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.