“Unexpected Story”
- May 30, 2025
- 6 min read
Reading: Joshua 2
For the children of Israel to move forward they would have to find their true identity again, which would mean losing the wilderness identity.
I wonder where we are as individuals?
I wonder how many forget how precious you are in God's eyes? Perhaps you’ve gone through a period of wondering if God really does love you. Without any doubt HE DOES!
We need to realise again that our identity is in God alone.
Unexpected Story
What’s a story like this doing here? If we were to read straight from the end of chapter 1 to the beginning of chapter 3, and skip chapter 2, we would lose nothing in terms of the main story. It would just carry on! So why does the writer include this story about spies, lies and Rahab?
It’s a story of God’s grace.
God’s story for Rahab changes her own story. Rahab would have simply been condemned. But she was determined not to accept that identity and to look and think beyond who she was and where she was!
Rick Warren says, “You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It’s only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance and our destiny.”
If we want to move on, if we want to grow as Christians, it means letting go of things we can’t take into God’s new way/plan for us.
We can’t have the Promise and still hold on to the Wilderness. Remember, of the thousands that left Egypt only two stepped into the promise.
Please note, this isn’t about doing what is impossible, it’s doing what is right and then God will make it possible.
What Unexpected Story awaits you?
I’m reminded of the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10. Jesus told him the truth and he went away sad! Jesus didn’t bargain with him, or tweak the truth to make it easier. The Rich Young Ruler knew he could step into the promise, but grieving the past was a greater fear. So, he went away from Jesus and remained in his wilderness.
Rahab, as we will find, held more to what God had done and was going to do than the children of God themselves. I’ve found over the years as a pastor, lost people notice; those longing for kingdom life, notice!
Where do we need to change our mindset? Where can we accept the unacceptable and be open to the unexpectedness of God? Invariably this will cut across our 'safe' stance as Christians.
The children of Israel were about to discover more of God’s bigger story! Not only embracing an enemy, a woman - a prostitute - but embracing the work of God, who had already begun a work in her life. What grace!
It was Charles Price that once said, “God’s victory is something not to be won but received. Perhaps the greatest quality in people of God is the capacity to receive! To receive what God alone can give and to trust what God alone can do!”
I’m aware we can all live very functional lives, but still be in a desert experience thinking this is the thing that defines us. It doesn’t. God does!
God’s Story is full of the unexpected! Trust Him for it!
Unexpected Event
Chapter 2 begins with Joshua sending two spies to check out the land, “especially Jericho” (see last week’s blog!).
John MacArthur writes, “Israel had travelled down the dead-end road of popular opinion already, and it cost them almost forty years’ time. Joshua was taking the role of a decisive commander. He would assess the spies’ report personally and decide (with the Lord’s help, not a vote of the populace) how his armies would proceed.”
But we’re told, “they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there” (v1).
How unexpected! However, don’t forget this is not unlike what Jesus did. He would go to the lost, the outcast, the lonely, the leper, the prostitute, the tax collector!
In verse 1 they go to the red-light district and make a temporary residence in Rahab’s home.
Even by today’s standard we would find that inappropriate and perhaps offensive. You can hear the question, "What’s a person like you doing in a place like this?" Just think, staying with Rahab was a good idea! Perhaps people didn’t pay much attention to who was coming and going.
Maybe, just maybe, we have become too narrow in our own story and forgotten God’s bigger story.
Jesus encountered this, remember, when He said; “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt 21:31). The "you" referred to the Pharisees, the religious elite that didn't recognise at all the sin in their own hearts, or indeed the Kingdom-work that Jesus longed to do.
Rahab was an outcast in her own society, so perhaps she could be more easily trusted. It would be Rahab that saves the lives of the spies. She was the one that understood best the nature of God.
Faith must take God at His word. Twice we are told that she said, “We have heard” (vs 10&11). The thing is, she believed what she had heard, she was able to say, “I know…” (v9).
Rahab came to believe in God before she ever met the children of God. See verse 11: “God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below”.
Rahab had insight into God’s character, trusting solely in His goodness and His grace. Here’s an interesting question for you – ‘where are you looking for that breakthrough, that work of grace in your family, neighbourhood or town?’
The spies greatest help came from a prostitute!
What’s a person like you doing in a list like this?
Not only here in Joshua, but did you know that Rahab is mentioned in Jesus' genealogy as a grandparent of Jesus!
"Rahab married Salmon, Their son was Boaz. Boaz married Ruth, and Ruth and Boaz were the grandparents of David" (Matt 1:5).
Then in Hebrews 11:31 in the ‘Hall of Faith’: "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient."
Here’s a prostitute listed in the heroes of faith alongside Moses, Abraham, Sarah, and Noah. That's a pretty impressive position for someone like this.
What an unexpected event!
Check out James 2:25: “In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?”
Please stop and ponder for a while.
Listen to this song.
Just reflecting on Rahab, we see that God is in the business of restoring broken things and His grace is sufficient to transform lives.
My identity is not found in my fallen state. My past is past and is therefore not my destiny.
God’s grace reaches out to every one of us regardless of our past. Hallelujah!
With God, it isn’t who I was that matters; it’s who I’m becoming in Him!
I may be unlovely, but I certainly know I’m not unloved. God does see the flaws but I’m still useful to Him and His Kingdom.
It may be said of you and I (well, particularly me!), "What’s a person like you doing in a place like this?" What’s a person like me doing entering into all that God has planned for me by His grace, love and mercy? Simply, I don’t know, but I know it’s true. God has a place for the Rahabs of the world. All praise and glory go to Him.
Are there areas where we feel too far from God’s grace? God’s grace is an enveloping grace that’s so powerful that it not only covers the past but sets the plan for the future.
"God made [you] alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross" (Col 2:13-14).
Do you know, His restoration of our lives creates space for your future! Amazing thought! Where does God need to work in our lives by His grace?
There’s a tradition in Japan called “Kintsugi.” If a piece of pottery breaks, they use melted gold to fuse the pieces back together. The purpose is to show that there is beauty in broken things. After the pottery has been broken and remade, it is even stronger than it was before.
“Kintsugi” means ‘golden patchwork.’
Looking at the story of Rahab is a reminder that Jesus knows our brokenness, yet He doesn’t reject us or discard us.
Where I see a broken heap of a life, Jesus sees potential, and the possibility of creating something beautiful and new.
An Unexpected Story waiting to be written or re-written!
I’m so amazed how He is able to take my messed up, broken life, and form it into something beautiful.
If only each of us can just grasp the thought that we can be more beautiful for having been broken, and that His beauty and grace shine more through that brokenness. Wow!
‘Something beautiful, something good; All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life’
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