Arbor Church

The one who steals must steal no longer; instead he must labor, doing good with his own hands, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it would give grace to those who hear

– Ephesians 4

From Ephesians 4, Alison shares four ways in which our new self is the flip side of the old self: the thief becomes a giver, and the gossip a speaker of grace.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

– Ephesians 4

How is a raven the church like a writing-desk model house? Ryan answers this unusual question in today’s message about Paul’s call to unity and the church’s role as a preview of the kingdom of God.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

– Ephesians 3:17

In this message from Ephesians 3, we’re reminded that God’s presence isn’t reserved for a place, but for a people—and that we experience His fullness together.

This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access to God by way of Christ’s faithfulness. For this reason I ask you not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

– Ephesians 3

Even as we suffer, even as we wonder why, and even as we doubt there being any good left, we can trust God’s triumph in Christ.

For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility, when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace, and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed.

You didn’t escape on your own — you were carried out. In Ephesians 2:1–10, we uncover the story of God’s rescue and what it means to stop performing and start living free.

From the I see you! cried during a kid’s game of kick-the-can to the metaphorical lenses offered to us by Paul in

Before God tells us what to do, He tells us who we are.

This week in our series The Triumph of God, Ryan walks us through the long and breathless sentence of Ephesians 1:3-14, and what it has to say about the old stories of our lives … and the new ones spoken by God.

Ephesians is a drama portraying the cosmos-transforming acts of God in Christ.

– Tim Gombis, The Drama of Ephesians

Ryan opens our new message series in the book of Ephesians.

I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.

– John 15

As January begins, Alison exhorts us to remain rooted in the Vine and gives us practical ways to connect in the New Year. After all, without the life given by the Vine, all us branches are just … sticks.