Relationship Found on the Threshing Floor

Broken Theology Broken Faith

Part of being porters of the presence of the Lord is being okay with the being processed, refined, and even broken in order to render the best of who we are to the Lord.

When our ways of thinking about the Lord, and what we have been told about what we should or should not believe in are challenged we find ourselves in spaces that bring us to the point of breaking.

It is the things the keep us up at night… wake us from slumber… cause us deep periods of stress… even the things that bring us into bouts of depression.

For example… we have been told to “ask and we will receive” yet you have been asking, pleading and even begging the Lord to provide for the financial need and yet it did not come… or ;

you have been asking for healing and the healing has not come or its incomplete…

Have you learned to praise Him anyways or has it so rattled your faith you are unsure what to believe?

To be porters of His presence there is a path that leads through the threshing floor where we grow intimately with His presence.

2 Samuel 6:5–7 ESV

And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.

Deciding to carry His presence will never be a mistake… its the willingness to engage with Him and to do so as He desires.

What is the error? Surely it was not Uzzah’s protecting the ark of the covenant…

He was allowed to carry it and touch it…

The error is how Uzzah and Ahio decided to carry

David devised the route to get there… did David not know the threshing floor was there?

There is a significant work to be unpacked as we examine the terrain… the people… their position… and even their beliefs...

Intentional Process on the Threshing Floor

2 Samuel 6:6 ESV

And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.

Something needs to be fixed so they are brought to the threshing floor

Placing the Ark on the backs of an animal vs. Carrying it

we cannot

Threshing Floor

Nacon means intentional or on purpose

they were brought here with intention

Oxen

allowed to stumble… allowed to fall

One more note on the threshing floor

it is flat how do they stumble on flat ground

We as a body of believers need to be willing to intentionally be processed on the threshing floor that in this space our intimacy with the Lord’s presence will grow.

The Four Phases of the Threshing Floor

Salvation was the first step in growing with the Lord

The threshing floor is where many of the false beliefs and foreign concepts will fall

It is on the threshing floor that we can be found in fear or anger of what the Lord is doing in our Lives and where many would rather run and hide… may I encourage you to endure to the end of the processing.

Harvested and Staged for Crushing

2 Chronicles 3:1 ESV

Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

The house of the Lord is built on the threshing floor

The first and second step in phase 1

harvested and gathered

staged to be crushed.

The fact that Solomon decides to build on the threshing floor foreshadows something for us… there is no way around the threshing floor.

You’ve given your life to the Lord and have been plucked out of the world… that in itself is daunting as you can no longer be who you once were

The Crushing

The wheat is placed on the floor to be trampled and crushed by oxen and sleigh

1 Peter 4:15–17 ESV

But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

don’t conflate suffering as an attack… it is on the threshing floor in which a major crushing happens that will break the hard outer shell to get to the good part

Suffering can be a part of our walk

John 16:33 there will be trials and tribulations but the Lord has overcome.

the outer husk of the wheat represents what we are so desperately clinging to that belongs to the world

Fixing our eyes on our Jesus who has overcome we will learn to let go of the world

Don’t fear the crushing know that even in the crushing there is hope

The Winnowing

As if being harvested and crushed by a 1000lbs animal is not enough there is still need of further cleansing

Luke 3:17 ESV

His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

that outer husk now is thrown into the fire… the fork now clears the threshing floor.

Jesus will do the cleansing

Eph 4:11-14 tells us about the laborers who will be responsible to the tending to and development of the flock ....

prepare us for the sifting that is to come

teach us to not be blown by every wind of doctrine.

The Sifting

Wheat tossed into the air to allow for remaining impurities to be carried off by the wind

Judges 7:4 ESV

And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.”

creation story the Lord creates and tests

being made ready we go through seasons of sifting “testing”

Sifted by Satan

Luke 22:31–32 ESV

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Satan may do a sifting

Jesus intercedes for us… When you overcome you can turn and strengthen those around you

Sifted by the Lord

Amos 9:9 ESV

“For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth.

At times it is the Lord who will sift us but nothing will fall to the ground that the Lord has not allowed to fall

Jesus modeled the work of the threshing floor to us…

Luke 4:1-2 it is the Holy Spirit who leads the Lord to the dessert to be sifted…

we are not given a spirit of Fear… the threshing floor can be terrifying as we learn to let go of the things that dont belong… we are drawn to this space as the follow space in which the our salvation grows into an intentional relationship with the one who has called us into Himself.