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 sixty years old, you can count your many blessings, see what God has done. And if you are ninety years old – well, let’s not go there, you have probably forgotten how to count! 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. 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.
If you’ve been married only a short while, you can still remember that day when your wife found out that you were not Superman, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It hurt to have her discover that there were some things you would not do, and you had to ask forgiveness. But then of course you also discovered that she was not Wonder Woman either, looking like a million bucks as soon as she got out of bed and cooking breakfast, nursing the baby, and paying the bills all at the same time! And you had to forgive her, didn’t you?
The longer we live, the more we have to be forgiven. 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. That’s true in any relationship – family, work, neighborhood, church. The other day the husband of a church member asked me how long I had been here, and when I told him I was in my 18th year, he said, “Well, that’s eighteen years of opportunities to upset people”. Yes it is. Forgiveness is called for, even in the church, and especially for the pastor.
Now since it is true that the longer we live the more we have to be forgiven, what happens as we accumulate errors and multiply mistakes? What happens? We become acutely aware that there are folks out there who do not like us, have not forgiven us, have never forgotten what we did to them, and are not at peace with us. 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 so much trouble you are going to drown.
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 the lake was a gradual, easy slope, and so, though I am not a swimmer, 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 two months – see, I was still Superman in her eyes – and so came to pull me out. Obviously, Wonder Woman that she is, she was successful – here I am! But she told me I really made it hard for her, because my arms and legs were – here’s the word – 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 thrashing isn’t going to work. It’s threshing, not thrashing, that we want. 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 Philistines, consolidating power, dealing with palace intrigues, fathering ungrateful children, and on and on. As David came toward the end of his reign, and things were still not fully settled, hostility here and there around Israel, David started thrashing. He wanted just to do something, anything, to get hinself together. You know how we say, “Don’t just stand there, do something”? Well, that’s thrashing. With most of us, it should be, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” What does David do? He orders a census. He commands 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, with the intention of drafting 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, thrashing about for something to do to consolidate his power, had found well over a million men to use for his army. And that caused an outcry. That steamed up the people. That turned even David’s loyal followers against him. He had made a huge mistake in numbering the people. And they let him know about it in no uncertain terms.
The longer we live, the more we do that has to be forgiven. We thrash, we grab, we push, trying anything to get ourselves out of the mess we’re in. And it only gets worse. Thrashing around only makes things worse. It creates spiritual weariness. The answer is not in thrashing but in threshing. But, still, more on that in a moment.
How do you find forgiveness for all the things you have done and all the pointless, damaging thrashing you have done to get your life together? Let’s think about prayer. And let’s think particularly about confessional prayer.
I
Notice first that when it all came down around his ears, thanks to his thrashing, David, stricken in heart, cried out to God in confession, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done.” There is a lot hiding in that statement, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done.”
You see, 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 mistakes, 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 wants to turn away from its Maker. That powerful impulse that just sends us deeper into the murk. We need to name sin for what it is.
Not long ago, a public figure, charged with stealing from the agency he ran, said, after many questions from the press, “Well, I will acknowledge that mistakes were made.” Mistakes were made? Is that all there is to it? Do you get forgiveness just by saying, “Oops”? My one-year-old granddaughter Jackie has a favorite word, “Uh-oh”? She drops something and says, “Uh-oh.” Oh, Jackie, darling, the human condition, you will learn, is much more than “Uh-oh”, much more than “Oops”. The fundamental human problem is sin, a broken relationship with God, and that’s what David acknowledges. When David is up front with, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done”, he has taken the first step toward forgiveness. Pray in confession and own up not only to what we have done, but also to its seriousness – then we can be forgiven.
Oh, in our modern world we don’t want to understand what sin is, nor name it, nor take it seriously. Some people think that sin has is just a psychological thing. It’s all 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 feeling better about themselves, getting over that unpleasant guilty feeling. It’s not for them about whether we are guilty; they just don’t want to feel guilty.
Please understand. I am not discounting counseling; not at all. I spend several hours a week sitting with many of you, listening to your stories and helping you work through them. But if the aim is nothing more than feeling better, we are no closer to the answer. The problem is not mistakes. The problem is not ignorance. The problem is not lack of intelligence. The problem is sin – the failure to trust God, the failure to trust ourselves to God, and thus pride-filled attacks on others of God’s children. The Bible says, that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” – and until we admit that “all” includes me, we will continue to thrash around, looking for something to make everything come out all right. But it won’t. It won’t. The only answer is the prayer of confession, “I have sinned greatly.” “I have sinned” – not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer, confessional prayer.
The prayer of confession that acknowledges the power of sin is the first step from thrashing to threshing. But again, more about that 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.” David took the third choice, and in three days seventy thousand of his people died.
Consequences? Why, I thought that once you sent up that “Please forgive me” prayer to the Lord, everything was cleaned up, over and done with. Consequences? Who wants consequences?
The results of the things we have done to each other do not just evaporate because we’ve been forgiven. The pain that we have inflicted on someone does not disappear, just because we prayed, 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. Sin has consequences, but we are thrashing about, looking for a cheap and easy answer.
So see how David’s prayer progresses, how David’s confession intensifies. First he had prayed, “I have sinned greatly.” That’s good, that acknowledges that it’s all about sin. Now he prays, “I alone have sinned, and I alone have done wickedly”
“I alone have sinned.” David sees and accepts the consequences of his sin. I spent yesterday afternoon visiting a prisoner in the DC correctional facility. He said, “I am living among the biggest crybabies in the world. Everybody here blames somebody else for putting him in jail. One says, ‘I had a mean father; he put me here.’ Another says, ‘I went to a tough school, the other kids put me here.’ Somebody else 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.”
Oh, men and women, let us stand up with David and admit it, “I alone have sinned, and I alone have done wickedly.” It is not productive to blame others for who you are and what you do. Yes, of course there were influences on you. Yes, of course, we are products of our parents, our neighborhoods, our cultures. That’s true. But the Bible tells us that we are ultimately responsible for our own souls and at the bottom line we are the ones who must take the consequences of our actions. The prophet Ezekiel saw it clearly when he said, “The soul that sins, it shall die,” and taught us not to blame our fathers nor to charge our mothers or our friends or “them”. It’s on us. There are consequences for what we have done, 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 about this “threshing” thing I’ve been alluding to? I’ve been making a distinction between thrashing and threshing. Thrashing 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. It is a shaking and a sifting to separate 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 useful kernels fall back in place, and the waste is pitched off to the side. Threshing is a separating, a discovery of the good stuff in the midst of all the negative stuff. If you can get threshing in your life, you can go beyond simple forgiveness, you can go beyond admitting consequences. You can have joy. You can have fulfillment and peace. Threshing means that we are ready to grow and to change, we are ready to pitch aside those things that are wasteful and harmful and harvest the nourishment. Threshing is discerning what is right and what is wrong and choosing the Lord’s way, leaving all else aside.
And so David, forgiven of his sins, aware of the consequences of his terrible choices, 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 much. Whoever has sinned greatly and is released has so much gratitude to God, he just wants to give and give.
To David’s surprise, brother 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 a lucrative opportunity 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 response rings down through the centuries as the response of an honest and 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 must be truthful, you must be honest, you must do what God wants you to do, no more cutting corners. No more getting off on the cheap. David has come to the threshing floor of his own heart, where wheat and chaff will be separated, where sickness or health will be chosen, where brokenness or wholeness will be elected. David has learned not only to avoid old sins, but better than that, David has learned to pay the price and get on with his life, in honesty. David’s thrashing has led him to threshing, for David prayed in confession. Now David will no longer thrash around, looking for a way out of his guilt. No, for David has been threshed, he has had the evil washed out and the dishonesty cleared away. And for the first time in this aging weary warrior’s long life, his spiritual weariness melts away, and he is at peace. His thrashing has led him to threshing; he has a whole new perspective. He has joy. Because David prayed and prayed in confession.
The other day two-and-a-half-year-old Olivia demonstrated that she can now ride a tricycle. Before her little legs were not long enough or strong enough, but now she can make it go. Well, my daughter’s house is on a street with a slight grade, so Olivia took her tricycle downhill, looking for bugs, she said. 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, “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.
Thrashing. I’m stuck. I’m stuck with my wrong decisions, I’m stuck with my foolish errors, I’m stuck with my sin. I’m thrashing about with my little spiritual legs, too short and too weak to make something happen. But I told my heavenly Father that I needed help, and now, even when I do not know He is there, He is nudging me, He is pushing me. He is threshing me, He is sifting out my weaknesses and He is throwing away my self-deceptions. I will not offer to such a God something that costs me nothing. Not at all. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.
