From the sermon preached on February 15, 2026
Most of us aren’t living by faith — we’re living by the edges of what we’ve already seen, already tried, and already survived. That’s the honest diagnosis underneath Ephesians 3:20, a verse that promises God is “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.” The gap between that promise and the way most of us actually pray isn’t a theological problem. It’s a box problem.
Pastor Rich Romero opened Generation Church’s new six-week series, Beyond, with a Home Depot box on the stage. Not as a prop for applause — as a mirror. His point was simple and a little uncomfortable: every one of us has a box, a set of limitations we’ve accepted as our identity. Some we built ourselves. Some we inherited. And the question he put in front of a full room on a Sunday morning in Coral Gables wasn’t “Do you believe in God?” It was something harder: Have you ever prayed a prayer that scared you?
This post unpacks the three core points from that message and what it might look like to actually step into the “beyond” the title promises.
What Does God Being "Able" Actually Mean for Your Real Life?
Ephesians 3:20 has been on the walls of Generation Church since the beginning — on launch guides, on T-shirts, woven into the founding DNA of a church that started in a school gymnasium with a hundred people, two rented U-Hauls, and trailers that didn’t fit the boxes. Pastor Rich knows this verse from the inside. He and his wife, Lead Pastor Tina Romero, launched the church in January 2018 after sensing the call in 2015, and every chapter of that story has been a lesson in what “able” actually looks like when it shows up in real time.
The verse doesn’t say God might do more. It says God is able to do more — far more, abundantly more, beyond what you’ve even thought to ask. That word “beyond” is doing a lot of work. It’s not just encouragement. It’s a theological statement about the nature of God’s capacity relative to yours. The problem, Pastor Rich pointed out, isn’t usually that people don’t believe God is powerful in the abstract. It’s that they’ve quietly stopped expecting that power to touch their specific life.
The theologian A.W. Tozer wrote that what comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. That line landed hard in the sermon because it reframes the whole question. Living by faith doesn’t start with a decision to be bolder. It starts with a decision to let God out of the box you’ve put him in — to elevate your view of his sovereignty, his forgiveness, his willingness to move in an ordinary Tuesday in Kendall or a morning school run on US-1.
One step you can take today: Before you pray tonight, spend sixty seconds asking God to show you something about himself you haven’t seen before. Not a request — just a posture.
Why Do We Stay in the Box Even When We Know There's More?
Here’s the part of Pastor Rich’s message that really challenged us: If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. That’s not a motivational line. That’s a pastoral warning. Because a lot of people who are stuck aren’t stuck because they lack information. They’re stuck because the box — however small — is familiar. It was built by someone they trusted, or built by a wound that made trust feel too expensive.
Some boxes are inherited. You grew up watching the adults in your life operate within a certain ceiling — financially, spiritually, relationally — and you absorbed their parameters as if they were yours. No one handed you a theology of limitation. You just learned to live inside the edges they modeled. Other boxes are self-built out of legitimate pain. Maybe you trusted a church and got burned. Maybe you took a step of faith once and it ended in something that felt like embarrassment or abandonment. Pastor Rich named that room directly: “You’ve had a terrible church experience before. And because of that, you don’t easily trust. So you stay where it’s comfortable, where you are in total control.”
That’s not a failure of faith. That’s a human being protecting themselves. But the invitation of Ephesians 3:20 doesn’t change because the wound was real. The power that works within you, according to Paul’s language, is already present. The question is whether you’re willing to let it move again. 1 Corinthians 2:9 frames it this way: no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nothing has entered the human heart to comprehend all that God has prepared for those who love him. The ceiling you’re living under isn’t the real ceiling. It’s just the one in your box.
One step you can take today: Write down one area of your life where you’ve stopped asking God for anything because it seems too far gone or too impossible. Don’t fix it — just name it. That’s the beginning of the wrestle.
Is There Actually More Ahead, or Is This Just What Preachers Say?
There’s a version of this message that becomes noise by the time you’re driving home. The preacher says God has more for you, you feel something shift for a moment, and by Monday the same thoughts are running the same loops. Pastor Rich anticipated that drift and named it directly: “The caution with that language is that you’ll walk out of here saying, ‘Well, the preacher had to say that.'”
So he anchored the promise not in optimism but in covenant. The reason any of this is true isn’t because you deserve it or because 2026 is going to be different from 2025. It’s because of what Jesus actually did — and what that death and resurrection created. A new covenant. Not a suggestion. Not a motivational framework. A binding promise from a Father who doesn’t break his word, extended to anyone who receives it by faith. That’s the theological ground underneath every “beyond” in the series. It’s not about you believing harder. It’s about you recognizing what’s already been secured.
And then there’s the third dimension Pastor Rich brought in: it’s not just about your life in isolation. He quoted Ephesians 3:10–11 — that God’s intent is that through the church, his manifold wisdom would be made known. The church isn’t a building or a weekend event. It’s God’s plan for the world. Broken people, in community, made whole enough to carry something worth carrying into the city. That’s why the Beyond series is a church-wide campaign, not just a sermon series. It’s built on the understanding that every season of significance requires an all-in spirit, and that what one generation sacrifices, the next generation runs through. Pastor Rich put it plainly: “Before you ever came here, someone sacrificed for you to get here.”
One step you can take today: Ask yourself honestly — are you in community with people who are on this journey with you, or are you doing faith solo? If it’s the latter, that’s not a character flaw. It’s just the next thing.
Living by Faith vs. Living by Comfort: What's the Actual Difference?
|
Living by Comfort |
Living by Faith |
| Prayers that feel manageable | Prayers that make you nervous as you’re praying them |
| God stays inside what you can explain | God is invited into what you can’t figure out |
| Inherited limitations go unexamined | Inherited limitations get wrestled with and named |
| Church is something you attend | Church is something you’re part of |
| “That promise is for someone else” | “That covenant belongs to me through Christ” |
| Vision stops at what’s visible | Vision is written down and run toward (Habakkuk 2:2) |
If you’re reading this in Miami, this matters here as much as anywhere. Coral Gables doesn’t need another institution to admire from the outside. And the people who grew up in this city — in Cuban households, in multicultural families, in homes where faith was a cultural inheritance but maybe not a personal one — they don’t need a church that performs. They need a community that’s honest about the gap between the God of Ephesians 3:20 and the life they’re actually living. Generation Church started in a school gymnasium near Ponce de León Boulevard, with a team of people who believed the city was worth building for. That hasn’t changed. If you’re anywhere in the Miami-Dade area and this is stirring something, Sunday services are at 9:30 AM and 11:15 AM in Coral Gables, and you don’t have to have anything figured out to show up.
What Does "Beyond" Actually Ask of You?
The whole sweep of this message lands in one place: your life is headed in the direction of your thoughts. Not just your thoughts about yourself, but your thoughts about God. If your view of him is small, your prayers will be small, your risks will be safe, and your life will stay inside the box. But Ephesians 3:20 says he is able — not was, not might be. Is. Right now, with the power already at work within you. Living by faith doesn’t mean having no fear. It means praying the prayer that scares you anyway, writing the vision down even when you don’t know how it’s going to work, and trusting a God who has always been ahead of his people.
If you don’t feel ready to join us in person every Sunday,explore the Establish Track, a structured pathway designed to help you discover who God made you to be and what he’s actually called you to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to live by faith according to the Bible?
Living by faith means operating from what God has promised rather than what you can currently see or control. Ephesians 3:20 describes a God who is able to do far more than you’ve asked or imagined — and Paul frames that as the present reality of life in Christ, not a future hope. It’s a posture of surrender and expectation that has to be chosen daily.
How do I break free from limiting beliefs spiritually?
The first step is naming them honestly — because limitations you haven’t examined are limitations you’ll keep defending. Many people carry boxes of limitation inherited from upbringing, past wounds, or disappointing church experiences. Breaking free doesn’t happen through willpower; it happens through a renewed view of God’s actual capacity and a community willing to wrestle through it with you.
How can I pray audacious prayers to God when I'm scared to ask for too much?
Start by asking God to expand your view of him before you ask for anything else. The fear of asking for too much is often a symptom of a small view of God’s willingness. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says that no human heart has even entered the space of comprehending everything God has prepared for those who love him — that’s an invitation to pray larger, not a ceiling.
What does Ephesians 3:20 mean for my everyday life?
It means the God you’re praying to is not limited by your imagination. The verse says he works “according to the power that is at work within us” — which means the Holy Spirit already present in a believer’s life is the engine of what God can do. It’s not about striving harder. It’s about leaning into a power that’s already there.
How do I trust God again after being hurt by a church?
That’s one of the most honest questions a person can carry into a Sunday. The wound is real, and nothing about faith dismisses it. But the new covenant Pastor Rich references isn’t based on how well a church has treated you — it’s based on what Jesus secured. Finding a community that is genuinely present, unhurried, and not gatekeeping is part of the healing. If that’s where you are, the Care Small Groups at Generation Church exists for exactly this kind of conversation.
