Your Labels and Limitations Will Not Define My Future
Pastor Erickson preaches from 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 on Jabez, whose mother named him for sorrow, and shows that the labels and limitations others put on a life do not have to define its future. He calls listeners to give honor to God, to pray from a real relationship and expect God to bless them indeed and enlarge their territory, and to repent and receive the Holy Ghost.
The message in 6 points
The prayer of Jabez
He reads the two verses about Jabez, whose mother named him because she bore him with sorrow. From those words he takes his title and declares that the labels and limitations the devil has put on a life will not define its future.
1:04:14A name that meant sorrow
Jabez means pain or sorrow. In Hebrew culture a name was a label and often a role, as with Elijah, Joshua and Moses, and Jabez's mother named him after the painful season she was living in, a name he would have to live down.
1:08:52A new identity with the same name
Many people carry a label from someone else's problem, such as abuse, neglect or abandonment that was not their fault. Jabez did not get a new name but found a new identity, like Esther, whose name meant hidden but who rose up for such a time as this.
1:16:44The labels others write on us
Like a name tag at a meeting, other people fill in our labels: loved and cherished for some, dumb, reject or failure for others. God adopts people into his family, and generational curses are only as powerful as we allow them to be.
1:21:56Honor comes before the blessing
God called Jabez more honorable than his brethren even before his mother named him. Pastor Erickson teaches that you receive honor by giving honor, by standing to worship the King of kings and by honoring your father and mother.
1:29:54Bless me indeed
Verse 10 is how Jabez removed his label, a prayer that grew out of a relationship with God and not a prosperity formula. Indeed means as expected, so he urges people to pray expecting God to bless them, enlarge their territory and keep his hand on them, and to repent and receive the Holy Ghost.
1:38:53
In his words
“I believe there's a Jabez in this room, somebody who's been put a label, a description to your life, limitations to your life, and I want to preach to you and simply say your labels, devil, and your limitations, devil, will not define my future.”
“Generational curses are only as powerful as you allow them to be. Your mama and your daddy don't define you.”
“You can't have power with a God that you don't have a relationship with.”
Taken word for word from the video, with punctuation added.
Scripture
He reads
1 Chronicles 4:9-10
9And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. 10And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.
King James Version.
Matthew 7:7
7Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
King James Version.
Matthew 7:21-23
21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
King James Version.
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