Fondational faith #4

Northside Church

Aug 14, 2022

Foundational faith #4

Jamey Mills

Good morning… My name is Jamey and I’m the lead pastor here at Northside.

It’s always great to be with you all…

Hope you all have had a great week… Possible 9\4 baptism… interested let us know…

We are in our fourth week of our sermon series called

“Foundational Faith” … (PIC)

It's a good thing… a really healthy thing for us from time to time to back up and be honest with ourselves with this question… What role, if any, does faith play in the way I actually live my life?

Faith is an interesting thing… If I were to ask you, how do you know that you really have faith, what would you say… or if I were to ask you what is the evidence of your faith… What would you say?

Is faith playing the role it should… is it impacting the way I live my life at all. By definition… faith does.

We’ve been using Heb. 11 as a sort of guide for this series…

The first first gives us a good definition of faith…

The assurance of things hoped for…

It's not wishful thinking or even reckless optimism… but it's grounded in deep belief and trust that what God says… even if it’s yet to be realized… will come to be.

The Conviction of things we can’t see.

This life altering conviction that impacts the way we think and live our lives… it leads to action.

Hebrews 11 goes on to illustrate what life changing faith looks like… by giving us real life examples… people who are known for… legendary… for great faith and what we realize is… they were real, everyday, even messy people… who found faith… and then allowed God to begin shaping their lives through it.

We’ve talked about Moses, Joseph…

Today as we get started… I wanted to ask the question… how do you think you’ll be remembered… How will my kids remember me? What they say really mattered to me?

It got me thinking about the way some people have been known throughout history…

PICS OF EACH…

King Richard… the lionheart… military and political genius…

Alexander the great…

Honest Abe:

Ivan the terrible.... Okay, not a great name, but al least you know where he stood.

Evidently there was a guy known as Charles the bald in the early first century… sounds like a handsome pretty handsome man.

Somehow… there were things that led to these nicknames in some ways forged the way they’d be remembered through history…

Today… we are talking about her. (PICTURE)

She is immortalized… in print… within the best selling book of all time, the inspired word of God as… Rahab the prostitute.

She as the poster child for another book written not all that long ago called… Bad girls of the Bible…

And it is odd… to see her here… in this list of those who are remembered as people of legendary… life changing faith.

Obviously… something… somewhere happened…

Hebrews 11:31 NLT

It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

(NLT)

31 It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

She wasn’t destroyed… in more ways than one… by her past… her name, her reputation or despite her unbelieving city.

If you go all the way back to the book of Joshua… that's where we meet here. She lived in Jericho… which was in its day an impressive and well fortified canaanite city. East of the lower Jordan river North of the dead see (pic of map). Jericho is the oldest inhabited city in the world today… (Pic and ancient and current maybe)

There were only a couple of roads in and out of Jericho… one of them was to Jerusalem, a notoriously dangerous road… called the by some… the “way of blood”, known for robberies and violence… it was the setting of the story that Jesus told about the good samaritan in Luke 10:30.

Maybe that’s why Jericho was so fortified… it had two city walls… (possibly picture)

And maybe it was a career choice… part of the job…

But Rahab’s house was literally built into the outer city wall… incredibly convenient for… clients…

Many scholars believe she was the “madam”... that her home was actually a brothel, which may be why her name carried the title it did.

God had led the Israelites to the Sinai Peninsula… (Pic)

It says that Moses sent out 12 spies to scout out the land on the other side of the Jordan river… 10 of them brought back reports of fear… It’s too much… we can’t do it.

But two… Joshua and Caleb… brought back reports of faith… God will certainly do what he said and give us this land.

It was a journey… from Egypt where they had been to this place they were camped should have taken two weeks… but for several reasons… discipline and development… learning to trust and follow… God’s people (which by this time was massive) wandered in the desert for 40 years.

It was enough time to allow the older generation to die off (including moses… unmarked grave on Mt Nebo) and a new generation with a new leader to rise and, and that new leader was Joshua… one of the faith filled spies..

Joshua 2:1(ESV)

2 And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there.

So… they came to the house of a prostitute… and lodged there. How do…

Anyway… in some ways it was the perfect plan… it would have been normal for men to come and go… they probably wouldn’t be noticed at all…

And I am sure that Jericho had heard the stories… they knew… about the decimation of the most powerful army in the world… I’d guess they even knew that they were now camped literally just on the other side of the river… Joshua 2:2 says they did.

They probably thought these people were crazy… wandering in the desert for 40 years… stories about the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day that lead them…

And why would this woman, this prostitute do this… take these men in… it was treason… she was risking her life.

She herself tells us why…

Joshua 2:8-

She believes… in God. in what God has done. In what God is doing…

She… like Joseph last week has faith in the unseen because of what she has seen.

So much faith that in vs. 12-14 she strikes a deal…

I will hide you from the guard that is looking for you tonight… but you have to remember me, spare me and my family when you come to take the city.

And they agreed… and told her to leave a scarlet rope hanging from her window on the outer wall… they swore on it with their life, that her and her family wouldn’t be harmed.

And so she hid them on the roof that night, and sure enough the guards came looking. She lied to them… told them that they had been there earlier, but left before the gates to the city were closed… she even gave them a direction to go and look…

And the next morning… early… it says that they reaffirmed their promises and she lowered these two spies down through the window on the outer wall…they hid out for a few days and went back to their camp.

They told Joshua what they’d seen and heard… that the people of Jericho were terrified… living in fear because of what God had done to the most powerful army in the word… as well as a couple of others by this time…

God gave them specific instructions… it says that God stopped the Jordan river from flowing while this nation… which was massive… crossed it.

And I can't help but wonder what it must have been like for the people of Jericho… to look out and see this army… dressed for war… this is it… here it comes…

Sort of hunkering down…

But it says for 6 days… they marched around the perimeter of the city in near silence… and then left.

6 days…

If they didn't think they were crazy before…

And on the 7th day, they walked around the city 7 times,

There wasn't a shot fired… no siege ramp, no battering ram, no catapult… no giant rabbit to hide in and pop out of…

The priests blew their horns and the people yelled… and it says that the walls of this well fortified city simply collapsed…

Faith… looks like trusting the plan and strength of God over your own.

These walls collapsed so much that 6:20 says… that they walked straight into the city…

Interesting side note… in 6:26 Joshua sort of curses Jericho… saying that anyone who rebuilt it would lay its foundation at the cost of his firstborn son and would set up its gates with the cost of his youngest son.

1 Kings 16:34 NLT

It was during his reign that Hiel, a man from Bethel, rebuilt Jericho. When he laid its foundations, it cost him the life of his oldest son, Abiram. And when he completed it and set up its gates, it cost him the life of his youngest son, Segub. This all happened according to the message from the Lord concerning Jericho spoken by Joshua son of Nun.

(NLT)

34 It was during his reign that Hiel, a man from Bethel, rebuilt Jericho. When he laid its foundations, it cost him the life of his oldest son, Abiram. And when he completed it and set up its gates, it cost him the life of his youngest son, Segub.

Isn’t that crazy… it actually happened…

And that is the very condensed story of Rahab… This prostitute who beleived in the power and puprose and plan of God to the point of treason and putting her life on the line…

It’s interesting… some Jewish tradition suggests that Joshua ended up marrying Rahbad not long after this… I don’t put a lot of weight into it.

But there is no doubt that they considered her a convert… in one place they refer to her as a Chassidoth… a term that was used for the most pious and devout Jewish Women.

A Canaanite prostitute… whose heart and life was radically changed… because of faith. Life changing… Identity changing… freedom finding… faith…

Believing to the point of stepping out of her profession… to the point of treason… to the point of putting her life on the line…

She is one of the best examples of this truth…

Real faith changes the direction of your life.

And one of the greatest lies of humanity is… my life doesn't need that. It’s easy… to stereotype a prostitute and say… NO doubt she needed a new direction in her life…

But one of the most dangerous places to be… is in the in between… blowing a message like this off because… “at least I’m no prostitute”.

Faith… this believing in who God is, in what He says… in His promises… in what He’s done and is doing… in ways that change the trajectory not just of your life… but even your day.

One author said it like this… Rahab exhibited more faith in God and in what God was doing than Israel did… She was acting on her belief while many of them were living in fear just across the river.

If there was ever anyone that had the right to feel disqualified… too far gone… too much water under the bridge for faith to bring what only faith can bring in Jesus… This was her. Someone whose name is etched in emphamy within the very Word of God as Rahab the prostitute… but dont ever forget… She was mentioned by name… and by title… as an example of what real faith can do. I kept thinking the tag “the prostitute” was left there for you and I… just do we’d two things… how deep and far the grace of God reaches… and of the difference that faith makes.

Rahab… who lived under the yoke of prostitution… her story didn't end there…

I love this…

She’s actually mentioned three times in the NT…

Once in Heb 11…

And once in James 2…

James, the 1\2 bro of Jesus…

Was in a sense asking what real/authentic faith looks like… how do you know?

Real faith leaves footprints.

Real faith… can be seen in what we do, what we say, the attitude we have…

Real faith is continuously learning what it means to submit our lives to christ.

This week while I was in the car… this is how it came to me personally…

Does my prayer life… suggest that I have faith that prayer really does anything?

Does the way I approach God’s word suggest faith that is has anything for me at all?

Does the way I spend my time and resources… does the way I worry, the way I view money… does the way i treat or lead my family… is it influenced.. And anchored by faith… in the one who completely changed the life of this cannanite prostitute.

James 2:17 NLT

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

(NLT)

17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

James is saying real faith… is seen… it’s evidenced… by what it produces in our life…

And I am guessing what it produced in Rahab’s life was a change so significant and real… actions… attitudes… priorities… direction… purposes…

That it led James… to pick her out and use her as an example (out of many he could have) as what real faith lived out looks like.

James 2:24–26 NLT

So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.

(NLT)

24 So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. 25 Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. 26 Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.

We are shown to be right with God… when what we do… is coming from… is informed by and empowered by… faith.

Faith changes the direction of our life.

She also comes up in Matthew 1.

Matthew one is the genealogy of Jesus Himself… and a lot of folks sorta just skip past it… it’s a bunch of names…

It starts off with Abraham… it goes through several generations and then we see this in vs 5.

Matthew 1:5–6 NLT

Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab). Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth). Obed was the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah).

(NLT)

5 Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab).

Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth).

Obed was the father of Jesse.

6 Jesse was the father of King David.

Boaz… the kinsman redeemer… is known in scripture as a good, kind, and generous man… who took in Ruth as his wife… Boaz was raised by Rahab… you know… the prostitute…

Who was also the great grandmother of King David… and… in the line of Jesus Himself.

Rahab… had greatness in her.

It reminds me of Ephesians 5… we looked at this passage not all that long ago…

Ephesians 1:4–5 NLT

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

(NLT)

4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

God either has or wants to adopt you into his family… which means… you are in the line of Christ too… you have greatness in you.

Faith makes you family not just with a prostitute, but with the one that radically changed her life.

Faith… REAL faith… leads us out of a life of brokenness and regret… guilt and shame… and into forgiveness and freedom… and grace…

Real faith puts us at odds with the world… it sees things, believes and values things that aren’t just different… but often at odds with the world around us.

Faith leads us into this place of hope… purpose… direction… perspective…

There came a point in Rahab's life… where she realized… I don’t have to live this way anymore. She left that all behind.

By occupation and reputation… Rahab had been a prostitute…

Her identity… what the world knew her as…

Until by faith… she moved toward God…

Who broke the walls that she had built… the one who is able to lead His people to the places He promises…

And don't you ever think for a moment… He can't do the same for you.

You’re not defined by your past… God loves you for more than where you’ve been… in fact… I believe He cares far more about where you are… and where you are headed.

Even today… as Rahab the prostitute… and for years I used to think… oh gosh how horrible is that…

And this week it hit me… How wonderful that is. I wonder how many times she got to say… oh no no… thats who I used to be… but let me tell you about who I really am…

BY faith… she leaned in to what God was doing… and never looked back.

The truth of the Gospel… of new life… invaded her story.

Faith… changes and gives real power to your story… WHY… because it becomes apart of HIS.

In heb 12… when the author mentions this great crowd of believers…

I always picture you and I walking out on the tunnel and onto the playing field… like it's our time… we are in faith… continuing the great and faithful work of so many…

And the picture I get is these legendary people of faith in the stands… and their going crazy… cheering us on… knowing, like only they do… the cost of it all…

And somewhere… in that crowd… is a lady with enormous courage…

Who was labled… a prostitute… who woke everyday with that title over her head… but stared her past in the face and chose faith…

Her name… was Rahab… the prostitute. And I hope someday… I have faith like hers.

Rahab declared… God is the God of both heaven and earth…

It was remarkable… how deeply felt confession of deep faith as to who she knew God to be can have on the life of anyone… even you.

Pray

Communion by Jamey