Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we are continuing our sermon
series Broken Branches where we are looking at
Jesus's family tree. And today we come to one
of the first non -Israelites in Jesus's family
tree, but also one of only a few women who show
up in this family tree. But why is she there?
And what does she have to show us about Jesus's
family line and this new family that Jesus is
building with all of us? That's what we'll talk
about in today's sermon. Our reading for today
is from the book of Joshua, chapter 2, verses
1 to 14. Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent
two spies from Shittim. Go look over the land,
he said, especially Jericho. So they went and
entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab,
and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told,
look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight
to spy out the land. So the king of Jericho sent
this message to Rahab. Bring out the men who
came to you and entered your house because they
have come to spy out the whole land. But the
woman had taken the two men and hidden them.
She said, yes, the men came to me, but I did
not know where they had come from. At dusk, when
it was time to close the city gate, they left.
I don't know which way they went. Go after them
quickly. You may catch up with them. But she
had taken them up to the roof and hidden them
under the stacks of flags she had laid out on
the roof. So the men set out in pursuit of the
spies on the road that leads to the forts of
Jordan. And as soon as the pursuers had gone
out, the gate was shut. Before the spies lay
down for the night, she went up on the roof and
said to them, I know that the 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. We have heard
how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea
for you when you came out of Egypt and what you
did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites
east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.
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 the earth below. 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 that you will spare
the lives of my father, my mother, my brothers
and sisters, and all who belong to them, and
that you will save us from death. Our lives for
your lives, the men assured her. If you don't
tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly
and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.
The word of the Lord. If you come to Trinity
Streetsville like you did this morning on a Sunday
morning, you are going to be met initially by
somebody at the outside doors. They're going
to open the door for you and they're going to
invite you to come on in. And then there might
be somebody inside the door to shake your hand.
And then as you walk closer and closer to the
sanctuary, you'll probably hear some music coming
out of here. There'll probably be a bit of a
buzz that's generating as you get a little closer.
And then pretty soon, hopefully you feel just
warmly welcomed and you're getting it. excited
for the service and that's when you run into
this guy. one of our check -in stations. A check
-in station is basically like a tablet or a little
computer with the world's cutest little printer
attached to it. And at first, it might seem like
this is the least welcoming thing that we could
do on a Sunday morning. Welcome to Trinity Streetsville.
Please give us your name and phone number, right?
But let me tell you, actually, there's a couple
good reasons why we encourage people to check
in here at Trinity. The first is because it actually
allows us to care for you a bit better. When
people check in and we know you're here and we
know you're part of the Trinity family, then
we can serve you better. We can reach out to
you better. We can connect with you more. It
helps us actually care for our growing community
when we check in. But the second reason why we
encourage people to go to the check -in station,
and let me just demonstrate this for you. So
if you go to the check -in station. You put in
the last four digits of your phone number. You
guys know this. And then you pick your name out
of there. And then you press the button. Look
what happens. It prints out. A little sticker.
A little sticker for you. It's not just a sticker.
It's got a name on it. And it's not just any
name. It's your name. And so you get to put that
little sticker on you. And now all of a sudden,
you know what? You're not just another face in
the crowd. Right? We start to actually move from
being strangers to being community. And we start
to become a community where we know and we recognize
and we get to know each other. We never, ever,
ever want to pressure people to check in if you're
not comfortable with it. But there's actually
a really good reason we do it. You know, it's
not very many places you go where you get a little
label, a little name tag. You don't get one at
Tim Hortons when you go there. They don't do
that for you at Walmart. It's kind of a Trinity
thing. if you will. But that actually might not
be true. That might not be true because even
though we don't walk around with little stickers
stuck to our clothing, we all do wear labels.
labels on us right because as we go through life
we we pick up these labels and sometimes those
labels stick to us for a very very long time
and some of the labels that we have are labels
that have been given to us by others this is
what others think of us Sometimes those labels
are actually given by ourselves. It's what we
think of ourselves. So we label ourselves. And
sometimes those labels are actually well -earned,
right? We've done some things to earn those labels.
But other times, those labels are actually unfair.
And we really wish that we could just peel them
off and forget about them altogether. Because
we don't want to be labeled like that. And I
want to also say is that just because you can't
see a label doesn't mean that it isn't there.
So many times we want to hide these labels that
we carry with us because as we approach someone,
we don't want them to reject us or think differently
of us. And when we approach God, we don't want
God to think differently of us or God to reject
us. Okay, so we're in the middle of this teaching
series that we're doing throughout Advent and
Christmas. It's called Broken Branches. And what
we're trying to do is we're trying to look at
the Christmas story from a different angle. Matthew's
angle. You see, the gospel writer Matthew, he
didn't start his Christmas story the way you
think. He didn't start with angels and shepherds
and wise men or the baby Jesus. No, he starts
with a long list of names, a family tree, the
genealogy of Jesus. And you and I would think,
well, that's not a very good way to hook your
audience. But he knew who his audience was. His
audience was primarily Jewish people. And for
Jewish people, it was really, really, really
important. that if they were to believe that
Jesus was the Messiah, that Jesus was connected
to King David, because all Jewish people knew
that the Messiah was supposed to spring from
the root of Jesse, from the line of King David.
And so what Matthew is doing by putting down
all these names in this long, long genealogy
is he's trying to say, see, everybody, look,
Jesus is connected to all the right people. He's
connected to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and
Jesse. and David. He's connected to them all.
He's connected to the right people. He's legit.
But in the course of doing that, Matthew also
does something very interesting. Not only does
he show us that he's connected to all the right
people, but he actually shows us that Jesus is
connected to a whole lot of the wrong people
too. Lots of people in Jesus' family tree. are
people with labels, bad labels, labels you don't
want, people with histories, messy, messy histories.
And ancient historians, they would normally have
just edited out all that embarrassing, those
embarrassing details and those seedy stories.
But Matthew seems to do just the opposite. He
says, hey, everybody, gather around, gather around.
I want you to look at him. Take a good look at
her and what she did. Why? Why does he begin
this way? Why does he begin by showing us these
kind of details? Let's just remember where we've
been so far. This is how Matthew starts his gospel.
He says, this is the genealogy of Jesus, the
Messiah, the son of David. See, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the
father of Jacob. Jacob, the father of Judah and
his brothers. And if you were here last week,
you'll remember we learned a bit about Judah.
And man, oh man, Judah had a lot of labels. If
we were to have hooked Judah up to this cute
little printer, it would have... Send out a label
like Judah the liar. Judah the betrayer. Judah
the unfaithful. Judah the hypocrite. If you missed
that teaching, you can visit our website. You
can visit our YouTube channel and catch up. But
Judah did horrible things to his brother Joseph.
He did horrible things to his daughter -in -law
Tamar. But Matthew doesn't hide it. No, no, no.
Matthew says, hey, look. See what Judah did.
See this seedy story with Tamar. He puts all
this stuff in the family tree. Why? Well, as
we've been learning, it's because Jesus didn't
just come for sinners. Jesus came from sinners.
And Matthew wants to make something very clear
right at the beginning of the Christmas story,
right at the beginning of his story about Jesus.
And it is this, that this is not a story about
how good people... Earn their way to God. This
is a story about God's grace and God's love and
how that grace and love comes crashing in to
the broken branches of this family tree. It carries
on. The family tree carries on. Judah was the
father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was...
Tamar, that's the one we learned about last week.
Perez, the father of Hezron. Hezron, the father
of Ram. Ram, the father of Amminadab. Amminadab,
the father of Nashan. Nashan, the father of my
personal favorite, Salmon. Love Salmon. Nashan
was the father of Salmon. And Salmon was the
father of Boaz. And this is where he should have
stopped, right? He should have said, Boaz, the
father of Obed. Obed, the father of Jesse. Da
-da -da -da -da. But... He does it again. He
says, Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Now, that
is a problem. And Matthew didn't have to tell
us that, right? He could have just carried on.
But no, he pauses and he wants to name her. And
the reason this is a problem is because Rahab
has a label. And many of you here know Rahab's
label. Now, to be fair, Rahab is not the only
person in the Bible. who had a label. So, for
example, Jesus had a cousin. His name was John
the? That's right. And next week, we're going
to learn about a guy whose name was Uriah the?
Oh, some of you knew it. Uriah the Hittite. Come
next week, and I'll tell you all about him. Or
what about this guy, Alexander the? Right? These
are great labels. How about Attila the? Or how
about Buffy the? Yeah, yeah. Or how about Dora
the... And one more, Jabba the... Right. I think
those are all in the Bible, but I could be wrong.
But I'll tell you one I know 100 % for sure is
in the Bible, and that is Rahab. And she's a
problem for the family tree of Jesus. And she's
a problem because of the labels she wears. In
fact, I would say to you today that Rahab actually
wears three different labels. The first is Rahab
the outsider. Right? She's not even Jewish. I
don't know why Matthew is going to include her.
All he's proving is that Jesus doesn't come from
a pure bloodline. But he wants to include her.
That's a bit of a problem. Right? Second, Rahab's
second label is Rahab the enemy. Not only is
she a foreigner and outsider, but she's a Canaanite.
And right at this moment in the story, Israel
is about to go to war against the people of Canaan.
They're meant to drive these people out of the
land. So she's an enemy, but none of Rahab's
labels stick quite like this one. She was Rahab
the prostitute, right? Or Rahab the harlot. Rahab
the hooker. Rahab the sex worker. Rahab the woman
of the night, right? And the Bible... I mean,
why does Matthew highlight this? Because the
Bible has so many bad things to say about prostitutes.
I'm just going to share you one verse from the
book of Proverbs. It says, For the lips of a
prostitute are as sweet as honey, and her speech
is smoother than oil, but in the end she's as
bitter as gall, sharp as a double -edged sword.
Her feet go down to death, and her steps lead
straight to the grave. We need to tread pretty
carefully here because we know that prostitution
is a very complicated and painful reality. Scriptures
like this don't give us permission to dehumanize
or oversimplify or to shame people who are in
prostitution, right? People end up in prostitution
for all kinds of reasons. They end up for poverty
or coercion. People sometimes become prostitutes
just because of abuse or addiction or just to
survive, maybe, right? Or there are whole, you
know, rings and trafficking groups that try to
trap and exploit people like Rahab. But that's
the thing about labels. Nobody cares about the
backstory. Nobody cares about the nuances of
how you got there. Just give us the label. Oh,
yeah, she's Rahab the prostitute. And it's a
label that followed her her whole life. And so
her presence here, it raises a really interesting
question. Why would Matthew deliberately put
the spotlight on someone like Rahab at the start
of the Christmas story? And again, it's because
Matthew wants us to realize that she is not just
one more person who's part of the story, but
she is the very point. of the Christmas story.
She's the very point of the Jesus story. So let's
talk about Rahab's story a little bit, okay?
Let me tell you that about 1400 BC. The people
of Israel freshly released from their captivity
in Egypt. They're still trying to figure out
what it means to be God's people. And they're
wandering and they're heading to the place where
God promised that he would give them. A land
of their own, the land of Canaan. They're finally
coming home. Some estimates say there was maybe
2 million of them or 3 million of them. And as
they're about to enter into this promised land,
one of the first obstacles they encountered was
that there was a city right there filled with
Canaanites. and it was the city of Jericho. And
so Joshua, who has taken over for Moses, he sends
two spies to go check things out in the city
of Jericho. And so these guys, they slip into
Jericho. They're not exactly James Bond material.
They're discovered pretty quickly. And so word
gets out to the king. Hey, guess what? There's
two Hebrew spies, and they've come in to kind
of spy out the land. And the king of Jericho
says, well, go find them. Go get them. Bring
them back to me. And so the search begins. And
just before sundown, someone says, I think I
saw those two spies. And I think I saw them duck
into that house over there, the house that's
built right into the city walls. And that house
happens to be the house of Rahab. And so the
guards, they go up to Rahab's house and they
knock on the door. And I mean, the Bible doesn't
say they knock on the door, but I think it's...
It's probably just a good idea that if you're
going to a prostitute's house, you should knock
on the door first. You never know what you're
going to find in there. And so Rahab answers
the door. And they say, hey, the king of Jericho
sent this message. He said, bring out the men
who entered into your house because they have
come to spy out the whole land. But Rahab answers,
oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those men were here, but
they're not here anymore, right? They left. They
left just before the city gates closed, and if
you hurry, you might catch them. Now, this is
a lie. The spies are hidden upstairs, and it's
a lie. And in many Bible studies, this is where
it gets real quiet in the room, and somebody
puts up their hand, and they say, So, is it okay
to lie? And you know what? We'll ask that question
when we get to heaven, I guess. But it is a lie.
The guards leave. Rahab goes upstairs. And this
is where the story starts to get interesting.
We read that before the spies lay down for the
night, she went up to the roof and she said to
them, I know that the, and this is an important
word, I know that the Lord has given you this
land. Now, in your Bible, that word Lord is in
all capitals because it is the sacred name Yahweh.
It is the divine name of God. It is a name that
many Jewish people to this day will not say out
loud. How did Rahab know this word, know this
name? She grew up in a house with little idols
and gods and household gods and fertility gods.
That was her idea of what a god was. But now
she uses this word. And we don't know what language
she was saying it in. We don't know the exact
words she spoke. But she has some kind of knowledge
of... of this Yahweh and some kind of faith in
this Yahweh God. She knew this God wasn't like
her other gods. Now, how does she, how does she
know this? Well, she says, I know this. I know
that the Lord is giving you this land because
we have heard, we have heard how the Lord dried
up the waters of the Red Sea when you came out
of Egypt. This is pretty amazing. What is Rahab's
Faith in Yahweh based on? It is based not on
theology. It's not based on scripture. It's not
based on any experience. Her belief in Israel's
God is built entirely on what she has heard.
Stuff she's heard from travelers, rumors, secondhand
information. And yet, that little bit that she
has heard is enough to convince her there is
something different about this God. And she continues
on. She says, we heard. We heard it. And our
hearts melted in fear. For the Lord your God
is God in heaven above and on earth below. And
now it's really interesting because these are
two different words for God. There's that word
Yahweh, again, the Lord, but then there's your
God, which is another Hebrew word Elohim, which
is kind of small g God. Anyways, this is all
just a very cumbersome way for Rahab to say that
your God is greater than all the other gods that
I've known. And again, she doesn't know the Mosaic
law. She doesn't know anything about the covenant.
She has never read the Bible. She doesn't belong
to a life group. She's never listened to a podcast.
She's never taken Alpha. Rahab's theology would
never survive Professor Stratus's theology class
down at Wycliffe College, right? She didn't know
much about God, but she knew enough. She knew
enough to trust him. She says, I don't know.
I don't know much. But what I do know is your
God's powerful and your God's real. And maybe
she'd also heard that this God affords a greater
dignity to women than a life of prostitution.
I don't know. But she says, I know that I would
be safer with that God than anywhere else. Some
of you this morning, you're exactly where Rahab
is. You don't know much about this God that we've
gathered. To learn about, right? You don't know
much about the Bible. You really don't know where
to start with Jesus or the church. You've got
all these questions. You've got all these gaps.
You've got all these doubts. And that's okay.
Because so did Rahab. She didn't know much either.
But she knew enough. to be able to place her
life in God's hands. And she stepped toward this
God that she barely understood. And this God
met her where she was. And he'll meet you too.
Because even a small amount of faith, when it's
placed in the right God, is enough. Partial faith
is enough. Incomplete faith is... Half -formed
faith is enough when it's placed in the right
God. It's enough to save. It's amazing. It's
amazing. Anyway, Rahab continues, Please swear
to me by the Lord that you will show kindness
to my family. Now, this word kindness is the
Hebrew word hesed. What she's asking these spies
to do is accept her. But even a little bit more
than that, to be faithful to her. She's not saying,
hey, do me a favor. This is Rahab actually asking
for a relationship, covenant relationship. She's
asking them to see her more than her label. And
these spies, they see past the label and they
reply, our lives for your lives. Yes, yes. We
bind ourself to you. And that is a shift from
a woman with a label to someone who belongs.
In this interaction, something profound has happened.
Labels are falling off all over the place. She
stops being Rahab the prostitute. They stop being
just a couple of Hebrew spies. and they all become
people who are seeking God, Yahweh, together.
And that matters so much for us as a church,
because we're supposed to be a place where labels
also fall off. Not your name tag. We don't want
your name tags to fall off, although they sometimes
do. But we want to be a community where we're
not just welcoming people, or we're not just
tolerating people. We want to be a community
that replaces labels with love a community where
relationship comes before reputations where there
is this grace that just binds us together no
matter who we are anyways this is where Rahab's
faith starts to get a little bit dangerous she
she lets them down by a rope through the window.
She helps them escape. You know, up to this moment,
she could have changed her mind. She could have
backed out. She could have pretended nothing
happened. But once she lets them down through
that wall, now there's no going back. This is
not just belief anymore. This is a commitment.
She's all in here. She's risking her life. She's
risking her family. She's risking everything
for this God she barely knows, whose name she
can probably barely pronounce. But she knows
this. She knows that her future is safe with
this God. I want to say to you, faith always
involves taking some kind of risk. Now we're
going to come to the part of the story where
most of you know the best. It's the fall of Jericho.
You probably sang a song about this in Sunday
school if you went to Sunday school. When the
walls came a -tumbling down. But I'm not going
to say much about it. And it's not because it's
not important, but it's because we don't have
time. And this whole thing deserves a lot more
time because there are some serious questions
here. Questions about violence in the Bible.
Questions of some people have accused of ethnic
cleansing. There's even questions technically,
like how did the walls of Jericho come falling
down anyways? It is a strange story. It is a
thorny story that modern people. rightly struggle
to understand. But we're going to have to skip
it because here's where I want to focus, that
right in the middle of that battle and in the
bloodshed, a promise is kept. Joshua gives this
command, go into the house of that prostitute
and bring her out and all who belong to her.
And then we read that Joshua spared Rahab the
prostitute. There's that label. It'll be with
her for 2 ,500 years. But there it is again.
And all her family who belonged to her. But perhaps
the most beautiful line in this whole story is
the one we didn't even really get to today. And
that is this. And she, Rahab, lives among the
Israelites to this day. She doesn't just survive.
Now she belongs. This prostitute, this foreigner,
this enemy now belongs to God's people. And a
thousand years later. When people finally sat
down and read Matthew's genealogy and they came
to Rahab's name, yes, it made them very, very
uncomfortable, but they would also be reminded
of how God's love is greater than labels. And
that is the story that Matthew wanted to tell.
It is the story of Christmas. And if there was
a sequel to this story, it would definitely be
a Hallmark movie and it would go a little something
like this. One day, my man named Salmon, meets
Rahab. And, oh, you know, they start talking.
They go on a few walks together. They have coffee.
And then they start to have a... a few dinners.
And then one day, Salmon says to Rahab, you know,
would a girl like you ever be interested in a
guy like me? And then he pops the question, and
she says yes. And then they have a baby, and
they name that baby Boaz. I don't know why they
picked Boaz. I would not have picked Boaz, but
they said, we're going to call him Boaz. And
Boaz grows up to marry a lady named Ruth. And
Boaz and Ruth become the great grandparents of
King Which means that Rahab, her label doesn't
just get removed. It gets completely rewritten.
And now the entire genealogy of Jesus the Christ
goes right through her. Just proving again that
God's love is greater than our labels. Okay,
it's a great story. As we close, I just want
to say that that story is actually not too different
from your story. Or my story. Because like I
said, most of us come into this place this morning
and we're wearing some kind of a label, right?
And maybe it's a label that you picked up somewhere
in your past. Or maybe it's a label that just
kind of came to light more recently. I don't
know. Maybe it's a label that everyone knows
about. Or maybe it's one of those labels that
you keep totally secret. But if we had to kind
of plug you into the label machine and plug your
heart in there, what would it spit out? Maybe
the label with Mike the manipulator. Chad the
cheater. Gary the greedy. Aaron the addict. Faith
the unfaithful. And you might assume, gosh, I
can't let anyone see that label. I can't let
God see that label. He wouldn't accept me. If
I try to approach God with this thing stuck to
me, first thing he's gonna see is my label and
he's gonna reject me. But in Christ, as we've
learned, we receive a new name tag. Bzzz, forgiven.
Bzzz, accepted. Bzzz, loved. Okay? Matthew had
a label too. Do you know that? Remember? Matthew
the tax collector. Matthew the sellout. Matthew
the trader. Matthew the crook. He had all these
labels. And actually, it's no surprise, therefore,
that Matthew is the one who tells us this story.
And he's the one who makes sure that Rahab's
name makes it into the genealogy. He's the one
who wants us to see that right from the very
beginning. Your labels don't get the final word.
Grace does. And that should change the way you
approach Christmas this year and every year.
The message of Christmas is not, what have you
done for God? Or even, what can you do for God?
Or what is the good life that you have lived
for God? The message of Christmas is what God
has done for us in Jesus. God deals with our
sins. He changes our hearts. He replaces our
labels. And then we begin the slow work of living
into who we're truly meant to be. That relationship
with God. So, Christmas says, your label is not
your identity. Grace is. So, let's go from this
place and live as the people. that God says we
are. Thanks be to God. Amen. Thanks for tuning
in to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This sermon was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville
in Mississauga, Ontario on December 14th, 2025.