Rehab or Rahab?
- The Love Church
- May 11
- 10 min read
Here is a question I want you to sit with before we begin: Are you looking for rehab — or Rahab? I know that sounds like a riddle, but it is actually one of the most important spiritual questions any of us can answer honestly. Rehab will try to manage you, improve you, help you function better in the life you already have. Rahab — the woman of Jericho whose story unfolds in the book of Joshua — made a completely different choice. She said, I am chucking all of it and going with God. She did not just get better. She became someone new. And the reason her name ended up in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, and in the very genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter one, is because your past does not define you when God gets involved.
This is a Mother's Day message — but it is for every person carrying guilt from their past, because every person reading this qualifies.
The Elephant Chains We Carry Out of Egypt
To understand Rahab's story, we have to start where the nation of Israel started: in Egypt. Egypt, in the biblical narrative, is a picture of sin, bondage, and the culture of the world. God raises up Moses and leads His people out with signs and wonders. It is one of the most dramatic moments in all of Scripture. And it was supposed to lead somewhere. A journey that might have taken a few weeks stretched into forty years of desert wandering — not because God changed His mind, but because it is far easier to take the Israelites out of Egypt than to take the Egypt out of the Israelites.
I love the story of the baby elephant. When circus trainers conditioned elephants, they would start young — clamping a massive iron shackle around the baby's ankle, driven into an immovable stake. The elephant would strain and pull and pull, but it could not get free. Later, when the elephant was fully grown — a towering, immovable force of nature that could uproot trees with its trunk — trainers would use nothing more than a small chain and a flimsy stake. The elephant could have snapped it in a second and walked away. It did not. Because its memory said: I am bound. I cannot get free.
That is what sin and culture do to us. They leave an imprint. They embed a memory — I am still that person. I am still stuck. And even after we have come to Christ, even after we are genuinely free, the devil will walk up to that old chain lying in the dirt and hold it up and say: See? You never really got out. And we can spend years believing a lie about a chain that no longer has any hold on us.
This is why Romans 12 is so essential: "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." The freedom is already purchased. The chain is already broken. But the mind needs to be renewed — re-trained, recalibrated — to walk in what is already true. And that is a process. It takes time. It takes the persistent, patient work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. But it is real. And he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
Jericho: When Obedience Does the Fighting
Fast forward forty years. Israel finally crosses the Jordan into the Promised Land, and the first city standing between them and their inheritance is Jericho. This is a formidable city — walls so wide that homes were built inside them and chariots could ride two lanes abreast across the top. A human military operation would have assessed those walls and written the mission off as impossible. God's instructions were something else entirely.
March around the city once a day for six days. On the seventh day, march around seven times. Then shout — because I have already given you the city.
Day one. Not even dust shifting. Day two. Nothing. Day three. Day four. Day five. Day six — not so much as a crack in the wall. The people on top of the wall were surely watching this strange procession with bewilderment. And Israel's job was simply to keep marching. Keep obeying. Keep worshiping. Keep trusting. The wall was going to come down because God said it would, and their job was not to understand the mechanism — it was to keep moving in faith.
Notice who led the procession. Not the warriors. Not the battering rams. The worshipers went first. God always sends the worshipers ahead of the victory. Psalm 100 says we enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise — and praise is not merely a warm-up act for what really matters. Praise is what really matters. When you worship, God fights. That is the principle embedded in the walls of Jericho.
On the seventh day, the seventh time around, Joshua gave the command: Shout, for the Lord has given you the city. And the earth shook. The great walls crumbled in a billowing cloud of dust — every section of them, falling flat to the ground. Every section, that is, except one. When the dust cleared, there was still a piece of wall standing. And in that piece of wall was a house. And in that house was a woman named Rahab.
A Moment to Reflect
Before we continue, pause here. Is there a wall in your life that has not fallen yet — something you have been praying about, believing for, marching around in faith — and you cannot see so much as a crack? Today's word for you is: keep marching. Keep worshiping. Keep trusting. The wall is coming down. God's word does not change just because the timeline has not met your expectation. The shout is coming. And when it comes, everything that stands in your way will fall.
Rahab: Your Past Does Not Define You, But It Can Become Your Testimony
This is where the message gets personal. Rahab was a Canaanite woman who lived in the wall of Jericho and worked as a prostitute. The Bible does not soften that. It says it plainly, and it goes on saying it — she is referred to as "Rahab the prostitute" in Joshua, in Hebrews, and in James. By every measure of religious respectability, she was the last person you would expect to show up in a story about faith and redemption. And yet she is the one God preserved when everything else fell.
Why her? Because when the Israelite spies came to Jericho, they ended up in her home — and she made a choice that cost her everything she had known and promised her something she had no earthly reason to trust. She had heard about Israel's God. She told the spies: I know the Lord has given you this land. We have heard how he dried up the Red Sea and what he did to those who opposed you. And then she said the words that changed her destiny: Now swear to me that you will protect my family when you take this city.
She lowered a scarlet cord from her window — a blood-red thread that would mark her house as the one to be passed over when judgment came. Sound familiar? The imagery is unmistakable. The same God who said "when I see the blood, I will pass over you" in Egypt was now, years later, preserving a Canaanite woman of questionable reputation through an almost identical act of faith. Because that is the kind of God He is.
Joshua 6 records that when Jericho fell, Rahab and her entire family were brought safely out and given a place among the people of Israel. And here is the part that truly undoes me: she did not go back. She did not keep one foot in each world. She embraced the culture of the redeemed. She lived among God's people as one of them. She made their God her God, their community her community, their values her values. She was so thoroughly transformed that generations later, when Matthew sat down to trace the lineage of Jesus Christ, Rahab's name was in that list.
She is also in Hebrews 11, the great Hall of Faith, standing alongside Abraham, Moses, Gideon, and David. Her past does not bar her from that hall. Her faith gets her in. And the description "Rahab the prostitute" is not an asterisk of shame beside her name — it is her testimony. Just as we speak of blind Bartimaeus not to remind him of his blindness but to magnify the miracle that healed him, Rahab is remembered this way to magnify the grace that transformed her.
Faith That Works — and Works That Show Faith
James 2:24-25 brings Rahab into a crucial theological distinction that we need to understand clearly. James writes: "We are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions."
This does not mean Rahab's good works made her right with God. It means her actions showed that she was right with God. There is a difference — and it matters enormously. You are not made right with God by what you do. You are made right with God by what Christ has done, received through faith. But genuine, transformed faith changes how you live. It produces action, obedience, and a life that looks different from what it was before.
Rahab did not go on living the way she had lived. When she encountered the God of Israel, something happened. She did not just add a new belief to her existing life — she surrendered her existing life and picked up a new one. That is not rehabilitation. Rehabilitation makes you a better version of what you already are. What happened to Rahab was transformation — a complete identity change. She was no longer a Jerichoite. She was an Israelite. Through faith, that same door stands open for every one of us.
No Condemnation: What God Says About Your Past
This is Mother's Day, and I want to speak directly to what I know many parents carry. Nobody parents perfectly. Nobody walks through life without a list of mistakes they wish they could unmake. Maybe some of your deepest regrets involve your children, your marriage, your years before Christ — or even years since, because the path of faith is not a straight line for any of us.
In John 8, Jesus encountered a woman caught in the middle of the act of adultery and dragged out into the street by a crowd ready to stone her. The religious leaders were ready to make her bear the full weight of the law as a public example. And Jesus stooped down, wrote in the sand, and said to the crowd: "You who are without sin, cast the first stone." One by one, stones dropped and feet shuffled away. Jesus looked up and asked the woman: "Where are your accusers? Did not even one of them condemn you?" She said, "No, Lord." And He said: "Neither do I. Go and sin no more."
That is the posture of Jesus toward every person standing in the street with accusers circling them. He does not pile on. He does not recite the list. He lifts the head and says: neither do I condemn you. Romans 8:1 places His response into its permanent theological form: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Not some condemnation. Not manageable condemnation. No condemnation.
Conviction is real — the Holy Spirit does and will put His finger on things that need to change. But condemnation is not from God. Repentance, conviction, and restoration are God's process. Not shame, not imprisonment, not a lifetime of being defined by what you did before grace found you. God's willingness to bless you is not a commentary on how small your sin was. It is a testimony to how great His grace is.
Rahab would tell you: your story does not end at your worst chapter. She walked out of Jericho and into the genealogy of the Messiah. If that is not a testimony to what God can do with a surrendered life, I do not know what is.
Rehab or Rahab?
So I come back to the question where we began. Are you looking for rehab — a system that polishes your behavior and helps you manage life a little better — or are you willing to do what Rahab did? Throw out everything that was, stand under the protection of the blood, walk out of the falling walls, and embrace the culture of the kingdom of God as your new identity?
2 Corinthians 5:17 is the promise you can stand on: "Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun." Not a better version of the old life. A new one. Old things — the chains, the imprints, the memories that lie to you in the dark — are passed away. And even when you stumble, even when you lapse back into old patterns temporarily, God will get you back on track if you humble yourself and acknowledge your sin. He will uphold you with His hand and raise you back up again.
Your past does not define you. It does not disqualify you. And in the hands of a redemptive God, it can become the most powerful part of your testimony.
A Prayer and a Next Step
Whether you are a parent carrying guilt over mistakes long past, someone whose history feels too messy for God's plans, or simply someone who has been settling for rehab when God is offering Rahab — this prayer is for you:
"Lord, I am done trying to manage my old life and make it presentable. I want what You gave Rahab — a complete transformation, a new identity, a new culture. Forgive me for every sin I have carried and every chain I have believed was still holding me. I receive Your grace. I receive Your declaration: no condemnation. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus, and my past does not define me. Use my story for Your glory. Amen."
If today's message landed somewhere real in your life, leave a comment and share it — your story of transformation might be exactly what someone else needs to read. Pass this post to a mom, a friend, or anyone who needs to know their history does not have to be their destiny. And if you are looking for a community that celebrates real transformation and welcomes people exactly as they are while believing for who they are becoming, we would love to have you join us for a service. The walls are coming down. And there is a scarlet cord with your name on it.
Preached on May 10, 2026 — Mother's Day | Horseheads, New York
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