8,760,000

So let's go to the sermon. The sermon is titled 8,760,000. That's not the amount of meals you have eaten in your lifetime. That may not even been the amount of dreams you've had. Maybe of that perfect guy, I don't know. But it's a number in which I would like for you to think on. I doubt many of you have seen a title of just numbers, but there is a reason for that. But I'm going to ask you another type of question, and that is, are you a spiritual babe or a mature Christian?

Or is it possible that you could be both? Hmm, makes you think. I get to see during the Bible study today because it'll be interactive. Whether you're mature Christians or how much you've studied or what you've done. But let me ask you a question in another way. This should be pretty simple. The first, babes or babies mentioned in the Bible. Anybody? What's their names? The first babies mentioned in the Bible. What is it? Cain and Abel. Very good.

Very good. I doubt this is what they look like. But when you talk about you being human babes, you have to even go back to... who? No? First humans. No, they were not born.

They were not created babies. They were babes, didn't they? I mean, can you imagine learning that? Can you imagine being that? They had to learn Adam and Eve. And then when you take that, Adam lived 930 years. You tell me he didn't learn all 930 years? No, we? And typically the wife lives longer than the husband, so I guess she lived 934 years as women today typically live four to five years longer than men do.

Per hundred years? Yes, very good point. Imagine learning, having to learn everything. But the good part was that they had a good teacher, didn't they? But we go through progressions in life in this human state. We have the first thing that's really mentioned is the terrible twos. Did any of your family have some babies that were in the terrible twos? I just see one, two, three, oh, four, five. Well, now the hands are coming up. Then we go through adolescence. Boy, and that's a time. And then, of course, some of the most troubling years is the teenage years.

Any of you have had teenagers understand that. But all during those phases, there's a maturing process. Hopefully we all want our children, or in my case, my nieces and nephews. You want them to grow up and mature and be successful. It usually helps along the way. But think about it. In our 20s, most of us get our first real job. Not something that is part-time or whatever, but we usually land our first job. Our first, maybe even a career job, as we're just beginning.

And you know, when you've had jobs, you mature in that job typically, or you get fired, right? Because you think you don't get any better, then you need to go. From a business perspective, as I had to let many people go over my many years of managing people, hiring people, and I had one guy and then there a year and I said, I need to let you go. And I said, you haven't gotten any better. He said, yeah, well, I hadn't gotten any worse, have I? He said, I really like this job. I said, but you don't, you're not producing anything. We're carrying you and you're here to produce.

And he goes, well, okay, I'll try the next job then. He didn't really, wasn't really concerned about it. As a matter of fact, I'm strange. My wife is strange. I'm probably stranger than my wife, but in my 48 years of working, I've only had three jobs. Three jobs. One lasted first 14 years, then another 120, and now this one has been 14. But that's, and you've only had three, four jobs. That's not common today. As a matter of fact, do you know in 2025, the average worker in the last 15 years, do you know how many years the average worker stays at a job? Boy.

Four years. Four years. But as John mentioned there, the newer in the last four or five years, it's only been two and a half years. So most people in the last four years, well, that's sometimes not enough time to really get your feet wet in some organizations, as we know. So I want to tell you about a theory today.

As a matter of fact, the theory is that consists of a number, and it's a theory of 10,000. The theory of 10,000, not those two, the theory of 10,000, and that 10,000 means 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours. This theory was laid out to us who read quite a bit in a book called Outliers by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. And this book, I did find it interesting. I read it. I wouldn't recommend going out buying it full price. Discount is not a bad book because it tells you about business and so forth. But in this book, he talks about the 10,000 hours theory that a person or people become proficient, accomplished, and even, if I can say that, an expert after 10,000 hours of practice are doing this job.

For many people, it's at least five years to seven years to some. It's like 10 years before they actually have 10,000 hours on the job of doing the job, not just showing up at work, not just punching a clock. This study was done, which helped him to see his theory of chess players. And they found for you to really move forward there, you needed the experts needed 10,000 hours. Also, same study was done about playing a violin and becoming very proficient, becoming even great. Because it's the one thing great and good violin players had in common.

They had practiced at least 10,000 hours. Not played! Practice 10,000 hours. So we, in our life, we are spiritual babes. Till you actually begin to experience life as a person who has received God's Holy Spirit. Because we live our lives. Before we received his Spirit, we thought we knew what good was. We thought what we knew was accomplished. And pretty soon we found out maybe we don't know as much as we think we know.

And then once we're baptized and we start experiencing life from a spiritual viewpoint, things really change. And we find out sometimes it's very hard. It just got harder. Wait a minute, my yoke is easy. Didn't Christ say that? And it is. But overcoming some of our habits, overcoming issues and problems.

I always remember when I hear that Mary and I were in Barbados Jamaica or somewhere. And some guy came up to her looking to sell her something. And he says, you have any bad habits? At which he said, yes, I eat too much. It's not what he wanted to hear. But we begin to realize that we have bad habits that we try to start working on. And the more we work on them and actually take care of it, we find there's something else. And so it takes us quite a long time. I think most of us could say at least 10,000 hours to really work on things.

But during these things we have tests. We're tested in various aspects of life, especially as a physical life relates to the spiritual realm. And the tests, they're not a bad thing. Matter of fact, they're actually good for us. Can you join me? Can you join me in the Bible at where? James 1. Let's go to James 1. I'll read from the New King James Version. James 1, verse 2 and 3. He said, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

Woo-hoo! I got some trials. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm just like joy, joy, joy, deep in my heart because I have trials. Is that what it means? My brethren, count all joy when you fall into various trials. And the Greek there actually means, various trials means multi-colored, multi-colored trials, tests. Count all joy. Not the same trial I can't end again, but count all joy when you have various trials that you can work on yourself.

It's like that hole in the yard that we have in the front yard. There's a hole and we know it's there, but we keep walking in it. Oh, that hole. And then we come out the next day and we fall. That's not the kind of test that James is talking about. It's like when we have. Well, if you have that problem with a hole in your yard, get some dirt and fill it. That would be simple, but see, James is trying to tell us how about looking at other things.

Maybe our patience, maybe our patience is being tested, and we show that we have become pretty good at perseverance, of enduring things, and our patience is there. I felt that this last week in Jamaica, I thought I knew patience. Thought I had patience till I was sitting and sitting, sitting in the wharf area, trying to get our barrels out of immigration. Six hours, sitting, and we'll move one time and then wait until they call your number.

All day, and I still didn't get them out. So you got to come back the next morning, and the problem is that you stand in line, and it opens up at nine, but you better get there between six and seven. Stand in line waiting for a number for them to let you in, as thousands and thousands of people are standing there trying to get something out.

So the next day, I got to sit another five or six hours, except I moved to a different room. In that hard seat, these would be beautiful, but they were hard, hard seats, and if you got up, somebody would take your place, and you would be standing for five hours. And I said, God, I am learning a new level of patience here. And then the guy beside me decides to open up his phone, and he's watching porn with the sound on.

And the woman beside me, who I talked to for a little bit, she decides to get on her phone, and she wants to talk about her mother's hemorrhoids for about an hour. Oh, it's so funny, isn't it? It wasn't funny. It was like, I wanted to say, God, I loved Jamaica, but I couldn't. But it is. I mean, we learn from this. Yes, because no one brings headsets.

They all run their phones, so there's like sound everywhere. So, but let's move on. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. I had faith I was going to get those barrels. And you know what happened? I didn't get them a second day.

Brethren had to go there and got there at 5 in the morning, the next morning, to get in line to get a first ticket, and they got our barrels at 1130 that night.

In Jamaica, yes, they told me. Because they said I picked the wrong month. And because Montego Bay was closed down, most of it they couldn't get it, so they went to everything in the entire country was going to Kingston. That's why there were thousands of people. And one gray-haired white guy in that entire bunch. So when somebody from the outside, Jeff Lockhart, called and said, can you find this guy in there? Because we couldn't. He said, how do I find him? He said, you won't miss him. Blue shirt, gray hair, and white as can be.

They went right to me. They got me, took me out there to at least talk to Jeff. But let patience have its own perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking what? Nothing. Lacking nothing. I want to read these same scriptures from the New Living Translation just because I found it interesting. Because it said, your brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, any of you had any troubles?

Consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

You will have your 10,000 hours in. You have a chance and that patience will be developed. As a matter of fact, go with me. Go with me to 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 11. Because we're talking about growth. We're talking about maturing. We're talking about becoming more Christ-like and less chuck-like. That's what I have to look at. But in New King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13 verses 11, it says, When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. No way is talking about. Do we? Because it's easy to read that verse and leave the context out. Spoke as a child. I acted like a child because I was a child. What is 1 Corinthians 13 known as, brother? Ah, Gopi chapter. So he's talking about us not being childlike when it comes to love, when it comes to Gopi. He's wanting that church to move on. They've been tested and they're still acting like children. This is what he wants us to do. This is what we need to be. Where are you on the spiritual Richter scale? Where are you on that spiritual Richter scale? Anybody know what a Richter scale is? What? It measures earthquakes, right? You know what it measures about earthquakes? Close. Close. It measures the energy. It measures the energy released from that earthquake. So I ask you, where are we on the spiritual Richter scale? How about the energy we release? Remember, the Holy Spirit is but the power and energy of God. We're given that. Where are we? If that is measured in us, how much spiritual energy do we release? How much spiritual energy is seen by other people? Is experienced by other people? That's a serious question.

Well, I'm kind of content. I'm neither here nor there. I'm neither hot nor cold. Remember that? It's gonna vomit out of our mouth. Spit us out. It's like the guy that I hired, they just said, oh, I never really grew. You know, I didn't get any worse. Didn't get any better. Is that us? How about this Richter scale? Thought about it? Go with me. Go with me, if you will, to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5.

Verse 12 and 13. Okay, who is the Hebrews written to? What? Yeah, to Hebrews. You know, who's buried in Grand Stone. This is written to the Hebrews, the Jewish nation. We don't know who wrote it. He didn't sign it, but he wrote it. We know who he wrote it to. They had the laws of God. Teaching, statutes. Go back to Genesis 25 and 26. Even Abraham had these things, right? But then it says here in verse 12, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, yes, they should be teaching. You need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God.

Remember what it was at John 4 when Christ runs into the Samaritan woman at the well, and he said that the Jews had the oracles of God. They were given that. Here, this writer's saying you either forgot it or you didn't care. You need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracle of God. You have come to need milk and not solid food. You remember the baby?

Is that us? I want my milk. God says you should be having food.

Any of you ever raised children and you had to move them from milk to solid food, and sometimes they didn't like it. And when they didn't like it, what'd they do? Remember my nephew in applesauce. I didn't have kids, and that may have sealed it because he threw it. Spit applesauce. I liked applesauce but not on my clothes.

Verse 13, for everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he or she is a what? Babe. You're a baby.

Are we spiritual babes? Mature Christians? Are we working to become solid Christians?

Where the Richter scale is off the charts. You ever seen when they had a seven-point earthquake? It shoots way up here, and it scares people because they go up and down. It was in California when we had one one time. It was in Hawaii when we had a couple of earthquakes before. Scary! Well, God wants us to be scary spiritually.

He really does. He wants us to be off the charts. No matter what comes, we're prepared for it.

We're ready to help him. We have so much spiritual energy around us coming from us, from him, that he goes, yes. No matter what comes their way, they're going to handle it.

Because they're not babes. They're not just having to drink milk.

Verse 14, but solid food belongs to those who are of full age.

Huh. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

How much spiritual food do you eat?

Have you asked yourself a question? How much?

Once a week on the Sabbath.

Oh, he's spiritual. Every day.

What does God expect? What does he demand? What does God command?

You know, he commands every seventh day. What does he expect?

Man should not live by. You want to give up food?

Just make a pact with yourself that you won't eat unless you study.

In two or three days, you'll be studying. Right? Yeah, before that, even.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all have a set of scales that weighed our righteousness?

You know, we all have a set of scales. We have one in our bedroom, and you get on it. Wouldn't it be great if we could each have one that weighed our righteousness?

We would be glad to get on there, wouldn't we? We think. Step on there.

Wow. Yes.

Yes. I would love it because the more I weighed, the better off I would be.

Now Mary walks over and she says, 200. What?

I could get on there. 300, 400. Yes.

That. I mean, think about how great would that be?

I could be a billionaire if I could create a set of scales that would weigh our righteousness.

But I don't have to because God already has those scales.

He already knows. He knows how much you weigh spiritually.

He says, I want more. I want more. I want you to weigh more because that's, to him, that's the most important thing. Not your checkbook balance, not your savings balance. But your spiritual weight.

Go with me. You will to 2 Timothy. We all know that one and you know this one. But I'm not going to focus on the verse 16 and 17. Is that? Oh, I thought that said 300 pounds. I thought you were looking at me. But here it says in verse, all scriptures give my inspiration.

God is profitable for doctrine, for correction, and instruction in righteousness. We know that verse.

But this is what's important today is verse 17. That the man or woman may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Another translation says, fully equipped.

So I ask you, are you fully equipped? Really? I mean, somebody comes in to ask you a question.

Can you go, oh yeah, yes. I know where that's at. Let's go in the Bible and look at it.

Where are you going? Fully equipped. You know what we talked about earlier?

So that we may know what we are doing because we're proficient.

I don't think anybody is going to be an expert in this Bible yet.

I studied here for 50 years. Consider myself a novice. Because there's all through, not this Bible, but the other Bible I've had all those years.

They're scattered out through there. There's questions. A question mark. Sometimes when I'm busy, I go through and start something. Oh, there's a question mark. It's things I've never really, I may have been told the answer, but I'm not satisfied with the answer.

I need to research it more. And I remember we first got married.

In the church at the time, they said, well, you can have a Bible. We're selling these Bibles really cheap, really nice ones. The other ones, well, did I know it had pigskin on it.

And many of yours does too. I say leather, but it was big.

Uh-huh. Remember, pigs cheaper.

But I had that Bible and I, five or six years later, I had another Bible.

And I started with another Bible. It's the one actually I have now that I've had for 40 years, what, 35 years as I did all my study. Then I went back and found that Bible that I first got when I was married and had it for five years. And you know, when I opened it up, all the pages were sticking together.

And you know why? I didn't read it. Oh, if I went to church, I'd open it up. Preacher starts preaching. Says, turn over here. I turned there, but I never got the pages.

You know what was a sign of? I was spiritually starving myself to death, and I didn't know it.

Somehow, God woke me up.

I'm telling this on myself because I was not anywhere near fully equipped. And why wasn't I? Because of what it says in verse all scriptures given by inspiration. God is profitable for doctor, for reproof, for correction. I didn't want any correction.

I was 27. I knew I had it all together. Right? I had all the answers to the world's problems.

Just come up and ask me. These are things which God looks at us and knows that He's taking us from these immature spiritual babes to hopefully growing up to where we can eat solid food every single day. Every single day. So as I wrap this up today, I got a few questions for you. How many hours does it take to be a judge?

You anybody ever known any judges? You've known a judge. You've known a judge. There's a judge.

Yes. Well, you got to go through law school. You got a pre-law, right? Then you go to law school, right? And then when you are law school, they are not going to put you in as a judge because you don't have what? That's right. So you're going to sit and they're going to see how you conduct yourself. And then you can become a judge usually after many years, unless you have the right connections. Are you qualified to be a judge? If they came in today and said, we're short of judges, I'm going to take you, you, you, and you, and you're going to go up here and you're going to sit.

And you're going to judge these facts. You're going to judge everything that comes in. Are you ready?

I don't think I would, but this is what God tells us. Go with me. 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 2. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

Who's the saints?

Wow. So he's not asking to go and judge in Beryl Beach.

What did he say? The world. The world. You ready for that? Are you fully equipped?

And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?

Hmm. Your potential is to judge the world. Your potential is to judge angels who've lived for millions and billions of years. You feel qualified yet?

But you see, our potential is what?

If I can use our president's words. Huge. Huge.

That is our potential. It's so huge. We can't even.

Angels. How many hours do you think you need to be able to judge angels? 10,000 do it? Life.

Ah. Well, John, will a lifetime do it, you think?

Maybe. Maybe. John didn't sound so confident that time.

So now, I want to take you from the angels to a whole different level. And I'm going to ask you the question.

How many hours to be fully equipped to be a God?

I gave a sermon, right, about your gods. Well, that's our potential is to be what?

Gods, right? How many hours? How many hours are they going to take?

Right? Well, 10,000 do it. We have to look at it because, wait a minute, daddy's a God, big brother's a God, we're going to be a God. That's our destiny.

But you're going to go, wait a minute, ah, I know this scripture. First John 3, 2.

For when he comes, you'll have the revealing of the man. And we will see him as he is because we will be what? Like him. We will be like him. We will be spirit. We will have a deep understanding. But what we won't have is what? Experience. We don't have that experience of being a God. Yet. Yet. Yet. Each year, at the Feast of Tabernacles, we go there and we picture the thousand-year reign of Christ and serving with him. And we see the Lamb and the Lion through vision, or visionary messages. We see peace as we look forward, knowledge as the waters cover the sea. We see all this stuff, right? Wasn't until I came back from this feast this year, that I was talking to a friend of mine. We grew up together, played ball together.

He came into the church when he was 19 on his own. No family members, no anything. Just.

And. I called him because he called me earlier summer because he had a sickness.

I won't really go into it because he needs his privacy, too. My wife knows who he is.

And he said he couldn't go to the feast this year, but he had time to just lay in bed for the entire feast, and he would listen to messages.

And then he had time to just think. He'd always gone to the feast.

And his perspective changed mine totally, and he is the reason I'm giving this message today.

Yes, he said, what if? Let's look at the theory. I think it's more in theory. I think it's a hypothesis. You need to know the difference. You can look it up. But he said the thousand years is not really for us. Oh, we get to rule and reign with him.

But he said it's more for the humans. That's what it's all about. A thousand years of peace, and people grow up, and they have all this stuff. I said, yeah, you're right.

But what is it for us?

We get to practice being gods, don't we?

Think about that. It's not going to be whether this seat is 24 inches or 26 inches apart.

That's not what we're going to be doing. It's not going to be, well, well, I need to start the service at 2 30 instead of 2 o'clock.

No, it's going to be life and death decisions. You remember what says in Zechariah about to those people who do not come up to keep the feast in Egypt? They're like, do you know what you're going to give if you have no reign? You're going to have people dying, aren't you? Are you ready to make that decision? Are you ready to make the decision of life and death? Because God is, Jesus is, always has been. But isn't it amazing that we can have that? Consider the possibility, the hypothesis that the thousand years was made for us to practice being gods.

Because what's after the thousand years? Eternity.

You think you'll be fully equipped for eternity?

A thousand years. What does it tell us about spirit beans in a thousand years?

Okay, we don't, we don't sleep, right? We don't eat, we can eat, but we don't. Yeah, John?

Well, human beings that have been through a nightmare, makes you think, doesn't it?

How many hours are in a thousand years?

8,760,000 hours is in a thousand years. A thousand years for us to learn to be gods.

You think we'll have experience after 8,760,000 hours?

I think so. I think so. And I'm glad my friend brought that up to me.

Because it answers the question, 1 Corinthians 2.9, I have not seen nor heard nor entered the heart of man the things that God has planned for those who do what? Love Him.

Love Him. Who agape Him.

We're gods in training for eternity.

Imagine that.

Because God has a plan.

He's lived forever, and He will continue to live forever.

The only thing about the past is He didn't really have family to share it with. Just one.

Eternity. He's got an entire family to spend eternity with Him.

And those who are the first fruits, those who He has called to be kings and priests in the Kingdom, will be fully equipped after 8,760,000 hours to reign as God.