Underdog
Doesn't everybody love an underdog story? I mean, it's just so good for the soul, right? You love an underdog story. But here's what we've learned over the years about underdog stories, specifically within the life of the local church. We love underdog story, as long as we can turn them into a movie, we love underdog story, as long as you can write a book about em. We love underdog stories unless they sit next to us on Sunday morning. Because what an underdog story that sits next to us on a Sunday morning does is it puts pressure on us to realize our lives can become more too. See the majority of us in the church, we just want to coast through life. The majority of us in church, we want to be the same tomorrow as we are today. We want to be the same next year as we are this year. The majority of us want to just coast through life and take it easy. And that's why we've learned that over the years. Everybody loves an underdog story, and less you go to church, it's good for a movie, but it's not good for the person sitting next to me. I don't want to believe that something great can take place in somebody so bad or so wrong, somebody so outcast or down and out, because the reality is what it does that challenges our life to become more many of us have come to church over the years, and we've seen people grow past us, and instead of celebrating them and putting them on our shoulders and carrying them off the field, what we do is try to tear them down and to make them feel small. We'd all love to experience the fullness of a purpose fulfilled in our lives. We would all love to experience the fullness of that promise in our lives. We would all love to experience that however, what it requires is change from us, and what the story of an underdog overcoming circumstances does is it challenges us to change. Yeah, because the opportunity to live the fullness of a promise and purpose doesn't come without changing, my friends, doesn't come without changing. Got it. So today, what we want to do is we want to look at an account in scripture that we really believe kind of sets a precedent. So we can see all through Scripture like there are lots of underdog stories, right? Like Gideon is a good underdog story, Joseph, who's a good underdog story. But what we want to look at, I think that this story really sets a precedent for how God feels about certain types of people and his heart towards the underdog and the power that comes from the willingness to make a change, okay, and not just the change, like I need to make a change in my life, but recognizing there could be a new season and it's going to require me to make a change. Last week, Pastor Matt ended the whole message talking about a prayer that he prayed for years, and he said, I'm not defined by my past, but by the work of but by the grace of God at work in me. And this was literally, I can attest you, a prayer that he prayed almost every day. He prayed it over himself. He prayed it over people that he prayed for. I mean, just I heard it all the time, over and over and over, and I saw God work out in him and help him to become a new man. Yeah, from the time that we met, we got married when we were 20 years old, and from that time on, I saw God work out of him the belief of who he used to be, and transform him into the belief of who God created him to be. And he did it through the belief that I'm not defined by my past. That's right, the only thing that defines me is by what God has done in me. And so we're going to look at a lady in Scripture named Rahab. And Rahab was a prostitute who was used by God. Isn't that interesting that God would use the life of a prostitute?
Some Some of y'all like, some of y'all were like, run that run that back. Yep,
that's right, a prostitute, a prostitute used by God. And what she did was she hid Israelite spies who were sent to take possession of the Promised Land. Okay? And I just think it's so significant that God would use this woman whose life was totally lost in sin, who was not even a member of God's chosen people, yeah, why would God choose her? That's the question I just started asking myself as we were reading through this chapter. Why would God choose her? Why is this story in the Bible? Why is this account here? But I think through this, we will see that God uses unqualified people. That's right, that he uses people whose. Should have counted them out. Yeah, he uses people like this to move his kingdom forward, people whose lives have no momentum, but they're willing to make a change, even if it costs them everything that's right. This lets us know that our past seasons do not determine our future opportunities. Our past seasons do not determine our future opportunities, and it sets a precedent that God wants us to know something, that our lives are not determined by our past, that's right, but, but they are determined by the grace that He puts on the inside of us, and that our lives can be used to affect and impact the kingdom when we're willing to change. That's what this is all about. It's about setting aside our past and giving God everything, being willing to change, and seeing the life that He has for us, the momentum of the life that He has for us. So remember, last week we were in Joshua chapter one. Remember, Moses is dead. Everybody, look at your neighbor. Say Moses is dead. He's gone. Remember, we are strong and courageous. God spoke that to Joshua. He said, Be strong and courageous. Be very strong and courageous, right? And then he's like, Okay, you guys are going to go and take the promised land. Okay? This is after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Okay, so we get to Joshua chapter two. So good. And it starts out with two spies sent out to scout out the promised land. Okay, they end up at the home of Rahab. We don't know how they ended up there. We don't know why they ended up there. We just know that they ended up at the home of this prostitute named Rahab. Okay? And the King found out, and she was ordered to turn them over, but she had a sense of arrival. She had a sense that, okay, something could be different in my life. I need to pay attention to something. There could be an opportunity here for a new season. Okay, so we're gonna be in Joshua chapter two. We're gonna start in verse number four. Okay, it says this, Rahab had hidden the two men. But she replied, Yes, the men were here earlier, but I didn't know where they were from. They left the town at dusk as the gates were about to close, and I don't know where they went. If you hurry, you can probably catch up with them. Actually, she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them beneath bundles of flax she had laid out so the king's men went looking for the spies along the road leading to the shallow crossings of the Jordan River. As soon as the king's men left, the gate of Jericho was shut. The gate shut. Here are four acknowledgments that we need to make of an underdog. Four acknowledgments we need to make of an underdog acknowledgement number one is Rahab acknowledged the arrival of a new season. So we heard the Scripture pastor Carrie set it up, and she said that we don't know how the men got there. We don't know why they chose to go there, but they they, they helped her acknowledge, upon their arrival, that Rahab, while they were going into a new season, was also going into a new season. She acknowledged, this is a new season. Now, while we don't know exactly what happened, we know that she did not have an interaction with them the way that she had interaction with everybody else, because they didn't just come and pay and leave, they came and stayed. So something was different. I think that maybe these men came in, they were marked by God. They were marked by an arrival. They were marked by a season of momentum. And because of that, they interacted with her differently than anybody else would have interacted with her, and because they interacted with her differently, she had a level of trust for these men that she wouldn't normally have, in such a way that she recognized something that was on their lives that was different. See, her scenery didn't change. She was still in her house, she was still working in her profession, but what the men brought was a sense that there's a new season arriving. Mm, hmm. I wonder, my friends, if what God's doing in your life couldn't be an inspiration, that God may want to do something in someone else's life around you, the way that you interact with people couldn't inspire them, letting them know, hey, there's a new sense of arrival or momentum. There seems to be something different on your life that is on everybody else's life. So maybe, just maybe, it could inspire my faith and cause me to hope in a way that I haven't in the past see. Rahab understood that, as she was arriving in this potential new season, that she couldn't do things the way that she used to. So she said, Hey, why don't you go to the roof? Imma hide you out. I'm gonna make sure that you get to the place where you need to go. I'm not going to interact with you the way that I interact with everybody else. I'm going to interact with you in a new way. Because what got me here is not going to. Get me there. Yeah, do y'all hear what I'm saying? So many times we sense God doing something new, a new season, but we want to do things the same old way that we've always done things before. But when you arrive in a new season and you acknowledge the fact that you've arrived, you've got to change the way that you've always done things. She did things a new way, not the way that she had always done them. She was new because she's she sensed a new season because, in fact, my friends, it was a new season. And I think it's a new season for you too. Look at your neighbor, give him a knuckle bumper. Tell him it's a new season for you. New season. How? Verse, number eight in chapter two, the Bible says this, before the spies went to sleep that night, Rahab went up on the roof to talk with them. I know the Lord has given you this land. She told them, we're all afraid of you. Everyone in the land is living in terror, for we've heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt, and we know what you did to Sihon and Og the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan whose people you completely destroyed. No wonder our hearts have melted in fear. No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord, your God is the supreme god of heavens above and the earth below. Number two thing, Rahab acknowledged God's momentum around her. She acknowledged God's momentum around her. And I love that Joshua too says that. Rahab said, I've heard what the Lord has done. I've heard how good he is. I've heard how powerful is. I've heard all of the things that he's done. And at the end she says, For the Lord your God is the supreme god of the heavens above and the earth below. She is putting faith in what she's seen God do in someone else's life. Come on. How significant is that where God hadn't done anything in her life. She did not know God, but she saw God working in someone else's life, and she said, You know what? If God can do it in their life, I believe he can do it in my life. And so many times, we get disappointed and discouraged when we see God doing things in other people's lives, don't we? We think we kind of feel sorry for ourselves sometimes. Come on, we're like, Man, why did they get that? Why did they have that opportunity? Why did we used to do it when we first anybody a pity party? Person? Oh, sorry, anybody? Sometimes we were, we were like, Why did they get a building already? Why do they have all those people? Why do they get a paycheck? You know, like when we first started to hear plant in the church. We like, we're in a crusty middle school, you know, like, What in the world? God's given buildings to people. And we're like, what do we gotta do to get a building, you know? And we felt so sorry for ourselves. Yeah, we did really good for them, you know. Well, if we had that, well, what we could do? And then all of a sudden we realized, Wait, if God can do it for them, he can do it for us, that's it. And so we started to change our tune, based on, I see God doing something. I bet if God can do that there, he can do it here, that's right. And all of a sudden, our faith for momentum started to move. We started to read our Bible a little bit differently. Because guess what our Bible is? It's us seeing what God has done and applying faith to it. Man. God did that there. I bet he could do it again. The Bible is a testimony, a testament of who God is. So good, it means that if God's faithful, then he's faithful. Now, if God restored, then he restores. Now, if God brings peace, then he brings peace. Now I can take what he's done and apply it to my life in the same way what God's done in me, I can share it and it can inspire faith in someone else. So what God is doing in our lives, we've gotta understand it can cause momentum to happen in other people. What if you never share the goodness of God? No one in your life can take your faith and use it for their faith. We should be talking about the goodness of God. If you love something, you share about it, don't you? Have you ever tried a restaurant that you just are like, Oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing I've ever tried in my whole life. You tell everybody about it, you get on Facebook, you take a picture of it, you all the things everywhere, all the time. You tell everybody about it. Why? Because you loved it. It was amazing. It changed your life. It did not change your life. That cheeseburger, it did not change your life. Jesus, changed your life. Come on, come on. When's the last time you told somebody about how Jesus changed your life? If you're not telling more people about Jesus than that cheeseburger last week, we need to think about that. My faith in Jesus can inspire momentum in someone else. You are preaching. You. Yeah, about to stand up, wave a hanky, give you a step, stop a stake. Face, yeah, good, oh, I'm supposed to read that. I was gonna say I, I'm not. I just felt like I needed to throw it at that time. Okay, we're gonna read some more. I threw it because she can't catch. No, I threw it. Yeah, thankfully she threw it because she can't catch. That's not what you said though, oh, thankfully I didn't throw it right in Jesus name. Alright? Joshua, two, verse 12, whatever. Okay, focus. No. Strip searching. Strip strip strip sacking. Strip sacking. Wait, strip sacking. We're gonna use, we're gonna use service one for YouTube. Strip sacking. It's just strip sack. Do you know what that is? Yeah, it's when you sack them and you strip the ball away. There we go. I got it.
Come on, y'all find Find you. Find you one like this. Sometimes I sometimes I say the wrong words. That's so true. Alright, thanks. Thanks, chapel. They got me. They got me. Okay? Verse 12, strip, search, strip, don't re say it. Oh yeah, sorry. They had forgotten. My mind has gone other places, everybody we're going to. We're coming we're coming back. We're coming back in. Jesus name, Joshua. Chapter two, verse 12, good married conversation. Now come to love. I'm going to read the verse Oh, okay, yeah, Joshua, chapter two, verse 12. Verse 12. Now Swear to me by the Lord that you will be kind to me and my family. Since I've helped you, this is hard to get back on track. Give me some guarantee that when Jericho is conquered, you will let me live along with my father and my mother, my brothers and sisters and all their families. We offer our own lives as a guarantee for your safety and the men agreed. If you don't betray us, we will keep our promise and be kind to you when the Lord gives us the land. Okay, everybody thought number three that we have to acknowledge from the life of an underdog. Rahab acknowledged the need for alignment with God's momentum. She saw that God was doing something around her, and she realized that if God's doing something around me, he can potentially do it in me. See, many times what happens is we miss the fact that God doing something around me indicates that he could do something in me. We want to feel sorry for ourselves. Oh, my goodness, God's doing great things in their life. I wish you would do great things in my life. No, no. The fact that you can see it should let you know that he can do it in you too. What you need to understand is it's time for me to align to a new way of life. See, Rahab chose not to align her life to her, to to her, the people that she grew up with. She realized that the people of God were experiencing something different, and so she knew that she wanted to align to something brand new. She She realized and acknowledge the need for alignment to God. The need for alignment to God. Some of us in the new season that we're on the on the doorstep of we need to recognize our need for alignment to the things of God. See, because what got you here won't get you to the new place that God has taken you to. However, so many of us, we want to continue doing the same things and trust that we'll get different results. Can I tell you something? Doing the same thing will not get you different results, doing the same thing will not get you different results. Doing the same thing will not get you different results. Only changing your alignment will get you different results as you're moving forward in the future, you want to set yourself up for disappointment and failure. Keep doing the same things, but expecting a different outcome, you'll be disappointed, I promise you. Okay. Now, if you will change your alignment, if you'll change what you're doing, you can expect change as you move forward in your future. She desperately wanted to be a part of what she had heard. She could be a part of what God was doing. She desperately wanted to be a part of it. And so she began to align herself to a new way of doing things. If you read the scriptures, continuing on, verse 15 through 21 I'm going to paraphrase it for you, because we just don't have enough time. But what Rahab chose to do is she chose to turn her back on her people. She chose to turn her back on the culture. She chose to turn her back on what everybody else thought she should do, and she aligned herself to the things of. God and to the people of God and said, I want something new, so I'm going to align my life to something new, not something old anymore. So what she did was she partnered with these new men that she had heard about that treated her differently than anybody else had ever treated her before. Didn't take advantage of her, didn't abuse her. You and as she partnered with them, she put them in position to walk in their promised land. And by faith, by faith, she went and she did something. She gathered her family. She said, Hey, listen, I think that this is for me, but I don't think it's just for me. See you come to church and you think this is for me, something's stirring on the inside of me. But can I tell you something that's not just for you when you arrive in a new season and begin to experience new momentum, it's for you, but it's also for those who are connected to you or close to you. Now, picture the life of a prostitute. I don't know about you as a parent, but it would not be top of the list of things that I would want for my my daughters. Y'all hear what I'm saying. It would not be top on my list of the the lifestyle, the livelihood that I would want my children to be a part of. So I'm guessing that there was probably some sort of family disconnection. They probably didn't have a lot to do with her, maybe, just maybe, they looked down on her. They had disconnected from her. They had gone away from her. But here's what she realized by faith. She said, God, you're going to do something new in me. I wonder if you can do something new in my family too. I wonder if you can restore a relationship, I wonder if you can rekindle the love that was once there. I wonder if you can bring back again about the relationship that I once had. And so she said to the spies, she said, Imma, let you go, but not just for me. Can I have it for my family too? And so by faith, when she lowered these men down from the wall, and she marked her window with a scarlet cord. She then went and found her family, and she probably had to do a lot of work to convince them or to compel them. We've all known people who are addicted to something, who are falling in something, who are stuck in something, and they tell you it's gonna be different. This time, it's gonna be different. Yeah, we've heard this before. We've heard that. No, mom, dad, I'm telling you, you gotta get in the house. There's a promise of God, what began to happen? Her family began to sense, Oh, her scenery hasn't changed, but there's a sense in me that something has changed. There is an arrival that I'm sent, there's a momentum that I'm sensing in her. And so by faith, by faith, she went and she gathered her family, she hid them in her house, telling them about this new season of momentum. Good. So then we gotta kind of ask ourselves, the The chapter ends, and it kind of leaves Rahab story, okay? And so I'm like, oh, what happens next? Like, where does she go? What happens next? And so I'm going to tell you the fourth thing, and then we're going to find Rahab again. But number four, acknowledgement of an underdog is this. Rahab acknowledged the acceleration by God's momentum. She acknowledged it. She leaned into it. And the next place we see Rahab is a few chapters later in Joshua, chapter six, verse 25 it says this, So Joshua spared Rahab, the prostitute and her relatives who were with her in the house, because she had hidden the spies Joshua sent to Jericho. And this is the greatest sentence, and she lives among the Israelites. To this day, her life was completely changed. Everything about her life changed, her scenery, her people, her vocation. Nothing stayed the same. Why? Because she was willing to change with God. Everything changed. She was strong and courageous. You know, it takes strength and courage to change everything, to leave everything behind. Her reputation moved from prostitute to woman of faith. Yeah, imagine that her life was known as a prostitute and she became known as a woman of faith. She is now listed by name in the hall of faith. Hebrews 11, verse 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. How does a woman go from being a prostitute to being listed among the greatest examples of faith by name, with Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah and Rahab the prostitute. In her last season, she was called something, but God called her out of that, he said, your passion. Does not define you. Who I created you to be, the purpose that I assign to you when I created you. That's who you are, that's right, that's who you are, that's who I see when I look at you. And so I'm going to give you an opportunity to make a change. I'm going to give you an opportunity for a new season. And she courageously stepped into that new season. She aligned her life to a new way, to God's way. And here's the truth, when she left with the Israelites, she didn't take anything with her when Jericho fell, you remember from little Bible class, when the walls came with tumbling down, guess what? Nothing was left. The only thing that went with Rahab were the people that were hidden in her house with her. She didn't take anything. And when we move into a new season, into a new life that God has for us, we don't take anything from the old life. That's right, we gotta leave the old life where it was and step into the new place that God has for us. We have to go into the new space with the new calling, with the new purpose, into the new life that God has established for us. He had new people for her, a new community for her, a new opportunity not to be known as who she used to be, but to be known as someone else, not to have her past held over her, but to have an opportunity to be somebody new, the person that God created her to be. How did that happen? It's because she aligned herself to God. She left her old life behind, and she said, You know what? I have faith that God can move me out of that season and into a new season.
So let me ask this question, why why would God use this woman to be an example for you and I, and I think it's specifically for this. We're on the doorstep of momentum, a new season, but the temptation for many of us is to take the old into the new. You probably look at this story and you think, Well, Pastor Matt, of course, it's easy for a prostitute, somebody who is a social outcast to leave everything behind, but I'm not that bad, and I think that's why she's the example, because you and I are still putting our trust in us where she knew she had no other option. Yeah, you're never going to attain the momentum that God has for you in this next season by trying to hold on to anything from your past. You can let it inspire you, but you can't let it define you. Yeah, see, when we talk about me praying the prayer God My life isn't defined by my past. It's defined by your grace that's at work on the inside of me. I grew up in hell, for sure. I grew up in lack and without a lot, but I also had some opportunities coming out of high school that many people would dream of having something that I could hang my hat on. See, there's a university close to us that I was recruited to play football for, and I was provided some opportunities that other people didn't have, and there was a season of my life that I still wanted to hang my hat on that, but I had to determine, God, if I'm going to experience the momentum that you have for me, which wasn't that some people are called to that, but it wasn't for me, you have to determine, what are you called to? What is your season of momentum look like? Because whether it's good, bad or ugly. It's easy to let go of the ugly. It's easy to let go of the bad, but sometimes we want to hold on and allow even the good things to define us. Yeah, come on, everybody. My life isn't defined by my past. It wasn't defined by the letters. It wasn't defined by the recruits. It was It wasn't defined by the visits, it wasn't defined by the plays. It wasn't defined by the highlights. It wasn't defined anymore by that God is defined by your grace that's at work on the inside of me. Come on, what's defining you from your past, keeping you. Suck from the momentum that God has for you in your future. Some of us are on the doorstep of the newest level of momentum we've ever experienced before, but Moses is dead, and what got us here is not going to get us get us there. And that doesn't mean that everything externally has to change, because that's what we believe sometimes, oh, we gotta quit this job. We gotta quit this team. We gotta quit. No, no, that's not what I'm talking about. Because sometimes, when you've arrived in a new season, the scenery doesn't change, just the sense does. What's the sense that God's bringing to you? And how are you feeling stuck? Come on, would you stand on your feet with
me? It was by faith, everybody, by faith, by faith, that Rahab moved from being an underdog, an outcast, to disappointment, to her family, a failure in the eyes of the community, someone who then used and abused in every sense of the term. It was by faith that she moved from those things into someone who is now chosen by God to usher his people into the place of promise that they were called to be seen in the Old Testament, we're called to usher, be ushered into a land, but in the New Testament, we're called to be ushered into a life. Pastor Carrie and I stand before you rahabs, whose lives were one thing, but through the acknowledgement of a new season and the alignment to a new season, hopefully can inspire you into your new season too. So let me ask you something today, everybody, what's stopping you, what's stopping you, what's holding you back, what's that old thing that's tying you to your past seasons? What old thing are you allowing to define you? Sure, maybe everyone else in your world has counted you out, but what if God counts you in? See, here's what I believe. I have a sense in our rooms today that some of you came in and you felt counted out, but God brought you here today because he's counting you in where everyone else says no, he's saying yes, everyone else is saying not, yet he's saying yes. Now, if Rahab took that scar on the court and she hung it in the window of her place, the scenery didn't change, but that scarlet cord, it represents the blood of Jesus. See, in the Old Testament, it was outer and physical. There needed to be a sign in the window. But in the New Testament, it's inner and spiritual. There can be a sense about your life today, some of you came in and you're disconnected from God. You're real and you're wondering which way is up. And I'm telling you, you don't have to leave that way today. You don't have to leave questioning God. Do you have a plan? Oh, he has a plan, and he wants to prosper you. It's a good plan for good and not hard for blessing and not evil. Today is the day where you hang the cord in your window. You call on the name of Jesus, marked by the blood and the power of the cross, not outwardly and physically, but inwardly and spiritually. You'll leave this place differently than you came in today, you say yes to Jesus and yes to life. Come on with every head bowed and every eye closed, if that's you today, you say, Pastor, Matt. That's me. I came in feeling like an underdog. I might not want to use that word, but that's how I'm feeling. But today I want to leave knowing that I'm more than a conqueror in Christ, Jesus. I want to say yes to Jesus, yes to life, yes to the blessing of heaven, yes to hope. Evermore. If that's you, would you just lift your hand. Come on. Just lift your hand saying yes to Jesus. Come on. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. This is the type of alignment that we're looking for in the kingdom. This is the type of alignment that God is calling us to be as people of faith. This is alignment where we do away with our old life and say yes to the new life. Yes to the new life. Come on, everybody who has your hand up, we're going to pray this prayer and at Mercy city. We never pray alone. We pray as a family. So those of you who are people of faith and you believe in the Lord Jesus already join us. And let's declare this in Jesus name, say Father God today. I receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Today, I choose to surrender my heart saying yes to Jesus, yes to life, yes to momentum. Today, I choose to say I believe in the Lord Jesus, turning my heart from my sinful ways toward the person of Jesus in the power of the cross. Today I receive the person of the Holy Spirit. Today I surrender and will follow you all the days of my life in Jesus name Amen. Amen. Amen.
Some Some of y'all like, some of y'all were like, run that run that back. Yep,
that's right, a prostitute, a prostitute used by God. And what she did was she hid Israelite spies who were sent to take possession of the Promised Land. Okay? And I just think it's so significant that God would use this woman whose life was totally lost in sin, who was not even a member of God's chosen people, yeah, why would God choose her? That's the question I just started asking myself as we were reading through this chapter. Why would God choose her? Why is this story in the Bible? Why is this account here? But I think through this, we will see that God uses unqualified people. That's right, that he uses people whose. Should have counted them out. Yeah, he uses people like this to move his kingdom forward, people whose lives have no momentum, but they're willing to make a change, even if it costs them everything that's right. This lets us know that our past seasons do not determine our future opportunities. Our past seasons do not determine our future opportunities, and it sets a precedent that God wants us to know something, that our lives are not determined by our past, that's right, but, but they are determined by the grace that He puts on the inside of us, and that our lives can be used to affect and impact the kingdom when we're willing to change. That's what this is all about. It's about setting aside our past and giving God everything, being willing to change, and seeing the life that He has for us, the momentum of the life that He has for us. So remember, last week we were in Joshua chapter one. Remember, Moses is dead. Everybody, look at your neighbor. Say Moses is dead. He's gone. Remember, we are strong and courageous. God spoke that to Joshua. He said, Be strong and courageous. Be very strong and courageous, right? And then he's like, Okay, you guys are going to go and take the promised land. Okay? This is after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Okay, so we get to Joshua chapter two. So good. And it starts out with two spies sent out to scout out the promised land. Okay, they end up at the home of Rahab. We don't know how they ended up there. We don't know why they ended up there. We just know that they ended up at the home of this prostitute named Rahab. Okay? And the King found out, and she was ordered to turn them over, but she had a sense of arrival. She had a sense that, okay, something could be different in my life. I need to pay attention to something. There could be an opportunity here for a new season. Okay, so we're gonna be in Joshua chapter two. We're gonna start in verse number four. Okay, it says this, Rahab had hidden the two men. But she replied, Yes, the men were here earlier, but I didn't know where they were from. They left the town at dusk as the gates were about to close, and I don't know where they went. If you hurry, you can probably catch up with them. Actually, she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them beneath bundles of flax she had laid out so the king's men went looking for the spies along the road leading to the shallow crossings of the Jordan River. As soon as the king's men left, the gate of Jericho was shut. The gate shut. Here are four acknowledgments that we need to make of an underdog. Four acknowledgments we need to make of an underdog acknowledgement number one is Rahab acknowledged the arrival of a new season. So we heard the Scripture pastor Carrie set it up, and she said that we don't know how the men got there. We don't know why they chose to go there, but they they, they helped her acknowledge, upon their arrival, that Rahab, while they were going into a new season, was also going into a new season. She acknowledged, this is a new season. Now, while we don't know exactly what happened, we know that she did not have an interaction with them the way that she had interaction with everybody else, because they didn't just come and pay and leave, they came and stayed. So something was different. I think that maybe these men came in, they were marked by God. They were marked by an arrival. They were marked by a season of momentum. And because of that, they interacted with her differently than anybody else would have interacted with her, and because they interacted with her differently, she had a level of trust for these men that she wouldn't normally have, in such a way that she recognized something that was on their lives that was different. See, her scenery didn't change. She was still in her house, she was still working in her profession, but what the men brought was a sense that there's a new season arriving. Mm, hmm. I wonder, my friends, if what God's doing in your life couldn't be an inspiration, that God may want to do something in someone else's life around you, the way that you interact with people couldn't inspire them, letting them know, hey, there's a new sense of arrival or momentum. There seems to be something different on your life that is on everybody else's life. So maybe, just maybe, it could inspire my faith and cause me to hope in a way that I haven't in the past see. Rahab understood that, as she was arriving in this potential new season, that she couldn't do things the way that she used to. So she said, Hey, why don't you go to the roof? Imma hide you out. I'm gonna make sure that you get to the place where you need to go. I'm not going to interact with you the way that I interact with everybody else. I'm going to interact with you in a new way. Because what got me here is not going to. Get me there. Yeah, do y'all hear what I'm saying? So many times we sense God doing something new, a new season, but we want to do things the same old way that we've always done things before. But when you arrive in a new season and you acknowledge the fact that you've arrived, you've got to change the way that you've always done things. She did things a new way, not the way that she had always done them. She was new because she's she sensed a new season because, in fact, my friends, it was a new season. And I think it's a new season for you too. Look at your neighbor, give him a knuckle bumper. Tell him it's a new season for you. New season. How? Verse, number eight in chapter two, the Bible says this, before the spies went to sleep that night, Rahab went up on the roof to talk with them. I know the Lord has given you this land. She told them, we're all afraid of you. Everyone in the land is living in terror, for we've heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt, and we know what you did to Sihon and Og the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan whose people you completely destroyed. No wonder our hearts have melted in fear. No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord, your God is the supreme god of heavens above and the earth below. Number two thing, Rahab acknowledged God's momentum around her. She acknowledged God's momentum around her. And I love that Joshua too says that. Rahab said, I've heard what the Lord has done. I've heard how good he is. I've heard how powerful is. I've heard all of the things that he's done. And at the end she says, For the Lord your God is the supreme god of the heavens above and the earth below. She is putting faith in what she's seen God do in someone else's life. Come on. How significant is that where God hadn't done anything in her life. She did not know God, but she saw God working in someone else's life, and she said, You know what? If God can do it in their life, I believe he can do it in my life. And so many times, we get disappointed and discouraged when we see God doing things in other people's lives, don't we? We think we kind of feel sorry for ourselves sometimes. Come on, we're like, Man, why did they get that? Why did they have that opportunity? Why did we used to do it when we first anybody a pity party? Person? Oh, sorry, anybody? Sometimes we were, we were like, Why did they get a building already? Why do they have all those people? Why do they get a paycheck? You know, like when we first started to hear plant in the church. We like, we're in a crusty middle school, you know, like, What in the world? God's given buildings to people. And we're like, what do we gotta do to get a building, you know? And we felt so sorry for ourselves. Yeah, we did really good for them, you know. Well, if we had that, well, what we could do? And then all of a sudden we realized, Wait, if God can do it for them, he can do it for us, that's it. And so we started to change our tune, based on, I see God doing something. I bet if God can do that there, he can do it here, that's right. And all of a sudden, our faith for momentum started to move. We started to read our Bible a little bit differently. Because guess what our Bible is? It's us seeing what God has done and applying faith to it. Man. God did that there. I bet he could do it again. The Bible is a testimony, a testament of who God is. So good, it means that if God's faithful, then he's faithful. Now, if God restored, then he restores. Now, if God brings peace, then he brings peace. Now I can take what he's done and apply it to my life in the same way what God's done in me, I can share it and it can inspire faith in someone else. So what God is doing in our lives, we've gotta understand it can cause momentum to happen in other people. What if you never share the goodness of God? No one in your life can take your faith and use it for their faith. We should be talking about the goodness of God. If you love something, you share about it, don't you? Have you ever tried a restaurant that you just are like, Oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing I've ever tried in my whole life. You tell everybody about it, you get on Facebook, you take a picture of it, you all the things everywhere, all the time. You tell everybody about it. Why? Because you loved it. It was amazing. It changed your life. It did not change your life. That cheeseburger, it did not change your life. Jesus, changed your life. Come on, come on. When's the last time you told somebody about how Jesus changed your life? If you're not telling more people about Jesus than that cheeseburger last week, we need to think about that. My faith in Jesus can inspire momentum in someone else. You are preaching. You. Yeah, about to stand up, wave a hanky, give you a step, stop a stake. Face, yeah, good, oh, I'm supposed to read that. I was gonna say I, I'm not. I just felt like I needed to throw it at that time. Okay, we're gonna read some more. I threw it because she can't catch. No, I threw it. Yeah, thankfully she threw it because she can't catch. That's not what you said though, oh, thankfully I didn't throw it right in Jesus name. Alright? Joshua, two, verse 12, whatever. Okay, focus. No. Strip searching. Strip strip strip sacking. Strip sacking. Wait, strip sacking. We're gonna use, we're gonna use service one for YouTube. Strip sacking. It's just strip sack. Do you know what that is? Yeah, it's when you sack them and you strip the ball away. There we go. I got it.
Come on, y'all find Find you. Find you one like this. Sometimes I sometimes I say the wrong words. That's so true. Alright, thanks. Thanks, chapel. They got me. They got me. Okay? Verse 12, strip, search, strip, don't re say it. Oh yeah, sorry. They had forgotten. My mind has gone other places, everybody we're going to. We're coming we're coming back. We're coming back in. Jesus name, Joshua. Chapter two, verse 12, good married conversation. Now come to love. I'm going to read the verse Oh, okay, yeah, Joshua, chapter two, verse 12. Verse 12. Now Swear to me by the Lord that you will be kind to me and my family. Since I've helped you, this is hard to get back on track. Give me some guarantee that when Jericho is conquered, you will let me live along with my father and my mother, my brothers and sisters and all their families. We offer our own lives as a guarantee for your safety and the men agreed. If you don't betray us, we will keep our promise and be kind to you when the Lord gives us the land. Okay, everybody thought number three that we have to acknowledge from the life of an underdog. Rahab acknowledged the need for alignment with God's momentum. She saw that God was doing something around her, and she realized that if God's doing something around me, he can potentially do it in me. See, many times what happens is we miss the fact that God doing something around me indicates that he could do something in me. We want to feel sorry for ourselves. Oh, my goodness, God's doing great things in their life. I wish you would do great things in my life. No, no. The fact that you can see it should let you know that he can do it in you too. What you need to understand is it's time for me to align to a new way of life. See, Rahab chose not to align her life to her, to to her, the people that she grew up with. She realized that the people of God were experiencing something different, and so she knew that she wanted to align to something brand new. She She realized and acknowledge the need for alignment to God. The need for alignment to God. Some of us in the new season that we're on the on the doorstep of we need to recognize our need for alignment to the things of God. See, because what got you here won't get you to the new place that God has taken you to. However, so many of us, we want to continue doing the same things and trust that we'll get different results. Can I tell you something? Doing the same thing will not get you different results, doing the same thing will not get you different results. Doing the same thing will not get you different results. Only changing your alignment will get you different results as you're moving forward in the future, you want to set yourself up for disappointment and failure. Keep doing the same things, but expecting a different outcome, you'll be disappointed, I promise you. Okay. Now, if you will change your alignment, if you'll change what you're doing, you can expect change as you move forward in your future. She desperately wanted to be a part of what she had heard. She could be a part of what God was doing. She desperately wanted to be a part of it. And so she began to align herself to a new way of doing things. If you read the scriptures, continuing on, verse 15 through 21 I'm going to paraphrase it for you, because we just don't have enough time. But what Rahab chose to do is she chose to turn her back on her people. She chose to turn her back on the culture. She chose to turn her back on what everybody else thought she should do, and she aligned herself to the things of. God and to the people of God and said, I want something new, so I'm going to align my life to something new, not something old anymore. So what she did was she partnered with these new men that she had heard about that treated her differently than anybody else had ever treated her before. Didn't take advantage of her, didn't abuse her. You and as she partnered with them, she put them in position to walk in their promised land. And by faith, by faith, she went and she did something. She gathered her family. She said, Hey, listen, I think that this is for me, but I don't think it's just for me. See you come to church and you think this is for me, something's stirring on the inside of me. But can I tell you something that's not just for you when you arrive in a new season and begin to experience new momentum, it's for you, but it's also for those who are connected to you or close to you. Now, picture the life of a prostitute. I don't know about you as a parent, but it would not be top of the list of things that I would want for my my daughters. Y'all hear what I'm saying. It would not be top on my list of the the lifestyle, the livelihood that I would want my children to be a part of. So I'm guessing that there was probably some sort of family disconnection. They probably didn't have a lot to do with her, maybe, just maybe, they looked down on her. They had disconnected from her. They had gone away from her. But here's what she realized by faith. She said, God, you're going to do something new in me. I wonder if you can do something new in my family too. I wonder if you can restore a relationship, I wonder if you can rekindle the love that was once there. I wonder if you can bring back again about the relationship that I once had. And so she said to the spies, she said, Imma, let you go, but not just for me. Can I have it for my family too? And so by faith, when she lowered these men down from the wall, and she marked her window with a scarlet cord. She then went and found her family, and she probably had to do a lot of work to convince them or to compel them. We've all known people who are addicted to something, who are falling in something, who are stuck in something, and they tell you it's gonna be different. This time, it's gonna be different. Yeah, we've heard this before. We've heard that. No, mom, dad, I'm telling you, you gotta get in the house. There's a promise of God, what began to happen? Her family began to sense, Oh, her scenery hasn't changed, but there's a sense in me that something has changed. There is an arrival that I'm sent, there's a momentum that I'm sensing in her. And so by faith, by faith, she went and she gathered her family, she hid them in her house, telling them about this new season of momentum. Good. So then we gotta kind of ask ourselves, the The chapter ends, and it kind of leaves Rahab story, okay? And so I'm like, oh, what happens next? Like, where does she go? What happens next? And so I'm going to tell you the fourth thing, and then we're going to find Rahab again. But number four, acknowledgement of an underdog is this. Rahab acknowledged the acceleration by God's momentum. She acknowledged it. She leaned into it. And the next place we see Rahab is a few chapters later in Joshua, chapter six, verse 25 it says this, So Joshua spared Rahab, the prostitute and her relatives who were with her in the house, because she had hidden the spies Joshua sent to Jericho. And this is the greatest sentence, and she lives among the Israelites. To this day, her life was completely changed. Everything about her life changed, her scenery, her people, her vocation. Nothing stayed the same. Why? Because she was willing to change with God. Everything changed. She was strong and courageous. You know, it takes strength and courage to change everything, to leave everything behind. Her reputation moved from prostitute to woman of faith. Yeah, imagine that her life was known as a prostitute and she became known as a woman of faith. She is now listed by name in the hall of faith. Hebrews 11, verse 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. How does a woman go from being a prostitute to being listed among the greatest examples of faith by name, with Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah and Rahab the prostitute. In her last season, she was called something, but God called her out of that, he said, your passion. Does not define you. Who I created you to be, the purpose that I assign to you when I created you. That's who you are, that's right, that's who you are, that's who I see when I look at you. And so I'm going to give you an opportunity to make a change. I'm going to give you an opportunity for a new season. And she courageously stepped into that new season. She aligned her life to a new way, to God's way. And here's the truth, when she left with the Israelites, she didn't take anything with her when Jericho fell, you remember from little Bible class, when the walls came with tumbling down, guess what? Nothing was left. The only thing that went with Rahab were the people that were hidden in her house with her. She didn't take anything. And when we move into a new season, into a new life that God has for us, we don't take anything from the old life. That's right, we gotta leave the old life where it was and step into the new place that God has for us. We have to go into the new space with the new calling, with the new purpose, into the new life that God has established for us. He had new people for her, a new community for her, a new opportunity not to be known as who she used to be, but to be known as someone else, not to have her past held over her, but to have an opportunity to be somebody new, the person that God created her to be. How did that happen? It's because she aligned herself to God. She left her old life behind, and she said, You know what? I have faith that God can move me out of that season and into a new season.
So let me ask this question, why why would God use this woman to be an example for you and I, and I think it's specifically for this. We're on the doorstep of momentum, a new season, but the temptation for many of us is to take the old into the new. You probably look at this story and you think, Well, Pastor Matt, of course, it's easy for a prostitute, somebody who is a social outcast to leave everything behind, but I'm not that bad, and I think that's why she's the example, because you and I are still putting our trust in us where she knew she had no other option. Yeah, you're never going to attain the momentum that God has for you in this next season by trying to hold on to anything from your past. You can let it inspire you, but you can't let it define you. Yeah, see, when we talk about me praying the prayer God My life isn't defined by my past. It's defined by your grace that's at work on the inside of me. I grew up in hell, for sure. I grew up in lack and without a lot, but I also had some opportunities coming out of high school that many people would dream of having something that I could hang my hat on. See, there's a university close to us that I was recruited to play football for, and I was provided some opportunities that other people didn't have, and there was a season of my life that I still wanted to hang my hat on that, but I had to determine, God, if I'm going to experience the momentum that you have for me, which wasn't that some people are called to that, but it wasn't for me, you have to determine, what are you called to? What is your season of momentum look like? Because whether it's good, bad or ugly. It's easy to let go of the ugly. It's easy to let go of the bad, but sometimes we want to hold on and allow even the good things to define us. Yeah, come on, everybody. My life isn't defined by my past. It wasn't defined by the letters. It wasn't defined by the recruits. It was It wasn't defined by the visits, it wasn't defined by the plays. It wasn't defined by the highlights. It wasn't defined anymore by that God is defined by your grace that's at work on the inside of me. Come on, what's defining you from your past, keeping you. Suck from the momentum that God has for you in your future. Some of us are on the doorstep of the newest level of momentum we've ever experienced before, but Moses is dead, and what got us here is not going to get us get us there. And that doesn't mean that everything externally has to change, because that's what we believe sometimes, oh, we gotta quit this job. We gotta quit this team. We gotta quit. No, no, that's not what I'm talking about. Because sometimes, when you've arrived in a new season, the scenery doesn't change, just the sense does. What's the sense that God's bringing to you? And how are you feeling stuck? Come on, would you stand on your feet with
me? It was by faith, everybody, by faith, by faith, that Rahab moved from being an underdog, an outcast, to disappointment, to her family, a failure in the eyes of the community, someone who then used and abused in every sense of the term. It was by faith that she moved from those things into someone who is now chosen by God to usher his people into the place of promise that they were called to be seen in the Old Testament, we're called to usher, be ushered into a land, but in the New Testament, we're called to be ushered into a life. Pastor Carrie and I stand before you rahabs, whose lives were one thing, but through the acknowledgement of a new season and the alignment to a new season, hopefully can inspire you into your new season too. So let me ask you something today, everybody, what's stopping you, what's stopping you, what's holding you back, what's that old thing that's tying you to your past seasons? What old thing are you allowing to define you? Sure, maybe everyone else in your world has counted you out, but what if God counts you in? See, here's what I believe. I have a sense in our rooms today that some of you came in and you felt counted out, but God brought you here today because he's counting you in where everyone else says no, he's saying yes, everyone else is saying not, yet he's saying yes. Now, if Rahab took that scar on the court and she hung it in the window of her place, the scenery didn't change, but that scarlet cord, it represents the blood of Jesus. See, in the Old Testament, it was outer and physical. There needed to be a sign in the window. But in the New Testament, it's inner and spiritual. There can be a sense about your life today, some of you came in and you're disconnected from God. You're real and you're wondering which way is up. And I'm telling you, you don't have to leave that way today. You don't have to leave questioning God. Do you have a plan? Oh, he has a plan, and he wants to prosper you. It's a good plan for good and not hard for blessing and not evil. Today is the day where you hang the cord in your window. You call on the name of Jesus, marked by the blood and the power of the cross, not outwardly and physically, but inwardly and spiritually. You'll leave this place differently than you came in today, you say yes to Jesus and yes to life. Come on with every head bowed and every eye closed, if that's you today, you say, Pastor, Matt. That's me. I came in feeling like an underdog. I might not want to use that word, but that's how I'm feeling. But today I want to leave knowing that I'm more than a conqueror in Christ, Jesus. I want to say yes to Jesus, yes to life, yes to the blessing of heaven, yes to hope. Evermore. If that's you, would you just lift your hand. Come on. Just lift your hand saying yes to Jesus. Come on. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. This is the type of alignment that we're looking for in the kingdom. This is the type of alignment that God is calling us to be as people of faith. This is alignment where we do away with our old life and say yes to the new life. Yes to the new life. Come on, everybody who has your hand up, we're going to pray this prayer and at Mercy city. We never pray alone. We pray as a family. So those of you who are people of faith and you believe in the Lord Jesus already join us. And let's declare this in Jesus name, say Father God today. I receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Today, I choose to surrender my heart saying yes to Jesus, yes to life, yes to momentum. Today, I choose to say I believe in the Lord Jesus, turning my heart from my sinful ways toward the person of Jesus in the power of the cross. Today I receive the person of the Holy Spirit. Today I surrender and will follow you all the days of my life in Jesus name Amen. Amen. Amen.
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