Mustard Seed Faith
Sandi Querin – March 2, 2007
Revival Center – Clovis
(Notes taken by Mary Linda Kleinman during the sermon.)

 Mark 4:30-32  And He said, “Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it?  It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth.  But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shoots out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.

 Mustard seed faith is not a small amount of faith.  It is not concerning faith that we know.  It is foundational, serious, potent, a life-changing faith.  It is a faith that will trust God for anything at all times and in any place.  It is a trust factor.  Consider it as a faith you have never known, never captured, never seen, never seized and never heard of.  Be willing to have even a small piece of something not a part of you that comes straight from God and you didn’t mess it up.

 You can’t trust someone that you do not know.  Mustard seed faith can not and will not come to someone who is kicking and fighting.  Foundational, flesh-killing faith pushes you past your rejection, your insecurities, the wounds of people around you, false teaching, legalism, etc.  You just want Jesus and more of Him. And you trust Him.

 A seed, if it doesn’t have trust will lay dead and never produce anything.  Your Christianity can be dead seed.  How many lives have been changed because you decided to share your faith, less by what you said and more by what you did?

 Kingdom of God means to rule and reign in this text.  When this kind of faith is grown up, it will trust God. How does that happen?  God allows you to go through a series of trials and fires to grow you up in your faith to a faith that is potent and foundational.

 If you cannot develop mustard seed faith as foundational and be willing to be rocked by anything, then you will fail at spiritual warfare. Because, if you cannot trust God, you will not rule and reign in the dominion realm.  The dominion realm of the spirit is left undone by many because they do not trust God to accomplish it. We have to engage effectively in spiritual warfare and cannot begin to do that if we don’t have mustard seed faith.

 How do we get it?  By reading our Bibles.

Luke 17:6-10 And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be planted in the sea; and it should obey you. But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him?  I think not.  So likewise you, when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do.

The process of trust is line upon line.  It is a natural course for a servant to serve, for a doctor to doctor, just as it is a natural course for a Christian to believe and have mustard seed faith.  It is supposed to happen; it is not an option.  Christians are supposed to know how to believe and already be there. Put yourself in a position so you can trust God. If you are not there, you need to make it your life’s occupation to go forward and put yourself in a position to learn to trust God.  Christians are supposed to believe because of what they know.  If you don’t believe, you don’t know the right things and are not thinking on the right things.  A box only has room for so much stuff.  You are like a box.  What is in you?  Jesus is trying to get in there.  So much of the world is in you that there is no room for Jesus.  More of Jesus, less of us.  Die to our flesh then begin to have mustard seed faith.  Then we are praying God’s prayers.

Matthew 17:14-21  And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son; for he is a lunatic, and sore vexed for oftimes he falls into the fire and oft into the water.  And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.  Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me.  And Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.  Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said Why could not we cast him out?  And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

We need to be ready in season and out.  You’ve got to be able to handle God and everybody around you and the devil too.  Unbelief here means inability to trust God.  They could operate in the giftings because God doesn’t take that back. But they became in charge of that and were consumed and impressed with who they became in God and less impressed with who Jesus is.

“Faithless and perverse” means leaning on their gifting and not on the heart of God.  We stand in a great liability because God will never take our gifts back.  If you play games with your Christianity, you don’t know what is going to come upon you. They had counted not the cross or the cost, but their own purpose, their mandate, their calling, their gifting.  There will come a day when you say, “Lord, I did all these things in Your name,” and He will say, “I never knew you.”  (Matthew 7:22-23) 

People are watching you and their lives are in the balance because of you.  Is the enemy going to hell because of you?  To rule and reign in the Kingdom is a spiritual statement and the disciples couldn’t cast it out because they had become perverse.

If we, as the saints of God, cannot occupy the spiritual realm and wage warfare on the enemy of our soul, then who will?  Mustard seed faith says I’m not going to think about what the world will do but think about what the Lord would do, or what would I do if Jesus were in me?

Message #0716