From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I fall into the same malaise that so many other Christians fall into. We start to pray small. We start to pray safe prayers. We pray little prayers. We forget we're coming to the King, and so we just ask God for crumbs, just little things, just safe things. God says, "Hey, when are you going to really believe me for something big?"

Larry Nobles: How big do you pray? God really does want us to pray big as we trust and seek a big God, a God so big that we can't comprehend it, but we know He's real. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve and today, part one of the lesson, Praying Big. In this edition, he'll help us discover how God wants us to pray and how our prayers can glorify God and get the response from our Lord that brings us real joy and peace.

The message is one of six in the series, Attitude for Altitude, encouraging us to have a "God is able" attitude regardless of the trials and troubles and tough times we face in life. Remember, From His Heart, you can listen to past messages including the first two lessons that we've already aired from this series and also download a free MP3 of any broadcast to share with others who may need to know just how big God is. Just go to fromhisheart.org to do that. Let's look now at 1 Chronicles chapter four to explore what God teaches about the importance of and the power in the act of praying big.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: One thing about Donald Trump, he comes up with some pretty good sayings periodically, and this one he came up with, I really like. He said, "As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big." Think big! That's pretty good, and Donald Trump thinks big, and Donald Trump has experienced a lot of big in his life.

I'd like to take that quote and I'd like to twist it and alter it just a little bit and present to you this quote: As long as you're going to be praying anyway, pray big. Pray big! Why? Because God is a great big God. We're in a series on attitudes. We've entitled this series, Attitude for Altitude: How to rise up above your circumstances, your situations, your problems. It has to do with your attitude.

Today we want to talk about the attitude of holy audacity, the attitude of asking God for big things in life. God is a big God. God wants you to ask for big things. One of my favorite poems says this: "You are coming to a king, large petitions with you bring; For His grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much." So pray big.

I fall into the same malaise that so many other Christians fall into. We start to pray small. We start to pray safe prayers. We pray little prayers. We forget we're coming to the King, and so we just ask God for crumbs. We ask Him for sardines when He wants to give us steak and filet mignon. God is the God of abundance, and He's the God who owns everything, and the cattle on a thousand hills belongs to God, and we so often ask God for just little things, just safe things. God says, "Hey, when are you going to really believe me for something big?"

I think that a lot of times, one of the reasons we don't do that is we don't really think about the fact that God can do anything. I mean, we say we do, but sometimes that doesn't register. When I was a little kid, we had a pool in my backyard growing up in California. I was the fifth of six kids, and so my brothers and sisters, most of them, they knew how to swim. But my little sister and I, we didn't know how to swim, and I was just a little guy, and I was learning about this thing called swimming.

I remember I was always very afraid of getting in water that was over my head, which was a smart thing. If you don't know how to swim, be careful about getting in water over your head, right? So if you're five or six years old, you can't go in very deep water. I remember talking to my dad, and my dad could swim. Our pool was eight feet deep.

I remember saying to my dad one day, I said, "Dad, could you swim in water that was 10 feet deep?" He said, "Yeah, I could do 10 feet deep." I was like, "Wow, that is awesome. That's two feet deeper than our pool. My dad can swim in that!" And I said, "Well, Dad, what if it were 20 feet deep?" He said, "I could handle that. 20 feet, I know how to swim."

I said, "100 feet? You're in water 100 feet deep." He said, "I could swim in the ocean if it were a thousand feet." I was blown away. I was telling my friends, "My dad, he can handle a thousand feet!" Now, I didn't figure it out that once you can swim, it doesn't matter. Hey, God can swim in water that's a million feet. God can do anything because He's God. And so He says, "Hey, I'm a big God, so why don't you bring some big prayers to a big God—me—and let's see some big things happen."

For our study today, we want to look at a guy named Jabez. Jabez was a guy who knew how to pray big. Jabez is a guy that, let's face it, if Bruce Wilkinson hadn't written the book, The Prayer of Jabez, none of us would know who Jabez was. Jabez gets two verses in all of the Bible. He's tucked into 1 Chronicles. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are all names.

It's just genealogies. It's like reading a Hebrew telephone directory. Let me give you an example. This is why people don't read 1 Chronicles chapter one through chapter nine, because it reads like this: 1 Chronicles chapter four, verse one. "The sons of Judah were Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal. And Reaiah, the son of Shobal, became the father of Jahath, and Jahath became the father of Ahumai and Lahad. These were the families of the Zorathites. And these were the sons of Etam: Jezreel, Ishma, and Idbash."

Love that name, Idbash. I don't know anybody named Idbash other than this guy. "And the name of their sister was Hazzelelponi." She's still angry about her parents naming her Hazzelelponi. But that's the way it reads for nine chapters, and so people don't really read 1 Chronicles. They get bogged down, can't even pronounce it.

But when you keep going, you run into Jabez. Verse nine: "And Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother named him Jabez saying, 'Because I bore him with pain.' Now Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, 'Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm, that it might not pain me.' And God granted him what he requested."

Jabez was more honorable, the scripture says in verse nine, than his brothers. The word honorable means to carry weight. Jabez carried more weight with God than his brothers. Why? Because of what he did? We don't know what he did. It doesn't say what he did. It just tells us what he prayed. He was more honorable because of what he prayed.

I think we would all agree that Jabez prayed big. He had an attitude of holy audacity, of daring, of boldness, which the Lord loves because He tells us in Hebrews, "Come boldly before the throne of grace that you may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Man, ask me for big things and come with daring and boldness and a holy audacity before God. God likes that.

We're going to look at Jabez's prayer and we're going to be encouraged to pray big, to take our prayers, whatever they are, and expand them and enlarge them because God likes big prayers. He's a big God who likes big prayers. Encouragement number one: God wants you to pray for big blessings. Verse 10 again: "Now Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, 'Oh, that you would bless me indeed.'"

God, I want you to bless me. How do I want you to bless me? Bless me indeed. Bless me big time! Indeed is like adding five extra exclamation points. God, I really want you to bless me big time. Now, we throw out the word "bless me" a lot. That's kind of the catch-all phrase, "God, I've been so blessed and God's blessed me and Lord bless me and God bless you," and if you sneeze a lot, God bless you over and over. We do that.

When we pray "God bless me," sometimes we lose sight of what does that exactly mean? When you're asking for God's blessing, what it means is you're asking for God to impart supernatural favor upon you. That's what a blessing is. God, that you would favor me, that you would impart your supernatural favor upon me. And here's the deal: God wants to do that. God longs to do that. God wants to impart supernatural favor on His children. He wants to bless. He's a good God, a good Father, who longs to bless His children.

Larry Nobles: He does, and we all want to be blessed, don't we? And knowing just how much God wants to bless us is very comforting and empowering. You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today and the lesson called Praying Big. He'll return in just a quick moment with more.

Even when we pray, life can still be hard, can't it? The apostle Paul was no stranger to this truth, which is why he wrote often about the tremendous sufferings and hardships he faced in life. Of course, he faced opposition, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and even stoning. Maybe on some level, Paul's story is also your story and my story.

Here's the truth: even when that happens, life goes on, and we have to learn how to face a new normal. This month, for your support to From His Heart of any amount, we'd like to comfort and encourage you by sending you two resources. One is the five-lesson series from Pastor Jeff entitled "Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal" and Pastor Jeff's companion full-length book called "Life Interrupted."

Both for your support this month to From His Heart, as we reach around the world with the goodness of Christ. Your support to From His Heart allows this message to be heard around the world to countless listeners. Make your secure gift online today at fromhisheart.org or simply call 866-40-BIBLE to make that gift and request "Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal" and the companion booklet, "Life Interrupted." The truth is God wants to help you stay strong through these hard times, just like He did Paul. Now let's continue with the series from Pastor Jeff called Attitude for Altitude and today's lesson, part one of Praying Big.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Jesus said, "If you, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him." God wants to do that. He likes to do that. He gets a kick out of blessing His kids. Any good dad will tell you there's joy in blessing your children. You enjoy doing that.

That's what God enjoys. He enjoys blessing His children. You have heard me say on many occasions that the challenge for you and for me is not to try and pray and twist God's arm to get Him to do something He doesn't want to do when we ask for His supernatural favor. The challenge for us is to make sure we get our lives on blessing ground where the blessings flow because God wants to bless.

Give you an example. In the book of Malachi, the Lord speaks to His people, and He says, "You're robbing me. You're my people and you're robbing me, and you're cursed with a curse, the whole nation of you, because you're robbing me." And they said, "Well, how have we robbed you?" And God said, "In tithes and offerings."

And then He brings forth this challenge in Malachi chapter three, verse 10: "Bring the whole tithe, all 10%, into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows." God wants to pour out a blessing. He says get on blessing ground and I'll just pour it out all over you because I want to bless you, and I want to bless you big time.

In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28—chapter 28 is a key chapter. It's the blessings and curses chapter. And the Lord basically says in the first 14 verses, "Hey, if you will obey me, I will bless you because I want to bless you." And He says in verse eight, "The Lord will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you." God wants to bless us. Lord, bless me and bless me indeed.

Now, who is the one praying this prayer? Jabez. Jabez asking God for a big-time blessing in his life. Jabez, the name means pain. The name means sorrow maker, as it's translated in the Amplified Bible. When Jabez was born, he was born breech or something. There was lots of pain with his birth.

And his mother—I mean, there's pain in any childbirth, right? But this one had to be extreme pain, serious pain, maybe near-death type situation with Jabez. And so his mother names him sorrow maker. Little pain, Jabez. That's what his name meant. Can you imagine being named that? Everywhere you go, "What's your name?" "Sorrow maker." "I'll sit somewhere else. I don't want to sit by you! You're going to do something terrible. You've just got loser stamped on your forehead. You're a little pain, little sorrow maker."

In the Old Testament, remember, name and nature came together. Well, here you've got Jabez, the sorrow maker, and he's praying a big prayer, and he's asking God to bless him. He's not going to live out his name as his mother named him, the pain, sorrow maker. He says, "Uh-uh, that's not who I am. I might have been born with lots of pain, there might have been sorrow attached to my birth, there might even be sorrow attached to my life in things that I've done that have hurt people, but I'm not going to live there. I'm not going to let my past define my future."

Some of you are letting your past, things that you've done in the past, things that you have done that have caused sorrow to yourself and to other people—you're letting that define you. You're letting your past define your future. Don't let that happen. Don't say, "Well, you know, this is for other people to pray for big blessings from God, but there's no way that I could pray big blessings from God. There's no way that I could actually live on blessing ground and experience the blessings of God. That's for somebody else."

No, that's for you. When Peter preached at the Day of Pentecost, he said to the people, those who were there who said about Jesus, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" He said, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for your sins to be washed away." And then he says this: "For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself."

The promise is for you. It's for you to pray big. It's for you to ask God for His supernatural favor. God wants to give it to you. And God wants you to trust Him for abundance, not adequacy. See, that's where we get into these safe prayers, these crumb-type prayers. God says, "Don't ask me for crumbs. Ask me for big things. Don't ask me for adequacy. Ask me for abundance."

Don't ask me for a good marriage, an okay marriage, a tolerable marriage. Ask me for a great marriage. If you need a job, don't ask God for just "Well, Lord, just anything, just anything out there, you know, just something that will meet my needs, you know, God, nothing else, I mean, just here's my monthly note, and just something that will get..." Ask God for a great job! Ask God for abundance in your job.

Don't ask God to make our church just "Well, Lord, we want our church to be just a good church." We want our church to be a great church! A great church, to reach tons of people for Jesus Christ. God wants that for this place, and so we link our hearts with His desires and we pray for abundance. Give you a scripture verse if you're still kind of looking at me skeptical. John 15:8: "By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples." Much fruit! That glorifies God. It's not adequacy. God is glorified through abundance.

Psalm 81:10 says this: "I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it!" You know what that's a picture of, open your mouth wide and I will fill it? It's a picture of a baby bird in the nest. You ever seen a baby bird in the nest?

What do they do? When they hear Mom coming, those mouths go open wide! Why? Because it's feeding time. You never see a baby bird and all his brothers got their mouths open like that and he's doing this, like "Just a little, I'm just getting it in there, you know, no, I'm... you missed this..." No, it's big! Open it wide!

And God says, "Some of you, you've got your mouth barely open a crack. You know, mouth ajar, you know, like in the car door ajar. Mouth ajar. It's just like that." And God says, "That's all you want? You're just going to open it a crack? How about you open it wide and I will fill it, and trust me for big things and for abundance." That's the very first encouragement we have from the prayer of Jabez, who was more honorable than his brothers because he prayed big. He prayed big! He said, "Bless me and bless me indeed."

Encouragement number two: Not only does God want you to pray for big blessings, God wants you to pray for big impact. Big impact. "Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my border." Enlarge my territory, as some translations put it. Enlarge my coast, as other translations put it. Enlarge my border, my boundary.

Now, Jabez probably lived during the time of conquest where they were taking land from the Canaanites and moving into the Promised Land, and he wanted more and more and more. You say, "Well, Jabez sounds like a selfish guy. Jabez sounds like a 'give me, give me, give me, it's all for me' guy." No, Jabez obviously wasn't like that because the Lord says he's more honorable than his brothers, carried more weight with God, and God granted him his request.

And have you found out this principle: that when you pray a selfish, "all me, me, me, me, me" prayer, that God doesn't answer that? Because God's not interested in self, in me, me, me, me, me. God's interested in you glorifying Him. So when Jabez prayed, "Lord, bless me indeed and enlarge my border, enlarge my territory," he's not asking "I just want more land."

He's not like the guy in Luke chapter 12, the parable of the guy who built the bigger barns and said, "I have many goods stored up for many years. I'll take my ease, eat, drink, and be merry." It's not like that. He's like, "God, give me more influence! Give me more impact for you! I am a child of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and I was made for more! Hey, my mother might have named me 'little pain,' 'little sorrow maker,' but I'm not living there." That's in his head, that's in his mind when he says, "God, enlarge my border, enlarge my territory."

This is so true, and so many of us miss it. God wants to use your life, and He wants to use my life to make a big difference for the Kingdom, to make a big difference. Not a little difference, a big difference! Some of us think, "Well, you know, just how's it going in your relationship with the Lord?" "Well, I'm just serving the Lord in my own little way." Well, quit it! Quit serving Him in your own little way. Start serving Him in a big way! Start showing up and saying, "God, I was made for more than this! God, I'm a child of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and God, I want you to use my life! By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples." I want to have a bigger impact for You, Lord, for I belong to You.

Larry Nobles: We know so little about Jabez and the particular situation that moved him to pray. But what incredible influence his prayer has on us to pray that God would enlarge our borders or help us have great impact in living an effective Christian life. Make plans to be with us on Monday as Pastor Jeff continues showing us the biblical motivations for praying big prayers to a big God.

Now, you can listen again to today's broadcast of the message, Praying Big, when you go online to fromhisheart.org, click the listen link. There too you can download an outline from Pastor Jeff's message, as well as the MP3 of this broadcast. All at fromhisheart.org, click the listen link. And we hope when you visit our website, you'll sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly "Real Hope" email encouragement letter. You'll get that in your inbox every Friday morning. There too you can sign up to join any of our social media channels and get daily encouragement.

Well, I'm Larry Nobles, and sorry to say, time's gone for today's message. But Monday, part two of Praying Big. Here's a preview.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Jabez saw something in this prayer that you and I so often lose sight of. Here's what he saw: that he desperately needed God. And you and I need to remind ourselves constantly that we desperately need God. We need His hand, we need His touch. We can't do this without God. We can't live the Christian life without God. And we desperately need to pray big and believe big and see God do big things in our life. See, the prayer of Jabez is a prayer that God wants you to pray, and God wants you to believe.

Larry Nobles: Join us then, when Pastor Jeff Schreve will open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart, here on From His Heart.