Sermon: God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Two)
God's Spiritual Gifts have Strings Attached
#1660A
David F. Maas
Given 02-Jul-22; 39 minutes
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transcript:
Psalm 37:4-5 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.
Over the past year and a half, these two verses have forcefully emerged into my nervous system as my third favorite passage in the Bible. As I stated in my August 2020 sermonette “Achieving the Desires of Our Hearts,” God’s promise to give His people the desire of their heart has strings attached, contingent upon delighting themselves in the Lord as opposed to their own carnal lusts—that is, transforming their hearts (from carnal to spiritual) to be in alignment with His attributes and godly character.
Remember, because Almighty God alone is the author, having the sole patent and copyright on all legitimate desire and cravings, having created the ubiquitous drive-reduction mechanism throughout the entirety of the physical creation (found in the genus, phylum, and species of every creature on earth) and furthermore God Almighty is the only one who can legitimately satisfy every craving and desire imaginable with absolutely no negative consequences or sorrows in its wake (Proverbs 10:22).
To His chosen called-out ones, God has offered an infinitely wider spectrum of pleasures than He has to those not yet called, including a quality eternal life, a permanent relationship with the Father as His adoptive offspring, and an intrinsic wired-in desire to live righteously for eternity, embracing His holy and spiritual law, the God-family’s precious heritage. While carnal humans can never permanently satisfy their physical desires, if they would yield to God’s purpose for their lives, they would receive permanent satisfaction, as Jesus promised to the woman at the well (John 4:13-14) describing crystal clear, refreshing water which will permanently quench thirst as long as one remains connected to the source—God’s Holy Spirit (God’s law in action) which the water symbolizes. This precious water, incidentally, is the water that Richard Ritenbaugh counseled us to thirst for two weeks ago in his sermon “Those Who Hunger and Thirst.”
We realize that God will never grant the heart’s desires to the deceitful Jeremiah 17:9 heart, infected with vanity, jealousy, lust, and greed, but instead to a comparatively chosen few selected to metaphorically undergo a “heart transplant procedure” (Ezekiel 36:26) in which He replaces the stony, recalcitrant heart with a pliable and yielding one, upon which He will permanently write His holy and spiritual laws, enabling His called-out ones to receive not only an infinitely wider spectrum of desire, but also the implanted ability (referencing Philippians 2:13) to align their desires with His magnificent purpose for them, permitting them to experience genuine godly pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).
Luke 11:13 “If you [regular carnally-minded human beings, including those sealed with earnest payment—a little dab of God’s Holy Spirit given at the time of baptism] then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
If we indeed genuinely thirsted for it, we would compulsively, even ravenously struggle and ask for it continually, seeking it daily as our forebears gathered manna on the Sinai Peninsula.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Of course, we must assiduously avoid the precarious limbo state described by Joe Baity last week as one who initially ardently trusts in God’s deliverance, like the prophet Elijah, but sadly later becomes intimidated by the pressures of the world’s tyrants and social pressure and is thrown into a terrified state of spiritual timidity, the same kind of spiritual timidity which has overtaken many shepherds and overseers in the greater church of God.
Again, like the promise to give us the desire of our hearts and the promise of God’s Holy Spirit, this promise of a liberal supply of wisdom also comes with strings attached, namely that we stop dithering indecisively in that paralytical state of limbo Joe Baity warned us about last week.
I Corinthians 12:31 But earnestly desire the best gifts. [How about that!] And yet I show you a more excellent way.
Notice again, the apostle Paul attaches strings to desiring spiritual gifts—namely that any spiritual gift will be rendered absolutely useless without agape love, which occupies the central focus of chapter 13, which we often refer to as the love chapter. My friend David Havir in Big Sandy used to speculate that the Corinthian congregation, boasting of their many gifts (I Corinthians 14:12) must have been metaphorically an exceedingly prickly basket of fruit because of their woeful lack of humility and agape love. The apostle Paul realized that God had mercifully allowed a thorn to penetrate his own flesh to keep him humble and far away from conceit and self-exaltation (II Corinthians 12:7).
Paul simultaneously admonishes God’s people, then and now, to ardently desire spiritual gifts, but also sternly cautions that the motive for desiring these abilities must be exclusively for providing selfless service to our spiritual siblings, not for self-aggrandizement or to add an extra metaphorical trophy on our mantle to lord it over the lesser important appendages in the body of Christ. Brothers and sisters, there are no lesser important appendages in the body of Christ, but all have been carefully selected and placed in the organism by Almighty God to interdependently serve one another.
In three short days, we will be exactly one month past from Pentecost, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Harvest, or Shavuot, an event which commemorated the giving of the law at Mount Sinai as well as the giving of the super-human power to keep God’s spiritual and holy law, and the extraordinary giving of spiritual gifts to His firstfruits to build God’s church.
From Passover to Pentecost this year, we have heard numerous calls to sacrifice and service, such as Mark Schindler’s analogy of the Japanese military undergoing a rigorous process of training in a kind of teacher’s college which equipped each officer with the ability to train many, many other recruits quickly because of having learned the entire panoply of responsibilities which every future soldier would experience. Each officer in training would consequently develop empathy for every soldier’s experience just as Jesus Christ, the first of the firstfruits, can empathize with all the trials, tests, and temptations God’s called-out ones, or recruits, then and now, have experienced throughout their rigorous sanctification process (Hebrews 4:15). Likewise, the emergent firstfruits, then and now, must similarly develop empathy, build character, grow in the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit, in order to serve their clientele in the great harvest, depicted by the Feast of Tabernacles and the Great White Throne Judgment.
James Beaubelle, in his Pentecost message on June 5, “God’s Gift of the Spirit” delivered a little under a month ago, suggested that the events of our individual calling, our baptism, and the laying on of hands for the receipt of God’s Holy Spirit have for most of us, been attended with seemingly far less drama and excitement than either the Pentecost in 33 AD or the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. However, he insists the gift and power of God’s Holy Spirit is no less potent than previously distributed to God’s saints in times past. The spiritual gifts listed by the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 12 are no less real today than their initial appearance in Acts 2. These are the same gifts offered to God’s people today enabling them to be united as one family, having the strength and faith to serve one another because of what God does by sharing His Spirit with us.
James Beaubelle reminds us that Pentecost re-establishes the understanding and giving of the law, still relevant in a relationship with God, but now made doable by the law written in the hearts of a specially selected spiritual-minded people (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16; Jeremiah 31:31-33) now equipped with the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16).
James Beaubelle also made the insightful observation that if we look at the manifestation of God’s gifts, they are incomprehensible to the carnal mind—including the acquired ability to detect growth and maturity in our spiritual siblings. But if we stir up and use God’s Spirit implanted at baptism (II Timothy 1:6), looking at these manifestations from God’s eyes, we see the results of fervent prayers, having released many of our afflicted brothers and sisters from trials and afflictions—far too many than we will ever truly know—as well as the quantum leap in character and spiritual maturity resulting from these fiery trials (I Peter 1:17; 3:12-14).
As a retired English professor, after more than 50 years of teaching, I feel immense pleasure and satisfaction at seeing my former students assume leadership roles in many of the splinter groups of the greater church of God, including our own pastor, Richard Ritenbaugh, Steve Myers at UCG, Sheldon Monson at CGA, and many others. Serving as abstract writer for CGG since 1996, I have seen a quantum leap in the quality of the messages from all the speakers. In the early days, I struggled to keep up with some enthusiastic speakers who tried to cram a 70-minute sermon into a 15- minute sermonette. I am not going to mention any names (well, except for my own name) but I am pleased to report that we have all mellowed from those initial frenetic displays years ago.
Julie and I have often reflected that when we started dating, attending the 210 Freeway Bible Studies on a weekly basis, we would regularly end up at the McClure household in Tujunga, where Ryan was a lovable little guy crawling around on the rug. Today, he is the head of a family, giving high quality sermons. Last Pentecost, one of Ryan’s offspring (Jack, age 12) stepped up to the keyboard boldly and performed Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavichord,” or Prelude in C, on Charles Whitaker’s piano, an instrument Richard has repeatedly tried to get reluctant musicians in Fort Mill to perform upon. I was also delighted that Jackson Mimms (age 13) performed a violin solo during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
One of the high point events of my life was to perform on Charles Whitaker’s piano for Josh and Sacha Montgomery’s wedding in Bolivar, Missouri, 14 years ago on June 29, 2008. (To all my brothers and sisters back in North and South Carolina who are aspiring but hesitant musicians: if Dave Maas lived within 30 miles of Fort Mill, that keyboard would get a thorough workout every day, rain or shine.)
In this second installment of the “God Expects a Return on His Investment” series, I would like to encourage all within the sound of my voice both to earnestly seek an increasing repertoire of spiritual gifts but also to caution against abusing these gifts like the prickly Corinthian congregation, more interested in self-aggrandizement and one-upmanship than in interdependently serving one another.
We are at a highly critical point in the history of God’s church, when it appears that God has mercifully scattered us into hundreds and hundreds of fragments, thereby preventing the risk that the entire greater church of God, assembled under the tenure of Herbert W. Armstrong’s leadership, should be swallowed up in the apostasy of Protestant antinomianism and evangelical cheap grace, no-works, no-law dogma, which has viciously decimated and slaughtered our previous fellowship, just as it had during the times recorded by Jesus’ half-brother, who warned:
Jude 4 For certain men crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Amplified Bible adds the following insight: “they distort the grace of our God into decadence and immoral freedom [viewing it as an opportunity to do whatever they want, ike our current progressive lawmakers and educators] and deny and disown our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Sadly, the commission which Herbert W. Armstrong thought he had conferred to Joseph Tkach did not pan out, who to be sure had at first given glib lip-service repeating the Spanish phrase “Nosotros somos familia” and in reciting the lyrics of the R&B/Soul song of Sister Sledge “We are Family.” Tragically, the family structure had been denigrated and dismantled already in a misinterpretation made by many in our prior fellowship of Mr. Armstrong’s statement that “government” was the indeed the watershed doctrine. Sadly, the WCG had mistakenly taken on the structure of a regimented military organization, calling the CEO “Pastor General” or the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic church with its succession of pontiff, cardinal, archbishop, bishop, priest, etc., emphasizing competitive supercilious ministerial ranks, leading the late Garner Ted Armstrong to proclaim, “Rank is rank.” The spiritual sibling model had all but disappeared as a cold, impersonal corporate structure focusing on the bottom line took over.
The governmental structure tragically missing in action was the family unit, consisting of God the Father, Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother or Bridegroom of the collective church with its many spiritual siblings. Thankfully, Almighty God apparently raised up a cadre of protective shepherds who rescued portions of the scattered flock from this previous abusive hierarchical tyranny.
One of those shepherds, John Ritenbaugh, gave a 3-part sermon series on “Self-Government and Responsibility” back in January and February of 1993, in which he readjusted the focus away from hierarchical Roman Catholic, the regimented military, and the cold impersonal corporate structures, restoring it back to the family and spiritual sibling relationship—namely the very Family of God, the only legitimate governmental structure appropriate for the Church of God. (I would encourage all who entered the CGG after 1993 to carefully and rigorously go over these sermons, rehearsing our role in God’s Family government.)
In my February 2020 message, “Our Part in the Sanctification Process (Part Six): Cultivating Kindness,” I referred to Richard Ritenbaugh’s August 1997 sermon “Parables of Matthew 13 (Part 1), The Mustard Seed,” in which he contends that the first four parables of Matthew 13 (Sower, Wheat and Tares, Mustard Seed, and Leaven) all describe Satan’s plan to destroy the church. They are: 1.) attacking at early stages of growth, 2.) infiltrating through secret agents, 3.) influencing unchecked natural growth beyond God’s ordained limits, inviting worldly and demonic influence, and 4.) influencing yielding to sin and false doctrine.
Jesus the Creator knew His botany and had predetermined that a mustard plant stay a mustard plant throughout its life, and if it morphs into a tree, something went wrong. Those of us who were called during the Radio Church of God era in the early 1960s, met in relatively small venues, like the Laidlaw Legion Hall on Lake Street in Minneapolis. When the congregation started to grow, and we had to assemble in the Minneapolis Labor Temple, we began to lose the feeling of being family, and cliques emerged to maintain some degree of cohesiveness.
Back in the fall of 1974, I tearfully left the 70-member Rapid City congregation (about the same size as Fort Mill), shepherded by my beloved mentor, the late Bob Hoops, a fellowship where I had gotten to know everyone on a close family basis), moving to the Big Sandy PM Congregation (having over 1300 people), the intimacy of the family structure again disappeared.
When my family moved to Pasadena in 1977, I chose to fellowship with a smaller congregation in Glendale to seek more of a family atmosphere. As I have already mentioned, headquarters began to bourgeon like an out-of-control mustard tree, the concept of God’s government began to devolve from a family structure to a hierarchical structure not unlike the Roman Catholic Church, a highly regimented military structure, to a cold, impersonal corporate structure, measuring results by physical rather than spiritual growth—numbers of magazines distributed, numbers of new contacts, or the number of new television stations added. (Sadly, the largest splinter groups in the greater church of God still embrace this model.)
God Almighty, by mercifully chopping down this mutant mustard tree (evidently grown from Monsanto GMO seeds) just like the massive tree in Nebuchadnezzar’s nightmare (referencing Daniel 4) gave a second chance to all who sincerely desired to seek the life-sustaining message of God’s truth to rekindle their first love by finding smaller, more intimate family-sized groups (such as Colton, Phoenix, Louisburg, Amarillo, Round Rock, and Fort Mill), served by shepherds rather than hirelings, carrying out the forgotten mandate given to our previous fellowship of “emphasizing the family.”
The small loving family structure provides the only venue where one can share both sorrow and joy with no sense of awkwardness or timidity and the best venue to provide spiritual maturity. But finding ourselves in a small family structure presents a brand-new set of problems. We have extremely high visibility while trying to maintain a low profile. In his sermon in May 2022 “Without Me, Nothing!” Martin Collins pointed out a simplistic but egregious assumption in our previous fellowship that the minister was to preach, and the rest of the congregation would simply pay and pray, making our precious calling a passive spectator sport. Martin assured all members of the Body of Christ that we all serve as “under-shepherds,” helping the pastor tend to the myriad needs of the congregation with our spiritual gifts God has given each of us to edify and serve one another.
In future installments of this series, we will explore some guidelines to discover spiritual gifts, myths or misconceptions about spiritual gifts, and obstacles blocking the development of spiritual gifts. But we will close today’s message with some rudimentary cautions, qualifications, when one seeks spiritual gifts in the development of the Body of Christ.
First, attaining spiritual gifts should not be considered the goal, but only the gateway to further service. According to the Tyndale House publication Your Spiritual Gifts: How to Identify and Effectively Use Them, “They are not a hobby to play with, they are tools to build with, weapons to fight with. We will be more effective as we put them to use for God’s glory and not our own.”
Secondly, every one of God’s called-out ones has been given a gift to serve.
I Peter 4:10 (AMP) Just as each of you has received a special gift [a spiritual talent, an ability graciously given by God], employ it in serving one another as [is appropriate for] good stewards by God’s multi-faceted grace [faithfully using the diverse, varied gifts and abilities granted to believers in Christ by God’s unmerited favor]. No one, no one, no one in the Body of Christ has been left out.
Thirdly, spiritual gifts are less privileges than responsibilities. Sam Storms in his book The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Gifts, states that “If charisma points us to the origin of spiritual gifts, diakonia often translated “ministries” points to their purpose. All spiritual gifts are designed to serve and help others.” In I Peter 4:10-22, the verb form is used twice of gifted believers “serving” one another. The point is that spiritual gifts are less privileges than responsibilities. Gifts are not for personal adornment, status, power, or popularity.
Last Pentecost, Richard Ritenbaugh gave an extended pronouncement of gratitude for all who had helped out—especially in our current manpower or human resource shortage. It is high time that everyone in the church of God heed Paul’s admonishment to Timothy to stir up—or metaphorically fan into flames—the gift of gift of God which was placed in us at the time of our baptismal ordination by the laying on of hands (II Timothy 1:6-7). I appeal to all the wise virgins who have awakened from slumber, it is high time to trim our lamps (Matthew 25:1-13).
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