Rahab

My name is Jared Severson. I'm here on the elder team here at Hope Heights, and I'm excited to be walking through the Bible with you this morning. As I thought of this question before we get to our Bible passages this morning, as I thought of this question, one of the things that my family really likes to do is we like to spend time watching fail videos. I don't know if anybody else has this hobby, but we have family fail nights where we just sit around and watch YouTube and watch fail army and other fail videos. And. And the first thing that came to my mind when I hear that word legend is there's a video. There's a video. And unfortunately, I had this video, but we were having some technical difficulties, so we're not going to get to watch this fail video this morning. But the guy on the ground, his name is Bill. And whoever's recording this starts off this video clip saying, bill, you're such a legend. This is a great idea. Now, I don't know if this was a Covid project or what, but this is clearly a homemade zip line. And I always thought. And Aaron, in the back, we were talking about this this morning. We always thought that Bill was the person up on the zip line. Bill's actually the guy on the ground. And so as you listen to this, the person starts out, bill, you're such a legend. This is a great idea. Bill then says, we need to get a new handle for this. And the person's up there just kind of, should I go? Should I not go? Should I go? And the person recording them says, you'll be fine, Reina. And then as soon as she goes, you can kind of guess what happened. She just comes crashing down to the ground. Nobody was hurt. You know, you get that disclaimer. No one was hurt in this video. But these are, you know, this is kind of a maybe a sick little twisted family experience that we have is watching these fail videos. But anyways, that was the first thing that came to mind. Not my family, obviously. One of my favorite family stories or say. Or that actually is one of our favorite family sayings, when somebody's going to do something dumb is we look at each other and we say, bill, you're such a legend. This is a great idea. Real story that has been passed down from generations in my family was actually about my great grandfather. His name was Soren. He was from Norway. He was the first in our family to immigrate from Norway to America. Word was that he was just this super big, strong dude, part of his routine exercise was to pick up large rocks around the family farm and just carry them around the property. So legend has it that he was the last and only person to be able to lift this one particular rock. And so this was me by that rock. So in 1999, I went to Norway with my mom, and we visited the old family farm, and this was the Soren Rock, as it was called. Obviously, I had to try my hand at breaking this legend or becoming the family legend as well, or become legendary in the family. But as you can see, I was not very big. Still not very big. And there was no moving that rock, no matter how hard I tried there. I do like when you hear that story. I like to think of my great grandpa as being kind of the world's strongest man, Just this true Viking. It's fun having those stories then that we can kind of pass from generation to generation. And so, speaking of stories like that, we are in a sermon series this summer called Cloud of Witnesses, where we look and highlight some different stories, kind of like we did in the Acts series this spring. We want to look at different people and understand that, you know, it's not about superheroes. You know, it's not about true Vikings like this doing fantastic things. It's about extraordinary people or ordinary people do having an extraordinary God kind of work through them. And that's what our intent is with this series. You know, how do we, as ordinary people or how do ordinary people in the Bible actually point us to an extraordinary Jesus? And then how is Jesus and the gospel reflected in kind of their lives and journeys? And so when I first knew that I was gonna be preaching this Sunday, a few weeks back, I went to my daughter Hannah, and I asked who some of her favorite people in the Bible were. And the first person that she said was Rahab. And so that's who we're actually going to look at today, the story of Rahab. And I want us to focus on these ideas of faith and legacy. Kind of as we walk through her story, there's going to be a lot of parallels. It was really cool as I looked through it over the last couple weeks, just seeing all the parall Rahab and her story and Jesus. And it'll be easy to listen to the story and kind of ask ourselves, you know, how can we be more like Rahab? Which really isn't a bad thing in a lot of ways. But I would rather ask us, how does Rahab actually point us to Jesus instead? And so how does this incredible story of somebody that we wouldn't expect. And you'll see that as we read through it, how does she allow God to work in her? And how does God work in her? And then how does that lead us to kind of the cross of Jesus? So before we start with Rahab's story, I do think we need some kind of a quick context and quick background to this. And so we are going to look at Joshua just briefly here. So Joshua was an advisor to Moses. Moses was leading the Israelite people, led them out of Egypt and then led them through the desert as they were kind of wandering the desert. And so when Moses died, God appointed Joshua as kind of his successor. And so Joshua was a military leader who had shown faithfulness to God in lots of different situations. And so therefore he was appointed to lead the Israelites to actually cross over the Jordan river, go into the land of Canaan which God had promised. That was the Israelites promised land. So in Joshua chapter one, maybe there we go. Joshua chapter one, God tells, Whoops, going slow here. Oh, come on. There we go. Joshua chapter one. It says, I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite country to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life, as I was with Moses. So I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. So God tells Joshua to prepare his people because they're going to go to the promised land. Joshua knew that preparation was important. Before any military action, you need to have a plan. So it would be beneficial for the Israelites to know what they're getting into as they kind of cross the Jordan River. They should know about, you know, the enemies, the defenses, that they have fortifications, how their troops move, what the morale of the people is. And so Joshua sent some spies to scout out the land that Israel was going to attack. And so that then takes us to the story of Rahab. So we're going to read her story from Joshua chapter two. And again, rather than reading, or rather than reading the whole story today and then going back and kind of making some observations, I'm just going to stop us periodically as we go through and just kind of make those observations as we go. And again, want to look at Rahab's story here and kind of see how does that point us to Jesus in the gospel. So here we go. Joshua, chapter two. 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. Right there, just in that first verse. It maybe doesn't seem like it, but there's a lot packed into this first verse. So first of all, if you're like me and you weren't really quite sure, Shittim is where the Israelites were camped. So that was on the east side of the Jordan River. The promised land was on the west side of the Jordan River. And the Israelites have been wandering around the desert for 40 years. Shittim was the last place that they had settled. So we didn't read it in Joshua 1 before we got to this. But before this, Joshua specifically tells the people, get all your provisions, get everything all ready to go, because in three days we are going to enter the promised land. That's super exciting. If you are an Israelite person, that's super exciting because you've been wandering this desert for 40 years. You've been wandering around the wilderness for 40 years not having a real home, and now you're being told, three days, we're going, and we're going to our promised land, what God has promised to us. So it's finally time. And Joshua, being the planner and the strategic military leader that he was, sent those two spies ahead of the group to go and just kind of collect information. And so specifically he says, focus on Jericho. Well, Jericho was the largest settlement and the closest kind of obstacle, or that first obstacle to where the Israelites were entering the land. And so that's probably why he says, go specifically to Jericho, because that's that first big city on the west side of the Jordan. So when they get to Jericho, I imagine the spies put their hoodies up, they creep around the city with their heads down. You got a creep, creep. Anybody know that? It's amazing how many little sayings that our family has from videos and movies and things like that, like the bill, you're such a legend. So extra treat after church, if anybody can tell me the reference for you got a creep creep. Anyway, the spies were creeping around the city, doing their best to collect intel while not attracting attention. Usually the idea of a spy is you don't want a lot of attention. And so eventually it gets to be evening, they go to Rahab's home, the house of a prostitute. Probably chose if we asked that question, why Would they go to Rahab's house? Probably go to Rahab's house because the anonymity that's afforded its visitors, most people that are going to Rahab's home probably don't want to be known. And so it turns out that Rahab's house, which we'll read later on, is actually a very strategic location, because we'll read later on that her house was part of the city wall. And so it would have been easy for the spies to escape if they needed to get out of town quick. It's right on the edge the city wall, that if they were detected, they could easily get out, rather than if they were staying somewhere kind of centrally located in the city. So now we might ask that question, or I know I did. Why would God have chosen a prostitute? So digging into this question, I found that there's a lot of scholars, there's a lot of people that claim that Rahab was maybe more of an innkeeper rather than a prostitute. However, from my limited understanding, just kind of looking into it a little bit more, the language in Hebrew and Greek, both were words that do refer to Rahab as a common prostitute, not a temple prostitute, and kind of the Canaanite pagan worship, and not as an innkeeper as well. So she was a prostitute. Why? Could be that she was a widow, or her family might have been extremely poor. We do know that Rahab lived in a extremely kind of patriarchal society, so there weren't a lot of options for women to make a living. Whatever the reason was. I do think, though, it was very important to kind of the significance of this story. So the main character in this portion of God's kind of overall redemptive story is someone who had a multiple strikes against her kind of in life and in the culture that she was living at the time. She was a woman, she was a prostitute, and she was from this foreign pagan country. And so most people would turn a blind eye to her, but God doesn't. And that's the gospel right there. God doesn't look down on those that need him. He loves those that are scorned and marginalized and wants them to be part of his story. And so as we dig further into this passage, I hope that itself can kind of help us save or help us have some empathy for Rahab, and in turn, maybe even some people in our own culture that we might tend to look down upon. And so God has the ability to work in somebody's life, no matter their circumstances. As we continue in verse two, we see 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 might catch up with them. But she had taken them up on the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof. So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan. And as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. So this doesn't specifically say how it happened, but somebody noticed the spies and then alerted the king of Jericho. And so the king sent for the men at Rahab's home, came asking for her to bring them out. This was a military act, military, again, kind of strategy, in the way that we don't want information to get sent out of Jericho. We don't want this information to go to the Israelites. And so the king wasn't just asking for the spies so he could send them on their way. He wanted to kill them. Okay. If Jericho was going to survive, those spies couldn't get out with the information that maybe they had obtained. So instead of turning them over, however, Rahab bent the truth a little bit. Okay. She said she didn't know where the spies went. She misdirected the king's men to go chasing after them, which they did. So, again, thinking about connecting to the Gospel, here, we already see a parallel between Rahab and Jesus. Rahab saves these spies when they were in grave danger, just like Jesus saves us from death. We'll get to that in a little bit, Johann. Nikolai Madvig says when Rahab hid the spies, she sided with Israel against her own people. It was an act of treason. So this was a big deal for her to lie and tell the king's men that she didn't know anything about them and they left. This was a big deal. She put the lives of herself, she put the lives of her family on the line. It was super dangerous for her to do this and tell the king's men that she didn't know who they were, where they were going, or where they had gone. So. And that kind of brings us to a quick bunny trail that I really did get stuck on this week. And I don't want us. We're not going to spend tons of time on it. But the question is it okay to lie? So a lot of questions can come up with in regard to this. Is deception the same thing as lying? Is withholding facts the same as dishonesty? Do the ends justify the means? We could go on and on with kind of those questions around kind of lying. And there are lots of commentaries and lots of resources with so many different answers and perspectives about Rahab's choice to lie. Hear me when I say that I am not condoning lying, but I can think of a lot of situations where I would probably lie to protect my family, just like Rahab did. So I might do that, even though I know one of the Ten Commandments tells us, you shall not bear false, false, false witness against your neighbor. Proverbs 12:22 says, the Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy. So how do we view this lie? I think we treat it as sin, which is just like the prostitution that Rahab was engaged in. It's against that act. The act of telling a lie, excuse me, is in opposition to God's holy character. However, despite sin, God chooses to work. And so that's our next gospel connection. We're all sinners and we all fall short of the glory of God. And while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us. God works in us. He works in Rahab, or he's working in Rahab, as we're seeing here, while we're in the midst of our sin. While she was in the midst of her sin, Rahab's not perfect, I'm not perfect. All of us aren't perfect. We live and she lives in sin, she lives under sin. And it's only through faith that any of us are saved. And that's a super cool transition. So even though Rahab was a reflection and a parallel to Jesus and she saved the spies, she still needs saving herself. So she still needs saving from the king and she still needs saving, which we're going to see from the Israelites nation as well as they're coming in to conquer kind of their promised land. So to end the time in our bunny trail, I want to look at this quote. David Guzik says the Bible simply reports Rahab's lie. It does not praise it or excuse it. Perhaps if she beforehand determined in her heart not to lie in obedience to God, he would have made a way for her to preserve the life of the spies without lying. Rahab's lie is not justified, but it does show courage and faith. And so we need to consider in this story that Rahab was a pagan sinner in a city and culture completely given over to the worship of false gods and immorality. It was said in a sermon that I heard years and years ago, back when we were downtown. I don't remember who was preaching and who said it, but they said, we can't expect non Christians to act like Christians. I think we often. I know I too often expect people without a saving faith to act like they're saved. And I think that fits with Rahab here too. Nothing about Rahab's life up to this point should bring us to an expectation that she would do anything different. However, despite her circumstances, she made a conscientious decision to hide the spies and send the king's men on a wild goose chase. And so that that lie, although again, not condoning it, was an act of faith in the God of Israel and who God was. So, moving on to verse eight in Rahab's story, Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, this is kind of cool. Now she's given her reasoning for why did she hide them and why did she misdirect the king's men? 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've 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. Rahab again tells us why she did what she did. She's expressing a knowledge in all that God can do and then confessing her faith in this to her foreign God, this God of Israel. Rahab, most likely, excuse me, most likely would have heard these stories about the Red Sea, about Sihon and Og and others from kind of these people, these men that frequented her house, that were in and out. And so, as many of us know, news travels fast. She also knows the Canaanites, and she's reporting here that the Canaanites are melting in fear. We heard of it our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage failed because of you. They know that God is greater than their gods. They know that God's done miracles for the Israelites. They've heard it. They know that God had promised their land to the Israelites. They're scared. This is good intel for the spies. This is some of that information that they want to hear. It's maybe not that strategic kind of battle plan, military type intel. Excuse me, but the spies certainly are learning that morale is low in Jericho. So the spies are starting to realize, I would imagine, that God's doing a work in that land for their benefit. This was kind of the information that Joshua is sending them together. But Rahab doesn't stop there. She goes a step further and doesn't just say how scared everyone is. She then expresses that knowledge and belief in the God of Israel, the Lord. Your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. That's an amazing statement when we think about it. Rahab and all of her sin and all of her circumstances and all the cultural pressures and scorn and shame that she maybe was feeling or knew she was proclaiming that the God of Israel was the creator God of all. Moving on in verse 12. 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 and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death. So this is a woman now again, that has no previous contact with the word of God or the things of God, who's proclaiming her faith out of a knowledge of who God is, out of a deep, deep love for her family, and out of a desire to be saved. Rahab's doing her gospel turn. So even though she's a reflection of Jesus and save the spies, again, she's not Jesus and she needs saving herself. So Rahab recognizes that and she's expressing this desire to leave her sinful life behind, her culture behind, and live with God's people like Rahab. We need saving from death, and it's only out of faith in our God and his promises that we are saved. Adam Clark says this confession of a true God is amazingly full and argues considerable light and information, as if she had said, I know your God to be omnipotent and omnipresent. And in consequence of this faith, she hid the spies and risked her own life doing so. This is the reason why Rahab did What she did, she completely believed in her heart that this was the only way she and her family were going to be saved. And she'd do anything to make that happen. Moving on, in verse 14, it says, Our lives for your lives. The men assured her, if you don't tell what we're doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land. What an act of mercy. Spies could have easily looked at her and who she was and just treated her and her family like the outsiders and enemies and said no to her pleas. However, they acted mercifully and in gratitude. So if you read more into the book of Joshua, if you read farther along in it, you'll notice there's a lot about the judgment of Canaan, Canaan and kind of God's judgment on the land. But here in this kind of first major story in the book of Joshua, it's about mercy to an outsider, a prostitute, a liar, somebody that we wouldn't expect. And so, once again, that's the gospel right there, highlighting how merciful God, or how merciful God is and how we're all offered that mercy and that grace despite our sin and despite our circumstances. So she let them down by a rope through a window. For the house she lived in was part of the city wall. As we mentioned before. She said to them, go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there. Three days until they return, then go on your way. So Rahab here now is continuing to protect those spies. So, like the spies could have said that Rahab was on her own and she had to protect her own family. She could have just let them walk out the front door of her house, find their own way to the city gate, and somehow sneak out. But there was a trust now that was between both of them, both the spies and Rahab. And instead she lowers them out through the window. You see, again, a lot of parallels to later on, like with Paul in Acts, but she lowers them through the window since the gates. We had read earlier that the gates were already shut. She also gave them a plan for how they could continue to avoid the king's men. So this action, again continuing to protect the spies and tell them is a result of her faith, her belief in the power of God, the God of Israel, that was causing so many others that were living around her to just simply melt in fear. And so this was now compelling her to act to protect those men. James, chapter two states that faith without works is dead. So Rahab is exemplifying kind of what it means to live out your faith, how you take a newfound faith and you act upon it. And so it's cool just kind of seeing that development just in this quick story. Moving on. Now, the men had said to her, this oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless when we enter the land, you have tied the scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down. And unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house, if any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads. We will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear. Spies didn't know yet what God was going to do. Does anybody remember what happens with Jericho? The song? Yeah, everybody's. Maybe some of you are starting to sing that song. The walls come tumbling down. Spies didn't know that was going to happen yet. So they didn't know this miracle. So for them, they were probably assuming we're going to go into Jericho and we're going to just start going home to home and battling. And they're telling Rahab, just stay in your house. And this scarlet cord is what's going to be the symbol for our army to just spare you and spare that particular house and everybody in it. So Rahab now is all in. She's completely put all her hope and trust in a small little piece of thread that was going to be hung in her window. Now this again is really cool. There's so much parallel and there's so many connections in this story. This is amazing imagery of just that little scarlet thread and being a callback kind of to the Passover. So if you remember, and this is again maybe some of these stories Rahab has heard, but before the. Before the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the book of Exodus, 40 years before Rahab. So 40 years previously, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. Before they had wandered the wilderness through a series of plagues. If we remember, Pharaoh finally released the Israelites from their captivity. Final plague, which was the death of all firstborn by the angel of death, passed over the Israelites homes because they took the blood of a sacrificial lamb and they spread it around their doorposts. So after letting the Israelites go, Pharaoh had a change of heart, chased them down. However, God parts the Red Sea, allowing the people to walk through on dry land. And this is the story then that Rahab was referring to, saying, we've heard this. We know what your God can do. So when Pharaoh and his army then chases into the Red Sea after them, the waters return, drowning Pharaoh and his army. So this was a story again that had spread across this region and caused those Canaanites to melt in fear. Now, similarly, we see Rahab's family spared from destruction, spared from death by this little red cord hanging from her window. Such a cool parallel. The Israelite army would spare her family from destruction and death just because that thing was hanging out of her window. This also then foreshadows and connects to our gospel. Only through the sacrifice of Jesus, the blood of the true Lamb of God, that we can be spared from death. So Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. Our sin, like Rahab's lies, like her prostitution, deserve death. We can't save ourselves. We can't work harder. We can't trust in cultural idols. We can't run away. God, like the Israelite spies did for Rahab, has provided a way of salvation. Romans 6:23 continues by telling us that only in Jesus Christ our Lord, do we find a way out of death and receive that gift of eternal life. So God showed his love and mercy for us by sending his only son to die in our place as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus blood on the cross, that's what allows death to pass over us if we just place our trust and our belief in him, similar to how Rahab placed her trust in that little blood red cord to save herself and her family. That's the gospel that Rahab points us towards. The last verse in our little section here, Rahab says, agreed. She replied, let it be as you say. So she sent them away and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window. So she agrees to the plan. She says, let it be as you say. She ties the cord in her window. Rahab's completely in. She's completely given herself over to faith. There's nothing that she can do now to save her family or herself other than kind of follow that plan and completely trust that it's going to work out. Theologian Charles Spurgeon stated that Rahab tied the Scarlet lion not in some secret part of the house, but in the window. It was her public declaration of faith. So this concludes kind of the bulk of our story of Rahab. Now, if this were a TV episode, this would be like the Cliffhanger, you know, the season ending. Cliffhanger like, well, what happens? What's next? Were they actually saved? Do the Israelites attack Jericho? I asked AI to write a poem for me to kind of summarize the next season. It's actually pretty good. So here's our poem. It says, from hills they crept the spies with tales to tell of Jericho's fear A city bound by spell To Joshua, they spoke of what they'd seen the trembling hearts, the terror sharp and keen Then Joshua rose, his voice a steady call Tomorrow God will work Amazing things for all A promise whispered carried on the breeze as Israel looked to heaven on their knees with Ark before them sacred and serene they followed close A faithful marching scene While Jericho's gates in fear were tightly barred A city trapped, its destiny unmarred as yet six sons they walked in silence day by day around the walls a patient ordered way no battle cry, no weapons clang in might Just circling steps beneath the fading light the seventh dawn, a different rhythm drew one final round as trumpets pierced the blue A mighty blast and shouts that rent the air and Jericho's walls they crumbled then and there. So Jericho was defeated Its walls came tumbling down. Later on in Joshua chapter six. I do want to just highlight these couple verses here, because that's going to continue with us kind of talking about Rahab. But later on in Joshua chapter six, it says Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her in accordance with your oath to her. So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and her mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside of the camp of Israel. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it. But they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord's house. But Joshua spared Rahab, the prostitute with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho. And she lives among the Israelites to this day. Rahab should have been condemned to death along with the rest of the Canaanites. She was living a life that was contrary to the very nature of God. However, because of her faith and belief, her life was spared and she and her family and everyone who belonged to her were saved. It does mention that Rahab and her family were put outside the camp. This was because they needed to become ritually clean, kind of in within the Jewish law. But once they were, quote, unquote, cleansed, we see right at the end that she and her family lived among the Israelites to this day. So she and her family lived as part of the Israelite nation. Rahab happens to be the first recorded Gentile, which means a person outside the Jewish faith or Jewish nation to be converted to the nation of Israel. So it doesn't mean that there weren't others, but hers was the first recorded conversion. So her faith brought her to God and to his community of believers, where she lived and thrived. She did her gospel turn, and she fully embraced her new faith in its people. Which gets us to the final part of Rahab's story. Once she became part of the Israelite community, Rahab actually got married to a guy named Salmon. Salmon. I don't know how you pronounce it in Hebrew. I guess a couple generations later, they had a great grandson. Ooh, that picture's a little blurry. Named Boaz. If you recall, Boaz marries Ruth, which is another. If you want to go back and read another good story. The story of Ruth is another great story of redemption and kindness. So Ruth and Boaz get married. They have a son named Obed. Obed has a son named Jesse. Jesse has a son named David, and King David and all those others are ancestors of Jesus. And so the Gospel of Matthew actually starts off in chapter one by listing a genealogy of Jesus. And Rahab is listed right near at the top, right at the beginning. That's super cool. Okay. It's super cool that God would take a prostitute and put her in his plan to bring his son into the world as our ultimate savior. What a legacy. When we talk about legacy, that is an amazing legacy. Rahab in Joshua was called the prostitute. In Matthew, Rahab is the great, great, great, lots of greats grandmother of Jesus. Only God can change those labels like that and rewrite stories. That ancestral line shows how God's amazing grace and mercy works across centuries and throughout generations. Rahab's done a lot of worse things, a lot of bad things. But her legacy is Jesus legacy. Can you imagine little Jesus running around with his friends, telling how his great grief getting lots of greats? Grandma risked her life to help some actual spies right before a city that she lived in was attacked and destroyed. And that action, like, saved her life. And that's quite a family story to have later on in the New Testament. In Hebrews chapter 11, it tells of many players throughout history that have exemplified kind of this faith in action. Oftentimes that chapter is called the hall of Faith. Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. Those are all some examples of people that are in chapter 11. When you get to verse 31. In chapter 11, we hear a familiar name by faith. The prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who are disobedient. So it was because of her faith that Rahab didn't die with the other Canaanites who refused to believe her past. All the things that she'd done did not disqualify her from playing a vital role in biblical history. Rather, God elevates that prostitute, that liar, that sinner, that outsider, that outcast to this place of honor gave her a plaque in the hall of Faith. God uses ordinary sinners for his glory, just like Rahab. Paul writes in First Corinthians 1:26, 29 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him. Not many are noble, mighty, wise in the world's eyes when we enter the kingdom of God. But the weak, the lowly, the despised, those who know, like Rahab, that can't save themselves, those are the God's favorite people to delight in transforming no one's beyond his grace. I read a quote that said the disturbing fact about what Rahab once was simply magnifies the glory of divine grace, which is what made her the extraordinary woman she became. Rahab did. She made critical mistakes in her life. She committed blatant sins. However, she also demonstrated a pure, authentic faith. She showed kindness to the Israelite spies at great personal risk, trusting alone in the one true God instead of her cultural idols. Her faith, mixed with that kind of healthy fear and awe of who God was, moved her, spurred her onto action. She was honored for that faith. Clearly, that wholehearted faith, that true belief, is what matters more to God than a perfect spotless behavior or record. Now, we should pursue being holy, being a holy image bearer to God. Okay? We should pursue that. And while we should pursue that, our justification is completely dependent on Christ's finished work, not our own goodness, because we are going to make mistakes. But like Rahab, we come to God just as we are trusting in his grace, his mercy, his love, his sacrifice. Hopefully the story of Rahab shows us or allows us some more, again, compassion and patience for ourselves and for other people. God can work in ways that we don't often expect. Don't write others off. Don't write off yourself just because of sin or circumstance. God's more interested in our faith and the motivations of our heart than he is with doing it the right way. Obviously, we do, again, want to live correctly. We want to live morally. But that often gets messy, as Rahab kind of proves here, the gospel turn in right. Living is something that we should seek and pursue, but that does only come as a result of being saved through Jesus, death and resurrection, not something that we earn being spared. Being spared death is God's free gift to all of us. One final quote that I want to kind of end our time with today comes from Tim Keller. He says what we want more than anything is to actually have somebody look at us all the way to the bottom and see all of those things we're ashamed of, all of those things we're most afraid make us fundamentally and completely and finally unlovable. We need to have somebody look at all those things and say, I love you anyway. We need that. The only, excuse me, the only person who can do that is God. He's really the person you most want to look at you and know you and love you. He's the only one who can do it. Ultimately. And finally, I'm going to invite the worship team up so we can respond to the gospel. A couple of questions for our reflection today and this week. Do you trust Jesus alone for salvation and redemption? Is it just Jesus that you've placed your faith and your trust in, and that alone will save you and redeem you? If not instead of Jesus, what are some idols that you might be placing your trust in? What things might we be looking to to actually save us or make us whole when we know that it's only God who can do that? Who do you trust? If you need to come alongside somebody, who do you trust in your life that will point you to Jesus? And then who can you reach out to who maybe needs to hear that Jesus saves, despite the sin and circumstance that surrounds us? So here at Hope Heights, we respond in these four ways. We'll be singing three songs in response to this good news that Jesus does love us no matter what. During those songs, out in the hallway, outside of each door, there's communion tables with crackers and juice. We take communion in remembrance of what Jesus has done in our lives. We eat the cracker to remember how his body was broken for us. We drink the juice to remember how his blood was spilled for us on the cross and how his act of dying on the cross actually allows death to pass us by. If we believe, you don't need to be a member here at Hope or any church. We do just ask that you are a follower of Jesus. And if not, right now, you can hang that scarlet cord out the window and say, I need you, Lord. I need a savior. I need to be saved. And go take your first kind of true communion. There will also be a couple people in the back that are with yellow lanyards that are willing to pray for you in any way. You don't have to have anything specific. You can just say, hey, please pray for me. And they would love to do that. You just need to ask then. Lastly, we believe that giving is an important part of our worship. So understanding that God is the God of all. Kind of like Rahab said earlier on, there's a little black box out on that communion table if you feel led to that. So before we sing, would you bow your heads and just pray with me, quick. God, we thank you for who you are. We thank you that you love us so much despite our sin, despite our circumstance, and that those things can't take us away from your sacrifice and the love that you have for us. We just pray that right now as we sing these words, that these words would be a reflection of our heart's belief, our heart's faith. And if not, we just pray that those, the words that we sing would just speak to us and draw us closer to you and draw us to you. So we thank you. We thank you that you can use anybody despite, again, despite sin, despite circumstance, you can use everybody because you're that powerful, you're that merciful, you're that graceful. So we thank you, Jesus, just pray all this in your name, Amen.

Proverbs 12:22 Romans 6:23 Romans 6:23 Hebrews 11 · chapter mention 1 Corinthians 1:26