Have you ever come across something in the Bible that doesn’t make sense? There are some crazy stories in the Bible! One of my favorites is…especially since I work with youth…the story of Elisha and the she bears.

2 Kings 2:23-25 – 23 He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24 And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. 25 From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.

I’ve never preached a sermon on that. I’m sure there’s an important lesson in there, but I haven’t dug deep to find it out yet. That story is entertaining, and I love it, but it really doesn’t make sense to me. There are some things in the New Testament that are hard to understand, too. I love that God guided this next verse to be in scripture. He wants to make sure we know, “Yeah, there’s some stuff in here that is hard to understand and doesn’t seem quite right. Keep reading and seeking to understand though.” Hear what the Apostle Peter had to say about the Apostle Paul, who has written most of our New Testament.

2 Peter 3:15b-16a – 15 …our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand…

Peter says…recorded in the Bible…that there are things Paul says that are just straight up hard to understand. So, don’t get worried and give up when you come across difficult passages. Study and dig deeper.

Some passages are hard to understand because at face value they don’t seem to be true. The passage we’re going to look briefly tonight is that way. Based on our experience our whole life, it doesn’t seem to be true. But, we will see why it is and how we should live in light of it. We are going to see what it means to have faith like a mustard seed.

There are two passages that talk about faith like a mustard seed. Let’s read them both, see what they mean, and how to apply them to our life.

Matthew 17:20 – He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Luke 17:5-6 – 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 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.

Who in here has faith in God? Who in here has complete faith that God can do anything? That he is omnipotent.

Ok, in complete faith, ask God to pick me up and make me hover. Like, Eleven on Stranger things can do…or Baby Yoda with a frog.

That’s what both of these passages seem to say. If you have even the tiniest amount of faith…not even big faith…you can make things hover and move. I vividly remember sitting in class talking to God while in High School. I was asking Him for a sign. I told Him I believed in Him, but please just give me a sign that He is really real. I said I have complete faith. And I put out my hand next to a yellow pencil on my desk and I said, “Please just move this pencil. I have complete faith.” And you know what happened? IT MOVED! Seriously! It moved!…after I picked it up…

These passages about mustard seed faith don’t seem to make sense based on our experience. Surely someone in the world has mustard seed faith. Surely many people do. Yet nobody can make mountains hover and throw mulberry trees with their mind.

So, when you come to a difficult passage, what do you do? Well, first thing you do is look at the context. Read around the passage and see why and in what context it was said.

In Matthew 17, some of the