Luke 17:6 And the Lord answered, If you had faith (trust and confidence in God) even [so small] like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, Be pulled up by the roots, and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you.
 	This evening we are continuing with the promises of God to His people; those who are now part of His very family in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Over the past year we have seen a number of the aspects and characteristics of His great promises to us. We have considered His faithfulness and His unfailing Love toward us in Jesus Christ. We have seen that it is through His Omnipotence that we can know that all His promises will be accomplished. The fulfillment of His promises has nothing to do with our efforts and our abilities. It is always done through the divine ability of God: Father, Son and Spirit. Nothing is accomplished outside the realm of His divine plan and purposes, in which we have been fully incorporated through Christ Jesus. Every aspect of His promises to us is grounded firmly in Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of all that God has always intended. In Him, we have everything that God can possibly lavish upon those who are His Beloved, His adopted Sons in Christ.
	In our passage, this evening, we see another aspect of His great love, His promise of faith. This faith is immeasurable in the scope and depth of our source of life in Christ. As with every spiritual truth, it is beyond all human comprehension. It is known through the course of our walk in Christ. As with all the promises of God, it also has no basis in our efforts or abilities. It certainly is nothing that we can stir up, solidify, quantify, or develop. It is only as the very hand of God firmly roots it in our lives, through His effective ministry of grace and mercy, that the faith of our consideration is established. That is the promise that we hold onto in our walk before man and before God. It is an expression of God’s Love, Grace, and Mercy, as well as His Omnipotent activity in our lives, and in the lives of those in our prayers.
	As a matter of clarification, before we begin, this is not a study on the power of positive prayer or positive belief. In no wise should it be viewed as any manner in which to become a successful Christian, or successful Christian businessperson. We are not concerned with the self-imposed abilities of man to try to do anything of his own might. Far from that, we will rather be seeing that it is in the inability of man, even to believe in his own power, which is before us. Our concern is for the glory of God to be evidenced in all the activities of our lives on this earth. The focus is upon that which will honor and glorify Him in every aspect of our days on this earth. Our every desire needs to come into line with the Heart of God, in that so great love with which He loved us. 
The disciples, in verse 5 of Chapter 17, sought after Christ to increase their faith, And the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" There are several aspects to this that should at least be mentioned in terms of our present reflection. Some of the commentaries see this as the extension of the prior verses, in terms of learning to forgive an offending brother seven times a day. It is seen as the disciple’s realization that their own faith is insufficient to meet such a demand. As much as they might desire to follow the admonition of Christ, they lacked the faith and the ability to follow through with the hard demands of fulfilling the Word of God. They knew in their hearts that to forgive over and over again was completely against the human nature with which they were burdened. The challenge of Christ’s requirement that they must forgive, revealed to them that they could not do what the Lord was telling them to do. Because of that, they immediately asked the Lord to increase their so little faith. That is the learned judgment of several commentators, concerning the background of this discussion.
Other commentators, however, feel there is a break of time between verses 5 and 6. That it was later, either in that day or some future moment, as the apostles were walking along with the Lord, that they asked Him to increase their faith. These commentators see this request as the fulfillment of the work of the Lord’s teaching, as they contemplated what would happen if they tried to forgive over and over again.
Whether the instruction took place immediately after His statement concerning the forgiveness that should be shown toward a wayward brother, or later, after the disciples considered the words, is really immaterial. What is important is that the Lord’s words carried such a weight that it required the disciples to ask for an increase in faith. This knowledge indicates the work of the Lord in the hearts of these men. This was a moment that was used by the Lord to instruct His disciples, training them in the way that they needed to live. He was preparing them for the time when His words would be with them in their hour of need and desperation. He wanted them grounded in the truth of the faith of God actively working in their lives. Therefore, apparently, he stopped with them in the vicinity of a sycamine or mulberry tree. He used that tree as a means of showing the power of God’s work of faith. 
His initial statement, If you had faith (trust and confidence in God) even [so small] like a grain of mustard seed…, strikes to the very core of the matter. Faith, trust, confidence in God! Even a little, as small as the smallest seed, a mustard seed, will bloom forth in the tremendous expression of the power of God. How does this type of powerful, miraculous faith develop? How does it become an integral part of our beings? True faith comes only through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an indwelling reality that becomes part of us as we accept Christ as the Lord of lords that He is in all of creation. Consider that we were completely faithless in our beings until that day that we came face to face with Christ. It was then that we fell on our knees before Him, in utter despair of anything in ourselves, and asked Him into our lives. For some, this may not have been so outwardly desperate, but the truth is that, apart from Christ, we were completely dead in sin and trespass. We had no hope. We had no faith. There was no true faith operating in our beings because there was no spiritual life. Faith can be seen as the spiritual oxygen that is needed to continue life, life in Christ. 
Until that breath of life is breathed into us by God Almighty, there is no need for faith, since there is no life to maintain. Once we are in filled with the spiritual breath of God, by His Holy Spirit, in our acceptance of His only Begotten Son as our Lord and Savior, life begins to course through these once dead beings. That life is animated through the activity of the faith of God indwelling us. Just as with oxygen to our physical beings, so is faith to our spiritual beings. I realize that this is a great simplification of the work of God in His life giving faith, but it is still a manner of coming to grips with the reality of faith, faith that is not our own. 
Oxygen is not produced by our bodies. It must be sucked into our bodies by the use of our lungs through its neurological and muscular contractions and releases. It has to be pumped into us from an outside source. We cannot claim oxygen as anything we have or own or display. It is vital to our lives, and yet we are completely dependent on its production from sources outside our bodies.  
So it is with faith, that spiritual necessity. We cannot own it. We cannot produce it. We cannot stimulate it in any fashion. It must become our life source through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It must be breathed into our spiritual beings and used to produce the life that is brought forth in Christ. Faith indwells and stimulates every facet of our beings as we live in the spiritual realm. It develops us into that man or woman of God that He desires. It maintains our onward growth in Christ. It is absolutely vital to everything we are in Christ. 
Christ begins this pronouncement of faith with the fact that even the smallest portion of faith, such as that of the minute size of a mustard seed, planted by the Holy Spirit, can take root and develop into a mighty source of power. This was not the first time in scripture that Jesus is recorded as using the mustard seed as an example of spiritual truth. In Luke 13:18-19 Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches."  This smallest of seeds grows into the largest of bushes, even unto a tree. When planted into good soil, it brings forth, not only branches of rest for birds, but produces the most flavorful and sharpest of tastes, used even in the poultices or medicating ointments of the day. That this mustard seed could produce such a beneficial substance would certainly have given the listeners of Christ a strong basis of understanding. They would have been completely attuned to the great growth and strength and healing uses of such a plant and therefore the great purpose and power of that with which it was being compared. 
	Matthew Henry states the following concerning the use of the mustard seed analogy by Christ in our current passage.  The assurance Christ gave them of the wonderful efficacy of true faith (v. 6): "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, so small as mustard-seed, but yours is yet less than the least; or so sharp as mustard-seed, so pungent, so exciting to all other graces, as mustard to the animal spirits," and therefore used in palsies, "you might do wonders much beyond what you now do; nothing would be too hard for you, that was fit to be done for the glory of God, and the confirmation of the doctrine you preach, yea, though it were the transplanting of a tree from the earth to the sea." …. As with God nothing is impossible, so are all things possible to him that can believe. End of quote.(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
	It is this incredible growth of faith, so far beyond the size of its initial seed planted within us, which brings forth a day by day reliance on God to see us through our walk on this earth. It is this miraculous faith of God, indwelling and rooting itself into our very being, that makes ready our hearts for the full expression of the glory of God on this earth. As it is firmly rooted into the very core of our essence, it blossoms forth in the limitless growth and strength of the ages. The very smallest grain of God’s faith, planted deep into our spiritual beings, breathed into our enlivened essence, brings forth the strength and the healing of God throughout the course of our lives. There is no lack of development, no lack of strength, no lack of spiritual purpose as faith begins to bloom forth. It grows into the multifaceted core of God’s Love living forth from us unto this world. Just as mustard is used to flavor and to heal, so also is the faith that is produced by God in the mighty working of His Grace and Mercy. Just a mustard seed of Christ’s faith is sufficient to season and heal the entirety of humanity in the wondrous omnipotent grace of God.
	This usage of the mustard seed by Christ was no little thing. He wanted His disciples to know the depth of the growth that was to be developed in them by the work of the Holy Spirit. He wanted them to be the prepared soil in which this faith of God could germinate and burst forth in the full growth of God’s intent in these disciples. They were to be the voice of the Love that God gave to man in his Only Begotten Son. Christ knew that the entire world would be changed to the glory of the Father with the blossoming faith that would become the very essence of these, His chosen disciples, and all those who would believe on Him through their teachings and writings. That little bit of faith, established at the point of complete reliance upon the Holy Spirit, would become the power of the spiritual life of Christ in His believers. This was evidenced from the day of Pentecost onward. This faith in Christ would become the avenue through which the power of God would overturn all the powers of this world. This faith, though small in its beginning would become the most forceful expression of God’s Love to the entire universe of His creation. Oh but for the faith of Christ, as of a mustard seed, to become the means by which our lives are completely indwelled with a heart after God and God alone.
	 Again I quote Matthew Henry’s comments on this faith. The apostles themselves, … acknowledged the weakness and deficiency of their faith, and saw their need of Christ's grace for the improvement of it; they said unto the Lord, "Increase our faith, and perfect what is lacking in it." Let the discoveries of faith be more clear, the desires of faith more strong, the dependences of faith more firm and fixed, the dedications of faith more entire and resolute, and the delights of faith more pleasing. Note, the increase of our faith is what we should earnestly desire, and we should offer up that desire to God in prayer. End of quote. (from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
	It is in our prayer unto God that our faith finds its increase. The reason for this is that it is when we are in earnest prayer after God, that He will deepen and grow that mustard seed into that plant of strength and healing. It is here, in earnest prayer and beseeching, that we see the heart of the entire matter of the growth of faith. When is it that we are most desirous after the heart of God? When is it that our faith blooms forth in its greatest growth and fruition? It is when we are brought to our lowest point of self assurance! It is when our every human prop and strength is reduced to ashes and refuse! It is as we are brought completely to the end of our every source of power, absolutely without any other hope! It is then that we call, with all our heart, upon God to deliver us. That is when the seed of faith, planted by the Holy Spirit, begins its growth process within us. We cry out with all our heart and beings unto God to be our deliverance through all the crises of our day. We begin to see His active work in our lives and in the lives of our family members, through the circumstances of each dilemma. As He proves Himself over and over again, our faith is increased. Sometimes in small spurts of growth. Sometimes in fantastic increases of absolute trust in God. It is in the dynamic watering and pruning of each day and its events, that we truly come to see that the Lord is not only faithful, but so very worthy of all praise and adoration. 
It also becomes evident that our prayer lives, seeking after the growth of faith, are continuously changed from the desire after our growth, to the desire after the growth of faith in others. He begins to place people and families on our hearts that are in dire need of His planting of faith. As we consider the needs of others, we seek more and more after the glory of God to be made manifest in those lives. The focus of our developing spiritual beings becomes as rooted in the desire for God to be glorified, as our faith and belief and trust on Him is rooted into our entire life in Christ. 
Acts 3:16 is a passage that gives an indication of the full weight of the faith that is born of the Holy Spirit. We see the power of faith evidenced in Peter and John as they proclaim the name of our Lord Jesus Christ before the Jews whom they had previously feared. They had been led by the Holy Spirit to ask God to heal the lame man whom they encountered on the way to the temple. The crowds were amazed at the sight of that man walking and leaping and praising God. They wanted to know by what power this deed had taken place. We hear the words of Peter as he addressed the crowd. …By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see… This was the same Peter who denied Christ three times on the day of His betrayal. This is that Peter, who so feared for his life that he even cursed the idea that he knew Jesus of Nazareth. Yet, in the power of the faith of Jesus Christ, through the effective and working ministry of the Holy Spirit, we here see Peter proclaiming, before all those gathered, that it was in Jesus’ name and by the faith that comes through Him, that the lame walk and the blind see and the hopeless receive hope and the dead receive life. It was in the power of the faith of Jesus Christ that these Apostles called forth to the crowd to repent, to seek after the salvation of God through the Messiah whom they had crucified. It was in the power of the faith of Christ that had blossomed so mightily in their beings that these Apostles proclaimed the risen Lord Jesus Christ. It was in Christ’s faith that they laid themselves open to all the torments of the age for the sake of the name of Christ, and did so out of love for their fellow brethren.
In this example, we see The force of faith, as it is referred to in the Biblical Illustrator: that it is to a seed that our Lord compares the beginning of faith in a man's heart: to a grain of mustard seed : which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown it is the greatest amongst herbs, and becometh a tree, etc. He seems thus to teach us that all true faith is ever and everywhere growing: not a dead, self-contained thing, but a seed, filled with an almost infinite power of growth in strength and range and beauty. However poor and mean and worthless it may seem, there is that in it which will in due time and with due care force its way into the light and strive towards heaven itself, till the little speck of hope becomes a branching, fruitful wealth of life and beauty, a resting-place and shelter for those who hover round its boughs and find refreshment and protection in its gentle strength. End of quote. (from The Biblical Illustrator Copyright (c) 2002 AGES and Biblesoft, Inc.)
There is a great strength that is evidenced in the blossoming forth of the faith of Christ from within. It begins as nothing more than a speck in our hearts, the merest of seeds. With the work of the Holy Spirit, there is a tremendous increase in the growth, as every circumstance and dilemma waters and nurtures that faith of and in Christ. Let us not be ashamed of a little faith, but rather let us see the value in even the smallest seed of faith planted into our lives and beings by Our Lord and Savior. Hold onto the truth that as we are put to death, as we go through the winter blizzards and storms, that death is not unto destruction. It is unto life as a seed must die in order to bring forth new growth and blossoms in the springtime. 
Consider the work of Christ in our hearts, how He establishes an utter reliance upon Him through the various aspects of our death to self. We learn to keep our eyes focused on Him more and more. We see Christ as our attention is drawn to the One Who brings us through each trial and desperation, in the joy and peace of Himself. We receive all that we need to bring forth new life on a growing and continual basis, until that tiny speck, that tiny mustard seed of faith grows into the tree of Christ’s description. The quantity of faith is immaterial; it is the quality of that faith that matters. As that faith is focused completely upon the Lord Jesus Christ, whether in great measure, or little quantity, the Lord will honor and He will grow it into the fullness of Himself. 
It is faith in Christ that can move mountains. It is faith in Christ that can uproot the trees of despair in our lives, as we will consider next week. This is a promise that God has instilled into us and that He cultivates through His Grace, and Mercy, and Love. Trust Him, and He will cause that speck of Christ’s faith to become the indwelling force of our life.
 And the Lord answered, If you had faith (trust and confidence in God) even [so small] like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, Be pulled up by the roots, and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you.