Download Message Transcript 11/15/2009

Please find the insert in your worship flier. It gives you an outline of today’s message so you
can follow along. On the back is a daily guide to help you in your study of the Bible. Each day
you get a verse and a few questions to help you better understand what you’re reading.
Will you read this together with me? (1 John 4:17-18a) – This is how love is made complete
among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like
Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…
This has been our theme passage for this series, and it seems so relevant to what we’re talking
about today. There is a whole lot of fear around the subject of Islam today … and certainly not
entirely unjustified. Muslims now make up about 23% of the world’s population. That’s one
Muslim for every four people. The population of Muslims in Europe is projected to hit 55
million this year … and the biggest trend among Muslims in Europe is radical Islamic teaching.
I doubt I have to make much of a case this morning for the importance of understanding what
Muslims believe and how we can positively influence that culture with a gospel of peace.
Islam is based on the teachings of a man named Muhammad who was born in Mecca in the year
570 A.D. At the age of 40, Muhammad began having visions … he called them visitations …
and he believed these visions were from God. He claimed to have talked with the angel Gabriel
as well Jesus, Moses, and Abraham. And … he claimed to have climbed a ladder to the seventh
heaven. Muslims believe the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was built on the site of his
ascension when he visited heaven, and that’s why they are so protective of that site.
At the time Muhammad lived, Mecca was mostly polytheistic. People worshiped lots of gods.
Muhammad preached that there was one, true God … who in Arabic is called Allah. People
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didn’t believe him, and Muhammad realized that to spread his beliefs, he needed a platform …
so by the year 622, he had gained political power over Mecca … and then he began to enforce
his beliefs. So this is key: The word "Muslim" means someone who has "submitted" …
specifically, someone who has submitted to Muhammad and his version of God.
I want to introduce you to two Muslim students I interviewed. One was born in Pakistan but
grew up in Atlanta and the other is from Turkey and has been in the U.S. for two years. They
will talk about several major themes in Islam, beginning with their holy book, the Quran.
VIDEO CLIP #1 – Quran
The word Quran means “recitation.” See … Muslims believe the Quran is the perfect word of
Allah and that Muhammad simply recited what he heard from God. I’m guessing most of us in
this room have never read any of the Quran, but many Muslims have read at least parts of our
Bible. The Quran actually quotes … and sometimes misquotes … our Bible. For instance, the
Quran says that Jesus did not die on the cross and that he was not the Son of God. The Quran
says our Bible teaches that Mary is part of the Trinity … and for every misquote, Muslims say
it’s the Bible that’s wrong, not Muhammad. So … one of the best ways we can talk with
Muslims about truth is by asking them what they know about our Bible and by sharing what it
actually teaches … especially about Jesus.
Muslims are required to do five things in order to be faithful. These five things are called the
five pillars of Islam. The first pillar is the confession of faith … which for a Muslim is this
statement: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger.” If you can say that
from your heart and believe it, you’re a Muslim. Because Muhammad was a student of the
Bible, though not a great one, I wonder if he got that idea of confession from our scriptures.
Paul wrote to the Romans that (Romans 10:9-10, NLT) – If you confess with your mouth that
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Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing
with your mouth that you are saved. That’s something else we can mention to Muslims … the
way we come to faith is the same … by confession. A big difference is that for Christians, faith
is everything. For a Muslim, its one of five pillars. The first pillar is confession.
The other four pillars of Islam are: Prayer. Five times a day, facing Mecca. Tithing. At least
2.5% of your total wealth every year. Fasting, during the month of Ramadan. And Hajj, the
pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime, if you can afford it. The focal point of Mecca is
the Kaaba, the "House of God" believed to be built by Abraham and his son Ishmael.
So what do Muslims believe about Muhammad? Well, they believe he was sinless, but not
divine … the last prophet God sent to earth. Here’s how a Muslim talks about Muhammad.
VIDEO CLIP #2 – Muhammad
(PICTURE OF MUHAMMAD) Did you catch what they said … that Islam started not with
Abraham or Ishmael (Abraham’s son) and not even with Muhammad … but with Adam?
Remember that as we watch this next clip, about Jesus and the nature of God.
VIDEO CLIP #3 – Jesus/ God/ Trinity
Muslims believe that like Muhammad, Jesus was a prophet but not the Messiah. And not as
great a prophet as Muhammad. It’s interesting to me … that while Muslims would say
Muhammad was the greatest because he was the last … we would say Jesus is Messiah because
he was the first. John tells us the Word was God and the Word was with God from the
beginning. So Jesus, for us, is the fountainhead. All truth flows from the Father through the
Son.
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Probably the biggest issue Muslims have with Christians has to do with the nature of God. The
fact that we see God as a complex being with a complex nature. We call it the trinity, or triunity. We believe that God is not a simple unit but a complex unit. And even though the word
trinity isn’t there, the concept of it is all through the Bible. In the creation story, God refers to
himself in the plural. He says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” And he
creates a man with a body, a spirit and a personality or what some call a soul. So we understand
God as a complex being in the same way we see it in ourselves. The Shema … that passage in
Deuteronomy we talked about last week … begins: "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the
LORD is one!" There are two Hebrew words that translate as “one” … one of them refers a
simple unit. The other is a word they use to talk about a complex unit. In the Shema, the word
used for one … “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” … is the word for a complex unit.
When the angel spoke to Mary, the mother of Jesus, he told her (Luke 1:35) – The Holy Spirit
will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be
born will be called the Son of God. In that one verse, we see the whole nature of God … who is
Spirit and Most High and Son of God. Look at the scene where Jesus is baptized (Matthew
3:16-17) -- As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven
was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And
a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." In that
one scene is the Father, the Son and the Spirit … One God, with a complex nature and the
power to be in three places at once. I wish I had time to show you how God has demonstrated
his very nature in the laws of physics. They now have proof that one particle can be in two or
more places at once. God has built this concept … the very nature of his being … into even the
smallest particles of his creation.
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The last word of Jesus over his disciples in Matthew is the great commission (Matthew 28:19) Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit. Any religion that does not acknowledge this complex and powerful
nature of the one, true God … and that does not submit to that great commission … is not of
God. Which begs the question: Is the Muslim God the same as our God? We both
acknowledge Abraham as a spiritual father … we both worship one God. But … suppose you
met someone on the street and in the course of the conversation you discovered this person
attends Mosaic. So you ask them, “Do you know Carolyn?” And they say, “Of course. Tall …
reddish, brown hair. Talks on Sundays. Yes, I know her well.” So you say, “Well, then, you
must know her husband and daughter also.” And this person says, “Nope. The Carolyn I know
doesn’t have a husband or daughter. I’ve been to her house. I’ve read what she’s written. I’m
absolutely certain that she is single and childless.” You respond, “No, actually, I’m certain that
the Carolyn who pastors Mosaic in Evans has a husband and daughter. I’ve seen them. I’ve
talked to them. I’ve also been to her house and I know they live there.” Clearly one of you is
wrong. One of you is either talking about a different Carolyn, or you are grossly mistaken
about her life.
That’s what I would say about the Muslim God. Either they are talking about a different god, or
they are grossly mistaken about who he is. In either case, they deserve our prayers. Because
everyone deserves to know the one, true God who has come to us in the person of Jesus and
who lives with us through the Holy Spirit.
I asked our Muslim guests one last question, and I want to share that with you before we finish:
Video Clip #4 (“What do you wish …”)
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Remember that the word Islam means submission? As in, submission to Muhammad and his
version of God. His goal was to replace one way of thinking with another … by force. That’s
largely how Islam has spread from the beginning. In the span of a decade Muhammad fought
eight major battles, led eighteen raids, and planned another thirty-eight military operations.
Islam did not begin as a fundamentally peaceful religion. And Muslims would have a hard time
understanding how a country can function without religious control.
I believe Muslims need to know the Prince of Peace … the one Isaiah wrote about (Isaiah 9:6) For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And
he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. This
is the true nature of our God. He came to bring peace. Paul said (Colossians 3:15) - 15Let the
peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. I
believe this is where we need to take a stand. God calls us to be peaceful and compassionate
people, but compassion is not the same as tolerance. Josh McDowell says, “Tolerance is an
insult to people. It degrades people. Never once in the Bible am I called to be tolerant. I'm
called to be loving.” In other words, we’re not called to ignore violence and forced submission.
We’re not called to tolerate people with that belief system. We are called to be loving, and in
this context, “loving” means honest, direct conversation about truth. What does that look like?
I got this from Jay Smith, who has been ministering to Muslims in Europe for twenty years. He
talks about how we in the West can have a more constructive conversation with our Muslim
brothers and sisters. You might want to write these down.
1. Be honest and direct about what you believe. Its not wrong to openly talk about your
faith with Muslims or anyone. People hunger for truth. Give it to them.
2. Act like you believe what you profess. Its okay to be passionate about your faith.
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3. Defend Christianity. Don’t just listen politely. Our faith is worth defending.
4. Be honest about untruths that Islam claims about Jesus, Christianity and the Bible.
I was able to talk very openly with the young woman I interviewed about the lack of
women’s rights in Islam. And she was very into the conversaton.
5. It is not loving or Christ-like to hate people. So love the people, but hate the lies.
Hold Islam itself accountable for the actions of its followers. It is the Quran that teaches
violence and inequality. Islam should be held accountable for that.
I wish someone had talked honestly with that guy at Fort Hood who killed twelve people two
weeks ago. What he got from his American community was tolerance, but that wasn’t what he
needed. And we all pay for those mistakes.
I have a prayer for the all the people in this world who live in that kind of spiritual desert … for
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … who are desperately searching … for all those
who are looking for Jesus whether they realize it or not … so desperate for truth that they will
cry out in crazy ways. Let’s pray for those who are in that battle. Pray that they will find the
Prince of Peace. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will have mercy on those who live without
peace. Pray for God to give us courage enough to love them home.
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