Seed-Sized Faith, Mountain-Moving God

Well, good morning, and I wanna invite you to grab your message notes that look like this. They're in the bulletins that you got when you came in this morning as we begin our brand new summer series. And today I wanna lay kinda the foundation for this eight week series that's going to start today, Small Faith, Big God.

And I wanna start with a Freddy update. For those of you who don't know, and I don't know how you could have missed this, Freddy is my grandson and he is one year old today. Can you believe it? Today is his birthday. But that is not the Freddy update. The Freddy update is the latest breaking news, which is he has just taken his very first steps and we caught it on video. Here it is as it happened. He's thinking about it, thinking about it. He takes one, two, three, four steps. He falls down, but he gets back up again, takes, he stays down. Will he get back up again? No, he found something on the floor to eat, but let's try again. His mom puts him back on his feet again. One, two, three, four, five, six, six steps. He's a genius. There is Freddy and the first steps of his life.

Now, I show that to you because I love how delighted he is with life. The joy he has in discovery, the sense of wonder. And you know what? God wants you and me to live that way too. Here's kind of a theme verse for us in this series. Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. What did he mean by that? What can we learn from the very smallest child?

Well, for one thing, little kids are believers, right? Little kids see nothing but potential in life. Everything is absolutely possible for them. And let me just illustrate with a quick show of hands, kind of an audience poll here, raise your hand if you, at some point as a little kid, thought of growing up and becoming an astronaut. How many of you thought of becoming an astronaut? Because that was me for sure. And how many of you really wanted to become a teacher? Raise your hand. You played school. A lot of you. How many of you a policeman? A fireman? How many of you maybe a rock star or a movie star? My daughter is a fourth grade teacher. She says, all the kids universally now want to become YouTube video bloggers. How many of you thought of that when you were a child?

All right, how many of you, when you were little kids, honest to goodness, wanted to become a pastor? I thought not. Anyway, little kids see possibilities. Most importantly, little kids believe Jesus. When he says things like, with God, all things are possible. I mean, little kids go, absolutely, grown ups tend to go, yeah, right. So how do you and I get that kind of faith back? This is so important because some of you came in here so discouraged. And just about ready to give up on your faith, you feel so far from God, and you don't know what to do about that. Others feel like God can't use me because I have failed so many times he must be disgusted with how I keep falling. Still others are afraid of the future for a variety of reasons. You feel very insecure today.

Well, I want to help you rediscover childlike faith, the kind of faith that Jesus prizes. I want to help you reinvigorate your faith, starting today and continuing throughout the series. So let's start with a very, very important question in a series about faith. What is faith? Because here's the problem, these days we misunderstand it. We think to live by faith just means I gotta be like the little engine that could. Do you remember that? And he said, remember what he said as he went up the hill? He said what? I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Or maybe to have faith feels like Maria and the sound of music, right? Remember what she sings in this scene? I have confidence in me, right?

Now, some of you are thinking, did you just quote the sound of music, René, you're gonna have to hand in your man card. Okay, how about George Foreman? Do you remember how he fought for the championship? And in this scene, he is close to 50 years of age. And in the 10th round, he knocks out his opponent. And at nearly 50, he wins a boxing title. How do you do that? Well, in a post game interview, he said, you just gotta have faith. Faith, you can do it. Now, it's awesome to be that confident. That kind of confidence is gonna take you far. But faith is not the same as confidence.

When the Bible talks about faith, it means something more than just, I think I can, I think I can, or I have confidence in me. Because sometimes you actually know you can't. So you need something more than confidence in me. And related to this, faith is not the same as positive thinking. Now again, don't get me wrong, positive thinking is good. I like to be around positive thinking people. I mean, what's the alternative? Negative thinking people, right? But positive thinking, as far as it goes, is very limited. You could be a positive thinker wearing pajamas in a snowstorm and you'd still be freezing, right? And this is important because a lot of Christians see faith as sort of a sanctified version of positive thinking. If they just had enough faith, they could escape every disease and every problem. Nice wish. But the Bible is clear, you're going to have trouble in this world. Jesus said it, everybody does. And in those times, you're gonna need something more than positive thinking. You're gonna need something more than confidence in me.

So what is faith? In the Bible, faith begins with childlike trust in God. Childlike. When a child is hurt or a child is sad or a child is afraid, they run to mom or dad if they're in a good home. They know they're small, they know they are weak, but they trust in mom and dad, and so they're calmed. And that's the start of biblical faith. When you see God in that way and you completely entrust yourself to the care of your heavenly father. And you and I really need to know this because frankly, there will be times in life when the bottom absolutely drops out. And in those times, you're gonna need something stronger than you and bigger than you and frankly, better than you. And in those times, confidence and positive thinking in yourself will not work. You're going to need biblical faith.

And we wanna talk about this in this series. We're gonna look at a different character from the Bible every week who had small faith in a big God. Some of them barely had faith at times. Characters like Jonah, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah. Because it's easy to get the idea that all the people in the Bible were great faith heroes, but if you actually look closely at most of them, they were a pretty sorry bunch. They actually fail a lot and they doubt a lot. But at crucial junctures in their life, they have at least a small faith in a big God and it helps them through some huge challenges.

And as a part of this series, right in the middle of this series in five weeks, San Francisco Giants legend Dave Dravecki is going to be here on this stage live to share his amazing story of small faith in a big God. What do you do when you're a San Francisco Giants pitcher at the peak of his career and the doctors tell you, yeah, your arm's gonna have to be amputated to save your life? He's gonna be here the last weekend of August. It's going to be inspiring. Invite your friends. Invite your friends who are Giants fans, please. They need something to cheer about this year and it's going to be inspiring.

Now, this morning, we're gonna kick off this series by looking at the classic story of small faith, big God. I call it seed-sized faith in a mountain-moving God. So if you have your Bibles or you have a Bible app, or you can just reach right in front of you to those TLC Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 17. I'm also going to put the verses on screen. Now, if you're new to this church stuff, the way this works is the Bible has four books that are all about the life of Jesus Christ. They're called the Gospels. And the story we're gonna look at today is so important that it was in three of those four.

Now, this morning, I'll mostly be in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 17, but I'll also look at the Gospel of Mark chapter nine because he throws in some juicy details that Matthew and his TLC doesn't have. So let's start with Matthew chapter 17, starting in verse 14. Here's the setup. Jesus and his three closest disciples have been on kind of a personal retreat. And when they come back into town, they see a crowd of people gathered around the nine disciples they left behind to kind of watch the shop, right? And the crowd is all upset with those nine because they're not cutting it. They're not healing like Jesus did. They don't have any authority like Jesus did. And the crowd's like almost rioting because they're mad at these nine.

So Jesus and Peter, James, and John kind of come walking up. And when they came to the crowd, verse 14, it says, "A man approached Jesus." Somebody sees, it's Jesus, and he breaks away from this crowd. And he kneels before him, and he says, "Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures, and he is suffering greatly." Seizures. So it sounds like epilepsy. And when Mark tells the story, he adds that this boy was deaf and mute. And so the man says, "I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him." And Jesus gets a little frustrated with the disciples, and he says, "Bring the child to me." And now switching over to Mark 9 for a few verses, starting in verse 20, it says, "And so they brought him. And when the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion, and he fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth." And so while he's having the seizure, Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered. It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him.

Now, that tells me two things about this family. One, this dad and his son were poor because they apparently have to huddle around and open fire to stay warm at night, so no money for doctors. And second, it tells me this poor kid was scarred with burn marks, right? And that means that he was ostracized from the religious system because in those days, nobody with a physical deformity was even allowed to go up to the temple to pray. So this father is desperate. He's looking at a mountain that there's no way he can climb. There's no way out of this situation. He's tried everything. And so he's trying Jesus, and he says, "But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." And it's interesting, Jesus' response. "If you can," Jesus said, "everything's possible for one who believes."

Now, I want to ask you this question. How do you react to that saying? "Everything is possible for he who believes." You know, Steph Curry has the "I can do all things" tattoo, and he wears it on his t-shirts and stuff. "I can do all things. Everything is possible to him who believes." Just viscerally, how do you respond to that? If you're honest, and I'll be honest, I respond a little bit like this man does in the story. Immediately, the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief." Now, press pause on that verse for a second, because I love that. This is one of my all-time favorite verses in the Bible. Do you ever feel like this? Because I feel like this all the time. I believe and help my unbelief. I got belief and I got unbelief swirling around in my head at the same time while I'm praying, while I'm singing worship songs, while I'm reading the Bible.

And guess what? Jesus does not say to this guy, "Wow, can't help you then, man." He goes basically, "Okay, that's good enough for me. I love that." Because if you can say to Jesus, "I believe and help my unbelief," Jesus says, "I can work with that." Baby steps, right? Verse 18, "Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment." And then the disciples came to Jesus in private and said, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" And he replied, "Because you have so little faith." And next comes one of the most famous sayings in the Bible, because how's he going to follow up here? He's not going to say, "You have such little faith. You need mountain-sized faith." No, he's going to say, basically, you guys have zero faith, and you just need a tiny little bit.

So this is such an important verse. I want us to read this all out loud together, Matthew 17, verse 20. So let's read this together. Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there, and it'll move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'" Now, I want you to see just how important an idea this was to Jesus Christ, because this is not some isolated saying of Jesus, that maybe he kind of was getting ahead of steam and he said something crazy. He says it in a totally different setting in Mark 11, 23 and 24, and the same setting is recorded in Matthew 21, 21, but it's a different setting than the one we're looking at today. And then in a totally different context, again in Luke 17, 6, so what I'm saying is at least three completely different times, recorded in four gospels, Jesus says this same exact saying. This is probably something he said repeatedly. This is not some unimportant context, kind of like, "Well, Jesus kind of, sometimes his filters are off, and he kind of talks crazy. This isn't that important." No, this is super important. To Jesus, this concept is essential.

So what does it mean? Because some of you are going, "Yeah, you know, I tried this, René. It has not worked for me. Try to move Tahoe closer to Santa Cruz for skiing purposes." No dice, right? Well, I want to give you kind of a history channel moment here, historical background, so that you can understand what he meant, and then we're going to see how this can make an amazing difference in your life today. Let me start by asking you this. When Jesus said this, had anybody actually moved a real mountain? Well, yes. And it was taking place in the lifetimes of some of these disciples, and the result dominated the landscape any time they were in Jerusalem. The disciples just kind of could look to the horizon toward the south, and they would have seen that mountain even today. If you go to Jerusalem, you can see its silhouette from most of the hills in the city.

In fact, when I was... Last time I was in the Holy Land, I could see this mountain from the opposite side of the Dead Sea in another country, in the country of Jordan. That's how big this thing is. It's huge. It's shaped like a volcano, but this did not exist before a man moved this mountain there. This is called the Herodium, all right? It was once just a small mound, and next to it there was a small mountain. But King Herod, that's the king, of course, who ruled when Jesus was born, he wanted that mountain moved. He looked at this mound and this bigger mountain, and he said, "You know what? I want to build my palace on a mountain, but I don't want to build it there. I want to build it over here. So I want this mountain to be moved several hundred yards to the southwest." And when you're King Herod, you can do this kind of stuff, I guess.

So he had thousands of slaves shave the top off the neighboring mountain and move all the dirt over to this mound, kind of like kids building a sandcastle on the beach. They just kept pouring the filled dirt, and then when it got built up high enough, he scooped out the top so it was like a volcano. Now, you're just seeing the ruins here in its glory. There was a castle on top with a 10-story high tower. It was an amazing complex. But the point is, when Jesus talks here about moving a mountain, yes, there is one person who had done it. The most outrageously powerful person who had ever lived in their lifetimes. And by the time of Jesus, the phrase "powerful enough to move mountains" had become a way of describing any super powerful person. In fact, in Christ's time, Jewish rabbis used a phrase to describe people who were so clever and so powerful that they could solve seemingly impossible problems, "rooters up of mountains." That meant you're a guy who can tackle anything.

So Jesus is using the very familiar phrase about the mountain Herod moved, and what he's saying, I believe, is that kind of power, Herod-like power to move mountains. Child's play to God. And to anybody who believes in God, Jesus says, "Nothing will be impossible for you." But here's his twist. You don't have to be King Herod. You don't have to get any bigger or stronger or smarter or more powerful or more connected or any better than you are right now. You just have to do one thing. If you have faith as small as the mustard seed.

Now, do you know how small a mustard seed is? I have some mustard seeds in my pocket. I'm going to ask the people in the first row, "Can you even see that? Can you see that without... Can you see that from where you're standing right now? Can you see it now? Barely, right now you can finally see it. This is how tiny these things are. I'm going to put a picture on screen just to kind of magnify it. Mustard seeds are some of the smallest seeds in nature. In fact, I went online and on the Mustard Museum's website, and yes, there is a mustard museum, they said that there are 185,000 mustard seeds in a pound. So Jesus is not saying you need like even like pinecone-sized faith. And he's certainly not saying you need mountain-sized faith. You just need mustard seed-sized faith in a mountain-moving God. Do you get that? Let me just repeat that. You just need mustard seed-sized faith. That's all. A little, little tiny bit. In a mountain-moving God.

That's because the key here is this. It's not the size of my faith. It's the object of my faith. It's the key to living life as a believer in Jesus Christ with victory and with triumph. It's not the size of my faith. It's the object. I love how Tim Keller puts it. He says, "Imagine two people boarding an airplane. One person has almost no faith in the plane, no faith in the pilot. He's filled with fear and doubt, but he has just enough faith to get on board the plane. And the other has great confidence in the plane and in the pilot. And they both get on the plane and they fly safely and they arrive safely." Now one person had 100 times more faith in the plane and in the pilot than the other person did, but they were both equally safe. Because it wasn't about the amount of their faith. It was about the object of their faith, the plane and the pilot.

That is what got them safely to their destination. And Jesus is saying, "That's all you need to start a relationship with God. It's all you need to grow in a relationship with God, mustard, seed, sized faith." You understand why this is so important because so many people say, "I don't know if I can become a Christian. I don't know if I can follow God because my faith isn't that big. I've got a lot of questions. I've got a lot of doubts." This is what Jesus is trying to get around, that unnecessary obstacle to faith. He's saying, "It just takes mustard, seed, sized faith." Because it's not about the size of your faith. It's not about your feelings. It's not about your sense of confidence. It's about what you have faith in. It's not about you. It's not about your limitations.

A great example of this is Nick Wojcick. Have you ever heard of him? Man born with arms and without legs. He was so frustrated with life that he became suicidal as a young man. But watch where he gets his hope from in this interview. But what was it specifically for you that made you say, "Lord, I'm going to trust your word because I know it's true. I'm going to trust you even if I don't know what you have in store for me tomorrow." Right. Because there was nothing else I could find. There was nothing else that could give me peace. I knew arms and legs wouldn't give me peace anyway. Arms and legs alone. I needed to know the truth of who I am, why I'm here, and where I'm going when I'm not here. And I haven't found that truth anywhere else but in Jesus Christ.

And it was in Jesus Christ where Nick found the strength to do what many thought would be the impossible. It's so hard to be strong when people constantly say, "You're not good enough. You know, go away. We don't want anything to do with you." Nick, you're a nobody. Nick, you can't do this. Nick, you can't do that. Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick. In life, if you don't know the truth, then you can't be free because then you'll believe that the lies are the truth. But once we realize that when we read the Word of God and you know the truth of who you are, I am not a man without arms and legs. I am a child of God. I am forgiven of my sins. I'm an ambassador to the King of kings and Lord of lords. I'm nothing but a servant of the Most High God. This is not about Nick. It's not about Nick's capacity and capability to become this conqueror. I am nothing. I'm nothing. God though lives in me and I now live in His strength and whatever Jesus conquered, I conquer. I believe if God doesn't give you a miracle, you are a miracle of God for somebody else's salvation. And I thank God that He didn't answer my prayer when I was begging Him for arms and legs at age 8 because guess what? Because I have no arms and no legs, He's using me all around the world. And we've seen so far approximately, this is conservative, 200,000 souls come to Jesus Christ for the very first time in the last six, seven years. Isn't that inspiring? It's just amazing. He has seen mountains move in spectacular ways. But did you catch what he said? It's not about Nick and his capacity or his capability. It's about Jesus Christ who lives in me. Amen?

So I got three questions for you as we wrap this up with some application. Jot this down. Question one is this, do I believe God still moves mountains? Ask yourself, do I believe that God is still in the mountain moving business? You know, after he says the faith can move mountains in Mark chapter 11, Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe." So do you believe this? Now I want to help you believe this. So I want to read you a couple of emails I've gotten about mountains that have been moved right here at Twin Lakes Church. About 12 years ago, I first preached on this passage and I asked people, I said, "Hey, have you seen a mountain move in your life?" I want you to email me the story. And for years and years, I've been getting emails about that sermon, how God moved mountains in people's lives in one way or another.

Here's one, a man writes, "I was in an electrical explosion several years ago. When I arrived at the emergency room, the main doctor from the burn unit explained I would likely need skin grafts. About this time, news about my accident reached the prayer partners at Twin Lakes. I can almost tell you when that was because a feeling of peace came over me that I cannot explain. The next morning, when that same doctor examined me, he asked, 'Are you the same person I saw the day before?' He was totally amazed at how well my arm had healed and he told me I would not need any skin grafts at all. And then I told him that after I got to the hospital, Twin Lakes Church had started praying for me and he was in disbelief." God still does miracles. God still moves mountains.

Would you say that phrase, "God still moves mountains" out loud with me? God still moves mountains. Let's say it again, God still moves mountains. Like this one, a woman wrote, "After two major health issues in my husband's life within about a year, I was at church one Sunday in the parking lot thinking about how we were running short on funds. Well, the next morning, after my morning walk, I found an envelope in my shoes on the front porch with 10 $100 bills in it with the signature love in Christ." God still moves mountains. Now, this does not mean you always get whatever you want. I must still surrender to God's perfect will. Think of Jesus' perfect prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified. He said, "Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but your will be done."

So Abba, perfect prayer, Abba, Father, he knows God is his papa. That's what Abba means. Trusts him like a child's simple trust in his daddy. Everything's possible for you. Total faith, "Take this cup from me," makes his request, "Yet not what I will, but what you will." He surrenders to the Father's perfect will. And in fact, he goes to the cross. Jesus died on the cross, but God still moved the mountain because he turned that instrument of torture into a symbol of hope and three days later moved the stone in front of the tomb and Jesus was resurrected. See, sometimes God doesn't heal the illness, but he still moves mountains because he can do something redemptive through an illness and even through a death as he did through Christ's death. God's power to move mountains is absolutely amazing.

So do I still believe God moves mountains? Then question number two is this. Ask yourself, "If God could move any one mountain in my life, what would it be? If God could move any one mountain in my life right now, what would it be?" Maybe your mountain is your kids, like the worn out mom whose five kids were playing all over the pews here after church one day and somebody told me that they went up to her and asked, they were kind of laughing and they said, "So, would you still have five kids if you had to do it over again?" "Ha ha," and she said in total deadpan, "Sure, just not those five." You know, maybe you can relate to that, right? Or maybe your mountain is your marriage or financial pressure or an illness. All true confessions.

You know what mine is right now that kind of, I'm thinking about this late at night, it's phase two of that 2020 Vision Initiative because this fall we want to raise enough to give a million pounds of food to Second Harvest Food Bank and build a college ministry center and coffee house up by Cabrillo College and more, pretty massive mountain for me. But you know, I felt the same exact way about the children's ministry building four years ago and that was a much bigger mountain and it moved. That building was imaginary, just less than two years ago. It didn't exist and just this past week it was filled with campers for cruise kids. We had science camp and nature camp and football camp and soccer camp and cheer camp and Christian youth theater camp, mostly in a building that was just imagination two years ago. So I keep reminding myself as we move ahead, God is still in the mountain moving business and I really believe this, do you?

So here's the thing, you need to trust your big God when it comes to that mountain in your life. Trust him. Trust and obey. See, childlike faith does not mean, well, I just kind of believe that God's going to work it out and then I don't obey God. Simple childlike faith means I trust what God is saying and I obey what he's saying because I trust he is so big, he's bigger than me, he knows more than me about life.

Give you an example, about a week ago my wife Lori and I were sailing with friends and we see a few great white sharks. You might have heard that this one was just right off New Brighton State Beach, the closest beach to this church and one of these sharks, great whites, starts swimming right toward us. This is a video I shot with my phone and that's a little disconcerting when a great white shark takes an interest in you, right? But it swam toward us with no injury and it was kind of a smallish one, right? But then right after this we saw an even bigger one and let me show you the video from that one. The good news is he was swimming away from us. The bad news, he was swimming toward the beach and look how close he was to New Brighton State Beach and I kid you not, there was a swimmer right on this side of the break with goggles on, you could tell he was kind of a regular swimmer going up and down the beach, just going for it and we kept yelling, "Shark, shark, go, go back, go no swimming, go back, go back," doing the universal sign for shark, the hand mohawk, you know, "Shark, there's a shark, go back."

And he stops and kind of floats there and he puts his goggles up on his forehead and he waves at us like, "Yes, you are very friendly people. Okay, go away, don't bother me on my run." And he just kept swimming and the shark just kept going, "I smell something delicious," you know? I don't know what happened but we did nickname him Chum. No, just kidding. I think he was fine because I didn't read about it in the newspaper but the thing is this, you have to have enough faith to actually believe God's warnings. God sees stuff we don't see and he tries to wave us off like in the Bible Jesus says, "Do not worry, that's a shark in the water. It'll eat you alive." So don't do it. He says, "Do not judge others. Shark in the water, man, that's going to ruin your own life if you judge other people." He said it in black and white, waving us off and yet we keep swimming toward these things when he says, "No, you need mustard seed sized faith just enough to actually believe his warnings about the sharks."

And then you don't focus on the shark. You don't focus on what you're trying to avoid, you focus on him and that's the final question. Ask yourself, "Am I focused on the mountain or the mountain moving God?" And this is so, so important because I can tell you from my experience if I'm focused on the mountain, I get overwhelmed. I feel anxious. I feel inadequate. I get preoccupied with myself. It chokes all the joy of my life away until I turn back and look at the mountain moving God and then I'm reminded that Jesus said with God, all things are possible, with God.

See faith is not the absence of fear and doubt. Is it possible to be filled with faith and doubt at the same time? Absolutely. Again, let's go back to the man who brought his son to Jesus. I believe. Help my unbelief. You can have faith that God wants you to do something and still be scared to death. Faith is not the total absence of fear. Faith is going ahead and doing what God is calling you to do in spite of your fear. Listen, let's make this very personal. See your mountainous commitment to Christ and you've been imagining you have to have perfect faith with no doubts and have all your questions answered. Again, you just need a tiny bit of faith, even mixed with doubt, as long as it's in the right person. Just move in that direction. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief and see what happens next.

You could summarize all these verses this way. Here's a faith equation. All faith plus big God equals mountain-sized effects. Now those mountain-sized effects might be different than what you're picturing. In fact, I can almost guarantee you they will be. How he answers, that's up to God. Your job is this. Just take baby steps like Freddie. One little wobbly step at a time. It'll fall sometimes and when you do, your father's not mad at you. You just get back up and keep your eyes on Dad because it's not about the size of your faith. You just take small faith in a big God.

Lord, all of us could probably pray that man's prayer right now. I believe. Help my unbelief. Take you that you don't expect perfect faith, just mustard seed-sized faith. But God, we bring you our mustard seeds right now and we ask you to increase it while planting them. Lord, if anybody wants to take that first wobbly step of faith right now, I pray that they would do it in this moment by saying something like this. The words aren't magic. It's the intent of the heart, but they could pray something like, "God, I don't understand all this. But I want to take a step of faith toward you, my first step. I want to receive you into my life as my Savior and as my Lord." Now, help me to understand and grow in that. Thank you for saving me. And Lord, help us remember that in our lives, you often use the small things to do great things. In Jesus' name, amen.