Sermon Tone Analysis
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Good morning again.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 1.
We are beginning a series of messages for the Christmas season called Family Christmas: Investigating the family of Jesus.
Christmas is when we celebrate that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, one hundred percent God and one hundred percent God to dwell with us on Earth and ultimately to die in our place, for our sins.
Christmas is when we celebrate the fulfillment of the promise that God would send a Savior.
When we start thinking about some of the traditions surrounding our celebrations of Christmas, those generally end up involving some kind of family.
Some traditions have been passed down for many generations.
During the month of December we are going to take a look at some of the people in Jesus’ family line and what their stories tell us about Jesus.
The book of Matthew opens with giving us a genealogy of Jesus.
I’m guess that most of you probably either skip over these or skim right through the list of names.
However, the Lord had these included in His Word for a reason.
It was so we would know the lineage of Jesus and to show that He was who He said He was.
It proves Jesus as the descendant of the line of David.
As you read though Jesus’ genealogy you start to notice that there’s a few people with some sketchy backgrounds in there.
If there’s room for people like that in Jesus’ family, then there’s room for you in His family too.
The first person we are going to look at we find in Matthew 1, verse 5. Let’s read the first five verses in Matthew to bring us up to this point.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Let’s pray and ask God to help us understand.
In verse 5, we see a lady named Rahab mentioned.
Rahab’s story is found in Joshua chapter 2.
You can go ahead and turn there.
Now, there are a few reasons why finding Rahab mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus should stand out to us.
First is that she was a woman and women were only mentioned in Biblical genealogies occasionally.
Jesus’ genealogy mentions five women.
Luke doesn’t mention them in his genealogy of Jesus found in Luke 3. Sinclair Ferguson* suggests that Matthew is hinting at three important biblical principles.
These principles are directly connected to the reasons why Rahab’s appearance here seems odd to us.
The second reason her appearance here is noticeable is that she was an outsider.
She was not part of Israel at the start of this.
She was a gentile.
Ferguson points out that this hints at the principle in Scripture that God extends his grace beyond the people of Israel and brings Gentiles into His covenant.
And third, she was a prostitute.
I told you some of these folks had sketch backgrounds.
Ferguson writes that this shows the biblical principle that God overcomes the effects of sin and shame as He works out His promises and God keeps His promises in ways that we could never have anticipated.
God had promised to bring the people into the promised land and here they were ready to take the land but the city of Jericho stood in the way.
Let’s read from Joshua chapter 2 and find out what is going on in this story.
I. Rahab’s reception.
She received the spies.
Joshua sent the two spies into the land to check out Jericho and they came to her house.
There’s no mention of any kind of illicit relationship between the spies and Rahab.
It was likely that her house was an inn or type of way station which would have made it a logical place to stay and get some information about the city.
They didn’t do a great job staying undercover because word got to the king that there were spies in town.
Somehow he knows to ask Rahab about them.
He seems to have heard specifically that they were staying at her house.
II.
Rahab's response
1.
To the king
She tells the king that she didn’t know who the men were and that they had already taken off.
She even tells him to hurry up and get after them and he might be able to catch them.
Now, this response generally brings up the ethical question of Rahab deceiving the king in order to protect the spies.
It’s important to understand that her deception is never the focus of what is going on here but instead on the fact that she feared the Lord and had faith that she and her family could be rescued from the oncoming attack.
The narrative of this story does not address the ethics of the issue.
When Rahab is commended for her faith in the New Testament, her methods are not commented on.
This is not a prescriptive narrative in that it’s not telling you that this is the way you should do things.
Remember also that she was not an Israelite and would not have been used to living under laws such as the ten commandments and the prohibition against lying.
So her response to the king was to protect the spies.
In Hebrews 11:31 the writer includes her with the great examples of faith because she welcomed the spies.
2. To the spies
Her response to the spies was to recieve them, keep them safe, and help them escape.
Beginning in verse 9, Rahab gives an astonishing awareness of the history of Israel and the plan of God to give them the land of Canaan.
She tells them that she knows the Lord is God and asks them to keep her family safe from the destruction that is about to be visited upon Jericho.
Rahab responded with faith.
Later in the story we find that she and her family are integrated into Israel and in fact she ends up marrying into the nation and in the family lineage of Jesus.
Her faith that God was God and would do what He said for Israel was not something she only gave word of mouth to.
It was something that moved her to act.
I want you to see that today.
Her belief in the power of God moved her to act.
If she was discovered by the king she could have faced serious consequences.
But she feared the Lord more than anything that could happen to her as a result.
Faith leads obedience.
When someone is constantly disobedient to what the Lord has commanded, I question the presence of faith in their life.
When our words and our obedience don’t line up, we need to seek the Lord and see what the issue is.
Faith leads to action.
Rahab’s obedience out of her faith, ended with her being rescued.
III.
Rahab's rescue -
The response of the spies -
She lets them down by a rope through the window of her house that was built into the city wall.
Then they have this conversation.
Rahab does just this.
She puts the scarlet cord in the window.
The Israelites come and march around Jericho as commanded by the Lord.
You can read about it in Joshua chapter 6.
I remember once speaking at the boys elementary school years ago and having the kids march around the sanctuary during chapel to keep their attention while acting out this story.
God was going to flatten the walls and then they were supposed to go in and kill and destroy everything.
It was all devoted to the Lord for destruction.
But Rahab and all those in her house were to be spared.
So Israel did as the Lord commanded and they captured the city.
Let’s look at how Joshua handles Rahab in verses 22 through 25 of Joshua chapter 6.
The scarlet cord in Rahab’s window reminds us of one thing and points forward to another.
It reminds us of the blood that the Israelites put on their doorposts in Egypt so that their first born would be spared.
They are both signs of God’s deliverance.
During the first Passover the blood marked the houses that would be passed over for judgement and the scarlet cord marked the house of Rahab that should be spared because of the aid she gave to the spies.
But in this new sort of passover, God isn’t rescuing a people that He had chosen for Himself but He is saving a gentile prostitute and making her part of the people of God.
This should also remind us of Jesus who we celebrate.
Jesus who was the ultimate passover lamb.
Jesus who through His life, death, and resurrection adopts sinners into His family.
Rahab believed and her faith is commended when she is mentioned later in the New Testament.
She got a reputation of faith.
IV.
Rahab's reputation
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