Increasing "Ordinary" Faith; Luke 17:5-6

Delivered during the Sunday Morning Worship Service, 8/25/2024. In the midst of a passage designed to instruct His apostles on how best to shepherd His flock when He is gone-- the twelve ask Jesus to increase their faith. Jesus responds with a short but poignant proverb on the power to be found in even the smallest amount of true faith. But the word "faith" is confusing at best because there are so many uses and misuses of the word that we hardly know what to think of what Jesus says. Are we really to believe that any Christian can perform such miracles if they are able to conjure up enough faith to do so? To answer that question, we will explore the difference between what we will call "ordinary" faith and "extraordinary" faith-- and how the latter comes only through the sovereign decree of God. Ultimately we will realize that none of the true faith that comes from God is "ordinary", but in the context of the comparison our goal as Christians should be to ask God daily to: "Increase our 'ordinary' faith"!