The Prayer God Doesn’t Want to Answer | Pastor Levi Lusko | 1 Chronicles 4:9–10 | Fresh Life Church

I don't know what labels, lies, or limitations have been spoken over you. But I know what God says about you. He says you're loved. He says you're able. He says you're more than a conqueror. He says you are called. He says you are wanted in his house. He's got a name on a table setting just for you.

He says the most valuable person who ever lived was willing to die on a cross to save you. Let me tell you something in Jesus' name. You have a name over you from God. If no one else sees it, God does. And you do not have to be what you've been through.

I have studied all week to to give you a word, and so I do believe that God's going to speak a powerful word. So, Lord, do it. Our hearts are open. God, our our preconceived notions we set aside. Even what we think we need from you, we just want you.

You know what we need from you. So, would you speak to us a word in season, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. First Chronicles chapter 4. It is a terrible thing to feel like you are behind. You've ever felt like you're behind? Behind from where you want to be in savings, behind from where you want to be in generosity, behind from where you want to be when it comes to even just relationships, feeling relationally behind, feeling like everybody around you is is got has found their someone, you just are still believing, waiting, right?

Yeah, to to feel like you're behind when it comes to starting a family, behind in your career, perhaps, behind when it comes to learning or education. You can even feel behind when it comes to just feeling like you're not in the swing of things, like everybody else around you is.

I remember I was thinking this last week about how how I got ripped off of a summer vacation one year. Just completely and totally ripped off. I am still bitter about it to this present day. My family moved from one state to another and enrolled me into a school that in the early '90s, some of you might remember this, was experimenting with something called year-round school.

It's from the devil. Um 45/15 was the experiment. The thought was, let's use these facilities better, not let them sit empty and vacant for June, July, and August, so we'll have 45 days of school with 15 days of break. So, instead of one long summer break, you would just have these couple week-long breaks, you know, periodically throughout the year, and that way you wouldn't get out of, you know, the education mode and into 3 months of just like sedentary mode.

And And so, with these shorter breaks, you would you would get them more regularly, but but it was it was awful. Here's why. I moved from a school that was not doing that and got there at the beginning of summer, which I was expected to get cuz I had just endured an entire year called fourth grade.

And so, I was like ready for summer, right? I hadn't got my 45/15. I had just been in two semesters of school, and then I I, you know, end of May, we we move in in June to time it, you know, with the school year ending, and I get there and they're like, "Hey, we got good news and we got bad news.

Good news is we found a great school. Bad news is you start in 2 weeks." And I was like, "No." You know, what what what what choice did I have, right? So, so I went through the whole summer, but then I was done with fifth grade and moved into a middle school that was not experimenting with year-round school, and so began the fall semester.

And so, literally, over the course of my life, I just keep thinking about like I I just that summer break was taken from me. I just I was behind. And you can feel that way in small ways, you can feel that way in large ways. You can even, through circumstances out of your control, something like the family you were born into or the circumstances of your life, you can feel behind in all of life just because of where you started.

And if you felt that way at all, if you relate to me on any level, then you will be glad to hear an announcement I have to make in Jesus' name. You are not stuck where you started. You are not stuck where you started. In Jesus' name, you can move on from there, and you can go from feeling behind to being ahead.

You can be the head, as Jesus says, and not the tail in his word. There is an almighty God who wants to bless you. Do you believe that? What's your comfort level with that thought? Uh based on the the the the meager response to all of this so far, I would say it's pretty tepid, but but I believe that there is an all-powerful, all-loving God who actively wants to bless you.

Not people around you, not everybody but you. He knows your name, and he has been dreaming from before the foundation of the world about you. Got your name written on the palm of his hand. Has the amount of hairs on your head on this morning, which may be a shifting target for some of us, memorized and committed to memory.

He knows you. He loves you. He wants to advance you. He wants to promote you. He wants to use you. He wants to develop you. And prayer is the tool by which we've been given the means to tap into all of the above. Prayer is the tool by which we tap into God's river of blessing.

I like what the prolific saint and director of orphanages and just man of God, George Müller, had to say. He's an authority on prayer. He said, "Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, it's laying hold of God's willingness." What a shift of thinking. It's not like we have to talk God into doing something, it's the chance and opportunity to tap into and get into the flow, the current of what God already has decided he wants to do.

Laying a hold of his willingness. I'm going to bring to you a message today that I'm calling the prayer God doesn't want to answer. What is that? What do you think that could be? What is the prayer that God doesn't want to respond to? Let's read starting in verse 9 of First Chronicles chapter 4.

Now, Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain." All the women said, "Men." And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain."

So, look at this. God granted him what he requested. We have called this collection of messages the best of both worlds. The best of both worlds. Because that is what prayer allows us to experience. There is a world that we live on, we call it the earth, and there is a greater sense of the world that John uses in in the Epistle of First John when he talks about what we are not to love, the things of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

That's the manner in which we we think about the world that we currently live in on one level. It's we have to be nuanced because God does love the world in that he loves the people of the world so much he sent his only son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross so that anybody, whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life, right?

This is this is the gospel. This is the good news. This is the hope of the world. So, God does love the world, and he wants us to love the world, but he also doesn't want us to love the world because the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, or as we've called it before, the ego, the libido, the dinero, yo, right?

So, so these are the things that are trying to to take God's place in our hearts and our lives. They're trying to be counterfeit gods. And so, we're not to love the things of this world. And we're to have our mind and heart set on the next life and only be present and and able to enjoy God's uh blessings in this life to the extent that we're on mission for him in this life so that more people might take part of the next life.

Does that make sense to you? Okay. So, here's how here's how it's commonly put. We're to be in the world but not of the world. Like I like to say, I'm in a Jeep when I'm driving, but I'm not of the Jeep, right? Cuz I'm a Jeep guy, and then I drive a Jeep.

Where's my Jeep people at? Anybody? Anybody? Yeah, it's always the two fingers, right? The Jeep people never put their hand up. They always got to be that guy, you know, it's a Jeep thing, you wouldn't understand, right? It's a elitist mentality, right? Um So, I have a Jeep and and I'm just going to be completely honest with you.

I I only reason I have this is cuz my dad had one when I was a little kid, and when I drive down the road in my Jeep, it's like Ratatouille for me, right? It just takes me back to the childhood. So, I'm not like out there trying to like go to the hell's revenge, you know, like the devil's anus.

Like, no, these are actively places I want to avoid. Like, and that's a real place, by the way. And then you come up to me like, "Oh, I hear you, Jeep guy. What did you do to your rig? You going to do some crawling?" Uh, no. Okay, I'm not going to do any of that, but I will drive it down the road.

All right. So, um I'm in the Jeep. I'm not of the Jeep. You can search carefully, you will not see a Jeep tattoo, right? It's just that I'm not of it. I'm I'm just in it. Jesus said we're to be in the world, not of the world. We're not to be defined by this world.

We're not to to have our treasure in this world's basket. Does that make sense? And the acid test is death. How do you figure out if you're in this world or or are of this world? Go to your death in your mind. Do you see yourself lying in the hospital bed, perhaps?

Do you see the faces of your loved ones over your toes? You're about to die, you're you're told. Are you going home or leaving home? If you're going home, it's because heaven is what you view as the prize. Heaven's the treasure. You value heaven the most. If death is going to be something you leave claw marks from your your fingernails as it's eventually, ultimately, inevitably torn from your hands.

If dying is leaving your treasure, leaving your home, that that you you you might very well be of the world. But if you're simply in the world, you're currently here on assignment until you get back to your true homeland, which is heaven. All right. Prayer enables us to get the best of both worlds.

To be at our best now because of what we're receiving from then. Okay? So, every time we pray, we are interacting with God's kingdom, with God's resources, with God with God's invisible presence. We're able to interact with power from the next world, but guess what? It gets transferred to us where?

In this world. Enabling us to what? Run and not grow weary, walk and not faint, mount up with wings like eagles to do what we could never do on our own, to become what we could never become on our own. When we pray, we are at our best in both worlds.

So, the commonly repeated trope about Christians is a lie. Here's how it goes. You shouldn't be be so heavenly minded because if you do, you'll be of no earthly good. That if you are so focused on the pearly gates and God and all obsessed in a Jesus freak, right?

You you you'll be of no good in this world cuz you're so heavenly focused. C.S. Lewis in the Mere Christianity attacked that in this manner. If you read history, burn, right? Already automatically, these just shots have been fired, right? Oh, come on, Clive. Uh, if you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for this present world were actually those who thought the most of the next one.

The best of both worlds. Because when your mind's on that world, you're then positioned to not need so much from this world that you can actually relax and enjoy this world, and then you're positioned to do something for it. And if you're curious what I might be talking about, look into who started most of the universities in this country.

Who started most of the relief organizations? Who started most of the soup kitchens and shelters? And who started most of the the the the hospitals in this country in history? Hint, it's those terrible Jesus people, right? Just FYI. Um what we will be doing for the four weeks of the series, while we are simultaneously encountering God and praying to God and fostering fire and and fight inside of our spirits, is and don't you dare tell me you're too busy to pray.

You tell me you'll show me your kid's soccer schedule and what you what backflips you do to get there to that, right? We we will prioritize whatever matters the most to us. So, our presence or absence in these days will show how much we care for God. Okay?

You'll you'll do it if it matters to you. You will move heaven and earth to get to that gymnastics competition in Spokane, all right? So, let's prioritize prayer in our lives, church. Pastoral burn, two points. All right. Don't mess with me. I am highly caffeinated. All right. Um and I have not said anything that got me in trouble for a hot minute.

So, I'm raring for a fight. All right? Okay, so what we just read is the story of a man who lived thousands of years ago named Jabez. And the reason we picked him as a a model is because he highlights someone who lived on this earth, but with his mind on the next one, and we get to see the power from having our spiritual antenna switched on.

Uh, today we will simply cover the introduction, who he is, what what the basics of his life are, and the first phrase of his prayer where he uh says, "Oh, that you would bless me indeed." And it's so exciting to think about just for four weeks, just this camped out in two verses.

Especially after doing the 1 John uh series for eight weeks where it was like most weeks I had 20 verses of like dense theology. I'm just so excited for uh the decadence of of of this week, just two verses. And and and and really just this week, "Oh, that you would bless me indeed."

Could you say that? Oh, that you would bless me indeed. Prayers don't have to be long to be powerful. Oh, that you would bless me indeed. We are going to learn four things today. The first is that you don't have to be what you're surrounded by. What a joy.

What an amazing thought, right? You're not stuck where you started. You do not have to be what you are surrounded by. Uh, 1 Chronicles 4 is a sea of names. It's part of a large of a of a larger section of names in what has to be some of the the most boring real estate in in all of the Bible.

You spend a little time in 1 Chronicles 4, you're starting to you're starting to long for some Leviticus, right? And that's a weird thought. 
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 The fatty lobe, the discharge, even that's exciting compared to, you know, Ashhur and Leah had. Oh, and the sons of Penuel and Beth-rapha. You're like, I I just wish I could talk about what to do if I had a discharge, right?

That would be remarkable. In all the phone book that is this section of scripture amounts to almost 2,000 unique names. Now, someone well said it at one point this way. The Bible is all inspired, though it is not equally inspiring, right? The Bible is all inspired. So, it's all here for a reason.

God wanted it to be exactly the way it is, or it would have been different. That doesn't mean it's all equally inspiring. And so, when we take, you know, the the the the tribe of Judah exploded, and we have the 500 or so names that Jabez is a part of as this unique lineage of the branch of the family tree, it's all there for different reasons, right?

Messianic reasons, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt Jesus is who he says he is. I think it's also there uniquely for this reason. God wants to remind us at every turn in scripture that every name matters. Every person matters. God putting all of these names in, you're like, "Who are they?"

They they matter to him. They lived, they died, they had pain. God tried to reach out to them. All of them had a story. All of them had a time. All of them are alive today somewhere. Everybody lives forever somewhere. I think that should be a sobering thing for us to sit with.

Everybody is alive today somewhere who ever lived, according to Jesus, who said that basically, to paraphrase, death is not the end of the road, it's simply a bend in the road. And everybody lives somewhere. I think the names that are included in this chapter also are there for emphasis for what a drab life not trusting God looks like contrasted to the bright gem discovered in a dirty mine shaft when someone dares to live differently.

Dares to seek God. Dares to be different. Dares to be the peculiar people that God's called us all to be a part of. The chosen generation, the the holy nation, brought out of darkness to live in marvelous light. And I I think it's not a stretch exegetically for me to make that point with this chapter because of the sentence, "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers."

So, you're like, "You're you're you're you're you're arguing from silence." No, I'm not. We're given all these names and nothing about them, right? Nothing about them. Nothing about them. And then he goes, "But there was one guy more honorable than all the others." So, So you were to look at at at 1 Chronicles 4, almost like the way God sees it, it's just all these names, just just living here, just minding their money, their money, their money, just living living for the weekend, right?

Just hoping to get a little bit time on the jet ski and nothing more, right? Just just only what the like the Bible says that their their their God is their belly. But then you have this mountain peak of Jabez who sought God and was more honorable than everybody he was surrounded by.

And then after these two verses are over with this flash of bright light. It's like, so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so Jabez sought the God of Israel and said, "Bless me indeed, and would you enlarge my territory, and would you be with me, and would you keep me from evil?"

And God said, "Answered." And then it's back to your regularly scheduled broadcasting of so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so. What's the point? It's not just a point, it's permission. Permission to overcome an unspectacular genealogy. Who's your grandfather?

Who's your father? Who's your father's father? Right? You're like, for the most part we're like, I don't know actually. But the reality is God is a generational God. And he wants to disrupt, he wants to change, he wants to alter, he wants to do things and he wants to raise up Josephs.

He wants to raise up Daniels. He wants to get past the families of Aharahel and Archer and Tekoa who had two wives, right? That joker, right? And raise up a Jabez. God is calling out Jabezes still. There's room today in the world for more who will go against the flow.

Matthew 7:13, Jesus put it this way, "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to say it with me, destruction. Anybody could do that. That's boring. Sleeping with whoever you want to sleep with, being cruel, being given to flights of of of of of rage and temper, a substance abuse, right?

Just just doing whatever you feel like, yawn. That's just like everybody else who's just presented to us as being just yeah, just another garden variety, doesn't have a thought for God, doesn't care about God, just wants to do what they feel. But then the bright light of of Jabez is what?

The narrow road that leads to eternal life, Jesus said, "And few there are who find it." Any dead fish can float downstream. It takes life and fight to swim against the current. And I believe in Jesus' name God is raising up some teenagers who will say, "In a world where you just do what you feel, I'm going to be different.

I'm going to follow God." No one taught Ja- Jabez how to pray that we know of. That didn't matter. No one else in this family that we're told of feared God. And yet Jabez did. It didn't stop him. Proverbs 11:27 says, "He who earnestly seeks good finds Say it with me, favor."

It's not a mistake to find favor. It's according to Proverbs 11, the result of carefully seeking good. Here's the crazy thing. What you look for, you will find. And that's true with your algorithm, just like it's true of your heart. Whatever you're looking at, it's going to show you more of that.

If you want to find favor, you got to seek good. You got to let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth. You got to guard what's in your heart. You got to take every thought captive. You got to keep your spirit pure. But trouble will come to him who seeks evil.

If you go out looking for evil, guess what you're going to find? Trouble. You're going to find what you look for. You today can find favor. You just have to choose to seek it. And I want to tell you you're not stuck where you started. I don't care if nothing was handed to you but sin and flesh, you can choose spirit and life and light.

A bloodline can be drawn in the sand today. God can overturn generations of evil legacy in a moment on a dime. You can overcome an unspectacular legacy. You do not have to. Jabez tells us you do not have to settle for the mediocrity that was modeled for you.

So no one owned a business in your family, you can. No one owned a home as many generations back, no one stayed married, no one sought after God, you can. Today in Jesus' name he is saying, "You're not stuck where you started. You might feel behind, but you're not.

He can bring you ahead in a moment in a moment of time." You don't secondly have to be what you've been through. Is what this text tells us. And we just read it really quickly so we didn't, you know, take the time to appreciate the nuance of the Hebrew language here and the play on words.

It says, "Jabez was birthed in pain." So his mama named him Jabez. Guess what Jabez means? Pain. Or he will inflict pain. Born in pain, prophesied about by his own mother, he's going to cause pain. Which by the way is why he prayed, "Help me not cause pain." "Help me not cause pain."

We'll talk about that. You come back. We met a girl this week. She told us her name and she said her name's Reagan. She didn't tell us, she told the table next to us that we'd become friends with and so we felt like we were allowed to just be in the conversation while he was talking to her, too.

You ever have a dinner like that? It was awesome. And and we didn't want it to end but but I had to preach the next day so I had to go to bed. But we were we were making friends with them and and and and he asked the waitress, he said, "What's your name?"

And she said, "My name is Reagan." And he goes, "Oh, like the president." She goes, "Yeah." It's not a That's not a normal reaction. He goes, "What do you mean?" "What were you named after?" She goes, "Well, I just found out. My mom didn't tell me when I was a kid.

I always assumed it was the president. But I actually asked her and she told me, 'No, we didn't name you after the president, we named you after that little kid from The Exorcist.'" And the guy said, same thing I would have said, "I've never seen that movie. I don't want that in my spirit.

That's not my team. Hello. Team Team light side Team darkness. I don't need that in my in my heart. I don't need that in my home. I'm not inviting that into my life. Oh, it's fun. Oh, yeah? You think it's fun? The enemy wants to bombard your life with darkness and evil.

Jesus came that you might have life and life more abundantly." 
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 So he says, "I've never seen The Exorcist. Is is is Reagan a good a good one?" She goes, "No, it's a little kid." He goes, "Is it a a good one?" And she goes, "No, I watched it.

It's She's Is it demonic child?" And he goes, "How do you feel about that?" She goes, "Eh, just my name." To speak that over your child? That's what this mom did. She declared over him with a name Every time God changed a destiny, he changed the name. He would he would call it something new.

He would speak out something new. Why do we call things I'm only here in this church cuz God gave us this name Fresh Life that we were there was linked up to our assignment. And God wanted us to be a part of bringing fresh life. Names matter. Words matter.

Words create worlds, one rabbi said. So she spoke a demonic child's name over this girl. Jabez's mom said, "You're going to You're going to cause pain." And Jabez praise God knew you do not have to be what you've been through. You do not have to be. Hear me.

You've had lies, you've had limitations, you've had labels spoken over you every day of your life. And here's what God is speaking over you, loved, called, chosen, anointed, more than a conqueror, my precious child. You've been told you were unwanted, you've been told you'll never own a home, you've been told you'll never graduate from college, you've been told you'll never own a business, you'll be never be a member of that club, you'll never be good enough for that neighborhood.

I'm telling you your father owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Impossible? It's not in his vocabulary. He can make a way where there is no way, and he loves you. Let his voice be the loudest in your life. And I praise God that his last prayer is, "Help me not cause pain."

I don't have to cause the pain she said I was going to cause. I don't have to do the damage she said I was going to do. Oh, she said, "I'll just end up an alcoholic in a ditch just like my daddy. I'll end up a deadbeat just like my mom."

No, let me tell you something. He said, "I don't have to do what I've been through. I can be something new." How? Here's the next point, because you don't have to do life on your own. He was given no help from his uncle. He was given no help from his grandpa.

He was given no help from his mom. So what he do? He got on his knees and he called on the God of Israel. He called on the God of Abraham. He called on the God of It was rare, but it was there. It was rare out there, but it was there in here.

He said, "I'm calling on the God of Moses. I'm calling on the God of Joseph. I'm calling on the God who changes generations. He changed Israel from Jacob. Jacob was a cheater. But God changed him to Israel. And so Jabez knew he didn't have to do life on his own with his own resources.

And as a result, hear me, of doing life with the God of angel armies. That's pretty good. That's what the Lord of hosts means. The God of angel armies. The God who is your righteousness and your shield. The God who is your comforter and your shepherd. The God who is your savior and your Lord.

The The The The Lord who is your father and your friend. He didn't get an outcome that he could explain. That he could control. That he could even understand. I think Jabez must be laughing so hard right now that 3,000 years later there there there's a there's a church full of people who are honoring this man for his life today and saying, "Praise God.

You can be a Jabez. You can And when you when you don't do life on your own but you do life with God, you get put into God's family. And guess what? Your family tree, as twisted as it might be, has no say over you. You're in a new family now.

God sets the solitary in families. He puts them up in his church. And guess what? You can go shopping in Hebrews 11 if you want to and go, "Oh, wow. I'm related to what what what what DNA attributes do I want?" Because the world says, "Oh, it's just going to be a chromosomal issue.

It's It's 23 and me. What you got is what you got." I'm like, "I don't know. Holy Ghost said I could have the power of a Samson. I could have the loyalty of a David. I could have the passion of a I could have the wisdom of a Solomon.

Oh, hey. I'm going shopping because the Holy Spirit put three in me. Father, Son, Holy I got a new family tree. I GOT A new destiny. I got a birthright. I got a God who put me in a family. I got I got a whole new legacy. I don't have to be a Jezebel.

I could be an Esther. I don't have to be an Orpah. I could be a Ruth. I don't have to be a Saul. I could be a David. I could be a Jabez. I pray you would pray I pray that you would dare to be a Daniel. That you would be a Shadrach and a Meshach and an Abednego cuz those fools always roll together.

You never once find a verse about what what Abednego was doing. That's why you need to be in a small group. How do you go through a fire and not even get burned or smell like smoke? I'm telling you you are loco if you're rolling solo, yo. You need some people.

You need some encouragement. Those guys were always in a small group. And as a result, every single person I mentioned and Jabez all got to experience God's blessing. Now you go, "So that that's cool. I want some of that. Then I could just have a bunch of stuff.

Whatever I want, right? If I pray, God's going to bless me. If I'm blessed, I'm never going to have any hard days. If I'm blessed, I get to have a BMW." Don't be stupid. I'm not talking about something as measly as stuff. Though God's not afraid to give you a bunch of that, too, if he sees fit.

What I'm talking about is supernatural favor that can empower you to do what you could never do on your own. And that is to tap into the full measure and the unbridled, uncut power of God's plans for you. How could we ever walk in God's plans for us?

We need favor. We need God's blessing, his mighty hand on you so that you could do what you would never do. That's what it means to walk in blessing. It definitely doesn't mean a life without pain. But what it does mean is a life full of God's presence.

And when God is present, anything he says can happen. You also, number three, do not have to do life on your own. You don't have to do life on your own. I mean I mean Jabez, it's tough for him looking looking around for anybody to encourage him in the path that he wants to go in.

He's got great grandpa with two wives, you know. And I know we think, "Oh, we've evolved. We we just spread those out over a lifetime. We don't have them simultaneously." "Oh, we're different now." No, we're not. And he's looking around going, "How do I I feel like it there's just the call of God on my life."

Maybe every time he watched the sunset, he just knew it he was he was destined for something different. He had no help from his family. He had no help from from from from those around him who were by and large just doing whatever whatever was right in their own eyes.

So what did he do? He called on the God of Israel. He said, "God, you revealed yourself to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and I invoke that holy name. I call on the God of Israel. And you can, too. You're never alone. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you.

I don't care what circumstances you're facing today. I don't care what you've had to walk through. You can call on the I speak in Jesus' name. You can choose to be an Esther and not a Jezebel. You can choose to be a Joshua and not one of the 10 spies who who who wanted to just to to to to give in to their fear and to live what they could see.

You can choose to be a Ruth and not an Orpah. You can choose to be a David and not a Saul. You can choose to be a Peter. You can choose to be a Deborah. You can, in Jesus' name, be different. You do not have to do life alone.

You have help. You have help from God. You have help from your new family tree. Because as a son or daughter, spiritually speaking, of Abraham, you are connected to everyone in Hebrews 11. By faith they overcame. And you're a You You want to talk about chromosomes? You want to talk about DNA?

You want to talk about 23 and me? How about How about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in me? How about three in me? How about three in one who came to live in me? How about I am connected to David? I am connected to Saul. How about I got great granddaddy Jonathan who's telling me you can be a better friend.

You can choose to be a better husband. You can choose to be a better dad. You can choose to stay in the home and show up for your little girl. She needs you there. You can be dedicated. You can say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

I got help. I got help from the Father. I got help from his people. He sets the solitary in families. I got the church. I got the body of Christ. Oh, I I I got I got a backing. I got support. I have the people of God. Those I know, those I don't know.

They're praying for me. I got I got I got the God of angel armies who's always on my side. He goes before me. He stands behind me. No one can You You You see it? You do not have to just do life Well, I don't know how I could do that.

I just just got to You know, just just just just not enough money at the end of the month. Don't you dare live so poor when you've been blessed with every blessing in spiritual places in Christ Jesus. Don't you dare just live by what you can do and what you can see and what feels good when you have been called with a holy calling.

You have You have spiritual support. You have air support. You can You get one guy out in the middle of nowhere in the middle but with a walkie-talkie he can have F-18s and F-22s raining fire down. You got the walkie-talkie called prayer. And Jabez chose to use it.

He He chose to use the tools that were given to him. And I my favorite part of the verse is where it says, "And God answered him." And God answered him. God said, "Heard." "Heard." "Oh, you want my blessing?" "Oh, oh, you want me to enlarge your territory?

Oh, you want me to be with you?" "You You Oh, you want to, despite the name that was spoken over you, cause no pain?" "Heard." And God is still answering the prayers of his people. 
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 You don't have to do life on your own. Now you're saying, "Levi, does that mean I just get to get whatever I want when I pray?

I just get to blab and grab? I just I just get a Holy Ghost, I want a BMW." Don't be stupid. I said he wants to bless you. What is blessing? Blessing is defined as supernatural favor to live the life that God has destined for you to live.

In his sovereignty and providence, it's the supernatural favor bestowal of enabling and power from on high for you to choosing and making wise day-to-day decisions tap into the life that he has destined from before the foundation of the world. Hello. For you to live. So the difference between you living God's highest and best for your life is his blessing upon you.

His blessing upon you choosing the right choices one day at a time. So a of prayer does not mean a life free from pain, but it always means a life that's marked by God's presence and God's power as you rise up to fulfill God's plan. 
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 If you want an example of this, um I I had a chance to speak my my daughter Olivia who turns 20 tomorrow and I love you so much, Liv.

It's just a joy to have you here. Olivia and I were speaking at a conference uh together a few years back and alongside us in the speakers who were presenting was a man named Nick Vujicic. And we took a photo together. A hug from this man changed my life.

Nick Vujicic was born with no arms and legs. Think about it. To live life without limbs, which all of a sudden puts into perspective every problem we think we are having, right? And yet he has chosen to live a life without limits. He has spoken to over 6.5 million people around the globe.

He has met some 25 presidents and his favorite thing to do is to ask people to give him a hug. He will literally stand on this table and just allow people to hug him and they will bawl and cry as they do. He does not see himself as the victim.

He sees himself as a victor more than a conqueror because of Jesus Christ. I praise God for Nick Vujicic. I I honor you, Nick Vujicic. It's just he's living a life full of God's blessing in the midst of circumstances that he is choosing to not allow to define him.

He said, and I quote, I just get chills every time I read it. God can use a man without arms and legs to be his hands and feet. I praise God that what you don't have, God does in Jesus' name. Or I think about Joni Eareckson Tada who at the age of 17 was in a diving accident and broke her neck, paralyzed quadriplegic from the neck down.

And and you think about how easy it would be to be bitter. I mean, doctors said she would not live 10 years. Oh, hello. She's living She's lived 57 years from that moment because guess what? God's not afraid to overturn anything a doctor says. He is the God of the impossible.

If he wants you to live, guess what? In his name, you're going to live. And she could have again been bitter and she could have been angry, but she chooses to focus on the fact that it's a miracle she's alive. She points to her being alive as two things God did that day.

The day she dove off that that raft and broke her neck, two things happened. Number one, she had just dyed her hair with peroxide to be blonde, okay? And and she wasn't naturally blonde. I I I I'm not This is This is her story. I'm not But but apparently that's not her real hair color, but she had dyed her hair with peroxide to where it was shockingly white that day.

And number two, her sister who had jumped before her and did not get injured had gotten bitten on the toe by a crab at the exact moment that she broke her neck. And had she not, she wouldn't have turned back because while swimming, she turned back to say, "I got to get bit by a crab."

And when she did, she couldn't find her sister. And so she looked for her and she never would have seen her had her hair not been dyed bobbing in the water almost about to drown paralyzed from the neck down. The white hair alert. God sent the crab. God oversaw the dying of the hair.

She says, "I choose to see this as all evidence that God has saved me." And And you want to talk about a hard a hard saying? She has said, by the way, Joni Eareckson Tada has spoken in 47 nations, has written over 60 books, and perhaps has shared the gospel as much or more as any woman who has ever lived from her wheelchair.

Said, and I quote, "God has used the breaking of my neck as the greatest use of my life." I heard her recently on a televised interview where she was asked, "Do you believe that God can work all things for good? Have you prayed for healing? Did God heal you?

Where's the good?" And she responded, and I quote, "Patience is good, too." And by saying no to the prayer I prayed, God has answered a prayer I didn't even know I needed. And I It was a prayer for patience. "Patience," she says, "until I inevitably and forever am healed and get a new body and get to heaven."

She is experiencing the best of both worlds. Oh, and by the way, this This photograph that I picked I I I put up her in her art studio where she learned to paint holding the paintbrush in her teeth. Works of art through a limitation. This is what God's blessing can look like.

And you don't have to do life on your own. You can do life with God. And when you do life with God, if it gets to you, it's because he has a plan for it. Think about the lowly caterpillar. What are you seeing when you see a caterpillar?

A butterfly in disguise. In God's hand, every suffering we face is just a cocoon. It's just a chrysalis that's going to lead to our eventual ultimate blessing. All right, number four. And finally, you don't have to settle settle for some. You're not stuck where you started. And you certainly don't have to settle for some.

Remember when we started with the text and we read about how Jabez said, "God, I pray you bless me a little. I pray you bless me with a teaspoon of blessing. God, I pray for an eeny meeny little bit of blessing." Cuz that's propriety. Let's not get carried away.

How did it go? Look at it on the screen. "Oh, that you would bless me." Say it with me. "Indeed." One author said that in Hebrew to what use the word indeed essentially was like in English putting five exclamation marks at the end of your prayer. Which is by the way shouting.

Come on, Grandma. Settle down with all your all caps, all right? So, So, Jabez, far from, you know, being radical and needing to tone it down a little bit with his bold prayer that feels selfish a little bit. There's so much Shouldn't you be praying for No, no, no.

No. Jabez knew that God does not operate from a zero-sum mentality. A bigger slice of pie for you does not mean less pie for me. God has all the pie in the whole world. God can create more pie when he runs out of pie. So, God wants you to pray big prayers.

God wants you to pray that he would bless you indeed. Do you feel that? That's that Torrey Well spirit. Exceedingly, abundantly. He's the God of more than we could ask or think, right? Eugene Peterson put it this way. God can do anything, you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

So, it's not crazy to pray for God's lavish, extravagant, abundant blessing on your life. Why? Because it's never going to end with you if you keep your eyes on him. It will always be a blessing on you that leads to a blessing through you. God is far too good of a steward to let any blessing be an end unto itself.

Genesis 12:2, "I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great." That's a blessing indeed. Anybody with me? Right? And "you shall be a blessing." You have to have to give. You have to have received to pivot and send. And we're going to talk as the series goes on.

Don't miss a week. About about how we can keep the blessings in our hand from turning to idols in our heart. That's a really important distinction. But it's not a mistake to pray for grande blessings and not just the short ones. Proverbs 11 says, "There is one who scatters yet increases more.

There is one who withholds more than is right, but it only leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself." What that means is if you don't reinvest a miracle, you reach the end of it. You can't eat all your seed.

You got to sow it as well. We, continuing on the Reagan theme, this week as a family visited Ronald Reagan's Presidential Library, and I've been for a long time wanted to go there. Dragged my kids kicking and screaming. And uh our my favorite thing that we saw in our in our time at the museum was the Air Force One they have, only presidential museum in the country, a retired Air Force One.

They had to build the building around it. Crazy, okay? And they they constantly, you know, retire them and and there's new ones made and better tech and and all the rest. And And this one was was was was the one Reagan flew on while he was in office.

He and six other presidents. Every president from Nixon to Bush flew on this or its sister Air Force One. And Reagan, out of all of these seven men, got to have it included in his library. Why? Well, I asked the tour guides. I said, "Why'd Reagan get a plane?

Why didn't Nixon get a plane? Why didn't Clinton get a plane? I mean, they all have libraries. Don't they have needs?" And the docent said, "Here's why he got it. He used it the most." Wow. He got it because he used it the most. And if you look at the records, cuz it's all government records, out of his time in office, no president of those seven used Air Force one as much as he did.

So, it's a part of his legacy because of how he used it. What will your spiritual legacy be? I submit to you it will ride rise or fall based on how you use prayer. So, to close, what is the one prayer God does not want to answer? Here it is.

God, will you please curse this? He doesn't want to. Oh, I should tell you how it's commonly said. God damn it. Cuz these are both prayers. Someone said, "God damn it." might be the most commonly prayed prayer every day, certainly in this country. Kids spills milk, hit your nail with a hammer, unexpected red light, get caught up in traffic.

It's a common thing to pray for God to You don't realize what you're doing. You're praying curses on the moment instead of blessing, which God would much rather be bringing. Be careful what you say. Be careful how you pray. God's main interest is blessing, and he's looking for those who will be a conduit of it.

I wonder if sometimes God hears us damning things and cursing things and goes, "If you say so." "If you say so." Life and death, power of the tongue. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for longing to bless our businesses, our homes, our bank accounts, children, our hearts, our minds, our thoughts, our cars, our cows, our animals.

Thank you for longing to bless God. May we participate and not be damning up your blessings. If you're here today and you've never trusted Christ for salvation, I talked a moment ago about some heading to hell. If you don't want that to be your final destination, you want to go to heaven because of Jesus.

I'm going to pray a prayer and I want you to pray it out loud after me. Church, pray it with us. No one praying alone. Everyone praying if they're trusting Christ for salvation. Dear God, thank you for saving me right now as I call on you. Thank you for the cross.

Thank you for the resurrection. Thank you for new life. I give you mine in Jesus' name. 
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