We're talking now about taking a journey into the impossible. These are things that are not possible for you and I with any amount of natural human wisdom or strength.
But these are things that are entirely possible with God and may I be bold enough to say these are things that God has destined for your life and for mine. We're so glad you've joined us and we hope to make this your place each week for a powerful insight from God's Word. Now, let's join Carter with today's message. Second Kings chapter 6 beginning at verse 1. And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us.
Please let us go to the Jordan and let every man take a beam from there and let us make a place where we may dwell. So he answered, Go. Then one said, Please consent to go with your servants. And he answered, I will go. So he went with them.
And when they came to Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water and he cried out and said, Alas, master, for it was borrowed. So the man of God said, Where did it fall? And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick and threw it in there and he made the iron float. In other words, the ax head floated miraculously up to the surface of the water. Therefore, he said, Pick it up for yourself.
So he reached out his hand and took it. We're talking now about taking a journey into the impossible. These are things that are not possible for you and I with any amount of natural human wisdom or strength. But these are things that are entirely possible with God. And may I be bold enough to say these are things that God has destined for your life and for mine to become as a testimony of the reality that we serve a savior, but also a supernatural God. We serve a God who can take people into places that they can't go in their own strength. He makes us into what we could never hope to be in any amount of human effort and gives us what we could never hope to possess with any amounts of our own initiatives or ingenuity.
We never could achieve these things that God wants to do for us. Now the journey begins in chapter six with the sons of the prophets. It's symbolic in a sense of the people who have a touch of God. They are called of God and they recognize something. They said the place where we dwell with you is too small for us.
This is where the journey begins into the impossible. It's a recognition that the place where I am living is much smaller than what is available to me. Is the place where you're dwelling right now in God big enough for you or is there an inner thought in your heart? There's got to be more than this for the Christian life. I feel inside that God has more for me than I have realized, than I have known up to this point in my life. Thank you, Lord, that my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, as Scripture says. Thank you that I am redeemed. Thank you that when I came to you, you forgave my sin and you gave me your Holy Spirit.
But now I'm living in a place that's too small, in a sense, for what I believe that you want to do through my life. That's where it all begins. May I call it a holy discontent comes into your heart? It's not an unholy discontent.
You all know what that feels like. No, it's a holy discontent. It's like I feel that something is just ahead if I have the courage to make the journey to where that place is that God has destined for my life to be enriched by his presence and to give glory to his name. Now, Elisha, to these prophets, would represent the presence of God, the Word of God. He was a servant of God, but there was an unusual anointing on this man of God. And it would represent to them the voice of God.
And so let's just take it as a type, as a picture, where those that are called, they said to this man who represents the voice of God, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. I've been praying that lately. I prayed it today, actually, a good part of this morning.
I prayed it last night and yesterday as well. I said, God, I have only a small season left ahead where I believe I can preach to God. A small season might be 10 years. I'd be 81 and a half by then. And God help you if you still have to listen to me by then. I don't know if I'll, hopefully, I'll make sense when I'm 81 and a half. But I have only a small window. And I've had great victories and known the tremendous journey.
It's been miraculous. But there's more in God. And so I'm putting myself in the story and say, God, I want to go to a bigger place than I've ever been before. I want more of an influence in my generation than I've ever known.
I want to reach more people. I want to be on the journey with my pastor. And I want to be part of reaching a billion souls. However you choose to do that, through us collectively or through each of us individually, I want to be part of that journey. I don't want to be a Christian and live in a small place.
You remember Lot, the angels took him out of Sodom with his family and told him, go to the mountain, which is, in my mind, it's a type of Calvary. Go to where the victory of God is. Go to where the safety of God is. But he settled for a little town called Zoar. So here's a man who's called to a high place, but he settles for a little place. And I hope with the calling of God that's on your life that you're not going to settle for a little place and just be content to dwell in a place that is too small for you. Please, they said, let us go to the Jordan and let every man take a beam from there and let us make there a place where we may dwell.
And so he answered, go. Now the Jordan represents a willingness to cross over from the familiar in an established way of living into something God himself is drawing us into. Remember, it was the Jordan that the people of Israel had to cross over when they came into the Promised Land. It's the Jordan where John was baptizing as people were, in a sense, crossing over from a life of trying to please God through human works, through a life of repentance from that to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Jordan where Jesus Christ himself was baptized at the beginning of the larger place, in a sense, the ministry, the three-year ministry that was ahead of him that would lead him to the cross and the redemption of humanity. The Jordan has always represented dying to one way of living and coming out the other side alive to something that God has for you.
And this is what they said, let's go to the Jordan. Jeremiah 29, 11, God says, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Psalm 139, verse 17, the psalmist says, how precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them.
Verse 18, if I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. Did you know that, that God's thinking things about you and about your future that are so beyond your natural mind, you can't even begin to comprehend them all. God has something way bigger for your life than you think your life is supposed to be.
We all have a thought process, but our natural thought process is very, very limited. We put limits and boundaries on the things that we feel perhaps that we can do for the kingdom of God. But God says, that's not what I'm thinking about you, I'm thinking thoughts way, way beyond that. In other words, the place where you're dwelling with me right now is too small for you. Now, the question for the year 2025 that we find ourselves living in is, am I living in a place today that is less than what God wants to give me tomorrow? Am I content to be where I am or do I believe that God has more for my life?
And if he does, am I willing to make the journey to where that place is? It's a decision that you and I are going to have to make because this generation needs to see the church of Jesus Christ again. They need to see the demonstration of God's power. Don't forget, the church began in an upper room. The church began with 120 ordinary people just like you and I.
There's no superstars in that room. Peter's boast of love and loyalty had fallen into the sand. John's declaration of the depth of his love for Christ had melted in the time of need. Everyone there had been more or less the ones who were at the cross. The scripture tells us they worshiped almost at a distance. So there's no superstars there, but they knew there was a bigger place that God had for them. They knew there was a promise that God's Holy Spirit was going to come upon them and God was going to turn them into a living testimony of who he is in the earth. And suddenly, when they were there with one accord, they were desiring to go into that place.
The presence of God came and they were empowered to go into the marketplace and do things that they never could have done in the natural. And subsequently, because of them, we have the gospel here today. It makes me think, it makes me wonder, if we'll go all the way with God, what will happen to people in the future? If we choose to live in a little place, then maybe a lot of people will live in a great big place of darkness. But if we make the choice, if you make it and I make it, God, I'm going to go.
I want everything you've got for my life and I'm not going to settle for less. Many, many people will come into light because we chose to take that journey. And in 2 Kings 6 and verse 2, they said, Let's go to Jordan, and every man take a beam, and let us make there a place where we may dwell. So he answered, Go. Every man, every new house begins with a one piece of wood.
Did you know that? If you're going to build a new house, a new place, there's one two by six or two by four, whatever it is, that starts the whole journey. And everybody said, Let's go to Jordan, and everybody's going to cut a tree, and everybody's going to take a beam. And just as many before me have done, I'm crossing over into this place of promise. And the beam represents the first promise of this new place to dwell in. The first promise to me is John chapter 10 verse 10. Jesus said, I've come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. He didn't say, I've come that you may have life just eternally, which is wonderful in itself, thank God.
And awesomely, if that's all it was, that would be good enough. But he came to not just give us eternal life, but an abundant life, a reason to live. Something of God in us that brings his own name to reputation in the earth. You and I are not called to live in mediocrity as the people of God. We're not called just to be struggling every day to try to get through our day or focused on paying our bills. As important as all of that must be, we have a higher calling than all of this.
There are people out there in California, for example, that are losing everything. They need the church of Jesus Christ now. They need people who have a supernatural testimony of the caring and keeping power of God. They need people who can speak with authority into the emptiness of having lost everything that many people have worked for and trusted in. It's gone, but they need people who can speak into that.
It's not the time for mediocrity. It's the time for the church of Jesus Christ to stand up and let the redeemed of the Lord say so in this generation. Let the redeemed of the Lord stretch out their hands to see those that are sick in mind and body heal. Let the redeemed of the Lord speak into broken marriage situations, wounded hearts, people who are behind prison doors captivated by addictions.
Let the redeemed of the Lord begin to speak in the authority of God. We don't have to hang our heads. We don't have to hide our testimony under a bushel or under a bed. We know the truth. We know the end of the story. We know the savior of humankind. We know the power of God.
We know our commission on the earth. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. It's time for God's people to rise. It's time for God's people to speak. It's time for you and I not to be an argument, but an actual demonstration of the reality of God, that we have calm in the midst of the storm. We walk through the fire with everybody else, but we're not burned by it. We go through the flood and it doesn't drown us. By the grace of Almighty God, we have a song that can't be taken from us because it's birth of God in the soul. It's given to us by the Spirit of God and it can't be taken away from us. We have a confidence that is not dependent on circumstances of life.
I know what I'm talking about. I've lost two and a half houses in my lifetime. I've gone through seven to ten years of sickness.
I've suffered in other measures. I know and measure what this is all about, but I do know what it feels like to trust in God. I do know what it feels like to walk through these valleys of the shadow of death. I've come to give you life and that you may have it more abundantly. In 2 Kings 6, verse 3, Then one said, Please consent to go with your servants. And he answered, I will go.
And it's a type of the believer that says, God, I'll go if you go with me. Don't send me and stay behind. God, I recognize I can't take this journey without you.
And that's, in a sense, what these prophets were saying. You are the one that God speaks to this generation through. You are, in essence, the voice of God to us in this generation. Don't let us go alone. Go with us. And Elisha said, I will go. Just as Moses once said to the Lord, he said, I'll take these people on the journey to the promised land, but not if you don't go with us. If you don't go with us, he said, what makes us any different from the people of the nations around us?
We'll be relegated to just being an argument. It's your presence that makes the difference. It's the miracles you do. It's the power. It's the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
It's the transformation of people's lives that makes the difference, God. We're not interested in just being another argument, another opinion about life and eternity. No, God does not call us just to be an opinion.
I'll go with you. He says, I'll go. It's a type of God not sending us to build this new life alone. Listen to what he says through the prophet Isaiah, chapter 43, beginning at verse 1. But now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name.
You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flames scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I will be with you. I will not leave you. I will not forsake you.
I will not send you out there believing for an abundant life and leave you in mediocrity. If you go, God says, I'll go with you. As a matter of fact, I'll go ahead of you. I'll walk behind you. I'll be beside you. I will surround you. I will be God to you. And I will do through your life that which only God can do.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. 2 Kings, chapter 6, again, verse 4. So he went with them, and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down the trees. In other words, these are a group of people that said we're going with you, and we're going into a larger place than we've been dwelling in, and we're going to take this initial promises that you give us.
We know it's going to be better than it is now, and we're going to take this promise of an abundant life with us. And so they all cut down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water, and he cried out and said, Alas, Master, for it was borrowed. In other words, I lost what was loaned to me.
I lost my life. The innocence that I had as a child, the sense of wonderment at just the stars, the sun. I remember as a little boy, I remembered as clearly as yesterday, I would go out in the backyard, and I probably was three years old, and I would lay on this stone patio on a sunny day, and I would look up, and I just felt God's presence. I can't explain it.
I think he foreknows those that are going to walk with him. And I had a feeling in my heart that my life was set apart for a purpose greater than I understood. I never lost that feeling.
Oh, yes, sin tried to take it away, and teenage years and depression and anger and everything else came to try to stifle it and push it down, but I never lost that sense in my heart. That's what happened to this man. He had borrowed an ax head, and he was cutting down the promise.
The tree represented that initial promise of dwelling in a bigger place. And as he was doing it through probably carelessness, the ax head slipped off the handle, went into the water, and sunk down to the bottom. And he cried out to Elisha.
He says, Oh, what am I going to do? I lost what was given to me. I lost what was loaned to me, so that I could dwell in a bigger place than I was in before. I set out to build, and the ability you gave me slipped out of my hand and beyond my reach. And there's so many people sitting in the Church of Jesus Christ today that would just say, I once had a call, but I blew it. I lost it.
I was casual with it. I let sin take over my life. I lost focus, and I lost the calling. You may have failed, but the gifts and the calling are irrevocable. It may be ten years since you feel you lost the calling of God, but the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. The calling is still there.
The gifting is still there. God has not forgotten His promise to you, and He will. You will get up from where you are and go into that place where He's calling you.
Everything that you thought was lost will come back to you again. The man cried out to Elisha. He said, Alas, Master, I lost the axe head in the water, and it was borrowed. So the man of God said, Where did it fall? And he showed him the place.
So he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron to float. You see, there's power in the cross of Jesus Christ. There's power to redeem. There's power to forgive. There's power to call us when we think the calling has been lost. There's power to take us to a bigger place day by day, line by line, step by step, mile by mile, to take us to a bigger place than we've ever known before. To those who are willing to make the journey, there is power in the cross of Jesus Christ.
There's power in the blood of Jesus Christ. The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. You may feel you've lost it, sir, but you see, you throw the tree into the water, and what you thought was lost floats miraculously back to the surface. What you thought was gone forever. What you thought that God gave you that you lost is not lost at all. When you add the cross of Jesus Christ, the mercy, this incredible mercy of God. And so, Elisha threw a tree, which represents to me the cross of Christ, into this place where the calling, that which was borrowed, had been lost.
And it floated to the surface. And so you'd say, well, then what is my part in this whole thing? It's really simple. He said, pick it up for yourself.
Elisha didn't reach in and get it for him. He said, you get it. You pick it up. And the Scripture says, so he reached out his hand, and he took it. He reached out for the impossible, and it now became possible in his hand. The impossible became possible. You understand, if you are willing to reach out for the calling of God on your life, the impossible becomes possible. The giftings of God are either given anew or they resurface in your life if you feel like they sunk and you lost them somewhere along the way. And everything that you thought was impossible becomes possible in your hand one more time, all because you made the choice to live in a bigger place than you've been living in up to this point in your life. That's where it all begins. There's an ax head for my life. There's something supernatural that God can do and wants to do, and he says to me, just reach out and take it. I will make it come to you. He didn't give him a diver's suit to go find it. He didn't give him a set of waders or a net and say, try to find it on the bottom of Jordan.
No, he made it rise to clear view and said, you reach out and take it. And the word to somebody here is there's more for your life. There's more. And not only will it satisfy your heart, it will satisfy the thirst of so many in this generation for the reality of God. So many people need it now. This is a mercy moment for America, folks. It's a mercy moment for New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, wherever you're from.
It's a mercy moment for your neighborhood. You need the power of God now. You need that presence of the Holy Spirit.
You need the supernatural giftings of God to do the work that God's given you to do. And he will not withhold if you want to live in a bigger place. That's where it all began. They said to Elisha, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us.
In other words, we've settled for too little. There's more. There's something bigger than this. So that down to Jordan they went, down to that place of crossing through from one way of living into another. And they took that first promise and miracles started to happen. Praise God.
My brother, my sister, may I have the courage to say it? What I'm speaking about is not just about us. It's about others. If our gospel is hidden, the scripture says, it is hidden to those who are lost. We're not called to light a candle and put it under a bushel. But we're called to put it in a place, a prominent place where people can see the light that is in us. God has so much for the church in this generation. He has so much for you.
It doesn't matter if you're lame or blind or maimed or wounded or bruised or in prison, whatever you are. The gospel is for you and you are the one that is called to be a messenger of God's goodness in your generation. God makes it available but you have to take it.
It's really that simple. You came in here thinking one thing about yourself but God says that's not the way I see you. I see you as more than a conqueror. I see you as an evangelist. I see you with the giftings that I'm willing to give you. I see you with the word. I see you with giftings of the Holy Spirit. I see you with whole set of different eyes than you see yourself.
Reach out. You've been listening to Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information and resources to help you in your walk in Christ, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. And be sure to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.
