Grace Thoughts

Guest (Male): Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelly.

Tim Kelley: Living a transformed life in front of a world who don't see transformed lives is the only thing that will make the Christian testimony attractive to the world. Religion will not do it. Hypocrisy certainly will drive people away. People are not coming in the doors of the church. The church will come in the doors of the church, but the world will not come into the doors of the church. The church needs to go out to the world and represent Christ wherever their world comes from.

We've been talking about Joshua. We're going to Joshua 2 today. It's funny because as I just went through this chapter and gleaned certain things I'd like to discuss in this chapter, I see the same theme has sort of come out and I want to present it a little bit to you tonight. Now the Canaan of the Old Testament that we see going across the Jordan into the land of Canaan corresponds, as we've been bringing out the last few weeks, to the land of full blessing which awaits us here and now in Jesus Christ.

What do I mean by a land of full blessing? I call that a synonym to mean a life of spiritual transformation, a life that's anchored in the grace of God, a life that understands the work of the cross and the work of the cross influences that life. It is the purpose of redemption. He brought us out that He might bring us in. Alan Redpath said that. He brought us out that He might bring us in.

See, the purpose of redemption isn't to make us happy. It's not to relieve us of pain in our lives. It's to make us more like Christ. And sometimes that makes us unhappy and sometimes that comes with big doses of pain and confusion and different things in our life. But the idea, the end goal that Christ has for me on this side of heaven, is Christ-likeness.

Because He knows two things. I can never experience all of Him until He has all of me. He knows that. And He knows the world will never be attracted to Him until He has all of me because I'm His mirror to the world. So He wants to make me more like Him so the world can see who He really is. Just like He made the Father. No one can get to the Father but by me. I and the Father are one. He was the full representative of the Father. He talked in John 1:18 that He was the exegesis of God. In other words, He was God fully known.

So we know that this promised land can't be entered by moral effort or by moral attainment. It can't be entered by man-made religion or in its efforts. This Canaan life was entrusted to God in the Old Testament to Joshua. Joshua, take these people into Canaan. In the New Testament, it's entrusted to Jesus as the representative blessing based upon God's people. He's our representative of God. We go through Him to get to the promised land.

Every place, remember in 1:8, that the sole of your foot shall tread upon that I have given to you. Well, we look in Ephesians 1:3. It says God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. So as Joshua, they were promised every square inch of the promised land. In Christ, we're promised spiritual blessings in the heavenlies because we're in Christ Jesus. We go through Christ Jesus to get these spiritual blessings. What are these spiritual blessings? Another message for another time. But we know that they're blessings that aren't necessarily attached to time and space. They're attached to this in here more than this out here.

I believe in Ephesians 3:20 where it says God can do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ever ask or think. That's not referring to doing great things through us or for us. That's referring for doing great things in us. Very different. And that's exactly what the context of that verse means. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has even entered in the heart of man what God has prepared for them that love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9). That's not even talking about the eternal state even though it would come underneath that umbrella. That's talking about God's work, His gospel, His transforming gospel doing the work in us.

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has even entered into our hearts who we can become in Christ this side of heaven, the earth side of heaven. We've never imagined how deeply our transformation can go this side of heaven. Those verses aren't usually used like that, but when you read them contextually, that's exactly what they're talking about.

Joshua 2, verse 1. This is the story about Rahab. Great story. Then Joshua secretly sent out two spies from the Israelite camp at Acacia Grove and instructed them, "Scout out the land on the other side of the Jordan River, especially around Jericho." So the two men set out and came to the house of the prostitute named Rahab and stayed there that night. That's the New Living Translation.

But someone told the king of Jericho, "Some Israelites came here to spy out the land." So the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, "Bring out the men who have come into your home, for they have come here to spy out the whole land." 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. 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 that 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. And as soon as the king's men had left, the gate of Jericho was shut. 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 are all afraid of you. Everyone in this land is living in terror. Now swear to me by the Lord that you will be kind to me and my family since I've helped you. Give me some guarantee of that."

"When Jericho is conquered, you will let me live along with my father, mother, brothers, and sisters and all their families. And we offer you our lives as a guarantee for your safety," the men agreed. "If you don't betray us, we will keep our promise and be kind to you when the Lord gives us this land." Now a few things I want to pull out of this passage. Here is the city of Jericho. It's a walled city. It's a daunting city. Very thick walls, very militaristic.

You can imagine there's a level of pride that's inside the city. These little Israelites marching around blowing trumpets, what are they going to do? Really, what are they going to do? They're going to hit me with their sickle, their shovel, their spade? We have six-foot walls with archers on top. What are they going to do to knock us down? There's a level of pride up there. But within the city, there was what? One life. There was one person in that entire city that believed in the true God, had faith in the true God.

Now the person that they chose that had this faith wasn't really the best church-goer. In fact, hopefully didn't know many people in the church at all. She was an interesting character, had a not the best moral character, didn't have the best reputation in the city. She was the city prostitute. And she was the one that God's people went and she helped God's people. And when that city was delivered to God, she was the one that was spared.

There was one life. Now Rahab believed in a living God and was not ashamed to reveal that she did. Her faith, this prostitute's faith, was of such quality at least that we find reference to it in Hebrews chapter 11, the Heroes of Faith. Rahab's mentioned. You have all the biggies in there: Abraham, Joshua, Isaac, Moses, all the biggies, Samson, and then you have Rahab. What'd Rahab do? Well, she was a prostitute, she hid a couple guys, threw them under some hay. That's what she did. That's what she did. We're talking about her thousands of years later. She was known for her faith.

Her personal resume, I love this, her personal resume, prostitute, did not disqualify her for being ignored by God or for being used by God. God looked at her and said, "You're a prostitute. I'm sorry, honey, you know, there's not much I can do with that. I'm God, I'm holy, righteous, pure. You're just the opposite. Can't really do much with that." No, He said, "Here's a girl that has faith." "But God, she's dirty." "I know, but she has faith. I can clean her up. She has faith. I can clean up dirty people. She has faith."

"Not only do I know who she is, I'm going to use her. And not only am I going to use her, I'm going to use her in a dynamic way to a place that they'll be talking about this little prostitute's name for centuries to come. She's going to be a hero of the Christian faith, one of them." You know, when Jericho fell and they saved Rahab, she went on to have a child and the child's name, son, was Boaz. Boaz who later on married this girl named Ruth, who happened to be King David's great-great-grandmother.

Then you skip ahead to the New Testament, you go to Matthew 1:5, you find out that this prostitute was in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ herself. There she is. You can read it, Matthew 1:5. There's Rahab. Here's Jesus, the whole genealogy, the family, and there's the prostitute Rahab. What'd she do to get there? Just believed. Just believed that God was who He said He was.

How do we get to Canaan today? How do we get into the full finished work, full blessings of Jesus Christ today? We believe. We believe He did what He said He did. We believe we are who He says we are and that He'll do what He said He'd do. And we just believe it. When He says I'm complete in Christ, we believe it. When He says I'm a new creature, we believe it. When He says I'm seated together with Christ in the heavenly places, we believe it. When He says we're the righteousness of Christ, we believe it.

Because we've earned any of those things? No, I'm Rahab. He did it because He is a gracious God who gives me that position simply by faith, by me believing it. Oh, could we rehearse these truths. I was telling somebody this past week in light of last Sunday's or last Wednesday's message, I forget when it was. But for years I knew the song, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." I know God loved me. I just don't think He liked me.

I thought I was somehow an irritant to Him because I was an irritant to myself. And my wife is sometimes irritated with me. So I thought I must be really irritant to God in all my peculiarities, my inconsistencies, my doubts, the things I struggle with, my thought life. I must be an irritant. God has to be fed up with the fact that I can't seem to do the same thing right over a long period of time.

And that's a great thought to have if you're a human being, but it's just not anything to do with God. He doesn't see us like that. In fact, He called me a friend in John 15:15. That word friend means "like." It doesn't mean love, it means "like." He likes me. Just like was it Mikey? He likes it. There's the Mikey to try it. He likes it. So God cared for this one soul. When Abraham was beckoning, when bargaining with God about Sodom, what'd he do? He bargained for one soul. Is it 10 God? Is there five? Yeah, okay, okay, okay, I'll spare the city.