Why God Welcomes People with Messy Pasts| Broken Branches

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity

Sermons. This week we are continuing our sermon

series Broken Branches where we are looking at

Jesus's family tree. And today we come to one

of the first non -Israelites in Jesus's family

tree, but also one of only a few women who show

up in this family tree. But why is she there?

And what does she have to show us about Jesus's

family line and this new family that Jesus is

building with all of us? That's what we'll talk

about in today's sermon. Our reading for today

is from the book of Joshua, chapter 2, verses

Joshua 2:1–14

1 to 14. Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent

two spies from Shittim. Go look over the land,

he said, especially Jericho. So they went and

entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab,

and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told,

look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight

to spy out the land. So the king of Jericho sent

this message to Rahab. Bring out the men who

came to you and entered your house because they

have come to spy out the whole land. But the

woman had taken the two men and hidden them.

She said, yes, the men came to me, but I did

not know where they had come from. At dusk, when

it was time to close the city gate, they left.

I don't know which way they went. Go after them

quickly. You may catch up with them. But she

had taken them up to the roof and hidden them

under the stacks of flags she had laid out on

the roof. So the men set out in pursuit of the

spies on the road that leads to the forts of

Jordan. And as soon as the pursuers had gone

out, the gate was shut. Before the spies lay

down for the night, she went up on the roof and

said to them, I know that the Lord has given

you this land and that a great fear of you has

fallen on us so that All who live in this country

are melting in fear because of you. We have heard

how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea

for you when you came out of Egypt and what you

did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites

east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.

When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear,

and everyone's courage failed because of you.

For the Lord your God is God in heaven above

and on the earth below. Now then, please swear

to me by the Lord that you will show kindness

to my family, because I have shown kindness to

you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare

the lives of my father, my mother, my brothers

and sisters, and all who belong to them, and

that you will save us from death. Our lives for

your lives, the men assured her. If you don't

tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly

and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.

The word of the Lord. If you come to Trinity

Streetsville like you did this morning on a Sunday

morning, you are going to be met initially by

somebody at the outside doors. They're going

to open the door for you and they're going to

invite you to come on in. And then there might

be somebody inside the door to shake your hand.

And then as you walk closer and closer to the

sanctuary, you'll probably hear some music coming

out of here. There'll probably be a bit of a

buzz that's generating as you get a little closer.

And then pretty soon, hopefully you feel just

warmly welcomed and you're getting it. excited

for the service and that's when you run into

this guy. one of our check -in stations. A check

-in station is basically like a tablet or a little

computer with the world's cutest little printer

attached to it. And at first, it might seem like

this is the least welcoming thing that we could

do on a Sunday morning. Welcome to Trinity Streetsville.

Please give us your name and phone number, right?

But let me tell you, actually, there's a couple

good reasons why we encourage people to check

in here at Trinity. The first is because it actually

allows us to care for you a bit better. When

people check in and we know you're here and we

know you're part of the Trinity family, then

we can serve you better. We can reach out to

you better. We can connect with you more. It

helps us actually care for our growing community

when we check in. But the second reason why we

encourage people to go to the check -in station,

and let me just demonstrate this for you. So

if you go to the check -in station. You put in

the last four digits of your phone number. You

guys know this. And then you pick your name out

of there. And then you press the button. Look

what happens. It prints out. A little sticker.

A little sticker for you. It's not just a sticker.

It's got a name on it. And it's not just any

name. It's your name. And so you get to put that

little sticker on you. And now all of a sudden,

you know what? You're not just another face in

the crowd. Right? We start to actually move from

being strangers to being community. And we start

to become a community where we know and we recognize

and we get to know each other. We never, ever,

ever want to pressure people to check in if you're

not comfortable with it. But there's actually

a really good reason we do it. You know, it's

not very many places you go where you get a little

label, a little name tag. You don't get one at

Tim Hortons when you go there. They don't do

that for you at Walmart. It's kind of a Trinity

thing. if you will. But that actually might not

be true. That might not be true because even

though we don't walk around with little stickers

stuck to our clothing, we all do wear labels.

labels on us right because as we go through life

we we pick up these labels and sometimes those

labels stick to us for a very very long time

and some of the labels that we have are labels

that have been given to us by others this is

what others think of us Sometimes those labels

are actually given by ourselves. It's what we

think of ourselves. So we label ourselves. And

sometimes those labels are actually well -earned,

right? We've done some things to earn those labels.

But other times, those labels are actually unfair.

And we really wish that we could just peel them

off and forget about them altogether. Because

we don't want to be labeled like that. And I

want to also say is that just because you can't

see a label doesn't mean that it isn't there.

So many times we want to hide these labels that

we carry with us because as we approach someone,

we don't want them to reject us or think differently

of us. And when we approach God, we don't want

God to think differently of us or God to reject

us. Okay, so we're in the middle of this teaching

series that we're doing throughout Advent and

Christmas. It's called Broken Branches. And what

we're trying to do is we're trying to look at

the Christmas story from a different angle. Matthew's

angle. You see, the gospel writer Matthew, he

didn't start his Christmas story the way you

think. He didn't start with angels and shepherds

and wise men or the baby Jesus. No, he starts

with a long list of names, a family tree, the

genealogy of Jesus. And you and I would think,

well, that's not a very good way to hook your

audience. But he knew who his audience was. His

audience was primarily Jewish people. And for

Jewish people, it was really, really, really

important. that if they were to believe that

Jesus was the Messiah, that Jesus was connected

to King David, because all Jewish people knew

that the Messiah was supposed to spring from

the root of Jesse, from the line of King David.

And so what Matthew is doing by putting down

all these names in this long, long genealogy

is he's trying to say, see, everybody, look,

Jesus is connected to all the right people. He's

connected to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and

Jesse. and David. He's connected to them all.

He's connected to the right people. He's legit.

But in the course of doing that, Matthew also

does something very interesting. Not only does

he show us that he's connected to all the right

people, but he actually shows us that Jesus is

connected to a whole lot of the wrong people

too. Lots of people in Jesus' family tree. are

people with labels, bad labels, labels you don't

want, people with histories, messy, messy histories.

And ancient historians, they would normally have

just edited out all that embarrassing, those

embarrassing details and those seedy stories.

But Matthew seems to do just the opposite. He

says, hey, everybody, gather around, gather around.

I want you to look at him. Take a good look at

her and what she did. Why? Why does he begin

this way? Why does he begin by showing us these

kind of details? Let's just remember where we've

been so far. This is how Matthew starts his gospel.

He says, this is the genealogy of Jesus, the

Messiah, the son of David. See, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the

father of Jacob. Jacob, the father of Judah and

his brothers. And if you were here last week,

you'll remember we learned a bit about Judah.

And man, oh man, Judah had a lot of labels. If

we were to have hooked Judah up to this cute

little printer, it would have... Send out a label

like Judah the liar. Judah the betrayer. Judah

the unfaithful. Judah the hypocrite. If you missed

that teaching, you can visit our website. You

can visit our YouTube channel and catch up. But

Judah did horrible things to his brother Joseph.

He did horrible things to his daughter -in -law

Tamar. But Matthew doesn't hide it. No, no, no.

Matthew says, hey, look. See what Judah did.

See this seedy story with Tamar. He puts all

this stuff in the family tree. Why? Well, as

we've been learning, it's because Jesus didn't

just come for sinners. Jesus came from sinners.

And Matthew wants to make something very clear

right at the beginning of the Christmas story,

right at the beginning of his story about Jesus.

And it is this, that this is not a story about

how good people... Earn their way to God. This

is a story about God's grace and God's love and

how that grace and love comes crashing in to

the broken branches of this family tree. It carries

on. The family tree carries on. Judah was the

father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was...

Tamar, that's the one we learned about last week.

Perez, the father of Hezron. Hezron, the father

of Ram. Ram, the father of Amminadab. Amminadab,

the father of Nashan. Nashan, the father of my

personal favorite, Salmon. Love Salmon. Nashan

was the father of Salmon. And Salmon was the

father of Boaz. And this is where he should have

stopped, right? He should have said, Boaz, the

father of Obed. Obed, the father of Jesse. Da

-da -da -da -da. But... He does it again. He

says, Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Now, that

is a problem. And Matthew didn't have to tell

us that, right? He could have just carried on.

But no, he pauses and he wants to name her. And

the reason this is a problem is because Rahab

has a label. And many of you here know Rahab's

label. Now, to be fair, Rahab is not the only

person in the Bible. who had a label. So, for

example, Jesus had a cousin. His name was John

the? That's right. And next week, we're going

to learn about a guy whose name was Uriah the?

Oh, some of you knew it. Uriah the Hittite. Come

next week, and I'll tell you all about him. Or

what about this guy, Alexander the? Right? These

are great labels. How about Attila the? Or how

about Buffy the? Yeah, yeah. Or how about Dora

the... And one more, Jabba the... Right. I think

those are all in the Bible, but I could be wrong.

But I'll tell you one I know 100 % for sure is

in the Bible, and that is Rahab. And she's a

problem for the family tree of Jesus. And she's

a problem because of the labels she wears. In

fact, I would say to you today that Rahab actually

wears three different labels. The first is Rahab

the outsider. Right? She's not even Jewish. I

don't know why Matthew is going to include her.

All he's proving is that Jesus doesn't come from

a pure bloodline. But he wants to include her.

That's a bit of a problem. Right? Second, Rahab's

second label is Rahab the enemy. Not only is

she a foreigner and outsider, but she's a Canaanite.

And right at this moment in the story, Israel

is about to go to war against the people of Canaan.

They're meant to drive these people out of the

land. So she's an enemy, but none of Rahab's

labels stick quite like this one. She was Rahab

the prostitute, right? Or Rahab the harlot. Rahab

the hooker. Rahab the sex worker. Rahab the woman

of the night, right? And the Bible... I mean,

why does Matthew highlight this? Because the

Bible has so many bad things to say about prostitutes.

I'm just going to share you one verse from the

book of Proverbs. It says, For the lips of a

prostitute are as sweet as honey, and her speech

is smoother than oil, but in the end she's as

bitter as gall, sharp as a double -edged sword.

Her feet go down to death, and her steps lead

straight to the grave. We need to tread pretty

carefully here because we know that prostitution

is a very complicated and painful reality. Scriptures

like this don't give us permission to dehumanize

or oversimplify or to shame people who are in

prostitution, right? People end up in prostitution

for all kinds of reasons. They end up for poverty

or coercion. People sometimes become prostitutes

just because of abuse or addiction or just to

survive, maybe, right? Or there are whole, you

know, rings and trafficking groups that try to

trap and exploit people like Rahab. But that's

the thing about labels. Nobody cares about the

backstory. Nobody cares about the nuances of

how you got there. Just give us the label. Oh,

yeah, she's Rahab the prostitute. And it's a

label that followed her her whole life. And so

her presence here, it raises a really interesting

question. Why would Matthew deliberately put

the spotlight on someone like Rahab at the start

of the Christmas story? And again, it's because

Matthew wants us to realize that she is not just

one more person who's part of the story, but

she is the very point. of the Christmas story.

She's the very point of the Jesus story. So let's

talk about Rahab's story a little bit, okay?

Let me tell you that about 1400 BC. The people

of Israel freshly released from their captivity

in Egypt. They're still trying to figure out

what it means to be God's people. And they're

wandering and they're heading to the place where

God promised that he would give them. A land

of their own, the land of Canaan. They're finally

coming home. Some estimates say there was maybe

2 million of them or 3 million of them. And as

they're about to enter into this promised land,

one of the first obstacles they encountered was

that there was a city right there filled with

Canaanites. and it was the city of Jericho. And

so Joshua, who has taken over for Moses, he sends

two spies to go check things out in the city

of Jericho. And so these guys, they slip into

Jericho. They're not exactly James Bond material.

They're discovered pretty quickly. And so word

gets out to the king. Hey, guess what? There's

two Hebrew spies, and they've come in to kind

of spy out the land. And the king of Jericho

says, well, go find them. Go get them. Bring

them back to me. And so the search begins. And

just before sundown, someone says, I think I

saw those two spies. And I think I saw them duck

into that house over there, the house that's

built right into the city walls. And that house

happens to be the house of Rahab. And so the

guards, they go up to Rahab's house and they

knock on the door. And I mean, the Bible doesn't

say they knock on the door, but I think it's...

It's probably just a good idea that if you're

going to a prostitute's house, you should knock

on the door first. You never know what you're

going to find in there. And so Rahab answers

the door. And they say, hey, the king of Jericho

sent this message. He said, bring out the men

who entered into your house because they have

come to spy out the whole land. But Rahab answers,

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those men were here, but

they're not here anymore, right? They left. They

left just before the city gates closed, and if

you hurry, you might catch them. Now, this is

a lie. The spies are hidden upstairs, and it's

a lie. And in many Bible studies, this is where

it gets real quiet in the room, and somebody

puts up their hand, and they say, So, is it okay

to lie? And you know what? We'll ask that question

when we get to heaven, I guess. But it is a lie.

The guards leave. Rahab goes upstairs. And this

is where the story starts to get interesting.

We read that before the spies lay down for the

night, she went up to the roof and she said to

them, I know that the, and this is an important

word, I know that the Lord has given you this

land. Now, in your Bible, that word Lord is in

all capitals because it is the sacred name Yahweh.

It is the divine name of God. It is a name that

many Jewish people to this day will not say out

loud. How did Rahab know this word, know this

name? She grew up in a house with little idols

and gods and household gods and fertility gods.

That was her idea of what a god was. But now

she uses this word. And we don't know what language

she was saying it in. We don't know the exact

words she spoke. But she has some kind of knowledge

of... of this Yahweh and some kind of faith in

this Yahweh God. She knew this God wasn't like

her other gods. Now, how does she, how does she

know this? Well, she says, I know this. I know

that the Lord is giving you this land because

we have heard, we have heard how the Lord dried

up the waters of the Red Sea when you came out

of Egypt. This is pretty amazing. What is Rahab's

Faith in Yahweh based on? It is based not on

theology. It's not based on scripture. It's not

based on any experience. Her belief in Israel's

God is built entirely on what she has heard.

Stuff she's heard from travelers, rumors, secondhand

information. And yet, that little bit that she

has heard is enough to convince her there is

something different about this God. And she continues

on. She says, we heard. We heard it. And our

hearts melted in fear. For the Lord your God

is God in heaven above and on earth below. And

now it's really interesting because these are

two different words for God. There's that word

Yahweh, again, the Lord, but then there's your

God, which is another Hebrew word Elohim, which

is kind of small g God. Anyways, this is all

just a very cumbersome way for Rahab to say that

your God is greater than all the other gods that

I've known. And again, she doesn't know the Mosaic

law. She doesn't know anything about the covenant.

She has never read the Bible. She doesn't belong

to a life group. She's never listened to a podcast.

She's never taken Alpha. Rahab's theology would

never survive Professor Stratus's theology class

down at Wycliffe College, right? She didn't know

much about God, but she knew enough. She knew

enough to trust him. She says, I don't know.

I don't know much. But what I do know is your

God's powerful and your God's real. And maybe

she'd also heard that this God affords a greater

dignity to women than a life of prostitution.

I don't know. But she says, I know that I would

be safer with that God than anywhere else. Some

of you this morning, you're exactly where Rahab

is. You don't know much about this God that we've

gathered. To learn about, right? You don't know

much about the Bible. You really don't know where

to start with Jesus or the church. You've got

all these questions. You've got all these gaps.

You've got all these doubts. And that's okay.

Because so did Rahab. She didn't know much either.

But she knew enough. to be able to place her

life in God's hands. And she stepped toward this

God that she barely understood. And this God

met her where she was. And he'll meet you too.

Because even a small amount of faith, when it's

placed in the right God, is enough. Partial faith

is enough. Incomplete faith is... Half -formed

faith is enough when it's placed in the right

God. It's enough to save. It's amazing. It's

amazing. Anyway, Rahab continues, Please swear

to me by the Lord that you will show kindness

to my family. Now, this word kindness is the

Hebrew word hesed. What she's asking these spies

to do is accept her. But even a little bit more

than that, to be faithful to her. She's not saying,

hey, do me a favor. This is Rahab actually asking

for a relationship, covenant relationship. She's

asking them to see her more than her label. And

these spies, they see past the label and they

reply, our lives for your lives. Yes, yes. We

bind ourself to you. And that is a shift from

a woman with a label to someone who belongs.

In this interaction, something profound has happened.

Labels are falling off all over the place. She

stops being Rahab the prostitute. They stop being

just a couple of Hebrew spies. and they all become

people who are seeking God, Yahweh, together.

And that matters so much for us as a church,

because we're supposed to be a place where labels

also fall off. Not your name tag. We don't want

your name tags to fall off, although they sometimes

do. But we want to be a community where we're

not just welcoming people, or we're not just

tolerating people. We want to be a community

that replaces labels with love a community where

relationship comes before reputations where there

is this grace that just binds us together no

matter who we are anyways this is where Rahab's

faith starts to get a little bit dangerous she

she lets them down by a rope through the window.

She helps them escape. You know, up to this moment,

she could have changed her mind. She could have

backed out. She could have pretended nothing

happened. But once she lets them down through

that wall, now there's no going back. This is

not just belief anymore. This is a commitment.

She's all in here. She's risking her life. She's

risking her family. She's risking everything

for this God she barely knows, whose name she

can probably barely pronounce. But she knows

this. She knows that her future is safe with

this God. I want to say to you, faith always

involves taking some kind of risk. Now we're

going to come to the part of the story where

most of you know the best. It's the fall of Jericho.

You probably sang a song about this in Sunday

school if you went to Sunday school. When the

walls came a -tumbling down. But I'm not going

to say much about it. And it's not because it's

not important, but it's because we don't have

time. And this whole thing deserves a lot more

time because there are some serious questions

here. Questions about violence in the Bible.

Questions of some people have accused of ethnic

cleansing. There's even questions technically,

like how did the walls of Jericho come falling

down anyways? It is a strange story. It is a

thorny story that modern people. rightly struggle

to understand. But we're going to have to skip

it because here's where I want to focus, that

right in the middle of that battle and in the

bloodshed, a promise is kept. Joshua gives this

command, go into the house of that prostitute

and bring her out and all who belong to her.

And then we read that Joshua spared Rahab the

prostitute. There's that label. It'll be with

her for 2 ,500 years. But there it is again.

And all her family who belonged to her. But perhaps

the most beautiful line in this whole story is

the one we didn't even really get to today. And

that is this. And she, Rahab, lives among the

Israelites to this day. She doesn't just survive.

Now she belongs. This prostitute, this foreigner,

this enemy now belongs to God's people. And a

thousand years later. When people finally sat

down and read Matthew's genealogy and they came

to Rahab's name, yes, it made them very, very

uncomfortable, but they would also be reminded

of how God's love is greater than labels. And

that is the story that Matthew wanted to tell.

It is the story of Christmas. And if there was

a sequel to this story, it would definitely be

a Hallmark movie and it would go a little something

like this. One day, my man named Salmon, meets

Rahab. And, oh, you know, they start talking.

They go on a few walks together. They have coffee.

And then they start to have a... a few dinners.

And then one day, Salmon says to Rahab, you know,

would a girl like you ever be interested in a

guy like me? And then he pops the question, and

she says yes. And then they have a baby, and

they name that baby Boaz. I don't know why they

picked Boaz. I would not have picked Boaz, but

they said, we're going to call him Boaz. And

Boaz grows up to marry a lady named Ruth. And

Boaz and Ruth become the great grandparents of

King Which means that Rahab, her label doesn't

just get removed. It gets completely rewritten.

And now the entire genealogy of Jesus the Christ

goes right through her. Just proving again that

God's love is greater than our labels. Okay,

it's a great story. As we close, I just want

to say that that story is actually not too different

from your story. Or my story. Because like I

said, most of us come into this place this morning

and we're wearing some kind of a label, right?

And maybe it's a label that you picked up somewhere

in your past. Or maybe it's a label that just

kind of came to light more recently. I don't

know. Maybe it's a label that everyone knows

about. Or maybe it's one of those labels that

you keep totally secret. But if we had to kind

of plug you into the label machine and plug your

heart in there, what would it spit out? Maybe

the label with Mike the manipulator. Chad the

cheater. Gary the greedy. Aaron the addict. Faith

the unfaithful. And you might assume, gosh, I

can't let anyone see that label. I can't let

God see that label. He wouldn't accept me. If

I try to approach God with this thing stuck to

me, first thing he's gonna see is my label and

he's gonna reject me. But in Christ, as we've

learned, we receive a new name tag. Bzzz, forgiven.

Bzzz, accepted. Bzzz, loved. Okay? Matthew had

a label too. Do you know that? Remember? Matthew

the tax collector. Matthew the sellout. Matthew

the trader. Matthew the crook. He had all these

labels. And actually, it's no surprise, therefore,

that Matthew is the one who tells us this story.

And he's the one who makes sure that Rahab's

name makes it into the genealogy. He's the one

who wants us to see that right from the very

beginning. Your labels don't get the final word.

Grace does. And that should change the way you

approach Christmas this year and every year.

The message of Christmas is not, what have you

done for God? Or even, what can you do for God?

Or what is the good life that you have lived

for God? The message of Christmas is what God

has done for us in Jesus. God deals with our

sins. He changes our hearts. He replaces our

labels. And then we begin the slow work of living

into who we're truly meant to be. That relationship

with God. So, Christmas says, your label is not

your identity. Grace is. So, let's go from this

place and live as the people. that God says we

are. Thanks be to God. Amen. Thanks for tuning

in to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.

This sermon was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville

in Mississauga, Ontario on December 14th, 2025.