Audio Transcript

This week in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan, we read together Psalm 79. So, this question — from Kimberly in Houston, Texas — is timely. She writes in to ask this: “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast. In Psalm 79:9, the psalmist prays like this: ‘Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!’ I want to pray like this. But how? How do I pray for things that would benefit me and the people I know and love and would also glorify God at the same time in answer to those prayers?

“It seems very Christian Hedonistic. We get the help; he gets the glory. Except I just don’t know how to frame my praying like this. I thought it would be easy until I tried to do it. It’s actually very hard and limiting because I’m finding that most of my prayers have no conscious relation to God’s glory. Can you teach me to pray the Psalm 79:9 way?”

Well, Kimberly has one problem already solved, which many people stumble over. And the problem is expressed in the question, “How do I pray for things that would benefit me and glorify God at the same time?” And many people stumble over that tension as though it were a tension. For me, for God — which is it?

But Kimberly knows there doesn’t have to be a tension, because she says, “We get the help; he gets the glory.” So, she’s got that one wonderfully, biblically figured out, which is exactly what Psalm 50:15 says: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” We get the deliverance; he gets the glory. That’s what it says. If we keep in mind that the giver gets the glory, then there doesn’t have to be a tension between our asking for what we need and our asking that God be glorified.

“There doesn’t have to be a tension between our asking for what we need and our asking that God be glorified.”

But Kimberly says that she does not have an answer to the question (or the problem), “I just don’t know how to frame my praying like this. I thought this would be easy until I tried it. It’s actually hard and limiting because I’m finding that most of my prayers have no conscious relation to the glory of God.” So, let me see if I can make a few biblical observations. I think I have five that might reorient Kimberly’s (and all of our) thinking so that it feels natural that every request we make in prayer relates to the glory of God.

1. Remember why God does everything.

So, here’s number one. Never forget that God does everything for his own name’s sake — that is, for his glory. He does everything for his glory. He delivers us for his name’s sake (Psalm 79:9). He blots out our transgressions for his own sake (Isaiah 43:25). He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake (Psalm 23:3). He does not forsake his people for his great name’s sake (1 Samuel 12:22). He saves us for his name’s sake (Psalm 106:8).

It helps to see our prayers as fitting into this overarching, global, historical purpose of God in everything that he does. He does all that he does for his name’s sake — that is, to display and communicate his beauty, his worth, his greatness, his glory. So, if we have just an overarching, pervasive mindset that God does all he does for his glory, then our prayers assume a new fitness as we think that way, as we dream that way, and as we ask that way.

2. Pray beneath God’s righteousness.

Number two, this unwavering commitment of God to uphold the glory of his name is at the heart of what is his righteousness. We see that in Psalm 143:11: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life!” So, we pray like that: “For your name’s sake, preserve my life! In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!” So, God’s acting for his name’s sake and his acting in righteousness are parallel. They explain each other; they interpret each other.

And when you think about it, this makes really good sense. What is the ultimately right thing for God to do when God has no book to consult outside himself about what’s right and wrong? He only has himself to consult. There’s just God. There’s nothing else before he creates anything. He is the measure of all that is right. The right thing to do, I would argue, is for God to always act in accord with the infinite worth of his own name, his own being. I think that’s the essence of his righteousness. It’s right for him to always act in accord with the infinite worth of his name.

And I think that helps us in our praying, because we always want God to do the right thing in answer to our prayer. “Do the right thing” — which will mean, “Act for the sake of your name.” That’s the ultimately right thing for God to do.

3. End your prayers in Jesus’s name.

Number three, keep in mind what it means to pray in Jesus’s name. I used to say to my kids when they were growing up and they’d end a prayer with a throwaway sound, “In Jesus’s name” — I said, “Let’s just pause here. That’s not a throwaway phrase.” It may be that one of the reasons we stumble over seeking God’s glory in our prayers is that we forget what we’re saying when we pray, “In Jesus’s name, amen.”

In John 14:13, Jesus taught us to pray in his name. To pray in Jesus’s name means that it is his death in our place that makes it possible for God’s wrath to be removed and God’s grace to pour down all over us in answer to our prayers. So, Jesus’s name refers to the basis or the foundation of every single gracious answer to prayer. “In Jesus’s name” means, “because Jesus died for me and purchased the grace of every answered prayer.” No cross, no answered prayer. But “in Jesus’s name” also means that the giver gets the glory. If he paid for every answered prayer, he gets the glory for every answered prayer.

So, let the meaning of “in Jesus’s name” have its full effect as you speak it. End every prayer with the thought, “You, Jesus, are my only hope for any gracious answer to this prayer. And when it comes, I will be glad for you to get the glory.”

4. Let the Lord’s Prayer shape yours.

Number four, keep in mind that there is a reason that the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “Hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9). Hallowed means “sanctified” — that is, set apart as sacred, holy, precious, valuable, infinitely worthy of all our admiration and desire and praise. It would not be far off to translate it, “Glorified be your name,” “Admired be your name,” “Praised be your name,” “Treasured be your name.” Which means that, every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer, you are asking, first and foremost, that the Lord would cause his name to be glorified.

“If Jesus paid for every answered prayer, he gets the glory for every answered prayer.”

You don’t have to add that later as you just stick on an artificial, “Be sure you get glory from my prayer, Lord.” You began with it. Jesus begins with it. “Lord, my heart’s number-one desire is that your name be glorified in every answer to my prayer.” So, let the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer remind you that the first concern of every prayer is that God be glorified.

5. Pray with one main passion.

Finally, number five, whether you say it out loud or not, let every request that you make in prayer be like Paul’s desire in Philippians 1:20, where he said, “It is my eager . . . hope” — and, thus, you could say, “It is my prayer” — “that . . . Christ [be magnified or glorified] in my body, whether by life or by death.”

In other words, even if you don’t say it out loud, let your whole mindset in prayer be this: “Lord, I pray that you would deliver me from my enemies and let me live another day that I might serve you. But whether I live or die, the main passion of my heart, with the apostle Paul, is that you would be magnified in my life, whether I live or whether I die.”

So, my prayer is that these five observations from Scripture will help us all to build into the mindset of our prayer a constant desire, a primary hope, that God be glorified however he answers our prayer.

Audio Transcript

Back in October of last year, we looked at the shipwrecked faith. Specifically, how do people make shipwreck of their faith? What causes it? And there in APJ 1849, Pastor John, you defined the shipwrecked faith as a person who makes a beginning in the Christian life, but who drifts away as their heart increasingly prefers sin over Christ. It’s a heart-preference issue. The heart falls in love with riches, or the heart falls in love with this present world and its approval, and so it rejects a good conscience and becomes defiled by the world’s sin. Basically, a shipwrecked faith is the heart’s desires corrupted.

But sometimes when we speak of the shipwrecked faith, we assume this state is one of final undoing — like, there’s no hope for return. It’s over. You shipwrecked, or you don’t shipwreck. Which leads to today’s email from a listener named Jacob. “Pastor John, thank you for all your service and for your passion in the gospel! My question is this: Is there hope for those who have shipwrecked their faith? I believe I have done this as 1 Timothy 1:19 describes what has happened to those who have rejected a good conscience. I feel my communion with the Lord has been dry and blocked for almost six months now due to my personal sin. Can a shipwrecked faith be undone?”

I think it would be unbiblical and unwarranted and unhelpful for me to say to Jacob that he is beyond hope. Those six months of sin and disobedience and distance from God are no sure sign that Jacob is beyond hope. So let me try to give four encouraging reasons from the Bible for why I say this for Jacob’s sake — and also for others who no doubt share his condition — and then we’ll close with a sober warning and a hopeful exhortation.

Handed Over for Discipline

First, let’s just pay attention to the context that he’s referring to in 1 Timothy 1:19–20. It’s a very hopeful context, not a despairing one, when he talks about the shipwreck. He says, “[Hold] faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this [the good conscience], some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.”

So Paul knows these two men. He knows them, and he says that they’ve made shipwreck of their faith by rejecting conscience, and that he has handed them over to Satan. But why? Why did he hand them over? It does not say he handed them over for final punishment. It says he handed them over to Satan to “learn.” The word is paideuō, which means “to give instruction, to train, to discipline.” So he handed them over to be instructed, to be trained, to be disciplined. This is not a word for final judgment or damnation. This is a word for remediation, improvement, and hope.

“Making shipwreck of your faith need not mean final loss. There is hope for a turnaround.”

And supporting that interpretation that I just gave is the fact that there’s one other place in the writings of Paul where he speaks about people being handed over to Satan because they’ve sinned in an egregious way. In 1 Corinthians 5:5, he says, “You are to deliver this man [who’s committed this terrible sexual sin] to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Again, the aim of handing him over to Satan is salvation, not damnation, which means that making shipwreck of your faith in 1 Timothy need not be final loss. There is hope for a turnaround. That’s my hopeful argument number one.

Surviving a Shipwreck

Number two, why did Paul use the image of shipwreck? He could have used so many other images for the destruction of faith or the damage of faith. Why did he use that? They rejected conscience; they’ve chosen to live against their conscience, in sin. They’ve therefore left the faith — at least it looks like they’ve left it — and they’ve turned away. What did shipwreck mean in Paul’s experience?

Well, he tells us. It’s quite amazing. I didn’t quite realize this until thinking about it for this question. Here’s 2 Corinthians 11:25: “Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked.” Are you kidding me? “Three times I was shipwrecked.” Now that’s before the one in the book of Acts (see Acts 27). So we can say he was shipwrecked at least four times. “Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea.” Paul must have thought, “Lord, I’ve got to be persecuted in every city, and every third time I get on a boat, you’re going to make it go down?”

That’s a lot of shipwrecks for a life as short as Paul’s. Paul had experienced three shipwrecks even before the one in the book of Acts, and one of them evidently left him drifting in the water, holding onto some wreckage for a day and a night before he was, what — picked up by some other boat or got to shore? I don’t know. Amazing, three shipwrecks! As if it were not enough that he was persecuted everywhere and had every other manner of trouble.

But here’s the relevant thing for Jacob’s question. Shipwreck in Paul’s experience did not mean death. It didn’t mean judgment and death; it meant loss and suffering. It was not final, at least not in Paul’s experience. It wasn’t final. Three times he had come through it alive. He knew people survived shipwrecks. He had three times. So there’s no warrant to think that when it says “shipwreck of faith” in 1 Timothy, he meant, “That’s the end of faith. It’ll never come back. It can’t survive. It’s not holding on for a day and a night in the water. No hope for Hymenaeus and Alexander. No hope for Jacob.” No way. That’s not what it implies necessarily. You can’t argue that from the word shipwreck.

From Useless to Useful

Third, one of the most beautiful sentences in Paul’s letters is 2 Timothy 4:11, where he says to Timothy, “Luke alone is with me [this is Paul’s last letter; he’s soon to be killed]. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me in ministry.” That’s beautiful. Now, I know that when John Mark left Paul and Barnabas and refused to go on the missionary-journey work, we are not told why. We were not told that it was a crisis of faith, a little mini-shipwreck or something like that. We’re not told. We don’t know why he turned back.

What we do know is that Paul was really angry. He was so displeased by Mark’s behavior, he refused — absolutely refused, at the expense of his own friendship with his close friend Barnabas — to take John Mark with him on his second missionary journey. Luke says it caused “a sharp disagreement” between Barnabas and Paul. (Acts 15:39) And Mark must have felt a deep sting from the great apostle. Picture it: your favorite Christian leader says, “I’m not going to work with you. You’re a quitter.” Oh my goodness. What a shaming thing to happen to John Mark.

Now, that may be what Jacob feels right now in asking us this question. Maybe he feels like, “I’ve just so badly deserted, like John Mark did, that I could never be useful again.” But the encouraging thing is that here, at the end of Paul’s life, either he or Mark (probably Mark) has changed. Something’s changed. Mark has become not just useful, but very useful. “Get Mark and bring him, Timothy, because he’s very useful to me for ministry.” And I mentioned this simply to show that there have been, and there can be now, dramatic changes in people’s lives so that being rejected and useless can turn around and become accepted and useful. So that’s number three.

Denier No Longer

Here’s number four. Picture the night that Peter denied the Lord Jesus three times. Jesus had warned him that this was coming. And Peter, instead of humbling himself with trembling and pleading for help — “Oh, don’t let that happen to me, Jesus. Please, don’t let that happen to me!” — was instead cocksure it would never happen. “I’m not going to deny you — I’m ready to die with you” (see Luke 22:33). And here’s Luke’s description of that final moment after the third denial of Peter. This is just so moving.

Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:60–62)

Surely this was a shipwreck if ever there were one. Three times he denies the Lord of glory after three years of experiencing his glory and beauty and love and patience — three times in the hour of his greatest suffering and loneliness. And Peter knew the Lord saw it. He saw it happen. There was just no question. “Jesus knows what I’ve just done. He saw me, and he knows what I’ve done.” And therefore, his guilt must have been horrible. The shame he must have felt as he wept must have been absolutely overwhelming.

“Peter’s ship of faith wrecked. It really did. But it didn’t wreck utterly, not finally. And Jesus welcomed him back.”

And then, as we know from the Gospel of John, the Lord met him after the resurrection and three times — no accident — asked him, “Do you love me?” And after he heard yes after each of those three times, he said, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). You’re back Peter — you’re back. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. The ship of faith wrecked. It really did. But it didn’t wreck utterly, not finally. And Jesus welcomed him back.

He Welcomes All Who Come

My fifth statement, which I said would be a sober warning and an exhortation of hope, comes from Hebrews 12. It’s about Esau. It says, “See to it . . . that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected . . .” Let me say that again, because that’s sober. “You know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it [namely, repentance] with tears” (Hebrews 12:15–17). Now here’s the sober warning: it is possible to make shipwreck of your faith like Esau and never be saved. That’s a sober warning.

But here’s the hopeful truth and my exhortation: the text does not say, “Even though he repented, God withheld the blessing.” That’s not what it says. It says he sought repentance with tears, and he couldn’t find it. He couldn’t do it. This is the final shipwreck from which there is no salvation: we sin so long or so deeply that we can’t repent. We can’t. Our hearts have become too hard.

But the hope is obvious, right? It’s obvious: if you repent — if by God’s grace you can turn and renounce your sin and come to Christ and take him afresh as your Savior and Lord and treasure — he will receive you. “All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). So the exhortation, Jacob — and every other person listening in Jacob’s situation — is to come to Christ. Come back. If you can come, he will have you.

Have you ever assumed that you’re enjoying spiritual progress or making the most of life simply because you know you should be? I have. The logic ran like this:

Christians redeem the time.
I am a Christian.
Therefore, I must be redeeming the time.

We walk by faith, not sight — but that does not mean wandering in fiction. Perhaps this application will resonate. You may wonder many days, Why is my Christian life so pedestrian? So underwhelming? So stagnant? Instead of letting this dryness expose us, we remind ourselves that we are Christians, after all, and if anyone is enjoying the benefits of the Christian life, we must be. We should be, by the flick of faith’s wand, becomes, we actually are. I know that Jesus came to give me life to the full, I am his disciple, and therefore, by faith, I really am supping on the full plate. I believe; therefore I am.

But we might not be. In reality, we may really be walking unworthily of our calling, domesticated in our witness, living but half-awake. We really can be wasting time, living backward to our calling, playing footsie with the world. We shouldn’t be content and happy living well beyond a cannon-shot away from the front lines where fullness of joy dwells, where the Savior dwells.

In other words, the yawning might indicate that you and I really can live a slouching, blunted, anemic, sleepy, weak, unconvinced Christian life — not in all things, perhaps, but often in one main thing: mission. Too many of us live civilian lives in this Great War and, therefore, remain only half-happy, half-alive, half-thrilled. And instead of realizing it (and repenting of it), we can believe this must be it for now. But small joys and puny purpose should find us out. Our spirits groan, and our indwelling and grieved Friend whispers, implores, There is so much more. And there is.

So, I’d like to rouse us from our Western Shires with a song, as the dwarves’ music did for Bilbo when “something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick” (The Hobbit, 16). This hymn will make you want to wear a sword instead of a walking stick, to explore mountains perilous and great. It reminds us that the story is still being written, that souls still need saving, that we face a task unfinished — one that our Lord calls us to complete.

Facing a Task Unfinished

“Facing a Task Unfinished” was written in the early twentieth century by Frank Houghton, an admirer of Hudson Taylor and a missionary himself to China. The song boasts a rich history as part of the battle cry for missions to the Pacific Rim, according to Keith and Kristyn Getty, who have repopularized the hymn.

As more is done by prayer than prose, I would like us to ask the Lord of the harvest to make and send us as laborers, using Houghton’s lyrics as a guide. But be careful as you join in these four prayers, for when we shut our closet doors, we never know what adventures he will sweep us off to. O trustworthy Lord, awaken in us a daring faith — one we shall have no cause to regret in this life or the life to come. Hear us for your great glory and for our everlasting delight.

Rebuke Our Slothful Ease

Facing a task unfinishedThat drives us to our knees,A need that, undiminished,Rebukes our slothful ease,We who rejoice to know theeRenew before thy throneThe solemn pledge we owe theeTo go and make thee known.

Father, we start with confession. The commission your dear Son charged us with — the commission he himself sends us on and promises his presence for — how little do we concern ourselves that it is left unfinished? How little does it send us across sea, or street, or down to our knees? This world needs Christians shining in the darkness; how often have we pulled baskets over ourselves? The need is undiminished; how little can we say the same of ourselves? If anything in this world calls for energy, for tenacity, for wakefulness, for risk, is it not your mission? And yet how often do we answer your imperial claims with slothful ease? So much consumption, so little commission.

By our confession as Christians, by our baptism, by our membership in the visible church, we have solemnly pledged to participate in your mission. Give us grace to proclaim your excellencies. Souls are dying. What are we still here for if not to make you known?

May We Heed Their Crying

Where other lords beside theeHold their unhindered sway,Where forces that defied theeDefy thee still today,With none to heed their cryingFor life and love and light,Unnumbered souls are dyingAnd pass into the night.

Father, other lords vie with you. Their servants are zealous for wickedness; their evangelists cross land and sea to make sons of hell. The god of this earth seeks dominion, and while his demons trembled on earth before your Son, his forces have not yet retreated. And the chief place of their dominion is over the souls of men, blinding men from your Son’s glory and dragging them down to hell with themselves.

“Too many of us live civilian lives in this Great War and, therefore, remain half-happy, half-alive, half-thrilled.”

Look out upon the dying masses, Father. Have compassion on these unnumbered souls unable to discern their left hand from their right. And work your compassion in us. They live next door; they work with us; we eat at the same restaurants and play the same games. Give us wisdom to hunt souls, to labor while it’s day, to be uncomfortably bright witnesses to your beloved Son. And send the required number of us into those lands drowning in false religion to draw in a people from every language, tribe, and nation for your name’s sake.

To Thee We Yield Our Powers

We bear the torch that flamingFell from the hands of thoseWho gave their lives proclaimingThat Jesus died and rose;Ours is the same commission,The same glad message ours;Fired by the same ambition,To thee we yield our powers.

Father, let us know what it is to bear this flaming torch. Love compels us, your glory spurs us, duty points us, and the cloud of witnesses cheers us to bring the gospel to the lost. Where would we be without former generations who resolved to give their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose and reigns? May we not be a generation of vile ingratitude that receives knowledge of eternal life from the bloody labors of others but is unwilling to pass such knowledge along ourselves.

Give us that same ambition. Whatever powers we have, hone them; whatever gifts we have, wield them. Turn the world upside down yet again. May we not shrink from any cross, lest in so doing, we refuse every crown.

From Cowardice Defend Us

O Father, who sustained them,O Spirit, who inspired,Savior, whose love constrained themTo toil with zeal untired,From cowardice defend us,From lethargy awake!Forth on thine errands send usTo labor for thy sake.

O great and triune God, as you have sustained them, sustain us; as you moved them, move us; as your love constrained them, rouse us with zeal untired. Light the beacon. Many of us are wood three times doused; flame the altar.

Two great lions stand in the street and block the way. The first is cowardice — an unwillingness to bear a costly witness. O Lord, help us to see the immeasurable gain on the other side of temporal loss. Let us see all that is at stake in our negligence and fear.

And Lord, stir us from the second lion, lethargy. Let us learn from the ant or from the foolish virgins or the cursed fig tree. Don’t let us drool upon our pillows undisturbed. Awaken the militant church dissatisfied with playing defense. Awaken the church whose witness is unmistakable, whose power is undeniable, whose advance the gates of hell cannot withstand. Awaken the church that so out-rejoices and out-loves the world that onlookers see it and must give you glory. Here we are, Lord; we will go. Send us forth on your errands to labor for your sake — but only as you go with us.

Church, we have a task unfinished that towers over your best life now. We will more fully taste the joy of our salvation as we go extend our hope to others.