We welcome you to the We Are Zion sermon podcast.
We are a church based out of Chennai, India.
We are thrilled that you tuned in today and hope that you will
be refreshed, revived, and energized by what you hear.
Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of
purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.
The year 2025 is 1 where we will be positioned by God to possess
our promise. We are celebrating all that God
has done and has promised to do over the next few weeks.
Every word that God has spoken will come to pass.
Everything that you have sown into will begin to reap its
fruit. The harvest is here and it's
plentiful. Can we lean into the Lord of the
harvest and hear what He has to say to us?
Yes, Church, we're so happy that we get to do this new series on
the harvest, right? And last week we saw how, you
know, the seed which is sown becomes grain.
They look distinctly different. They have different purposes.
The seed is full of life. When it is sown is when it gives
rise to. Grain.
And this week we're going to be looking at the process of
threshing. And I believe a lot of us are in
that season spiritually where God is threshing us for a
certain reason. It might feel like you know, it
might feel a little rough. It may feel a little unjust
even. But God is at.
Work. I just want to encourage you
about that. And the title of my sermon is
threshed but not crushed, because many times the the act
of threshing actually feels quite violent.
I have just a few stalks of wheat here to illustrate the
point. So when wheat is born as the
seed of the wheat seed, when sown becomes the grain.
But this is the entire grain. The wholesome part of the grain
is hidden deep within and farmers have a very specific
way. Of.
Threshing wheat. If it's Paddy, they have a
different way of threshing it. If it's barley, it's different.
They have a different way, but all of it requires mechanical
pressure. No threshing mechanism works
without pressure. So either it's beaten on the
ground, or they use a threshing sledge, they hammer it, or they
use animals to tread it, But whatever it is, friction is
necessary. Force is necessary in order to
get the useful part of the grain out and the rest is just thrown
away. And what is thrown away is
usually just burnt up or the shaft is just let you know,
allowed into the wind and it's carried away.
And what is remaining is what is useful.
And like last week, Pastor Geshom was teaching us on how
there is this requirement on our lives that we would sow the
grain that we have tasted. And he also mentioned how we
need to stay the course because what is sown has to be watered,
has to be tended to, and then ultimately you reap with
Thanksgiving. Many times we sow certain things
and we expect a certain kind of harvest.
But if you didn't sow it right to begin with, what you reap is
what you actually sowed. You don't get a mango tree if
you sowed apples, apple seeds, right?
So there is this direct correlation between the seed you
sow and the grain that you reap. And this week we're going to be
focusing on Isaiah chapter 28, where there's this beautiful
scripture on how. God gives wisdom to the farmer.
On how to actually, you know, sow his seed and how he has to
thresh it. So Isaiah chapter 28 verses 23
to 29, listen and hear my voice. Pay attention and hear what I
say. When a farmer plows for
planting, does he plow continually?
Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?
When he has levelled the surface?
Does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin?
Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and
spelt in its field? His God instructs him and
teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a
sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin.
Caraway is beaten out with a rod and cumin with a stick.
Grain must be ground to make bread, so.
One does not go on threshing it forever.
The wheels of a threshing cart may be rolled over it, but one
does not use horses to grind grain.
All this also comes from the Lord Almighty.
Whose plan is wonderful? Whose wisdom is magnificent.
It's amazing because God gives the farmer such intricate wisdom
as to how to deal with each of his seals and the grain that is
produced from each of the seeds is different, has different
needs. So the threshing mechanism is
also different. I want you to quickly watch this
video, this YouTube short on what threshing actually looks
like for you to better understand this process.
It's just a quick video if you can just watch it.
So as you noticed, there was a mechanical force.
There was a moment when the farmer was actually.
Hitting. The grain in order to free up
the grain in itself in its nutritious form, leaving behind
on the floor that which was not useful, whatever flew away was
the shaft which actually protected it.
But the grain is what is left behind.
So sometimes, you know, you've it the, the whole process of
threshing requires a stick, requires a rod, requires
sometimes a threshing mechanism which rolls over the grain.
I was watching a couple of these agricultural videos from North
India where this these two oxen are, you know, treading out the
grain as as a threshing mechanism.
And the farmer is seated behind on this small little ledge that
has wheels. And so not only are the oxen
threshing the grain. The ledge that he's sitting on
and being pulled on is also doing an additional threshing
work. But the beautiful thing in this
passage is that threshing is not a forever process.
Even the season of sewing is not a forever thing.
These are seasonal. They happen for a time.
And thresh threshing is such a pivotal part of this process.
If it is not there, you don't get the product that you're
looking for. So you can be assured of this.
Threshing is not forever. Maybe you feel like you're in a
season of of you know, just the harvest is about to come.
You feel like the things you have sown in past seasons are
going to come full circuit. But you feel like this is
unusual pleasure. You feel like God is doing
something. He's shaking things that felt
normal to you. You feel like there's this
rumbling beneath the surface and you feel like God, I'm feeling
unsettled. I thought this was a season of
plenty. I thought this was a season of
reaping. But I want to encourage you and
and bless you today with this word that the threshing means
that the harvest is in full swing.
It means that you're closer than ever to your miracle.
You're closer than ever to your reaping.
Right. And so you might ask me what is
the need for threshing? Why do I need this threshing,
right? Why does, why do I have to go
through this hard times? Haven't I already been through
enough? And I, I completely agree with
you. Yes, you're probably probably
been through a lot, but the threshing is highly essential
for every believer in Christ. We need the threshing season
before the harvest is complete so that things that need to be
removed are removed and things that need to stay, stay.
When you look at this these verses in Isaiah 2028, if God
gave so much wisdom to a farmer as to thresh different seeds
different ways, God is very mindful of how he threshes each
of us in the seasons. Of our life.
The way he threshes me will not be the way he threshes you,
because he knows what my threshold is.
He knows exactly how much I can handle it.
He knows how much you can handle.
So if he used, if the farmer has to use a sledge for something
and an oxen for something else, God knows how to thresh you and
me. We are being held by a very
mindful God. He knows what we are doing and
in order to see us mature and grow, He needs to do certain
things in US to release us to our fullest potential.
There are two reasons why threshing is very important for
every every believer in Christ who is headed into the harvest.
If this is a harvest, a season when you're going to reap
bountifully for all that you have sown over the years, there
are two things that have to happen and that's why threshing
is done. The first thing it's removing.
Threshing is a removing what? What are we removing?
You're probably thinking, I've given up so much already to
follow Jesus. What more should I should be
removed? Well, there isn't the need to
remove baggage and attachment of the previous season before you
enter the new season. The new season will require you
to have fresh set of skills, fresh insight, fresh
experiences. But many times the baggage and
the attachments of the past season can be a deterrent.
It can hold you back. When the farmer hits that wheat,
hits that Paddy, when he threshes it, what happens is the
outer husk, what protected it in seed form.
The husk was very essential in the previous season.
When the seed grows, you'll find that the seed is very
susceptible to all kinds of infections.
So God has created this beautiful hardened outer
covering called the husk or the shaft, which protects it in seed
stage. But when the seed goes grows
into grain, the husk becomes immaterial.
It served its purpose in the last season many times for all
of us. There are certain things that we
developed as a protective mechanism in a previous season.
We had a certain way of being maybe harsh and and maybe we
were a bit very, you know, prideful and egoistic because we
needed to protect ourselves. There were people who harmed us.
There were people who hurt us. There were people who tried to
tear us down. And so maybe there were certain
protective mechanisms you put in, you built in.
But God is saying in the next season, I will be your shield,
like like Deshum taught us a couple of weeks back, but he is
our shield. Many of us have been trying to
put up our Shields and protect ourselves.
But he's saying I am your shield.
I am your great reward. And so there needs to be a
removing. There needs to be a removing of
certain things. There has to be a change of
things from the old season to the new season.
I remember when we just got our puppy five years back, she was
just a few months old. And when we had to discipline
one of our children, if we, you know, took our took that, you
know, the plastics, we have a plastic spoon to correct our
kids when we take it out, the dog would get so alert and
whichever child we were going to discipline, she would come and
stand in front of them like a guard dog.
And she would prevent us from going near the child.
She was so protective of them. And that was for the 1st 1 1/2
years of being at home with us. In the last three years, she
couldn't be bothered. Like if we were correcting or,
or talking loudly to one of the kids in, in correction, she
would just lazily be lying in a corner and, and literally
smiling at the kid getting it. And I realized that there's each
season has a different kind of protection that is afforded to
us. In some seasons, you need to
protect yourself. You feel even even though in
that season God was your protector, but God is saying in
this new season, what nourished you in the previous, what helped
you in the previous season will not do it.
You need something fresh. And so the threshing process
actually removes those attachments, those dependencies,
and creates room for fresh dependency.
Maybe in the previous season you depended on this one
relationship or you depended on this one discipline you had
inculcated and that you rely on for your very sustenance.
But God is saying in this new season you're going to depend on
me for everything. Maybe in the old season you had
a certain dependency on on exercise or on a particular or
meditation technique or whatever it looked like to preserve your
mental health, your peace, your stability.
But God is saying in this season, I'm going to remove that
so that the fresh thing that I want to do in you comes through.
What are the old baggages? What is the old attachments that
need to be removed? What do you feel God is
unsettling you on so that you look to Him for this new season?
Threshing, when it happens, will dislocate from your life.
Pride, anger, heat, unforgiveness, things that tend
to cling, that tend to stay. We have found we've had to the
seasons when you think you're done and dusted with something
or someone, but then these old remnant feelings creep up and
you have to deal with that old anger.
You have to deal with that old unforgiveness.
You have to keep addressing the fact that there are some areas
in your life you're still bitter about and you allow God to
thresh it out of you. God take it away because I don't
want it. Paul instructs us to live
without a hint of impurity and sometimes this threshing season
is so important because it removes the hint of impurity
before it becomes a full-fledged stronghold.
So don't resist the threshing, the removing of these things is
very important. I was reading the other day in
in Ecclesiastes. It says a little folly outweighs
honour, a little folly. So you may live an honourable
life, but a little foolishness in you could disrupt that, could
degrade that. And it's so important for God in
the threshing season to say to actually shake off that folly,
to shake off that that foolishness.
So would you bring it to him and say, Lord, whatever in me needs
to be removed in the season, remove it.
Let me address it. Let me call it like it is.
Remove it from me. That's the first reason we need
to go through threshing. The second reason we need to go
through threshing as believers, it's 100% required is because
it's preparing. So while we remove this, the
husk mechanically from the wheat, there's a second thing
where we have to prepare. And that happens because
whatever is unnecessary has been removed.
And the grain which is useful to make flour remains, you know,
the flour that we use for for our Atta flour, the the oats
that is made into. Our oat grain oatmeal.
All of that happens because of threshing.
If threshing has not happened, the grain is not prepared.
And I want to ask you, have you sometimes felt that during the
threshing season you feel a bit exposed, you feel a bit
unsteady, unsure. It's because God is preparing
you for your destiny purpose, for the destiny purpose of your
life. Certain relationships have to be
moved out for your destiny purpose to be revealed and for
you to step into it. Certain habits have to go,
certain attitudes, mindsets have to go.
So that removal happens. It leaves you feeling
unfamiliar. You're an unfamiliar territory.
God, my old anger is gone. That protected me.
Lord, my ego seems to be completely dead.
What's going on? How will I survive?
But the new season needs you to be ready for your destiny
purpose. The very reason you were created
for is what is going to be revealed in the season.
The wheat seed that was sown was not the end of it.
It was just the starting. The grain is where destiny lies.
Because it's going to be crushed into flower, it's going to be
crushed into different things and its uses are multivarius.
So it is so essential to understand that when God allows
a threshing season in our life, it is because he's preparing us
for our destiny purpose. It usually will feel a very like
a very exposed season where you are doubting yourself, you feel
like your character is changing. You feel like certain things
that you thrived or knowing about yourself are now changing.
But it's beautiful because God is shifting it so that your
identity is rooted in Him. And your God-given purpose, the
reason for which you were created, will start to unfold in
the season, so the preparation is very important.
When the burdens are dropped, when the attachments are
dropped, when he removes the things that are not of him,
which maybe served you well in a previous season but don't serve
you now. When He starts allowing you to
rest in the new, he's preparing you for what's coming.
And it's so important for you to remember this, that it is
important that you undergo the threshing so that in the Kingdom
you become a thresher. You undergo the threshing so
that you become a thresher. What does that look like?
A thresher is basically someone
who takes their position in the Kingdom of God and knows who
they are and knows what their purpose is.
The larger purpose. Now the individual purposes of
our life are very tailor made to who we are.
The the you know our backgrounds, the skills and
talents we have, how God has wired us uniquely.
But the larger purpose is this. We are called to be threshers in
the Kingdom. And this is twofold.
How do you and I become threshers in the Kingdom Once we
have received our threshing, threshing season itself?
The first thing is you need to thresh the enemy.
You need to thresh the enemy and take back all that he stole.
I'm going to read from Micah chapter 4 verse 13.
It says rise and thresh daughter Zion.
For I will give you horns of iron, I will give you hooves of
bronze, and you will break to pieces.
Many nations you will. Devote their I'll gotten gains
to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
So you know when I was thinking about this threshing, I thought
he's not talking about a threshing hammer.
He's in the original word actually means trample tread
under foot. And I got this boot of mine
which I hardly get a chance to wear in Chennai.
But this heel reminds me of what threshing something under foot
looks like. If you get smashed by this heel,
you will be hurt. Your toes will feel hurt and
many times we look at the enemy at face to face value.
We are talking to our enemy, we're engaging with Him, we're
flirting with him. We are intimidated by Him when
he belongs under our heel. He's meant to be trampled on.
When you look at Luke chapter 10 verses 18 to 19, Jesus says he
replied, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions
and to overcome. All.
The power of the enemy. Nothing will hurt you.
This is the authority we have in Jesus name.
He is under our feet, the enemy is under our feet.
And yet too many of us are giving him way too much
credence. Too many of us are so
intimidated by him that we think, you know what?
Let him stay in the corner. He's.
Not troubling me anyway. Doesn't matter.
The problem with the enemy is you give him a corner, he takes
over the room, you think that you've dealt with one area and
you're you're very complacent. He will bring in seven more and
make the place worse than it began.
And it's important that we don't give him so much credence that
he occupies a space near our ears, but that he remains under
our feet. In the book of Genesis we see
how when Adam and Eve were cursed, the serpent was said
that you will be on your belly, and the man's was said that you
will trample on him. And the beautiful thing is that
Jesus came once and for all. He was the heel that trampled
the serpent. He was the heel that did the job
for us. And so today, as you and I are
in Christ, He is under our feet too.
But too many believers are living in this place of
completely being intimidated, and they are crouching in the
corner while the enemy reigns supreme.
And I want to bring you back to this place of saying, if you
have undergone the threshing, you know that you are a
thresher. And it says rise and thresh.
No more crouching in the corner, afraid by what the enemy could
do to you. Maybe he touched your family.
Maybe there was an open door. But it's time to rise up, shut
the door and thresh him under your feet.
He belongs under your feet. Maybe you've been intimidated by
the things your family went through.
Maybe you've seen finances just get completely annihilated.
Maybe you saw generations cut off in their prime.
Maybe you think, Oh my gosh, he might do that again.
To me, I want to just remind you that the enemy is a defeated
foe. He's still a serpent.
He still bites, but his venom has been removed because Jesus
removed the sting of death and sin.
So when you believe in Jesus, you stand not in your authority
and power. You stand in the authority that
Jesus has given you. And he said all power you will
overcome all the power of the enemy, not just one or two.
Bits of his. Power, but all of it.
It's all. Under a feet.
So being a thresher means you understand your spiritual
authority, you understand the dominion that has been restored
to you. And so you can boldly stand and
say, you know what, Yes, it looks like my health has been
overrun by the enemy. But today, Lord, I rise and I
thresh. I take claim over that which the
enemy has taken away. Maybe he's taken away your
peace. Today you are standing in the
gap. You are standing with this thing
of saying my I wear the boots of the gospel of peace.
I trample the enemy under my feet.
You are believing that the authority given to you actually
works. Many of us are acting like as of
the authority was just some sort of badge like thing.
You know, sometimes they give you a badge and tell you to
handle the security outside your school.
When in reality the police guys have the real authority with
their uniforms, with their sticks.
And we just feel like we're some sort of, you know, chota
authority. But the truth is in Jesus, in
Jesus we fed the full armour of God.
The enemy knows who we are and whose we are, and he doesn't get
to mess around with us. Knowing your authority is very
important, and when you know this authority, you know when
you have been threshed yourself, when all the attachments have
been removed, when you're prepared for your destiny
purpose. You are standing there, no
longer looking at him, eye and eye.
But you have pulled him under your feet, and you walk into
that territory that belongs to you.
Joy is your portion. Peace is your right love,
experiencing the love of the Father, no longer feeling
unloved, and often is your inheritance in Christ Jesus.
Knowing this authority, knowing this authority changes
everything. It changes the game completely
and so important that when we look at people, we don't look at
them as their personalities are. The personality could be
triggering you, but there could be a principality working behind
them. And we don't trample people.
We fight against not flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers. So you bring that principality
under your feet. You say no more.
I will not live in intimidation to you.
I live under the fear of God. I live because of His
righteousness that covers me. And so you belong under my feet.
Too many of us are engaging in conversation with the enemy.
Jesus didn't engage in conversation with the enemy when
he drove out demons, they would scream coming out, you are the
Son of God and he would silence them because he did not need the
validation of an of the enemy. He wanted his people who had
free will to say I believe that you are the Son of God.
He didn't. The demons knew who he was, but
he didn't need their attestation today.
Stop engaging with the enemy. Stop flirting with the enemy and
and making deals with him. I won't give all of myself to
this addiction, just a part. I'll try out this.
Don't give him room. He belongs under your feet.
How long are you going to give room for those thoughts that
overtake your mind and put you in a spiral?
Those depressive thoughts incited by the Father of lies
belong under your feet. Take control of your mind.
Put the enemy in his place. His place is under your feet.
The second thing that you do as a thresher is that you will need
to thresh mountains and open the ways for others.
You know, many times if you have a particular direction you want
to go in your life, you will find that there are huge
obstacles that come out of nowhere, right?
These huge mountains. And many times we get this
confused, we confuse the mountain with the enemy.
The mountain is natural obstacles, obstacles of the
broken world we live in, obstacles that are brought in by
people, by situations. And if you look at what Jesus
talks about these mountains, he doesn't address the mountain as
a demon. He addresses the mountain for
what it is. It's a huge looming thing ahead
of you which prevents you from seeing your God ordained
destiny. And he actually tells you to
speak to the mountain and pull it down, right?
Isaiah 41 verse 15 says, see, I will make you into a threshing
sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them and reduce the
hills to chaff. You will thresh the mountains
and crush them and so many times.
As a thresher, while we need to keep the enemy threshed under
our foot, we need to thresh the mountains that loom large ahead
of us. It could be this huge mountain
of debt. It could be this huge mountain
of unbelief. It could be this.
Huge mountain of infertility. It could be this huge mountain
of relationship failures again and again, set back after set
back and you're thinking God, there is no way forward.
But God is calling us to look at the mountain and to thresh it
into nothing. What does that look like?
I want to read from Zechariah chapter 4 verses 6 to 9.
I want to encourage you from this that the mountain ahead of
you cannot be threshed by you alone.
You can have the best financial advisors, you could have the
best doctors, you could have all of the AI at your fingertips
giving you all the inputs you need.
But without this one ingredient, the mountain will still stay a
mountain. So he said to me, Zechariah
chapter 4, verses 6 to 9. This is the word of the Lord to
Zerubabel. Not by might nor by power, but
by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty, What are you, mighty
mountain before Zerubabel, you will become level ground.
Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of God bless
it, God bless it. Then the word of the Lord came
to me. The hands of Zerubabel have laid
the foundation of this temple. His hands will also complete it.
Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to what's
going on here. Zerubabbel and A and a remnant
after the exile are returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.
Now you have to understand, the Temple was completely burnt
down. Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the
Temple. The walls of the city had been
pulled down by conquerors and the temple.
Which was built by Solomon, and such grandeur had been brought
down to nothing. It was ash and there was no
remnant glory of what was. And here these men have
returned, thousand or two, couple of them, couple thousands
have returned. They're looking there.
They've heard about the temple. They have not seen it because
it's about 60-70 years in and the task seemed so huge.
How do you rebuild a temple when all you all you see is ash?
It's an ash heap. You're standing there thinking
or how will I do this? Zerubbabel was of the royal line
of David. Zerubabel didn't know he was an
ancestor of the coming Messiah. He just knew he had been brought
here. He was royalty.
He had this huge task ahead of him to rebuild this temple.
And the task seemed huge. And there was God talking to him
through the prophet Zechariah, saying this will not be possible
by your might, by your power, not because you have
connections, not because you have royal blood, but because of
my spirit, because of my spirit. And I want to tell you this
today, if you have a mountain before you stop looking for
those human sources because these mountains need the Spirit
of God to move. If you have been resisting the
move of the Holy Spirit, you have been coming up with your
plans, your financial analysis, you have all these friends who
are giving you counsel. Great.
But the main ingredient is the power of the Holy Spirit.
He is the one who will change the situation, because when you
harness the power of God, it is God who brings the flattening of
those mountains. So whatever the mountain looks
like to you, you speak to it in the power of the Holy Spirit and
you see, I bring you down because this is what Jesus said
in Mark 11/23. He says truly I tell you, if
anyone says to this mountain go throw yourself into the sea and
does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say
will happen, it will be done for them.
It will be done for them. What is it that God has done in
your? Life.
That is magnificent, but that is where you saw God pull down a
mountain. Ahead of you, you take that
miracle and then when you start declaring and bringing the Holy
Spirit into, not only does the way get cleared for you, it
clears it for many behind you. Too many of us, we talk about
this a lot in our church. Too many of us are living
individualistic lives. We live it for myself, my
spouse, my children. It all has to be tailor made to
fit for us. But God is calling us.
We are part of a Kingdom. We are part of a huge family
where we are doing things that bless others.
What is it that? You have seen in your life where
God came through and pulled down a mountain.
Not just did He make a way for you, but He's made a way for
others. How do you bring that?
Make that applicable to someone else?
You start to believe that the Holy Spirit who did it for you
will do it for them. Would you?
Stand in the gap with others. If you've had your breakthrough,
it's time you start asking for someone else.
God, what Can I pray for them? You did it for me, and now I
want to see you do it for them. You saw restoration in your
life. Can you stand in the gap for
someone else's restoration? You saw healing in your life.
Will you stand in the gap for someone else's healing?
Because we we stand before a God before whom mountains are
nothing, before whom a crooked path is nothing.
With the Word, He straightens things out.
With the Word, He annihilates the mountain.
So I want to ask you, what have you been doing in the presence
of that mountain? Or maybe a mountain disappeared,
but now you're finding that you don't really have a purpose.
What if in threshing that mountain with the Spirit of
God's help, you made a way, just not for yourself, but for many
others behind you, and you start to direct them and say, Hey, you
know what? I get what mountain you're
facing. I faced it to this is what God
did for me. I want to encourage you to pull
that mountain down to the treasure in you needs to be
called to the forefront to say this mountain is nothing to my
God. Many times we're speaking to the
mountain, all kinds of things We are.
We're looking at it and thinking, Oh my gosh.
How am I going to get through this?
Will I make it? To the other end, it's time that
you start speaking to that mountain words of faith that the
Spirit of God puts in you when you pray in the Spirit, when you
start declaring spirit filled words from His word.
Something shifts in the spiritual realm.
The things that you beat, the things that you defeat, the
mountains that you defy and stand against and thresh down
will become testimonies for many others.
And their mountains in turn get threshed.
So even as we close, we go back to Isaiah chapter 28, verse 29.
All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, whose plan is
wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent.
You know, and I felt like we needed to come back to this.
Knowing that we are being threshed in a threshing season
by an Almighty God should put you at ease because many times
the fear comes in of God. This feels unnatural.
Maybe it's not from you. Maybe you kind of dropped me.
I'm no longer on your roster. No, I'm no longer on your To Do
List and I'm just kind of. Being, you know, thrown around,
but I want to just remind you that we have an almighty God.
Your circumstances, your challenges, your situation, the
highs and lows are all being held by this almighty God.
And the two things that you should see from that verse is
his plan is wonderful. Maybe as you're ending the 8th
month, Can you believe it's the 8th month and maybe?
This year is. Not going like you planned.
Maybe the plan that you had was great, but they fell flat.
I want to encourage you that his plans for you is wonderful.
What does that look like in Job 59?
It says he does wonders past fathom.
He's going to do things in your life.
His plans for you are so wonderful.
It's going to move people's jaws to drop.
He's going to do such amazing things.
Why are you settling for good plans when his plans are
wonderful? It's OK if your plans didn't
make it, if it's OK if your plans didn't outlast you.
It's OK if they had like a termination point.
God has eternal plans for you. He has plans to prosper you.
His plans are way more extensive.
They're beyond time. Maybe you thought the way I
planned it. My ducks are in a row.
These are the ways I I have anticipated things happening but
suddenly, suddenly got through a curveball in the middle of that.
I want to encourage you. His ways are beyond our
understanding. His thoughts are higher than us.
So instead of trying to understand his his ways if we
could just understand that his plan is wonderful.
God, whatever you've got in mind for me is way better than I've
ever imagined. The second thing we see there is
that his wisdom is magnificent. Our wisdom is so finite.
Our wisdom is so finite when we. Do life on earth, even the
wisest among us, have boundaries or limits on their wisdom, But
God's wisdom is all-encompassing when he's doing something in
your life, he's he's tailor making it so that it just
doesn't bless you. It blesses many others.
And so if his wisdom is so incredible, you can trust him
that when your plans fall through, when your ways of
thinking and doing are not meeting your expectation, that
his wisdom is so far outreached, it goes way beyond what you can
imagine. It changes everything because
when you read the Word, it says his ways are higher, his
thoughts are higher. It says that his the foolishness
of God is wiser than man's wisdom, while the weakness of
God is stronger than man's strength.
In one Corinthians we read that. So if he seems slow and
responding to you, it's not a problem of inability or in
potency. It's divine wisdom at play.
If he seems like he doesn't know what he's doing, it's wisdom at
it's purest form. At work, you can't understand
it. If he seems if the whole system
seems chaotic and upside down, his wisdom holds even the most
chaotic. Moments in it's right place.
Isn't that such an assurance? And the importance of
remembering who God is, is because in this micro season of
threshing, it won't be that long.
I have to assure you of that. God knows exactly for what
duration you need to be threshed.
But in this micro season, if you remember that God is almighty,
he knows what he's doing. When you remember that what
feels harsh and jarring, you know this whole method of just
whacking the wheat, what feels harsh and jarring is actually a
blessing in disguise. It's not wasted.
It is not futile. It is not cruel.
It's not like some sort of cosmic joke being played on you.
It's very intentional because God is not arbitrary.
God is not random. God is very precise.
God is so. Caring to the last detail so as
I close. I want to leave this with you.
Threshing will not break you but it will release you.
Just watch this quick video to help me help you understand what
that looks like. If you noticed the cows were
working, grain was being threshed and the other side
where a bunch of women who are taking the released grain and
storing it as bales, they were working with the grain that was
exposed that was released because of the threshing.
And it's so important if you worry about the threshing or
what if I don't make it? You will.
It will not break you because the the farmer in our lives is
God himself. He is so precise.
He's so precise. He knows exactly how much
pressure to use. He knows exactly what situations
use. They won't break you.
They will release you. They will release you into the
fullness of your calling. Nothing untoward, nothing
ungodly will hold you back. It will release you with
freshness into the new thing. There's a new season coming.
He's releasing you with freshness into the new season.
The second thing is threshing will not destroy you, but it'll
direct you. It will direct you.
And I just want you to watch this quick video to understand
what that looks like. Did you notice they put the the
grain through the machine just a few seconds, they thresh it, the
shaft blows and the grain is immediately tossed on another
bundle. Many times it will feel like
threshing is actually completely annihilating your personality.
You feel like your character is changing.
You feel like, Oh my gosh, I don't recognize myself anymore.
But what God is doing is he's literally removing the things
that thus far had given you identity, and he's moving.
You in a fresh direction of where he's heading.
You for your destiny purpose. Just that simple act of the
farmer's threshing and directing it to a different pile shows us
that this is how God looks at us.
He says I'm done, you're good to go, you're ready for the new
season. He puts you on the path that you
need to be on. Many of you worry.
What if I choose the wrong path? You don't have to worry.
You're in the hands of the great I am.
He knows exactly what to do, where to put you, where to
settle your feet on. Would you let him direct you?
It's just the kind of right pressure.
If we who are unschooled go and try this threshing with that
machine, we'll destroy the grain, but the farmer knows
exactly the right kind of pleasure in order to free it up,
to point it in the right direction.
The open doors may be many. You may be so confused about
which direction to take, but God will direct you.
The threshing will not destroy you, it will direct you.
And finally, the threshing will not crush you, but it will
concentrate you. What does that look like when
when stuff's happening, when the threshing process is happening,
it's like chaos. You will feel 100 voices in your
head. You could feel the pressure all
around you. You feel exhausted.
You don't feel like you have direction.
Focus is missing. But when you watch this quick
video, you'll understand what it actually does.
Did you see what happened at the end?
He beats it. The wheat falls to the ground,
and the farmer takes the wheat in his hand and shows you
concentrated grain. No distractions, nothing that
holds you back, nothing that's burdening you, nothing that
you're carrying unwanted into the new season.
The grain is ready. And God is calling you to a
place where the distractions are completely cut off.
Because distractions can be cruel when you're trying to
understand God's will, when you're trying to get His
blueprint for the next season. The distractions, the thousand
voices, the enemity that you feel from the enemy pressing in
the oppression can be so distracting.
But God is bringing into this threshing season so that you
will fully focus on God in His ways.
You won't be all over the place, but you'll be so concentrated.
You'll know what you were created for and that's why the
the pressure sometimes will feel so big.
But I want to encourage you that it will not crush you.
It will only concentrate you. Rest but not crushed if you are
in the season. Congratulations, you're in the
harvest. Nothing to feel bad about.
You're in the hands of your Creator.
You're in the hands of the One who knows everything.
Omnipotent, strong at all times, can do anything.
He's almighty. His plans His plans are to.
Prosper you. His plans are wonderful.
His wisdom is magnificent. And remember that you are not
being threshed for just yourself.
You are threshed to be a thresher who puts the enemy
under his under your feet, and you take back territory.
When you thresh, you thresh the mountains that loom large ahead
of you, so that not only do you wake, make a way for yourself,
but the many who will come behind you.
So can I just pray for you? Can I just pray for you that you
will walk through the season of threshing with strength, with
grace, that you will trust God completely?
Father, we just come before you, believing that we are in the
harvest, believing that Lord, all that you have said, that you
have promised will come to pass. But God, we pray that we will
endure the threshing, that we will not give up prematurely,
that we'll yield ourselves. God, we'll yield ourselves to
your hands. That Lord, as you expertly
thresh us, that Lord, we will stay, We will relish your
nearness, and we'll allow you to do what you have to do.
Remove the things that bind us down, that hold us from previous
seasons. God, all the things that have
held us back, release us from it.
And Father, we pray that you will bring us into the season
with fresh destiny, purpose with fresh.
Ideas of what you have in store for us.
I pray for anyone who is right now struggling by being
intimidated by the enemy we come against that in the name of
Jesus. I pray they will rise up in the
authority that comes from being seated with you in the heavenly
realms. I thank you that they.
Should they will understand, Lord, just how great is the one
who is within them than he that is in the world?
Father, I pray for those whose mountains are huge ahead of
them. Father, I pray in the name of
Jesus they would thresh those into nothing.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of God, you will
breathe the word afresh to them, so that as they declare that
Rhema word, it will pull down every mountain.
I pray that God, you will work within us.
Thank you Lord, that we are not crushed, we are not destroyed.
Thank you Lord, for we are not completely annihilated, but God,
we are being released into a fresh season.
I pray that God, as things feel unfamiliar, that we won't slip
into old patterns, that we won't look to all things or or the
people that we look to in previous seasons, but our eyes
will be on you, Jesus, Holy Spirit, we invite you in.
We invite you in. Work in our hearts, God, work in
US. Release us into all that you
have for us. In Jesus mighty name I pray,
Amen. Amen.
Even as you get into this week, we are believing that you will
rejoice in anticipation for the harvest that is coming.
It's a harvest. Of souls.
God is bringing many new souls into his Kingdom.
He's bringing a harvest of the things you sowed in
faithfulness, in quietness all these years.
He's bringing it full circle. Just want to encourage you that
if you know Jesus, you have found life and we want to
encourage you that as you go into this week that you will
experience Jesus in all his fullness, all his goodness, all
his glory. God bless you.
Have an amazing week. Thanks for listening to this
message. We hope you were blessed to hear
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