SoulFit: Rahab: Your Past is Not Your Identity

We wrestle with the labels that cling to us when we fail and the way shame can start to sound like identity. We look at Rahab’s story and see how God rewrites a past that the world keeps repeating. 
• week two of She Matters and the battle for identity 
• the labels we call ourselves in private 
• Rahab in Joshua 2 and a reputation that follows her 
• faith that does not require a clean past 
• why information does not change us but response does 
• choosing God over comfort and leaving what feels familiar 
• the scarlet cord as covenant, covering, and salvation 
• Jericho’s fall in Joshua 6 and the rescue of Rahab’s house 
• Rahab in Matthew 1 and a seat in the lineage of Jesus 
• a practical challenge to cross out a label and write redeemed 
Thank you so much for taking time to join us each week. 
And thank you to each of you for joining us on Soulfin, and I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soulfin. 

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

Welcome To SoulFit

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to SoulFit. Thank you so much for taking time to join us each week. If this is your first time each week, we join our live call as we take some scripture and we share it in some applicable applicable ways and that we can take it out into our everyday life. So let's join our live call. We're in week two of our series, She Matters. And as we begin this week, think about maybe some of the hardest battles we have in our life. And sometimes they're not they're not in our life, but they're in our identity. Because think about when you think of yourself, what name do you hear? Or when you mess up, what label shows up? Or what do you call yourself when no one's around? And because the thing is, if we're not real careful, we don't just carry those labels that we label ourselves with, we become those labels. We tell ourselves this is almost like back in the day when you had what was that called? You could you could make labels and stick it off, it has this little thing when click, click, click, click. Yeah, but it was little white on the little yeah, and you had to click one, turn the turn it to a different letter, click. I can't remember what it was called, but anyhow, if we're not careful maker, label maker. If we're not careful, we'll wear that label all the time. So today we're gonna talk about a woman that had every reason, every single reason to stay stuck in her past, but she didn't. And so today we're gonna talk about Rahab the prostitute and what her past and what her future looked like. So in Joshua 2, it talks a it kind of introduces Rahab. Rahab lives in Jericho. Jericho is a corrupt pagan city that she lives in. She was known all through the city as a prostitute. You know, we might think, what better, you know, we might say, well, where is a prostitute? And we back in the day, we might have said a red light district. Think about Jericho, the whole town was a red light district. Her home was just built in the side of the city wall. And then there's two spies that show up. They were sent there to kind of check out Jericho to see what was going on. Joshua sent them to see what was going on. And so Rahab hides them. She hides them on a roof. And they come asking, are there spies here? And she says, No, that you know, before it got dark, they left. So she's lying to protect them. And so before she was ever known for any type of faith, she was known for her past. She was known as a prostitute. And it's not just, you know, one or two times do they does the Bible refer to her to her as a as a prostitute? It repeats it over and over and over. Rahab the prostitute. Rahab the prostitute. Rahab the prostitute. It keeps being labeled every time after her name's said, the prostitute. Think about if somebody was going to say your name. Think about something that you're not proud of in your life. And every time somebody introduced you, maybe it's a book, and it said your name, followed by that bad thing that you're not proud of, over and over and over again. How would that make us feel? Probably not that great because we go, oh, this is who I'm identified as now. And the the great thing about Rahab is the world repeated her label over and over and over. What was written repeated her label over and over and over. But heaven rewrote her name. So in Joshua, I'm gonna this kind of in Joshua 2, 8 through 12, I'm gonna read a little bit, a few of those, um, to kind of give you an idea of what she asked the spies before they laid down. Before the spies lay down for the night, she, Rahab, went up on the roof and said to them, I know that your Lord has given you this land, and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. So that's why they're looking for the spies, because they're fearful of them. They want to get rid of them. She says, We have heard now that the Lord dried up all the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did. I'm gonna mess up these names, Shihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, when you completely destroyed, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, when we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear, and everyone's courage failed because of you. For the Lord your God is God in heaven, above, and on earth below. Now here's where it comes to ask. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign. And so here's the interesting thing about Rahab is it doesn't say she went to church. It doesn't ever say she had a clean background, it doesn't ever say the Bible doesn't ever say she has a perfect story. It doesn't talk about any of those other things that she might have done. But is what she did have was faith. And here's the great thing about faith: it doesn't require a clean past, it requires a willing heart. Everyone in Jericho, as she as it said in that scripture, everyone in Jericho had heard about God. Everyone had heard about God. She said, We have heard. That's what scripture says, but only Rahab responded. So here's the interesting thing: information doesn't change your life. Response does. She risked the but she betrayed her culture. She risked execution. I mean, it was tough times. You get stoned, you get all kinds of bad things. She chose God over comfort. I heard, I responded. All these things are could be at risk, but I'm choosing God, even if these are the risks. So sometimes God asks us to leave something behind that feels familiar. And so maybe is there something that he's asking? As he did Rahab, is there something that he might be asking one of each of us that we leave behind that feels familiar? And so as we move forward, she she's told to tie a scarlet cord in the window. And the thing about this window is this window is once where her the men that slept with her came in the window. They came in that same window where her past was lived out, came through that window. Where her reputation as a prostitute was built, came through that window. But that same window, she was asked by the spies to tie a scarlet cord in the window. That place that was her past became her redemption. Because that's what God does. So I always like to, I think it's it's simpler say like this your mess is your message. The same, the same mess that you look at and go, that is a disaster. And what do we usually do with a mess? Before anybody comes over, what do we usually do with a mess? Clean it up. Clean it up. We don't want that, we don't want anybody seeing our mess. But when it becomes our message, what do we start doing? We start sharing that mess. We start being very open and vulnerable. Say, this was my mess, but this is how it changed me, this is how it transformed me. The scarlet cord was really, it was a covenant, it was salvation, it was a covering. Because what used to represent shame, that window was shameful. It now represents salvation. And as we go along, and it goes into Jericho's Jericho 6. Joshua 6 is where Jericho falls. There's a whole process of how Jericho falls, but also the cord was to represent that she was going to be saved. And all those in her house were going to be saved. And in Joshua 6 is where Jericho falls seven times around, all the different things that happen. Then they go in and they burn it. Everything collapses, everything is burned except one place. And that's Rahab and all of her family that was in it were able to get out. She and her family, those that were in her house, the same place that she was a prostitute in, was the one place that was saved. Why? Because of the knowledge she had, she responded to that knowledge. And so they they took her out, her and her family out. She was brought to Israel. She gets a new community, she gets a new identity, and she gets a new future. And then check this out. You know, you want to hit the the two times, three times. Let's fast forward through all this. But Rahab the prostitute in Matthew 1, we're going to give a little genealogy. This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David. Okay, so this is the genealogy of Jesus. The son, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah, the father of Perez and Zaher, whose mother was Tamar Perez, the father of Herzon. Herzon, the father of Ram. You're going, oh my gosh, this is boring. Ram, the father of Amadabai. I'm getting these names all wrong. We're getting there. Amadabai, the father of Nasan, Nason, the father of Salmon, Salman the father of Boaz, everybody remembers Boaz, right? The Salmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz's mother was Rahab. So if you follow that genealogy, if it wasn't for the prostitute Rahab that that had knowledge and responded to that knowledge, and her biggest mess, the same window that all of the uh people, all the men came through, was the same window that she was redeemed at. And because of that, she is part of the genealogy, part of the lineage of Jesus. And and how powerful was that? I mean, I don't think there's much more to say than she mattered. Rahab mattered. Her past didn't define her. And the great thing is that God didn't just save Rahab, He gave her a seat in the story of redemption. So sometimes we often think, and I and I know all of us have these thoughts from time to time. We have, if we had a little label maker, we would put this label on ourselves that said, I messed up too much. I'll always be this way. This is just I'll always be this way. This is just who I am. Then we might say that that may be what happened to you, but that is not who you are. Because when we say, I messed up too much, I'm not enough, I'm just this way, we're we're trying to take on that identity. But that really is just things that happened to us. It's not who we are. Those things that happened to Rahab, that was just things that happened to her. That was not who she is. Who she is is part of the redemption story. That her biggest mess became, she became part of the biggest message, especially as you come about Easter in the next week. That I mean, just to see how much power she had in that lineage, even though the Bible kept repeatingly pointing out her label over and over and over again. So we don't have to keep introducing ourselves by your past. Again, think about the worst thing. Are you gonna keep saying, hello, my name is, and say the worst thing, and that be your label? No. Your past is a place, it's not your identity. And when it's a place, guess what? You can leave that place, you don't have to stay in that place. Have you ever been in a house you don't like? Maybe it was a rent house, maybe it was your first apartment right out of high school, and it was a place, and you didn't like it. Did you get to move out of it and move into a different place? Yeah. And you might have been in a bunch of different houses. As my dad, I moved my dad last week and he told me how many times he'd moved. He'd moved 22 times. He's 80, he's 83, my mom's 86. 22 times. There's a lot of places they don't like. And we can move out of that place because it's just a place. It's not our our identity. And our faith moves us forward even when our past keeps trying to pull us back. And it will, it keeps to try pulling us back, pulling us back. But I don't know if you ever remember those old file folders that you put in a filing cabinet, but it was before you could actually take out the tab and put in a new one. It just had this little tab on there, so you'd write whatever that file was, and then you need to change that file so you'd mark it out and put something else. That's what God does. He writes new new names on old labels. So think about that. Maybe that file folder that you have has a name on it, but it can be scratched out, and God can write a new name over that old label. And Rahab, she walked, she walked in with a reputation. And we all do. We all can walk in with a reputation of that, those things in our past. But she walked out with the redemption story. She walked in with a mess. She walked out with a message. The same God who rewrote her story is still the same God to this day that rewrites our stories. And if a prostitute can be in the lineage, line, I can't get it out, lineage, the line. Lineage. Lineage of Jesus, if a prostitute can be in that lineage, then there is nothing that we have done that is so bad that we can't also have a new name written on our label. That our mess can become our message. So maybe the challenge is if there is a label you've been carrying around, maybe you write it down and you look at it, see what that name is, because it's probably one you've been carrying with you for quite a while that you just can't seem to get rid of. So maybe you write it down and you look at it and you look at it, and then you cross it out. And then right underneath that, you write redeemed. Because you have a new name. And we can do that with all the different things that we've been carrying our labels. We can mark it out and write redeemed and say, that was my mess, but what is my message gonna be? So that's a challenge. So we'll finish up in prayer and then you all can get on with your fantastically fine Friday. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us all together today. Lord, thank you for sharing the story of Rahab with us that we can learn from her and and realize that that our worst things can actually be our best things, that we can mess up and we can use those for your glory. Um we can share those things for your glory and that that our messes are just in the past. It's not a place we have to stay because of you, and we can live anew and we can be redeemed and we can have a new name written over our old label. Lord, I just pray that each one of us take this to heart and that label we've been carrying, Lord. I just pray that we can cross it out and write redeemed and move forward in faith, leaving the past in the past. And dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and uh bless each one of us as we go out. Amen. And thank you to each of you for joining us on Soulfin, and I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soulfin.