Prayer of Jabez | Pastor Chris Kouba

Good morning, United City.

How are we doing?

Good to see you.

Last week was uh an incredible week in the life of our church.

Uh we started off uh with with just started off with a bang.

I don't know how else to say it.

It was pretty amazing just to be able to celebrate uh the 285 baptisms that were a record number of baptisms that took place in 2024.

We had an opportunity to hear uh from Gerban last week, our Spanish pastor, and just to be able to celebrate what God is doing in the United City in one church and two languages.

Uh but we also baptized 54 people last Sunday.

54 people last Sunday.

And we have 11 scheduled for baptism today, which is just absolutely amazing.

It's just absolutely incredible.

If you weren't here last week, I want you to turn your attention to the screen, just get a little taste of what God did here at United City.

What is it that God is calling and asking you to do in response to Him?

For some of you, it's to be baptized.

You've already given your life to Jesus, but you've never followed through on that act of obedience.

You've come up with every excuse in the book and you've done them over and over again.

Maybe you feel like you've waited too long, maybe you feel like the family's not there, you've given all the reasons why it won't work.

I can assure you, whatever excuse that you're trying to use is not good enough.

If today you know that you need to be baptized, we want to do it right now, right in this moment of the service.

Some of you are saying, Well, what is somebody gonna think?

I can assure you of this, you will not be met with judgment, you'll be met with celebration because of your obedience to Jesus today.

So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.

If you today want to follow Jesus in baptism, I'm gonna count to three.

And when I say three, I want you to stand up and I want you to come forward.

Three, two, one.

Man, it was awesome in every way.

So grateful for so many stories that we've been hearing this week, uh just coming out of that, of just what God has done and what he continues to do.

And I want you to know it's not too late for you.

Uh, we baptize every week and would love to have the opportunity, if that is your next step, to talk with you more about that and explain what that looks like.

Hey, I got a few quick announcements before we get going.

Something that is super important in the life of United City Church that we've been doing now for many, many years, and I want to make sure it's a part of your routine as you think about starting 2025, and that is it begins next week, next Sunday night, uh, it's sundown through the following Sunday.

Sunup is our week of prayer and fasting.

Week of prayer and fasting.

So for some of you, this may be the first time that you've ever done something like this, and I want to tell you, you just need to get ready.

God's gonna change your life.

And I'm not just throwing that out there.

I'm dead serious.

If you are serious about doing this, God will change your life.

For others of you who've been doing this on a yearly basis, you've been asking me multiple times, when is the fast?

You need to tell me when the fast is because you're ready, because you know God has changed your life, and you want to be able to experience that even go forward.

I love hearing about what some of you are even thinking about and praying through as to what you're gonna fast and pray and do in the midst of that.

And I just want to encourage you because it's gonna take a little bit of mental preparation and perhaps some physical preparation to join with us.

You can register online, we're gonna encourage you to do that.

But next week, when you show up, this card is gonna be sitting in your seat.

Every single person that's here, this card is gonna be sitting on your seat, and we're gonna be asking you to register for the fast.

We've got a lot of different ways that you can participate.

If you've never done this before, then you can encourage you can come with us with a one meal fast, fast from one meal a day.

Or maybe you do a one-day fast, sundown to sundown, one of the days, or a Daniel fast, fruit and vegetables only.

I want to encourage all of you to consider some version of this media fast.

As not just the, like that's just the entry point.

So, meaning this, whatever you looked at 14 times during the worship service this morning, all right, that app, okay?

That one, all right?

Your email, ESPN, Fox, whatever it is, your whatever your go-to is, consider that because it's not just taking away bad things.

By the way, you should already do that.

You don't need a week of prayer and fasting to do that.

But it's instead removing the distractions of the world in order for us to experience the presence of Christ.

Okay?

So therefore, it's maybe neutral things, things that are necessarily bad in and of themselves, but things which you may not realize.

But every year, what I begin to discover is that these have become addictions for me.

I mean, I just I didn't even realize it's just kind of soft addictions that I'm just kind of constantly checking.

So consider some version of this, but I really want to ask you to consider even doing this complete fast, okay?

Whatever you're thinking right now, plan on doing one more than that.

Because our flesh wants us to do the path of least resistance.

And if you go and just basically do just enough to check the box in order to participate in the church's fast, I want you to know this, it'll be great, but it's not gonna be what God wants it to be.

He instead wants you to remove yourself from the things of the world and go and seek him.

I have seen people make career changes, I have seen people experience reconciliation in their marriages, I have seen people go from on the fringe to being all in.

God will change your life in some level.

And I just want to encourage you to get prepared now.

We're all gonna be in.

You're not gonna be by yourself.

We're gonna be doing this together, and it's gonna be pretty amazing.

If you want to know more about just kind of what does this look like to do a fast, maybe you've never even done this before.

We've got a great website that I want to show you.

Uh that if you do know God down there prayer and fasting, this is an entire resource page on our website that walks you through how to prepare for this.

What do you do during it?

It's not just about not eating, it's about doing something else during the midst of that time.

And so again, it's not something that you're just gonna show up next week and be like, oh, okay, this is no big deal.

It's gonna take a little bit of prep, so I'm giving you a heads up, but I'm really, really excited about how God's going to use this fast to be a big, profound influence in the midst of your life.

Turning your Bibles to 1 Chronicles chapter 4.

1 Chronicles 4 · chapter mention

First Chronicles chapter 4.

1 Chronicles 4 · chapter mention

Some of you are like, I've never heard of 1 Chronicles.

What is that?

It's a book in the Bible that most Bible reading plans go to die, okay?

And you're gonna see why in just a moment.

1 Chronicles chapter 4.

1 Chronicles 4 · chapter mention

It's on page 337, 336 in my Bible.

So just to give you a little heads up, kind of maybe towards the front a little bit.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna begin a three-week series today on the topic of prayer.

Three-week series on the topic of prayer.

I'm gonna be honest with you.

I am a struggling prayer.

Like I want to be good at prayer, like I want to be a prayer warrior.

Like I've got people in my family, my mom is this way, my grandmother was this way, like they're like, they're kind of just like stalwarts of prayer, and I I desire that, but I've just never really felt like I've been super good at it.

This became glowingly obvious to me, probably a good picture, an indication of sort of my prayer life, can be summed up in an experience I had whenever I was about eight or nine years old.

I'm not positive exactly when it was, but the church that I grew up in had this 24 hours of prayer.

They had this like room that was kind of like connected to the outside of the church, and you had a little code, and if you had the code, then you could go in.

And people in the church would sign up to go into to spend an hour praying, and they would, in theory, cover all 24 hours of the day.

I had heard that my dad had signed up for 2 a.m.

on Tuesday morning, and that he was going up to the church and he was praying during that time.

And I thought, that's I mean, you that's the commitment right there.

Like, that's not just your basic stuff.

Like, that's like the slot nobody wants, right?

2 a.m.

on Tuesday morning.

And so I thought, you know, I'm gonna be a better prayer.

I'm gonna be someone who's gonna really step up my prayer game.

So I asked my dad if I could go with him.

And so my dad woke me up, and then we go out to the the church and we we go to the room, and I vividly remember what the room looks like.

First of all, I remember that it was freezing cold inside of that room.

I mean, just so cold.

They had these really large, overstuffed green couches in the room, and then they had this little bitty desk that had some cards and some piece of paper on top of them.

And so I remember going in, and my dad tells me, he says, okay, you go over there to that desk and you go look at the list and some of the cards and pray through the names of some of the missionaries and pray through some of the names that the church supports.

And I'll go over here and I'll do the very same thing.

And so I remember going there, and I mean, it's 2 a.m.

I'm like, this is on, you know, like we're about to go do this.

I'm about to become a prayer warrior at the end of this thing.

And I start off and I'm praying, and I'm praying through all these various churches, and then I start to praying for all the various missionaries, and then I start praying for all the staff that are there, and I kind of get through the end of that list, and and I don't, there's nothing else on the list, and so I kind of look over at my dad, because I mean I'm sure, you know, he's probably waiting on you know me because I'm just going so long, just crushing this, and he he's already done.

He he's still going, and uh, I was finished.

I was like, okay, well, maybe I should I'll pray for my mom and I'll pray for my siblings, and I'll pray for all of my extended family and first cousins, and then I did look over, dad's still going, second cousins, and kind of kept going and kept going, uh, oh, friends.

I started going through all my classes and every single friend that I had in every single class and go over there, and dad's still going.

And then I look down, I mean, I'm like, okay, well, maybe my teammates.

So I started going to all my teams that I'm on and started playing for all my teammates, and then I've started praying for all my opponents that we play on our teams against those other players, and I kind of go through everybody that I can think of on that list, and then I'm like looking over, my dad's still going, and and and I'm like, um pets.

I started praying for pets and started praying for all the pets and started praying for future pets and started praying for just all this kind of stuff, and uh, and I look up and I'm like, I don't know what my dad, I mean, maybe my dad and my dad fell asleep.

That's what I'm thinking in my mind.

Like, I've gone, you know, clearly like 70 minutes or something, and maybe I gotta go wake my dad up to take me home, you know.

Like, when in the world going up.

And sure enough, I look over at a clock, it is 212 a.m.

There was nothing else that I could pray for, like it was over.

And I remember in that cold room getting into that big oversized green couch and just going to sleep.

Next thing I remember, my dad pushes me and he says, Hey, it's time to get up, and he'd go.

And I remember walking to the car feeling defeated.

Because at the end of the day, what I wanted to do and be this great prayer warrior was just met with disappointment in terms of the execution.

I don't know if your story's exactly like mine, but if I had to guess, that situation of feeling like, man, I really want this, but I really feel like I'll only do this, is probably the story for a lot of us, particularly when it comes to prayer.

This is one of those areas, like, no matter how good you are, you could be better.

So, in light of that, it's like, well, what else am I supposed to do?

And I and I'm convinced part of the issue that most of us have is not the why.

I that you want to talk to God, you desire to speak and spend time with the Lord.

I actually believe that also part of the issue is not necessarily the what.

You know, prayer is talking to God.

I'm convinced one of the biggest issues most of us have when it comes to the issue of prayer is the how.

We don't really know what to do.

I mean, at the end of the day, we either kind of heard somebody else pray, kind of stolen some of their language, kind of made it a little bit more our generation, and then we kind of say the same things and we say it over and over again, but it's just because we keep saying the same thing over and over again, we don't feel like there's really anything to it.

It just kind of feels like the same.

It's like the little statement you say before you go and and you eat, right?

If you pray before you eat your meal, my guess is you say the exact same words every single time.

We can get our prayer lives under a rut like that.

Or what I've also noticed is that what we also do is just assume because we can't pray like somebody else, this just must be not be my thing.

I'm not really any good at it.

What I want to do, I want to ask you to get your phones out, actually, and I want you to download an app for me.

This app is what I'm going to teach you over the course of the next three weeks.

The app is called Pray First.

There's a church in Birmingham, Alabama named Church of the Highlands.

We love this church.

Uh, we learn a lot from this church, it does a great job.

And they have put together this app that has a number of different prayer models that you can use.

I'm gonna literally just over the next three weeks teach three of the models.

There are so many other models all found throughout scriptures.

And I don't want you to think about these models like they're somehow like things that you recite and you just say them enough, and then like the genie pops out of the bottle, and then all of a sudden you get all your prayers heard and stuff like that.

It's not like that.

Think of them as outlines, as like guides, as like a way to help navigate the relationship.

And the beautiful thing is that all of these are from scripture, so at the end of the day, we know if we pray something in Jesus' name, he's gonna hear it.

And these are things that are praying in alignment with what he's already said.

This app, let me show you what it looks like here to pray first, but it's got also like a bunch of different prayer models.

You can do like self-guided mode.

I literally did two of them this week where I kind of walked him through self-guided.

I also have some that have like a video that's like a 15-minute video, and it'll walk you through all the steps of one of the outlines of prayer with kind of some paused moments that you can kind of jump in and out.

I just want to tell you again, you're you're I want you to take notes, but I want you to know, go back and do this these prayers this week.

Like I want you to experience this.

Is not meant to be an information series.

This is meant to be a transformation series where you literally apply it and you're coming up and telling me, and you're like, bro, you're not gonna believe what I what I what I experienced, what I what I heard, what God did.

And again, it's not, it's God hasn't changed and you haven't changed.

It's just your way of relating to him has changed.

It's just a model and something to hook on to.

There's three I'm gonna walk through, okay?

Today I'm gonna walk through the prayer of Jabez.

Next week I'm gonna walk through the prayer of Jesus.

This could be called the Lord's Prayer, very familiar one.

And then the last one, January 26th, at the end of the month, we're gonna look at the tabernacle prayer.

Now I give you a heads up.

You're gonna come to church that day.

I'm gonna preach for five minutes, and then we're gonna have an hour-long prayer service.

It's gonna be unlike anything you've ever experienced here in the United States.

So I'm gonna give you a heads up.

It's gonna be radically different, but I'm telling you, it has a potential, and I believe, and I'm already praying, and it's gonna be one of the greatest experiences that we have as a church because there's something about whenever God's people get before him, seek his face, he has a way of showing up.

All right?

It actually says that he will.

And so we're gonna teach you the prayer by modeling it for you.

Today, though, we're gonna look specifically at the prayer of Jabez.

And so let's begin reading in 1 Chronicles chapter 4.

1 Chronicles 4 · chapter mention

If you may have been looking at your Bibles already a little bit and kind of looking and seeing, you're kind of wondering, like, what in the world is in here?

Because it just looks like there's a bunch of descendants of so-and-so, and descendants of so-and-so, and so-and-so had so-and-so, and it's like the genealogies.

There's literally nine chapters of genealogies.

Nine chapters of genealogies.

Let me give you a little, a little teaser for how thrilling this reading is in 1 Chronicles chapter 4.

1 Chronicles 4 · chapter mention

All right.

The sons of Judah, Perez, Hezron, Karmi, Hur, and Shobal.

Reah, the son of Shobal, father Jehath, and Jehath, Father Ahumah, and Lahad, these are the clans of the Zoharites.

And then it keeps going from there.

For six hundred names.

Six hundred names.

I'm telling you, if you're doing a Bible reading plan and you just kind of wing it and start going, you may make it through Genesis through Deuteronomy, and then you're gonna get to first chronicles and you'll be like, I'm out, this is not what God's called me to do.

I'm I cannot do this, all right?

And I get it because I mean, you look at all of the names, you can't even pronounce half of them, and it's kind of hard to understand all of this, which is why if you don't pay attention to the gold that is found in the midst of God's word, you're gonna miss what is jumping out on the page in verses nine and ten.

Because it switches what we've been seeing.

Look at what it says beginning in verse nine.

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bore him in pain.

Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm, so that it might not bring me pain.

And God granted what he asked.

If you were to keep going, you would see the genealogy picks right back up in verse 11.

There's no like intention of verses 9 and 10 that kind of make you see, hey, you should pay attention to this.

It's just in the midst of a bunch of names.

I almost wonder if God didn't do this intentionally because he basically wants it to jump off the page.

There's this guy named Jabez, and it says Jabez is honored more than all of his other brothers, which is an interesting statement in light of the reality of his name.

His name is Jabez.

In the Hebrew, that word actually means pain.

We don't necessarily know why his mother named him pain, but can you imagine the baggage that goes along with that?

I mean, can you imagine you're in Hebrew school and you come back from a great break and you come there and they're like check and roll and pain, is pain here?

Yeah, that's me.

Like just the very name implies things aren't great.

Things aren't perfect, things aren't wonderful.

So I don't want you to hear this prayer as though it's prayed out of a good place.

It's prayed out of a hard place.

What he shows us is a good example of what you're supposed to do whenever you have a hard place, whenever you have a difficulty, whenever you have trials, whenever you have pain.

He gives us an outline.

The outline is this this is the four parts of this prayer.

There's a prayer for blessing, a prayer for influence, a prayer for presence, and a prayer for protection.

Blessing, influence, presence, and protection.

Let's walk through each of these individually.

First of all, blessing.

Oh, that you would bless me.

The word blessing is the Hebrew word barak.

It literally means for God to kneel down or to stoop down and touch him.

I don't know about you.

That makes me a little uncomfortable.

Like, that's like sounds awesome, but like, are you allowed to ask that?

I mean, I've been taught in good churches and I've been taught good theology, and I know that I'm supposed to be a little bit careful of this kind of asking God for blessing stuff.

And a lot of times what happens is that people will go to one of two extremes that cause them to make this idea of praying for blessings super weird, which can we just all have a moment of realization?

It can be really weird.

That can be a really weird thing.

The one is the prosperity gospel.

Look, we live in Houston, Texas.

We know what the prosperity gospel is, all right?

It's live and well here in Houston, Texas.

There are plenty of churches that will basically tell you that as long as you have enough faith and you show that faith, then you're gonna be wealthy, you're gonna be healthy, and you're gonna be successful.

And if any of those things are not true, then it must be a lack of faith on your end, and you need to up your faith game so that you can experience all the blessing game.

Folks, that's a heresy in every way.

It's totally opposite of what the Bible preaches.

I've been taught against this.

So, because of that, my tendency is to go to the other extreme, and that is to buy into the poverty gospel.

You know what the poverty gospel says?

You better be happy with what you got and you better not ask for more.

And in fact, if you get a good, if you do good at the office, or if you do good in in your work, or if you do good relationally, you probably better feel guilty because at the end of the day, you know you don't deserve that, and you better be figuring out how somebody else can have it.

And it's this whole idea is like this kind of like mindfully, I'm not allowed to have nice stuff, I'm not allowed to have blessings, I'm not allowed, I am just basically supposed to be, thank you.

Yes, yes, I'm not gonna ask for anything else.

And basically, you never ask for anything because whatever you have must be what you need, and that's all you can ever ask for.

Folks, can I tell you that is just as much of a heresy as is the prosperity gospel?

Let's not make this weird.

Let's instead realize that God says we can ask him to bless us.

Let me tell you what this means.

If you had a really good year in 2024, like your business just absolutely crushed it, if relationally things were really good for you, you don't have to feel guilty.

Enjoy it.

That's been good.

You can actually experience this goodness and thankfulness and all of the things.

If you find yourself in a place where guess what, maybe things weren't just all up and to the right, and maybe there were some difficulties, it doesn't mean that somehow God's mad at you and you need to up your faith game.

It could mean that God is actually blessing you, but it's totally different than the way that you thought he was going to.

Because what I found is that some of those times of trial and struggle and difficulty, as I look back, I'm thinking, man, I would have never not wanted to go through that after now what I've experienced.

The way that God used that, like, wait a second, I I sign up for that again.

But I would have never thought that in the in the moment.

Genesis chapter 12, verse 2 is one of many examples that gives us a guide on how to handle blessings.

Genesis 12:2

Here's what it says And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great.

So that you will be a blessing.

Let me tell you what your prayer should be when it comes to this idea of blessing.

Look at this Lord, bless me with more than I need so that I can be a blessing to those around me.

You're not just praying for daily bread, you're praying for extra bread.

Folks, I know again, I'm like, are you allowed to say this?

Yes.

We can ask God for blessing.

We can ask God for provision.

We can ask God to go before us.

We can ask God for all of these things and not feel bad.

And look, if you're asking and you've got from impure motives, God will fix all that.

But I think some of us are so scared to ask with impure motives, we just don't ask.

Instead, we're supposed to pray for blessing.

This is gonna be one of many times I'm gonna ask you to do this.

So hope it doesn't get weird on you.

Don't grab your phone, don't do anything else.

What I want you to do is I want you to bow your head and close your eyes.

And for this very first one, what I want you to do is just put your hands out like this, like you're receiving something.

Father, in Jesus' name.

Father, that they would thrive.

They would experience walking with you in such a way where there's no other explanation other than you did it.

I pray your blessing on this church.

It feels selfish to even say it in light of what you've already done, but you tell me to ask for more, so I ask for a lot more.

Your blessing would be upon the people of United City Church.

Father, I pray your blessing would be upon this community.

You would bless our local schools.

You would bless our local businesses.

Father, that you would bless our local legislators, those who govern us.

Father, that you would allow righteousness to reign in the land.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

The next thing that you pray for once you've been praying for blessing is the idea of influence.

He says, Enlarge my territory.

This isn't a real estate term, although it implies real estate, because basically, if you had more land, you're responsible for showing goodness and kindness to those who are in your land.

So, but I don't want you to hear Jabez is saying, Hey, can you help me out by blessing me and then giving me more land just so that I can have more land?

He's saying, I want you to bless me because I want you to give me more opportunity to show the goodness and the kindness of the Lord to other people.

What he's essentially praying is this Lord, would you make me a conduit, not a cul-de-sac?

I've lived on both.

Previous house that I had was on a cul-de-sac.

It was awesome.

You know that cul-de-sac was so awesome because I had my neighbors that were around me and I kind of knew who they were, and so there was like a car that was on the street that wasn't supposed to be.

And essentially you're kind of just looking and seeing whose house are they going to because they are not supposed to be on the street.

This is my street, this is their street, and their street, and nobody else's street, our street, right?

It's kind of ours, right?

And you're territorial and it and you kind of keep it to yourself, and we got our cul-de-sac rules, and it was it was awesome.

We loved every bit of it.

Now I live on a street which is basically a conduit.

It's a place where people go from one destination to another destination, and they have to pass my house.

Now I'm not saying that you need to be a conduit of blessing in the sense that basically you're just basically supposed to be like this.

Here's the blessing, and I'm gonna go get it over here, and I'm just here in the middle.

No, no, no, no, no.

A conduit means this I receive the blessing, I enjoy the blessing, and I give the blessing.

But you know how awesome that is?

Because I don't know about you, but if you've ever given blessing to somebody else, it's a lot of fun.

Like it's so enjoyable.

Whenever God uses you to be a blessing in somebody else's life, and so what he's praying here is that God would enlarge his opportunity to be able to expand his influence to be able to be a conduit of that blessing.

Here's what I think is so interesting.

Jabez's name was pain.

Most people I know, here's the problem.

They stop by just saying, God, would you please take away my pain.

And God may or may not do that.

It's in his sovereignty and goodness to decide whether that's the case.

It's a radically different thing, though.

Jabez didn't pray, hey, would you make sure to take away my pain?

Jabez prays, could you increase my influence?

What I've discovered is this is that God has a way of taking the very thing that is the most painful to me.

He's giving me blessing in the midst of that pain, and then he uses the very pain to give me more influence.

How many times have you seen somebody who the very thing that was the difficult thing in their lives becomes the very thing that God uses to impact other people that they would have never had if they didn't have that difficulty and struggle?

Folks, we need to pray and say, God, would you give us more influence?

Like, would you widen our opportunity?

Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 and 21, it says, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power of work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Ephesians 3:20

Amen.

Does this sound like a safe prayer?

Lord, would you just let us do better than last year?

Would you let us do okay?

No.

Lord, would you blow us away?

Would you keep going?

This means this.

If you're a business owner, you should want to crush it in your business.

You want to have a great year and you want to be able to have more influence and you want to have more success.

This means if you are somebody who wants to be able to do something great on your school team, please pray this.

Pray that you win a ton of games and that that influence allows you to have even more influence with others.

It's not a bad thing to pray for that.

What this means is that in 2025, when United City Church had the greatest year of ministry that we've ever had in this historic, incredible church, here's what God tells us that we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to pray for more.

I feel selfish.

Like, God, you've been pretty good.

He's like, no, no, no, no, no.

I want more.

I want to do more.

Folks, what does this mean?

I'm convinced part of our biggest problem is not the fact that we don't know how to pray, it's that we pray way too small.

We pray way too safe.

It's stuff that honestly, if you just kind of put a little more commitment and a little more discipline, a little more grit, you'd probably see it anyway, and it may have nothing to do with God.

Instead, we need to pray stuff like, God, I'll do whatever.

I'll go wherever.

I'll serve wherever.

Yes.

You can figure out all the how.

We can say yes.

Close your eyes.

Fly your head.

With me.

Father, would you expand our influence?

I pray you would put visions and dreams in the life of people that are hearing my voice right now.

Who have never thought of it.

Never imagine that you would want to use them in that way.

I pray, God, that you would give them success in such a way where it's so undeniable that it is your hand of goodness and mercy in their lives, but God, it would also lead them to the place where they begin to say, okay, God, what do you want me to do next?

I pray, God, that our heart would just say yes.

We just be yes, people.

Ready and open to the new places.

Father, I pray that your hand would be upon United City Church and that God, whether it's real estate, whether it's influence or whatever it is, God, I pray that you would provide for your people and expand the reach of this place.

God, you have been so, so good.

And we not only praise you, but we believe for even more, abundantly above all that we could ever ask or even think.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Do you feel the tension?

Like if you're serious about this and I'm like praying for blessing, and then all of a sudden it's got more influence.

If you're really walking with the Lord, your next thing needs to be like, oh gosh, I'm scared.

I don't know what to do.

This is too much.

This is more than I expected.

I wasn't prepared for this.

Like, God actually answered my prayer and said, Yes, I didn't know He'd do it this way.

And so now all of a sudden you find yourself at a place where you're like super dependent.

And I would tell you, that is why the next part of the prayer is the idea of praying for presence.

If you're serious about receiving blessing so that you can be a blessing, then you are finding gonna find yourself at a place where you're gonna be like, Okay, I can't do this without you.

Like, okay, God, I I'm in, but you gotta go with me.

Like, I ain't leaving unless you do this with me.

This is one of my favorite passages of all Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

And he said to him, This is Moses, if your presence will not go with me, don't bring us up from here.

If you ain't gonna do it, I ain't going.

For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people?

Is it not in your going with us so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?

And the Lord said to Moses, This very thing that you have spoken, I will do.

For you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.

You want to the reasons why we fast as a church?

We started it multiple years ago because things were really, really bad and really, really difficult and finances and all that kind of stuff, and we didn't know what else to turn.

And so in desperation, we turned to the Lord and we fasted as a staff, and what God has been doing ever since that time has been miraculous.

Can I tell you why we're doing it again in 2025?

Because God gave us the greatest year of ministry ever, and I don't want to take one step ahead of him, and I don't want to take one step away from him.

And so if you're in a place of desperation, this is why you need his presence.

If you're in a place of success, you really need his presence.

Because I promise you, the one who gives can be the one who takes away.

And we've got to have this mentality, this dog mentality that basically says this, God, I'll do it, but I am not doing it without you.

Would you protect me from me?

Because at the end of the day, God, I want your voice.

I want to walk near you.

One of the questions I get asked a lot that I had to pray through because it bothered me a little bit.

Um the question is, hey, so what's next in 2025?

I mean, we had an expansion out on the north side of our property, we had record ministry, we had these the construction here with the seating and all the other things.

And um I got, I mean, I got a list.

I got a clear list.

I got a bunch of stuff that I want to see us do, but but I didn't feel like I need to say any of those things.

Uh, and I had to wrestle through that because my my mentality and the way I lead is such that like I want to be able to have kind of a and here's my honest, here's where I'm at.

I want us to have more people in the room, but we know his voice better than we ever have.

Like that we we know him.

Okay, that we would all say, God, we are ready to be used by you.

But we're not doing it unless you do it with us.

You gotta be with us.

And that we are we're we're nervous about stepping out of his presence, but we're also comforted by walking with him.

That he's close and that he's near to us.

Folks, when you when you do this, you can imagine the next possible thing that's gonna come up is this idea of protection.

Before we do that, though, I just want to ask you to bow your head.

Your word says that you will speak a word behind them, saying, Do not turn to the right or to the left.

And they will do it.

I pray, God, that the people of United City Church, the folks that are hearing my voice right now, they would be marked by knowing what that voice sounds like.

They'd walk with you.

God, I want to see greater ministry and I want to see greater things, but God, we also don't want to do any of that stuff without you.

We want to do all of it with you.

So would you lead and would you guide us?

I pray, God, that when people walk into this doors and when they walk into this room and they walk into this worship service, may they feel the presence of God before anything happens.

Because your people have been walking with you all week, and they are ready to get together and worship the one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Father, I pray that you would protect us from taking a step ahead, taking a step away.

Let us stay near you at all times.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Let's talk about protection.

Keep me from harm.

Keep me from harm.

Let me just tell you something.

You get in the ring, you're gonna get hit.

And what we've been talking about is not safe baby prayers.

What we've been talking about is like, all right, let's go.

Because I can assure you this the enemy doesn't take a day off.

The enemy fights unfair.

The enemy is gonna try to destroy you and discourage you.

You know what the enemy's gonna do is that whenever you all of a sudden pray for God's blessing, you pray for expanded influence, you try to seek his presence, the enemy's gonna whisper in your ear, yeah, but your name's still pain.

He's gonna begin to tell you all the things that you can do and are good enough to do and shouldn't be able to do.

And maybe that's where you are right now.

And what you need to do is you need to pray prayers that say, God, I'm ready.

I'm getting into the ring, and I am praying your protection on this thing.

This for so often for me turns into a prayer where I'm praying specifically that God would allow my kids to be protected in second period from some temptation.

That God would go before them because I want him to bless them and I want him to use them, and I want them to have a vision for their life that is so beyond what their dad believes for them, and I believe the world for them.

But I also know this there's an enemy who wants nothing more for them to be safe, for them just to be boring, for them just to be average.

And let me just tell you something.

What I believe, if you're gonna pray this prayer of Jabez, this isn't some magical hocus-focus stuff, and this thing has certainly been abused along the way, but this is God-inspired scripture stuff that if we're gonna go against the enemy, we're gonna need to be protected.

But here's what you need to know we're gonna win.

We're gonna win.

First Peter chapter 5, verse 8 says this be sober-minded, be watchful.

1 Peter 5:8

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

He's gonna come after you, but that does not mean he has to get you.

Would you bow your heads in prayer with me?

Father in heaven.

We're serious about this.

So we're gonna need you to keep us from harm, to protect us from temptation, to go before us, to fight our battles, and so God, we lay them all out before you, the ones we know about and the ones we do not yet know are coming.

Father, would you protect us as we head into this fast from the excuses that we may already be thinking of as to what we can't do and why we can't do it.

For the student that is here that wants to step up and that wants to lead out on his faith in school, God, I pray you just protect him from discouragement, protect him from despair, protect him, and allow him to realize that he who is in him is greater than he who is in the world.

I pray, God, for this church that you would protect us from harm, that you would protect us from a spirit of disunity, that you would protect us from selfish ambition, but instead, Lord, you would allow us under your banner of love and righteousness to prevail.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

One of my prayers as I pray through the prayer of Jabez has been for this church.

Last year, four hundred and six people joined United City Church.

Four hundred and six people join United City Church.

Um, this is an amazing thing because uh United City, it's not just like you just sign a car and you're in.

Like you actually got to go through four weeks of growth track and you gotta actually complete all of them, and then you gotta go through the process that goes along with being a member.

Uh many of them, of course, were some of those that got baptized, uh, but then many also may have just relocated to the area, and so therefore we're looking for a new church, or maybe they've been out of church and they're coming and they they've said, hey, I'm I'm kind of wanting to go from being a uh an attender and just kind of on the outside to kind of going and being connected in some way.

And I'll tell you, it's one thing for you to hear those numbers, which is amazing.

I think there's something that's uniquely impressive and incredible whenever you can see, because every single one of those numbers represents a story.

406 new members, you should have been contacted, you guys know who you are.

But if you joined United City Church in 2024, would you stand up and would you make your way to the front?

I'm gonna have you come up on stage with me right now, all right?

If you join in 2024, you know who you are.

I want you to stand up and come on up here and come up on stage.

Come on over here for me.

Come on for me.

Come on.

Come over here for me.

Come right here.

Come on, you gotta keep clapping.

Come on, come on.

Callop it's fine behind them.

Hey, yep, come on.

Come on, up there.

Come on, come on.

Yep, take all the way front, all the front, yep, yep.

Make a new row.

Make a new row, make a new row, back in your row.

Keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming.

We good?

We all good?

We all here?

How great is this, guys?

This is one service of four.

Hey, let me speak to union members first of all.

Uh, first this is a big deal.

This is a huge deal.

For some of you, this represents a massive change.

Maybe you were connected and a part of something before, and it was hard to kind of walk away from that because it was so good.

For some of you, this was a welcomed change.

This is maybe something that you were not a part of something great.

And so, therefore, what you found in United City, God has just kind of answered your prayers and just kind of blown the doors off.

You didn't know that it could be this great.

For some of you, you took big neck steps of baptism.

That's a huge deal.

I want to commend you on that.

I want to thank you for that.

And the testimony that you have is the fact that you literally showed for us an example of the gospel.

You preached a sermon with your heart and with your life.

For some of you, God has already been using you, and for some of you, the best is yet to come.

Because at the end of the day, the future of how God is gonna allow you to be a part, not only of this church, but to connect going forward is gonna literally allow us to have even more influence, to be able to have more and more people come and know the testimony and the story of Jesus through this great church.

Here's what I'm asking you to do.

It's gonna be kind of weird, but I want you to do it for me.

I want you guys to do this because you're gonna receive something, all right?

And what I want you guys is to do, we always do before, I want you to put your hands out and we're gonna pray a prayer, Jabez blessing over these 2024 new members, okay?

Let's pray right now.

Father in heaven, we come before you and we thank you so much for each and every one of these new members that are standing here on stage.

We thank you for their story.

We thank you, God, for what it represents.

We thank you, God, for your faithfulness in their lives.

We thank you for the way that you bless them this past year by allowing them to find a church home.

I pray, God, that you would bless them even more in 2025 and the days ahead.

I pray, God, that you would enlarge their territory.

You would give them even more influence and more opportunity to be able to share the name of Jesus with others.

I pray God you give them favor with their coworkers and with their friends and with their neighbors and with those that are around them.

God, I pray that you would allow them to be able to be a part of ministries they may not even know existed right now.

Or maybe, God, that you've burped in their hearts to start.

But I pray, God, that you would just enlarge how you allow them to see the world because they know, God, you are with them.

I pray God that your presence would be so near them.

I pray, God, that they would walk deeper with you in 2025 than they ever have in their entire lives.

I pray, God, that they would long to hear your voice and recognize it every time it speaks.

And I pray, God, that you would protect them, keep them from harm, watch over them, and Lord, allow them to not only resist temptation, but also, Lord, to be a source of justice and righteousness here in this earth.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Let's give them a hand again, let's celebrate them.

I want you guys to stay here.

You're gonna help me do the invitation.

Okay?

Here's what I want to talk to you about.

Some of you need to stand on this stage in 2025.

And you know it.

And you're looking at that and like, should have been me.

That should have been me.

I should have done that.

And I would tell you, they can tell you one, whenever we take them to the back, they do actually come back at some point.

Okay, is that correct?

They took your guys to the back and you came back.

They could also tell you that it was worth it.

That God was good.

Some of you, what you need to do is you need to join United City Church, and here's what's gonna happen.

It's in just a moment, we're gonna have our team up front and you need to come forward just like they did and join this church.

Others of you, you need to be baptized, like these ones that we already saw today.

You saw the joy that was on all the faces, you saw the video of just the joy.

So many of these up here experienced that.

I promise you, you're not gonna be met with judgment, you're gonna be met with absolute excitement.

If that's your next step, you need to take it today by coming forward.

Others of you need to come and enter a relationship with Jesus.

For some of you, this is the very first step, which is to have to know Christ through a relationship with Him.

We'd love to talk to you today about what it means to follow Him.

For some of you, you need prayer today.

You don't feel like you're experiencing blessing, you feel like you're in the middle of pain.

Here's what I want to do.

We want to speak God's word over you.

We want to pray God's word over you.

And so I'm gonna ask you to come forward and we're gonna pray for us.

I'm gonna say a quick prayer.

Our team's gonna get up front, and then when I say amen, as God is leading you to respond, you come.

Father in heaven, we come before you and we thank you.

We thank you for how faithful that you've been to our church and how faithful you're gonna be in these moments, leading people to make life changing decisions.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.