Last Sunday’s sermon focused on the importance of having a clear conscience before God, and discussed how to guard your conscience. In this sermon excerpt from 1981, John Piper helpfully draws the link between maintaining a clear conscience and being diligent in our prayers for others. See the entire sermon (text, audio) – Coty

1 Timothy 1:18 – 2:4 18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, 20 among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

[Paul] warns Timothy that, if you reject a good conscience, you may make shipwreck of your faith, like Hymenaeus and Alexander did. A good conscience is a conscience that does not condemn you for the things you do or don’t do. . . .
I think we can all understand this connection between a clear conscience and a vibrant faith if we just think about our own experience. . . . If I fall into a habit that my conscience condemns, what eventually happens is that my conscience begins to say, “Piper, all your talk about trusting Christ is a lot of hot air, because if you really trusted him, you wouldn’t go on in that behavior or that attitude.” And so a bad conscience begins to drill its little holes into the belly of the ship of faith until one of two things happen: either we confirm the genuineness of our faith by changing our ways and plugging up the holes of a bad conscience, or we show that our faith never was seaworthy and sink into unbelief and blasphemy like Hymenaeus and Alexander. So, Paul’s charge to Timothy to hold on to faith by keeping a good conscience is tremendously important, and any help Paul gives on how to keep a good conscience should be received with open arms.

That is what I think Paul does in verse 1 of chapter 2. Since you must keep a good conscience in order not to make shipwreck of faith, therefore I urge you first of all to pray for all men. At the top of Paul’s list of things that we must do in order to keep a clear conscience is to pray for other people. In order to see why failing to pray for people will lead to a bad conscience and so jeopardize our faith, we have to ask, “What is it that will prick a Christian’s conscience in his relations to other people?” The answer to that question is clear from the whole Bible. All God’s instruction is summed up in this: Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, anything we do to people that is unloving will prick our conscience and threaten our faith. With that as a foundation we can start to see why prayer for other people is at the top of Paul’s list of things we must do in order to keep a clear conscience.

I see three reasons why prayer for other people is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience, in view of Jesus’ teaching that love is our greatest duty. First, prayer taps the power of God on behalf of others. We could try to help others . . . without praying for them. And, judged from a very limited perspective, we might do a little good that way. But the little good that we could do by our little power is not worthy to be compared with the great good God can do for people that he sets out to work for. So if we want the best for people, if we really love them, of first importance will be prayers on their behalf. . . .

A second reason prayer is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience is that it is the easiest step of love. . . . And isn’t it true that if you are unwilling to do something easy for the good of another, then it is very unlikely that you will be willing to do something hard for them? . . ..

And the third reason prayer is of first importance in keeping our consciences clear is that it reaches farther in its effects than anything else we can do. . . . Without it we can influence things nearby, and if we wait long enough, our influence may spread around the world. But God’s influence is everywhere and immediate, so if we send our signals to him, we can reach around the world in an instant. If a broadcaster wants to get a message to the most people possible in the smallest amount of time, he will send it first away from the people to a satellite. If a Christian wants to do the most good possible to the most people in the short time he has, he will turn to God first, whose influence reaches, without interruption, to every molecule and every mind in the universe.

So, if we would not make shipwreck of faith, we must keep a good conscience. And therefore, I urge you first of all to fulfill the love command by praying for all men, because prayer taps the power of God on their behalf, prayer is the first and easiest step of love, and prayer reaches farther in its good effects than anything else we can do.

By John Piper. Used by permission. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org