Hey, Carpool Crew. Welcome back to Carpooling with Heroes of the Bible. We are in episode two of our series on Rahab, the brave believer. If you missed the last episode, here's a quick recap. Joshua sends two spies into the city of Jericho. They end up at the house of a woman named Rahab, whose home is built right into the city wall. We talked about who she was, an outsider, a woman that no one in Jericho expected God to use, and we learned that God sees the people the world overlooks. In episode two, things get tense. Real tense. Let me ask you a question to start. Have you ever known the right thing to do, but you were too scared to actually do it? Maybe a kid was getting picked on and you knew you should stand up for him, but you didn't. Maybe you broke something at home and you knew you should tell your mom or dad, but you stayed quiet. Maybe a friend was making a bad choice and you knew you should say something, but you froze. We've all been there, including Pastor Justin, by the way. Knowing what is right and doing what is right are two different things. In episode two, Rahab is going to show us what it looks like to actually do the right thing, even when it could cost her everything. Here's what happens. The spies are inside Rahab's house. The king of Jericho finds out and he sends men straight to her door. Joshua chapter two says it like this: "But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, 'Yes, the men did come to me, but I didn't know where they were from. At nightfall, when the city gate was about to close, the men went out, and I don't know where they were going. Chase after them quickly, and you can catch up with them.'" Now, real quick, we need to talk about what's going on here, because what Rahab does is not just risky, it's treason. In the ancient world, hiding enemy spies in your house was punishable by death. If she got caught, the king's men would not have asked her any more questions. She would have been done for. But she does it anyway. Let's keep going. The Bible says she had taken the spies up to the roof and hidden them under stalks of flax that she had laid out there. Now, flax, that sounds like a really funny word, right? What in the world is flax? Well, flax is a plant. People in the ancient world would harvest it and dry it, and then use it to make linen and rope. So if Rahab had stalks of flax drying on her roof, that tells us something interesting about her. She was not just sitting around. She had a little business. She was working with her hands, making linen, possibly making ropes for traders. She was resourceful. She was an entrepreneur. And it just so happened that those stalks of flax made the perfect hiding place. God uses what's already in your hand, even drying plants on a rooftop. So Rahab gets rid of the king's men with a quick story, and then the men of Jericho go racing off in the wrong direction. Then Rahab climbs back onto the roof, and she has a conversation with the spies that I want you to really pay attention to. She says, "I know that the Lord has given you this land. The terror you cause has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings." And then she says one of the most powerful sentences in the entire Old Testament: "The Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below." Hold on. Stop. Read that again. A Canaanite woman, a woman from a city that worshiped fake gods, a woman that the whole world had written off, just declared something most religious people in Jericho would never have said. The Lord your God is God, in heaven above and on earth below. So how did Rahab know all this? Here's some historical context for you. In the ancient world, news traveled through traders and trade routes and caravans. Merchants moved between cities, sharing stories around campfires, in inns, and at city gates. The story of Israel crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, yeah, that story moved fast. The story of the Amorite kings being defeated, yeah, that's another big one. Those stories reached Jericho years before. Rahab had heard all of them. But here's what's wild. Everybody in Jericho had heard the same stories. Everybody in Jericho was scared. But only Rahab took those stories and turned them into faith. Most people in Jericho heard about God and trembled. Rahab heard about God and believed. Faith is not just believing something is true in your head. Faith is acting on what you believe is true. James talks about it in the New Testament. He was the brother of Jesus, remember? He says that faith without works is dead. Then he points to Rahab as an example. Wow. He says, wasn't Rahab also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route? In other words, Rahab's faith was real because Rahab did something with it. Carpool Crew, listen up, because this is huge. You can say you believe in Jesus. You can sing songs. You can even lift your hands up while you're singing. You can know the right answers in Sunday school and have a bunch of verses memorized. But faith is more than what you say. Faith is what you do when it costs you something. Faith might look like telling the truth even when you know you're going to get in trouble. Faith might look like sticking up for the kid that everyone else is making fun of. Faith might look like apologizing first, even when the other person started it. Faith also might look like praying for someone you really don't like that much. Faith might look like doing your chores without being asked again, just because you want to honor your parents. See, Rahab risked her life to do the right thing. You probably will not be hiding spies in your house this week, but you will have moments where doing the brave thing costs you something. And in those moments, what you actually do is what tells the story of what you actually believe. Take some time and discuss this as a family, maybe on the couch or around the table, or if you're on a long road trip, in the carpool. When was the last time your faith actually cost you something, big or small? And what is one brave thing you can do this week because you believe God is who he says he is? Thanks for riding along with Carpooling with Heroes of the Bible. Next episode, we'll be looking at the scarlet cord, the little red rope hanging in Rahab's window. That becomes a symbol of one of the most important things in the entire Bible. We'll see you in episode three, Carpool Crew. Have a good one.
