Livin’ Like The Oompa Loompas! | Ephesians 4:1-16

Takeaway Verse: Ephesians 4:3

Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.

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Transcription:

Welcome to The Bible for Busy People. I’m Erica Parkerson. This is the place where we meet up to read half a chapter of God’s Word together and remember how loved we are. Jesus extends an amazing invitation to us in the Bible. He says, come to me and I WILL give you rest. This is us RSVPing: Yes!! to that invitation. So, take a deep breath and let’s get started.

Today’s episode is called, “Livin’ Like the Oompa Loompas!” And I’m excited to dive into Ephesians chapter four with you. But before we do that, take a moment with me, let’s just go to the Lord and invite him to join us. 

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. You promise that where two or three of us gather there you are in the midst of us. And Lord, we pause right now and just soak that info in. That you would choose to gather with us and fill us with your spirit is beyond anything we can imagine. So we thank you Lord for your presence, and we ask you to open our eyes and our hearts to what you want us to see and understand in your word in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today in Jesus’ name, amen. 

Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in. Ephesians four, starting in verse one. “Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord,” Paul is in jail for his Christian faith, keep that in mind as you read these incredible words, “beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling for you have been called by God.” You have been called by God. “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” 

Here comes our takeaway verse verse three, “Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.” Isn’t that beautiful? “For there is one body and one spirit just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.” Doesn’t that just comfort you today, that God is in all, and over all today. Woo. That does me. 

“However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the scriptures say when he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people.” Notice that it says he ascended. This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. I’m so glad he did. “And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.” He fills the universe with himself. Do you know how ginormous the universe is? Look up at the stars tonight and think about how God fills the entire universe with himself. 

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s son, that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever, they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly as each part does its own special work. It helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

Okay, this is about unity and it’s about all of us being unified together, but each of us having special gifts. Okay, I mentioned theOompa Loompas at the beginning of this episode. Do you remember from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the little orange guys? And they were unified, they were all working together to run Willie Wonka’s factory. Remember they even danced together and moved their legs together and sang together. Oompa Loompa, you remember right? But they each had a specific gift. So some of the Oompa Loompas ran the chocolate river, some managed the golden eggs. I’m sure there were a bunch assigned to the Everlasting Gobstopper factory. And of course the Fizzy Lab, but they were all together, united working for Mr. Wonka. In the same way, you and I have special assignments that God wants us to carry out. Some of us are pastors, some of us are teachers, some of us are encouragers, some of us are prophets. But we’re all working for the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re kind of like Oompa Loompas for Jesus. All right, can’t wait to dive into the second half of Ephesians, chapter four with you tomorrow.

Thank you so much for listening to the Bible for Busy People. If you need prayer or you’re ready to go a little deeper in your faith, we’ve posted some resources for you in our show notes. We’d love for you to share this podcast with a friend and leave us a review. It helps us reach even more people with the hope of Jesus. This podcast is part of Purposely, a podcast network designed with practical podcasts to help you find and live in God’s purpose for your life. Find more podcasts that will recharge you at onpurposely.com.