A Work in Progress

Start the sermon now. This country celebrates Memorial Day. And it's a memorial to remember those who started out for those who gave their life for their country, those who died. And for others, it is a time to remember those who have passed away from this life. This country celebrates the Fourth of July as a founding of this nation. And Labor Day is also celebrated, and it's dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. But today, today is a celebration not for this entire nation, but for a small percentage of American people who recognize the enormity of the founding of the New Covenant Church of God.

The Feast of Pentecost is a time to celebrate. Looking in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant was ratified, put into place with physical Israel on the Feast of Pentecost, as most Jewish historians state. The Ten Commandments were given to Israel on the Feast of Pentecost. Something else was given to God's followers.

There were 120 people gathered in one room in 31 A.D., 120 gathered in an upper room.

They weren't really sure what was going to happen. It was a time of anticipation.

It was also a time of worry, as many got together and wondered if they would be pursued by authorities. As these 120 people were those, the remnant that was left of those who professed and proclaimed that Jesus Christ was who He said He was.

So we see in Acts 2, and I asked all of you yesterday to read Acts 1, 2, 3, and 4, as it helps us to see what went on that day as we are here celebrating the same time, the same holy day that they were all gathered at that time.

But unlike Old Testament Israel, where the law was given, something even greater was given as the New Covenant was ratified by the giving of God's Holy Spirit. And it was not only given, it was an incredible gift that was given to humanity.

All of you know the Scripture, Romans 6 and verse 23. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Eternal life starts with the gifting of God's Holy Spirit. It is a down payment. It is a deposit for God to be able to see what we will do with what we have been given. Because that gift will be complete when we are made here Spirit beings, when we will be given eternal life. But during that time, it's amazing that God wanted to give the essence, an essence of Him, His Spirit, part of Him, to human beings. You can read about that in Jeremiah 31-33. But I want you to turn to now 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 16.

As Paul is telling the church of Corinth, as God is telling us today in this room in 2016, from the New King James, do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? As hopefully all of you read what happened on Pentecost in 31 A.D. and how the Holy Spirit came upon visually, spiritually, emotionally, every way possible on that incredible day.

And at our baptism, when we have been cleansed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, hands are laid upon you and you are then gifted the Holy Spirit. It's the power, the essence of God. It is part of the down payment, the deposit, but that's what makes us then the temple of God.

Verse 17, if anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy. Which temple? Paul says that you are, that I am. That's how important these bodies are, and they are chosen from seven billion people in the world.

I want you to think about that. Why did God do that?

You go back and you look at the history, and you see that even in the Garden of Eden, God wanted to communicate and spend time with his creation.

He desired that, but they desired something more. And then you can look through the pages of the Bible, and you see where God just had communication with just a few people. Because a few people are all that ever wanted to communicate with God. Wouldn't that be sad?

That this is your greatest creation and you create them in your image.

And then they don't even want to acknowledge you or spend time with you.

And you might even look at this a little bit and say, well, God may be a little codependent.

I hope we are a little codependent on him. Because you can see in the story that it goes back to when he called an entire nation, the nation of Israel, out of Egypt.

And he wanted them to know he was going to be there. So they leave this two to three million people.

And he said he wanted to spend time with them.

And he was going to be their God. And so he gives them during the day, this cloud as they are walking. If you've ever been in a hot sun here in Miami, you might realize it'd be nice to have a cloud over you sometime. Can you imagine this cloud that followed them and stayed with them?

And then at night the cloud disappeared and over them was this fire.

Can you imagine seeing it? It's the biggest night light ever invented, I'm sure. Think about that.

And then something happened. And while their leader Moses was gone, they decided they didn't really want or need God. And they turned back to their ways that they used to live. And so God then started working with Moses. And so Moses' tent was actually brought out and now the cloud and the fire appeared above his tent. And he asked them, did they really want God? And for the third time they said yes, they did. And he went and he begged God. And God then gave them a tabernacle, told them to build this tent and to have this tabernacle, and told them exactly how to build it, told them what to put right in the center where everything wants to go, and that he would then dwell with them.

Between the two caribans, the Ark of the Covenant was there in the center of what? Two to three million people. And God said he wanted to be with them and he wanted to dwell with them. And they could always know that he was there with them. It's amazing how if we saw that today, no matter where you live, if you went outside at night and there was this fire above your place that you would know, and then during the day there was always this cloud, wouldn't you feel close to God?

But pretty soon we see that he stays there, and people, very few people, actually followed him, which is sad.

But he stayed right there.

He stayed until the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem. David brought it in and he danced like a madman because he was excited. He had music to no end. It was like tremendous.

Tremendous. Why was it? Because David had a dream that one day he would build a temple.

He would build this beautiful temple for his God, and the God would then dwell with him, and he would be right there.

But that didn't work out. God had other things of mine. Then he said, David, your son is going to build me this temple, and it's going to happen.

It was amazing that day that the temple was dedicated at the Feast of Trumpets, that David had brought all the goods together, the money, and so forth, so his son could build this incredible temple. And on that day, the Holy Spirit and God himself came into that temple, and it's so filled with fog, this smoke, this cloud that you couldn't even see, and it ran all the priests out. And all of a sudden, everyone that was there realized God is here in this temple. God is dwelling with them.

And they say it was one of the greatest days in the history of Israel, and Solomon gave one of the best prayers you will ever read as he realized exactly what was happening.

And now God was dwelling with man, even though he said, we know that we can't build this temple, and it could ever hold God because of what could.

But God wanted to dwell with his people. God wanted a relationship so badly he had waited thousands of years to have this relationship.

And it took hundreds of years before he finally got the message through hundreds of years of people not wanting him. They turned against him. He said they did not want him. They wanted other gods.

And we see that incredible story of after he was in that temple and been with those people and said he would protect them. They didn't even have to have an army. He wouldn't need anything. He would bless them as he did at Solomon's time, financially that silverware was a stone.

And that was about 900 BC. And by 586 BC, the people despised God so much that they didn't want him around. There were very few. He had tried everything to just get them to love him. And they said no. And so you can actually read it in Ezekiel 10 and 11. You can read that later on today. You can read it because Ezekiel gets this incredible vision as God takes him from Babylon and takes him up and gives him this vision and shows him exactly when God left the temple in 586, 587 BC.

When they didn't want him anymore and he left.

And for hundreds of years, until Emmanuel came to dwell with man, Jesus Christ came.

And as one writer, he actually tabernacles with his people.

And he did that for 33 years, but something sad happened.

Only 120 people really wanted him. He had healed thousands upon thousands of people.

He had performed miracles, raised so many people from the dead, from their death beds.

They didn't really want him.

But then there's this incredible story, because he didn't give up.

Most of us would have given up, wouldn't we? Most of us would have said, well, you know, that person doesn't want me, I'm not going to stick around.

But God's not that way. His love is so deep. He cared for his people so much that he said, on Pentecost 31 A.D., I'm going to dwell with my people again.

Except this time, he is going to put the very essence of him in his people.

Not only at that day, but following down almost 2,000 years later.

Brethren, this is an incredible day, because this is the anniversary of when God said, I will dwell in my people. Isn't that a beautiful story? That he's in us now. He's in us.

And it must feel like the 120 when there were millions of people on earth, and there were only 120. That wanted to dwell with him. Now, we don't have 120 in this room, but it doesn't matter to God.

It matters those people who want him. And he promised he will do anything and everything and go to the ends of the earth for us. He just says, love me. It's a great love story.

So, he dwells actually in us. Incredible. He puts part of himself in us so that we can have the power and we can have the endurance to love him forever. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 19.

He says, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who or which is in you whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

This is a fantastic day because we get to celebrate God deciding not to leave us.

He could just lift this earth. He could set hands off. I don't care what happens to you.

But he knew what would happen. There would be none of his image left alive, as we'll see somewhere down the road in future. I could go to 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 6 verse 16. As he's trying to get it across to the Corinthians, keep yourself holy because the temple is holy. I want to dwell with you. I want to dwell in you.

I need you to keep yourself holy. And why?

He said, what agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them. Isn't that amazing? Most of us do not even think that, you know, it's like, well, God's with it. No, he's in us. He's a part of us. Just as blood or DNA or anything else is in you. But there's one thing about it. He doesn't have to dwell there.

Why? He says, I dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their people. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then he says, therefore, come out from among them and be separate.

This is what he wants. He wants our bodies to be temples, holy temples, so that he can dwell there.

It's as much about him as it is about us. He wants to dwell in us. How amazing is that? You know, David had this incredible vision, building this temple.

You might remember David having his own problems. It wasn't perfect, was he?

But he cried out. He cried out to God in Psalm 51 about his sins. And because he was an eyewitness to what happened to Saul, who had God's Holy Spirit, and it left him. Because he didn't care about being holy. He didn't care about a relationship with God. And one of the first things when David saw he was so wrong, he said in Psalm 51, and you know it well, take not your spirit from me. Because he saw what happened to Saul.

We need to pray, take not your spirit from me. You know, a reason for the Spirit of God is conviction.

The Spirit of God, as it works with us, even before it's in us, it acts as a convicting agent.

You see it with people? I talked to people on the phone. I talked to people. There were supposed to be some people here today. There were supposed to be people here yesterday at Sabbath services yesterday. As they felt convicted that they needed to be here and worship God. They're not here.

They weren't here yesterday.

It gives convictness. And those of us who have His Holy Spirit, it convicts us of what we should be doing and what we shouldn't be doing. And another reason for the Spirit, it leads us to repentance.

It helps us to repent. When we see that we've done wrong, a lot of times we do not even know we've done things wrong. And the Holy Spirit has to teach us and tell us. It shows me all the time.

Why did you say that? Why did you do that? Why did your mind go there?

Wake up, my son. My son, Chuck, I love you so much. Wake up. Don't let this take you. Get a hold of you.

Don't take yourself from me. And don't make me take myself from you. Because He will. He cannot dwell.

Sabakah says, your eyes are too pure and to look upon evil.

And because the Spirit's in me, I've looked at evil too many times. And I need to stop that.

And I need the Holy Spirit to help me and to teach me and lead me to repentance.

It's what the whole world is. That's what John the Baptist came to me. He just asked people to repent. Repent and change your mind. And another reason for the gift of the Holy Spirit is that it's a big part, a major part of the conversion process. Conversion process. It is a process!

I could turn with me to 2 Corinthians 7, since we're really close there. 2 Corinthians 7.

And I'll read this from the New Living Translation. I like how it's put here.

2 Corinthians 7 and verse 9.

As Paul is writing here because he wrote a letter having to take some members out from among the church because they were not holy and the whole church was looking at it like no big deal. And he said, yes, it is a big deal. You are the temple of God. And when you come together, you are my people and you make a bigger temple. And you need to be holy. And so he wrote that letter, but in verse 9, he says, Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurts you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. They did change. It came back around. That's why the second letter was written saying, good job! Thanks, guys. Now I can continue to dwell.

You haven't kicked me out. I haven't had to leave like I did in 586, 587. I didn't have to leave your temple. Because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways, it was the kind of sorrow God wants His people to have. So you were not harmed by us in any way. For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow, but worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. What's He saying? There's two types of sorrow. There's worldly and godly sorrow. Worldly sorrow leads to regret. Godly sorrow leads to true repentance. Turn around. I'm going to change. And only God can grant true repentance. Most of us know when we have it. How do I know? I used to learn a long time ago that phrase because the Bible tells me so. And it does. That's why it's so important to read. Repentance is a process, brethren. I hope you realize that. Conversion is a process. Godly repentance is something we all need and we all need to be better at. I don't know about you, but I definitely need to be better at it. It's not a, oops, my bad. What's next? What am I doing next?

Where are we eating? What are we watching? Where am I going? Oops!

That's not true repentance.

There is a doctor. His name is James Alsdorf. He happens to be a psychologist and also a reader, a writer and a reader. But in one of his books, he uses incredible insight in his book on domestic violence and battered women.

And his book is called Battered Into Submission.

And I want to read something because this is insight, incredible insight to me, and it helps me to understand also about my sins and true repentance and how people can actually know it and see it. I quote, he said, the victim of abuse can choose to forgive her batter, both for his sake and for her own. But the work of reconciliation cannot begin until the batter repents. And repentance, he says, is a process. I continue. It starts when the batter spiritually and psychologically faces the awfulness of his actions. There must come the loathing of oneself. The horrors of the past must be named, not left vague and undefined. As too many times it's easy for us over all these years to fall down on our knees, please forgive me, Father, for my many sins today. Help me to do better tomorrow and after that. Amen! Because you see, any policeman will tell you, any hospital worker will tell you, you see battered women. A lot of times a husband comes in, oh, I'm so sorry, I'll never do this again. And he does it again.

He says, a horrors of the past must be named, not left vague and undefined. Here, the transgression and sickness move from the abstract to the concrete. Most importantly, the batter takes responsibility for what he has done. It's the only way to make real change.

I guess it reminds me of Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36, you don't have to turn there, Ezekiel 36 and 31 in the NIV. Here we see later on because we realize that Ezekiel 10 and 11 preceded this and God had left the temple in Jerusalem and it's about to be destroyed.

But as put in Ezekiel said, then you will remember your evil ways and your wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourself for your sins and your detestable practices.

They had to learn the hard way, but you know God loved them just as much as he loved us, and he doesn't want us, he does not want us, brethren, to learn the hard way. He wants to dwell with us. Brethren, if you have problems praying, call on the Spirit, call on the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pray more, not less.

Even if it's for five minutes, I had to work with people that had no prayer life. They just couldn't do it. Pray for five minutes. Pray then for ten. Pray two or three times a day. Pray. Just pray. The more you pray, the more you talk to God, the more He wants to talk to you, and He talks to you through this Holy Spirit. He wants a relationship. Talk to people who have a relationship with God.

You know one of the things you find out? They can't stop talking about God!

And they enjoy it, and they seize upon it, and they're empowered, and no matter how bad it looks, they know.

God will see us through.

When we truly use the gift of God's Holy Spirit, we can begin to live more godly lives.

Oh, not perfect permanently, but perfect temporarily.

Remember the title of the sermon? A Work in Progress.

That's what we are, brother. We are a work in progress.

If you meet somebody that says, no, I'm the finished product, run, especially if they're a minister.

We're all a work in progress.

So we start working on perfection temporarily. How about a snippet in time?

Maybe all you can live perfectly is just a small amount of time, but then you have enough of those times, and you find that you can live perfectly in God's eyes for a good part of the day.

And then you wish, boy, I wish I could have another day like that one. It may not come, but it'll come. Just keep working. And then you find out that that part of the portions of the day become chunks of time because the Holy Spirit is working with you. It's working with me, and I got to get by. People that have addictions, I have to work with.

It's about one day getting through that one day, and then the next day is another day. And pretty soon you find that their spiritual muscles and their endurance gets a lot stronger.

And they get bigger, and they can exercise a little bit more.

And eventually those chunks of time become large portions of the daily work. Your daily walk, you're not controlled. Your mind isn't controlled by the things of the world.

Your mind isn't controlled by the lusts of the flesh, but it starts in little bitty increments.

It's not you just wake up one day, and I'm this holy righteous person. Look at me. I'm just like Christ.

This is the process of conversion.

There used to be this sign. You used to see them out on the street.

You see them in buildings. A work in progress.

Brethren, we all need a shirt. This is a work in progress.

Why? It reminds us God's not finished with us yet.

It's a process. It's a conversion. It's going to take a little time with each and every one of us. But God is doing a work, and it's in progress in us.

If you've ever been to an AA meeting, Alcoholics Anonymous, or whether it was drugs or whatever, the first step in recovery is what? Admit it.

Admit it. You first must admit that you're an alcoholic.

You have to stand before the group and say, I'm Chuck Smith, and I'm an alcoholic. Chuck Smith, am I addicted to cocaine?

The first start, because they know it's going to take time to get you away from these things. It didn't happen overnight. It's not going to end overnight.

So they work with you, and it's a process. It's a conversion, getting you from where you are now to where you need to be. And see, that's the same as God. He's working with us.

And yeah, you may say, well, I just have a little bit of anger problems.

Well, if you're not careful, Satan's going to make sure you have big anger problems.

So you need God in there to help.

God says, not only will I dwell in you and help you with very essence, guess what? I've got legions of angels that if you need some help, and you see evidence that through the Scriptures where people needed help.

Number one, he had to tell us, how are we going to get out of this one?

And he said, God opened up his eyes and he looked and there must have been millions of angels surrounding the hill.

He doesn't have a lot of people who follow him in this world. And yet there's millions and millions of angels.

And the essence of him in you.

We need to be able to say, I'm Chuck. I'm a work in progress.

We need to say it to God.

And not be afraid to say it to each other when we do something wrong, stupid, dumb.

Say things that we shouldn't say, even to our mates, to family, to anybody else. Because what? We're not perfect yet. That's why people are so different. We're not perfect yet. That's why people are so down on, quote-unquote, Christians in the world. They want to say, well, look at them. They want to preach this.

They want to preach how high and mighty they are. No, we're not.

We need to make sure we are on the other side of that. To where, no? Just work in progress. I'll try to help you.

As we heard about yesterday, I'd like you to turn there to 2 Peter.

2 Peter 1, verse 3.

Peter wanted us to understand this. We talked about it yesterday. As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him, who called us by glory and virtue, by which, having been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature. Not human nature. Not animal's nature. Divine, godly nature. Divine nature.

Hmm. We are being converted. We are being changed by the divine nature if we allow it.

If you took water, and I put this in an ice cube tray, and I put it in a freezer, it is being converted from liquid to solid.

Without the freezer, it's not going to change. Brethren, we are being converted like that. Without the Holy Spirit, which is like that freezer, without the Holy Spirit, we're not going to go from dirt to divine. We're not going to be where God wants us to be. We're still going to be so human. Right? But you see, just like Christ was the first of the first fruits, He was more God than human. Our issue is we're more human than God, but we have the essence of God in us. And He wants us, wants to give us more, and more, and more.

God's goal is to reproduce Himself. He wants us to be just like Him. A chip off the old block. That's my son. That's my daughter. You may say, well, that didn't turn out very well for Job. And He goes, and He goes, Satan, have you seen my servant Job? Righteous, upright man!

It will turn out. I want you to think about Peter. As we have studied now for the last month, I gave three or four sermons on Peter, Peter's writings about Peter. And Peter is almost foaming at the mouth in 1 and 2 Peter to get us to see the work that God is doing in us. When you read it and read it and read it again. Man, it's so exciting. And He cannot stand it because the people aren't really getting it.

I want to read from that. As knowing Peter, hopefully we talked about that yesterday, He would, hopefully, I can do this justice as Peter would do it with his passion. And I'll read, you don't have to turn there, I'll read, from the New Living Translation, 1 Peter 2 and verse 1.

Don't you think about Peter as he knows his time on earth is about finished? And he wants to help all of us as perhaps God gave him the vision to look down through the years and see that there would be many people reading this. But he says in 1 Peter 2 and verse 1, So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Don't we all need that to be more kind? Even to each other?

What would that do in the world? What would that do if everybody you met said, Oh, hi, how are you? Have a good day? It's something... Check the campaign. Yes, boy, wouldn't it be a thing in a campaign?

They would run out, wouldn't need our money. But he says, like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow to a full experience of salvation. Peter's wanting us to grow. He had to grow. He said, cry out for this nourishment. Now that you have had a taste of the Lord's kindness. Beautiful words by Peter. In 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3.

I'll read from the New Living Translation. 2 Peter 3, 1 and 2. He said, This is my second letter, you dear friends. In both of them, I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. I want you to remember what the Holy Prophet said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles. He left these words for us. Peter expresses it as well as anyone. And why? I think we saw yesterday because he lived it. He went through the same flesh and blood and all the problems that we had.

To overcome this human nature, to overcome this world, it's lust, it's pulls. Brethren, we need power on loan from God. And brethren, we have it. But too many times, we do not use it.

If any of you have been out on an interstate trying to get on a ramp with a little bitty car with a four-cylinder motor, you realize what happens when you're having to get up to speed in a very short ramp. And you've got your foot all the way down to the pedal, and it's not going any faster, and you can't get up there. And you just have somebody who will let you in, or you're going to have to run on the side of the road until somebody will let you in because you don't have enough power.

And sometimes we feel that way about God. But that's not true. Brethren, He didn't stick a four-cylinder in us. He stuck a 12-cylinder. But we're not ready to use it. And He wants us to be able to use all 12 cylinders. Be this incredible work. This power on loan from God is God's Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit, this essence in us.

Brethren, it will help us to do something that we can never do on our own. And it is a must. These two things are a must. One, you've heard me say time and time again, we must have the mind of Christ, as Paul tells the Philippians. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. It takes the Holy Spirit to have that mind. The other is, we need to have the eyes of God. Do you have godly eyes? We must see what God sees as He sees it. And you know what He sees too much?

Sin. We need to be with God in real time. Not like, boy, I wish I hadn't done that earlier today. We need to see what He sees through our eyes. And what road we take Him down. What place we take Him in our minds. We must see what God sees. So I will wrap that up today with this. Me, it's one of the most beautiful and poignant pieces of Scripture.

I've run across in a very long time. Because I think as we repent, we're led by God's Holy Spirit, there's a next step in conversion. As it may only be like that ice tray that's kind of just a little ice on the top and everything else below is water. You've done that before. You've done it where I thought it was ice and you go, and it just, it's all liquid, very little ice.

Where are you in this conversion process? How much of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit can get us rock solid. It's waiting on us. We don't have to wait on it. I'd like you to turn before we do. I go back to David. Go back to King David. Back to that time, which was a defining moment in his life, when he had gotten so far away from God that he had actually slept with one of his favorite men, one of his best soldiers, one of the most dedicated men.

He actually slept with his wife because he saw her bathing, and he wanted her. And he took her, and he got her pregnant. She found out after a couple months and told him, and then, uh-oh, what am I going to do?

Oh, there's enough time? Call the man back. Let him get him a little alcohol in him. Let him go over there as a wife. But he was so dedicated that he wouldn't say, No, I can't leave my men. He tried everything. But this man was so dedicated that he actually gave him a note and was so secure, so sure.

He knew how dedicated this man was to take this to your leader, Joette. And it was in the actual letter he was carrying in his hand that said, Go up to the very front of the battle, and then pull all your men away so that this man is killed. He didn't. He was such a dedicated man. He never opened the letter as he wouldn't.

And he was killed. And David then takes the woman for his wife. And as most historians, theologians think, it was about three months after the baby was born. It was a little considered a child at the time in Scripture. And nobody knew all this had happened except for Joab, who would never tell, it's always good to have dirt on your boss, Bathsheba and David, and maybe a couple of servants around the house.

The baby was born. It's about three months old. And God tells Nathan the prophet what happened. I'm sure he told him in living color. So here Nathan realizes, he says, go tell David. How would you handle that? Because David could have you killed just like Uriah, then no one would know.

No one would question even a prophet of God. If David said, you die, you die. So he thought of this story to tell David, because he realized at that time David had a disconnect from God. This is odd. David never prayed. And we're talking a year. Total disconnect. A stop in the conversion process. And Nathan came up and said, told this story about this rich man who takes this poor man's little lamb. The rich man was David. The poor man was Uriah, and the lamb was Bacheba.

And he took it because he didn't want to take one of his own, because David had a harem too. No, he took another man's lamb. And so we find the results of that as David does repent. When he says, what should happen to the man? He said, that man should die! Who did that? And then they take from his crop and restore four times the other man. And he said, David, you are that man.

And so what happened? He repented. We see in Psalm 51. But something else is in the story. And I want to wrap this up, because this is the rest of the story. David wrote Psalm 51, and you can feel the emotion of it. But he also wrote Psalm 32. And God inspired this. This was his writings after he had repented, and he was trying to get his life back. He was trying to reconnect with God, and God was trying to reconnect with him so that God did not take the Holy Spirit. He did not take his physical life.

But he said, I'm going to take you for your word. And in Psalm 32, verse 8, God said to him through his writings, I will instruct you. Now, you didn't do very good on your own. So here's what we need to do. Let's get a reboot on this situation, David. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. I will guide you with my eye.

How about you? I have up here... I have pretty good eyes. I can see Pepsi bottles. I can see everybody in the back. But you know, I have a pair of reading glasses. That if the print's too small, I have to put these reading glasses on. But you probably don't have the problem I have. Now that I've gotten older, I had LASIK surgery 20 years ago, but now it's wearing. But at night, or if I see far away, I have to have another pair of glasses. So I have to see for distance, I have to have something way out there. I can see every little speck on Humberto there.

So I need these for distance. I need these to be up close.

I have these for me to get around in all the time. But brethren, it wasn't until I really understood this Scripture and where David came in that I realized... Now, by God's Holy Spirit, I need to be able to see sin as He sees it. I need His eye. I need another set of eyes. Just like these other two, and mine here, I need those God-given eyes. So that I can see sin through His eyes.

And I can live life through His eyes. And I can only do that because He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. That will allow us to do what many of us could never do on our own. Brethren, it's divine sight by the divine nature. Your conversion, my conversion, is taking place now.

We are, brethren, a wonderful work in progress. And it is because of God and His love, His compassion, and His desire to dwell with us. Let's not turn our backs. So many people have done that. Let's fulfill our destiny and be true sons and daughters of God, who love Him with all of our heart, our soul, and our might. We are a work in progress. Let's enjoy the rest of the day.