I'm concerned that a lot of times we are convinced that our trouble is an indication of the absence of God's presence. More times than not, in the Scripture, you can find that trouble accompanies God's presence. He is an ever-present help in the time of trouble.
So if you're in trouble, you're in God. "Who are you? " The Devil is looking at some of y'all.
"Who are you? I don't even have to mess with your life. You're doing a good job by yourself.
Who are you? I don't get paid to argue with you. Naw.
" So they go to the house of Rahab, the prostitute. I probably would not preach about a prostitute if she were only mentioned in Joshua, chapter 2, because I would figure, "That's the Old Testament. " But a funny thing happened in the book of Matthew.
When the writer started listing the genealogy of Jesus and all of the generations he came through… It's like 14 generations, and then 14 more, and then 14 more. This is the stuff we skip over sometimes when we're reading the Christmas story, because it's all of these names we don't recognize. So-and-so begot so-and-so begot so-and-so begot so-and-so, and really all I want to do is get to verse 18: "Then came Jesus.
" But some of the stuff you skip is some of the places where God speaks. I said, some of the stuff you skip is some of the stuff God speaks through. Matthew said in Matthew 1:5, "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
" To get to Jesus in the genealogy, you have to go through Rahab, the prostitute. God works through who he wants to work through. "All things work together for the good of them that love the Lord.
" "…whose mother was Rahab. " Stop being so stuck up. Stop categorizing people and casting them out like you don't have issues.
You ought to be glad to see Rahab's name in there. There's hope for me too. If Rahab made it, maybe I can, by faith.
Then you get to Hebrews 11, and not just once but for the second time in the New Testament Rahab gets an honorable mention in the hall of faith, where they're inducting all of the Sunday school heroes. All of the classic events on which redemptive history hinged are mentioned in Hebrews, chapter 11. Verse 29: "By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
" Sidenote: God doesn't bring you into deep waters to kill you; he brings you into deep water to drown your enemies. He knows they can't swim. In deep waters, that's where you deal with your doubts.
In deep waters, that's where you come face-to-face with your dysfunction and have to lean and rely on the grace of God. The Egyptians drowned. "By faith the walls of Jericho fell…" Not because they fought so well but because the faith they had enabled them to do what made no sense naturally.
"By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. " And here comes Rahab. "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets…" You mean you don't have time to talk about David, the greatest king Israel ever knew, a man after God's own heart, but you had time to mention Rahab? God says, "I don't look at people based on your standard of importance.
I don't look at people based on your standard of significance. " God doesn't check your followers to see how much favor he gives you. God is looking at your faith.
Then James jumps in, and for a third time this harlot is mentioned alongside the heroes of Scripture. Hero; harlot. Harlot; hero.
Now I can't tell the difference, because God calls someone I call a harlot a hero. I know you don't like it, and I know it doesn't go down easy, and I know we can't eat it with vanilla wafers and put it on a flannelgraph, because the story of Rahab is R-rated and doesn't teach very well in eKidz. James said in James 2:25, "In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?
" They keep calling her that: Rahab the prostitute. They keep labeling her. It's crazy.
God didn't change her before he used her. You know how we think, "God can't use me because I currently struggle with…" It's not like she was a prostitute and then she became a prophet. She was still a prostitute.
This doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it helps me to see that the love of God is not the reward for change; it is the resource by which I am changed. That revelation of the love of God is so powerful. I was telling you my son Graham talks a lot more now, and he actually says some really funny stuff.
I'm praying that he will not become a stand-up comic. I'm not praying he'll be a preacher either. I really don't care if my kids take on this profession or not like that.
I might even tell them, "Do something else if you can, because you have to be called to do this. " All of my kids have heard so many sermons. They come up with funny little questions about the Bible I never thought of before, but just from a child's mind it's so funny.
Graham asked me the other day… He said, "I hear people say all the time, 'When I get to heaven I want to see Jesus. '" He said, "But have you ever thought about how long the line is going to be? " We had just been to Disneyland, so he had that in his mind.
He said, "It's going to be a long line to see Jesus. I wonder if you could get somebody to hold your place in line to see Jesus and then go see some of the other characters in the Bible. " I kind of played it out.
I was thinking you probably could. There are probably some characters in the Bible who no one will want a selfie with, and you could probably just walk right up to them. Like Jonah.
Who wants to meet Jonah? He's the most dysfunctional, discouraging prophet in the Bible. He preached, and God sent a revival, and he went outside and wanted to die.
So Jonah is available. You could go see Jonah for a few minutes, a few hundred years while you wait to see Jesus. You know, eternity is long.
You could probably go see Bartholomew. The apostle Paul might be unavailable, and John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, might have a little wait list, but you can probably see Bartholomew. Jewish legend says that Rahab was one of the most four beautiful women who ever lived.
I don't know if that's true, but maybe you want to see for yourself. You get to heaven. There's Samson.
You walk over to the front desk. There's Peter. He has his iPad.
You say, "Hey, I'm in line to see Jesus. I'm number 15,973,223. While I'm waiting… It's kind of a strange request.
Could I see Rahab the prostitute? " Peter is loud. "Rahab the prostitute?
Let me check. " "Shh! It sounds bad, man.
Keep it down. " "Oh, I'm sorry. We do have a Rahab up here, but you said Rahab the prostitute?
There's nobody here by that name. Up here we don't call people what they were. We don't call people what they did.
We don't call people what they were labeled. Up here she doesn't go by that name. So you can see Rahab, but make sure you call her by her new name.
Up here we call her 'Rahab the righteous. '" There is a righteousness that comes from God by faith. There is a righteousness that is not of works, so that no one can boast.
I don't know about you, but I'm grateful for the blood of Jesus that covered my past. I'm not what I did, and I'm not what I was, and I'm not what I think, and I'm not where I'm broken, and I'm not what they said. I have a new name!
I have a new reputation. I am a child of God. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
Look at somebody and say, "Don't call me that. " You don't know me like that. Don't call me according to how you memorized me in my past.
God is doing a new thing in my life. When condemnation comes in to remind you of all of those reasons that God can't use you, remember Rahab who had nothing to offer except faith, and God said even she was considered righteous. That's what church is.
It's a place for you to come and leave all of the labels you've accumulated in your life because of your behaviors. Oh yeah. Some of the stuff people said about you is fact.
It's not always that they were lying; it's just that there is a greater truth that supersedes whatever they can say about you. Every weakness is potential strength. When I was writing this message, I made a critical mistake.
I was typing so fast in my phone I kept misspelling Rahab's name. I kept spelling it R-E-H-A-B, because I was writing fast, not because my IQ is low. After writing it down 10 times, I noticed, "I keep spelling it rehab.
" God said, "You got it right, because what I want you to tell the people when you preach it is that I am in the business of rehabilitating. " You did not come to a religious service today; you came to rehab. The place it starts is not with what others think of you.
We spend so much time on that, and we fail to realize that the issue is how you see you. The greatest place my reputation needs repair is within myself, because I've let myself down so many times, and I've made promises to myself and others over and over again. "I'm really going to have a better attitude this time, and I'm really gonna this time, and I'm really gonna this time.
" Some of you have developed a reputation with yourself that does not reflect your reputation with heaven. God doesn't see you like that. The gap between your reality and your reputation with yourself could cost you the opportunity to see God use you in the future if you don't deal with that.
It cost the spies. Ten of the 12 said, "We can't go in. " That's 83.
66666 percent of the people who went into the land came back with the wrong report. I think 83. 66666 percent of stuff I tell myself is probably wrong.
At least. If I don't deal with that… I can have a new reality, a new nature. I can be chosen by God, loved by God, accepted by God, and he can even have an assignment for me.
He can even want to use my house to bring forth a promise. If I don't see myself that way, I'll be like those spies. The reason they didn't go into the land wasn't how they saw God; it was how they saw themselves.
The reason they saw themselves as small was because they had spent 430 years enslaved. Sometimes you carry that with you. The Bible actually says that before they could go into the land God had to roll away the reproach of Egypt, their past, their shackles, their former condition.
When you carry forward with you the reproach of different things you've struggled with or currently struggle with, it will always keep you from realizing your righteousness in Christ. Always. When you see your life through the lens of self, it's very small.
That's what the spies came back and said. They had totally lost sight of God's reputation, because they were so concerned about their own. Numbers 13:33 says that they gave the man of God, Moses, this report: "We saw the Nephilim there…" The Nephilim were giants.
They might represent anything in your life that's too powerful for you in your own strength. It might represent your fear or your insecurity. That chronic thing keeps creeping into your life, taking you down.
A thought pattern. It doesn't have to be a physical giant or a physical enemy. In fact, the Bible says, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
" There's a good chance that your Nephilim has a different name. "We saw the giants, and we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. " Why were you comparing yourself to the giants?
You were supposed to be comparing your giants to your God, but you lost sight of that, didn't you? You started thinking, "What's wrong with me is more powerful than what's right with God. " "We looked like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.
" When you don't know who you are, you depend on the rest of the world to tell you, and now you're empty, and now you're projecting, and now you're trying to perfect this reputation. God brought you here for rehab. God brought you here for a reminder of who he is.
