been. God has been blessing us in extraordinary ways for over a year.
God is in this. God is really in this. But Paul and I did receive a few interesting looks from people walking by as we threw are arms around each other, started cheering, and jumped in circles, in the rain. I don’t think the people around Starbuck’s were ready to hear the vision.
My confidence, I must admit, is increased dramatically when I’m allowed to share in those precious times ministering to the needs of the people God has entrusted me to lead. The time of ministry and sharing several of us had after the service last Sunday is a beautiful example of what I’m talking about. But the primary source of my confidence comes from the assurance that God’s Word is true. This is why Jabez’s prayer is so important to me and I hope will be to you as well.
In the prayer of Jabez, we find four different points in which he sought God’s direction. To help us grasp, remember, and apply Jabez’s prayer to our own lives and the future of our church, we are going to look at these points as compass headings. Let’s see how we can use Jabez’s prayer as a compass for finding God’s direction.
Praying for Never-ending Favor
On a standard compass, the letter “N” stands for “north.” On our compass, it will represent God’s Never-ending favor. Jabez begins his prayer by crying out to God, “Oh that You would bless me indeed.”
Jabez is asking God to bless him in incredible and abundant ways. In ancient Hebrew writings, whenever we see the word “indeed,” it means that the writer is placing and enormous amount of weight and importance on what he is saying. The word “indeed” is equivalent to placing four or five exclamation points at the end of the sentence. Jabez’s tone is very emphatic and intense. There is no timidity in his voice.
In order to truly understand what Jabez is asking for in this part of his prayer, we need to have a clearly biblical understanding of what the word “bless” really means. The Hebrew word for “bless” is barak. It literally means’ “to invoke divine favor upon; to bring the benefits of God upon.”
In a sense, when Jabez prayed for God’s blessing, he was asking God to provide him with the truest kind of happiness. Some parts of the body of Christ seem to have a warped sense of what genuine blessing and true happiness really is. They gauge divine blessing by the amount of material wealth they acquire. To lack material possessions is to lack the blessing of God in their eyes. I won’t belabor the point.
You’ve heard me say this before. Our position in Christ, the extent to which He blesses our lives, is not determined by the amount of material wealth we possess. Proverbs 10:22 says, “It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, and He adds no sorrow to it.” It is not the sum total of what we possess that makes us rich. It is the unlimited blessings of God showered down upon us like cool rain falling on parched land that makes us wealthier beyond our dreams.
Often times when we ask for the Lord’s blessing we feel the need to express exactly how we want God to bless us. It’s almost as if we will only consider the prayer answered and the blessing to be received if we get that which we ask, in the manner and time we asked for it.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with being specific in our prayers. When we intercede for others, when we seek God’s forgiveness for our sins, we should be intentional, detailed, and even strategic, in our prayers.
But look at the way Jabez asked for blessing. “Oh that You would bless me indeed.” What is it that we don’t see in his prayer? We don’t see specifics. We don’t find Jabez asking for any one thing or any specific type of blessing.
I can see Jabez in my mind’s eye on his knees, with his hands raised above his head straining to touch heaven above, pouring out his heart before the Lord and appealing to God over and over again with the words, “Bless me!”
What we can see in Jabez’s prayer is a realization that when it comes to God’s blessing we cannot possibly ask beyond God’s ability to provide. I do think, however, we can fall woefully short by unwittingly trying to limit God to our specifics. We cannot even begin to comprehend all that God has for those who love Him.
Paul makes this very point in his first letter to the Corinthian church, when he quotes the prophet Isaiah. “But just as it is written, ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him’” (I Cor. 2:9). To being to comprehend what God is going to do through this church, we must ask God to bless us beyond what we can see, or what we have heard, or even what is on our hearts.
So often when we pray for blessings from God we bring little more before Him than a laundry list of things we want. We make bold plans for the future believing that our plans are just the way God is going to bring about His blessing for us when, in reality, we have absolutely no idea what God really intends to do for us and through us.
I wonder if God in heaven ever hears our prayers for blessing, shakes His head, and thinks, “Is that all you expect Me to do?”
Jabez’s prayer for blessing is so simple it’s profound. As you seek the blessing of God in your life, ask Him to do just that—bless you, bless you according to His will.
As Paul and I sat at the small coffee table in Starbuck’s we prayed that God would do great and amazing things through our church. I confessed to God as I prayed that it was difficult for me to concentrate because there was so much I wanted to ask for. There were so many details I was trying to work out in my own mind as I prayed. What I should have been doing is praying as Jabez did. “Lord, bless Pico Canyon Community Church. Bless our church family indeed!
Today, as we begin “Navigating For The Future,” we must begin with prayer. And that prayer must begin with asking for God’s never-ending favor. When you pray for the church, part of that prayer must be as simple, and as broad, and as bold as this. “Lord, bless the Pico Canyon family.”
This prayer must be built on an understanding that our God “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, [the power of the Holy Spirit]” (Ephesians 3:20). Whatever we envision for our church’s future, God envisions far more. A broad prayer such as this will encompass far more than just the numerical growth and financial resources necessary to see this vision become a reality.
It matters not how many seats are filled today or how many envelopes we find in the offering box today. What matters is that we begin, right now, praying that God will bless us with every kind of resource we will need to build His church. So pray that God will bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3), and watch what He does. Watch what He does!
Praying for Significant Influence
Now, let’s move south on our compass as we use Jabez’s prayer to help us navigate for the future. The second point of Jabez’s prayer is seen in the phrase, “and enlarge my border.” Here we see Jabez praying that God would let him have significant influence.
This point on our compass for navigating the future of our church is extremely important. When Jabez prayed to be a person of significant influence, he was asking God to give him more opportunities to have an impact in the world around him.
He was also praying that God would give him greater responsibility. How gutsy a move is this? How many of us really pray for greater responsibilities than we already have? I must confess that there are times when I find it difficult to ask for more responsibility that I already have. But I must pray this way if my life is going to have a significant impact for God’s glory.
Underneath our church’s name, on our logo, is the sentence, “Bringing the light of Jesus Christ to our community and the world.” In order to be this kind of church, we must be a church of significant influence. What does that mean?
Well, it doesn’t mean we have to be the biggest church on the block. It doesn’t mean we have to have the slickest programming. It doesn’t mean our advertising has to overshadow all the other churches. But it most certainly does mean we have to look beyond the comfortable walls of our cozy clubhouse. What God has in store for us has begun here, and we are truly blessed to have the clubhouse for our present home. But the work God is going to do through this body of believers will not end here. At the same time, we need to just always remember that the size of our church will never be as important as the substance of our message.
We must pray that God will extend our borders. We must pray as Jabez did. We must ask God for opportunities to have an impact on the world around us.
Praying for God to enlarge our borders is to pray that God will stretch our comfort zones and get us out of the boxes we call “our world.” It means that we must pray for divine appointments to impact unbelievers with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That may begin as close as our own living rooms.
We may have an opportunity this Easter to impact our community with the gospel. I’ve been talking with Pastor Mike Valdez, of Stevenson Ranch Community Church, about the possibility of doing a Sunrise Service together, Easter morning, at the park in Stevenson Ranch. This would be in addition to our regular Sunday morning service. If this works out, I should have more details for you in the next couple of weeks.
Although reaching out to a lost and dying world is in keeping with the Great Commission, some of us are uncomfortable with evangelism and outreach. We feel inadequate to share the gospel with a friend or family member, or certainly with a stranger. Be that as it may, we must work through our hesitancy if we can ever hope to see God enlarge the borders of our church.
Bruce Wilkinson has written an excellent little book called The Prayer of Jabez. In fact, Mike Livingston gave each of the pastors who attended the retreat I mentioned earlier the book. In the book, Wilkinson explains the reluctance believers have toward having a greater influence for Christ in their world.
He explains this reluctance by using two mathematic equations. The first equation describes the reluctant believer. It looks like this.
“My abilities + experience + training +my personality and appearance + my past + the expectations of others = my assigned territory” (Wilkinson, p. 40).
The prayer would sound something like this. “Lord, please use my abilities, such as they are. Give me the experience and training I need. Make me a better person and don’t let anyone find out what I’m really like. Help me to be what everyone expects me to be so I can have more influence.”
It’s easy to see, with so many self-assigned factors or conditions, why some people have a very difficult time not only praying that God would give them more significant influence, more opportunities and divine appointments, but have difficulty actually experiencing God’s provision in this area. We have a tendency to forget that it’s “not by might nor by power but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).
Wilkinson writes, “Our God specializes in working through normal people who believe in a supernormal God who will do His work through them . . . That means God’s math would look more like this: My willingness and weakness + God’s will and supernatural power = my expanded territory” (Wilkinson, p. 41).
Again we see simplicity in Jabez’s prayer. Unlike most of us, Jabez simply trusted in God and asked for significant influence. Jabez didn’t waste God’s time with an “if-then” prayer. You know the kind. “God, if you do this, then I’ll do that.”
Jabez knew that he was incapable on his own of having the kind of influence that would counteract the meaning of his name. God had to intervene in a mighty way.
The same is true for each of us and for our church. Our prayer for significant influence cannot be conditional. We must trust the Lord completely to enlarge our border according to His perfect timing and will. As we pray for God to expand our influence in the community, to the point that we have a permanent church home in the community, we must pray as though we consider it a fact of life and not some far-off dream.
We must also pray that God will provide the necessary leadership to cover our expansion. We must begin today praying for God to raise up men to serve as elders in our church. Whether they are men who are being discipled now or other men who have yet to start attending our church, we must ask God to enlarge our leadership base to facilitate our increasing influence, opportunity, and responsibility.
Praying for God’s Enabling Touch
As we travel around our compass, let’s head east. Jabez prayed, “and that Your hand might be with me.” Jabez had probably been told most of his life that he wouldn’t amount to much. How would you like to grow being told, “You’ve been a pain since birth”?
Jabez knew that if he were going to become a man of influence, with borders larger than he ever imagined—then God’s hand would have to be upon him.
Jabez prayed for God’s enabling touch. In order for us to see the will of God fulfilled in our lives and the life of our church, His hand must be upon us.
What we are setting out to do will take a great deal of wisdom, discernment, time, energy, and commitment from every person who calls Pico Canyon their church home. In the process, we must be very careful that we never pull away or pull back from the hand of the Lord. He is our strength. When we will run into trouble is if we ever begin to rely on our own strength instead of God’s. We need to remember that we can do nothing for the Lord, apart from the Lord.
It will be God’s enabling touch that will see us through every trial and triumph. Being in the hand of God in any circumstance is the ultimate place of security. Think of it this way. This will probably hit home more so if you have ever had a small child or if you’ve ever been a small child. I guess that covers everybody.
Guillermo, I’m going to use you and Gloria as an example. Let’s say that Guillermo and Gloria are taking a walk and they come up to a very busy street. It’s the middle of the day so there is a lot of traffic. Guillermo and Gloria wisely decide to cross the street at the crosswalk. The light changes in their favor. Guillermo takes Gloria by the hand and they start across the street.
You would think that Guillermo and Gloria would be relatively safe. After all they are following the rules of the road. But this is Santa Clarita. With the way some people drive out here, anything is possible. Guillermo and Gloria get about halfway across the street when Gloria decides to pull away from her Daddy, letting go of his hand and running across the street. If you are a parent like me, you just cringe picturing the scene in your mind. Now, how safe do you think Gloria is by not holding her daddy’s hand and running ahead on her own? Not very--right?
The same is true for you as a Christian and for our church, for that matter. In order for us to make sure we are staying within the will of God, safe and secure in His hand, we must make sure not to try to rush out ahead of Him.
Our Christian walk and the future direction of our church is much like Gloria in our story. Although we may have the right of way, although we may feel safe walking within a set of guidelines or parameters (much like the crosswalk), we are at much greater risk walking ahead of God by ourselves, than having God walk us across the street, holing our hand.
In order for us to realize the blessings that God wants to bestow on our church, in order for us to experience greater influence in our community, we must make sure we do not let go of God’s hand and strike out ahead of Him. As we pray for God’s hand to be upon our church, we must do so with a heart attitude that realizes that God’s timing is perfect. He never moves too fast, nor does He move too slowly.
There is a flipside to our story that Guillermo and Gloria have so graciously participated in. The scene is exactly the same, but this time Gloria pulls back. Now, Gloria is so sweet that I can’t really picture her doing this. But let’s say she’s having an off day. You’ve seen these kids at the mall or the amusement park. They are the ones that look like they’re being dragged behind the parent like a fifty-pound bag of potatoes. These kids are usually kicking, or screaming, or both.
Well, let’s say instead of pulling away from Guillermo and darting forward, Gloria pulls back, whether out of fear of the traffic or just plain old disobedience, from Guillermo and runs the other way. Is Gloria any more secure running back than she would be running ahead? No.
The point is this. As we pray for God’s hand to be upon us, we must also pray that we would not resist His leading out of a sense of fear or disobedience. We must pray earnestly, as Jabez did, that God’s hand would be constantly upon us. We must pray this knowing that God’s leading, regardless of the direction is safe and secure, and will result in blessing if we hold on tight to His hand. God’s perfect touch, being in His hand, will enable our church to do great things for Him.
Wary of the Enemy
We will finish our four directions by travelling west on our compass. Jabez ends His prayer by asking God to, “keep me from harm that it may not pain me!” Jabez is asking God to keep him wary of the enemy.
As we step out in faith, trusting God to make our church a mighty instrument for His sovereign plan, there will be a great deal of temptation along the way. We need to be wary, not only of what Satan may throw at us corporately and individually, but of what the world may throw at us. We also need to be wary, we need to be very discerning, of what we can do to ourselves by way of temptation.
We looked at a couple of these temptations in our story about Guillermo and Gloria. As we move forward, as we begin navigating for the future, there will come times when we may be tempted to pull ahead of God or dig our heals into the ground and yell, “I won’t go! You can’t make me!”
There will be ample opportunity to quit along the way. There will be people in the world, even people within the Christian community, who will say that we are thinking too large, that we’re thinking beyond our church’s infrastructure or maturity, or that we’re thinking too soon. They may lovingly encourage us to quit.
There will be times of struggle when we can begin to covet the ministries of other church families. We must be wary of those times. As we pray for the Lord’s protection from any form of harm, we must include prayer for protection from our own sinful thoughts.
Let me assure you of this. We are setting out to build one church--Pico Canyon. We are not setting out to build Grace Baptist. We are not setting out to build Grace Community. We are not setting out to build Lake Hills or Granada Hills. All of these churches have fine ministries in their own right. Although aspects of our ministry here may resemble the good things about each of these churches, and others, we have not been called to re-invent the wheel or duplicate these other churches.
He is calling us to build something new--not better, not because we know something they don’t--just new. He is calling us to build a God honoring and worshiping, Bible teaching church in this community for His exclusive use and divine purpose. We must be wary of the enemy’s attempts to take our focus off the task at hand and place it on the success or failure of other parts of Christ’s body. We must not covet or fear what we see happening in other ministries.
You know, there are those in the body of Christ, people I admire and respect a great deal, who say that we shouldn’t have planted a church in this community. They say there are already too many churches in the area and planting another church is just depleting leadership and ministry resources from other healthy churches. I would agree if our mission were to simply draw sheep from other folds to build our church. But we have planted this church to raise new sheep, to bring new people to Christ, from the 150,000 or more people in this valley who do not know Him as Lord and Savior.
We must pray that God will keep us wary of temptations to compromise our message. In today’s church, there is growing influence to do church differently than it has been done before. Now I do not question their sincerity, their compassion for the lost, or their faith in Christ. But theirs is a belief system that says, “Unless we gear Sunday morning toward the unbeliever, toward the unchurched, we will have no hope of reaching them.”
Some of those who believe this way say it’s not enough to worship God and teach the Word on Sunday morning. You have to do more. And they have numbers to bolster their claims. Some of the biggest churches in the country follow this philosophy of ministry.
I think a pragmatic, “if it seems to work, it must be right,” approach to ministry can trivialize the gospel message. At Pico Canyon we will follow but one church growth method, the one contained in the Word of God. The health of our church will be determined, in part, by how closely we follow the teaching of those who planted the first churches; not by following models that say the way God originally grew the church is insufficient to reach the lost in today’s society.
A Biblical Model For Church Growth
Acts 2:37-47
Now, if I’m going to make such a statement, I should take a moment and describe what that biblical model looks like. Turn to Acts 2:37-47.
The people were getting saved through the preaching of the Word (vv. 37-39). The people were growing in their faith (vv. 40-41). The people were students of the Word (v. 42a). The people had a social structure built on mutual care, fellowship, communion, and prayer (vv. 42b, 44-46). The people had a great sense of awe and reverence for God (v. 43). The people were actively leading others to Christ (v. 47). This is the practical and biblical way we should seek to grow our church
Although I’ve mentioned some specifics, what we see in Jabez’s prayer is, once again, the boldness of a broad prayer. Jabez prayed for protection from all that the enemy might throw at him. Since we cannot anticipate the enemy’s every move, and we shouldn’t be looking for the enemy under every rock, when in doubt, pray that God will guard Pico Canyon and each person who makes up this church from all harm and the grief that comes with it.
God’s Response
Ultimately, the reason we should model our prayer for this church after the prayer of Jabez is found in the last sentence of verse ten. “And God granted him what he requested.”
As we pray boldly for God’s never-ending favor, the privilege of having significant influence in the world, His enabling touch to guide the way, and for the wisdom to be wary of the enemy’s schemes, we must do so with the confidence of knowing that God will grant our requests.
God gave His Son, first and foremost, to make it possible for us to have forgiveness for our sins and to make it possible for those whom He has chosen to spend eternity with Him in heaven. And through this awesome and perfect gift, we can come before the Lord boldly and confidently in prayer and ask for His blessing. We can ask Him to enlarge our borders and expect Him to do it. We can pray that His hand will be upon us, and He will do it. And we can pray for His divine, Fatherly protection, and we will receive it.
Jabez’s life went from a life of pain to a life of gain because of the way he prayed. If we, as a church, pray as Jabez did, not simply mimicking his words, but following the characteristics of his prayer, then we will be heading in the right direction, as we navigate for the future.
Let’s pray.
