....
My first 19 years of life were spent on the farm. I have cut down many trees and split many pieces of fire wood. Along with all the things that had to be done on the farm, I made my expenses by selling firewood by the truck load. A good saw or a sharp axe meant the difference between money in my pocket or an empty wallet. So I fully appreciate the opening scripture for the sermon today....
Ecclesiastes 10:10 “If the iron is dull, and nothing is done to sharpen the edge, then greater strength must be used, but wisdom is profitable to succeed and prosper.” –
A young man badly needed a job, so he sought to be hired by a lumber company. He went to the foreman and asked for a job and the foreman asked him if he had his own axe? The young man said, that he did – and the foreman said, “this is Bill, if you can keep up with him, then you can have a job.” The young man looked Bill over, he saw that he was an old man and the he thought, “no problem – I know I can cut down twice as many trees as this old man!” So the two men started cutting down trees. The old man would cut a tree and the young man would cut a tree. About every few trees, the young man would notice that Bill would sit down and stop cutting. At those times the young man would swing even harder –“now is my chance to get ahead in my tree count.” Hour after hour went by, and at the end of the day, the foreman went back and counted the trees. Bill had twice as many trees as the young man. The young man couldn't believe he had been beaten by this old man “I worked twice as hard, I never rested, I just kept cutting, and kept cutting.” Bill asked if he could see the young man's axe and he held it next to his own axe – son,” he said, “you didn’t stop to sharpen your axe, Oh, yeah, you can really swing away, but it will wear you out cutting down a tree with this dull thing.”
2 Kings 6:1 "The company of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. 2 Let us go to the Jordan, where we can cut trees and build a place there for us to live.” And he said, “Go.” 3 Then one of them said, “Won’t you please come with your servants?” “I will,” Elisha replied. 4 And he went with them as they went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. 5 As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. “Oh, my lord,” he cried out, “it was borrowed!” 6 The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. 7 “Lift it out,” he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.”
The first thing I see here, is that the man who lost his cutting edge, was honest with himself and Elisha. He cried out!
So often, we want everyone to think that we are spiritual giants; we need nothing; and we are in control. Where are the honest hearts that will cry out and say, “I just don’t have the fire I used to have! I am not as close to the Lord as I used to be! I need the power of God operating through me to get the job done! I've lost my cutting edge..." What we need are honest hearts that will tell the truth about our condition. We just need to come clean and tell the Lord the truth about where we are! He already knows, but He wants us to acknowledge it as well. Before we can recover the cutting edge as individuals and as a church, we must first come to the place of total and absolute dependence upon God and His power! When we do, we will see souls saved. We will see the manifest power of God in our services. We will experience His power in our midst! In ourselves we can do nothing, but through Christ we can do all things!
I also see in this account, that the man who lost his cutting edge, confessed that he was using an axe.... that wasn't his....The lesson for us is that we need to find our own gifting, instead of trying to copy or borrow someone else's.... I'm not diminishing the need to learn from others and benifit from books or self-help articles. But if you try to become someone you're not, you're not being true to yourself. Every person has been created by God with their own unique finger prints, their own voice print and their own eye print which is found no where else. Someone has said it well, "We were created as originals, let's not die as copies of someone else."
Craig D. Lounsbrough....“The paralyzing fear we have is that we will venture so far that we will lose ourselves and we will never be found.”
In the story of Jacob and Isaau, Jacob could only see himself as inadequate because he compared himself with Esau. All he could see was Esau – the strong one...All he could see was Esau -- the popular one....All he could see was Esau -- the first born....All he could see was Esau -- the skilled hunter....All he could see was Esau -- the preferred one of his father....He figured the only way he’d ever be blessed would be to be like Esau...But God didn't want another Esau, He wanted a Jacob! Someone has said, "stop trying to be someone else, someone else is already taken".....
Shannon L. Alder....“Remember, before the flood, the village idiot was the spiritual man who built the ark and saved his family. Keep being you and never give up marching to the rythm of your own vision!”
When King Saul sent the young man David out to fight against the giant. He attempted to put his own armor on him. Scripture tells us Saul stood head and shoulders above the men of Israel. David must have looked pretty funny when Saul put his bronze helmet on David’s head and his own heavy coat of mail on him. David straps on Saul’s sword over the armor. Then David tries to go forward and is so restricted by Saul's armour, he can hardly walk.
When David saw and heard Goliath's boasting, he remembered his own skills – He is a good Musician, but he's also good at throwing rocks. He was the first rock and roller! That's the gift that would ultimately bring him before the King and set him on the path of his destiny. We know the rest of the story; he would be victorious over the giant, and become one of the greatest kings of Israel. But it was rock throwing and music that got him there.
PROVERBS 18:16 A MAN’S GIFT MAKES ROOM FOR HIM, AND BRINGS HIM BEFORE GREAT MEN. (don't underestimate your gifts)
- Your gift will take you to places you never dreamed...-- Your gift will elevate you in due season...-- Don’t neglect the gift that God has given you...-- Don’t set your sight on what others have and others are doing...-- Allow God to continue to grow the gift that He has placed with you, even if it's just throwing rocks.
I see in the story of the lost axe head, another paradigm..... when we are working for the Lord, as we should, we are actually operating with borrowed power that comes from outside ourselves. The power to serve the Lord does not come from within our selves, but it comes from the Lord, by His Spirit. When we confess that "there's no way.... it can't be done, it's impossible".... we've forgotten whose power we are operating under.
That's why Jesus said, Romans 8:11 "if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you".
Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Guard the anointing, we need to be especially careful with the power entrusted to us. Samson began to think that he was the source of the power and could do what ever he wanted with no consequences, but one day he arose as before and realized that the power which he had taken for granted, had been taken from him. Guard the anointing, guard the power, guard your relationship with the source.
If a flower isn't growing, you can't change it unless you change what the flower is absorbing. Change the soil and you can change the flower......
Life is an echo canyon, it sends back to us the things we are sending out... If you want love, give love....If you want truth, be truthful...If you want respect, give respect... The things you give out will return to you again....
In the account of the lost axe head, as soon as Elisha heard about the problem, he called the man back to the place where the axe head was lost. Before it could be recovered, they had to go to the place where it had been lost. That's what true repentance is, going back to get it straight.
Hoseah 6:1 "Come, and let us return unto the LORD, and He will heal us, and He will hold us up".
Before we can recover the power of God in our lives, we must return to that place where we lost the power. We must uncover the reason.... Is it because our priorities have become misplaced? Is it because we are guilty of trusting the arm of the flesh instead of the power of the Spirit? Did we get focused on the wrong things. Where did we lose the power?
Can we be honest about that place where we compromised or disobeyed....that place where we got dull and lost our edge... As someone... said, "As soon as the rush is over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. They owe me that much, I worked for it, and nobody is going to cheat me out of it!"...(God has a better way)
When someone else acts irrational, its “ugly, rude and dispicable.” When we do it, it’s our nerves, or we're under pressure. When someone else is set in their ways…they're obstinate, stubborn and hard headed. But when we do it…it's firmness, determination and taking a stand. When they don’t like you…they're prejudiced, narrow minded and bigoted. But when we don’t like them, we're just a good judge of character! Someone posted on Facebook, "I don't think there's enough Starbucks or Expresso, to get me through this".
If you're tired and fed up with your old routine... if your passion for the Lord has diminished....if you feel youʼve lost your spiritual momentum that you used to have...if serving God has become just another commitment or obligation on your weekly calendar...if you can't seem to find the time to tithe, to pray or attend the house of God....if you're irritable and easily frustrated in your relationships with your family, friends and coworkers... if you're doing more and enjoying it less....It's time to sharpen your axe.
When we are dull spiritually, molehills in life seem like huge mountains. A dull spiritual edge causes us to become overwhelmed by our circumstances and renders us incapable of seeing God's bigger purpose for life's trials. When our spiritual edge is dull we are unable to rejoice in the valley experiences and give God thanks in everything and know His peace and joy and contentment in our lives. A dull spiritual life fails to see a big God who is able to do far beyond what we could ever ask or think.
You can settle on being a butter knife, which doesn't need much of an edge to do it's work... because it meets with very little resistance, and you could do a lot of things without God's power, but you won't accomplish much beyond soft butter and when the task gets greater, you'll have no cutting edge.
And you can't get much cutting done, banging on a tree with just the handle. If you don't keep sharpening your axe, you will fly right off the handle! Scripture calls it "sounding brass and tinkling cymbols". Galatians 3:3 "Are you so foolish to think that having begun in the Spirit, you are now made perfect in the flesh?
If we were honest, we could all pinpoint areas of our lives that stand between us and our having the power of God on our lives. Was there a time when you were more passionate in the faith, more zealous, more willing to make whatever sacrifice necessary. We need to go back to that point where we lost it, and make a course correction. When you lose your edge, you're not reaching your full potential. We not only need to be honest with God but we need to be honest with ourselves.
Late one night, a preacher was driving on a country road and had a terrible wreck. A farmer stopped and said, "Sir, are you okay?" The preacher said, "Yes, thank God that I had the Lord riding with me." The farmer said, "Well, you better let him ride with me, because the way you drive, you're gonna keep him busy."
There was a young woman, really truggling with life, after having a miscarriage, and she just couldn't move on beyond her loss. She had prepared the baby's room and bought baby clothes. She had planned a great gathering for when she brought the baby home. Her entire life at that point had been orbiting around this child that was going to be part of her family. Now there was only emptiness. She had a dream, that she was standing at the clothesline, fighting the wind as she pinned sheets up to dry. She looked up to see a strange lady in the yard, smiling, wearing a brown gown and a white, old-fashioned bonnet and carrying a basket. When the lady waved, she returned the stranger’s greeting as best she could with a mouthful of clothespins… The lady turned and moved on. But she noticed two things: the basket was empty but the lady struggled to carry it with two hands as through it were very heavy. She realized what the Lord was showing her, that her emptiness was weighing her down. It was an emptiness that was too heavy to carry. And she knew who sent the lady to let her know.” It is often emptiness that weighs us down, not fullness.
It is the emptiness that is too heavy to carry. It is an absence of something that drains us. A silent anger enters, doubt and discouragement and a sense of hopelessness moves in where faith, hope and peace once were. It may be that a terrible sense of emptiness is behind all our compensating, putting on a good face, our frantic pace, our crowded calendars. We try to fill the emptiness with busy-ness, and it only gets heavier, and the next thing you know we have lost our axe head, and our cutting edge. What God chooses, He cleanses.....What God cleanses, He molds.....What God molds, He fills.....What God fills, He uses.
OUR GOD RESTORES....The young man in our scripture story, firmly reattached the axe head to the handle and went back to work chopping down trees. He had recovered the cutting edge at an altar of repentance and was able to do what needed to be done. Wherever you lost your cutting edge, in a broken relationship, an injustice you suffered, an abusive situation, great disappointment, or just a gradual drifting away from your spiritual anchor, it can be retrieved. Do you need to go back to the place you lost it, or that your edge got dull.
What you do now, how you see yourself this moment, what you do with your time, will determine what time will give back to you in return.
Time is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.
Bob Perks wrote, "If I had only realized..that time really does fly, I would have been more careful how I used my time....If I had only known...when my mom said, "One day you'll appreciate all I did for you," I would have told her "I appreciate you now," and I would have told her more often. If I had only known... that life really is too short, I would have lived it more and done a better job....If I had only known, that regret can last a lifetime, I would have listened to my heart more.....If I had only known...that love is the best response, I would have loved more....
If I had only known...that hope is a life preserver, I would have held on longer.....If I had only known...the value of touch, I would have touched more lives, more often and longer....if I had only known...that "try and try again" is not a limit you set, but it is steps worth repeating until you succeed, and I would have accomplished so much more....If I had only known...that you expected more from me, I would have given more than you expected.....If I had only known...you were feeling so low, I would have been there for you....If I had only known....
Steve Jobs said at the end of his life...."I have come to the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success. However, apart from work, I have little joy. At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches for which I gave up everything, and was once so proud of, has become insignificant with my imminent death. Please treasure your family's love, love for your spouse, be true to your faith, love your friends...Treat everyone well and try to get along with folks. These are the only things that really count in the final count down."
Scripture just says of the man who lost his axe head....“He reached out his hand and took it.” –All you need to do is accept His forgiveness, His grace and His mercy, His healing, His liberty, His joy and peace, and and keep on chopping!!! But don't forget to keep sharpening your axe!
(Chorus, "reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by".....)
