Sermon Tone Analysis
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Keep Kicking
Two frogs fell into a tub of cream.
The one looked at the high sides of the tub which were too difficult to crawl over and said, “It is hopeless.”
So he resigned himself to death, relaxed, and sank to the bottom.
The other one determined to keep swimming as long as he could.
“Something might happen,” he said.
And it did.
He kept kicking and churning, and finally he found himself on a solid platform of butter and jumped to safety.
Let’s Pray!
A Little Faith Does a Lot
A Little Faith Does a Lot
A Little Faith Does a Lot
Purpose: To retell the story of Rahab to discover the nature of risk-taking faith.
INTRODUCTION
People of all ages are fascinated by tales of heroic battles and courageous deeds.
Similarly, as a wide-eyed little girl, Rahab must have heard stories about the ten plagues, Israel crossing the Red Sea, and the destruction of Egypt’s army.
But that was forty years ago.
Now she heard fresh stories about the powerful Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, whom Israel had utterly destroyed east of the Jordan River.
The swollen Jordan could only keep Israel away for a little while longer.
Proposition:
Rahab’s tiny faith led her to seize great opportunities.
She stretched out her hand of faith and gripped some amazing opportunities.
SHE GRIPPED THE OPPORTUNITY TO KNOW GOD.
Imagine Rahab’s inn…bustling with activity, a place that provided constant contact with travelers and visitors to Jericho.
It was also a useful place to add current information to childhood stories about Israel and their God.
She learned from one traveler that the Israelite laws were different than what she knew.
From another...Purity of body was important…so no adultery.
From another....Taking a day of rest was important....so every seventh day they did no work at all.
From still another...Swift punishment paralleled the crime but required two witnesses.
She learned that the Israelite God was different.
He was bigger than other gods.
Israel said he had created everything.
This was interesting to Rahab…she was familiar with her local gods.
People in Jericho worshiped many gods but gave special prominence to the god of the moon, from which the city probably got its name.
(The name “Jericho” may be connected to the ancient name of the Canaanite moon god.
The Hebrew words for moon, month, or new moon, and Jericho are very similar.
Others associate it with the word for spirit or smell, assuming that the pleasant fragrances of the fruits and spices which grew in this oasis occasioned the name of the place.
Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Jericho,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1118.)
She learned that the Israelite God seemed to be a God of love, but far different from the goddess of love widely worshiped in Canaan.
And He was certainly powerful but also gentle and protective.
The Israelite God was also true…he kept His word!
Merchants had heard the Israelites talking about promises their God had made hundreds of years before, promises he was now keeping.
On the other hand, the gods Rahab knew were very inconsistent, and unpredictable.
And in her quiet thoughts she may have sometimes wondered if the nature of the “gods” was not simply invented by the priests to get what they wanted.
But such thoughts would have sounded heretical, so she never even whispered them to her nearest friends.
Rahab was intrigued by the different customs and superstitions she saw in travelers from many cultures.
But this group was different, even fascinating.
Above all, she was captivated by their God.
She wondered what it would be like to be a woman among these people, a woman respected.
ARGUING BY EXAMPLE
Topics: Arguments; Example
References: 2 Timothy 1:13; 1 Peter 5:1–4
One example is worth a thousand arguments.
—Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist (1795–1881)
Rahab didn’t have just one…she had many…and she was beginning to make up her mind about this foreign God…could He be more to her?
BUCKLE UP WARNING
Topics: Behavior; Change; Consequences; Fear; Illumination; Knowledge; Perspective; Repentance; Spiritual Formation; Spiritual Growth; Warnings; Wisdom
References: Luke 19:1–10; John 13:35; 1 Corinthians 8:1–2; James 1:22
My brother-in-law would never wear a seat belt in the car.
I berated him for it.
Then one day he picked me up at the airport, and he had on his seat belt and shoulder harness.
I asked, “What happened?
What changed you?”
“I went to visit a friend of mine in the hospital who was in a car accident and went through the windshield,” my brother-in-law said.
“He had two or three hundred stitches in his face.
I said to myself, ‘I’d better wear my seat belt.’
”
“Did you not know that if you didn’t wear your seat belt you would go through the windshield if you had an accident?”
I asked.
“Of course I knew it,” he said.
“When I went to the hospital to see my friend, I got no new information, but the information I had became new.
The information got real to my heart and finally sank down and affected the way I live.”
—Tim Keller, “Unintentional Preaching Models,” Preaching to the Heart, Ockenga Institute of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Let me ask you…have you taken every opportunity you have to know God? Are you spending time in your Bible, not to prove a point or add to trivial knowledge, but rather to really get to know the God who loves you?
Are you taking the opportunity to know His ways, His will, and His purpose for your life?
Or are you waiting for when the bottom drops out of your world before you decide to buckle up in the safety of Jesus!
Each day we wake up we have a new chance to make that relationship with Him a greater reality....have you taken that opportunity this week?
(Illustration about taking a chance)
SHE GRIPPED THE OPPORTUNITY TO DECIDE.
That was then, but now the Israelites were poised on the East bank of the swollen Jordan.
They were evidently going to cross when the water receded.
They had been wandering the southern desert for forty years, but in the last few months they had rounded Edom, south of the Dead Sea, and defeated the two powerful Amorite kings, Sihon and Og.
Who could stop them?
Then it happened it happened.
Two men appeared at her inn wearing distinctively Israelite clothing.
What should she do?
If she reported them to the king of Jericho, she would be hailed as a hero.
But for what?
Something inside her stirred and she wondered “If I help them, how might my life change?
Perhaps this God of Love which they serve has a place for me too?!”
She made her decicion.
She offered them protection.
Unfortunately, the king’s watchmen had also taken note of some strangers with peculiar dress and reported their presence to the king.
Rahab warned the men that they must hide immediately.
Then she pointed the king’s men another way.
When she was able to return to them, she reported that the people of Jericho were terrified because of the reports of what “the Lord your God, God in heaven above and on the earth below” had done.
(NLT)
12 “Now swear to me by the Lord that you will be kind to me and my family since I have helped you.
Give me some guarantee that when Jericho is conquered, you will let me live, along with my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all their families.”
She requested two things—an oath and a sign.
Then, the next day she hurried them safely away.
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