No Apologies

Islam

Hey all!

We are going to be wrapping up our series No Apologies tonight.

If this is your first time here, we are looking at other religions and seeing how they stack up to Christianity.

We have studied Atheism/Agnosticism/ Mormonism/ and last week we covered JW’s with the help of Natalie!

This week we are finishing up with Islam.

Islam is a very large faith.

Islam actually means “Submission to God” Therefore they are known as someone who strives to submit to God.

Those who practice Islam neither worship Muhammad (The founder of Islam) nor pray through him.

Islam solely worship the unseen and omniscient creator, Allah.

Over 1.6 billion people practice Islam.

People who practice the Islamic faith are known as Muslims.

Some Famous Muslims are:

Dr. Oz

Muhammad Ali

Shaquille O’Neal

DJ Khalid

Let’s find the common ground:

Muslims believe that there is one God.

Muslims believe that Jesus existed and should be respected.

Muslims believe that there will be a final judgement day.

Things that we will disagree with:

Muslims don’t believe that Jesus was crucified (or even killed for that matter), whereas the Bible teaches He was crucified on a cross at the place called Golgotha (John 19:16-18).

Muslims believe that salvation is available through works, whereas the Bible teaches that salvation is available by grace through faith alone, totally apart from works (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Muslims believe that Islam is the one true religion, whereas the Bible teaches that salvation is not found in following religion, but through a relationship with Jesus Christ (Acts 14:6; Acts 4:12).

Now before we go any further, I want to tackle a couple misconceptions.

Muslims are terrorist.

While there are some radical groups of Muslims that identify more as terrorist that is not the base of the religion.

It is very similar to how in Christianity we have people who are extremist that go and hold up signs that says “God hates Gays.”

While we see that and are deeply saddened by supposed believers doing, I think Muslims see radical groups and think the same thing.

Muslims worship the same God as Christians

They call their god Allah.

So lets talk about the history a little bit.

Here is a brief history of Islam, some more of what they believe and how we can reach Muslims for Jesus.

Muhammad was born to a powerful tribe in Mecca around 570 AD.

When he was roughly 40 years old, he began hearing voices and having visions.

Seeking clarity, he would go meditate on a mountain.

He thought he was going crazy, but his wife would comfort him with the idea that it was from God.

An angel appeared to him and gave him some revelations.

These early revelations became the basis of Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an.

The Qur’an would be the equivalent to our Bible.

These revelations were strange for the people of his time, because he lived in a very polytheistic world, and his visions were very monotheistic.

Polytheism is the belief that there are multiple gods.

Monotheism is the belief that there is one god.

Muhammad and the people who believed these new revelations about God began to be persecuted and were ostracized from Mecca.

They were pushed out until they became big enough to violently take back Mecca.

Islam has grown exponentially.

However, like any religion, there are different factions.

In Islam, the major sects are Sunni and the Shiites.

The Sunni makes up 90% of all Muslims in the world, and the Shiites are only 10% and are mainly found in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi-Arabia.

Today, Muslims are all around the world.

A Muslim’s hope is for Shari’ah, the complete rule of Islamic Law in the world.

They are trying to accomplish this by seeking more converts.

They do this by attacking other religious systems, typically through spreading the message of Islam (kind of like evangelism).

However, a minority do this violently, as we have seen in the news in the past.

All Muslims, for the most part, believe in the Five Pillars of Islam.

These acts constitute the foundational works of a Muslim.

To be a Muslim is to perform these particular deeds.

Shahadah: The Confession.

This confession, or phrase, is recited and repeated.

“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.”

With a single recitation of this simple profession of the Islamic creed, a person can convert to Islam.

Salat: A Ritual Prayer.

Five times a day Muslims face Mecca in prayer, no matter where they are in the world.

The prayer typically consists of a profession of the words Allahu Akbar (“Allah is most great”), followed by bows and recitations of the Qu’ran.

Sawn: which is fasting.

Each Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, all Muslim adults are expected to abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset.

This is a time for reflection and discipline ended by a three-day “Feast of the Breaking of the Fast,” a holiday in many countries.

Zakat: The Giving of Alms.

This was originally a way to deal with economic issues.

This is a tithe of all your wealth and possessions.

In some countries, it is imposed by the government, while in other countries, it is more voluntary in nature.

The tithe goes to everything from helping the poor to helping those fighting for a religious cause.

Hajj: This is the pilgrimage to Mecca.

This is a trip every devout Muslim is called to do. Each year, millions of Muslims head to Mecca to visit holy sites and do spiritual activities. Some even go too Medina to visit the tomb of Muhammad.

Some believe that Jihad is the sixth pillar.

The word “jihad” to many Americans means “Holy War.”

This word reminds Americans of 9/11 and the planes that were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

However, “jihad” is the Arabic word for struggle or striving.

For many Muslims, that can mean three things: the militant (combative) use of the term, the inner struggle of the individual Muslim to submit to Allah, and/or the communal struggle of living in an Islamic society.

There is so much that we could keep talking about, but for now I think this will work.

Now, I’m going to address a couple of topics:

Muslims don’t believe in original sin.

Original sin is the idea that because Adam ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden, we all inherit at birth a sin nature.

For Christians, this is where our understanding of how and why God saving us begins.

A wrong understanding of sin always results in a wrong understanding of salvation.

What I mean by this is, when you start to mess around with the idea of how sinful we are, how we become sinful, or believe sin is not a big deal, it snowballs and changes how salvation works.

The book of Galatians is an amazing book to being with then we are analyzing the claims of Islam.

We used this same verse when we talked about Mormonism.

Galatians 1:8–9 ESV

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

While this is the start of Galatians— Paul really goes on to refute many of Islam’s core beliefs.

In Galatians is explicitly rejects the exaltation of Ishmael over Issac as the promised son (Gal 4:21-31).

It also gives explicit testimony to the Fatherhood of God (Galatians 1:1, 16; 4:6).

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:1, 4; 3:1).

The covenant keeping nature of God (Galatians 3:15-29).

And how we are all are fundamentally in rebellion against God without Jesus (Galatians 5:16-24).

All of these are clearly rejected in Islam.

Even more helpful is Galatians’ emphasis on justification by faith apart from works.

For Christians, salvation is a free gift from God.

We don’t earn our way too heaven by what we do.

It is 100% through what Jesus did for us when we believe.

With Islam and other work-based religions, they teach that we have to earn our status for salvation.

We have to become good enough.

And this is the fundamental issue with all other religions.

Buddhists believe in a disciplined life.

Mormons believe in baptism and good works.

Muslims believe in prayers, professions, and pilgrimages.

All these religions are founded on man’s attempt to please God through our works.

But look at 2 Corinthians 5:21

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

A true Muslim doesn’t know if Allah will ever show them mercy to allow them to enter paradise after death.

Muslims hope that their good works outweigh their bad works.

Even then, Allah still might not show them mercy.

If you want to engage your Muslim friends, you must do a couple things.

The first is to know what you believe.

Studying their religion will help, but that is not as important as knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ and understanding His Scriptures.

The way the U.S. government knows how to spot a counterfeit bill is not by understanding the fakes but by studying the real thing.

The counterfeits are easy to spot when you really know the real thing.

Read your Bible.

Remind yourself of the gospel.

Know what you believe.

Secondly, love them, and do not stereotype them.

If you are just trying to prove other people wrong, you are not doing it out of love but out of pride.

Islam is one of the largest religions in the world, and the odds of your interacting with someone who either is or grew up Muslim is not completely unusual.

Loving them towards Jesus will be an effective tool in a world that wants to simply spread hate.

As we finish this series, I hope you have picked up on a theme.

It is helpful to know what other people believe, but what is really important is to truly know what you believe and why you believe it.

It is easy to spot inaccuracies when we know the truth.

It is one thing to come to church with your parents it is another thing all together to come on your own because you actually believe, you have a faith in God.

We have learned about other religions and I believe that we can learn something from the other religions we did learn from:

From Atheists and Agonist— we can learn to dive in and seek truth.

Mormonism— we can learn to be bold in our faith, if we believe that our faith is true, then it should move us to be bold and share with others.

Jehovah Witness— Have a strong reliance on God’s word and they also want to see others believe.

Muslims— Make time to pray and they are not afraid of what others think.

What all these four religions really teach me is that people are searching for the truth.

People want truth.

People are drawn to the spiritual.

2.3 billion people identify as Christians

God will place people in your life to give you an opportunity to share the gospel with them.

No one in your life is there by mistake.

I hope that you’ll start to really dive in and discover what you believe and why you believe it, so that when people who believe something differently come in your life, you are not swayed.

When we come back after breakout night and Easter!

We are going to be starting a series on relationship

We would love to hear your thoughts on this and be able to answer any questions that you may have.

So WE are going to be sending our a survey that you can ask questions and share your thoughts.

Be on the lookout over the next week to be able to submit your questions.

We want to do our best to cover the questions that you have.

And that survey will be active the whole series as well.

Enjoy breakout night next week!

And we will see you after Easter!

Know that you are loved!