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♪ Praise to the sovereign king ♪.
Verses
19 through chapter two, verse three.
So I would encourage you to please open your Bibles and if you don't have a Bible with you.
To grab one or your phone.
Or however you can open up God's word today and be in it, that is very, very important.
But before we begin, I'm going to offer a prayer just over this text, what we're going to be talking about.
And so please, just let's join with one another in prayer right now.
Lord God, I just thank you.
And I want to echo what those words we just sung as a church to you, Lord, that praise the Lord, praise the
Lord, wonderful things that you have done, Lord.
God, you have not only just given us creation and life and breath, but Lord, you have given us
salvation through your incarnation and what you have done on our behalf upon the cross, Lord.
And it is upon that we get this great privilege to come to you upon your throne and
worship you today.
So Lord, I just pray that through the reading of your text today, through the preaching and the hearing of your word, through the
songs and through the praise of your people to you, God, that we would be more like you and that you would
receive praise in these things, Lord.
God, let us have life today in you as we remember how we
have had life, Lord.
As you have said, a man must be born again in order to enter into the kingdom of God.
And that the first birth, though it be physical, should remind us of how we enter into eternal life,
and that is through being born again.
Through the Holy Spirit, Lord.
So God, let us remember this in humility.
Let us remember this not taking pride in what we have done, but what you have done on our behalf.
And Lord, let this cause us to have a desire to serve you,.
To love you, to care for you.
And Lord, let us be planted firmly upon your scripture today.
Let us not go outside the bounds of scripture, but let us be solid in this, Lord.
God, we just say these things all to your glory.
And to your praise.
In your name, Jesus Christ, we pray, amen.
We're gonna be in Ruth 1 .19 -2 .3 as well today, just
as a reminder.
I wanna begin, though, by reading what we kinda walked through last week, just as a reminder to help us,
because what we're gonna see in this text is going to be a different scene.
They're gonna be in a different area than what they were at last week, but we're still dealing with the same figures
speaking in the same way.
So let's see verses 14 to 18 real fast as a reminder for us as the
context.
It says,.
And they lifted up their voices and wept again, and Orpha kissed her mother -in -law,.
But Ruth clung to her.
Then she said, Behold, your sister -in -law has gone back to her people and her gods.
Return after your sister -in -law.
But Ruth said, Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you.
For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people, your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.
Thus may the Yahweh, may the Lord, this is Ruth speaking, may the Lord do to me
and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.
When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.
We'll make note of some things here in a moment, but let us read verses 19 now through chapter two, verse three for our
selected text today.
It says in here, So they both went until they came to Bethlehem.
And it came about when they had come to Bethlehem that all the city was stirred
because of them.
And the woman said, is this Naomi?
And she said to them, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for the
Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
I went out full, but the Lord, the Yahweh has brought me back empty.
Why do you call me Naomi?
Since the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me.
So Naomi returned and with her Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter -in -law who returned from the
land of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Now, Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth of the family of
Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
And Ruth, the Moabitess said to Naomi, please let me go
to the field and glean among the ears of the grain after one whose sight I might
find favor.
And she said to her, go my daughter.
So she departed and went to glean in the field after the reapers.
And she had come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was the family of
Elimelech.
Let us pray over this text today.
Lord God, I pray first and foremost, Lord, for the privilege and out of thanksgiving and
just gratitude to be able to stand here today to look at this text with humble eyes, Lord.
And God, I just pray that you above all things would receive glory by looking at this text, us
individually looking to you in this text, Lord.
And God, I just pray that as Naomi clings unto, or as Ruth clings unto Naomi, Lord, I
pray today that we might have a better grasp upon you, Lord, that we would never forget
that it is you that hold us in your mighty, mighty hand.
Lord God, I just pray that you would encourage us to be of service to our fellow man, to our fellow
church, to our fellow believers.
And that we'd just go into the world so that they might be stirred up and ask, who is this that has come into our city?
Lord, let us be better servants today.
We say this in your mighty name, Jesus Christ, amen.
Now, we're gonna just do a quick context, what we just read, verses 14 through 18, just to help
center our mind on what has taken place.
Naomi, as a reminder, is a mother and a widow, and the children she
has have passed away.
They have died.
Her two sons have died.
And all she is left with at this point in this story, up until today in verse 19,
is both Orpha and Ruth, her two daughter -in -laws, these two Moabite women, that she has
left the land of Israel, left the land of Bethlehem, and have gone to Moab, a place where she shouldn't have been in the
first place,.
Leaving the promised land.
And here, her two sons, who should not have married these Moabite women because they're not believers in
Yahweh, as we see in this coming text, or in this previous text, that they worship other gods.
And so this family has gone away from God in this way.
And we see, and as a reminder, what Naomi says to Ruth in
verse 15, I believe it is.
And I think that this is so important, as we talked last week.
We are not to do this as a church.
Never do this.
Never, ever do this.
In verse 15, it says, "'Then,' she said, "'Behold, your sister -in -law has gone back "'to her people and her
gods.'".
Naomi knows that what they believe in, what the Moab people believe in, are idols, pagan worshipers,
false gods, ones that cannot save.
And here is Naomi proclaiming to be a children of Israel, a follower of Yahweh, saying, go and
worship your false gods.
Go back to that land.
This is downright evil and sinful.
We cannot do this as a church.
If somebody comes to us, we are never to turn them back to false gods,
especially in the midst of grief, especially in the midst of grief.
If anything, that is the time to show them true hope and peace through Jesus Christ.
The only one that offers life, the only one that is the way, the only one that is truth.
This is wrong of Naomi to do.
That's not okay.
And I think that this is truly from her have gone away from the land of
Israel.
She and her whole family have departed from the land of God in this text already.
But we see the remarkableness of Ruth take place here in verse 16.
She says,.
Do not urge me to leave.
Do not urge me to go and worship the false gods.
Do not urge me to go and be a part of my people.
Do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from following you.
Where you go, I will go.
And where you lodge, I will lodge.
And listen to this text, church.
Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.
Now, I want you to remember that in our church context, that when a believer comes into our fellowship, they are
now our people.
They are our family.
They're our body.
They are our church.
When someone repents and believes in the gospel and comes unto Christ,.
We open our arms.
We do not shun them and turn them away to go somewhere else.
We cling onto them.
We love them in this way.
We fellowship with them.
We have a deep, meaningful relationship because guess what?
They are our people.
Our land is their land.
Our God is their God.
And here we see Ruth, this pagan woman, this Gentile woman, this one that is not an ethnic
Jew, say, your God is going to be my God.
And here in the same text that we looked at last week, she even provokes the very explicit name
of God, Yahweh.
This is truly remarkable.
This is a woman that has had her eyes opened to truth in this text.
And so she gets to the point where Naomi, it sounds like somewhat reluctantly,
says, okay, I'm not going to push on you anymore.
You're coming with me, I guess.
There's nothing I can say to make you turn back.
She's giving up in this text.
In verse 18, it says, when she saw that she was determined to go with her,.
She said no more.
She says no more.
She doesn't continue to push Ruth away.
And so for our selected text here in verse 19, just as a little bit more of context for us,
this is many, many hundreds of years after Abraham.
This is at a time that Moab is to the east of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and
all of Israel.
And so they are miles away.
They're separated by this small body of water, relatively small body of water.
And this text is finding its timeframe around the 1200s BC timeframe.
And this is years before King David is born.
So just remember these kinds of things in the back of your head, because this story has huge meaning
for the redemptive history of all the world.
The redemption that you and I have in Christ comes through this story.
We see the road curve and take us left and right through this
family to get us to the hill of Calvary.
Do not forget this.
Do not forget that this is where the end result is leading us, is our
redemption.
So verse 19, it says, so they.
So they, it doesn't say so Naomi now has left.
It now says they.
They are now this unit.
And we see that Ruth in the fact of her clinging unto Naomi, now
it's they.
It's no longer a me thing.
Church, if you go out on the street today, I hope your whole church, I hope your whole fellowship, I hope
anybody that can come with you, it's a they unit now.
It's not a no longer me.
It's not a I.
It's not a solo thing anymore.
What does Nebuchadnezzar say when he looks at all the city?
He says, look at what I have done.
We as a church do not think like this anymore.
We as a church say, look at what the Lord has done.
It's a we now.
I'm in the family of God.
I am a child of God like this.
It's a they unit in this text.
And it says both went until they came to Bethlehem.
Now I hope all of us in some way or shape or fashion have heard of this place called Bethlehem.
We sing a song, I'm gonna butcher the title of it.
Oh little Bethlehem or what is the town of it?
Little town of Bethlehem.
I told you I was gonna butcher it today.
Why do we talk about Bethlehem?
That's where our Lord and Savior was born.
That's where Jesus Christ, God in flesh becomes incarnate is in the town of Bethlehem.
It's not only just significant for this, but Bethlehem is also known as the city of David.
And that is because David was anointed there.
Why is this significant?
Well, we know that David was pointing us forward to Jesus Christ.
Once again, we see this curving road, this what seems to be mindless, meaningless stuff that
is going on in this text, actually having a sovereign plan behind it, provision taking
place in it.
There is no meaningless in this text and we're gonna really talk about this here in a moment.
Really talk about this.
So they go to this town of Bethlehem where Christ a thousand years in the future is gonna be born.
And it says all the city was stirred because of them.
Now, why is the whole city stirred?
Once again, the nation of Israel in this time has had a famine that has come upon the land
previously.
And that to the nation of Israel is judgment to Israel and going astray from God.
And so Naomi and her family, Elimelech, her husband and her two sons have departed from the promised land
that they have left.
And as we would assume and come to this conclusion, many years have gone by.
And so now they see this Israelites coming back, not by
herself, but with a Moab woman, but she does no longer have her sons.
She does not have her husband with her.
She's probably aged a little bit.
Maybe she has a few wrinkles, especially from the text prior that we can see that she cannot bear
another son.
So she's aged in this way.
And she comes to the town of Bethlehem and all the cities is stirred about this.
Now it says, because of them, once again, we have that unit type of language now that's being talked
about.
Here's an Israelite that is with this pagan Moab woman, this Moabite woman.
Why this is stirring us.
This is not right.
This is not usual for a day of this time.
It's not a usual thing to take place.
Why church?
I would hope that anytime you leave this door, that you go out to the world and you
go out to your own city and the city is stirred because of a message that you bring to it
about Jesus Christ.
I hope that they're stirred in this way.
They should always be stirred in this way, that we act amongst them and present the gospel, that we have this
unit type of factor.
Going out into the world, proclaiming the gospel.
They should be stirred.
And so we see the nation of Israel, this town of Bethlehem is stirred because of this fact of Naomi returning
with Ruth.
And they say to her, is this Naomi?
Now, as we know, and we've talked about weeks prior, titles and names mean a lot, especially in this day.
Naomi means pleasant.
That is what her name means.
And as we looked, Elimelech meant a title.
I'm gonna butcher their two sons' names.
Chilion and Malone, I think is how you would pronounce it in some way or fashion without looking at it.
Those had significance in the name.
Bethlehem, that name, that title, the town has a name to it and it has meaning to what that name is.
And that's the house of bread, fitting for where the bread of life will be born
here in a little while.
The house of bread, Bethlehem.
And so they say, is this Naomi?
And now we can understand why Naomi responds in such a way in verse 20.
And she says, and said to them,.
Do not call me Naomi, do not call me pleasant.
Do not call me this, call me Mara.
What does the word Mara mean?
Mara means bitter.
This is Naomi proclaiming what her name ought to be.
It is no longer that my name ought to be a pleasant thing because why?
I don't have a husband any longer.
He has died.
My two sons, who are obviously younger than me,.
They have died, call me bitter.
And we then see, for the Almighty has dealt with, dealt very
bitterly with me.
They took, how they came to conclusions of how their name was, was how God has dealt with them or how God has blessed
them or an attribute of who God was.
And so we see Naomi in this text say, look, God has sovereignly done this to me.
His hand has come against me and I name should not be Naomi anymore.
It ought to be Mara, bitterly, because God has dealt with me bitterly.
Now this title in here, this is important because we see it here in just a moment.
We see the Almighty.
What does that term mean in Hebrew?
Once again, I'm going to butcher things because I cannot, I'm not well educated on this type of stuff, but Shaddai or
Shaddai is how you would say this Hebrew word in here.
And this is where we would get El Shaddai or the Almighty, God, the Almighty.
El being God and Shaddai or Shaddai would be Almighty.
This is a term that can only be used for God.
And why do I bring this up?
Because here in the next verse, we're going to see here in a moment that they say the Almighty again,
but it's also with who did Naomi and Ruth just make mention of in the texts prior,
Yahweh.
There's different titles that is meant for God and is used to call God by different names.
They're still speaking of the one being God.
And the reason I bring this up is because what is the very name Christ proclaims to be in the New Testament?
John 8, 24 says, unless you believe I am, you shall die in your sins.
Unless you believe I'm ego me, you shall die in your sins.
That is the title of Yahweh in Greek.
And so we see in here that this title can even be applied to Jesus the Christ,
the Almighty God.
The explicit name of God is used in this text.
And it says in here has dealt with me very bitterly.
Now, if we were to take a still shot and we've talked about this in the past and I wanna hit on it again, if
we were just to pause the screen, let's say this is a movie before us and we were to pause the screen right here and we were to say,
is this a good thing or a bad thing that's going on?
We would maybe even call Naomi bitter.
We'd maybe even call Naomi Mara, the name that she wants to go by.
She's lost her two sons.
She's lost her husband.
She's gone to a foreign land and has returned back in this way that after many years of not being in the
promised land, she's Mara.
This is not a good thing that is taking place to her.
But it is until we hit play and we see the entirety of the story play out.
That we say, that was beautiful.
That had a director, that had a story, that had a purpose,.
That had characters,.
Main characters in it that had an overarching beauty to it for the enjoyment of us,
for the benefit of us.
Why did I pause it right there.
And focus in on that one moment in that person's life?
It's because our minds are wired like this.
We have a God that is outside of time that has predestined and decreed all things to take place.
He knows the story because he has declared the ends before the means.
He has declared it all.
So we see in here that the story is not yet done.
Praise God.
And in fact, we see that the story has taken place in certain ways so that God himself will be able to walk amongst us.
Wonderful, beautiful text.
We see that the Lord God,.
The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
Verse 21, where I said that the word Yahweh, Lord is used, it says, I went out full, but the Yahweh has
brought me back empty.
Now, why is it that Naomi sees what she has returned with is emptiness and what she left
with was fullness?
Church, I can't fathom the idea.
I'm in a very similar situation as Emilic and Naomi in that day.
I have a wife and two sons.
I can't fathom how my wife would react if I and her two sons passed away.
I can't fathom this.
This is heartbreaking, gut -wrenching type of stuff.
I can't fathom that.
I don't like to think about it.
But my hope and my encouragement is not for my wife to say I was once full and now I'm empty without my
husband.
No, that's not what I want anyone in this room to see as.
I would want you to say, the Lord has gone very kindly with me.
He has saved me and it is upon him alone that I find hope and joy and I am always full because I am deserving
of nothing.
That's humility.
That is recognition in who God is compared to us.
The other response, I have once been full and now I am empty.
I was once deserving of this stuff and I've left the land that God has promised to us, the land that I ought to be
loyal to.
I have left that full.
She's taking pride in what she has and when it's gone, how do we see her react?
I recognize the Lord of the hand.
I cannot deny that he is sovereign and he's active against me, but I am now empty.
I have no hope, it sounds like in this text for Naomi.
This is not when the world recognizes hardship amongst the believer, we ought not to answer in
this way.
We need to answer in a humble way, acknowledging who God is.
So Naomi says, the Lord, the Yahweh has brought me back empty and that is because she views what she had when she
left the land as what made her full, her husband and her two sons.
That is what Naomi is seeing as made her full.
And this is, I hope you do not think right now that I'm a heartless son of a gun being up here
saying, oh, that's not right for her to be sad in this.
No, it is absolutely right to be sad in this time.
There's times and seasons for all things.
This is terrible stuff that's gone on in this text.
Why do you call me pleasant?
Since the Yahweh, the Lord has witnessed against me and now we see again this term,
the Almighty has afflicted me.
She still recognizes God's sovereignty.
In all these things.
She still recognizes this, that what has happened to her has been God bringing a hand of
judgment against her, that his hand has acted against her is what she proclaimed in prior text.
So she says, the Almighty has afflicted me.
The Almighty has afflicted me.
Now, once again, if we were to pause this TV screen, this story
before us, we would probably be saying something very similar.
I want you to turn your Bible to Matthew chapter one.
And if you know or have ever looked into the book of Matthew, you are probably thinking, why are you turning to one of the most boring chapters in the whole
Bible?
I've heard people refer to Matthew as that way as it starts out, because guess what it gives us?
It gives us a genealogy, it gives us a family tree.
Why does it give us a family tree?
Well, there's reasons we're not in Matthew, so we won't go through that stuff right now.
But I want you to focus your eyes on verse five.
Verse five.
In fact, let's just go ahead and read verse two through five.
It says, to Abraham was born Isaac, and to Isaac, Jacob, and to Jacob,
Judah, and his brothers.
And to Judah were born Perez, and Zerah, and Tammah, and Perez was born Hezron, and Hezron
-Ram, and to Ram was born Abadai, and to Abadab, I'm terrible with these names, so I'm just
gonna read them fast so no one notices me misspelling them, or mispronouncing them.
It says, Nashalon, and to Nashalon, Solomon, and to Solomon was born Boaz.
We're about to go back to Ruth and see the final character of Ruth, the final main character in the book of Ruth, be introduced, and
guess who it is?
The one that we just read, Boaz, was born Boaz by Rahab, and to
Boaz was born Obed, by Ruth, and to Obed, Jesse,
and to Jesse was born David, the king, and it goes all the way down to Jesus Christ.
Now, could Ruth have married Boaz?
Would Ruth have married Boaz unless Naomi and Emelech had left the city of Israel, left the
town of Bethlehem to go to Moab?
No, they would have never met each other.
Ruth was in the town of Moab.
She would have never met Boaz.
We now see that even though to Naomi and what she recognizes as the hand of the Lord coming against
her in this bitter way, this destructive way, this way that has ruined her life is what
she sees, is actually the very thing that will bring salvation to her and her country.
Has the Lord dealt bitterly with Naomi?
No, he has not.
It's his story and it's his plan that has gone through her family, this covenantal way.
As we read in here, Abraham, I wanna read real quickly and we're gonna come back to make mention of this here in a second.
Genesis chapter 17, verse one, and we'll just read this really quickly.
This is beautiful text.
We see God's working in the life of this family here.
Genesis chapter 17, verse one.
It says, now when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am
God, the Almighty, El Shaddai.
That's the very term that was just used in the book of Ruth and it's usually used in a way
of God speaking about land.
El Shaddai, walk before me and be blameless and I will establish my covenant between me
and you and I will multiply you exceedingly.
And Abraham fell, or Abram, we'll see what his name is here in a little bit, Abraham, and Abram
fell on his face and God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my
covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham for I have made you
the father of a multitude and I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you the
nations of, or make the nations of you, I will make nations of you and kings shall
come forth from you and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your,
I'm assuming all of our translations say descendants, the more literal wording of this would be
seed and there is a reason for this and your seed after you throughout their
generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your
seed after you, your descendant after you.
I wanna turn real quickly to make note of this.
Galatians chapter three, Galatians chapter three.
I know we're going a lot back and forth, but it's important for today.
Galatians chapter three,
Galatians chapter three and I wanna make a mention of this verse in here, it says
even so in verse six, even so Abraham believed God and he was reckoned to him as righteousness.
Abraham was saved the same way as you and I through faith.
That is how one is reckoned righteousness in verse 16.
That comes from Genesis chapter 15 if you were curious, but Galatians chapter three verse 16 says,
now the promises were spoken to Abraham and his seed.
He uses the word seed because that's the Hebrew word seed.
He does not say and to seeds, what does that add there, plurality to it.
It says to his seeds as to referring to many, but rather to one and to your
seed that is Christ.
That is Christ.
Now let's go just a few verses after this.
I would love to read this whole chapter with us, but let's read verses 24 through 29.
It says, therefore the law has become a tutor to lead us to Christ that we may be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor for you are all the sons of God through faith in
Christ Jesus.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek.
There is neither slave nor free man.
There is neither male nor female.
For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according
to the promise.
Now let's go back to Ruth and consider this.
The seed spoken of that is promised is referring to Christ.
And how are we made to be a part of the family of God is through faith in him.
And we are reckoned with righteousness.
Verse 21, I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.
Why do you call me Naomi since the Lord, the Yahweh,.
The Yahweh.
This is the very God that she is speaking of is the very one that comes in flesh and proclaims to be this Yahweh.
The very reason the Jews crucified Christ, you being a man have made yourself out to be God.
The Yahweh has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me.
In verse 22, so Naomi returned.
And with her Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter -in -law, who returned from the land of Moab, and they came
to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
What Naomi is doing in here is saying, the Lord has gone against me in this way and it's nothing good.
I can't see meaning out of this.
I don't see the good out of this.
I don't see the purpose behind it.
My husband has just died.
My sons have just died.
There is no purpose in these things.
Church Hindsights 2020, is there purpose in this text?
Yes.
If Ruth is saved, how is she saved?
It is through the death of her husband that she was brought back and that the Messiah would be
eventually born and that would be the one she dies in, in Christ, to be saved.
That is how she is to reckon righteousness.
At the moment, it seems Naomi has been dealt with very bitterly, very, been afflicted.
No, this is how redemption comes about.
Verse one of chapter two, please follow me here.
It says, now, just before we read this, this is not the narrative that's going on in here.
This is context to what the narrative is about to be.
It says, now, Naomi had a kinsman and her husband, a man of great wealth of the
family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
And we'll make mention of him here in just a little bit because we see what takes place in verse three.
But this is context to what verse two and three are talking about.
Well, the whole chapter's coming and speaking about that Naomi has this kinsman.
We'll make mention of what a kinsman here is in a moment.
So don't think we're skipping verse one.
It says, and Ruth, so this is now the continuing of the story of verse 21.
And Ruth, or verse 22 in the prior chapter, and Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, so they've
entered into Bethlehem, the whole city has been stirred, has been questioning, is this Naomi?
And so it says now that Ruth the Moabitess says to Naomi, please, let me go to the field and
glean among the ears of grain after one whose sight I might find favor.
Now, what does glean among the field mean?
This is, the word glean really is, the meaning of it is
to extract information.
She's gonna go out and try to look and hear and see and find if there is, what we see
here is a husband, if she can find a man that she can wed herself with.
She can find a husband.
And so she goes to the fields.
What a fitting place to find a man.
If you're a man and you don't go work in the fields in this way, and you're not putting that
effort in, I think you're not being a biblical man.
Biblical man is one that puts his hand to work.
So why is it that Ruth goes to the field is because she wants to find a man.
She wants to find a husband.
That's why she goes to the field.
So she goes to the field, says, please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain
after one whose sight I might find favor.
Now, what does that mean, to find favor?
Well, we have very similar language in the New Testament about what we have in Christ.
Do you know what the definition of grace is?
Unmerited favor, unmerited favor.
Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine says, for by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourself, lest any man should
boast.
It is the gift of God.
We have favor, we have found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Ruth is going out to find favor of a husband, to find favor of a man.
Guess who we have found our favor in, church?
In our bridegroom.
In the one who spilt his blood for us.
The one that we have grace through.
That is where we find our favor at.
But we see that Ruth in this text is going out to find favor, to find a husband, to find a man if she
can, to maybe redeem her in this state of grief that she's in.
And just as a side note, Ruth doesn't know about Boaz in this text.
Ruth doesn't know about the family kinsmen.
Naomi isn't telling her to go out and talk to Boaz.
And there's a reason that we say this here.
And so she goes and Naomi,.
Well, first of all, Naomi said to her, go my daughter.
She wants this for her daughter -in -law, go my daughter.
She views her very much more in this relationship way of even calling her own daughter, go my daughter.
And in verse three, it says, so she departed and went and gleaned.
So she's going to the field.
She's extracting this information after the reaper.
She's going out to the field to find for herself a husband or a man that she might find herself interested in, or
rather the man find interest in her.
And she happened to come.
Now, it's wonderful that it just says this in this text.
She happened to come.
It almost sounds as if it's by chance she lands in this one field.
By chance, she happens to come upon this field.
Has there been anything in this text that is outside the hand and sovereign working of God?
No, no.
To Ruth, it appears that that's by chance.
She walked down a mile and took a right, hit a left at the stop sign and happened to this field, right?
She happens.
It's not random.
It's with purpose.
So she departed and went and gleaned in the field of the reapers.
And she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging.
Now, why is it that I say that this is not out of randomness?
Because she comes to the field of Boaz unknowingly about who Boaz is.
She comes to the field of Boaz and it gives us this context, who is of the family of Elimelech.
This would have been his nephew.
This would have been her husband's cousin.
Now, why is it that it talks to us?
And we'll see this in the next verses that we look at in weeks to come.
Why is it that it talks about Boaz being of the family of Elimelech?
Well, let's first of all, think about Christ.
Christ's lineage has to come through Abraham, King David, all these figures.
So we have to have this line set up for us in this way.
So that's one reason.
A kinsman, what is that back in verse one, the context of what's going on in here?
This would be a family acquaintance in this way.
A kinsman would be set up that the nearest blood relative, if something happened to a family, it was him
who they sought redemption through.
It was the law of redemption is what it would be called.
And there's many places in the Old Testament that it refers to this law of redemption in such a way.
And what that is, is okay, my husband was murdered.
I'm going to go to the nearest kinsman, my nearest blood relative, for him to avenge my brother's spilt
blood, or my husband's spilt blood.
Or my land was seized, it was taken away from me.
I'm going to go to my nearest blood relative that has been set up now, and see if he'll pay the debt for the land.
Or maybe I've gone into slavery, my nearest blood relative ought to come
free me through this law of redemption.
Or as we see in this case, he is to care for this widowed woman,
the nearest blood relative in this way.
Now, just as a side note, these people could say no.
They could say no to doing such of an act.
They could say no, and it's important to remember this.
Says in verse one again, so Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, man of great
wealth of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
Now, what does the name Boaz mean?
It means strength.
Now consider that to her last husband that she had, which was weakness or illness.
This death that took place in her husband, she has now found strength in this new man.
Now in the weeks to come,.
We'll now look at who this final character, this is the final character.
Rather quickly, it's given us all the main characters in this book that we see in here.
Boaz is the final main character, maybe besides Christ that we'll see with being a type
or Boaz being a type of Christ.
But we see that it is through Ruth's death of her husband that
she is brought back to this land.
And by the law of redemption, redemption would come to her.
She happens to fall upon the land of Boaz that she doesn't even know about in this text.
A man of wealth, a man that might be able to redeem her in her situation, her family name.
It just so happens is going to be the family kinsman,
the one that is going to represent Ruth and help her in this way.
So now let us look to the grander picture in this church.
And this is gonna be our encouragement for the day.
It is through Boaz that Ruth recovers from the loss of her husband.
It is through Boaz and Ruth that we have redemption in Christ.
Boaz and Ruth are both sinners.
You and I are both sinners, but there is one who has lived a life that you and I cannot live.
And that is Jesus the Christ, God becoming flesh, living the perfect life, being obedient
unto death, even death upon a cross.
Thus his death, burial and resurrection is the gospel message that saves you and I.
And if you have not yet repented, and turned to that gospel message, I would encourage you today that you are here.
Your God's road path has led you to this church to either worship him or to repent and believe in the
gospel today.
So let us do those things.
Let us lift up prayer to God.
And then we will go ahead and proceed with communion.
I wanna read one more text before we go ahead and pray.
I wanna read Ephesians chapter one.
Just a really quick text for us.
Ephesians chapter one, verse 11.
It says, also we have obtained an inheritance having been
predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will.
God had a beautiful story of redemption that brought about ultimate redemption in the family
of Ruth and Boaz.
What a mighty God we have.
Let's pray.
Lord God, we just thank you so much, Lord, to consider this beautiful text,
Lord, this sad text, this text that appears that you have come against this family, Lord.
I thank you, God, for the hardship and the testing and the smelting of this family
to harden truth and to bring about everlasting life, Lord.
I thank you for this, God.
I thank you for our own sovereignty, the sovereignty that you have in each of our lives, God.
And Lord, I just pray that whatever time of hardship or joy or whatever season that we are in
right now, Lord, that we would have faith in a God that does things with purpose, that has
meaning in all things, Lord.
And through that, we would only have our eyes focused upon your cross, Lord, as we see that even in this text, it is
leading us to the hill of Calvary where you would pay the price for me and us.
So Lord, be glorified today.
Let us know you.
Let us know that nothing is random with you.
That it all has a purpose, even with a pagan woman who has a huge role in God's
covenantal plan.
So Lord, we just say this in your holy name, holy, holy, holy, Jesus Christ, amen.