Here's the second thing: he was willing to go back. Notice the question was, where did it fall? Where did you lose it? Where did you get burnt? When did it happen? Where was the place? What happened in your experience, that caused you get burnt? Maybe for some, it's way back when you were a young boy, a young child, and now you've been burnt and burnt and burnt and burnt; and now God's saying: wow, where do I start? Go back to where it first started. Go back, get into right back there, where the thing started. For some it started in your family line, some it started as a young person, some it started last year. Wherever you got burnt go back; where did it fall? So you've got to overcome shame and embarrassment, just go back to where I lost it; got to admit the problem, go back to where it is. Where'd you lose the axe head? How did the problem come? The place where the problem began, is the place you go looking for the solution: the root of unforgiveness, the root of resentment, of disappointment, injustice, anger. That's the place you go back to. Just go back to it, and then you apply the cross.
Notice what he did: he cut down a stick; and the Bible often, when the Bible's using the word stick or tree or anything like that, it's talking about people. People are likened to wood or trees or whatever; but in this case, the stick is the cross of Calvary, because Jesus died on that tree; and when He died, He died for your failures. He died for your hurts, He died for your offences, He died to deal with stuff. He died to set us free of iniquity, He died to heal the broken hearted. He died to get us set free, so you need to learn how to bring the cross, how to come to Jesus Christ, how to come to the cross where offences were dealt with. The cross is the power of God to salvation, to all who believe! There's no problem you can't get out of, no failure you can't rise up from; not if you bring the cross of Christ, and His blood into it.
Notice what he did, you have to apply the cross. You've got to take those injustices to the cross. God can deal with the bitter waters of your life. God can deal with the blackened part of your life too, make it really quite different. So the next thing is, you need to expect something to happen. If I come to the cross, I need to come expecting God to do something, fully expecting He will change my life. He will resolve this thing. The sin will be forgiven; the hurt will be healed, the injustice will go away, the pain will just vanish. I'll begin to start to walk out of it. I've got to have faith that God can do it. Got to have faith.
Finally you notice here, he said: the axe head floated up to the surface. Now that's a miracle isn't it? That's where the supernatural comes. There's something about when you come to the cross, that the anointing is released. You notice, it floated up to the surface - so this is a supernatural moving of God; and when we come to the cross and deal with our sin, deal with our failures, deal with our injustices, hurt and grief then what happens - there's something about the Holy Ghost, just begins to come again.
Now notice what he had to do. He said: stretch out. You've got to stretch again, and pick it up, and begin to go back to the building. You see one of the hardest things is, its one thing to come to the cross and release forgiveness; it's another thing to stand up and then start to love people. You have to stretch out to do that. You may have an injustice or some kind of offence; it's one thing to bring it and share it with Jesus. It's another thing to stretch out into the Holy Ghost, and begin to express the love of God to that person, to walk past that injustice like it never happened, and to begin to start to flow again. You can't influence people powerfully if there's no flow of the Holy Ghost, so you've got to make a decision that: I'll love, I'll honour where I've been dishonoured. I will love where I've been cursed. I'll bless people, I'll start to speak well - in fact, I will own my own life. I will stretch into God, and stretch out to people, and see God move.