Restoring Your Cutting Edge

Monumental Moments

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Feb. 2, 2025

Restoring Your Cutting Edge

We’re going in a series called Monumental Moments and this morning we’re going to be in 2 Kings 6 so if you have your Bible please turn with me there, and we will have the passage on the screen as well.

In a backyard adjacent to our backyard there is a willow tree with multiple trunks emerging from one large trunk. About five weeks ago the home-owner hired a professional tree remover to cut it down because he was concerned that a branch might fall and do damage to a nearby home.

It was fascinating to watch them take this tree down branch by branch, trunk by trunk. The guy up in a cherry picker cutting branch after branch and the guys below stacking the logs and chipping the smaller branches.

Then they came to the last trunk which happened to hang directly over our other neighbor’s shed. I wanted to see what they would do so I watched as the guy in the cherry picker came down and they walked around and talked, obviously trying to figure out how to take down this trunk without damaging the shed. I was very interested to see what they’d do.

What they ended up doing was make like a tree and leave. They just took all their equipment and left. Five weeks later, it’s still hanging over the shed like Damocles sword. [Show photo]

It’s left me very curious about what their plan is.

• Did they forget about it?
• Are they coming back with bigger equipment? (possible)
• Are they trying to figure out to bring it down without crushing the shed?
• Or did they just give up and walk away?

In 2 Kings 6 we come across a growing school of prophets being mentored by the prophet Elisha and they’ve outgrown the house where they were staying so they grabbed their axes and starting chopping trees down to build a bigger home.

6 Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. ² Let us go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log, and let us make a place for us to dwell there.” And he answered, “Go.” ³ Then one of them said, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.” ⁴ So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. ⁵ But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.” ⁶ Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. ⁷ And he said, “Take it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.

I’ve titled this message “Restoring Your Cutting Edge”. Let’s pray.

As the third message in the Monumental Moments series, someone might think, does this event rate as a “monumental moment”? It’s more like a “forgettable moment”. There’s no parting of the Jordan River. No leper is healed, no one dead is raised, no one even dies in the making of this story!

A prophet is working along with all the other prophets when his (borrowed) axe-head flies off and sinks in the Jordan River. This may have been a big deal to the prophet but in the grand scheme of things, one man not being able to cut down logs for building a home for the prophets doesn’t seem to be all that significant.

But in it I find a metaphor that applies to our lives as believers. This unnamed prophet lost his cutting edge…literally. Without an axe-head his axe handle was useless. He was sidelined. They are in the middle of building a larger home so that the prophetic ministry could continue to expand in Israel but this prophet is off the job. The tree he was working on is like the trunk in my back yard – just standing there, job unfinished, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

The Bible often uses the metaphor of building to describe what we’re doing with our lives. Jesus said we’re all builders – some are wise builders building their house on the rock and some are foolish builders building their house on sand, but we are all builders. Building our house represents building our lives. And we do that every single day with every choice we make: what we choose to think about. What we choose to believe. What we choose to do. What we choose to say.

Words have tremendous power to build up or tear down. Paul tells us in Eph. 4 to make sure our words build others up. God has called every believer to be a builder. To build a life (house) that expands Jesus’ ministry to our family, to our friends, to the poor, to the sick, to the lonely, to the burdened, to the oppressed, to the stranger. And expands Jesus’ ministry to our own souls.

Every believer is a minister of the gospel in the sphere God has placed us and our whole lives are a building project – and that’s where this story in 2 Kings is so relevant. Because I guarantee there will come times when we will feel like this prophet. We’ve lost our cutting edge. We feel like God isn’t using us – like God can’t use us. We feel as ineffective as this prophet would have felt chopping at the tree with the axe-handle.

Every one of us at some point will grow discouraged, feel sidelined, question whether our lives are making a difference. We might even be tempted to walk away from the Lord. We can be working one day and lose heart the next. Don’t give up. God has more impactful ministry for you. Lives He wants to touch for eternity through your life.

In those times, this unnamed prophet can provide a monumental example for us to follow. Three things he did that are good advice for us to do as well.

1. Ask for help

As he watched the axe-head disappear he knew he couldn’t fix it himself so he asked Elisha for help. The first person we should ask for help from is God – that’s what prayer is – but God frequently uses people in our lives.

I think we have to work harder today to develop a sense of community but it’s just as important as ever. We need one another especially when our axe gets dull.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Prov. 27:17

Go to someone who is building something you respect and ask them for advice. If you’ve been trying to get out of debt, but can’t seem to ever make much progress – go to someone who seems to have a good handle on their finances. If parenting is your primary ministry right now but you’re not sure how good a job you’re doing, get input from someone who won’t be judgmental but will be honest when they share their thoughts and counsel with you.

If your marriage is going through a hard time or you and your spouse have forgotten how to communicate or connect emotionally, ask for help. There’s no shame in that.

One of the many reasons God puts us in a local church is so that we can hear the word of God taught and preached by those gifted by God to do so accurately and carefully. No one gets it right all the time and we all need to be like the Bereans, studying to see if what’s taught is indeed biblical, but we all need to hear God’s word challenge and encourage and comfort us through those called by God to declare it. We can lose our cutting edge when our thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives grow inward and the only voice we’re hearing is our own or someone who isn’t walking with the Lord.

But be aware that if you ask for help, that help may call you to do things differently. It may upset the status quo. Sometimes the reason we lose our cutting edge is because we don’t want to take the steps necessary to sharpen our edge. If we have built healthy relationships in our lives, that sharpening will happen as part of life (Prov. 27:17). If we haven’t built healthy relationships in part because we don’t like where we are but we don’t want to change, my encouragement is “take the plunge!” Dull is comfortable, sharpening is uncomfortable with sparks flying everywhere. But it’s so good for us!

2. Go back to where you lost your cutting edge

Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” (vs.6)

Sometimes we know the point in our lives where we lost our cutting edge. We can see the point where the axe-head hit the water: a compromise we made with the world, a sin we opened the door to, or a habit that is choking out our first love.

Where did it fall? Where did you lose your cutting edge? Where were you when you lost your love for Jesus? Where did your simple but warm faith sink into the water and become complicated and cold?

One of the dangers older Christians are susceptible to is getting so wise and mature in our Christian faith that we become sourpusses. We know it, we’ve tried it, we’ve outgrown it all. We’re too mature to expect God to answer prayer. We’re too mature to think that God heals the sick. Our systematic theology has gotten too deep to believe that God will bless our business when we dedicate it to Him. We tried loving Christians and we got burned. So now we love Jesus (but not too much) but don’t like Christians.

Sometimes we need to go backward to make progress. Back to when Jesus came first. Back when we prayed like we believed that God answers prayers. Back to when we loved to read the Bible. Back to a simple faith.

God was about to do a miracle for the prophet but he had to go back to where it fell.

Back to where he lost his cutting edge. For someone here, God may be saying “where did it fall? Where did your love for Me fall? Where did your prayers sink? Where did the Bible stop speaking to your soul? Take me back to where it fell and I’ll give you a fresh start from there.”

3. Stretch out your hand at the same time you stretch out your faith

When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. ⁷ And he said, “Take it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it. Vv. 6-7

Four things happen in these two verses. Man does three things: The prophet showed Elisha where the axe-head fell. Elisha cut off a stick and threw it in the water and then he told the prophet to stretch out his hand and take the floating axe-head.

God does one thing: He makes the axe-head float. People have tried to explain this in natural terms but there is no natural explanation for this. God says, you do what you can and watch Me do what only I can do.

God loves to partner with us. He’s the One who does the important part but He loves for us to partner with Him. The one exception to this is our salvation but even there we stretch out our hand of faith to take what God so freely offers us. Faith is such a beautiful thing because it looks to God rather than us. Jesus 100% did everything needed to save us. Our part is simply to receive it by faith. Stretch out our hand and take it by faith.

God made the axe-head float. It’s a miracle! He could have made the axe-head jump right out of the water and put itself back on the handle but God loves to partner with us. Elisha said, stretch out your hand and take hold of the miracle God is doing and apply it to your life and get back to the work God has for you. Do the ministry Jesus has uniquely formed you to do.

I believe the Lord has a simple word for some of us this morning. Stretch out your hand and stretch out

your faith and watch God restore your cutting edge for the work He has for you.