"Rehab For Rahab" Series

“Rahab’s Rehab”

Joshua 2

Let’s begin this morning with the definition of the word past….. Here it is: “having existed in a time before the present. Used in an earlier time. Done. Gone by. Elapsed in time.” Many people struggle all of their lives to overcome their past. Perhaps you’re one of them. Some live with the continuing thought, “if only... I had done this or had not done that... Life would be different.” This passage today is about a woman named Rahab; a woman who had made some bad choices in her life. All of us have. But God looks at this in a different way than man. The choices of the past are not nearly as important as the choices that you make today.

Chapter 2 begins with these words from Joshua: Joshua sent out two men to spy secretly saying, “go view the land especially Jericho.” Remember I said last week that 12 spies had already gone out to look at the land-only two, Joshua and Caleb came back saying that they should proceed into the Promised Land. The other 10 said it was too dangerous.

Now Joshua sends two men out to look again but if a group that already gone out and spied out the land and Joshua was actually in that group then why did they need to go again? The answer is really simple. God was working in the life of a woman named Rahab, leading her to faith, drawing her to himself; so these two men were sent as a part of God’s plan to save Rahab. Verse one says they went and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and they stayed there. Now of all places for them to stop first this one seems unlikely. But that brings me to the first big truth I want us to see today.

{1} The Promised Land is for everyone, regardless of your past sin. Now you and I do things different-we hide the things we have done that we don’t want people to know about. If we’re applying for a job we tweak our resume and send it in. It contains our background education, places we have worked in all of our amazing accomplishments. (I knew a pastor in a large church in KS who had never been to seminary but claimed he had) We may leave out a few things like

• Those two places we worked that didn’t give us such a glowing reference.

• We don’t list that one boss who fired us or the one that had nothing good to say about us. In other words we don’t share all of our mess ups.

Look at the people God chose to use... Look at their resume.

• Jonah... He ran to get away from God.

• The disciples... Could even stay awake to pray with Jesus.

• Martha was a worrier.

• Moses stuttered.

• The Samaritan woman was divorced at least four times.

• Jacob was a liar.

The Promised Land is for everyone regardless of your past and the reason is God uses real people. Paul said “all of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. He says there is none righteous, not even one!” I’m in that group; you’re in that group and the first qualification to be used by God is that we recognize we are in that group. We are not perfect; we have not arrived-but we are moving forward. Don’t you want to be on that list of people in that group? You see God has a way of taking anything, any person and using them for his glory... If they are willing. The apostle Peter put it this way “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but rather accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” Acts 10:34-35. The Promised Land is for everyone regardless of your past.

{2} Moving to the Promised Land requires sacrifice. This may make you ask, how does it require any sacrifice to move out of the wilderness, the desert, from nothing to the Promised Land? But it does. For Rahab, her very life was actually at risk.

Look at what she did. She spoke to the men who had now shown up at her house….. She protected the spies.

Look at verses 4-5.

Rahab not only hid the spies, she intentionally directed these men in the wrong direction. She lied to protect them. If she had been caught protecting these men her life would’ve no doubt been snuffed out. But Rahab was willing to risk her life for her newly found faith. Verse 11.

We are saved by grace, not by works. Ephesians 2:8-9. But listen, that does not mean that we should not do these good works. In fact our good works don’t earn us salvation but they do prove we have salvation. Your life will either demonstrate that your profession of faith is real or it will demonstrate that it is fake. Do you have faith or do you have saving faith? There is a difference. If we have saving faith, then there will be a transformation that takes place. We will be changed. It is an extreme makeover.