Learning To Pray For What Matters Most | Preston Morrison

What do you pray when life gets hard?

For most of us, the instinct is understandable: God, change this. Fix this. Get me out of this. But in Ephesians 3, Paul shows us another way to pray.

In “The Prayer You’re Not Praying | Learning To Pray For What Matters Most,” we look at Ephesians 3:14–21 and one of Paul's most powerful prayers for the Church. Writing from prison, Paul doesn't pray for his chains to fall off or his circumstances to change. Instead, he prays that believers would be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in their inner being, rooted and established in the love of Christ, and filled with the fullness of God.

In this sermon, you'll discover:

• What Paul's posture teaches us about approaching God in prayer

• Why difficult circumstances should never keep us from praying

• What Paul didn't pray for—and what that reveals about spiritual maturity

• Why strengthening your inner life matters when life's battles come

• The difference between Christ being present, prominent, and preeminent in your life

• How deeply knowing God helps us understand the depth of His love

• What it looks like to pray for God's will and glory above our own

Paul's prayer challenges us to look beyond what is happening around us and pay attention to what God is developing within us.

Because sometimes the prayer we need most isn't, “God, change my circumstances.”

It's, “God, strengthen me in the middle of them.”

There will be moments when life feels overwhelming. That's why our inner life with Jesus matters. We strengthen ourselves in the Lord through His presence and His Word, allowing Christ to become more than simply present or even prominent in our lives. We surrender until He becomes preeminent—the One around whom everything else is ordered.

And the more deeply we know Him, the more we begin to understand a love that Paul says surpasses knowledge—a love wider, longer, higher, and deeper than we could ever fully comprehend.

Paul ends his prayer by turning his attention completely toward God's glory: to the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine.

So maybe the prayer isn't only, “God, get me out of this.”

Maybe it's also:

Strengthen me here.

Become preeminent in me.

Let Your will be done.

And be glorified through my life.