Rahab the Prostitute 
Part 3 – Saving Faith Rewarded (Joshua 6:22-27)

Baxter T. Exum (#1754)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
October 6, 2024

Good morning and welcome to the Four Lakes congregation! If you are visiting with us today, we are especially happy to have you with us, and we hope that you are encouraged by your visit. We’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in that way.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be away over the past 2-1/2 weeks. I enjoyed the Bear Valley Bible Lectures, I enjoyed doing some hiking in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana, and I enjoyed being with my sister and her family for a few days. Everybody was sick at her place! There was a plague afoot! I took a direct sneeze-blast in the face from a 2-year old with pink eye, but it seems that I have come through the ordeal completely unscathed, and I am thankful. I mentioned the Manitou Incline right before I left. Last year, I said, “Never again,” but I was starting to forget about that, so I did, in fact, try it again. It’s basically a series of 2,768 stairs, heading up 9/10 of a mile with an elevation gain of 1,950’, at a grade of up to 68%. Last year, I got it done in 2:12, and this year I got it done in 1:35 minutes, shaving off a total of 37 minutes! But, it was a great trip, and I am so thankful that you were willing to pray for me as I was away. I am especially thankful for Josh and John for preaching over the past two weeks.

We are here this morning to preach the good news that God loves us and sent his Son to save us from sin. He died on the cross, he was buried, and he was raised up on the first day of the week. We obey this good news through faith, repentance, confession of our faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and then by allowing ourselves to be buried with the Lord in baptism (an immersion in water for the forgiveness of sins). And this morning we are sharing some good news that comes to us through Logan Cates who preaches in Durant, Oklahoma. Logan says, “Someone came forward today for the cleansing blood of Christ. Her sins were washed away, she became a disciple of Christ just as Jesus commanded it to be done (Matthew 28:18-20). Pray for Claudia and her new life in Christ! Now her and her husband share a precious unity in Christ!!!” I haven’t spent too much time in Oklahoma, but this picture has Oklahoma written all over it! I’m getting cowboy vibes with the boots, and the jeans, and the shirts, and even the barn-board looking baptistery. But I’m assuming these may be the elders praying over this woman as she is still in the water. Logan continues, by the way, and says that, “Someone else (who had no home) worshiped with us. He was not told ‘we will pray for you,’ but someone brought him to sit beside them in worship, helped him have a hot shower at the building and fed him a warm meal after worship. May the Lord be praised for a great morning.” I love that as well! For years, I’ve thought it would be so nice to have a shower and laundry facilities here in our building for that reason. We’ve had several times when it would have been so helpful through the years. Someday! But we are thankful for good news from Oklahoma this week.

This next one comes to us from Darrick Shepherd, a friend who preaches in Tennessee. He says, “I Love wet sleeves [on] Sunday! So thankful another soul decided to follow Jesus!! She confessed, ‘the goodness of God and his saving power!’ It was a beautiful event!” Amen to that!
 
And this last one comes to us through Melvin Otey a law professor at Faulkner University who also preaches for the Perry Hill Road congregation down in Montgomery, Alabama. Brother Melvin posted a week or so ago and says, “God is still very good, and the gospel still works y’all. A friend of one of our members visited a couple of times in the past. She has been reading her Bible and thinking seriously about her salvation. She visited again today, and while a group of us were at lunch after worship, she asked about baptism. We looked at several passages where the NT discusses baptism and salvation and being born again, and she said, ‘I’m ready.’ We left the restaurant, went back to the church building, and immersed her in water for the forgiveness of her sins. Keep sowing seed, because God still gives increase. It doesn’t happen in our time. It happens at the right time. Welcome to our new sister in Christ!” As always, we share images like this to try to show what it means to obey the gospel. If we can help in any way, please get in touch using the contact information on the wall up here, or you can send a text or give me a call at 608-224-0274.

Several weeks, ago, we talked about the fact that all of us have the power to influence other people, and sometimes we can even be influenced by our great-great grandparents. I introduced you to my great-great grandfather, Robert Elijah Exum, who either owned or managed a silver mine out in Ouray, Colorado (where I got to visit two weeks ago), and I noted that this man has influenced my life, even to this day. With that in mind, we looked at King David, who was almost certainly influenced his great-great grandmother, a woman by the name of Rahab. When the Israelites come near to the Promised Land, Joshua sends two spies, and when they enter the land, these men (in Joshua 2) find themselves at Rahab’s place, and although this woman is terrified, she welcomes the spies and saves their lives by letting them down on a rope and sending them off in the opposite direction of the king’s men who were hunting them down.

We started, then, by looking at Rahab as being an unlikely source of faith. She had so much working against her – as a pagan Canaanite, as a woman, as a prostitute, as a traitor, as a liar, and as someone living in a city that had been marked for death. And we learned from this, first of all, to be extremely careful when it comes to judging certain people as being unlikely to ever obey the gospel. There is a danger in spiritual prejudice. And then, secondly, we also noted that we are Rahab in this story! Most of us here this morning are also unlikely prospects for obeying the gospel. We are not stuck IN traffic, but we ARE traffic. So also, even on our best days, we are in no way deserving of God’s mercy. We are Rahab!

And then right as I was leaving for Colorado, we got to take a closer look at the progression of Rahab’s faith in Joshua 2. In a sense, there is a path of faith before us, and Rahab is leading the way. We learned that her faith started with KNOWLEDGE. She ACCEPTED this knowledge as being the truth, and then she TAKES ACTION based on her faith, by hiding the spies and sending the king’s men off in the wrong direction. She then expresses CONCERN FOR HER FAMILY. She wants them to be saved as well. And then at the very end of our study three weeks ago, we learned that Rahab is given a CONDITIONAL PROMISE OF SALVATION. In Joshua 2, when Rahab lets the spies down by a rope on the outside of the wall, the messengers explain that Rahab 1.) Can’t tell anybody about this, and 2.) She must lower the scarlet rope outside the window as a sign. And that’s where we left it three weeks ago, a bit of a cliffhanger! And if we think this is a cliffhanger, let’s just try to imagine this from Rahab’s point of view. She knows her city is about to be destroyed, she knows she’s guilty of treason, she’s been given a promise, she’s told her immediate family to join her in the house, she has put this scarlet rope out the window, and now she waits. But she doesn’t know how long she needs to wait -  Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Who knows! All she has is this promise.

In the next chapter, though, God has Joshua give the command to cross the Jordan. The Ark of the Covenant is to go first, about half a mile ahead of everybody else. Now imagine the people of Jericho observing this from a distance. They are absolutely terrified, the Israelites have obliterated every nation in their path up to this point, so you know the king of Jericho must have spies or lookouts of his own keeping an eye on things and giving a report, “Sir, the Israelites are coming in this direction, and there’s a gold-covered box leading the way. They are approaching the Jordan River, but it’s at flood stage, though, so there’s nothing to worry about.” But then, when those men carrying the ark step into the water, the water stops flowing and piles up upstream, leaving a path of dry ground, just like what happened at the Red Sea 40 years earlier, “Sir, the Jordan River is gone! It is completely gone!” Those 2-3 million people then cross over and camp out on the west side of the Jordan for the first time. They take twelve rocks, one for each tribe, and make two piles – one in the middle of the Jordan and the other on the shore. At this point, the manna stops, and they start eating the bounty of the Promised Land. From the point of view of the lookouts from Jericho, they then notice that the people are starting to make knives. Imagine the report going back to Jericho, “This is not looking good – hundreds of thousands of knives.” And then, “Nevermind, sir, the men all took off their robes and took turns cutting each other down there!” What a strange move to make just days before going to war! You see, God commanded that all of the men be circumcised. They hadn’t done this for 40 and now they fix that. They heal for a few days, they slaughter lambs to celebrate the Passover, and then they start moving toward Jericho.

This brings us to Joshua 6, where the people (at God’s direction) march around the city, led by the priests and the Ark of the Covenant, once a day for six days, in absolute silence. March around the city in silence, go back to camp for the night, and repeat, night after night. I like to think that they were keeping track of their laps by noting that scarlet rope hanging out of the window! But think about this from Rahab’s point of view. The city is terrified, and all Rahab has is her faith in God and a promise. Her family may be saying, “Men promise prostitutes all kinds of things!” But Rahab holds firm – unable to communicate with this foreign army marching around the city, unable to send a text or message for confirmation, but she still has that scarlet rope hanging out the window.

The people continue their daily march around the city once a day for six days, and on the seventh day they march around it seven times. The priests blow the horns, the people shout, and the walls suddenly collapse. At this point (according to Joshua 6:20), the Israelites storm the city, they destroy everything, and they start killing every living thing. The entire city has been marked for death. This is a scene of rubble and screaming and blood and absolute devastation. There’s been talk in the news over the past few months about a “bloodbath.” The context of that statement, of course, was a financial bloodbath. But what we find in Joshua 6 is a literal bloodbath, commanded by God himself. And the people obey. They go in and they kill everybody – men, women, children, those who are pregnant and nursing, the elderly, the disabled, even the animals – everything has to die, and the people obey.

But then we come to the text for today’s lesson in Joshua 6 (p. 355), and in Joshua 6, we come to the rest of the story. So, let’s take a look together at Joshua 6:22-25. The bloodbath is wrapping up, and we come to Joshua 6:22-25,
 
22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the harlot’s house and bring the woman and all she has out of there, as you have sworn to her.”  23 So the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all she had; they also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of Israel.  24 They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and articles of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.  25 However, Rahab the harlot and her father’s household and all she had, Joshua spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

This morning, let’s take a look at the fact that Rahab’s saving faith is rewarded, and we will break this down with four fairly brief observations.

    1. But the most obvious reward here is that Rahab herself is saved from the destruction that takes place all around her.

Rahab is saved! She’s a prostitute living in a city that’s been marked for death, but Rahab survives! She comes to faith in God, she hides the messenger, she obeys their instruction not to tell anybody and to hang that scarlet cord out her window, and then she waits. She patiently waits as the Israelites come closer, and as they cross the Jordan, and as they set up those monuments, and as they circumcise each other, and as they observe the Passover, and as they silently march one day, and then the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and then as they come back on the seventh day and silently march around the city seven times in one day, and as they blow the trumpets. And then, as the walls crumble around her, and as everyone in her city is hacked to pieces, she stays right where she is in the middle of the fire and smoke and rubble and death (if we can imagine a scene like Ground Zero on the evening of 9-11) – but she stays right where she is, until Joshua remembers the promise. And he doesn’t just remember, but he sends the same two spies to go rescue Rahab from the rubble. Imagine how comforting that would have been, to see those familiar faces, to see these men who’ve been sent by Joshua. The name Joshua, by the way, means “God Saves,” and in Hebrew it’s the name Jesus is given, “Yeshua,” or “God Saves.” Joshua, then, at least in a sense, is a foretaste of what’s coming in the Lord as he saves this woman who will play a role in Jesus’ genealogy.

And when we think about Rahab’s salvation, let’s not miss the fact that the Israelites had just celebrated the Passover. Remember: The Passover was what happened when God told the people to sacrifice a lamb and smear the blood around the doorposts of their homes, and that night the angel of the Lord would “pass over” the homes of all who obeyed and would spare their lives. I don’t think we can ignore the parallels here. We have a scarlet cord hanging out of Rahab’s home, marking her as safe from death and destruction. In a sense, we might say that this is Passover 2.0. This is the angel of the Lord passing over this Gentile woman who has obeyed the Lord by marking her home as she’d been instructed.

What if Rahab had failed to hang that cord out the window? What if she forgot? What if she figured it wasn’t really important? What if she got scared that her own people would see it and suspect something? She would have died like everybody else. But as it is, she obeys. It’s never enough to merely hear the truth and even believe the truth, but we must obey the truth that we know. This doesn’t mean that Rahab “earned” her salvation, but her salvation was conditional. So, let’s learn from Rahab today. We may not be pagan Canaanite prostitutes, but if we don’t obey the Lord we very may well end up much worse than Rahab when this life is over. What matters is that we trust and obey, that we trust God and then do what he has told us to do.

When we think about it, we realize that a scarlet rope makes no sense whatsoever. A scarlet cord is no defense against an invading army. And it’s especially wimpy when we think about how Jericho was conquered. The walls fell, and Rahab’s house was built into one of those walls! Rahab, though, trusted God, she obeyed, and she was saved. As the preacher of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:30-31, “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.” Did you notice who doesn’t get a mention in this passage? Joshua! Joshua (whose name means God Saves) is God’s appointed leader, a man of faith from a faithful family, and his name is nowhere to be found in Hebrews 11, but we do have this reference to Rahab. Rahab is saved!

    2. Beyond this, let’s also note that RAHAB’S FAMILY IS ALSO SAVED.

Remember, back in Joshua 2:17-19, the messengers said to Rahab, “We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear,  unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father’s household. It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him.” Rahab, then, apparently gathered her family together with her in the house. In a sense, she became an evangelist to her family, sharing the good news. She interceded for them, in a sense, and the house itself became a refuge. Imagine the scene as the entire city is leveled, but there’s this one column of brick and stone remaining with this red cord hanging out the window – death and destruction everywhere but in that one little room.

Our homes, today, can also be a place of refuge. This world is headed for destruction, but our homes can be a place of safety from the world. I remember hearing a Christian father present a lesson up in Minnesota many years ago, and it made an impression on me when he said that a Christian home should be a safe place of refuge not only for you and your family, but also for your children’s friends. A Christian home should be a place where all are welcome. And we have taken that to heart through the years. Instead of getting upset at the mess or maybe the pile of bikes outside, be glad that the neighbor kids feel comfortable being at your place. The house itself, in a sense, is a place of safety.

Or we might think of this building. I’ve told you before that I pray over this building bright and early every Sunday morning. Usually around 6:45 or so, I show up and grab the mail, I put my hand on the front door, and I pray. I pray that no one intending harm will be allowed in this place. I pray that God’s people will be encouraged. I pray that the word of God will be preached with love and without fear. I learned to do that from my sister, who would do the same thing at a place where she used to work. This building, in a sense, is a place of refuge. After all, we do have a scarlet rope in here! But the point is: Rahab’s faith is rewarded not only personally, but her family is saved as well, because of her influence.

In the New Testament, we have a few parallels. We might think of Paul saying (in 1 Corinthians 7) that the unbelieving husband is “sanctified” by his wife and that the children are “sanctified” as well. We may not know exactly what that means, but it has to be good, doesn’t it? In some way, a believing wife has the power to influence her unbelieving husband and children. Or we think of Jesus meeting Zaccheus (in the city of Jericho, by the way, and saying, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham.” Zaccheus had the power to influence his family. Or we might think of those conversions in Acts, where the angel says to Cornelius, the Roman Centurion (in Acts 11:13-14), “Send to Joppa and have Simon, who is also called Peter, brought here; and he will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.” Cornelius was an influence over his household. Or we think of Paul’s words to the Philippian jailer, when Paul said (in Acts 16:31), “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And then later (in verse 33), we find that the jailer “...took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.” Again, the jailer influenced those in his own household. His house was a place of safety. Of course, those in our families have to consent to being saved; they must also obey, just as Rahab’s family had to believe what she said and had to stay in the house. But the point is: Today, we can also play a role in our families being saved as well. Rahab is an encouragement to those whose families need to be saved. Like Rahab, our families may be depending on us spiritually. Our families are watching.

    3. So, Rahab is saved, her family is saved, but the reward for Rahab’s faithful obedience continues as we find that even beyond being saved, RAHAB IS WELCOMED INTO THE FAMILY.

We go back to the text for today’s lesson, and we notice at the end of verse 23 that when Rahab is rescued, the messengers,“...also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of Israel.” There’s a reason for that. At this point, Rahab and her family are ceremonially unclean. They are outsiders; they’ve been in contact with the dead, they haven’t been eating the right foods, and on and on and on. So, when they are rescued, they are given a place “outside the camp.” However, they don’t stay on the outside, and I say that because of how Joshua continues in the middle of verse 25, when he says that “she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day.” Eventually, then, after that purification process, Rahab and her people are welcomed into the family of God. So, not only is Rahab not killed along with everyone else in Jericho, but she is welcomed into the family.

However, the family aspect of this doesn’t end there, does it? We have to go beyond Joshua 6 for this, but there’s one time in the Bible where Rahab is not called a prostitute. It’s in Matthew 1. Over in Matthew 1 we have the genealogy of Jesus. And we aren’t given the details, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Rahab falls in love and gets married; either that, or somebody sees she’s in need and takes her in; I don’t know. There’s a very old Jewish tradition that says that Rahab marries one of the messengers. That would not shock me at all. But, we do know that the guy’s name is Salmon. They have a child named Boaz, and Boaz marries Ruth (there’s a whole book in the Bible about that love story). Boaz and Ruth have a kid named Obed, and Obed becomes the father of Jesse, who becomes the father of David, making Rahab the great-great grandmother of King David. Imagine the stories that were told growing up in that family! And as we discussed a few weeks ago, we don’t know, but depending on how long she lived, it’s at least possible that David might have met his great-great grandmother. And that’s amazing! But what’s also amazing is that all of this also gives Rahab a place in the genealogy of Jesus himself; and she’s the only non-Israelite in the whole list. All because a prostitute hears about God, believes what she hears, and her faith causes her to shelter those two men who were sent out by Joshua. She is adopted or grafted in to God’s family. Jesus, the Son of God, is brought into the world (in part) through the DNA of a pagan prostitute. Joshua, then, in a sense, was saving his own Savior! And it’s interesting, because (as I mentioned earlier) Joshua’s name means “God Saves” and is the Hebrew version of “Jesus.”

Here’s what this means for us: When we trust and obey (as Rahab did), we are also added to the family of God. When we obey the gospel, we are born again; we are born into the family. And one more bonus observation here: Do we think Rahab continued living as a prostitute after this? Of course not! As one gospel preacher has said, “God doesn’t care what you’ve come out of, as long as you’ve come out of it!” Rahab is welcomed into God’s family. She experiences the grace of God.

    4. As we come to the end of our study, I would note one more benefit of Rahab’s saving faith, and that is, RAHAB IS BLESSED WITH A NEW REPUTATION, A NEW LIFE.

And I would just take us back to Hebrews 11, the Hall of Fame of God’s Faithful. In that chapter, we have references to Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses. And then there’s this 40 year gap after Moses. Why? Because there was no faith for those 40 years! Not really, but that’s where we have the book of Numbers (that we’re studying in our Wednesday class right now). It was a time where they were being punished for a lack of faith. And then we pick up in Hebrews 11, not with Joshua and Caleb (these two are skipped in Hebrews 11 for some reason), but we pick up with a Canaanite prostitute! It’s almost as if God is saying, “I want you to notice this woman!” And the contrast is stark. Rahab is identified by her occupation, by her sin. She is a prostitute. We do know other heroes of faith by their occupations. Noah built the ark, and he sinned, but we usually don’t identify him as “Noah the Drunkard.” David was  shepherd, and he sinned, but we don’t generally identify him as “David the Adulterer” or as “David the Murderer.” Peter was a fisherman, and he sinned, but we don’t usually identify him as “Peter the Denier,” and so on. Rahab, though, we identify as “Rahab the Prostitute.” Why is that? We aren’t told, but I think God is communicating that Rahab overcame some obstacles that some of those other heroes of faith never had to overcome. She came out of a life of prostitution. Do we have any idea how difficult that must be?

This morning, I sent out an article by a friend who’s a professor of counseling down at Freed-Hardeman University, and in that article, Ryan Fraser introduces us to the “Scarlet Rope Project.” I hope you appreciate the name of that organization! But it’s a group in Tennessee that specializes in helping women get out of a life of prostitution as the result of sex trafficking. And I would encourage you to read that and pay attention to it, because sex trafficking is happening all around us these days, made so much worse thanks to the drug cartels carting people through our wide open southern border right now. The Scarlet Rope Project, though, helps release women from this slavery, and I would encourage you to learn more about it. The point is: Nobody grows up hoping to be a prostitute, but instead, it’s something people are almost trapped into doing. Rahab, though, is rescued by God and is given a new life and new reputation, even though she is still identified by her former way of living. It’s almost like Paul identifying himself as the “foremost of sinners” (as Silas read for us earlier). Paul is not proud of it, but it’s a reminder of where he’s been. God saved him and gave him a new life as an “example,” he says. So also with Rahab. Her new reputation is a contrast to the old. God is telling us that our past does not have to determine our future. Rahab is given a place right alongside Abraham and Sarah and the other heroes of faith. She is now known as the woman of faith who sheltered the spies and hung that scarlet rope out her window.

Conclusion:

So, what does all of this mean for us? The Bible doesn’t make this comparison directly, but I’d like to close this morning by comparing the scarlet rope to the blood of Jesus, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch. Like Rahab, we are relying on the promise of a man (a messenger) who came for a brief visit, promising to save us when he returns (with an unknown time and date). And in the meantime, we trust in his blood, not in how good we are, because we are not good.  Instead, he saves us based on our obedient faith. And when we think about it, we realize that what Rahab did in no way “earned” her salvation. So also, today, even our righteous deeds are nothing but filthy rags in God’s eyes. But we trust and obey, looking to God to save us and doing the best we can to bring our families along with us. And just as she put her trust in that scarlet rope, so also we put our trust in the blood of Jesus. God has a good reason to destroy each and every one of us. Like Rahab, we are deserving of death, but our sins are covered by the blood of God’s only Son. And just as Joshua and the messengers saw that scarlet rope hanging out the window when the killing started, so also God sees the blood of his Son on the Day of Judgment. As we sometimes sing,

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
 
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

In Jesus, we take credit for a perfect life we didn’t live, and we trust in his blood when the world crumbles around us. In just a few moments, we plan on remembering the blood of Jesus as we drink the cup, and I hope we will also take a moment to remember the scarlet rope as a reminder for us to have the faith of Rahab. And if you are struggling with guilt over something from your past that’s been forgiven, remember Rahab. Others may not forgive you, but God already has. Just as Rahab put her faith in the scarlet cord, we put our faith in the blood of Jesus.

And in case you’re curious, the scarlet cord up here started several months ago when I first started thinking about preaching on Rahab. I found it for $1.50 at Habitat Restore, took it home, and boiled it for about half an hour with a $5 bottle of dye from Walmart. And several weeks ago, we dropped off some one-foot sections to a few of our seniors who I knew wouldn’t be able to join us in person for this series. But, that is the story of the scarlet rope up here.

As we close our thoughts on Rahab, let’s go to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We praise you this morning for being a God who saves. You’ve seen us at our worst, and you made a way for us to come back. And so, this morning, we are thankful for your Son and for the blood that he poured out on the cross for our forgiveness. You are a God of mercy and grace, giving freedom from sin when we do not deserve it. When the end comes, we trust you to bring us safely through the destruction to an eternal home in heaven with you. Thank you, Father, for the cross. We pray for salvation, not only for us, but for our families as well. Thank you for making us a part of your family, the church and for giving us new lives to live for you.

Father, we ask your blessing on those in our community who are enslaved and abused. We pray for freedom, and we ask you to use us in any way you can. Help us to reflect your light in a very dark world. We pray for Callie and James as they make their way to Texas this weekend. Be with Jane as she continues to recover. Bless Patsy through her surgery tomorrow, and bless her through the recovery that follows. Be with your people who are serving others who are recovering through the storm damage down south. We pray for strength and resources. We pray for opportunities to share the good news.

We love you, Father, and we come to you this morning in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

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