Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Faith and masculinity meet kingdom living to help Christian husbands rebuild their confidence and masculine strength, so they can enjoy attraction-filled and passionate marriages.
You want to live a life on fire and on mission.
You want to be filled with such conviction and drive that you stop caring about what ANYone thinks.
You want to face each day alive, authentic, and fully present in every moment: with your wife, kids, on the street, at the gym, at work.
You want to bring yourSELF to the table, and to stop bringing the watered-down, nice, what everyone wants version of you.
You want that self to be a man who is burning in passion for Jesus, unafraid to bring his kingdom to anyone in your path, no matter the cost.
You want to love the one in front of you without fear, without needing love back, and without reserve.
You want to experience God for real, to not just believe, but to KNOW that he’s got you and that he’ll show up on your behalf. That he’ll show up THROUGH you.
You want to get to the end of your race and say, “Yep…I gave it everything. Jesus, you know I’m all in.”
...And you want to know just how to get there.
Welcome to Man Warrior King. Congratulations. You are among the violent taking the kingdom by force. You are among the chosen, answering the call to rise above your self. You are in the forge being stripped down and strengthened—and you WILL rise stronger, solid, unshakeable.
You are a man. You are a warrior. You are a king.
Matt (00:00)
If Jesus said that faith, the size of a mustard seed could move mountains for you, then have you ever wondered why in the world the mountains in your life, the problems, the places that you're looking for breakthrough in, if you're wondering why they aren't moving? I mean, shouldn't a mustard seed size of faith be pretty easy to come by? Everybody can manage that, right?
In this episode today, I'm going to share some things that might make Sunday school teachers around the nation pretty upset with me.
We've been getting the whole mustard seed all wrong. We've been teaching it in a way that has created passivity, that has created laziness and that has led thousands of men and women alike to live lives frustrated because God is not answering their prayers, frustrated because their breakthrough isn't coming. And it has left us feeling like, I've done my part. I just have a tiny little mustard seed of faith.
And so God's word must mean something different or it must not always apply to me. must not always be true.
But think about it. If a tiny speck of faith could move mountains,
then why haven't yours moved? Why is your marriage still stuck?
Why has the sickness in your body stayed?
Why are your finances not thriving but capped?
So in this episode today, I'm going to show you straight from biblical Greek, the manuscripts, all of that.
that Jesus never told us anything about needing faith the size of a mustard seed.
I'm going to tell you what he really said and what he really meant when he talked about the kind of faith you and I need to have to see miracles happen.
Once you see this, it's going to change how you pray. It's going to change how you fight for your marriage.
and it's going to change how you go after miracles for the rest of your life. And it will change your track record of miracles and answered prayer. And you're going to start to see things shift.
So let's jump in.
Matt (02:27)
Alright guys, I got a little spur of the moment teaching for us here. I think this is extremely important. It's wildly important.
And I think it's another tragedy how we've been taught because the evidence isn't there. Okay, Matthew 1720. I am currently showing you the interlinear version of Matthew 1720 and
Let's see, I know this is small, but let me try to zoom in for you over here. Okay, so here's the English. I believe this is King James. Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief, verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove from here and go to a different place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible to you.
Okay, so that's your English version of Matthew 17 right there, okay? This idea of faith like a mustard seed appears twice in the gospels. Matthew chapter 17 and also coincidentally enough, or not coincidentally enough, Luke 17. So this tab is in Luke 17 verse six where Jesus is now saying,
And the Lord said, you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, might say under the sycamore tree or sycamine tree, I don't know, be plucked up by the root and be planted in the sea and it will obey. So now let's look at some of our other translations. OK, so here's Bible Gateway, Matthew 17. And let's see. So we go to like here's the amplified version. If you have faith.
the size of a mustard seed, you'll say to this mountain. ⁓ Then we have
⁓ The what is it common English version or something if you had faith no larger than a mustard seed
ESV, if you have faith, like. a couple, Amplified, CEV, both talked about the size of a mustard seed. ESV is saying just like a mustard seed. All right, let's look at a couple more, some of the bigger ones. King James does not refer to size. The message seems to kind of point to size.
had a mere kernel of faith. That's speaking of size. ⁓ NASB, if you have faith, the size of a mustard seed. And two other big ones, NIV, if you have faith, as small as a mustard seed. And NLT, if you had faith, even as small as a mustard seed. So there's a question here, gentlemen. ⁓
Is Jesus saying if you have faith as small as a mustard seed or if you have faith ⁓ like a mustard seed? This is very important and regardless of which Bible translation you personally use, I would imagine that from the way we've been taught about this concept, you might have, you probably have in your head faith the size of a mustard seed.
Even faith, even a tiny little bit of faith can do so much as moving a mountain, right? Well, I think it's important that we know, because our translations don't agree, did Jesus say faith as small as a mustard seed, or did he just say faith like a mustard seed? That's a very, very important difference. Now I want to dig into this a little bit more.
before we go a little bit deeper here.
Matt (06:42)
If you've been feeling frustrated about your progress as a man and like there's a disconnect between your inside world and the outside world. And it feels like, yeah, you might be doing all this stuff out there, but the, the real thriving that goes on on the inside, real true, happiness, joy, just flowing in confidence. It feels like that stuff is hard to come by. I want to encourage you to pick up my book, the DNA of a man.
it's going to take you through three parts, becoming a man of identity, a man of principle, and a man on mission. And this book is not your average Christian men's book that gives you all these different qualities that a good Christian man is supposed to have. And you do these things and those things and all that. This book is actually designed to help you resurrect on the inside. And especially if you've been feeling the disconnect and the pain in your marriage, because you feel like you're losing your wife's attraction and respect.
This book is going to have the answers for you. because quite often your marriage problem is actually rooted in your identity. And so I've had hundreds of men contact me and tell me, Matt, this book changed my life. Matt, this book is saving my marriage. Matt, this book actually prevented me from taking my own life. I've had people tell me that.
It's not your average churchy book. does not take you through a steps of dos and don'ts. It takes you through a process of coming alive because you see yourself the way God sees you and it's better than you've ever thought.
So click the link, tap the link in the description, head over and pick up your copy. And by the way, if it speaks to you, would you leave a review for me on Amazon? I would love it. I'd appreciate it. Bless you. Go pick it up. Join the 12, 13, 14,000 other men who've read it as well. And let your life never be the same.
Matt (08:37)
So let's just pull up the size one. ⁓ We'll do NIV. That's a big common one. So NIV, the disciples came to Jesus and said, why couldn't we drive out this demon? And Jesus said, because you have so little faith.
Doesn't that mean a small amount of faith? Because the amount of faith that you have is so small.
Okay, that's why it wouldn't work because your faith is so small. I tell you, if you have faith, even as tiny as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. Let's examine the logic here. So Jesus is saying the demon wouldn't go because you have such a small amount of faith. And then he says, Hey, but by the way,
a small, teeny, tiny amount of faith will do a ton of good stuff. That doesn't add up.
The logic doesn't make sense at all. So I guess one explanation could be, well, does that mean that that's just how teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny the disciples' faith was?
is that it wasn't even enough to amount to a mustard seed. And I would argue that that interpretation would not fit. Why, Matt? Well, I'm glad you asked because by this point, Jesus has already sent his disciples out in Matthew chapter 10 to go do several things. Preach the kingdom.
heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.
So we know in Luke that they came back rejoicing because even the demons are subject to us.
And Jesus said, well, yeah, that's incredible. I saw Satan fall like lightning. But the more exciting thing is that your names are written in the book of life. Nonetheless, I do, I have given you authority to trample serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy. So the disciples did not have so small a faith that like it wouldn't even amount to a mustard seed. They've, they've been doing stuff.
So the logic, if Jesus is referring to size of a mustard seed, does not hold up. And yet we have been taught, guys, don't worry. If you don't have a bunch of faith, it's no big deal because even the little tiny amount that you have will do a great amount. Why is this a problem? Because we have thousands and thousands of Christians who
have heard that and then they see a lack of miracles and a lack of breakthrough and they think, well, what the heck? guess God just doesn't really want to bring a lot of breakthrough because I guess the bar's not very high for what my faith needs to be and it's still not resulting in any mountains moving. So you get a bunch of disheartened people who think I'm meeting the requirements to see a mountain move.
and it's still not moving.
But what if the requirements are a bit different? So let's see if Jesus really was referring to the size of the mustard seed or not.
That would help us figure this debate out, right? Who cares what the English translators have done? What does the original say? So this is the back to the inter-linear, meaning the Greek words all lined up with what they mean in English. Okay. I have both Matthew 17 and Luke 17 right here, Luke 17 six. So if we track these Greek words,
Look at, look through this, this lower part here. Okay. Said yet the master, if you had belief as.
A kernel of mustard.
So I don't see their size, belief, the size of a kernel of mustard. I don't see belief as small as a kernel of mustard. It just says as. That's the Greek ⁓ Strong's number 5613. We'll come back to that. Let's look. Matthew 20. Jesus said to them, through your unbelief, because of your unbelief, or the unbelief of you, amen, for I'm saying to you.
If ever you may be having belief as a kernel of mustard, you shall be declaring to the mountain.
this be after, I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me. But ⁓ nonetheless, we're not seeing anything about size.
or smallness or anything. Same Greek word here as 5613. So why don't we see what that means?
Okay, so here we are in Blue Letter Bible. I am going to look up the Strong's Word. Here it is again, 5613.
And it's an adverb. Okay, I don't care about that. As, like, even as. Okay. The King James Version translates this in the following manner. As, 342 times. When, 42 times. How, 18 times. As it were, 20 times. About 14 times. Miscellaneous, 56 times.
I don't see smaller size listed there.
So these miscellaneous 56 times, I did some digging and it's never translated as small as or the size of.
Okay. ⁓ Nothing related to size here. So as means what we would expect. The same as, even as, basically equivalent to or like.
So looking at the original languages, size and smallness were not there. Jesus never said, as long as you have faith, the size of a mustard seed. This is in both places where it comes up. He never said it. We have made that up.
He only said, if you have faith like a mustard seed that is similar to the nature of a mustard seed, then you will move mountains.
very very very important so why let's keep looking okay i'm going to take you through rapid fires through some different articles and i want to show you some different qualities of mustard black mustard was the mediterranean ⁓ version of mustard a lot of a lot of it grows in california the two climates are very similar
That said that California has a Mediterranean climate and I can testify from my time in California My whole life that mustard grows all over the place and it can grow in freeway medians and all kinds of stuff in harsh environments So this first article says how invasive it is and one very interesting thing
It quickly establishes itself in disturbed areas, like after a fire or after bulldozing. Once established, these plants grow up to six feet tall, easily crowd out any other plant.
Next article, this article talks about how mustard is actually not native to California. It was brought over by the Spanish, possibly in the mission era. And yet now it would appear as though it were native. mean, you, bulldoze things, you clear lands, wildfires come through, mustard springs up. So mustard is, is, is a plant that grows voraciously. And even though it was not native,
it now acts as though it is. And this little paragraph here, once mustard takes hold in a landscape, it can be extremely difficult for native plants to return. It germinates earlier than other plants, grows in extremely dense patches, and its roots leach out allelopathic chemicals into the soil, preventing anything else from growing nearby. Field of mustard right here. It looks like the
Angeles skyline maybe. ⁓
So let's talk about this.
What is Jesus saying when he says your faith like mustard? Well, he wasn't meaning just a small amount of faith, a small little teeny tiny droplet of it. He was saying faith that is like mustard, where you need your faith to act as an invasive species, where it pushes into the environment and grows quickly. Mustard grows quickly.
and it germinates before other plants. Your faith needs to be the first thing that you come to.
And it needs to be a faith that drowns out all your other attitudes that are vying for your attention. Faith needs to be predominant. It needs to overpower everything else that would offer itself to your mind.
The kind of faith you need to move a mountain is the kind that literally poisons other mindsets so they cannot grow.
And look at these other listed articles. the, the, this next one, ⁓ black mustard grows profusely. It talks again, another article about the chemicals that prevent native plants from germinating. ⁓ it's spread can shift habitats and alter fire regimes. So another interesting thing about what it said, like it grows after the land has been disturbed.
You need the kind of faith that springs back even after challenge and setback and disappointment. You need the kind of faith that grows when it seems like nothing should.
You need the kind of faith that is so invasive into your life that it shifts entire habitats.
This is not small faith. This is a very particular type of virulent faith that will move a mountain. It's not just your average one-of-the-mill sitting in a church view and hoping that God does something faith. This is a faith that takes effort to cultivate.
That's the kind of faith that'll move a mountain.
Nothing less. So don't be discouraged if you have thought, man, only a little bit of faith should do something. It's not. It's not doing anything. And you feel like God's not working on your behalf. It's because you've been taught wrong. It's not a little bit of faith. It's a great deal of faith. It is a powerful, vibrant, strong faith.
And we've gotten it wrong.
And if you can't tell, I'm frustrated because too many of us have been misled and consequently been disappointed and disheartened and discouraged because it doesn't seem like the Bible is true or the faith that faith does anything. No, it's that we haven't cultivated the correct type of faith that Jesus said we needed.
Matt (21:51)
If you're a Christian husband who's been feeling frustrated in your marriage because no matter how hard you try to be a good, godly husband, no matter how hard you try to serve and love your wife, it still feels like you're losing more and more of her attraction and her respect every day, then I really want to challenge you to jump into the completely free training I have called Frustrated to Desired.
And it teaches you the five keys of the kingdom that are going to help you step into attractive, masculine energy. This is not a training that sometimes you'll find out there in the secular world about how to be a good man and confident and all that, which is really valuable, but it leaves you feeling, how do I reconcile this with my faith?
And it's not a Christian training that feels, yeah, Jesus is everywhere, but this is not effective for my marriage. This is actual masculine principles, helping you create polarity in your marriage so that your wife is drawn magnetically to you again. And it does so through a supernatural kingdom lens.
So that way you can go from being frustrated to completely desired by your wife. You can see a fading and end of those looks of annoyance or no looks at all, just complete shutdown. And you can start seeing that look in her eyes, like she's hungry for you. Like she can hardly contain it. Like she's melting into you again, completely free. Click the link and join me.
Matt (23:36)
So we have this other one, another black muster germinates early before natives. It can shoot up more than six feet at hogs sunlight. It develops deep roots that out compete native plants for water. And then it dries and becomes fire fuel. Your faith needs to be the first thing that you arrive at. It needs to grow and shoot up.
and be dominant in your vision. It needs to hog the sunlight and not let other things grow in your mind. It needs to develop deep, deep, deep roots that drink up the water and that prevent other mindsets from getting nourished.
and it's the kind of faith that will fuel fire.
So a lot of the same stuff here, okay? Now let's look at a little more information.
There's ⁓ even some evidence in the Talmud and Mishnah ⁓ that at times there were like guidelines for how much mustard to plant in certain fields and stuff so that the whole field wouldn't look like it was mustard or whatever. ⁓ so it just, it's so easy to grow that it takes regulation.
So it seems like you have been greatly misled. I have been greatly misled.
Jesus never said all you need is a small amount of faith. He said, the thing you need is powerful, invasive faith, the kind of faith that reshapes an environment, the kind of faith that carries the potential to crowd out everything else.
It's a very different story. So if you have been discouraged because you've been looking for breakthrough in whatever way, marriage especially, but maybe health, maybe finances, maybe other stuff, and you are like, man, I'm doing my part. I'm going to God and I'm asking. Isn't that a little bit of faith? Yeah, I would say it is.
When Jesus was asleep on the boat and the disciples started panicking and they woke him up and they said, Lord, don't you care? We're going to die. I would say that that was a tiny bit of faith because they were going to him. They had enough belief in him that they went to him to ask to solve the problem. I mean, no mere human would be able to solve the problem of a deadly storm.
Like other than like, okay, let's sail better if that's even possible. But they were going to him like, we need your help because this is a problem too big for us. That's a little bit of faith. But Jesus didn't say, good job.
The fact that you just asked me that shows me you have this faith, the size of a teeny tiny mustard seed. And so now I'm going to be able to work a miracle. No, he said, Kali, where's your faith?
He rebuked them.
for lacking faith.
Even though I would say they had a tiny mustard sized amount. But that's not what it takes.
So if you aren't seeing breakthrough in victory,
What is going on on the inside? Is your faith the kind that spreads like wildfire? Is your faith the kind that springs up quickly, that germinates and sprouts before all other plants in your mind and in your spirit? Is your faith the kind that actually kills doubt, fear?
discouragement and unbelief because your faith is so strong and powerful.
If not, then rather than sit around and in self-pity ask, why isn't God doing anything? Instead, in grit, determination, and a fierce vision for your future, ask God, Lord, show me how to grow my faith so that it becomes like a mustard seed.
and repent, Lord, I'm sorry, that I've settled for a weak and tiny faith. When you asked me to have an invasive and powerful faith, that's toxic to all negative thinking.
and then do the work to cultivate that. Your life depends on it. Your marriage is asking you for it. Your kids are asking you for it. Your future is asking you for it.
get rid of the old lies and interpretations that we've been believing.
Go with what Jesus actually said and you see victory.