The Gift That Keeps Giving

Transcript

Week 3 of the series Uncommon Gift. Transcribed from the service recording and lightly edited for readability.

Welcome: The Gift That Keeps Giving

Amen, amen. We're in the series called Uncommon Gift. We started off talking about the gift no one expected, and last week we talked about the gift you can't earn. And here we are this week talking about the gift that keeps giving.

I don't know about y'all, but that sounds like a good deal: a gift that keeps giving. Every time you wake up, you've got another gift. Every time you turn around, there's another gift. That's exciting to me. But this gift is a precious gift, so I'm going to do my best to stay in pocket and walk through this thing.

John 7:37–39

The scripture is John 3... I mean John 7, verses 37 through 39, from the NIV:

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Jesus Is Talking About the Holy Spirit

What Jesus is talking about is the Holy Spirit. The festival here is the Feast of Tabernacles, which in Jewish tradition was a week-long celebration. In the midst of that celebration, Jesus Himself quotes scripture, showing them that what had been said before was now coming to pass right before their eyes.

The Spirit Satisfies Our Deepest Thirst

The Spirit He's talking about is going to satisfy not just our needs, but our deepest thirst. Have you ever been thirsty? Really, really thirsty?

Sometimes when you're thirsty, your body craves stuff that doesn't make any sense. Every now and then you're thirsty and want an ice-cold beer, but alcohol actually dehydrates you. You might want a nice cold Coca-Cola, but all that sugar is dehydrating you. You're just going to be thirstier after drinking it. But Jesus says, "I'm going to satisfy your thirst." Only the Spirit can quench the soul's dryness. He's talking about our soul, our spiritual dryness.

The Woman at the Well

It reminds me of the story where Jesus meets a woman at a well. He says, "I will give you water so you won't be thirsty anymore," and she says, "Give me some of that, so I don't have to keep coming to this well." When she went to the well, she faced ridicule and persecution. She didn't want to keep going there.

Searching for Worth in the Wrong Places

A lot of us have to stop and realize that we get thirsty and look for satisfaction in all kinds of places. As men, we often find our worth in our jobs. You work harder and harder trying to reach the next level, the next promotion, the next raise, the next position. And a lot of times you get there and you're still not satisfied, because now you want more money, a bigger house, a bigger car. You keep reaching these levels, but you get no satisfaction.

Studying Wealthy People

I've always been excited about money. I always wanted to make money, because I knew money was influence. In this country, money is influence. So I've studied wealthy people. And the crazy thing I found, whether in this country or around the globe, was an alarming number of wealthy people whose children committed suicide. They had everything everybody says is meaningful in life. They gave their children everything, and the children still didn't find it. They were still missing something. There was still a void. And the void we're talking about is filled by the Spirit.

Spiritual Thirst Is an Invitation From God

Spiritual thirst is an invitation from God. I tell people all the time: I'm scientific. I work with my brain. So when people are looking and searching for religion and peace, I get excited. Some of my Christian friends wonder why, because those people aren't looking at Christianity right now. But that's fine. As long as they're looking for truth, as long as they're looking for love, I know where they're going to end up if they keep searching, because our word says God is truth and God is love. As long as they keep pursuing that, they'll get somewhere, because part of that pursuit is that thirst, and that thirst is an invitation from God.

Jesus Offers the Spirit to All Who Come

And here's the cool part: Jesus offers the Spirit to all who will come.

The Lamb's Book of Life

Early this week I was reading scripture, I think in Revelation, and I noticed something I'd never really paid attention to. It talked about people's names being erased from the Lamb's Book of Life. I said, "Hold up."

This is how awesome our God is: your name is already in the Lamb's Book of Life. It's your behavior as you live this life, or not accepting God for who He is in your life, that gets your name erased. God already has a plan for you to spend eternity with Him. It's rejecting Him that erases your name.

Jesus is saying, "I've already got you in here. You'd have to reject the gift I'm giving you." That's what we're talking about with this uncommon gift. The only way you don't spend eternity with God is by rejecting the gift He's given you.

And the gift here is the Spirit. The Spirit is the Comforter. It's who Jesus left with us. Once He ascended, He left us the Spirit so we would never be alone, because He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

The Spirit Empowers Daily Living

The Spirit empowers us for daily living. The problem is that sometimes we don't want to tap in, or we don't remember to. We need to tap into the Spirit, and that's going to give us what we need, because the Spirit flows continuously. Not occasionally: always.

The Tap Is Always On

The tap is always on. Can you imagine going to the ocean and finding it dry? That's a whole lot of water. When you go to the ocean, you know it's always going to be there. The same is true of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is always there, always present. It's continuous. We have to remember to tap into it. We have to always remember that God is our source, and that if we allow Him to flow through us, we can do some amazing things.

The Spirit Equips Us to Do God's Will

The Spirit is what equips us to do the will of God. So many of us are trying to get ourselves right, trying to make our lives better, trying to figure it out, trying to work our way through. But you cannot work your way to heaven. This is a gift, and we have to unwrap it. We have to allow God to come in and change us. I tried many times to fix myself.

The Little Pinch

It actually happened to me the other day. I was thinking about something way out in left field, and then somehow I got pinched. I was like, "Oh. Alright, God, I'm just joking. I'm playing." Because the reality is that God always gives us these opportunities to get our attention; we're just not sensitive to them. And I was excited that I was actually sensitive in the moment and saw that this little pinch wasn't an accident. It was, "Derrick, come back to yourself." Quick.

If we continuously tap into the Spirit, we won't find ourselves in the situations we used to find ourselves in, because we're allowing the Spirit to flow through us and empower us to live according to God's will. We can't do it on our own.

The Spirit Turns Receivers Into Givers

The Spirit turns us from receivers into givers. I know Reggie was preaching recently that we are all ministers. I tell people there are two positions in the church: deacons and ministers. That's it. You've got the people proclaiming the word and the people taking care of the daily functions of the church, and sometimes we do both at the same time.

But so often we come to church to get something, not to give something. I'm not talking about your money. I'm talking about giving a hug, a word of encouragement, listening to somebody's situation. We always wonder, "What can I get? I hope the preacher has a good word. I hope the choir sings a good song." But what are you going to give God? When God's Spirit starts turning in you, you find yourself happier to give than to receive.

The Spirit Produces Lasting Change

The last thing, and this is a litmus test for a lot of us believers: the Spirit produces lasting change. Not just changing for five minutes. Not just changing every now and then when everything looks good and the situation is right.

A lot of times, when everything's going right and the money's flowing, I can be faithful. But once times get hard: "Oh no. God, You must not be listening, so I'm going back to hustling like I was before. I'm going back to doing what I was doing." Instead, we need to allow God to transform our character, so that I can no longer live the way I used to live. I can no longer go back to the places I used to go. I can no longer treat people the way I used to treat them, because God has changed my character. It doesn't even feel right. When the Spirit moves through you, you won't even feel comfortable doing the things you used to do.

The Spirit Anchors Us in Truth

The Spirit anchors us in truth. When we go back to the word of God, and this is one of the most powerful things, when we begin to read the word of God, the Spirit anchors us to the truth. And the truth will set you free.

So when I'm getting down on myself because I don't feel the way I think I should, or things aren't going the way I think they should, I don't stay down, because I know what the word of God says. The word of God says He's going to make me a lender and not a borrower. The word of God says that with faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. So whatever I'm going through, God will see me through.

One of my favorite scriptures is Psalm 23: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." This Bible is real, which means I'm going to go through some things. As you try to work your way through a situation, it might get worse before it gets better. But you know God isn't going to leave you there. He didn't bring you this far to leave you. He's going to take you places you've never imagined and never seen, but you're going to have to go through some things.

The Spirit Keeps the Work of Jesus Alive

The Spirit keeps the work of Jesus alive in all of us. We talked about this last week. Jesus did some amazing things. He walked on water. He healed people. And the cool thing is, my big brother says, "You will do even greater things than Me."

But He went through some things too. The Spirit is what's going to sustain us. We have to let the Spirit of God flow through us, because God is ready to unlock and unleash some awesome things in our lives. We just have to be willing to let Him move like only He can, and let Him teach us the things that will empower us to change lives: not just our own, but the lives of the people around us.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

Over and over in the Bible you hear, "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." That's three generations. Because Abraham was so faithful, God blessed him for multiple generations. The second and third generations saw blessings because of what the previous generation did. Look further in scripture and you'll see there was always a king on the throne from the family of David, because David was a man after God's own heart.

Generational Blessings

Here we go. Check this out. We're going to see blessings in this church because I worship the God of my grandfather, my father, and Derrick.

I know some of the things my grandfather did. I don't even know how he did them in his day, but he did, because he worshiped the true and living God. I used to watch my grandfather in church. He'd be on the front row, slapping his knee, saying, "Ah!", getting the worship and praise going.

Every Sunday we'd go over there and sit around the kitchen table. After grace was said, everybody had to say a Bible verse before we ate. That's some serious worship and praise of God. And my grandmothers, on both my mama's side and my daddy's side: when those women prayed, I'm telling you, I could feel heaven stop.

So I know some of the blessings I'm receiving aren't because Derrick Douglas is good. It's because I had people down the line who were praying for me and instilled some things in me. We have to let the Spirit run through us so that the generations after us will receive blessings because we trusted in God.

Sometimes trusting God and letting the Spirit run through us isn't just for us. If you've got kids and grandkids, you've got to prepare the way, because God is going to do amazing and mighty things if we let Him use us to the best of our abilities. And it's nothing about us, because nothing good just naturally comes from us. It's when the Spirit of God moves through you that He can do special and powerful things.

This Gift Keeps On Giving

God has given us promises, and I'm telling you, if you live your life all out for God and trust Him in all these things, you will see your life transformed in ways you could never imagine. That's the thing: this gift just keeps on giving. Even when you think you're at the end of your road, when you think, "I've got to give up; I can't go any further," the gift keeps giving.

When I'm at the end of my rope and just want to throw in the towel, God gives me something in my spirit that lets me go further than I ever thought I could. All I'm asking you to do is try Him. Just try Him.

Weekly Challenge

Alright, let me go to my seat. This week's challenge:

Reflect: What areas of your life are running dry because you haven't allowed the Spirit to refresh them?

Act: Invite the Holy Spirit to lead and empower you daily this week. Oh, that's going to be a tough one. But we've got to do it. If we even remember to invite Him, just watch where He's going to lead you. I want to hear some stories about that one.

Pray: "Holy Spirit, flow in me, fill me, and transform me from the inside out."

Closing Prayer

Let us pray. Most gracious and heavenly Father, I come before You saying thank You. Father God, thank You for giving us another opportunity to come to Your house and praise Your holy name. I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart would be acceptable in Your sight. Father God, as we try to preach the uncompromising gospel and put forth Your word to the world, I pray You would take it, multiply it, and transform people's lives, so that not only are we changed, but this world is changed. Father God, we love You and praise You. It's in the precious and powerful name of Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Savior, that I ask it all. Amen.