Mustard Seeds and Mountains

TEXT: Matthew 17:14-21

TOPIC: Mustard Seeds and Mountains

Pastor Bobby Earls, First Baptist Church, Icard – April 7, 2002

(Message developed from a sermon by Dr. Joel Gregory, “A Wanting World—A Weakened Church.” Gregory’s Sermon Synopses, pp. 118-119)

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Matthew 17:14-21

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14 And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, 15“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16“So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.” 17 Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 21“However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Few things are as massive as a mountain. We live in a region of the United States that is known for its mountains. In the Scriptures, mountains speak of that which is immovable, unchanging and permanent.

Few things are as small as the tiny mustard seed. Reported to be the smallest of all germinating spores, the mustard seed in the bible speaks to that which is regarded as small, in and of itself, but that which has tremendous potential. For through the miracle of reproduction and multiplication, that one tiny, seemingly insignificant, mustard seed can reproduce itself tens of thousands of times. It can produce a bumper crop.

What happens when the church cannot produce? Someone said, “A church can have words without works, promises without performance, a reputation for power without a demonstration of power.”

Today, church, we are introducing to you a stewardship plan which we hope will provide relief from our present financial struggle. It’s a very simple plan. We are calling it the Faith-Seed Plan. I will review it with you at the close of this message.

Matthew’s Gospel records for us in that tremendous 17th chapter, the account of our Lord’s transfiguration on a Galilean mountain, while his disciples floundered in the valley below. Representing an absentee Lord, they failed.

We too represent in our church an absentee Lord. Faced with our own mountainous challenges, we too, often fail.

Our Lord took His original disciples from a mountain to a mustard seed to teach them the difference between success and failure. In a word, that difference can be summed up in a word, faith.

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FAILURES IN FAITH EMBARRASS THE CAUSE OF CHRIST

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A. HURTING HUMANITY EXPECTS THE CHURCH TO HELP

The father of an epileptic boy represents all who come to Christ’s church desperate for help. The nine failing disciples remind us of the majority of those who today who follow Him but who do not have the faith to make a difference.

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B. THE ADVERSARIES OF THE CHURCH CRITICIZE FAILURES IN FAITH

Mark 9:14 notes the presence of cynical scribes who ridiculed the disciples before the mob because of their failure in faith. That means they were really giving them a hard time. They were ridiculing them and taunting them and making fun of them. The world takes great pleasure in a powerless church. The world likes to make fun of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ when it doesn't have the power that God said it could have. When our faith fails we provide opportunity for the pompous self-righteous to stand up and cheer!

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C. DISCIPLES ARE EMBARRASSED BY FAILURES IN FAITH

In the face of religious critics and the watching crowd the nine disciples could not produce. By implication the failure of the disciples was the failure of their Lord. We stand today embarrassed by the inability of the church to adequately impact our community as we wrestle with monetary mountains.

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D. THE HELPLESS REMAIN UNHELPED WHEN FAITH FAILS

There is no sadder picture in the Scriptures than this frantic father whose last hope for help was Jesus Christ. His only son seized by evil and thrown into places of danger and death. Our world is seized by the threat of war, and terrorism, poverty and disease, waiting for those who claim they serve an all-powerful deity. The sadder picture we project as powerless disciples, is a powerless God.

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THE FAULT FOR FAILURE IN FAITH RESTS WITH THE DISCIPLES

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A. A FAILURE IN FAITH IS THE FUNDAMENTAL FAILURE IN DISCIPLESHIP

When Christ cried out, “O unbelieving and perverse generation” (v.17), He did not exclude the disciples. In spite of previous successes, the disciples embodied the very unbelief that limited their effectiveness. Rather than change the unbelieving world around them, they had joined the world in unbelief!

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B. FAILURE IN FAITH GIVES PERSONAL PAIN TO CHRIST

Do you detect just a little disappointment there? Do you sense a little frustration in those words of the Lord there? Can you almost see the Lord as He takes a deep breath and sighs.

His words indicate that the personal failure of His disciples pained Him as much as a personal insult. Christ was pained by the absence of trust more than anything else.

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RESTORATION OF FAITH REQUIRES A RECOGNITION OF FAILURE AND A REQUEST FOR INSTRUCTION

The disciples wisely approached Jesus in private to ask why their ministry failed. There's some hope in that question because the disciples at least are concerned about the fact that they couldn't do anything about it. Some people don't even seem to care. Some people are like Samson. God's been gone from them so long they don't even know that the Lord has left them. But there is hope for a church and there is hope for a Christian and there is hope for a Sunday School class when they get concerned about their powerlessness. Is your Sunday School class growing? Does it disturb you that it is not, if it is not? Are you having anybody saved in your Sunday School class? When is the last time you had anybody saved" What about the lifestyle of the members of your Sunday school class? Are they living a Christian lifestyle? Are they living a life that is consistent with their testimony. If they're not does that ever bother you? It ought to bother us. There's hope when people get concerned about their powerlessness.

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A. A MUSTARD SEED FAITH CAN WORK A GREAT MIRACLE

The mustard seed grew from the smallest seed to the largest garden shrub. Evidently the faith of the disciples had grown small indeed if it was not even the size of a mustard seed! We fail not because of the strength of the opposition but because of the smallness of faith.

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B. SMALL FAITH CAN MOVE THE IMMOVABLE

“To move a mountain,” was a familiar proverb for overcoming great difficulty. Elsewhere Jesus stated that faith could uproot what appeared to be permanently rooted.

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THE FAITH-SEED PLAN

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