Encouraged: Serving God Brings Joy
Encouraged: Taking God at His Word • Sermon • Submitted
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Goal: For each person to leave feeling compelled to serve the Lord.
Thesis: God can use you to accomplish great things for His Kingdom no matter the sins of your past.
It is interesting where this story is placed. Honestly, it seems to be somewhat out of place if we are looking for the Bible to give us a chronological order.
Israel doesn’t go into the land of Jericho until Joshua 6. This would be months after Joshua 2.
But God not only communicates through the words themselves. But God teaches us things by where the words are placed within the Bible.
In Joshua chapter 1, we have these monumental words that God gives to Joshua: Do not be afraid. For I was with Moses and I will be with you. Only do not turn away from the Word of God.
We may walk away with the idea that God is just going to snap His fingers and enemies are going to fall. God becomes the Great Magician who exists to wow us.
But that is not the way that God works most of the time.
Most of the time, God works through other people. He works as we are faithful to follow Him. He works as we serve others. He usually works the magnificent as we do the responsible.
It is to teach us that lesson that God brings the story of Rahab to the very beginning of Joshua. He wants to prevent us from having false ideas about God does.
God uses people to accomplish His will.
Sometimes you are the one that needs for God’s will to be accomplished in your life. God brings along other people from your church family to do that.
Other times, you are the one that God wants to use to accomplish His will for other people. It is this one that we will talk about today: God wants to use you to accomplish His will for others.
Here is what I hope to accomplish today:
Big Idea: I want you to leave today feeling compelled to serve the Lord for the benefit of others.
Big Idea: I want you to leave today feeling compelled to serve the Lord for the benefit of others.
In order to accomplish this, we are going to look at the life of Rahab and how God used her to accomplish His will for the Israelites.
The story of Rahab is divided into 3 scenes:
Scene 1: Rahab hides the spies (1-7)
Scene 1: Rahab hides the spies (1-7)
The spies sent (1)
The spies discovered (2-3)
The spies hidden (4-7)
Scene 2: Rahab pleads for mercy (8-14)
Scene 2: Rahab pleads for mercy (8-14)
She confesses God (8-10)
She fears God (11)
She pleads for Grace (12-13)
Scene 3: Rahab covenants with the spies (15-24)
Scene 3: Rahab covenants with the spies (15-24)
The sign of the covenant (17-18)
The terms of the covenant (19-21)
The LORD of the Covenant (22-24)
The LORD confirms His providence to Israel (24)
Applications
Ruth saw the impending devastation that was about to occur. She wanted for her and her family to be saved.
Many in Jericho had been lulled to sleep by a great deal of ease. They had grown comfortable.
There may be a message for that to us today.
Many Christians have grown comfortable. Uninterested. Distant.
We fail to see the impending devastation that awaits a world with God.
The greatest way that you can prepare is to become a servant of God.
But maybe you are not serving Him because you feel that you have nothing to give. You feel as if your past has disqualified you.
You feel as if you are not equipped.
I would like to conclude with three points of application for your life from Rahab:
God works through ordinary people
God works through ordinary people
God does not need the most influential to accomplish the most significant. He does not pick up His subscription of Time Magazine to see who are the “movers and shakers.”
He doesn’t look for social media influencers.
He doesn’t look at Forbes’ list of 500 wealthiest people.
God does His work through widows who faithfully pray for their church family. He does His work through the retired gentlemen who come up to the church during the week to mow the lawn for fix the leaky plumbing.
God does His finest work through people who have faithfully taught Sunday School for four decades.
God does His greatest work through a women’s group who meets and asks “How can we encourage our church family this month?”
He does His greatest work through a handful of men who meet for breakfast in order to pray for and encourage one another.
God’s work is not through the people that the world admires. It is through the people that world doesn’t know.
The question is not whether God can use you. The question is whether you WANT to God to use you.
Even though God had already given the land to the people, they had to receive what God gave.
And God used Rahab—the prostitution—as an instrument of His grace.
But Rahab had to be willing to be used. The NT book of James says:
In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route?
Do you *want* God to use you?
Many people make excuses for not serving the Lord due to their past. But God will use anyone who comes to Him in faith and follows Him with obedience.
God works through unlikely people
God works through unlikely people
Many people are hesitant to serve God because they may have some sin in their past. Something that embarrasses them.
Honestly, there are some well-meaning but mistaken Christians who foster this type of an environment.
They think those who have had to overcome a drug addiction are not fit for service.
The inked and pierced don’t live up to the standard.
The divorced are relegated to second class citizens.
And yet Rahab was a harlot and God has the audacity to include her in the list of the most faithful found in Hebrews 11:
By faith Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies in peace and didn’t perish with those who disobeyed.
You may think that some sin that you’ve committed in the past disqualifies you for service to the Lord in the present. But that just isn’t so.
Rahab was a prostitute. Noah was a drunkard. Abraham was a liar. Jacob was a schemer. Jeremiah was a quitter. John the Baptist was a doubter. Peter was a denier. And Paul was a murderer.
There is no sin that is beyond the grace of God. Praise God.
And if God will use them, then God will use you.
The world may call you a hypocrite. Some in the church may call you a traitor. Your family may call you a fraud.
But God calls you MINE.
You can serve Him no matter the sins of your past. And He will use you to accomplish the unimaginable.
God works through unexpected ways
God works through unexpected ways
God is a master at the unexpected.
A prostitute being at the center of God’s plan for the Israelites to defeat Jericho was probably not what they expected.
We don’t really see how all of this is worked out until we get to chapter 6. But many of you know how the story of Jericho ends.
Will we get there later, but for now, they march around the walls, blow some trumpets, and the walls come tumbling down.
None of these things would be found in books of military strategy.
But this is the way that God often does things.
He rescues people from the flood of His wrath by telling Noah to build an ark.
He establishes a people by giving a son to a man who was 100 years old.
His choice of a king was a small shepherd boy that everyone else had forgotten about.
God works in unexpected ways.
Sometimes the challenges that we face can seem so pointless. So insignificant. Meaningless.
But what we see as meaningless God sees as opportunity.
The story of Rahab and God’s use of her is evidence that God uses ordinary sinners—just like you—to accomplish extraordinary things in unexpected ways.
As a matter of fact, we see that Rahab was involved in THE most extraordinary event in all of the world:
Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab,
Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth,
Obed fathered Jesse,
Rahab—sinner she was—was used by God to bring the Christ into the world.
We serve a greater Joshua
We serve a greater Joshua
The name *Joshua* means “God saves.”
Just as Joshua was preparing to take His people into the promised land and would use sinners to do it, so does Jesus Christ.
Jesus desires to use you to accomplish His will. No matter what your background is, Jesus wants to use you. He wants you to serve Him.
The first step in making that a reality is to give your life to Jesus Christ.
The second step is to follow through with baptism.
The final step—and ongoing step—is to ask God daily to use you to serve Him.
Rahab had grown unhappy with her own life. She wanted a way to escape. She found that escape through placing her faith in God and joining with the people of God.
Today, maybe you too are unhappy with the current circumstances of your life.
Just as God was the only escape for Rahab....He is the only escape for you.
Would you place your faith in Him today?
He will forgive your sins. He will cleanse your conscience. He will give you a new heart.