Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Grain and the Granite: Dependent Faith and Divine Power (Matthew 17:19–21)

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The Grain and the Granite: Dependent Faith and Divine Power (Matthew 17:19–21) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. We are thrilled you have joined
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  us today. We really are.
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  Today we are jumping into a brand new deep.
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  Dive, and our mission for this deep dive is crystal clear.
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  Yes, it is. We are examining Matthew chapter
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  17, specifically verses 19 through 21.
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  We want to look at the severe contrast between human spiritual
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  impotence and divine omnipotence.
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  Right. And to start, we really want to
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  paint the scene for you. You really need to visualize it
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  so you can grasp the sheer weight of what is happening in
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  this house. And it is quite a scene.
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  The Lord Jesus Christ has just descended from the Mount
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  Transfiguration. Up on that mountain, the veil of
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  his humanity was pulled back. He was radiant.
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  Dazzling in uncreated light, flanked by.
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  Moses and Elijah. Representing the Law and the
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  Prophets. And audibly affirmed by the
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  voice of God the Father. It is a moment of pure, blinding
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  celestial glory. But then, you know, as he steps
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  down from that peak of majesty, he walks directly into a
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  chaotic, dusty scene. Down in the valley below.
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  The contrast is just staggering. It is a scene of absolute human
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  misery. And total spiritual defeat.
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  You have a desperate, grieving father.
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  You have a young boy severely oppressed by a demon.
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  Throwing himself into the fire in the water.
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  And standing right in the middle of this chaos are 9 baffled,
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  helpless disciples. Who have just failed completely
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  and publicly to cast the demon out.
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  They are surrounded by tribes who are sneering at.
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  Them arguing with them. In a crowd that is watching this
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  total Apostolic failure unfold in real time.
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  These are the men Christ chose. And they are standing there
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  completely paralyzed. OK, let's unpack this.
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  What happens when the very people entrusted with divine
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  authority fall flat on their faces?
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  It is a vital question. Why are they so helpless?
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  What's fascinating here is that this text is not a simple
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  morality tale about trying harder, right?
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  Or mustering up more self-confidence.
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  In fact, it asks as a severe diagnostic tool.
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  It strips away all of our religious self-reliance to
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  expose the terrifying reality of what Jesus calls little faith.
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  The goal of our discussion today is to align your understanding
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  of faith with the robust biblical framework articulated
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  in the Westminster Standards. We want to move completely away
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  from the modern pragmatism that infects so much of the visible
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  church today. You see a pragmatism everywhere
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  that relies on human ingenuity. Emotional manipulation.
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  And clever techniques. We want to discard that.
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  Then move toward a posture of total, desperate dependence on
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  the sovereign Christ. When we look at this text, we
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  see the disciples acting as a mirror for our own hearts.
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  They have been given a Commission.
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  They had seen miracles. Yet in the valley, their
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  inherent weakness was entirely exposed.
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  The descent from the mountain to the valley is a deliberate,
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  redemptive historical placement by the apostle Matthew.
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  He wants the reader to see that the glory of the sun on the
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  Mountain does not cancel out the reality of severe spiritual
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  conflict. In the fallen world below.
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  The transfigured Christ steps into the misery of a creation,
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  groaning under the weight of sin and a demonic affliction.
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  Precisely, you have two totally different realms colliding in
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  one chapter. On the mountain there is the
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  absolute purity and majesty of the Son of God.
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  Shining blighter than the sun. Down in the valley, there is the
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  gritty, chaotic dust of a crowd shouting over a suffering child.
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  The disciples are stuck in the middle, looking completely
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  incompetent. That transition from the
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  mountain to the valley is such a striking juxtaposition.
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  It shows us that proximity to Christ does not automatically
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  grant inherent strength. Think about it.
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  These disciples had seen the dead raised.
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  The blind given sight. Multitudes fed.
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  They even had a prior Commission.
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  Yes, back in Matthew chapter 10. Jesus specifically gave them
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  authority over unclean spirits to cast them out.
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  And to heal every disease and every affliction.
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  They have the credentials they. Had the marching orders.
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  And it is almost like a modern IT guy who has the admin
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  credentials to the whole server. He has logged in before.
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  He has fixed the system before. But suddenly he types in his
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  password and he is total locked out.
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  The system rejects him. And he just stares at the screen
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  while the whole office is yelling at him that the network
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  is down. That is the disciples in this
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  valley. They possess the admin
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  credentials in Matthew 10. But here they stood, completely
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  useless. That analogy is spot on.
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  They could not relieve the boys suffering.
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  They could not silence the mockery of the scribes.
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  They were locked out and this forces you to consider your own
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  valley moments. You might experience times when
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  past spiritual highs crash into sudden, insurmountable earthly
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  trials. You realize that yesterday's
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  grace cannot sustain today's battle.
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  Maybe you had seasons of great joy in worship.
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  Or sweet communion with the Lord during a retreat or a
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  conference. You felt like you were on the
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  mountain. But then you get a phone call on
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  a random Tuesday. The diagnosis is bad.
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  The bank account is empty. Or a family relationship
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  shatters. And you are right back in the
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  dust of the valley and. In those moments, you need
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  fresh, dependent faith. The disciples lacked that
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  dependence. They were running on fumes.
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  When the crowd finally dispersed and the boy was healed by the
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  sovereign word of Christ, the disciples approached Jesus
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  privately. They asked him why could we not
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  cast it out? That brings us to their private
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  inquiry. Which exposes their spiritual
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  presumption. But first, let us acknowledge
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  the humility in their approach. They asked this privately rather
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  than trying to defend the reputation before the shouting
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  crowd. It is the first sign of
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  spiritual wisdom in this narrative.
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  Taking their failure directly to the master.
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  That private inquiry is very revealing.
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  They did not make excuses. They did not blame the crowd or
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  the boy. They asked why could we not cast
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  it out? But we must dissect the
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  assumption hidden right beneath the surface of that question.
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  They were confused. Why were they confused?
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  Because they expected to succeed based on their past authority.
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  They assumed assumed that because Jesus gave them
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  authority in Matthew 10, they now possess that authority as a
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  permanent autonomous attribute. It is as if they thought it was
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  a magic wand they could just pull out of their pockets
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  whenever they wanted. This exposes the sin of
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  spiritual presumption. They were treating delegated
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  authority as something they could wield independently of the
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  one who gave it. They forgot that their
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  effectiveness relied entirely on a continuous, dependent union
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  with Christ. In Reformed theology, we can
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  view Christ's subsequent rebuke as a first use of the law.
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  The law acts as a mirror. Exposing our sin and our
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  complete inability to fulfill God's righteous requirements in
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  our own strength. Christ uses this moment to hold
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  up that mirror to their faces. He exposes the sin of their
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  self-reliance. And this stands in such sharp
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  contrast to modern church trends today.
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  It absolutely does. Consider the seeker sensitive
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  movements and the intense pragmatism driving many
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  congregations right now. When a ministry fails or a
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  church struggles to grow, what is the immediate assumption?
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  The assumption is almost always that the methods were wrong.
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  Yes, they blame the lighting. The music.
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  The marketing strategy. Or they pull out demographic
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  data and say they just did not target the right zip codes.
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  They assume failure as a result of bad human technique.
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  Rather than a lack of desperate divine reliance.
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  The disciples fell into a similar trap of presumption.
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  They were relying on the mechanics of their past
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  Commission rather than crying out to the Lord of the
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  Commission, they thought. They had the right technique,
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  the right formula. They had cast out demons before,
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  so they thought they knew the drill.
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  That diagnosis from Jesus is absolutely devastating.
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  They ask why they failed and Jesus gives a piercing one
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  sentence answer in verse 20. Because of your little faith.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting.
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  Jesus bypasses all secondary excuses.
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  He looks right past the severity of the demonic possession.
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  He does not blame the stubbornness of the unclean
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  spirit. This demon was violent it.
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  Threw the boy into fire and water.
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  It was a severe case, but Jesus. Does not say well guys this was
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  a level 5 demon and you only have Level 3 clearance.
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  He does not point to the unbelief of the surrounding
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  crowd either. And he certainly does not
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  mention the overwhelming affliction of the boy or the
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  father's panic. He points an unrelenting finger
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  straight at the disciples own spiritual condition.
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  He identifies is the root cause of their impotence.
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  Little faith, and we need to be precise about what that means.
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  In the original Greek, the term is oligopistia.
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  It is a uniquely Matthanian word.
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  Matthew loves to use this compound word to describe the
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  disciples. When Jesus uses this word, he is
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  not accusing them of total apostasy or absolute unbelief.
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  They are his true disciples. They belong to him.
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  They have been justified. But their faith has become
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  inactive. Wavering.
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  And completely distracted by the massive obstacle standing in
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  front of them. Than resting securely on their
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  maker. They looked at the foaming,
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  convulsing boy and the sneering scribes.
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  And their faith wavered. We must frame this theologically
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  to avoid grievous errors. We must reject our minion
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  interpretations that might suggest faith is a human work.
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  A sort of psychological exertion that earns a miracle from God if
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  you just squeeze your eyes shut and believe hard enough.
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  That is such a common trap. People think faith is a muscle
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  they have to flex. And if they just grunt and
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  strain enough, God will be impressed and give them what
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  they want. But we rely on the teaching of
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  the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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  Specifically chapter 14 which? Declares that saving faith is a
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  grace given by God. It is an instrument.
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  Faith must actively rest on Christ for its efficacy.
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  Mechanical reliance on past gifts or treating faith as a
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  human work is entirely useless. The distinction between
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  oligopistia and outright apostasy is vital for
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  understanding how God deals with his elect.
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  The disciples possessed saving faith, but in the moment of
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  crisis their faith was dormant. It was not actively leaning upon
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  the omnipotence of God. They had allowed their eyes to
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  drop from the Sovereign Lord to the terrifying circumstances.
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  They were looking at the wind and the waves, just like Peter
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  on the water. And Jesus response is a surgical
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  strike against any theology that elevates the human will.
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  He says if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed.
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  We must clarify the ancient Near Eastern idiom being used here.
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  The mustard seed or caught Consynapios the Greek.
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  It represented the smallest conceivable thing in their
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  agricultural world. Jesus is drawing a deliberate,
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  astonishing contrast. He has just diagnosed their
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  faith as little in the sense of being deficient and wavering.
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  But then he says that mustard seed faith, faith that is
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  microscopically small, is entirely enough to accomplish
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  the impossible. Why is that?
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  Because efficacy of faith is entirely reliant on the object
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  of that faith. Not the volume, size, or
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  psychological intensity of the believer.
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  Faith is not a substance you accumulate in a jar until it is
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  full enough to buy a miracle. Faith is a conduit.
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  It is a pipe. And this directly confronts and
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  dismantles the false teachings of the prosperity gospel.
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  And the Word of Faith movements. Those secular philosophies,
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  dressed up in religious language, treat faith as a
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  creative force of the human will.
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  They teach that your faith is a spiritual technology you can use
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  to manipulate reality. They claim you can command
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  health or summon wealth simply by having enough faith.
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  In your own faith, that is. Blasphemy.
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  True faith, as the reformers taught, is an empty hand
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  grasping a mighty Savior. The strength is not in the hand.
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  The strength is entirely in the Savior who holds you.
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  Think about that image of the empty hand.
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  If a man is dangling off the edge of a Cliff.
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  And a rescuer reaches down and grabs his wrist.
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  The man's survival does not depend on the strength of his
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  own grip. It depends entirely on the
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  mighty grip of the rescuer. Even if the man's fingers are
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  weak. Even if his hand is slipping.
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  He is safe because he is held by someone vastly stronger.
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  That imagery of the empty hand is perfectly illustrated by what
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  Jesus says next. He declares that such faith,
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  even as tiny as a mustard seed, will say to a mountain, Move
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  from here to there and it will move, he says.
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  Nothing will be impossible. For you now, we need to put some
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  strict biblical guardrails around that statement.
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  Because, as you just pointed out, this verse is frequently
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  abused by modern mysticism. People quote this verse while
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  demanding private jets or immediate physical healing.
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  Claiming they were moving mountains.
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  Jesus is not handing out a magic formula for literal landscaping.
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  He is not giving us an incantation for personal wealth
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  or physical health on demand. He is teaching that divine
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  omnipotence overcomes human impossibility.
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  He uses the mountain as a metaphor for an immovable,
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  insurmountable obstacle. We see this all over the Old
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  Testament. Think of Zechariah chapter 4,
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  verse 7. Where the Prophet says, What are
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  you, O great mountain, before Zerubbabel, you shall become a
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  plane. The mountain in that context
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  represented the massive geopolitical opposition to
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  rebuilding the temple. And the moving of that mountain
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  was accomplished not by human might, but by the Spirit of the
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  Lord. Jesus is invoking that same
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  prophetic imagery. The disciples faced a demonic
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  mountain. They could not move with their
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  own delegated authority. Because their faith was not
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  resting on the true mountain mover.
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  So if we are not supposed to rely on our own willpower or
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  positive thinking. What is the actual mechanism for
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  the believer today? What does this look like for the
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  modern church? We must apply a careful
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  dispensational and cessationist framework here.
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  Yes, applying that cessationist framework is vital because it
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  protects the flock from endless cycles of charismatic
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  disillusionment. The Apostolic sign gifts, such
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  as the physical exorcisms and instant miraculous healing seen
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  in the Gospels and Acts were specific to that era.
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  They were given for authenticating the Messiah to
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  Israel. And establishing the bedrock of
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  the early church. When people are taught that they
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  should be performing literal Apostolic miracles today and
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  they fail. They're often told by false
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  teachers that they just did not have enough faith that.
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  Crushes the bruised Reed. It quenches the smoking flax.
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  It places an impossible burden of works back onto the shoulders
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  of the believer. But when we understand the
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  Apostolic era was a unique, unrepeatable period, we can draw
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  the correct application from this text.
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  The principle is that we face spiritual impossibilities
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  everyday. Total depravity.
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  It's himself as a mountain. The natural man is dead in sin.
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  A dead heart cannot beat on its own.
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  It requires the mountain moving omnipotence of the Holy Spirit
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  regenerating the soul. You must rely on God for that.
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  And once we are saved, we still face massive mountains in our
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  sanctification. The mountains we face might be
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  entrenched habitual sin in our own lives.
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  We might be massive cultural idols that seem impossible to
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  tear down. They might be intense
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  providential trials. Grief, illness, persecution.
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  Stand in our path like granite peaks.
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  We face these daily. And Jesus gives us the specific
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  posture for reliance in verse 21.
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  He says. But this kind never comes out
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  except by prayer and fasting. Now we should acknowledge the
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  manuscript history here just to be thorough.
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  Some modern critical texts omit this verse based on certain
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  Alexandrian manuscripts. Well, the Texas Receptus and the
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  majority text include it. For.
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  Furthermore, it is universally recognized that a nearly
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  identical statement is found in the a parallel account in Mark
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  Chapter 9. Regardless of the textual
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  variance, the theology aligns perfectly with the entire scope
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  of biblical doctrine. If little faith is the
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  diagnostic disease, prayer is the divine prescription.
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  Prayer is the very voice of faith.
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  It is the absolute abandonment of self-sufficiency.
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  When you pray, you are confessing your own spiritual
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  impotence and crying out to divine omnipotence.
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  You're saying, Lord, I cannot, but you can.
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  And fasting is coupled with it. Fasting is not a Roman Catholic
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  meritorious work. It is not a hunger strike to
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  force God's hand or earn His favor.
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  It is the physical declaration of a severe spiritual hunger.
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  It is pushing away from the table of self-reliance to reach
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  desperately for the bread of life.
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  When you fast, your stomach growls and it acts as a physical
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  alarm clock telling you to pray. It tells you that you need God
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  more than you need calories. The modern church's relationship
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  with prayer is a glaring indictment of our own
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  self-reliance. We organize committees.
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  We launch initiatives. We study demographics.
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  We build massive buildings. But we barely pray.
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  A prayerless church is a self reliant church.
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  It is a church running on borrowed momentum.
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  Coasting on the fumes of past outpourings of grace while
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  failing to seek the Lord's face for the present battles.
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  It's like trying to drive a car across the country on a single
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  tank of gas. Eventually the engine is going
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  to sputter out. When Jesus tells the disciples
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  that this kind only comes out by prayer, he is telling them that
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  they walked into a spiritual war zone without communicating with
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  their commander. They tried to fire weapons that
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  had not been loaded by the Holy Spirit through communion with
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  the Father. If we connect this to the bigger
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  picture, the narrative highlights Christ succeeding
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  where the disciples failed. The disciples are revealed as
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  weak, flawed, entirely dependent instruments.
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  But Christ is revealed as the divine, all sufficient
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  deliverer. His authority is inherent.
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  He is the eternal Son of God. The disciples authority was
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  delegated and they could not wield it apart from him.
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  This brings us to the core of reformed soteriology.
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  Look at Christ's active and passive obedience.
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  The greatest mountain humanity face was not a demon in a
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  valley. Nor was it a literal peak in the
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  region of Galilee. The insurmountable mountain was
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  human total depravity and the massive, immovable mountain of
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  God's righteous, holy wrath against our sin.
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  We were. Crushed under that weight.
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  We were spiritually impotent. Completely unable to satisfy the
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  demands of God's law. This raises an essential
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  question. How is that mountain moved?
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  We see that Christ's entire earthly ministry was a
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  demonstration of the perfect faith that the disciples lacked.
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  Where they possessed oligopistia, little faith,
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  Christ possessed perfect, unbroken, dependent communion
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  with the Father. He perfectly fulfilled the
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  covenant of works on our behalf. Every single demand that God's
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  law required, Jesus met perfectly day in and day out.
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  That act of obedience is the flawless track record He hands
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  over to us when our own faith is wavering.
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  He lived the life, if a flawless submission to the law that we
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  could never live. He loved the Lord his God with
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  all his heart, soul, mind and strength.
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  Then we look to his passive obedience.
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  He went to Calvary, and willingly took the mountain of
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  our Gilth, our shame, and our condemnation upon his own
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  shoulders. The wrath of God, a mountain
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  infinitely heavier than the Alps or the Himalayas, was dropped
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  upon the spotless lamb. And he bore it completely.
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  This is the heart of Westminster Confession, Chapter 11
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  concerning justification. We are justified not by our own
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  works. Nor by generating a massive
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  amount of faith. But by God imputing the
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  righteousness of Christ to us. Christ secured the remedy for
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  our presumption. He secured the pardon for our
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  prayerlessness. He is the ultimate mountain
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  mover. When he cried out, it is
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  finished. The mountain of our debt was
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  cast into the sea of God's forgetfulness.
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  Therefore, when we look at our own failures.
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  When we see our own little faith.
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  Our own struggles with sin. Our own inability to overcome
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  the obstacles and our sanctification.
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  We must not look inward to find strength.
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  We must look outward to the finished work of the ultimate
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  mountain mover. So many Christians spend their
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  lives looking inward. Taking their spiritual
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  temperature every 5 minutes. Wondering if they have enough
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  faith. They stare at their own navels
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  instead of fixing their eyes on the author and perfector of
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  their faith. So what does this all mean for
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  you, the listener, right now? We want to translate this text
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  directly to your head, your heart, and your hands.
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  Are you relying on past spiritual highs?
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  Are you looking back to a youth camp experience?
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  A prior season zeal. Or even your precise grasp of
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  Reformed doctrine. Assuming that those things will
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  automatically carry you through today's trials.
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  Correct doctrine is essential, but it is not a substitute for
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  present living communion with the Lord.
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  You cannot survive today's battles on yesterday's rations.
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  Are you trying to overcome the obstacles in your life through
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  sheer human willpower? The text tells us that this
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  leads only to failure in the valley.
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  We must embrace what reformed theology calls the third use of
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  a law. The law not only exposes our
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  sin, which it did for the disciples here.
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  And restrains evil in society. But it also guides the justified
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  believer into grateful obedience.
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  We combat our inherent spiritual impotence not by inventing new
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  methods, but through the ordinary means of grace.
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  God has ordained specific channels through which He
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  nourishes our mustard seed faith.
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  We devote ourselves to the public reading and preaching of
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  the Word. Where Christ is offered to us.
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  We devote ourselves to corporate and private prayer.
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  Which is the breath of faith? And we focus intently on the
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  sacraments, particularly the Lord's Supper.
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  The Lord's Supper is crucial here.
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  It functions as the visible word.
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  A tangible sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace.
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  It is designed specifically by our Savior to nourish weak,
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  wavering mustard seed faith. When you come to the table, you
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  are not bringing a mountain of personal righteousness.
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  You are bringing your little faith.
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  Your empty hands. Your desperate.
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  Need and the elements, the bread and the wine, point you away
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  from yourself and directly to the vital union you share with
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  Christ. They preach to your senses that
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  his body was broken for your presumption.
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  And his blood was shed for your prayerlessness.
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  The ordinary means of grace are how the Holy Spirit sustains us
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  in the valley. The disciples failed because
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  they relied on their past Commission rather than their
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  present Communion. The means of grace keep us in
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  present Communion. They foster that posture of
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  dependent player and spiritual fasting.
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  They turn our eyes from the terrifying size of the obstacle
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  to the infinite magnitude of our God.
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  When we align our daily walk with these truths, we abandoned
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  the exhausting treadmill of self-reliance.
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  Have you ever felt like you were running on that treadmill?
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  Just trying harder. Reading more books?
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  Attending more conferences. Hoping you can finally beat that
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  sin or fix that relationship. We have to stop trying to be the
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  heroes of our own spiritual narratives.
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  We embrace our weakness, knowing that God's strength is made
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  perfect in it. This requires a daily death to
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  the ego. It requires stepping out of the
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  driver's seat and acknowledging that apart from the vine, we can
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  do absolutely nothing. That brings us to the close of
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  our analysis today. We had traced the narrative from
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  the blinding glory of the mountain to the dusty chaos of
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  the valley. We have seen the disciples
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  failure exposed not as a lack of human technique, but as the sin
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  of spiritual presumption and little faith.
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  We have examined the devastating precision of Christ's diagnosis,
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  cutting through all secondary excuses to reach the heart of
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  the matter. We have dismantled the false
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  teachings that view faith as a human work or a creative force.
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  Affirming instead that the efficacy of faith rests entirely
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  on the omnividence of its object.
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  Our Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen that prayer and
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  fasting are the necessary postures of a dependent people.
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  Crying out to the ultimate mountain Mover who bore the
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  crushing weight of God's wrath in our place.
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  You must abandoned self-reliance today.
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  Recognize the true object of your faith and rest entirely in
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  his finished work. The mountains in your life were
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  not moved by your intensity, but by His authority.
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  I want to leave you with one final consideration to ponder as
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  you go about your week. We have established that the
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  absolute guarantee of moving mountains lies entirely in the
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  perfection of the object. Christ.
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  And not in the intensity of our grip on him.
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  But what happens in those agonizing moments when our grip
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  fails entirely? That is a staggering thought.
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  Think of the darkest valleys of depression, the.
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  Paralyzing grip of sudden grief. Or the severe spiritual warfare
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  where even the ability to articulate a prayer vanishes.
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  Does the mountain mover hold on to us when our mustard seed
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  feels completely crushed in the dirt?
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  Consider the invincible nature of the covenant of grace.
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  Meditate on the reality that your security is not based on
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  the strength of your faith. But on the strength of the
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  Savior who authored and perfects it.
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  When your faith is small, he remains infinite.
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  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive on reformed
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  thinking. We pray this discussion has
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  humbled your flesh and exalted your Savior.
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  We warmly invite you to keep seeking the truth in the Word.
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  Grace and peace to you.