A Prayer to Hold Your Life Together

00:00:00.000 | So, why do we pray?

00:00:07.460 | That was a question on the table during John Piper's sermon, "Pray Like This, Hello Be

00:00:11.280 | Your Name," a sermon he preached on December 30th, 2007.

00:00:14.840 | Here's a clip from that message.

00:00:17.160 | Why pray?

00:00:19.400 | Because when you go to God in dependence upon His wisdom and power and love to do what you

00:00:28.340 | long for Him to do according to His will, you mightily make the Father and the Son look

00:00:37.320 | great.

00:00:41.000 | You make them look great.

00:00:44.260 | When you go to the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit to do what

00:00:49.440 | only they can do and you plead and it happens, you make them look great.

00:00:57.000 | So let me give you a verse, John 14, 13, "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that the

00:01:05.560 | Father may be glorified in the Son."

00:01:10.640 | Come to me, ask me in the name of myself to the Father and He'll do it that He in me will

00:01:18.460 | look glorious.

00:01:20.760 | That's the reason we pray.

00:01:22.280 | Or here's the way Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 1, "You also must help us by prayer so that

00:01:32.840 | many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted to us through many prayers."

00:01:42.960 | A complicated sentence but not a complicated point.

00:01:46.800 | Let's have lots of people pray so lots of people thank God when it happens.

00:01:51.760 | God is really into getting thanks, hence He's into prayer.

00:01:56.880 | Here's the way the psalmist said it, Psalm 50, verse 15, "Call upon me in the day of

00:02:02.320 | trouble and I will deliver you and you will glorify me."

00:02:09.800 | So can you draw it near?

00:02:12.400 | Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you will glorify me.

00:02:19.520 | He goes up, He comes down, glory goes back up.

00:02:22.840 | That's why we pray.

00:02:24.720 | We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

00:02:31.480 | And the Bible tells us that prayer magnifies the supremacy of God.

00:02:37.960 | So we pray because we're really into God's glory and God's supremacy.

00:02:45.920 | Here's what Jesus said, Matthew 6, 9.

00:02:48.840 | Jesus said, "Pray then like this, 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.'"

00:02:59.880 | Wish I could take you back with me to 1968, '69, Noel and I just married, December '68.

00:03:07.480 | And I was seeing so much.

00:03:10.440 | I just felt like my world was being shredded and rebuilt as I immersed myself in the Bible

00:03:16.760 | in those early days of school.

00:03:19.440 | And I said to her one time, I think it was later in '69, I said, "You know, you can tell

00:03:24.560 | when your theology is undergoing a Copernican revolution because you pray differently.

00:03:33.240 | Like you suddenly wake up to what you're saying here."

00:03:36.960 | Jesus said, "The first, preeminent, most important, all-encompassing request we should make of

00:03:50.640 | the living God is make Your name great."

00:03:58.600 | That's the first request of the Lord's Prayer.

00:04:01.760 | "God, hallowed be Your name."

00:04:07.720 | Which means, "Cause Your name to be hallowed."

00:04:12.960 | Do something, God, for Your name in Minneapolis.

00:04:18.320 | Do something for Your name in this church.

00:04:20.740 | Do something for Your name in this family.

00:04:23.520 | Do something for Your name in Pakistan today.

00:04:26.440 | Let it turn, oh God, for the hallowing of Your name in that aching country.

00:04:32.240 | This is our request that God be jealous for the name of God.

00:04:39.520 | People choke on this.

00:04:40.520 | What does "hallowed" mean?

00:04:43.160 | "Hagia Stata."

00:04:44.640 | It means sanctified.

00:04:46.200 | It's the word used for sanctified.

00:04:48.400 | It's a third-person imperative.

00:04:53.480 | Like Peter said on the Pentecost, "Let them repent."

00:04:58.200 | This is modestly and mildly commanding God to do something.

00:05:03.600 | Giving Him an imperative.

00:05:05.600 | This is a request.

00:05:07.280 | We are pleading with God, "Hallow Your name.

00:05:10.760 | Make Your name hallowed in the world.

00:05:12.880 | Make Your name hallowed in this church.

00:05:14.880 | Make Your name hallowed in my children."

00:05:16.600 | What does "hallowed" mean?

00:05:18.760 | Sanctified.

00:05:19.760 | What does "sanctified" mean for a God who is infinitely holy and doesn't need any improvement?

00:05:25.120 | Sanctified means set apart.

00:05:26.600 | Set apart like what?

00:05:28.880 | How do you mean?

00:05:31.200 | God set Your name apart.

00:05:33.760 | It means God take Your name, this holy representation of Yourself, and set it apart as the most

00:05:40.000 | precious, holy, beautiful, valuable reality in the mind of the person for whom I'm praying.

00:05:48.280 | That's the first thing to pray all the time.

00:05:51.480 | All the time.

00:05:52.480 | Number one issue in prayer is, "God, right now in this person I care about, so work that

00:06:00.960 | Your name is treasured above my name.

00:06:04.400 | That Your name is treasured above money.

00:06:05.920 | That Your name is treasured above sex, above alcohol, above fame, above approval, above

00:06:11.200 | success.

00:06:12.200 | Make Your name great in their hearts, oh God.

00:06:16.880 | Be jealous for Your name in their lives."

00:06:21.200 | That's the overarching, deep, unifying, global thing that holds all praying together.

00:06:30.600 | Doesn't it?

00:06:31.600 | I hope it does.

00:06:32.600 | I hope this holds your life together.

00:06:35.080 | A passion for the supremacy of God.

00:06:38.200 | I mean, what else could it signify when Jesus says, "When you pray, say, number one,

00:06:46.840 | God, Father, make sure Your name gets hallowed."

00:06:56.400 | Man, I love that clip.

00:06:58.800 | That was from John Piper's sermon, "Pray Like This, Hallowed Be Your Name," which he preached

00:07:02.440 | on December 30th, 2007.

00:07:04.200 | We have over 1,200 messages like this one from John Piper in our archive at DesiringGod.org.

00:07:10.440 | On Wednesdays, we like to dip into that archive and pull out a classic quote for the podcast.

00:07:14.600 | I welcome your suggestions.

00:07:15.880 | If you have a favorite John Piper sermon clip, please email us the name of the sermon and,

00:07:19.880 | if possible, the timestamp of when and where the clip occurs in the audio.

00:07:23.240 | If we post your clip, of course we'll give you credit.

00:07:26.120 | Please put the phrase "sermon clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to us

00:07:30.000 | at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:07:33.360 | Well how does our delight in God fuel our delight in the good gifts of creation?

00:07:38.520 | Pastor John will help explain this tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:07:41.440 | We'll see you then.

00:07:41.960 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:07:50.580 | [ Silence ]

A Prayer to Hold Your Life Together

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