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All right, First Chronicles chapter
number one this morning. Church family, I'll be honest with you,
whenever I would come in my Bible reading to First Chronicles chapter
one, one through nine, I did not like it, all righty? And
I know that we're supposed to like all scripture, okay? So
I'm telling you the fleshly side of me. So when I get to my time
that I'm gonna have to read the genealogies, and I hesitate saying
it that way, I plow through it. I start in chapter number one,
and if I can't, I don't stop until I get to chapter number
nine so I can say we made it, all righty? What we have to understand,
by the way, I have had preachers say. that they stopped, and I
know this sounds crazy, I wouldn't do this, but they said, I don't
read from the Old Testament, I only read the New, and that's
stupid, and I'm gonna tell you why it's stupid. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness. Why? That the man of God, or
woman of God, that the man of God may be perfect, that means
complete, throughly furnished unto all good works. We need
the Old Testament as much as we need the New Testament. I'll
give you another reason. Jesus told Satan himself, man
shall not live by bread alone, but by? Not some, not what we
like, but every word. And so we need the genealogies.
And you say, Pastor, what am I getting out of genealogies?
What you have to do is you have to look at the scriptures as
this. It's not man writing you a letter. It's God writing you
one. And so God did not need filler for the scripture He did
not need to put all these hard names in there so that we could
help our pronunciations of people's names He didn't I'm for sure
guarantee is some of these names in here. You don't want to name
your children All righty, but God had a reason for giving us
the genealogies and there's I think there's several reasons They're
in your lesson and I'm gonna deal with one particular thing
this morning But I do want to remind you about the genealogies,
why they're important. Now, this morning I do want to
read a few verses of Scripture to get us started and then we'll obviously
look at some more. But let's look at chapter 1, verse 1. So
when we read the genealogies, this is what we most of the time
sound like, Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mehelelio, Jared, Enoch,
Thuzillah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of
Japheth, Gomer, and Magog, and Medei, and Javan, and Tubal,
and Meshach, and Tyrus, and the sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz, and
Riphath, and Togarmah, and the sons of Javan, Elisha, and Tarshish,
and Kittim, and Dodonim." How many is done? All right, I'm
done, all right. Now, some of you say, well, you didn't pronounce
those correctly. Then you give it a try, all righty? I'm just
trying to tell you that when we read the scriptures, I'm going
to read those as best as I possibly can when I'm reading through
my Bible. I'm going to make sure I read through them the best I can.
I don't think you should skip the genealogies because you have
a hard time reading them, all righty? And I want to tell you
why. It's because God put them in the scripture for a reason.
And if I don't even know all the reasons, I know this one
thing. He's the one that wrote it, all righty? But again, can
I just remind you of some things about the genealogies, okay,
that are mentioned in this, again, that we can think, what is the
purpose, or what is God trying to teach us? Well, I think number
one, the genealogies teach us that the Messiah came from the
line of David. And you think that's not very, very important,
but can I just remind you, Satan tried to disrupt that line again,
and again, and again. You know why? Because the prophecy
says in Isaiah chapter 11, In other words, that branch would
be Jesus Christ coming from the stem of Jesse, which means David,
which means Jesus had to be born from the ancestral line of David. Why is that important? Well,
if God could lie there, He could lie somewhere else. I just want
you to understand, the genealogies are important, and the order
of it all is important. You know, Satan tried to disrupt
that line of David when Athaliah became queen, and she tried to
destroy all the seed royal, but she missed one. You know why
she missed one? Because God promised that Jesus
Christ would come from that line. Satan himself tried through Herod
to kill all the babies that were born in Bethlehem, all right,
from age two and under. But guess what? He missed one,
all right? And it's because there's prophecies that God gave, and
those prophecies came through the genealogy of generationals.
Number two, the genealogies teach us that there are good examples
to follow. Now, I can't tell you. what the life of each and
every one of these individuals, but God does tell us about some
of them. I mean, when you look at the genealogies, you're going
to find Abraham, Isaac, David, Adam. I mean, you follow through,
you're going to find some key people in there that they were
good examples for us to follow. And can I say the flip side of
that? The genealogies, God didn't try to color something one way. He told us some bad examples.
In fact, in your Bible there in 1 Chronicles, right across
the page, chapter 2, verse number 7, and the sons of Carmi, A car,
the what? Troubler of Israel, all right?
Now, we call him Achan from the book of Joshua, but you look
through these and you're gonna find there were some people in
here, they were not the greatest of people, all right? But they
were still in genealogy, so the genealogies teach us some good
examples, they also teach us bad examples. The genealogies
also show us that the historical accuracy of the scriptures, so-and-so
begot so-and-so, so-and-so begot so-and-so, the historical accuracy. By the way, our Bible's not just
historically accurate, it's scientifically accurate. These guys that want
to say the earth is flat, how dumb can you be? God said a long
time ago in the Bible that I'm the circle of the earth. God
said it was a circle long before man figured it out. So we have
the accuracy of scripture in a lot of different ways, especially
here, the historical accuracy. I think the genealogies teach
us that God takes an interest in people. Think about that.
I quote the verse often, I say the verse, but Psalm chapter
eight, verse number four, when the Bible says in verse four
and five, what is man that thou art mindful of him? Think about that.
Why would God think about you? But God takes an interest in
people. The song that Pierce just sang, you know, it matters
to the master. You know why? Because he cares
about us. So the genealogies, again, are such a reminder that,
yeah, we might be a small speck on this earth, but we're a big
blob in the sight of God, amen? God knows what's going on in
our life, all right? No accidents with him. again
shows that God takes an interest in individual people. I think
the genealogy also teaches spiritual truths to live by. Now, Church
Family, if we were to go through the genealogies I know that there's
a lot of names hard to say and sometimes those names represent
a life that we don't know because God doesn't tell us much anything
else about them. But there are a few glimpses of pictures, I
call them snapshots in the Scriptures, of things that God wants us to
know about, alright. I'm not going to go through all of them
but in 1 Chronicles chapter 2 verse number 55 you're going to find
the Rechabites are mentioned. Did you know that there is a
whole story about the Rechabites by Jeremiah? Jeremiah calls Jonathan
the son of Rechab and says, And Jonathan says, I ain't doing
it. He's not using the word ain't, but anyway. He said, I'm not
doing that. And he says, God uses the Rechabites as an example
of obedience. And he says, children of Israel,
I tell you to do something. You can't do it. But Jonathan, the
son of Rechab, his father said, don't drink wine. He doesn't
drink it. So he uses them as illustrations. There were definitely
some glimpses or snapshots of these different people. I think
another one, this one I want you to see. It's kind of interesting.
Look at chapter 5, 1 Corinthians 5, look at verse 18. Now, there's
not very many stories in these genealogies, but there are a
few. another one of them. 1 Chronicles 5 verse 18, "'The
sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh,
valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot
with bow, and skillful in war, were four and 40,703 score.'"
Four and 40,000, 444,760 that went out to war. "'And they made
war with the Hagarites, with Jeter, and Nephish, and Nodab,
and they were helped against them. And the Hagarites were
delivered into their hand, and all that were with them, and Why?
For they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated
of them because they put their trust in Him. And they took away their
cattle and their camels, 50,000, and of sheep, 250,000, and of
asses, 2,000, and of men, 100,000. Obviously it was less than, more
than two to one. A great example of a person who
puts their trust in God, the Reubenites, the Gadites, the
Half-Tribe Manasseh. So there's just interesting glimpses of
stories and things that we can learn about. I like that chapter
number six, verse 31 through 48, it goes through all the singers.
in the ministry that they had as far as being a Levite or singing
and how they served their Lord through music. By the way, people
ought to serve the Lord if you've got the talent. If you don't
have the talent, well, you can work at it, but you ought to use your
talents for the Lord. Amen? Out of all this, I don't know,
you probably already know, but if I was to pick a story out
of these genealogies, the one I'm gonna pick is gonna be Jabez.
And to be honest, when I first got this, got this lesson, I
told myself, I'm not gonna, I told myself, I don't think I'm gonna
teach on Jabez, because really that's personal to me, and I
think it's important, but I wanted to find something else. And Church,
I mean, I could go through several stories this morning, but I just,
in the last, these next 15, 20 minutes, I wanna talk to you
about Jabez's prayer for just a moment. Can I just tell you
that I feel like that we as independent Baptists have shunned away from
the Jabez prayer because the non-denominational people have
picked it up. All right? What's your treatment? What are
we going to do? There are people who use portions of Scripture. Are
we going to shun every portion of Scripture because some denomination
uses it? How many remember the craze that it was where people
used to have those bracelets they wore? What would Jesus do?
Remember that craze? I mean everybody had it on their
t-shirts and they were wearing it on their wrist. independent
Baptist said, Oh, man alive we can't do that. Well, what are
we not supposed to do? Not supposed to do what Jesus does? I think we are supposed to do what
Jesus does. It's crazy. So, I think for some reason,
I think that because of the association of different denominations or
whatever they have looked at these verses and they teach these
verses that I think as a Baptist we say, Oh, we shouldn't do that.
You can't just associate Scripture because somebody else's uses
that Scripture. Can I tell you there's denominations
that I would not agree with but they're right on salvation and
wrong on everything else. So what am I not saved? I'm just
trying to say that I think these two verses are very important.
So would you turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 4, let's look at the
two verses together this morning. 1 Chronicles chapter 4, look
at verse 9 and 10. Jabez, Jabez the word Jabez means
sorrowful or sorrow. And Jabez was more honorable
than his brethren. Only two verses we have verse
9 and 10, And his mother called his name Jabez, because I bear
him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of
Israel, saying, First of all, O that thou wouldest bless me
indeed. Second, and enlarge my coast. Third, and that thine
hand might be with me. Fourth, and that thou wouldest
keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me." And I want you
to read the last phrase of verse 10 with me together, you ready?
And God granted him that which he requested. Now I don't know
about you, but when I saw that years ago, and by the way, I
don't know that I've ever heard a message that inspired me or
encouraged me concerning this. I don't even know how long I've
been praying the Jehovah's Prayer, I have no idea. You know as well
as I do, if you've been a member here very long, I believe very
strongly in the model prayer, and I believe very strongly in
the J-Best prayer. Every day of my life, and there's very
few things I can say every day of my life, but every day of
my life I'm going to start the day with praying the model prayer
and the J-Best prayer, because I believe that those are prayers
that God has given us. You know, it's like the disciples
coming to Jesus. Jesus, teach us to pray. Well, what are the
disciples asking Jesus to pray? They've been around Him. Because I'm just telling you
as Christians, sometimes we don't know what to say. I know when
I was younger, too, the same way. The preacher would always
get up, read your Bible, pray, read your Bible, pray, read your
Bible, pray. And I'm thinking to myself, okay. So then I go and I try
to pray, and I spend two minutes in a quote-unquote prayer closet,
and I'm thinking, this is lasting forever, and I say everything
that comes to my mind, and I'm done. Then I start repeating
the two minutes that I just got in. And it makes more sense to
me why the disciples came to Jesus, Jesus, would you please
do what John did and teach us to pray? interesting the model
prayer is mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter
5 and 6, or Matthew 5, I'm sorry Matthew 6. It's mentioned in
the model, it's mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount. And
the only other place the model prayer is mentioned is when the
disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray. And He used this
as the same prayer. Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Now,
church, you know, and I'm not teaching them how to pray, it's
not recitation. The Catholics do that, all right?
It's praying the topics of that prayer so I don't have to think
about what I'm going to pray for. So when I get up this morning,
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, I'm going to start
by praying, God, I want to just thank you for who you are and
what you do in my life. I don't deserve it. Thank you for loving
me. Thank you for showing me mercy,
not give me what I deserve. Thank you for grace, give me
more than I deserve. Thank you that you are not just a friend,
you're my friend. A friend that's to get closer
than a brother, a friend that loved at all times and a friend that laid
down his life. Thank you for peace and joy and help and strength.
Thank you for my family. Thank you for ministry. Thank
you for good health. What's the model prayer? The
model prayer is not our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
The model prayer is giving us what to pray. And you break down
the model prayer and that's not the message this morning. You
can do that. I feel the same way thinking about the Jabez prayer.
I think a person needs to pray for themself before they pray
for anybody else. Intercessory prayers should never take place
before one pass personal prayer. Personal prayer is the model
prayer and the Jabez prayer. The Jabez prayer is a little bit
different. After I get into praying the model prayer every day, the next thing I pray
is I pray the Jabez prayer. I don't repeat it, I don't recite
it, but I pray the topics of the Jabez prayer. prayer was answered. All we know about Jabez is he
prayed this prayer and God answered his prayer. So, what was his
prayer? Are you ready this morning? I
know this is so elementary, but it's what the Lord has for us
this morning. Jabez says this, the very first thing, he says
four things, "'Bless me indeed, enlarge my coast, that Thine
hand might be with me, that Thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may
not grieve me.'" There's four topics in the Jabez prayer. And
the Jabez prayer is personal as well as the Jabez prayer is
seemingly selfish because of all the personal pronouns in
there. indeed. Enlarge my coast, that thine
hand might be with me." All the personal pronouns, this is something
for us. So, I pray. So, the first part,
he says, Jabeb's prayer was, he says, bless me indeed. Indeed
meaning surely. Bless me. The word bless means
graciousness, kindness. It's where we get the word benefit
or dessert, amen. Anybody like dessert? I like
dessert. Last night we got an eating supper
and my wife says, Dear, I don't think we have much here for dessert
unless you want those chocolate-covered raisins in there. And I said,
Dear, dessert is overrated. We don't need any sugar for dessert.
I was joking. And everybody at the table knew
I was joking. The meal is not done without something sweet,
all right? I know what you're thinking. You're going to die
early, but you're going to die too. And you're going to die healthy,
and I'm going to die unhealthy, but we're both dying. I'm just letting
you know, all right? So I like dessert. So I went
in there and she said, you're going to get something anyway
for dessert. I didn't say a word, but I was, and I did. So when God says,
he says Jabez prayer, he says, bless me indeed, you're asking
for dessert. You're asking God to show kindness, the word blessed,
to show kindness to you. Now I do it in a couple of different
areas. You can do it any way you want. I asked the Lord to
bless me physically. I asked the Lord that would you please
help me physically, help me to keep the excess weight off, and I've
got tons of it right now. And I said, Lord, would you please
bless me physically? Would you please help me to lose weight?
Would you please help me take care of the temple that you've given me? Would you
please help me to take care of what you've given me? All right,
bless me indeed physically. I asked the Lord to bless me
financially. Now I've done this for years. I don't repeat a prayer,
but I pray. I say, Lord, would you please
bless me financially? I ask you to please supply for this, this,
and this. In some cases I thank Him for how He has supplied.
But I ask Him, would you please supply for me financially? I
ask the Lord, third of all, I ask the Lord, would you please bless
me spiritually? Would you show kindness to me? Would you open up the
Scriptures to me? Would you help me be a Spirit-filled
Christian? Would you help me spiritually be what I'm supposed to be? I'm
not as a pastor, but as a Christian. Bless me indeed. Second one.
Not only did I ask the Lord to bless me indeed, I asked the
Lord to enlarge my coast. The word coast means fence, territory,
boundary. So you know what you should be
doing? Now, by the way, for years I said, Lord, would you please
enlarge my coast, okay? Now I ask the Lord, would you please give
me wisdom and desire and strength to be able for the enlargement?
Because he got enlarging it so quickly, I said, okay, I'm not
ready for this. So enlarge my coast means to enlarge, to give
me more court territory. Now I'm just going to tell you
what I pray, you pray whatever you want, because obviously it's a guide. What's the model prayer? It gives
us an example of how to pray. I think the J-Biz prayer is the
same way. Bless me indeed, enlarge my coast. So I ask the Lord,
God, would you please enlarge my coast? Would you give me more
fence, more territory, more influence? And then I ask for certain areas.
Lord, would you please enlarge my coast when it comes to missions?
Would you please show us, our church, what missionaries we
should support? Would you give us more missionaries to support? Would you enlarge
our coast so we might be able to get the gospel farther out? Enlarge my coast, missions,
material. Now this is me, this is not you,
but I ask the Lord every day of my life, God, would you please
help me to continue to write? I'm writing a new book now, right
now, Proverbs. My wife is actually close, somewhat close, to finishing
the final proof on New Testament Bible story snapshots. Took me
three years or two years to write. And so I just started another
book. But I want to influence people long after I'm dead. You
didn't say anything about me dying. But long after I'm dead. I want to print it. I want something
in print. That's what we have mercy to. I want that stuff to
go out. I want to influence people. So enlarge my coast, materials,
missions, materials, men. I asked the Lord that he'd help
the college, that God, the people that he brings here, that God
would give them every class period and when they're in ministry,
give them what they need. Help me to influence them. Enlarge
my coast as far as influencing people. That's my family as well
as you, by the way. Missions, materials, men, media. I know
that sounds crazy. I don't have it in front of me
here, but I think we just crossed, I think, Josh is not in Houston
class. I'm pretty sure I saw, I think
we just crossed 100,000 listens from Sermon Audio of people who
listen to the messages from this church. To me, I asked the Lord,
Lord, would you please give me the message for the people here,
as well as every other person that might listen to that message
somewhere else? I can't tell you, some of my audio is kind
of interesting because it shows you every state that somebody
listens to it and every country that somebody listens to one
of our messages. It's really amazing. Enlarge my coast, missions, men,
media, materials. I want God to let me to be able
to influence more people. And by the way, church family,
it's not just a pastor thing, it's a Christian thing. You're breathing. You
have children. You have people that you work
with. You have ministries. You should still want to influence
people. and then that thy hand might be with me. All right,
now we might not like this one very much, okay? But I find in scripture
there's four things that God puts his hand on, all right?
And as far as an example of God's hand, I think God gives his hand
when it comes to direction. In other words, when we have
our kids, when they're younger, and I want you to stay with me,
hold my hand. We were directing them. That's
a hand of direction. I think that God has a hand of
protection where he puts his hand around somebody and he protects
them. And I ask God, would you please
protect me from sin, from harm? Help me, protect me today. That's
Jabez prayer. I don't like the next one, and
so I'm careful how I pray it, okay? The next thing I see in the scripture
is that God uses his hand for his correction, whether you like
it or not, that's what it is. So I asked the Lord, Lord, if
you have to correct me, help me be wise enough to accept it.
Help me not to despise it. I never say, God, would you please
correct me. I don't say, give me a swat. I don't do that. I think the last one is God puts
his hand upon a person as far as power. God puts his hand upon
a person for ministry or to be used. That's the spirit of God.
But God puts his hand on a person. So the J-Bearer's prayer, bless
me indeed and enlarge my coast that thine hand might be with
me. That thou wouldest keep me from evil. Keep me from evil that may not
grieve me. I don't know if you know this
or not or if you've ever felt this way before, but have you ever
done something wrong and it bothered you? I think that's where the
grieve is. I think it's just like, this
morning I struggled in my mind. I was at McDonald's this morning
preparing for the message and there was a fellow across from
me, and I think he was transient, but a fellow was across from
me. You know, when I'm preparing for the message, I try not to,
I don't really talk to people. I just study and prepare, but that person
was crossing me and I just, in my mind, I want to help people.
I decided I was going to, I wanted to get him something to eat when
I left. I was going to give him something to eat. And I've got earbuds in and the
whole time I'm studying, he's cussing on the phone with somebody
and just using the Lord's name in vain. It just, it was really
irritating me. So I just asked the Lord, I said, Lord, I don't
mind, I'll buy whatever you want me to do and give him a track or
however you want me to do it, but let me know. And when I got
to my car, I don't want to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. To be
honest, I didn't buy him anything. After spending 30 minutes and
all he could do is use foul language, I just, I didn't want to. And
I just asked the Lord, what am I supposed to do? I said, God,
I'm willing to. I was almost, I don't want to be grieved. I
didn't want to pull out of that parking lot and find out, okay,
you know, it doesn't matter. I wanted you to help him anyway,
because I have gone through the grieving process of not doing
what the Holy Spirit tells me to do, and then I'm grieved about
it. And I can't go back and change something that I should have
done. Okay, so sometimes sin in our life, it does that. You
know, we say something we shouldn't have said. We do something we wish
we wouldn't have done. Aren't you glad for 1 John 1,
9? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to what?
I don't live grieved. You know why I don't live grieved?
I don't live grieved because of 1 John 1.9. But can I just
tell you that when I sin, I still have that grieving. So I believe
the last part of this verse, that that would just keep me
from evil. The word keep means to guard or protect. Keep me
from evil, that it may not grieve me. I don't want to live the
Christian life grieved. I want to live the Christian
life knowing I did what the Lord wanted me to do. All of us are
human and all of us have sinned. And sometimes we use that as
a justification. thankful for forgiveness, but I don't like
being grieved. You know in our lives there are
three types of sins in the Scriptures. There is that first of all the
sin of ignorance, doing things wrong that we don't really know.
As we grow in our faith we figure out, oh I guess I shouldn't be
doing that. The second type of sin is secret sins. These all
come from Psalm chapter 19. Secret sins are those sins that
we do that we don't want anybody else to know about because we know
that they are wrong. Third type of sin mentioned there is presumptuous
sins. It means proud or arrogant. It means I'm going to do them.
I don't care what anybody else thinks. I'm going to live my life the way
I want to live. No one's going to tell me what to do. I don't think the grieving comes
from presumptuous sins. Because by the way, when you
get to that place where you're committing presumptuous sins, God kills
people for presumptuous sinning. I really think it's more the
secret sin. that grieving. Sins of ignorance? Oh, I didn't
know it was wrong, but when I find out, I want to change. But secret
sins are those things, man, my flesh, I really enjoy doing this,
but the problem is, as soon as I do it, oh, I feel so bad for
doing it. That's what he's talking about.
So, I don't know if you pray the Jabez prayer. I'd encourage
you to do so. But this morning when I got up, I promised you,
every day of my life, since I know that he did it for Jabez, he'll
do it for me. Father, bless me indeed, enlarge my coast, that
Thine hand might be with me, that Thou wouldest keep me from
evil, that it may not grieve me. It's just part of your personal
prayer, that's all it is. I would encourage you to start
praying the Jabez prayer. Isn't it amazing, in the genealogies,
God purposely said two verses about a fellow named Jabez. And
what do we know about him? God answered his prayer.
The Genealogies God's view of Israel's history
Series Bible Overview
| Sermon ID | 26221622532217 |
| Duration | 23:24 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | 1 Chronicles 1:1 |
| Language | English |
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