When you need a miracle No.5 When you're in deep water

I'm so glad to have your company this evening. If you were given a copy of Notes and News this morning, then you'll have been reminded that our subject for tonight follows the series that Tim and I have been privileged to bring from the Book of Kings. Tonight we're looking at when we're in deep water, and really what we're going to be considering is how, out of failure, how out of missed opportunity, God can still step into our lives and recover what we have lost and make us effective once more in His service.

Since we believe in a gospel that saves, we also believe in the second chance, and indeed the third chance, the opportunity of coming back to the Lord and having your discipleship renewed, your cutting edge found again as it's sharpened by the Holy Spirit. Now, I talked about the emphasis of this evening, let's find it as it's discovered in John 1. In John 21, we're going to have another reading later on, but here is an illustration of someone who lost their effectiveness. The colloquial level blew it in terms of their discipleship, expected perhaps to have been excommunicated by Jesus, but thank God He has a greater patience and mercy than sometimes we have.

Here is our Lord meeting with Simon Peter, the place where Peter first encountered Jesus three years earlier, John 21 and verse 15. When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these? Yes, Lord, he said, you know that I love you. Jesus said, feed my lambs.

Again Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me? He answered, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said, take care of my sheep. The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, do you love me? He said, Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you. Now, Jesus said, feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted.

But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Now, Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would follow would glorify God. Then he said to him, follow me.

This reading is taken from 2 Kings chapter 6, starting at verse 1. The company of the prophet said to Elisha, look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan where each of us can get a pole and let us build a place there for us to live. And he said, go.

Then one of them said, won't you please come with your servants? I will, Elisha replied. And he went with them. They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees.

As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water. Oh, my Lord, he cried. It was borrowed.

The man of God asked, where did it fall? When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick, threw it there, and made the iron float. Lift it out, he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

Let's pray again, shall we? Father, we come to you and we thank you for your word, sometimes a strange word. Sometimes it falls on our ears and we're not quite sure at first hearing, at first reading what the implications are that you've taught so many of us here that there's nothing contained within your scriptures which is unimportant. So we pray that you will give us the key to understanding this particular passage tonight and send us on our way challenged, determined to follow you in a better quality of discipleship by the aid of your Holy Spirit than we have offered thus far.

We thank you that the prayer our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray says, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And tonight we sue you for the first part, that you will forgive us our missed opportunities as we forgive those who have dealt perhaps badly with us. And we pray that with a grace of forgiveness and with a sense of restoration, we may step out of this building yard by yard, mile by mile, day by day, month by month, walking in your company until the day comes when our walking is over and we step from this life into your eternal presence as has done our beloved brother Colin and may it be that we will also hear your well done, amen.

So please have your Bibles open at that chapter which Hannah helpfully read to us. I believe, well yes I do, I believe in God who in six stages made the heavens and the earth. I believe in a God who brought a nation out of slavery and parted a sea in order that they could cross into a wilderness.

I believe in a God who kept them for forty years and showed his presence by a pillar of fire at night and by a cloud during the day. I believe in a God who once belched out fire from his heavens and consumed a water-drenched sacrifice. I believe in a God who stopped the mouths of lions in order to preserve the life of one of his spokesmen.

I believe in a God who enabled a man to walk, albeit falteringly, on water and suspended the laws of gravity for a moment or introduced a higher law to achieve this miracle. I believe in a God who brought back from the dead a decomposing body and granted fresh life to Lazarus. I believe in a God who returned from the grave his own son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe in a God of miracles. And that spontaneously uttered is my creedal statement, not a comprehensive one but a summary. And it needed to be said as a sort of intro, an introduction into the address to which I direct your attention this evening in which we are going to look at a phenomenon where iron returned from the bed of a river and floated on the surface.

I do not take this to be a myth. I do not take this to be a legend. I don't even take it to be a happy story with a good ending.

I take it to be true, narrative found within the Old Testament and placed there in order to bring some meaning to you and to me as far as our discipleship and service to Jesus Christ so that we might learn from the Old Testament and as a result being New Testament people we may discover a challenge to our faith. I was looking at an older preacher's sermon on this. By that I mean something preached a hundred or two hundred years ago and it had this title from this passage, The Divine Sympathy for Little Sorrows.

And I'm not too sure that I agree with that preacher with respect that what you have here is just a little incidental event, not of great importance but helping us to realize and with this I have agreement helping us to realize that God is concerned about the lesser things as about the more momentous things in our lives. My reason for disagreement is this, that I think that here is not just something in the second division, on the second or third page of discipleship. It seems to me here is something that is very fundamental, very important for you and for me to grasp.

The story is easily told. It concerns a loan, the loan of an ax. It also speaks about the loss, the loss of this particular tool.

And then there are certain lessons that are implied within the story for us to discover. Now let's link up with what went before. You've possibly lost track because two or three Sunday evenings have elapsed since last we were in 2 Kings.

Elisha is the main personality that you find in these opening chapters. He has a servant. He's a dud.

In some ways he's failed, as you and I sometimes fail. But when the man fails, the message continues. You do not look for the power of the gospel simply in the laity.

You look for it in the Lord. And some of you will recall how Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha, disgraced himself and let his master down. But when one person in the church, so to speak, fails, when one disciple has a struggle and doesn't do very well, it doesn't necessarily mean, therefore, that the whole work comes to a full stop.

And as far as Elisha is concerned, he has in his fellowship a group of young men, verse 1, the company of the prophets. You come across them in earlier chapters. These are, if you please, little groups of disciples like those who followed our Lord Jesus, but perhaps more numerous.

There were two schools, two Bible colleges, and Elisha was the principal. And now, you may not know this, but actually even today, Bible colleges, especially evangelical ones, are not lacking in numbers of people who want to join. In fact, even in my day as a student, London Bible College was putting more people through its theological department.

Indeed, it was completely theological then. More people through its…the University of London exams than the university colleges itself. And in the United States of America, you'll find hundreds, sometimes thousands of people in Bible colleges.

Well, in Elisha's day, there were a group of men who'd come together. Elisha was their teacher. And one particular college had grown considerably.

And so, they came to the principal and they said, look, our campus is not really large enough to house everyone. Let's recite it. Let's move from Jericho and let's go near the banks of that most important river, the River Jordan.

And there, Elisha, we will build our own complex. And having received what they felt was an urge from the Holy Spirit, they asked for Elisha's permission. They asked for his sanction.

And he says, go. You know, when our Lord was on earth, during his resurrection appearances, he told his disciples on one occasion that they were also to leave Jerusalem and to go, to go into the world and to proclaim the gospel. They had his sanction.

And if you're going to do anything in terms of extending the work of God, you need to have his permission. But these men, they were not just concerned that Elisha should agree with their plan. One of them, verse 3, comes up to the prophet and says, won't you please come with your servants? It's not enough, Elisha, for us to shift from Jericho to Jordan and engage in this great activity of building another complex.

We want you, not just your sanction. We want you on standby. Jesus said to the disciples, go.

He gave them his sanction. And I will be with you always. He assured them of the standby.

Moses was told on one occasion in his life, having lived for many years, that his ministry was to know a further development. And he argued with God and he said, I won't go unless you're with me. And far from him receiving the divine censure for this, the Lord indicated how pleased he was.

Yes, I will go with you. You see, there's nothing that you can really do for the Lord unless you know his presence, the sanction, and the standby. So these men went.

They had got something to do. They had got something to achieve. What do young men and women attempt when, in Worthing Tabernacle, somebody has the idea of taking a group to Pakistan? Well, they sort of join the royal priesthood of the Turnbullites and they suggest to those of us who try to pastor the church that maybe a bit of a do-it-yourself would be a good ministry to launch.

It will create some finances. We could redecorate the lounge. It's not been done for some years, a contribution lovingly given, spontaneous on your part, but we will suggest how much could be made towards at least writing off part of an airfare.

Tenderhearted fellows that we be who try to pastor the church, we agree that you need brushes to paint or to engage in do-it-yourself jobs. So, what do you do if you don't have brushes, or if you're engaged in some other DIY activity and you're not equipped? You borrow. You borrow your tools, and this is precisely what happened here.

These young men, with Elisha's sanction, and indeed with Elisha at the helm of the stand-by or on stand-by, they set about their task. Not having sufficient tools, one of them, seemingly a very industrious, energetic character, he borrowed an axe. Every college has some fellow who's a bit of an idiot.

I mean, he may be very enthusiastic, but that doesn't make him a craftsman. And sometimes when an academic turns his hand to more practical things, well, confusion results. I remember saying from this pulpit a little while ago when we switched house that I found myself engaged in do-it-yourself tasks, the like of which I had never dreamed of attempting.

Recalling just one incident when paying my umpteenth visit to Payless, looking more like a tramp than a clergyman, hoping that I would not meet up with anyone from the tab. A little lady with her equally diminutive husband came down one of the corridors and took a look at me and said to her husband, here's a man who obviously knows something about the building trade, let's ask him. I think I remarked, I went there so frequently they thought the beady after my name stood for Blackendecker.

One of these men, he goes to this new complex where this college, a rather rough building is going to be erected, and he starts to chop down a tree. And as he laboriously and with energy attacks the tree, the axe head of the tree breaks falls into the water. You know sometimes when you engage in do-it-yourself you do feel an idiot.

When things go wrong, when the tool just won't go in the way that you want it to go. I mean quite frankly sometimes I think these electric screwdrivers know when someone incompetent is at the other end. So, here is this man and he's engaged in this activity and he's in difficulty.

The iron axe head fell into the water and he cries out to Elisha who's on standby, oh my Lord, it was borrowed. I mean can you imagine this man's eyes as they go to sources as he watches this axe? I mean if it had landed on the bank it would have been alright, but he goes right in the middle of the river. Maybe it was the only axe they got.

You can imagine how he would do on a sort of straw poll of popularity with the rest of the students. We knew we shouldn't have given him the axe. Isn't it interesting that in the sixth verse Elisha is no longer called by his name, but by his office, the man of God, the man of God moved into action.

You see Elisha is on standby. Whenever you attempt something in the service of God, I repeat, you need his sanction and you need him on standby. What sort of lesson can you draw from this narrative thus far? Well here is someone who is industriously attempting something for God and they lost the cutting edge.

Now don't think in terms of the literal axe head, think in terms of who you know who once was so decisive as a disciple, who made such an impact for God. Here is David, the sweetest psalmist that Israel ever knew, a man who stood head and shoulders above his fellows and then in the madness of the moment he engaged in a crime which led to multiple sinning. He lost his cutting edge.

The axe head was loosed from the shaft and he was singularly ineffective as a king from that moment on. You can't chop down a tree simply with the handle of an axe when the head is no longer at the top of the shaft. Here is Peter and a young slip of a girl puts terror into his heart.

Peter who has said, Lord, they, my colleagues, might let you down, but me, no. But the occasion comes when he lifts the axe and the head is loosed and flies off and Peter is left just with the stump. He loses his ability to be faithful as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Now let's get painful. No longer David, no longer Peter. What about some of you here? The axe head, so pointed, so useful in the service of God, yesteryear has flown off.

It's dropped, so to speak, in the depths of the river and you're left with a stump. You can do nothing, as ineffective as David, as incapable of service as Peter. You see what I mean when, with I hope a degree of humility, I distance myself from the old preacher who sees in this event just the divine sympathy for little sorrows.

It's more than that. It's the divine sympathy for a man who has made a mistake which will rob him of his ministry and maybe also stop others in their effectiveness. But this man, along with his colleagues, has had the common sense not just to request the sanction of the man of God but to ask him to be on standby.

Our Lord comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration. He's had a blessed experience and two of his close disciples, three of his close disciples have been with him. But down in the valley, the rest of the men are apoplectic.

They're in great difficulty. Someone who is the father of a demoniac has come to them and said, You are disciples of Jesus. Here's my lad.

Cure him. And they can't. They do their best.

But somehow the axe head is not fixed firmly enough to their ministries. And the only way in which they can get out of a dilemma is by realizing that Jesus is still in proximity. He is on standby.

And Jesus comes along and deals with the man and his worries as he heals his boy. When, in this particular incident in 2 Kings, Elisha is involved, it is as a result of the desperate cry of the person who is in difficulty. Oh my Lord.

It was borrowed. If Jesus, who is on standby, I speak with respect, is to help you out of your dilemma, you have to acknowledge the difficulty in which you find yourself. The man of God asked, Where did it fall? Where did it go? Where were you when you became so weak? You know yourself.

What is the most sensitive area of your discipleship? You know yourself, which is the weakest part of your personality. One of the hardest things to do is to be honest with yourself. And the Lord Jesus asks you, Where did you fall? What was the situation? What was the context? Tell me.

And as this man tells Elisha, so help is given. And don't you see, this is the reason why I emphasize the concept of the Lord Jesus being on standby. When we are prepared to square with Him and tell Him when our difficulties occurred and where they occurred, when we are prepared to accept responsibility for our weaknesses and for our disobedience, then in His grace He has the solution.

Elisha, he comes along to this man who is so embarrassed, and he cuts a stick. Perhaps that's a bit of an anemic translation in the NIV. I think the original gives more of the concept.

He cuts off part of a tree, and he throws it into the river. Now, this River Jordan is most important in Israel history, not just geographically. Obviously, it was important there because the Jordan flooded, and as a result of the flooding, twice a year, all the land was irrigated.

And that's the reason why Israel is such a bountiful country as far as harvest is concerned. But there's more to the Jordan River in theological significance than purely its geographical importance. Jordan was a river of judgment.

You remember, Jordan was opened as the Israelites passed through back into the Promised Land. You remember, the Jordan was the river in which Naaman, the Syrian, whose story we looked up last time we were dealing with this particular narrative, was immersed not once, not twice, not three times, not four, not five, not six, but seven times. And when he came up the seventh time, what happened? His leprosy had gone from him.

And leprosy is important in Scripture, not just physically, but also symbolically for what it stands for. Leprosy stands for sin. And there is a sense in which the Jordan River stands for judgment.

When John the Baptist later on comes to the banks of the Jordan, they queue up people who want to prepare for the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one by one, they go to John, who immerses them in the waters of the Jordan, who immerses them, so to speak, in their own sinfulness, and then brings them out prepared to receive the restoring, forgiving ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. This axe head has gone into the river of judgment, and Elisha takes down a tree, or part of, and he threw it into the Jordan, and the iron floated from the base, the bed of the river, onto the surface.

And Elisha says, lift it out. Jesus, they say of him in the Old Testament, that he is a man who will be cut off from his fellows. He will be brutalized on a tree.

He will die an awful death in order that men and women who have sinned might have their sins absolved and find forgiveness and new life. Jesus moves into judgment and takes upon himself the consequences of your sin and my sin in order that you can float, so to speak, to the surface again. You can be restored.

You can be given a new ministry. Lift it out, says Elisha, to the rest of those students. And the man reached out his hand and took the axe head and presumably continued in the course of his ministry of helping to build a new center for the prophets.

Don't you see, there is the possibility for you, those who have lost their cutting edge, those who have seen the axe head weaken and have watched their ministries fall away from them, those who have compromised and done those things that they know they should not have done. You can be restored because there is a man, the God-man, who in his grace allowed himself to be stretched upon a tree and the death of Jesus, God's Son, will cleanse you from sin, renew you, and make it possible for you to be launched again on a ministry. What do you do? Well, when you're in deep water, you realize that God, in the person of his Son, is on standby.

Jesus, the sinner's friend, he asks, where did you fall? And when you tell him, he'll pick you up and you'll restore your ministry as he did David's, as he did Peter's. Not because you deserved it, but because of his grace and his love. Let's pray.

Just by God's grace, you can reach out and know forgiveness and cleansing. The axe head can be placed back on the shaft. You can return to a ministry, or perhaps for the first time this evening, respond to the love of God extended to you through Jesus Christ.

We're going to sing that song again, only by grace. As we sing it, make it your commitment, a reaffirmation, and ask God in his mercy to meet with you and to use you for the first time or again in his service. When we've sung it, Tim and my friends here will lead you also in another song, which will be our final one this evening.

Let's stand. The closing hymn is from mission praise number 509, O Lord, the clouds are gathering. We'll remain standing and we'll sing together.

O Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, revive the church today. Let justice flow.

Revive the righteous. Let every soul. Lord, revive the church today.

Let justice flow. Lord, revive the church today. And doubtless our stewards will have mercy on me for getting the offering.

Father, we come to you. We thank you that you are a merciful and a gracious God. We do pray for our country.

We recognise that the condition in some respects is because there is a fashion in which the church has lost its axe head. There is a fashion in which many of us here, if not all of us, are defective in our discipleship. We ask that we might recover what has been lost.

We pray for your church. We pray for every individual within the church. We pray for everyone here.

Some who perhaps have felt uncomfortable as your word has been explained. Grant absolution. Grant a sense of forgiveness.

Send us on our way knowing the empowerment of your spirit. We pray again for those little coffins and the funeral services of this coming week. Not for the coffins in and of themselves, but for parents.

Our hearts go out to them. We pray for ourselves here tomorrow. For Jenny and Helen.

And ask Lord for a sense of your presence to be with us. We pray for some of our friends who are coping with illness. And ask that they might know the assurance that your arms are round and about them.

We pray for some of our folk who have incredible pressures at this moment. And we ask that they may be lifted. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are always on standby.

And we unashamedly ask for your help during these oncoming days. So send us out from this place. Lord God, to see you more clearly.

To love you more dearly. And with a vow to follow you more nearly all our lives. Amen.

Good night. Thank you for coming.