Sermon Audio
January 31, 2016 Sexagesima
True Descendants
Isaiah 50:4-10, Psalm 71, 2 Corinthians 11:19-31, St. Luke 8:4-15
I’ve been reading a good bit lately about Mohammad, the prophet of Islam. Fascinating fellow. He must have been exceptional – likely a genius – as a statesman and a general. Within a hundred years of his death the religio-political system he founded in the everlasting emptiness of the Arabian Desert had overwhelmed ancient civilizations and put down roots from Spain in the West to India in the East.
When we consider Mohammad, it behooves us to keep firmly in mind that he positioned himself as successor to the long line of prophets of Judaism and Christianity. He lived among Jews and Christians in his native Mecca and later in Medina. Among his many wives were a Jew and a Christian.
Especially with regard to Christianity, he appears to have received a badly skewed version, for the Christians around him were given to the heresies of Arianism and Monophysitism, but he did know the major figures and basic tenets.
He saw himself not as the innovator of a new movement but as the final prophet of the project God – “Allah” in Arabic – had launched in the Garden of Eden. We find in the holy book of Islam, the Quran, in sura – chapter – 3: “Allah preferred Adam, Noah, the family of Abraham and the family of Imran (referring to Moses’ line) above all His creatures.”
In sura 4, Allah says, “We inspire you (O Mohammad) like we inspired Noah and the prophets after him, as (We) inspired Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, the tribes, Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron and Solomon, and as we imparted unto David the Psalms.”
In one vision, Mohammad is transported to Jerusalem, where he leads Abraham, Moses and Jesus in prayer, demonstrating that he is first among them. Jesus will go on to pay homage to him as the “seal of the prophets” – the final messenger of the will of God.
It’s a matter of great moment to Mohammad and his followers that they be recognized as members – indeed, the leading members – of the worldwide family of Abraham. Their mission is to fulfill the work Allah began in the garden and cover the earth with a caliphate that enforces his rule in this realm.
I raise the matter today because it provides a useful backdrop for considering the words of Paul from our Epistle lesson. He says of the opponents who are challenging his authority as an apostle in the church at Corinth: “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.”
As a Hebrew, he is a member of that race from whom God had promised to deliver His creatures from sin and death: Salvation is from the Jews. The Savior was a Jew, born under the law. The apostles who had been in His inner circle were all Jews. If Paul were not a Jew, his claim to apostolic office would indeed come into question.
He is an Israelite, a member of that Old Testament community that was entrusted with the covenant that had found its final form in the New Covenant of which Jesus Christ is Mediator. And he is of the offspring of Abraham. Now there’s a claim that demands our attention.
What is it to be a descendant of Abraham?
Mohammad claimed descent through Abraham’s elder son, Ishmael, as he had every right to do. In sura 19 ,the Quran names Ishmael as “an apostle and a prophet,” commendable in that “He used to enjoin on his people Prayer and Charity, and he was most acceptable in the sight of his Lord.” The Quran absorbs the Genesis account of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son but does not name the son.
From early days, interpreters have installed Ishmael in that role. His significance in the faith comes into sharper focus in the great feast that culminates the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Id al-Adha. Each pilgrim offers an animal sacrifice in remembrance of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God. In the Bible, the son in question, of course, is Isaac (Genesis 22:2).
The Jews of Paul’s day get it right, up to a point. When Abraham asked God to bestow favor on Ishmael, God promised to give him 12 sons and make him the father of a great nation – but He said the blessing He had bestowed on Abraham’s posterity would proceed through the line of Isaac.
To be a Jew, then, was to be one of God’s chosen ones. Or was it? This was the conceit of the Pharisees, and Paul takes pains elsewhere to confront it. What does it mean to be a true descendant of Abraham?
To the Romans, he says, “those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed” (9:8).
And to the Galatians: “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed’” (3:8). Further, “And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise” (3:29).
So it seems descent through Isaac, as through Ishmael, does not bestow the status of descendant of Abraham on anyone. Was Abraham born a Jew? He was not. He was born a pagan. God chose him for special service. And he is no less the father of the Jews through the line of Isaac than of the Arabs descended from Ishmael.
God brought forth life from the “dead” bodies of Abraham and his wife Sarah, both of whom were long past the age for making babies when Isaac was conceived. So, if it was not Abraham’s ethnicity that set him apart, what was it?
In the first place, of course, it was God’s election. Beyond that, it was Abraham’s faith in God’s promise to multiply his descendants as expressed in his willingness to sacrifice his son of the covenant, Isaac, at God’s command.
God names His vehicles of blessing based on His sovereign choice and on their trust in Him, expressed in their obedience to His will. But neither Isaac nor Ishmael perfected the submission of Abraham; Christ did that. Only Christ could do that.
Because He did, to belong to Christ is to be a member of the family God promised He would form, a true descendant of Abraham.
Those who came before Him are types and shadows, pointing us ahead to the One who by His perfect obedience became the head of the new race. The rebellion of Adam brought sin into the creation and into the line of his descendants.
Abraham shows us human obedience, faithful but flawed. Christ delivers divine submission, the saving kind. Mohammad’s failure to see that the final prophet must not be exalted but humbled betrays his lack of understanding.
Only One who died to save the family could take His place at the head of the family.
One way to identify godly people is to study what God puts them through.
Moses, the mediator of God’s covenant with Israel from the day he formed them as a nation until they entered the land of promise, was one such. David, the wartime ruler of the monarchy in the land, followed him. Jesus, mediator of the covenant with the New Testament Church, is another.
We now see how starkly the contrast is drawn between Mohammad and those who preceded him. Moses contested with Pharaoh as God’s emissary. He suffered no end of heartache as intermediary between Yahweh and his rebellious people.
He endured the rigors of a 40-year march through the wilderness and, upon arrival on the banks of the Jordan, was permitted only a peek into the land. God barred him from leading the triumphal procession into it because of one rash act many years earlier.
David fled from the murderous rage of King Saul, played the lunatic in a foreign land to preserve his life, collapsed under the guilt of his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah and the death of his son, ran from his capital as his son Absalom tried to usurp his throne by force.
Jesus departed the glory at His Father’s side to endure Satan’s temptation. He put up with the petty taunts, tiresome debates and brazen challenges of the Pharisees as well as the spiritual dullness of his apostles. In the end, he endured scourging, humiliation and crucifixion as payment for the sins of others. His followers suffered three centuries of persecution and martyrdom before Constantine stamped his imprimatur upon their Church.
Mohammad, after initial opposition, rode the crest of a wave he set in motion, presiding as supreme ecclesiastical and political head in Islam. He came under no chastisement from Allah and saw his vision set in place before his death.
He could point to early military successes as vindication for the righteousness of his cause. He conquered, subjugated, legislated, decreed and taxed. In large measure, he controlled his legacy through his channeling of divine revelation, the devotion of his adoring followers who propagated his legend and his embodiment of the model Muslim as enshrined in sharia, the law of Islam.
In each case, the true descendant suffered unto brokenness. When he turned away from faithfulness and allowed his fleshly appetites to move him to carnal ways, as in David’s case, he paid a terrible price.
When he submitted perfectly, as Christ did, he paid the ultimate price. Not one of those exemplars of the Old and New Testaments rode high in this life as Mohammad did.
Why? Because God is glorified not in human might but in human weakness.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul takes on those opponents who are casting him as a fraud by alleging his many failings. They call him weak, they call him a fool. Ladling on large measures of irony, he agrees. Last week, in 1 Corinthians 9, we found him exhorting his disciples to strength in the Lord’s service: Run the race to win it.
Now we discover him holding up weakness as the way of glory . . . God’s glory, not man’s. God does not rely on human strength or achievement, not even in His church. In fact, He seeks out the weak, the faithless and the hostile – was not Paul at the head of that list? – as vessels to demonstrate His own strength.
Our weakness is the place where God’s strength is perfected. If we empty ourselves of all of our strength . . . the only power remaining in us is God’s power.
What of suffering? Yes, says Paul, he has surely suffered. He has endured imprisonment, lashings – the punishment of the Jews – beatings with rods – the punishment of the gentiles – stoning and shipwrecks.
He has been in “perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness . . .”
This list enumerates many afflictions that are not chronicled in the Book of Acts. The apostle’s sufferings need an encyclopedia. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th-century London preacher, surveyed it and remarked, “We have evils as numerous as those Paul included in his famous catalogue of trials, and one peril which he does not mention, namely the perils of church meetings, which are probably worse than perils of robbers.”
Almost . . . but maybe not quite. Paul’s point is that his sufferings, rather than calling his credentials as an apostle into question, lend him legitimacy in that role. God uses them to reveal His own power and glory.
Adoniram Judson, who went to Burma to share the Good News, understood. For seven years he endured hunger and want. The worst of it came during the 17 months he spent in prison, subjected to hardship almost beyond human capacity to endure.
For the rest of his life his body bore the marks of the shackles and chains that had bound him. But his pain was almost beyond endurance.
When he was released he was ordered out of the province, whereupon he asked for permission to enter another so he might continue preaching the gospel. The governor there reacted indignantly to this request.
“My people are not fools enough to listen to anything a missionary might say,” he said haughtily, “but I fear they might be impressed by your scars and turn to your religion.”
In Paul’s day, this is what the Pharisees failed to see. Six centuries later, this is what Mohammad failed to see. Two millennia later, this is what we are in daily danger of failing to see, despite the apostle’s many warnings.
Here’s the simple, eternal truth we sin-stained wretches find so elusive in the worlds we create with ourselves at the center: God made the world and redeemed the world not that His creatures might puff up ourselves but that we might give glory to our Creator.
As long as we seek to display our own strength to reap glory for ourselves we obscure the glory of God within us. If, says Paul, his foolishness, weakness and suffering diminish him, all the better . . . because in them God is magnified.
As John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
“If I must boast,” Paul tells us, “I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.”
Who are the true descendants of Abraham? Those who are “in Christ.” For it was neither Isaac nor Ishmael, neither John the Baptist nor Paul, who perfected Abraham’s flawed human faithfulness. It was Christ, who gave up His life to save the elect. Why?
For the glory of God. If not for His saving act upon the cross the Holy Spirit could not have come to you and to me. We would never have known God. Because of our Lord’s scars, today we sing the Father’s praises. May we use our own scars to reveal Him as the One who is worthy of all honor, glory and praise. Amen.
True Descendants
Isaiah 50:4-10, Psalm 71, 2 Corinthians 11:19-31, St. Luke 8:4-15
I’ve been reading a good bit lately about Mohammad, the prophet of Islam. Fascinating fellow. He must have been exceptional – likely a genius – as a statesman and a general. Within a hundred years of his death the religio-political system he founded in the everlasting emptiness of the Arabian Desert had overwhelmed ancient civilizations and put down roots from Spain in the West to India in the East.
When we consider Mohammad, it behooves us to keep firmly in mind that he positioned himself as successor to the long line of prophets of Judaism and Christianity. He lived among Jews and Christians in his native Mecca and later in Medina. Among his many wives were a Jew and a Christian.
Especially with regard to Christianity, he appears to have received a badly skewed version, for the Christians around him were given to the heresies of Arianism and Monophysitism, but he did know the major figures and basic tenets.
He saw himself not as the innovator of a new movement but as the final prophet of the project God – “Allah” in Arabic – had launched in the Garden of Eden. We find in the holy book of Islam, the Quran, in sura – chapter – 3: “Allah preferred Adam, Noah, the family of Abraham and the family of Imran (referring to Moses’ line) above all His creatures.”
In sura 4, Allah says, “We inspire you (O Mohammad) like we inspired Noah and the prophets after him, as (We) inspired Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, the tribes, Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron and Solomon, and as we imparted unto David the Psalms.”
In one vision, Mohammad is transported to Jerusalem, where he leads Abraham, Moses and Jesus in prayer, demonstrating that he is first among them. Jesus will go on to pay homage to him as the “seal of the prophets” – the final messenger of the will of God.
It’s a matter of great moment to Mohammad and his followers that they be recognized as members – indeed, the leading members – of the worldwide family of Abraham. Their mission is to fulfill the work Allah began in the garden and cover the earth with a caliphate that enforces his rule in this realm.
I raise the matter today because it provides a useful backdrop for considering the words of Paul from our Epistle lesson. He says of the opponents who are challenging his authority as an apostle in the church at Corinth: “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.”
As a Hebrew, he is a member of that race from whom God had promised to deliver His creatures from sin and death: Salvation is from the Jews. The Savior was a Jew, born under the law. The apostles who had been in His inner circle were all Jews. If Paul were not a Jew, his claim to apostolic office would indeed come into question.
He is an Israelite, a member of that Old Testament community that was entrusted with the covenant that had found its final form in the New Covenant of which Jesus Christ is Mediator. And he is of the offspring of Abraham. Now there’s a claim that demands our attention.
What is it to be a descendant of Abraham?
Mohammad claimed descent through Abraham’s elder son, Ishmael, as he had every right to do. In sura 19 ,the Quran names Ishmael as “an apostle and a prophet,” commendable in that “He used to enjoin on his people Prayer and Charity, and he was most acceptable in the sight of his Lord.” The Quran absorbs the Genesis account of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son but does not name the son.
From early days, interpreters have installed Ishmael in that role. His significance in the faith comes into sharper focus in the great feast that culminates the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Id al-Adha. Each pilgrim offers an animal sacrifice in remembrance of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God. In the Bible, the son in question, of course, is Isaac (Genesis 22:2).
The Jews of Paul’s day get it right, up to a point. When Abraham asked God to bestow favor on Ishmael, God promised to give him 12 sons and make him the father of a great nation – but He said the blessing He had bestowed on Abraham’s posterity would proceed through the line of Isaac.
To be a Jew, then, was to be one of God’s chosen ones. Or was it? This was the conceit of the Pharisees, and Paul takes pains elsewhere to confront it. What does it mean to be a true descendant of Abraham?
To the Romans, he says, “those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed” (9:8).
And to the Galatians: “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed’” (3:8). Further, “And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise” (3:29).
So it seems descent through Isaac, as through Ishmael, does not bestow the status of descendant of Abraham on anyone. Was Abraham born a Jew? He was not. He was born a pagan. God chose him for special service. And he is no less the father of the Jews through the line of Isaac than of the Arabs descended from Ishmael.
God brought forth life from the “dead” bodies of Abraham and his wife Sarah, both of whom were long past the age for making babies when Isaac was conceived. So, if it was not Abraham’s ethnicity that set him apart, what was it?
In the first place, of course, it was God’s election. Beyond that, it was Abraham’s faith in God’s promise to multiply his descendants as expressed in his willingness to sacrifice his son of the covenant, Isaac, at God’s command.
God names His vehicles of blessing based on His sovereign choice and on their trust in Him, expressed in their obedience to His will. But neither Isaac nor Ishmael perfected the submission of Abraham; Christ did that. Only Christ could do that.
Because He did, to belong to Christ is to be a member of the family God promised He would form, a true descendant of Abraham.
Those who came before Him are types and shadows, pointing us ahead to the One who by His perfect obedience became the head of the new race. The rebellion of Adam brought sin into the creation and into the line of his descendants.
Abraham shows us human obedience, faithful but flawed. Christ delivers divine submission, the saving kind. Mohammad’s failure to see that the final prophet must not be exalted but humbled betrays his lack of understanding.
Only One who died to save the family could take His place at the head of the family.
One way to identify godly people is to study what God puts them through.
Moses, the mediator of God’s covenant with Israel from the day he formed them as a nation until they entered the land of promise, was one such. David, the wartime ruler of the monarchy in the land, followed him. Jesus, mediator of the covenant with the New Testament Church, is another.
We now see how starkly the contrast is drawn between Mohammad and those who preceded him. Moses contested with Pharaoh as God’s emissary. He suffered no end of heartache as intermediary between Yahweh and his rebellious people.
He endured the rigors of a 40-year march through the wilderness and, upon arrival on the banks of the Jordan, was permitted only a peek into the land. God barred him from leading the triumphal procession into it because of one rash act many years earlier.
David fled from the murderous rage of King Saul, played the lunatic in a foreign land to preserve his life, collapsed under the guilt of his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah and the death of his son, ran from his capital as his son Absalom tried to usurp his throne by force.
Jesus departed the glory at His Father’s side to endure Satan’s temptation. He put up with the petty taunts, tiresome debates and brazen challenges of the Pharisees as well as the spiritual dullness of his apostles. In the end, he endured scourging, humiliation and crucifixion as payment for the sins of others. His followers suffered three centuries of persecution and martyrdom before Constantine stamped his imprimatur upon their Church.
Mohammad, after initial opposition, rode the crest of a wave he set in motion, presiding as supreme ecclesiastical and political head in Islam. He came under no chastisement from Allah and saw his vision set in place before his death.
He could point to early military successes as vindication for the righteousness of his cause. He conquered, subjugated, legislated, decreed and taxed. In large measure, he controlled his legacy through his channeling of divine revelation, the devotion of his adoring followers who propagated his legend and his embodiment of the model Muslim as enshrined in sharia, the law of Islam.
In each case, the true descendant suffered unto brokenness. When he turned away from faithfulness and allowed his fleshly appetites to move him to carnal ways, as in David’s case, he paid a terrible price.
When he submitted perfectly, as Christ did, he paid the ultimate price. Not one of those exemplars of the Old and New Testaments rode high in this life as Mohammad did.
Why? Because God is glorified not in human might but in human weakness.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul takes on those opponents who are casting him as a fraud by alleging his many failings. They call him weak, they call him a fool. Ladling on large measures of irony, he agrees. Last week, in 1 Corinthians 9, we found him exhorting his disciples to strength in the Lord’s service: Run the race to win it.
Now we discover him holding up weakness as the way of glory . . . God’s glory, not man’s. God does not rely on human strength or achievement, not even in His church. In fact, He seeks out the weak, the faithless and the hostile – was not Paul at the head of that list? – as vessels to demonstrate His own strength.
Our weakness is the place where God’s strength is perfected. If we empty ourselves of all of our strength . . . the only power remaining in us is God’s power.
What of suffering? Yes, says Paul, he has surely suffered. He has endured imprisonment, lashings – the punishment of the Jews – beatings with rods – the punishment of the gentiles – stoning and shipwrecks.
He has been in “perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness . . .”
This list enumerates many afflictions that are not chronicled in the Book of Acts. The apostle’s sufferings need an encyclopedia. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th-century London preacher, surveyed it and remarked, “We have evils as numerous as those Paul included in his famous catalogue of trials, and one peril which he does not mention, namely the perils of church meetings, which are probably worse than perils of robbers.”
Almost . . . but maybe not quite. Paul’s point is that his sufferings, rather than calling his credentials as an apostle into question, lend him legitimacy in that role. God uses them to reveal His own power and glory.
Adoniram Judson, who went to Burma to share the Good News, understood. For seven years he endured hunger and want. The worst of it came during the 17 months he spent in prison, subjected to hardship almost beyond human capacity to endure.
For the rest of his life his body bore the marks of the shackles and chains that had bound him. But his pain was almost beyond endurance.
When he was released he was ordered out of the province, whereupon he asked for permission to enter another so he might continue preaching the gospel. The governor there reacted indignantly to this request.
“My people are not fools enough to listen to anything a missionary might say,” he said haughtily, “but I fear they might be impressed by your scars and turn to your religion.”
In Paul’s day, this is what the Pharisees failed to see. Six centuries later, this is what Mohammad failed to see. Two millennia later, this is what we are in daily danger of failing to see, despite the apostle’s many warnings.
Here’s the simple, eternal truth we sin-stained wretches find so elusive in the worlds we create with ourselves at the center: God made the world and redeemed the world not that His creatures might puff up ourselves but that we might give glory to our Creator.
As long as we seek to display our own strength to reap glory for ourselves we obscure the glory of God within us. If, says Paul, his foolishness, weakness and suffering diminish him, all the better . . . because in them God is magnified.
As John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
“If I must boast,” Paul tells us, “I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.”
Who are the true descendants of Abraham? Those who are “in Christ.” For it was neither Isaac nor Ishmael, neither John the Baptist nor Paul, who perfected Abraham’s flawed human faithfulness. It was Christ, who gave up His life to save the elect. Why?
For the glory of God. If not for His saving act upon the cross the Holy Spirit could not have come to you and to me. We would never have known God. Because of our Lord’s scars, today we sing the Father’s praises. May we use our own scars to reveal Him as the One who is worthy of all honor, glory and praise. Amen.