Faith - Hebrews 11:31

For the Lord your God, He is the God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

So I think this clearly shows Okay, I should add, actually, after making this confession of faith, she goes on to make an oath with these spies. She says, look, I treated you kindly, I let you in my house, I could have died, so when you come and destroy this city, you need to save me and my family. And they kind of agree to this oath. So she makes clear she knows who God is. She confesses that she believes in their God. more important than her own life. And really, I guess in her mind, and just for us to consider too, what other options did she have? I mean, if she, you know, she either fears God or she fears something else like man or her life or whatever more than God. And then the next point, so faith results in obedience. So after she expresses this confession of faith, what is the next thing she does? Well, I guess first of all you can say the action of letting the spies in her house is kind of an act. That's gonna be how we know you've honored this oath and how we know not to destroy you when we come to destroy the city. So as soon as they leave, it says she immediately puts this scarlet cord in her window. And so it might be easy just to kind of gloss over this, like, okay, yeah, whatever, it's pretty easy for her just to do that. But I think there also is some risk here and some obedience that matters. were in your house, and now you have this court out your window. What's going on? Are you in cahoots with them? Also, she could have doubted if these two spies were going to keep their word. And maybe she's marking her window, whatever. So I think this is kind of significant in that she did exactly, she obeyed exactly what they told her in the exact way, regardless of what would come of it. She put her trust and faith in that. There was an obedience there. James 2, 24 and 25, it says,

you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And the same way was not right-handed prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out on their own another way.

So I want to kind of add to this, you know, what did her faith eventually result in? the army comes back, Joshua and his army come back to actually destroy the city. So the whole city is destroyed with the exception of Rahab and her family. And it says, the reason, so in Joshua 6 it says, the reason that she was not destroyed was

because she hid the messengers whom we sent.

And then it follows up by saying,

and she lives in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to slay Jericho.

Because of this faith, she's the one family who's saved from this complete destruction. And the last thing I want to point out that I think is significant to the verse, the verse makes it a point to identify Rahab as a prostitute. And I think there's some significance here for several reasons. So one, she's one of the least likely people of the wicked as a prostitute. And I think this just makes clear, it doesn't matter your past, your sin, what matters is what you're believing. Are you putting your faith in the right thing? And clearly, Rahab was. I also think it's a picture of redemption. So she ends up converting to Judaism, and she actually marries a Jew named Sammon, the mother of Phoas, making her the great-great-grandmother of King David, making her in the lineage of Christ. So God redeemed her past and brought her, you know, grafted her into this lineage of Christ. That's pretty amazing, I think. And then I also think kind of her faith in her conversion confession of faith, and she was instead grafted in as a Jew. So some application. How can we learn and apply the faith demonstrated by Rahab into our lives? I kept coming back to this question, and this is what I want to send an application around. Is there a reason you're compromising your faith because of a risk? Is there some kind of reason that you're compromising your faith because of a risk? And this is what I kept asking myself. You know, if there is a reason, you know, why? Is it the fear of man? Is it some kind of comfort? Is it some kind of sin in your life? Is it some kind of moral or material cost? Will it, you know, literally financial or some other kind of, you know, something you have to give up that you don't want to give up? I know in my own life, when I feel, you know, some type of conviction, God, I know you want me to do this, and I know this is going to cost something. There's really no other option, right? And I guess, so there's, and so yes, there's always, I guess, the cost that comes with exercising your faith, but I think really the higher cost is not exercising your faith. I think that's what really, the conclusion I came to, right, the real risk is not acting in faith, because that's when bad things happen and we commit sin. So, in conclusion, I want to encourage everyone to fear God more than you fear anything else, anything else that might cause fear that comes with exercising your faith. God loves us, and he is worthy. I mean, we just prayed about it, too, right? God cares for us, and he also has the power to send us to hell. fear that kind of God, and he empowers us to step out in faith like this, like we see in Rahab's life. I mean, we can trust Him who loves us. So let's pray. Father, I thank You for Rahab and how You empowered her to exercise her faith in You and demonstrate it very powerfully through her actions. I pray that we too would just have a knowing of your truth and just an intimate relationship with you such that when we are faced with challenging things that we need to show our faith in you that we have no problem doing that, that we welcome that and we just trust that you would work out the results for our good. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.