Sermon: God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Three)
Before the Foundation of the World
#1666A
David F. Maas
Given 13-Aug-22; 36 minutes 2022-08-13
Go to the God’s Investment (sermon series)
description: (hide) Contrary to some idle speculation on the part of religious hobbyists, the answer as to when God first endowed His called-out ones with spiritual gifts was before their birth and before the foundation of the earth (Ephesians 1:4, Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:15-16). The natural gift, talent, or ability we receive at our birth provides the raw material God’s Holy Spirit uses to transform physical gifts into spiritual gifts, amplifying existing abilities and redirecting them from self-centered purposes into love-driven service to our siblings in Christ. God retrieves a misused mind (Romans 12:2), like a discarded, damaged tool, repairing, refurbishing, and refashioning it into a brand-new tool for His divine purpose. All of the motivational gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-14, intended for the entire congregation (Perceiver, Server, Teacher, Exhorter, Giver, Administrator, and Compassion person) can be attached to the seven psychological functions and personality types identified by the social sciences, an intriguing nexus to be examined in the next instalment of this series.
transcript:
Greetings brothers and sisters from Colton, California.
Psalm 139:15-16 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book, they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
Ephesians 1:4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
The Amplified Bible adds some additional clarity to this passage: “just as [in His love] He chose us in Christ [actually selected us for Himself as His own] before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy [that is consecrated, set apart for Him, purpose-driven] and blameless in His sight.” The answer to the deceptively simple question as to when God first endowed His called-out ones with spiritual gifts was before the foundation of the earth.
Heather Chapman, in her April 17, 2021 article, “God Knew Us Before We Were Born: Why Jeremiah 1:5 Brings Us Peace,” maintains that, for those chosen by Almighty God, “not only did God know us in our mother’s womb, as David has proclaimed in Psalm 139, but He had implanted a pre-decided plan or purpose for our lives, involving a lifetime of sacrifice or service to our spiritual siblings.” Let us go back to Jeremiah 1.
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
In other words, Jeremiah’s plan and purpose had already been established by Almighty God from the very beginning. Please scroll ahead to Jeremiah 29.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Please remember Ephesians 1:4 has reminded us that God Almighty selected us for Himself as His own before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy, that is, consecrated, set apart for Him.
Recently, a member requested clarification on the difference between a natural talent or ability given at birth and a gift of the Holy Spirit acquired at our calling and baptism, especially as it was applied to the motivational gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-14. Sadly, some books and articles on attaining those spiritual gifts, many written by charismatic evangelistic Pentecostals, state emphatically that the gifts of God’s Holy Spirit are different from the natural abilities God gives to all human beings at the moment of birth, insisting, instead, on a display of gibberish (glossolalia) described alternately by the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language as fabricated and non-meaningful speech, especially speech associated with a trance state or certain schizophrenic syndromes (hearing distinctive, audible voices in back of their heads). I am reminded of Paul’s warnings to the Corinthians that such a display of noisy, meaningless gibberish will cause onlookers to think they are stark, raving mad (I Corinthians 14:23). Other descriptions of spiritual gifts include the ability to speak foreign languages without having consciously learned them. This power is asserted to be sometimes present in somnambulistic persons, that is, people who sleepwalk.
Richard Ritenbaugh’s July 22, 2022 article “Spiritual Gifts, an Overview” (I would recommend that we all read the entire series on spiritual gifts in the CGG Weekly as well as the earlier six-part series on “What is Real Conversion?”) clarified a widely believed misconception promulgated by the charismatic evangelical Pentecostal denominations, explaining that “the apostles communicated the gospel through recognizable languages and dialects of those from far lands who had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast (Acts 2:5-11). Christ’s gifting of an aptitude for foreign languages enabled the apostles to accomplish their commission: “But you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). We must remember that there was an astounding miracle in both the speaking and the hearing.
Sadly, bizarre behaviors such as glossolalia (allegedly speaking in tongues) or suddenly and forcefully falling backwards (slain in the spirit) practiced continuously by the late Ernest Angley, or the so-called holy laughter practiced by professing charismatic Christians (behavior in which individuals laugh uncontrollably during church meetings, claiming to be drunk in the spirit), have been mistakenly used as the litmus test to determine whether one has truly been anointed with spiritual gifts. One of the major reasons Paul had to write I Corinthians 12 was to combat the troublesome idea carried by the immature Corinthian congregation of a litmus test or a supercilious pecking order, attempting to establish a hierarchy of important-to-unimportant gifts.
My purpose, in this third installment of “God Expects a Return on His Investment,” is to clarify the relationship between natural gifts or talents and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to dismantle this pecking order notion that some spiritual gifts are more important than others, and thirdly to establish that the motivational gifts described in I Corinthians 12 are meant for the entire congregation and not just for the overseers.
Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and everything that moves on the earth.”
All humans on the face of the earth, including the most despicable scoundrels, were all made in the image of God, and all presently have the capability of God-like powers which separate him from all other creatures. When the late Herbert W. Armstrong expounded upon the concept of the spirit in man at the Feast of Tabernacles in 1967 in Big Sandy (referencing Job 32:8, Proverbs 20:27, Ecclesiastes 12:7, and I Corinthians 2:11), he insisted that this spirit gave mankind a mind—not just a brain—giving humankind godly thinking and creating powers, setting him above all the rest of the flora and fauna.
In my Feast sermon on September 30, 2015, “Loving God’s Law: The Thread of Reality,” I focused on an extremely insightful concept or postulation made by linguist Noam Chomsky (a man whose political views and his penchant for social agitation I do not share), but nevertheless he had evidently been inspired by a godly I Corinthians 12:8 word of wisdom and word of knowledge, boldly attacking the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis, insisting that language and grammar did not evolve, but were innate, adding that human beings are presently capable of doing something God-like, that is, generating a sentence that could go on infinitely, using the compact formula: S = NP + VP. In this formula: S = Sentence, NP = Noun Phrase, and VP = Verb Phrase. Both the noun phrases and verb phrases can be expanded indefinitely or given enough stamina, infinitely, by inserting recursive elements such as embedded phrases and clauses, including prepositional phrases, participial phrases, gerund phrases, infinitive phrases, relative clauses, appositives, etc. etc. etc. No other creature on the face of the earth can replicate this stunning, extraordinary achievement.
I Corinthians 15 reveals that there are different forms of flesh just as there are different forms of spirit. The spirit in man given to the fleshly human being is only a prototype of the God-being, which is then transformed to a candidate for sanctification and glorification as the Holy Spirit is impregnated into the human mind or nervous system at the time of baptism and the laying on of hands.
Nevertheless, both the gifts of the spirit in man, as well as the amplification and redirection of natural talents by the Holy Spirit, are both spiritual gifts. The relationship between natural talents and spiritual gifts has a significant parallel in the relationship between public revelation and private revelation. All humankind has been granted the Romans 1:20 general public revelation which gives a profound testimony about the reality and sovereignty of God Almighty from purely the design of physical creation, allowing Deists such as Thomas Paine to ardently believe in God Almighty as well as the certainty of a future resurrection, far more full of profound faith than that of most so-called professing Christians.
With the stark and unembellished proof of intelligent design, only the unmitigated fool with a reprobate mind refuses to acknowledge the existence of God (Romans 1:20-22 and Psalm 14:1, 53:1). But to those who have received the John 6:44 calling from the Father, Almighty God has enabled them to be privy to additional life-saving information in Deuteronomy 29:29, which proclaims that the secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law. John 16:8 reminds us that a major function of God’s Holy Spirit is to convict the world regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment. It has become abundantly clear that those reprobate individuals currently occupying the executive and legislative branches of the American government and the other Israelitish governments controlled by Jacob’s physical offspring, are not in the slightest convicted by God’s Spirit, and consequently hold Almighty God’s holy and spiritual law in utter contempt, begging for curses to heaped on Jacob’s offspring.
As Mark Schindler reminded us in his May 28, 2022 sermon, “Stewards of the Mysteries of God,” the apostle Paul speaks of a mystery hidden from the wise of the world but shared with those God has called out from the weak and base elements to put to shame the things which are mighty. The lowly, not impeded so much with pride or ego, generally, though not always anyway, make better stewards than those who may seem more presumptuous, smug, and self-centered. Faithfulness or steadfastness, coupled with humility, provide the winning combination for spiritual growth if one stays singly focused on submitting to God’s purpose, producing a bumper crop of spiritual fruit (referencing John 15:5 and Galatians 5:22-23). As stewards of God’s spiritual temple, we must assiduously avoid the deceitful, foolish, lawless wisdom of the world, staying clear of its addictive, siren-like pulls (I Corinthians 3:18-20), but faithfully tend and keep those precious secret insights which God, in His providence, has revealed only to us as we yield unconditionally to God Almighty and are inextricably interwoven with Christ (referencing Deuteronomy 29:29 and I Corinthians 2:15-16).
As I Corinthians 3:18-20 has made abundantly clear, God did not call us at what the Green Giant Company has suggested “picked at the moment of perfect flavor” but pulled us all from the cast away pile of damaged goods. When Herbert W. Armstrong, like the prodigal son or the blinded Samson at the grindstone, came to his moment of truth, he cried out, “I am just a piece of burned-out junk. But if you can use me, I am yours.” We are all damaged goods at the moment of our calling, but for some reason God Almighty has taken satisfaction in the process of repairing, refurbishing, and adding value to our pitiable lot. As Bob Hoops used to say repeatedly, “God must really love the challenge.”
In his January 1, 2020 CGG Weekly article, “What is Real Conversion? (Part Five),” Richard Ritenbaugh compares our calling and the spectacular renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2) to the metaphor of repairing an old broken tool.
“The renewal of Romans 12:2, he insists, speaks to an upgrade of quality.” Richard continues, “We might understand it better by using the terms “refresh,” “revive,” or “rejuvenate.” When a tool, say, a chisel, is old and dull, a craftsman will renew it by cleaning off the rust, sharpening the edge, and perhaps putting on a new handle. Essentially, this is what God is doing in renewing our minds. He is taking an old, ill-used mind, cleaning it, sharpening it, and putting it to use in His work.”
This vivid insight is similar to a statement that Dr. Herman Hoeh used to say about character building resembling a process of refurbishing a beaten up old wooden or metal desk, full of multiple scratches and abrasions, forcing us to use prodigious quantities of sandpaper or Emory cloth to bring back the flawless surface.
When we carefully examine the assertion made by charismatics and other Protestant evangelicals that the gifts of God’s Holy Spirit are different from the natural abilities God gives to all human beings at the moment of birth, we would either have to rule that presumptuous assertion as patently false, or at least qualified by a number of common-sensical comparisons between the concrete physical, apprehended by the senses, and the spiritual, apprehended through the lens of faith. The necessary bridge connecting the physical and spiritual is the analogy, the literary figures of speech—metaphor and simile, encompassing parables and allegories—Jesus Christ’s chief teaching vehicles. In my textbooks, Composition: First Things First and The Images of Order, I defined a metaphor as a comparison in which the structure and properties of something we can see is projected onto something we cannot see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay on Language, regards words as “signs of natural facts” and that “every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from material appearance.” For example, the word “wrong” means “twisted,” while “supercilious” suggests “the raising of the eyebrow.” On a further level, “every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact” as “every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of mind.” Back in 1965, when I worked one summer for the Mankato Water and Sewer Department, I was digging in a trench when the foreman yelled, “Hey, Maas, don’t undermine that bank!” I stopped and pondered as to what he meant, having previously only associated the word undermine in an abstract sense such as subvert, sabotage, or compromise. “Oh—mine under—now I get it!”
Last Sabbath, Richard Ritenbaugh illustrated how Jesus had metaphorically extended the term defile from its physical to abstract and ultimately to its spiritual dimensions, declaring that the filth from inside the heart was far more reprehensible than anything existing on the exterior of the body (Matthew 15:11 and Mark 7:15).
All things spiritual reside in the category of what the world calls nonsense, apprehended only by the lens of faith aided by the metaphor and simile revealing an insightful grounds of comparison. When the psalmist David proclaimed God as his Rock (Psalm 18:2 and Psalm 62:1), he projected the property of permanence and strength on something unseen to the naked eye. When Jesus told His disciples (then and now) that He was the vine and they were the branches, He was not giving an agronomy lesson, but providing instructions on bearing as well as tending the entrusted metaphorical fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). To those not infused with the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, the parables, metaphors, and similes of Jesus Christ are meaningless and utter nonsense (Matthew 13:14-38), but to us, they are precious truths, mysteries, and spiritual insights to which they have been entrusted as stewards and servants (I Corinthians 4:1).
The physical senses, though not technically on the spiritual plane, are nevertheless the portals to apprehend unseen spiritual truths (Romans 1:20 and Matthew 13:11) and metaphorically connect to spiritual insights. God’s Holy Spirit infuses us with the incredible ability to think Christ’s thoughts (I Corinthians 2:16). The natural talents and abilities we all are blessed with at birth are the raw materials from which God Almighty fashions, amplifies, and redirects from self-centered to other-centered to create the motivational gifts the apostle Paul encouraged the Corinthian congregation to desire (I Corinthians 12:31) so that they (and we) can use them for the greater good of the Body of Christ.
Like physical sibling rivalry, the Corinthians were comparing their capabilities with one another, either in boastful smugness or contemptuous bitterness for not getting a better gift. Shortly before my brother Ed’s untimely death from esophageal cancer, he confided in me that he often resented my musical ability and complained that Mom did not beat him into practicing the piano. I pointed out to him that our parents were blessed with lots of natural abilities. My Dad had carpentry, mechanical, and mathematical skills, but they totally bypassed me in my genetic makeup. On the other hand, my brother Ed had them, tending them thoroughly and bearing much fruit. Dad and Mom both had musical skills. Mom had artistic skill with landscape and closeup portraits. I did not inherit my mother’s artistic skill, but my brother Ed did. On the other hand, I did inherit my Dad’s ability to write—a skill which earned him a commendation from the late Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, for a distribution plan he had written for the Green Giant Company.
Back in undergraduate school, my brother Ed saved me from flunking college mathematics by tutoring me with the gift he had inherited from my Dad—and I was later able to help him edit his master’s thesis, using the writing skills I had inherited from my Dad’s genes. The gifts that spiritual siblings have been given are also intended to aid the family. No gift is ever to be considered unimportant, as the apostle Paul has explained in Romans 12:15-18. God was also able to use the misplaced zeal of Saul and to redirect the conniving spirit of father Jacob from selfish to other directed uses. God used the natural talents of musicians for a priestly Levitical purpose. The apostle Paul in the Love chapter I Corinthians 13, warns us that without agape love, any spiritual gift is rendered totally useless, null, and void.
I am compelled to break off for lack of time, but in the next installment I intend to make the case that the motivational gifts described in I Corinthians 12:4-14 are meant for the entire congregation, and not just for the overseers and ministry. In addition to a tongue and lips, a body needs ears, shoulders, arms, hands, and a host of other appendages too numerous to mention.
In a recent book I have been studying, Discover Your God-Given Gifts, authored by Katie Fortune, the motivational gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-14, described as 1.) the perceiver, 2.) the server, 3.) the teacher, 4.) the exhorter, 5.) the giver 6.) the administrator, and 7.) the compassion person, have been attached to the seven psychological functions identified by Carl Gustav Jung, Roberto Assagioli, and Kenneth Sorensen as the functions of will—or dynamic, feeling—or sensitive, thought—or mental, imagination—or creative, logic—or analytical, passion—or dedicated, and action—or practical, shared in various proportions by every human being on earth, as well as the seven Spirits identified in Isaiah 11:2-3, including the Spirit of the Lord, and the spirits of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, of might, of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, here are represented the seven Spirits which are before the throne of God. We will explore this connection in the next installment of this series.
DFM/jjm/drm