When the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, he prayed that the

church would be strengthened through God's spirit. Today, on Troop for Life,

Alistair Begg walks us through Paul's prayer to help us understand how God

empowers believers and what's actually involved in saving faith. Alistair is

teaching from Ephesians chapter 3. We're focusing today on verses 16 and 17.

We began last time to look at this prayer and we noted that first of all it was

selfless and then secondly that it was spiritual, that Paul's concerns were not

what we might have anticipated and then we said we would go on and consider the

fact that the prayer is also specific. There's no vague generalities here from

the lips of Paul or from the pen of Paul. He is very direct in knowing to whom he

comes and why he comes and exactly what it is he's asking of God and there are

essentially two requests in these verses. First of all a prayer for inner strength

through the resources of God's spirit and then a prayer that these Ephesian

believers might comprehend the measureless limitless love of Christ. We'll deal

with them each and turn. In fact, we will only deal with the first of them this

morning. As we do so, it's very important that we recognize that Paul here is

addressing those who are believers. He's addressing those who are in Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He began his

letter who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. It is in him

that we have been chosen and it is in him that we have redemption through his

blood. If you doubt this, just go back and start reading the letter again and you

will see that he makes it perfectly clear. He is not writing now and praying now

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