Bishop Craig L. Oliver

07.26.26

Mt. Zion Nashville

Scripture Reading — 2 Kings 6:1–7

Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us.

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.”

Then one of them said, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.”

So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.

But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, “Alas, my master! For it was borrowed.”

So the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” And when he showed him the place, he cut off a stick, and threw it in there, and made the iron float.

Therefore he said, “Pick it up for yourself.” So he reached out his hand and took it.

— 2 Kings 6:1–7

I.                Introduction

Prayer

Oh God, we honor You, we thank You, and we praise You for the blessed privilege that is ours to gather in this sacred space, this sanctuary. We thank You for Your presence, we thank You for Your people, we thank You for Your power. And even now, Father, as I stand, I ask that You would anoint me afresh for the assignment at hand. Grant clarity of speech and thought. I pray for the receptivity of hearts and minds. May I preach with authority, accuracy, and authenticity. I give You praise and glory, in Jesus’ name.

And all those who agree with this prayer, in one accord said, “Amen.”

Family, see me today. There’s a kind of death that has no funeral. It doesn’t announce itself. It does not appear in the obituary. It does not arrive with sirens; it does not interrupt the schedule. It simply happens quietly, patiently, insidiously — one prayer skipped after another, one slow drift into complacency, passivity, and even inactivity, one swallowed conviction, one numbed emotion at a time — until a person who once burned with excitement and enthusiasm is standing in the same seat, singing the same songs, holding the same title, and yet something essential has quietly gone missing. Not weakened. Not worn. Lost.

I submit and suggest that one of the greatest dangers in life is not open rebellion — it is unnoticed lostness. People rarely wake up one morning completely ineffective. More often, they gradually lose their edge. They don’t even notice it until they go to chop down a tree and the tree is no longer falling. They still attend church. They still hold their position. They still perform with precision. They still carry their titles. But somewhere along the journey, without a single dramatic moment, they come to the point where the very thing that once made their life cut with meaning and impact slips beneath the surface and disappears. In other words, they have lost their cutting edge.

And I suspect there is someone in this auditorium — if truth be told, if you take personal inventory and look introspectively at your life — there have been seasons, if not now, in which you have lost your cutting edge.

It looks like the worship leader who sings in the worship setting, lifting hands, singing with perfect pitch, and yet still fails to feel the presence of the God to whom they’re singing. It’s like the servant leader who shows up early every morning, every Sunday, and yet, though they’re still serving, they serve without gladness. It’s like the believer who at one time, in former days, would open their Bible early in the morning out of discipline, out of hunger, out of a longing to encounter God — but they no longer have that same passion or thirst, because they have lost their cutting edge.

It doesn’t just happen within the confines of church. It is quite candidly a human problem. Every person, regardless of their field — if you’re not careful, you can be honestly engaged in your labor and still end up losing your love. You run the risk of losing your cutting edge. It happens from the pulpit to the prayer closet. It happens in the ordinary, regular grind of Monday life — instead of really living, you can end up losing your cutting edge.

It can happen to couples — couples who share the same address, sleep in the same bed, eat at the same table, even show up to church driving in the same car and sitting by each other on the pew — but in all of that proximity, you can still have lost your cutting edge, because there’s no real conversation. And if there is conversation, it’s purely based on logistics.

It’s like the teacher who is dreading the next several weeks right now, sitting there saying, “There was a time I really enjoyed teaching. There was a time I looked forward to the students showing up.” But this new group of students is unlike any you’ve seen, and if truth be told, you’ve replaced the passion of teaching by focusing on the clock and just trying to get through the curriculum, because you’ve lost your cutting edge.

It’s the college student who shows up to every class but has lost their intellectual curiosity — who no longer wants to study into the wee hours of the night because they were once hungry for knowledge and thirsty for insight. It’s the entrepreneur who used to stay up with dreams, excited about the possibility of building and expanding, but now finds themselves dreading having to go to work, because they’ve lost their cutting edge.

I don’t care what setting, what context you find yourself in — every person, from judge to preacher, can, if truth be told, lose their cutting edge. It happens in the church house and in your house, from the classroom to the boardroom, from the ball field to the family room. It happens in every area of life in a very patient, inconspicuous, insidious way — you can end up losing your cutting edge and not even know it.

Paul writes to his understudy and protégé in ministry, Timothy, and says, “Be careful,” because there are those in the church who can have the form of godliness but deny its power. They have a handle with no head. They are swinging but not striking. They’re chopping but not conquering, because they have lost their cutting edge.

I want to submit to you that as we engage in a theological excavation of 2 Kings chapter 6, verses 1 through 7, it provides a picture for our consideration of a person who had lost their cutting edge.

Let me tell you the story. It happens in the days of the life of Elisha. He has what is known as the school of the prophets — his theological seminary — and it’s growing to the extent that their current gathering place is no longer convenient, no longer sufficient because of the increased number of students. It’s a growing school; they have no more capacity to accommodate more people, and so they’re having to move to a new site. Everybody say, “It’s growing.” So they decide to go to the neighboring forest, to chop down some timber, to chop down some trees, so that from the wood they could begin a building program to build a larger space to accommodate the student body.

One of the sons of the prophets, among the others out there in the forest, is swinging with all of his might, chopping down this particular tree. All around him he hears other trees falling, and he hears the other sons of the prophets yelling out “Timber! Timber!” as their trees fall to the ground — but the tree he’s chopping is still standing. And he chops, and all of a sudden the axe flies off the handle, and he is standing there by a tree that has not fallen, holding a handle with no head.

Did you catch that, church? He’s in the forest to chop down trees, and in the moment of chopping, the Bible says that on this particular occasion, he swings with all of his might, and as he’s swinging, all of a sudden the axe comes off the handle, and he is standing there at the water’s edge of the Jordan River. The axe head flashes and splashes into the Jordan, and he yells out, “Alas, master, it was borrowed!”

I want to submit to you that he lost his cutting edge. He has a handle but no head. I hear you asking, “What is a cutting edge?” Losing your cutting edge is that quiet separation of your effectiveness from your source — a point where the motion of your life and your work continues, but the power behind that motion has been lost. It’s when you find yourself in a season of growth and activity, where you look successful, but all you have is a handle with no head.

Preacher, all I thought I would do is take the time to pull this passage out of the shadows of biblical obscurity and put a spotlight on it, because I believe it provides some simple but practical points as a roadmap for how we can recover our cutting edge. If you’re interested, say, “Give me some more.” Let me show you very quickly how to recover your cutting edge.

I. The Lamenting of Your Cutting Edge

He yells out, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.” This young prophet immediately knows something is wrong. He doesn’t pretend. He does not compensate by swinging harder. He does not continue to work with just an empty handle that cannot make him effective. He stops. He cries out. He laments. The key term is that he yelled out “Alas” — and that is not some calm observation, it is a wail. It is a sound that a person makes from deep within, from the recesses of their soul.

This young man did not try to manage his lostness by maintaining his composure, putting up a façade as if he still had it. No — he laments out loud, in front of his master, in front of his peers, without shame, without fear, because he understood — don’t miss this, church — that the first move toward recovery is honesty. Because as long as you’re standing there pretending like you’ve got it, and you’ve actually lost it, you’ll never regain it. You’ve got to stop trying to fake it. You’ve got to stop trying to give the façade that you’ve got it together. You’ve got to learn how to lament.

I know you’re too dignified. I know you’re too composed. But there’s a moment in life when you become desperate enough to get your cutting edge back that you will cry out. And notice what he cried out — he said, “Alas… it was borrowed.” Don’t miss that. It’s one thing to lose something that belongs to you; it’s another thing altogether when somebody has lent something to you and you’ve lost what does not belong to you.

Because truth be told, whatever you have is borrowed. That gift you have is borrowed. That skill you have is borrowed. That talent you have is borrowed. That knowledge you have is borrowed. That power you have is borrowed. That influence you have is borrowed — because every good and perfect gift comes from above. Don’t get so caught up in your resource that you forget your Source, because whoever gave it to you — that’s who it belongs to.

I think that’s a good place to give God praise. Whatever you have is borrowed — at last, it has to be returned. And don’t you miss it — he had to give an account for what he had been trusted to receive as a borrower.

Some of us have an inability to be honest because we’ve adjusted ourselves to a state of denial — if not denial, then rationalization; if not rationalization, then justification — and you’ve reframed the reality of your loss by defining your loss as just “a season.” “I’m just in a season.” No — you’ve lost your cutting edge. “I’m just tired.” No — you’ve lost your cutting edge. “I just lack the excitement I used to have.” No — you’ve lost your cutting edge. And it’s not until you become honest and acknowledge that you’ve lost it — this isn’t just psychological, it’s emotional too — because beneath the surface of that unspoken loss lies grief. Part of the reason you can’t recover what you’ve lost is because you haven’t given yourself permission to grieve it.

You’re still walking around trying to act like you have it together, and all you have is a handle with no head, and you may be fooling the folks around you, but the One who gave you the tool to begin with is looking at you and has made a personal assessment: “She’s got the handle, but she doesn’t have the head.” When was the last time you lamented for real? When was the last time you got honest?

Here’s what intrigues me in the text: it’s the unique context in which the son of the prophet loses his cutting edge. The Bible says the school of the prophets is growing — they’ve run out of space, they need more capacity, they’re expanding the existing facility or building a new one. Here it is: in a season of growth, increase, expansion, a season of scale — that is the season in which they lost their cutting edge. Because most people don’t lose their cutting edge in a season of inactivity — you can’t lose anything if you’re not doing anything. But when you’re busy, when you’re active, in a season of increase, a season of expansion, a season where God is expanding your borders — that is when you’re most vulnerable to losing your cutting edge. It’s not in the season of decline; in the season of decline, you’ve already lost it and nobody wants to talk about it.

I share this because Elizabeth — my church — is a cousin church to Mt. Zion. I feel so much at home at Mt. Zion because Mt. Zion feels like Elizabeth, and I’ve borrowed a lot of wonderful things from Mt. Zion. Here’s an observation: both of our ministries are growing, scaling — but that is exactly the most vulnerable place to be, because when you’re scaling, if you’re not careful, you can lose your cutting edge.

Let me interrogate the text a bit more. It’s not just interesting the context in which he lost his cutting edge — a context of growth — but I have to ask: what caused the axe head to fly off to begin with? How did it come off the handle? I want to use my sanctified imagination here. I believe this young prophet is out there in the forest, close to the Jordan River, chopping down a tree. He’s focused. He’s diligent. He’s working with all intensity — chop, chop, chop, chop — making progress. Then the head flies off the handle and because he’s so focused on the task, he’s not paying attention to the tool.

If you’ve ever chopped wood, you understand: there’s a moment between chops where you have to stop, step back from the tree, flip the axe around, hit the handle down against the ground, and tighten the head back onto the handle — because if you keep doing the task without paying attention to the tool, you will eventually get slippage between the head and the handle.

Some of you have lost connection because you’re doing the task, but you aren’t worshiping. You’re doing the task but you aren’t reading the Bible. You’re doing the task but you aren’t praying. You’re doing the task, but you aren’t going to church. You’re doing the task but you’re not focused on the tool, because you’ve become so self-sufficient, you don’t think you need prayer anymore. You’ve become so smart you don’t think you need to trust God anymore. And so you’ve spent all your time doing the task and haven’t taken any time to maintain the tool, and you’ve lost your cutting edge. Most people who only have a handle and no head are the most cranky, cantankerous, irritable, frustrated people you will ever meet, because they’re out there trying to do it all themselves. But the Bible says, “Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.” I need more than just head knowledge. I need more than book knowledge. I need God to do for me what I cannot do for myself. Give me back my cutting edge. I need it to sound like you really need it. I’m lamenting because I’ve lost it. I’ve lost it. But that’s not all — I’m almost there.

II. The Locating of Your Cutting Edge

Forgive me — I apologize for the lineup of these points; I really wanted to share something deep and scholarly, but if you want to recover your cutting edge, you’ve got to lament, and then you’ve got to locate.

The man of God said — Elisha does not ask what kind of axe it was. He does not ask how expensive it was. He doesn’t ask who he borrowed it from — a legitimate question, but not his question. In verse 6, he asks, “Where did it fall?” Not how much. Not who lent it to you. Not what kind it was. He wants to know: do you know where you lost it?

Before restoration can take place, there must be recognition. You cannot recover what you refuse to revisit. I want to submit to you that perhaps the hardest journey in recovering your cutting edge is the journey of revisiting the place where you lost it — going back to the scene, the site, the season, where the separation happened.

This is counterintuitive to the current theology that’s become so popular, where everybody talks about “forgetting those things which are behind, I press forward” — that’s true, that’s biblical, I’m not debating it. But there are moments where God gives us the uncomfortable invitation to go backward before we go forward. Forward begins with backward. I’ve got to go back.

Can’t you hear the conversation between Elisha and the young prophet? “Elisha, this tree — I was right here, working, and all of a sudden it flew off, out there somewhere, because I saw it splash and I saw the ripples on the surface of the Jordan River. It’s out there somewhere.” I think that’s interesting, because the head is too far for him to reach it — it’s in the Jordan River, a mighty river, and when the axe, made of iron, hit the surface, it descended by gravity all the way to the bottom of the river. Once it hit the sediment, it got buried.

That’s what has caused some of you to be so frustrated and irritated — you’ve lost your cutting edge and you don’t know where to find it. Can I ask you a simple question: When did you lose it? Did it fall off somewhere along the way, where you normalized just being a handle-holder — you looked like you had the cutting edge, but you didn’t? Or is it not so much where you lost it, but who you lost it with? Who did you let into your life who eclipsed your passion and caused the separation between you and your assignment?

That’s no different than the inquiry to Adam in Genesis 3:9 — “Where are you?” It wasn’t that God had lost track of where Adam was; it was that God wanted Adam to see how far he had drifted. “Where are you?” — the implication is, “Adam, we always meet here, at this time, in this place, to have fellowship. Where are you now? Where did you lose it? Was it over there, by that tree?” — and I say “tree” because the Bible doesn’t actually say it was an apple; it could have been any tree — but it was a tree where he lost communion, where he lost fellowship.

God always asks us to return to the scene, the setting, the site where we first lost it. It’s uncomfortable, but God is not trying to traumatize us — He’s trying to restore us. But God says, “I can’t restore you if you won’t go back and first acknowledge that you’ve lost it, and identify where you lost it.” And if you’re having a hard time identifying where you lost it, here’s a simple prayer you ought to pray: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” In other words — God, show me where I lost it. I promise you, if you give God a real invitation to help you identify the setting, the season where you lost it, He knows exactly where you were, what you were doing, and who you were doing it with.

Most of us fail to look for the location where we lost it because we have a spirit of avoidance. We don’t want to face it, so we bury it, we deny it — we come to church, we shout, we dance, and we act like we’ve got it, and God says, “None of that is registering with Me.” Every praise is to my God — He says, “I don’t feel anything real in that.”

I’ve got to go — I’ve got a flight to catch — but can I give you a third point? It would be malpractice preaching if I ended right here. Lamenting. Locating. But here’s the shouting point in the text.

III. The Levitating and Navigating of Your Cutting Edge

I’m almost done, for real. What do you mean, “levitating”? It’s right here in the text: he cut off a stick, threw it into the water, and made the iron float — “Pick it up for yourself.” He reached out his hand and took it. That’s shouting material. That’s the crescendo in the symphony of Scripture here in 2 Kings 6. That’s the peak, the apex.

He asks, “Where did it fall?” Elisha takes a stick, throws it into the Jordan, and the Bible says the iron starts floating. Now, you’re sitting there acting like that’s not a miracle — when was the last time you saw a piece of iron float? You ought to be asking, “How did that happen?” My mind cannot explain it, but my heart believes it.

There’s a concept known as redemptive hermeneutics — the art and science of biblical interpretation where you study a passage of the Old Testament looking for types and shadows that point to the appearance of Jesus Christ, because the Old Testament is Jesus concealed, and the New Testament is Jesus revealed. When you look at the Old Testament, you see pictures, shadows, and types of the redemptive and restorative work of Jesus Christ.

Take Adam — he messed it up, and he’s hiding in the garden, because nobody wants to face where they lost it. He hides in avoidance, and he makes himself an apron, covering himself with fig leaves. God says, “That’s not going to work,” and takes it off, and covers him with the skin of an animal, because there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. So the only way to cover Adam’s sin was for an animal to be sacrificed — a picture of what Jesus would do on the cross, dying for the sin of humanity that fell in the garden.

Remember coming out of Egypt? The death angel is passing through Egypt, and the Bible says, “Go get a lamb — not just any lamb, a lamb without blemish. Kill that lamb, take the blood, and put it on the doorposts, because when the death angel passes through, whoever is under the blood will be safe.” That blood on the door is a picture of what Jesus would do, because when you’re covered by the blood, judgment will pass over you.

What about Noah, in the ark? It’s a fresh picture, a shadow of Jesus Christ, because the Old Testament is Jesus concealed and the New Testament is Jesus revealed. Everyone who was in the ark was saved; everyone outside the ark perished — because when you’re in Jesus, you’re safe.

What about Rahab and her scarlet thread in the window? Whoever was behind that thread was safe when judgment came, and her entire family was saved because of the scarlet thread — a picture of Jesus. What about Moses, when the serpents were killing people in the wilderness, and God told him to make a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, and lift it up, and everyone who looked at it would live? When Jesus is lifted up on the cross in the New Testament, if you look to Him — if you accept Him — you can live.

That’s the Old Testament concealed and the New Testament revealed. So here it is in 2 Kings 6 — that stick is not just a stick. It’s not just a twig. I submit to you it’s a picture, a foreshadowing, a type of what Jesus would do on the cross. Yes, you lost your cutting edge, but the same power that raises that cutting edge comes from a Man who would die on a tree — and when that stick hit the water, power came from the stick, and the iron head started levitating.

I don’t care how far down you feel, how buried you are — the power of Jesus can lift your life. I’ve got to go — but before I do, there are two miracles in this text. It would be malpractice preaching if all you saw was the head levitating. Miracle one is levitating. Miracle two is navigating — because the head is way out there, and by the principle of trajectory, when it flew off the handle, here’s the shouting part: it comes directly back to the waterline, right in front of the young prophet and Elisha.

And here’s the shouting part in the text: Elisha says, essentially, you’ve got to reach out — you’ve got to get down on your knees to reach it. Why? Because you’ve lost how to get down on your knees. You’ve lost what it means to pray. You’ve lost what it means to worship. You’ve lost what it means to humble yourself. That’s the posture of reclaiming — if you want to get back your marriage, if you want your joy back, if you want your peace back, I don’t need somebody who’s too dignified — I just need somebody who isn’t afraid to get down on their knees right now.

If you want your cutting edge back, you can’t be so dignified. If you want it back, you can’t be so sophisticated. You can’t be so “smart.” You’ve got to be hungry enough, desperate enough, to get back down on your knees. That’s why Andraé Crouch’s song says, “Take me back, take me back, Lord, to the place where I first received my passion.” When you’re on your knees, it hurts a little — there’s a little pressure, a little pain — but that posture is where passion comes from. You want passion, but you don’t want to surrender. You want passion, but you don’t want to suffer. You want passion, but you don’t want to submit.

IV. Posture and Position

Can I give you the last point? Thank you, Bishop Walker — love you, sir — but it’s not just a posture for recovering, it’s also a position. Elisha says, “Now you’re in the right posture, but here’s the position: reach out and grab it.” That means you don’t just surrender — you’ve got to reach. You’ve got to reach out of your comfort zone. He says, “I’ll put it right within reach — right before you — but there’s something you’re going to have to do.” He could bring it all the way to you, but at some point you have to reach out and receive it. That’s sovereignty — God can levitate it; but there’s also human responsibility — the least you can do is reach out and get it.

I want to leave you with this: Mt. Zion, you can recover your cutting edge. Would you say after me: “God, I lost it.” There is no recovery without honesty — you can’t recover if you’re not honest and don’t acknowledge, “I’ve lost it.” What I like about it, though, is that even when you’ve lost it, God still says, “I still love you. I have not forfeited My favor over you.” But if you’re going to regain it, you have to be bold enough to say, “I lost it. Take me back to the place where I lost it.” God invites us back into that space — not to traumatize us, but to restore us — because you can’t keep going forward with a handle and no head.

He said, “I’ve levitated it. I’ve resurrected it.” I don’t care how much passion and excitement you’ve lost in your marriage, in your serving, in your walk — He can bring it back again, if you’ll just get in the right position, if you’ll be honest and stop faking it, and reach out and grab it.

Zion, I want to thank you. I pray you would not leave here the way you came. Is there anyone here besides myself who can testify, “I’m leaving with my cutting edge”? “I’m getting my passion back. I’m getting my excitement back. I’m getting my momentum back.” When you go to work tomorrow, go with a smile on your face. I don’t care what the context of your work is — you’re the thermostat, not the thermometer; you set the temperature. Don’t let everybody else’s crankiness set your tone. This is the day the Lord has made — I will rejoice and be glad in it.

To God be the glory.