FBC Daily Devotional – September 9, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, good morning, good Thursday to you. I hope your week is going well. Today, we finished up in our

00:12

Bible reading the little book of Ruth in the Old Testament. The other day we read chapter 1 and then today chapters 2 through 4, if you're following that schedule.

00:22

I don't like to do it that way. I personally prefer to read the book of Ruth as a whole. It's a wonderful, wonderful book and the book opens, if you recall, with Naomi losing all hope.

00:39

The first chapter ends with her expressing a sense of hopelessness.

00:45

Now for her, as is true for all of us really, her hope was wrapped up in three things.

00:53

It was wrapped up in place, purpose, and posterity. And all of us have that same sense of longing in our hearts and find life to be most satisfying when we're settled in a place, when we are doing what we're doing with a sense of purpose.

01:15

We have an idea, we have an understanding that my life has purpose and posterity.

01:23

Now for her, that posterity was an expression of security.

01:28

I guess that's a way to put it, a security. And security for her was it was found in her posterity.

01:34

That is her family, her children. The name, the family name, would continue.

01:39

The family would go on through the lives of her sons or children. But by the end of chapter 1,

01:47

Ruth has lost it all. She had left her place in Bethlehem to go to Moab and so she lost her homeland.

01:58

She left her homeland. Then she lost her posterity as her husband and her sons all died, leaving her a widow and a mother and a childless mother.

02:15

And so she lost her posterity, hence her sense of security. And that also sucked the sense of purpose right out of her.

02:25

So chapter 1 ends very soberly with Naomi saying don't call me

02:33

Naomi, call me Mara. Mara means bitter because of her hopelessness.

02:40

Aha, but the story continues and it goes on to show how the

02:47

God whom we serve through Jesus Christ is the God who provides exactly what we need.

02:55

He provides place, posterity, purpose. He provides us with hope.

03:02

He gives us hope. His word gives us hope in Christ Jesus. And in the hope that we have as New Testament Christians, what is that hope?

03:12

It's centered on place, posterity or security, and purpose.

03:19

And this little book illustrates so vividly how the faithful God, the

03:26

God who is faithful to his covenant, provides these things for his children.

03:31

So by the end of the book, end of Ruth, the book of Ruth, Naomi, the one who lost everything, lost all hope, has had her place restored through the

03:44

Redeemer, Boaz. She has had a sense of security restored through the posterity, through the child born to Ruth and Boaz, and she has had her sense of purpose restored.

04:01

She becomes the caretaker, the mother, if you will. She fulfills that role for this little baby, the offspring of Boaz and Ruth.

04:13

And who is that baby? That baby becomes the father of Jesse, who is the father of David, who is the king whose descendant will rule on the throne forever and ever, his descendant being

04:34

Jesus. So even in this story of Ruth and Boaz, God uses it to provide us with our hope, our hope of eternal place, our hope of eternal security, our hope of eternal purpose to live unto him forever and ever.

04:54

So I hope this book has been a blessing to you. If you didn't read that, let me just encourage you to go back at some point today, maybe before you retire tonight, and read that little book of Ruth and just be blessed with how richly the

05:10

Lord provides hope for his people. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your faithfulness.

05:17

You provide a Redeemer and through that Redeemer, you give your people hope.

05:22

We thank you for the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus, the hope of an eternal place, of an eternal security, and a purpose that will never end, to worship and to glorify you forever and ever.

05:39

This we pray and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.