God Can Use You!

Text: Joshua 2:1-24

Intro: We are just beginning a new series in the book of Joshua. God wants you and I to posses the promised land and live the promised life. In the previous sermon, we saw how God helped Joshua overcome his fears. The good news today is that same God is alive and well and can help you and I overcome our fears. Remember he told Joshua (Focus on MY plan, Focus on MY Word, and Focus on MY Faithfulness). God calls us to be a church that majors on Him, majors on His Word, majors on what He wants to do now and in the future.

What the world desperately needs to see today is believers who are living out the promises of God, come what may. Everyone wants the world to straighten up and get better, but it’s going to take first of all, believers bowing before All-Mighty God, saying, “God, let the change begin first in me.” As each of us as a part of the body of Christ says, “God, you are in charge of my life, all that I am I give to everything You are,” that is when we begin to live the promised life.

Illus: When I played Little league baseball, we lost 99% of the games we played in for the first year and a half. The Bad News Bears was a popular movie around that time and people considered our team, the Bad News Realtors. As the second season begin to come to a close our team was beginning to get better. In the last game of the year, we beat the Yankees 18-6, which everyone considered highly unlikely because of our past and they had pummeled us earlier that year.

Prop. Sent: The Bible teaches that God is able to use people in His service most of us would never consider. If you say, “God, you could never use me that matters to anything,” be careful because He may have something mighty special for you!

1. GOD CAN USE YOU IN SPITE OF YOUR PAST!

A. Condition Josh. 2:1-7

1. Of all the people God chooses to work through in a mighty way to demonstrate an active faith, He chooses a prostitute by the name of Rahab.
2. All through the Bible God chooses the weak to shame the wise.
a. Noah – Ark
b. David – slingshot
c. 12 disciples – weak on their own, power through God
d. 120 disciples – all they had was one heart, one mind, one voice to glorify God – they turned the world upside down!
e. The Lord Jesus Christ – looked weak on the cross, yet through His death offers all eternal life!
3. Think for a moment of Rahab’s past.
a. Sinful life – probably full of guilt, shame, fear, etc. Why did I chose this way of life? No one loves me just for who I am.
b. Sinful city – Jericho – this is city that God’s judgment is soon to fall upon. Is the judgment of God about to fall upon America? Ps. 33:12
c. The only hope for a sinful person and a sinful nation is to repent before a Holy God, ask for cleansing, live a godly life, acknowledge the Lord!
4. 40 years God had given to Rahab, Jericho to turn to Him and turn away from sin. How long has God given you? Where would you be today without the love, mercy, forgiveness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?
5. No matter your condition, the God of Heaven and Earth knows you, loves you, wants you to come to Him for life!
6. Refuse to let what people look on the outside determine whether they are going to follow the Lord or not.
a. On the outside, it appeared Rahab wanted nothing to do with God or God’s people, yet on the inside she had a hunger to know and worship the One True and Living God.
7. Think woman at the well – John 4. She’d had five husbands and was with another man at the time Jesus encountered her. She was thirsty for water which would quench her physical thirst, but also thirsty for the living water which would satisfy her spiritual thirst forever.
a. Remember, what God gives you is so much better than what the world gives!

B. Concealing Joshua 2:2-7
1. Much has been made about Rahab’s lie to protect the spies. Many commentators have shamed her for lying and reasoned God would have made a way for His men to be protected without Rahab’s lie.

ILLUS: Corrie Ten Boom’s family hid Jewish families in their home to protect them from being killed by German soldiers. The Egyptian midwives let the male babies live even after Pharoah ordered all male babies must die. Exodus 1:20, “Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.”

2. Rahab had a choice to make- she could (1) turn God’s men over to the king of Jericho or (2) seek to protect God’s men to honor the King of Heaven.
3. Hebrews 11:31, “By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.”
4. James 2:25, “Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?”
5. Those that posses the promised life are going to be those who choose to put God’s will above their own.
6. Had those spies found the Israelite spies, everyone, including Rahab would have lost their lives.
a. Rahab was determined that no matter happened, she would serve the Lord.

C. Confession Josh. 2:8-11
1. I love Rahab’s confession of faith because she is so focused on who God is and what He’s done.
a. She knew He was the God of Superiority, the God of Strength, the God of salvation.
2. Church, if we want to possess the promised land, never forget the God who is the Lord of heaven and earth is the One who worship and follow!
3. Rahab knew that if she did not believe God, she would come under His judgment.
4. God still has a message for the world today and that is the message of the gospel.
a. It is the message of the gospel that tells how God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins.
b. It is the message that Jesus saves sinners.
c. It is the message that the Lord who died on the cross rose again 3 days later to give life everlasting to those who trust in Him!
d. Perhaps you know the fear of unbelief, but the sweet joy of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior!

ILLUS: Pastor Jack Graham tells of a speaking engagement in Philadelphia he made recently and slipping downtown to Independence Hall to reflect on the founding of our nation. He said, “As you move around the historical sites of that city you see the Word of God everywhere. It’s etched on buildings and even on the Liberty Bell itself, which says, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” (Leviticus 25:10). Scriptures are forever written into the history, the heart, and fabric of America. You see, the early Americans were patriots, but they were also believers. Those who settled this nation came here to advance the Christian faith and to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. But we have to admit that America has strayed far from those years of patriotism and spiritual revolution. In fact, it’s time for a spiritual revolution, a new American revolution that would help transform our culture and our country.”

2. GOD CAN USE TO MINISTER TO OTHERS!

A. Concern Josh. 2:12-13
1. As soon as Rahab knows God is going to take care of her safety, she wants her family to be safe from the judgment of God as well.
2. One sign that you are saved is that you want others to know the God of salvation as well!

ILLUS: Christianity is unquestionably a personal experience. It is also unquestionably not a private experience. —William Barclay

3. Always remember, it’s not about what you’ve done for God, but it’s about what God’s done for you. You don’t have to try and clean up people’s lives, that’s His job, your job is to share.
4. All around us people are hurting, hopeless, and without Jesus they are on their way to hell.
a. Rahab didn’t say, “Thank you God for saving my life, let everyone else fall under your judgment.” She did say, “God, you’ve saved my life, use me to bring others to safety in You.”
5. You never know how (what you think) is a little witness for Jesus, might change someone’s life forever.
6. To posses the promised land means you allow God to make your life a living ministry to others.
a. Many of you recently allowed the Lord to make you a minister to the kids at VBS and there was great joy in that because it was all about sharing the love of Jesus Christ with kids.

3. GOD CAN USE YOU TO IMPACT ETERNITY!

A. Covenant Josh. 2:15-23
1. Never underestimate what faith in the Living God can do!
2. It was not Rahab’s faith in herself, but Rahab’s faith in a great God that made all the difference.
3. Knowing the city of Jericho would be demolished in the very near future, Rahab asks for mercy.
4. God’s men say, “…bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down.”
5. What does that scarlet cord represent to you and I today? It represents the blood of Jesus Christ.
6. The blood of Jesus Christ delivers us today from the wrath of God just as the scarlet cord would signify Rahab’s deliverance.
a. What do you need today for deliverance and safety?
b. Some would say, “More money,” “More education,” “Better government.”
7. The greatest need in my life and in America today is to apply the blood of Jesus Christ to our sin stained lives.
8. Hebrews 9:22, "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."

ILLUS: I used to think it strange that the Bible keeps talking about the cleansing power of the blood (1 Peter 1:2). It seemed to me that blood was messy stuff. I needed to wash my white lab coats if they became stained with blood. Today, I love the analogy; it is so true of the body. The blood is constantly cleansing every cell, and washing away all the debris that accumulates all the time. I like Paul’s phrase in Hebrews 9:14 KJV, “How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works?” —Dr. Paul Brand

9. If you and I are to be people who posses the promised life God has for us, there’s going to be trust in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to both free us from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and one day the very presence of sin!
10. The blood of Christ not only has the power to save you, but to sanctify you, make you holy day by day!

B. Confidence Josh. 2:22-24
1. The story of Rahab shows us that God can use anyone’s life that believes and trusts Him.
a. God includes people in His family we wouldn’t normally think would be there!
2. Eventually, Rahab would marry a believer named Salmon. Together, they have a son named Boaz, who is the grandfather of Jesse. Who was Jesse’s son? David, the greatest king over Israel.
3. Who was David’s great, great grandmother? A woman by the name of Rahab!

ILLUS: To this day, on Israel’s flag is the Star of David, who had the blood of
Rahab flowing through his veins.

4. What could be more impressive than being in King David’s line? In Matthew 1:5, we find Rahab in the genealogy of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
5. On July 4th, 1776, our Founding Father’s signed a document declaring our independence from British rule. In declaring our independence, we declared our dependence upon Almighty God.
6. There is an enemy that would love to steal, kill, and destroy everything good and godly about your life. Yet, the Lord Jesus came declaring the good news, “I have come that you may have life and life to the full” (John 10:10).

Conclusion: God used Rahab, a former prostitute, to show us that He can bring anyone into His family and transform into His wonderful servants. Today is the day to declare, “I am trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for safety, salvation, and to make me His useful servant.”