As we come to the end of 2025, we can look back and see God’s wonderful goodness to us at FBC. We are a blessed fellowship, and God has moved in so many ways among us. As we look forward to 2026, I thought about what our prayer should be. What would we ask God to do among us and within us, as disciples and as a body? When I think on this question, I am often brought back to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. In Ephesians 1-3, Paul lays out the doctrinal foundation of gospel truths. He teaches the Ephesians who they are "in Him" and who they are as a body of both Jews and Gentiles, united as the people of God. Then, in chapters 4-6, He teaches them how to live these truths out within the body and out in the world. Sandwiched right between these two sections, at the end of chapter 3, Paul prays that God would empower and strengthen them by the Spirit that they would be able to live out all that he teaches in chapters 4-6. This Sunday, we will study this prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21, and make it our prayer as disciples of Jesus and the body at FBC. Paul prays they would be strengthened in their inner being, to know Christ’s unknowable love, and be filled with the fullness of God. Sounds wonderful, but that is much easier said than done. Many of us have set our hearts to live for Christ and been repeatedly disappointed, knowing we cannot be what we desire. Yet, Paul shows us that God is able to fulfill this impossible prayer. It is not striving harder that brings our strengthening about...it is becoming more dependent. 

I. Paul’s Prayer To The Father (14-15) 

II. Strengthened By The Spirit As Christ’s Dwelling (16-17a) 

III. Strengthened To Know Christ’s Love (17b-19) 

IV. Pray Because God Is Able (20-21)