Pastor Zach Pummill • December 13, 2020

Sermon Overview

RUTH 1 & 4

The story of Ruth is a beautiful story of redemption. It’s a story of how God loved the destitute and downtrodden and provided them with abundance. How he loved the foreigner and brought them into his kingdom. How loved the homeless and gave her a home. Ruth’s story shows us that following this God is worth it.

Sermon Transcript

The sermon this morning is a little bit different, last week, Marq was scheduled to preach on Rahab and after we shifted things around a little bit and reordered things, I am preaching on Rahab this morning. But I asked Marq to give me what he had, because I wanted to honor the work of my friend. And so today the sermon is a bit different because this is one that was written by us both, and one in which we both offer you our best.

As we begin this morning, I want us to begin with a story that takes place at a dinner party. There was a man who was wealthy and he was pious, his name was Simon. And Simon was a Pharisee and Simon the Pharisee was throwing a swank dinner party and he invited a roughneck carpenter-turned-Rabbi to his dinner party. And to Simon's delight this Rabbi came, but after dinner things got awkward. There was an uninvited guest that appeared out of nowhere. It was a woman holding a bottle in her hand, her hair was down, she was crying and weeping. She was a hot mess. She was an uninvited guest.

And to make things worse, she made a spectacle of herself she threw herself on the floor, she held the Rabbi's feet in her hands. She washed them with her tears, she dried them with her hair, she kissed them with her lips and she anointed His feet with the perfume from the bottle. This woman was quite the spectacle, quite uninvited, and quite annoying. And Simon the Pharisee was disgusted. And he criticized this woman and this Rabbi in his heart. He thought to himself, "If this man were truly a messenger of God then he wouldn't let this filthy slumdog woman from the streets come close to Him. He wouldn't let this woman touch Him."

But if Simon would have just taken his eyes off of this woman for a second, he would have looked up and he would have seen that this Rabbi was staring right at him. Because this Rabbi knew the pride and the self-righteousness that was rotting Simon's heart from the inside out. And this Rabbi also knew the humble heart of this sinful woman. This Rabbi knew the loving heart of God and He remembered the story of grace that was His own family. That's why He let her come close, that's why He let her care for Him the way that she did because this Rabbi had a soft spot in His heart for women. Especially women that lived in a world where the religious leaders would pray and they would thank God that they weren't born a woman. There's a place in this Rabbi's heart for wives and mothers and sisters and prostitutes.

So this Rabbi rebuked Simon and then He leaned over and He whispered in the woman's ear, "Beloved, your sins are forgiven." Now this was nothing new, because all throughout this Rabbi's ministry, women with bad reputations would come Him, women who were sinful, women who were unclean, women who cheated on their spouses or sold their kisses for money. Women that were judged and condemned and women that were misunderstood, like His own mother, Mary. All the other rabbis would make women sit in the nosebleeds, but this Rabbi would give women a front row seat, and He received them with delight. They did not come to seduce Him or be seduced by Him but to love Him and be loved by Him. And even the most heartless skeptic has to admit that Jesus had a soft spot in His heart for women with messy and muddy stories, including yours.

That's why this message and this Messiah is for everyone. Especially every woman. Little girls do you hear me? Young ladies listen. Single women, wives, mothers, grandmothers, divorcees, and widows. This Messiah is for you, no matter where you've been and where you're going, no matter what you've done or what's been done to you, despite all of that this is the God that lets you come close because in Him there is a place for you. He's the God that lets you come close.

And Simon the Pharisee thought that he was close to God but in reality, he had no idea how God actually worked. How do we know? Well, because here he is with God himself seated at his table, sitting in his home rejoicing over the very woman that he rejected. In fact, when Jesus forgives this woman over sins right in front of Simon and for everyone to hear we're just seeing it play out what Jesus had told the Pharisees like Simon elsewhere. When He said, "Prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of you." So what did Jesus mean when he said that? Why was this happening? What does Simon need to learn?

Well, for starters Simon needed to learn that the very God sitting in front of Him wouldn't be there apart from a woman such as this, apart from a prostitute named Rahab.

Rahab is one of the women mentioned by name in this Rabbi's genealogy and that's a big deal. It means the Spirit wants us to stop, it wants us to pay attention to her story and to the stories of these women. Because they give us a picture of how God actually brings about redemption. They give us a picture of how redemption actually operates. And so you can think of it as these stories give us a gear, another gives us a lever. And when you put all of them together you get the engine that is salvation in Jesus Christ. And so let's meet Rahab this morning and let's hear the gospel according to her story.

Now, most of you know Rahab as "Rahab the prostitute", the woman who made money by selling her hugs and her kisses. But the story you heard just a minute ago tells us that there is far more to Rahab than that. Let's see her. Let's humanize her, our spiritual mother for just a minute. Let's try and see her just like Jesus saw the woman that washed His feet, because my friends you actually know this woman.

The story tells us that she was a part of a family, she was someone's daughter and sister. There were those that called their auntie Rahab. There were those that called her friend. She cared about her father and her mother and her siblings, she loved those that were closest to her. She used whatever money she had, whatever money she could earn to pay their rent and to put food on the table, to provide for those that she cared about most and loved most in this hard world. She lived the only life she knew, the only way she knew how in a world that did not give her a lot of options. Friends, we know this woman.

And friends, for the 70 of you who've gone to India, you especially know this woman. You sat in the hot crowded room deep in the heart of the Kalighat. You prayed with her, you prayed for her, you sang with her, you traveled the world to see her and to get close to her. Noah, Charlie, Debbie, you painted her fingernails. Rae, you gave her a card telling her that your God sees her. Pam, you gave her an embroidered heart to sit on her shelf to remind her of the heart of your God. Jennifer, you shared your story of hurt and hope with her. Lisa, you kissed her cheek. Mark McAvoy, her daughter crawled in your lap and played with your beard. Eric, her son wanted to see how small his hand was next to yours. Church you raised $33,000 to feed her family in a time of pandemic and plague.

That list goes on and on because my friends, we as a church have the privilege of knowing this woman. And have we not been given the gift of looking upon her in the slightest way that God looked upon Rahab? Does not our heart go out to her and we say to her, "Beloved, you are mine and I am yours." Yes, we know this woman Rahab and we've seen how she looks for hope. We've seen how she desires dignity, she craves compassion. We know how curious and open to the things of God that she can be. The name Rahab in fact means "wide open", and just like the women we know, Rahab had an ear for God's Word and a heart for God's story.

How do we know that? We know that by the words of her mouth and her works of faith. It was her actions that display that there was far more going on in her heart than the word "prostitute" could account for. She put her life at risk for others. She hid the spies when they came to her house. She put herself in harm's way to keep others from harm. She protected the messengers of the Lord in the eye of the storm. And just like everyone else in Jericho, she heard the stories about the God of these Hebrews. She would have grown up hearing these stories of God's provision and God's power. And they filled everyone else with fear and melted their hearts. But to everyone else, what they took as bad news she took as good news. Because in Rahab's case it was a different kind of fear, in Rahab's case, it was the fear of the Lord. As the Proverbs say, "In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence and His children will have a refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death." That proverb doesn't qualify that statement by saying you have to be a certain kind of person, from a certain kind of family with a certain kind of past. It simply begins the journey of refuge with the fear of the Lord. And that proverb certainly proved true in Rahab's case.

Did you listen to how she talked? She spoke like someone who had been catechized among the children of Israel. It's likely that she had heard these stories from her childhood on. These stories of these nomadic people who traveled by cloud in the day and by fire in the night. And so when she hid these messengers, she recounted the story of the Exodus. She recounted their story, their baptism in the Red Sea, their conquests of kings and kingdoms. And she confessed true faith in the living God, she said what? She said, "The Lord your God, He is the God in the heavens above and of the earth below, the land in which I live belongs to him I know exactly who your God is, He's the Lord God Almighty."

And in that confession, she cried out for salvation, she cried out for mercy. She asked for kindness instead of being killed. Not just for herself, but also for her whole family. She was crying out for a covenant God that makes covenant promises, one who says, "I will be your God, but also the God of your children." All that to say, she heard the good news of God's power and glory and she believed it and she acted on it. And at her own expense, she aligned herself in her life with the story of the Living God.

But let's make sure that we notice something, that Rahab didn't experience some dark night of the soul, Rahab was not moved by an overwhelming sense of guilt over her many sins, nor did she raise her hand. She didn't fill out a card. She didn't say any sinner's prayer. She didn't invite Joshua into her heart. No, Rahab shows us something different, with her we see the glimmer of faith in its simple, most bedrock form. By faith she realized she was playing for the wrong team and praying to the wrong gods. Her gods couldn't stand before this Hebrew God. And so she turned away from the gods of her city. She turned away from the gods of her community and she turned to the Lord God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, she remembered all that He had done and she asked Him for mercy.

Rahab, didn't try to get her act together. She didn't clean up her life real quick. She didn't put on a fresh coat of makeup, quit her night job, or play silly pious games. She didn't try to make herself more acceptable, she didn't try to make herself worthy, she simply asked for mercy. She came to the Lord with a open heart, by faith she took a risk, she asked for mercy and then she had to wait. She had to wait in hope that she would not be forgotten, but remembered.

I think we should ask the question, what was it that Rahab wanted to be saved from? Was it sexual immorality? Was it a life of abuse and mistreatment? Was it her poverty? Was it her vocation? Her guilty conscience, her fear, her shame? Probably yes, all of that and so much more. But in reality, her concerns were far more practical and pressing. Her desire to be saved was far more fundamental, because she realized that she was at the crossroads of life and death. She believed that the wrath of God was about to descend upon her world. She believed and she confessed that her land actually belonged to the Living God. Which means that even though she called Jericho home, she still knew and believed that she was a sojourner in a foreign land. She was a guest in His Promised Land. She came to the end of her world as she knew it, and she prayed for herself and for her family. She said, "Save us alive and deliver our lives from death."

Do you hear that simple request for salvation? Do you hear her desire to be saved from God's judgment? Is it not the same as yours and mine? Her prayer, "Please, oh God, spare me and the life of my family. Let there be a place for us amongst your people." That was her prayer, but Rahab had to wait for an answer. And she had to wait for a long time, because there's actually a lot that happens between Joshua 2 and Joshua 6.

It was probably months, perhaps even years later, Joshua and the armies of Israel finally arrived and they stood against her city. An army that I would venture to say was the most powerful army ever to walk the earth, armed with what? They were armed with instruments of worship, with a reverent silence before the Lord their God. And you can imagine how eerie it was, to live inside of Jericho and watch all of this play out. To watch this army of legend led by a champion named Joshua before whom no king could stand, finally arrive and march around the city in complete silence day-after-day.

You can only imagine all the thoughts and the feelings that filled the heart of Rahab and her family as they watched Joshua and his army march around the city time after time. What did she have? All she had was hope. It's not like she could send a text. It's not like the messengers gave her their phone number. She couldn't send an email, she couldn't go out to them. All she had was the hope that her request for mercy would not be forgotten and that the promise attached to that scarlet cord in her window would be remembered. And she had a front row seat to all of it because she actually lived inside the wall, and it was there that she waited.

And on the seventh day, the army marched around the city seven times in silence. And then it got loud, it got really loud, because the trumpets blared, and the army lifted up a shout. And then Rahab started to hear the 20-foot thick walls, all of that stone begin to crack and crumble. And you know she grabbed her family, she held them close, she braced herself for those rocks of judgment to fall on her and they never did. They all fell around her. And when the army of destruction rushed to the city she waited for the sword, but it never came. Passover 2.0. They passed over her house and she watched them flood the city, and she and her entire family were spared.

Because Joshua, whose name means "the Lord saves", remembered her. And he remembered that she was marked by a scarlet cord, she was marked one who salvation was signed, it was sealed and it was secured by covenant promises. And this Joshua commanded the two spies to go and to find her and bring her to him, because in this kingdom, there was a place for her. Joshua gave her a family or Joshua gave her family, a place among the people of Israel because why? Ultimately, there was a place for her in the heart of her God.

But not just a place, God also had a plan and a purpose that not even Rahab or Joshua even knew. She wasn't spared simply as a favor. She wasn't spared simply to live off scraps. She was spared because God wanted to give her so much more. And that plan was that one day a man would come along and his name was not Simon, his name was Salmon, and he would notice her. He would take an interest in her and this Salmon was special because he descended from a woman named Tamar and he loved Rahab. He desired her despite her story, and he took her to be his wife. And so really, if you just paraphrase the Hebrew, when Salmon saw Rahab, he simply said, "Hey, girl."

And evidently according to Marq's extensive research, Salmon wrote a love song for her that was discovered and preserved. It was originally titled "Rahab", but was later changed to "Roxanne" and covered by Sting. And it goes like this:

"I loved you since I knew you
I wouldn't talk down to you
I have to tell you just how I feel
I won't share you with another boy
Rahab, you don't have to put on the red light
Those days are over
You don't have to sell your body to the night"

God had a plan to give her a true lover, someone to treasure what was trash to others. One to cherish what was discarded, He gave her a husband whose love reflected the love of her God. And the deepest mystery of all was God's purpose in this plan and Joshua had no idea who he was saving. Because in saving the life of Rahab he was saving the life of the whole world, yours and mine. He was saving the mother of his Lord and his God. He was saving the one in whose body were kings and the King above all kings. This God that had performed such mighty acts waited until He had her to perform His mightiest act of all. He would take what the world profaned, so that He might give the world something precious.

So let's go back to our dinner party with Simon the Pharisee for a second. What did he need to learn from Rahab's story? Why was it that Jesus would say to Pharisees like Simon, that prostitutes like the woman that washed his feet, prostitutes like Rahab, are entering the kingdom of God ahead of them. What does he mean?

Well, do you see the simplicity of the gospel in Rahab's story? It's not enough to see the beauty of the story, we must see the gospel.

And it's this: Rahab believed that what God had done was far greater than anything that she had done. She believed that God's story was greater than her story. She didn't focus on herself and wallow in self-pity and all of her failures and all of her mistakes and all of her sins and all of her shame, all of her regret of her actions and think "I could take no part in what this God is doing." Instead, what God had done in the work that he had accomplished was the most important thing in her life, despite all that she had done. His story was greater than her story. What God had done was greater than what she had done. She heard the story of the God of the heavens above and the earth below. A God who delivers the slave from the slaver and the oppressed from their oppressors. And she hoped that there could in fact be a place for her in His kingdom. She didn't focus on all that she had done, she simply believed that God was God and she asked for mercy.

And Simon could have learned something from Rahab, because he had the opposite problem. Simon was a Pharisee so he did in fact focus on all that he had done. He focused on all of his righteous works and his pious living. He applauded his own piety and believed that God had to accept him for all of his good works, instead of learning to simply entrust himself to the mercy of God. The most important thing to Simon was what he had done, not what God had done. Because who needs mercy when they had so much merit?

And that's why the gospel is for the sinner and the saint, it's for the prostitute and the pious, it's for you and it's for me.

Because this morning, behold the cross. Behold the work of your Savior. Behold what God has done to topple the empire of sin and death. Behold the acts of God, so that you might have mercy and cling and hold fast to this truth: that nothing you've done can keep you from Him and nothing you've done can claim Him for you. We rest in His work, His goodness, and His grace and in His mercy. And it's the cross that calls out to you this morning, in your cry for mercy, that mercy is yours.

And if you do, then you can wait in hope my friends because let me tell you your future. Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus, the hope of Advent, is coming again. And when He does, He will return with a trumpet blast and an army that will flood this earth and will melt the hearts of this world. The nations will mourn and wail on account of Him. The sky will be rolled back. The mountains will crumble. And no King of this earth will be able to stand before this King. But you will. You will. You will stand before Him, because His scarlet blood covers you. And He will send out his army to gather you unto Him because there is a place for you in His kingdom, because you will not be forgotten. He will not forget you, but He will forget all of your failures and all of your mistakes because He is the God of mercy.

My church family, we know this woman. We are all this woman.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Let us pray.