The longer we live, the more we have to be thankful for. Isn’t that true? The longer we live, the more blessings we receive, and therefore the more we have to be thankful for. If you are thirty years old, you can count your blessings, name them one by one. If you are fifty years old, you can count your many blessings, see what God has done. And if you are a few months short of seventy – well, let’s not go there, as I have forgotten how to count! Nonetheless, the longer we live, the more we have to be thankful for.
But it is also true that the longer we live, the more we have to be forgiven for. Count that too: the longer we live, the more mistakes we make, the more people we hurt, the more wrong directions we take, and so the more we have to be forgiven for. Someone asked me how long I was pastor at Takoma Park, and when I told him, “Eighteen years,” he said, “Well, that’s eighteen years of opportunities to upset people”. Yes, it is. And I did. The longer we live the more we have to be forgiven for.
So what happens as we accumulate errors and multiply mistakes? We become acutely aware that there are folks out there who have not forgiven us. There are plenty of people who are not at peace with us. We accumulate regrets and reasons to feel guilty. And so the longer we live with that the more likely we are to thrash. To thrash. Do you know that word? “Thrashing” is waving your arms and legs around wildly. “Thrashing” is jumping here and there, trying to find a solution to your problem. “Thrashing” is what you do when you are in a panic and think you are in terrible trouble.
Just a couple of months after Margaret and I were married, we were with a youth group from our church in Louisville. We went to a state park for a swimming outing. I thought the floor of this man-made lake would be a gradual, easy slope, and so, though I am not a swimmer, wanting to impress, I waded out farther and farther, until the water was chest high. But guess what? There was a sharp drop-off out there; I stepped into it and went under that water, sinking like a lump of lead. Margaret quickly calculated that she was not ready to lose her husband of only two months, and so rushed in to pull me out. As I lay panting and puffing on the beach, she told me I really made it hard for her to rescue me, because my arms and legs were thrashing in all directions! When you think you are about to drown in all the mess you have made, you thrash around, desperate for something to grip, but you only make the problem worse.
Thrashing is what we do spiritually when we see that we are drowning in a host of unforgiven issues. We complain, we blame, we go into depression, we worry. And none of it works. Thrashing isn’t going to work. It’s threshing, not thrashing, that we want. Get the distinction between the words. Threshing, not thrashing. More on that in a moment.
David, King of Israel, had been on his throne for a long time. Nigh on to forty years of fighting the Philistines, consolidating power, dealing with palace intrigues, parenting ungrateful children, and on and on. As David came toward the end of his reign, and things were still not fully settled, with hostility here and there around Israel, David started thrashing. He just wanted to do something, anything, to get himself together. So what did David do? He ordered a census. He commanded a nose-count all over the land.
Now don’t think of this like our American census, where we count people and ask them questions every ten years. No, David’s census was about identifying every able-bodied man in the Kingdom, planning to draft them for military service. This was the first step toward conscription. The census-takers reported only on men able to draw the sword. The king was thrashing about for something, anything, to consolidate his power and put down dissent. But what he did caused an outcry. It steamed up the people. It turned even David’s most loyal followers against him. He had made a huge mistake with his census. Thrashing about only makes a problem worse.
Remember the premise of the morning: that the longer we live, the more we do that has to be forgiven. We thrash, we grab, we push, we try anything to get ourselves out of the mess we’re in. And it only gets worse. Thrashing around creates spiritual weariness and guilt. The answer is not in thrashing but in threshing. But, still, more on threshing in a moment.
I
Notice now that when the people’s complaints all came down around his ears, David, stricken in heart, cried out to God in confession, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done.” “I have sinned greatly in what I have done.”
Let’s be grateful that David has accurately diagnosed his problem. He has put himself squarely in the human condition. He has said that nasty word that most of us avoid. He has come right out and named it for what it is: sin. Not errors, not miscalculations, not poor information – but sin. Straight out, flat out sin. That thing that is in all of us that offends God. That brokenness within us that turns us away from our Maker. That powerful impulse that sends us deeper into the murk. Thrashing about to get out of his mess, David had sinned, and said so.
Some people think that sin is just a psychological quirk. It’s about an unhealthy conscience, and if you just find the right counselor, if you just work long enough with a therapist, you’ll feel better about yourself. Many people aim for getting over that unpleasant guilty feeling.
Please understand. I am not discounting counseling; not at all. I‘ve spent many an hour listening to people and helping them work through their issues. But if the aim is nothing more than feeling better, we are no closer to the answer. The problem is not how we feel. The problem is that we have sinned. Sin is our failure to trust God; better yet, sin is our failure to trust ourselves to God’s care. The Bible says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” Until I recognize that “all” includes me, I will continue to thrash around, looking for something to make everything come out all right and make me feel good. But it won’t. The only answer is confession, “I have sinned greatly.” Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of confession. “I have sinned”
So confession that acknowledges the power of sin is the first step to get from thrashing to threshing. But again, more about that threshing thing in a little while.
II
After David’s prayer, he receives a visit from a prophet named Gad, who says to David, “The Lord is giving you some choices. You can have, as a consequence of your sin, either three years of famine, no food, for the whole country; or you can have three months of flight, trying to dodge the enemies who will be trying to kill you; or you can have three days of pestilence, an infectious disease across the land.” Like it or not, David took the third choice, the choice that he thought would get it all over and done with quickly, and in three days seventy thousand of his people died. There were consequences, serious consequences, from David’s sin.
You see, the results of the things we do to each other do not just evaporate because we ask for forgiveness. The pain that we have inflicted on someone does not disappear, however diligent our prayer. The anguish that we caused when we lashed someone with our tongue, the heartache that we created when we lied about a friend – these things remain. And these things have to be dealt with. Seventy thousand deaths for which David was responsible! Sin has consequences, but most of us thrash about, looking for cheap and easy answers.
So see now how David’s confession intensifies. First he had prayed, “I have sinned greatly.” That’s good, that acknowledges that it’s all about sin. But now, in the face of harsh consequences, David cries out, “I alone have sinned, and I alone have done wickedly”
“I alone have sinned.” You and I must accept the fact that the mistakes we make, the sins we commit, will have inescapable consequences, and no one else can be blamed for them. One afternoon I visited a prisoner in the DC correctional facility. As we talked about his situation, he said, “Pastor, I am living among the biggest crybabies in the world. Everybody here blames somebody else for being in jail. Jim over here says, ‘I had a mean father; he put me here.’ Bill over there says, ‘I went to a tough school; the other kids put me here.’ John across the room says, ‘Rich people put me here, prejudiced police put me here, the establishment put me here.’” My friend paused and then said, “They are all crybabies. I know who put me here. I put me here.” Sin has consequences, and these consequences are ours to deal with.
The prophet Ezekiel saw this clearly when he said, “The soul that sins, it shall die,” and taught us not to blame our fathers nor to charge our mothers nor to accuse “them”. It’s on us. There are consequences for sin, and we have to own up. Everything else is thrashing. Anything less than, “I alone have sinned” is thrashing about, trying to find a foothold, but never getting on firm ground. It’s only when I accept the consequences of my sin that my thrashing is on its way to threshing.
III
So what is this “threshing” thing I’ve been alluding to? I’ve been making a distinction between thrashing and threshing. Thrashing, remember, is flailing around, doing anything and everything, to get out of the mess we’re in, but it always puts us in deeper. Thrashing solves nothing. So what is “threshing”?
Threshing is a process used in sifting grain. Threshing is a shaking that separates the useful grain from all the waste around it. When a farmer takes his grain to the threshing floor, he tosses it into the air so that the edible kernels fall back in place, and the waste is pitched off to the side.
And so David, confessing his sins, aware of the consequences of his terrible choices, now makes his way to a man named Araunah, who ran a threshing floor in Jerusalem. David goes to Araunah to buy that threshing floor, there to erect an altar and offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God. After all, whoever is forgiven much is moved to turn around and give thanks. Whoever has sinned greatly and is released is grateful to God and wants to respond.
To David’s surprise, the farmer Araunah offers him the threshing floor free of charge. “Let me give you the threshing floor, King David, and more than that, here, I have oxen you can slaughter and wood you can burn – take it all, my king, and use it.” For whatever reasons, Araunah spurns an opportunity to make some money and says, “I’ll just give it to you.” I tell you, we have not recently seen the likes of Araunah here in Washington – turning down a lucrative government contract? Not on your life!
Oh, but King David’s reply rings down through the centuries as the response of a contrite heart. David’s reply is a classic. Cries out the heart-stricken king, “No, I will buy them from you; I will not offer .. offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” Did you hear that? “I will not offer offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” Right on, David, right on! For you have finally come to the place where you know that you cannot cut corners. No more getting off on the cheap. The way to peace is costly. The way to wholeness is expensive. The way to a new life means a price has to be paid.
David has come to the threshing floor of his own heart, where wheat and chaff will be separated, where health or sickness will be chosen, where wholeness or brokenness will be elected. David’s thrashing about for answers has finally led him to threshing. Now David will no longer thrash around, looking for a cheap way out of his guilt. No, for David has been threshed, he has had the evil cleansed and the dishonesty cleared away. And this weary warrior’s long life finally is changed, his spiritual weariness melts away, and he is at peace. His thrashing has led him to threshing; he has a whole new perspective. “I will not offer offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” Forgiveness always comes at a price.
But today I have good news. Today I have glorious news about the price to be paid. For a greater than Araunah is here, one who is more generous and gracious than this farmer could ever have been. There is one who will give us a gift far finer than a threshing floor. There is one who will give us the gift of threshing itself. May I tell you a story?
When my granddaughter Olivia was given a tricycle, she wanted to show grandpa that she could handle that beast. . Well, my daughter’s house was on a street with a slight incline, so Olivia took her tricycle downhill, rolling majestically along. All well and good, but when it was time to turn around and go back home, the ride was uphill and was not so easy. She did all right as long as the sidewalk was smooth, but some of the cracks were uneven, and she got stuck at the rough places. She wasn’t strong enough to pedal over the rough spots. So I helped by pushing her. For my troubles I got a clear word from Olivia, “I want to do it, Grandpa. Don’t push.” Okay ... but soon there was another crack in the walk, and this time she said, “I’m stuck. Help me, grandpa.” I did, but was immediately rewarded with the old song, “I want to do it, don’t push”. And so it went, time after time, at every rough spot: “I’m stuck, help me.” “I want to do it, don’t push.” “I’m stuck, help me.” “I want to do it, don’t push.” But grandpa wasn’t born yesterday, you know. Grandpa got behind the tricycle, and every time we came to a rough spot, as soon as Olivia would announce, “I’m stuck”, there was a little touch from grandpa’s foot, and she never even knew I had helped her.
We thrash. We get stuck. We dwell on our wrong decisions. We obsess on sin. We thrash about with our little spiritual legs, too short and too weak to make something happen. But tell the heavenly Father that we need help, and even when we do not know He is there, He is nudging us, He is pushing us. And in Christ Jesus He is taking into Himself the consequences of our sin and is offering us more mercy than we could ever deserve, more joy than we could ever manufacture, more hope than we could ever dream of. In Christ Jesus, at His Cross, our God is threshing us, He is sifting out our weaknesses and is throwing away our self-deceptions. He is doing for us what we could never do for ourselves: forgiving our sin, not in part, but the whole. And what is most incredible of all – for forgiveness always comes with a price – Jesus paid it all. All. Jesus paid it all.
I must not offer to such a God something that costs me nothing. No, love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.
