Small Faith, Big God
Small Faith, Big God
What makes faith powerful?
Transcript: Welcome to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Light of Christ Anglican Church is located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about us at lightofchristgeorgetown.org.
Our sermon sound bite for today comes from Luke 17, starting at verse 5, “The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’ And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’"
So in response to the disciple's request to have more faith, Jesus responds that it's not the size of the faith that mattered. If they had even a small little bit of faith as small as a tiny mustard seed, they would be able to uproot trees with only their words. So what matters is not the quantity of our faith, the size and power of our faith. But what makes faith powerful is not us, but the one we have faith in, our all powerful God. Chris Wright, our director of music at Light of Christ who is attending Nashotah House seminary, preaches this truth to us.
God does big things. In our Old Testament reading in Habakkuk, in page 785 you'll see in Habakkuk 1:5. God says in response to Habakkuk who's saying, "God, how long will all of this happen? There's injustice, there's these terrible things." And God responds to him. He says, "Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told."
God is constantly working in ways that we can't even understand, and sometimes in ways that we just don't notice because we get so distracted by our day to day lives. And we fail to recognize just the incomprehensible amazing things that God is constantly doing in our lives and in the world. The clearest example of an amazing thing that Jesus did was die on the cross for us, when God defeated death through Jesus Christ. So paradoxically, an interesting thing about this is that the glory and bigness of God is revealed through what appeared to be a small thing in Jesus. By humbling himself, being born as a human and then by dying, Jesus defeated death and sin and Satan. So by lowering himself, he rose above the powers that had taken hold of this world.
So it's through God and his bigness that we can do all things through him. Saint Cyril of Alexandria said, "The confirmation and strength necessary for faith comes from divine grace." So, God gives us the strength that we need. He gives us the strength in order to preserve our faith, and he assures us in that we can handle it because he is big enough for our problems.
Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. You can find this collect for the Wednesday of Easter Week on page 610.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in the fullness of his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
