Ruthless (Part 4): Seeing God in Restoration

Good morning and welcome to Orchard Hill.

It's great to have people gathered for Orchard Hill here in Wexford, in the chapel, in Butler County, in the strip district, some on Facebook Live.

And our hope, our prayer today is that God will just work in each of our lives.

So would you just join me in prayer?

Father, we ask as we're gathered today that you would speak to each of us.

Lord, I pray that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

There's a lady whose name is Kay Bowler.

She's been a professor at Duke Divinity School for several years.

And a few years ago, when she was age 35, she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

And because she works in the arena of divinity, meaning she tries to explain God to students who are going into ministry, her cancer has in many ways been a public challenge of faith.

In other words, many people will come to her and they'll say, How can you believe in a God?

How can you teach about a God who would let you get cancer?

Not only that, you have young children.

They're going to probably be raised ultimately without a mom.

What kind of God do you serve?

She's written about this in several places.

One of the recent places where she wrote about this, she said that there are three kinds of responses that are typical that people give to her.

These aren't really new to her.

I've seen these in other places, but here's what she says: she says there are minimizers.

So there are people who will come to her and they'll say, hey, at least, and then they'll fill in their phrase to basically say, even though you have cancer, at least you don't have this.

At least you still have.

At least, and what they'll do is they'll minimize.

They'll say, maybe that's not so great, but at least.

Then she says that the second group are teachers.

People who will come along and try to instruct her and tell her what she needs to know.

She says that they're a lot like Job's friends in the Bible, where they have a take on why cancer has happened, what I can learn from cancer, how God's working in my cancer, and if I would just understand it, then my life would be better.

And then she says that there are solvers.

People who believe that she can solve the problem somehow.

Here's what she writes She says there's always a nutritional supplement, a Bible verse, or a mental process that I have not adequately tried.

There is a trait cruelty in the logic of the perfectly certain.

Those people are not simply trying to give me something, they are tailing up the sum of my life, looking for clues, sometimes for answers, for the purpose of pronouncing a verdict.

But I am not the one on trial.

And here's what she's talking about when she writes that.

She's saying that when somebody suffers that we're aware of, what we try to do is we try to look for clues, we try to figure out why they suffer, how can they solve it, rather than taking a step back and being able to say this isn't about this person or their faith or their lack of faith, but but maybe God is doing something different than we even see.

Well, today we are concluding our series in the book of Ruth.

We've called it ruthless.

And what we've seen is that when life is ruthless to us, because Naomi was experiencing famine, she experienced the loss of her husband, her sons.

She had to migrate somewhere to try to live, and then she migrated back.

We saw in chapter one that we can see God even in loss.

Then we saw in chapter two that in our midst of our need, we can continue to see God.

And then last week we looked at this idea in Ruth chapter three about seeing God in our romance and in our singleness and how God's not detached from that area of our lives.

And now when we come to chapter four, what happens is Boaz and Ruth marry and they have a child.

And it seems as if God has now taken what was an incredibly hard situation and he's brought about restoration.

And so what we'll see here is that God's at work in restoration.

Because Boaz and Ruth end up marrying, they end up having a child, and this child will provide for Naomi and for Ruth as they age.

In other words, God has woven some things together to bring about a good end.

And here's what I think we see, and that is what seems to us often to be private or ordinary or even random choices to us, or events are not.

But God is working.

I think that's part of the point of the book of Ruth is that God was at work in ways that they couldn't even see.

And in fact, I mentioned this in passing last week, but Naomi prays for Ruth and chapter 1, verse 9, she says, May the Lord grant you rest, may he give you a home.

And her vision for what that would be was that Ruth would marry a Moabite man and stay in Moab, and that that would be the answer to her prayers, but God didn't work that way.

Instead, Ruth made that declaration that's often pronounced at weddings that where you go, I'll go, your people will be my people, your God my God, which was her way of saying, I'm with you, Naomi, first and foremost.

I'm going to take care of you.

And so she gave up on that dream in a sense, and yet God brings it back in a way that's even more fulfilling and beautiful than she could imagine with Boaz.

And so what you have is you have God at work in what seems like random private choices, mundane choices, ordinary choices, and God is somehow working in the midst of these.

I've heard it described this way that often the way God works is like a tapestry.

Have you ever seen a tapestry?

If you see it on the one side, it's absolutely a work of art if it's done well.

And on the other side, it's a mess of fabric going every which direction.

And how I've heard this described is we see our life from the backside, seemingly random threads going all over the place, but on the other side is God's picture where he's weaving something that is actually beautiful that we may not see or understand.

Now, twice in this book, we're told that God acts.

And in both instances, it's not particularly miraculous.

And what I mean by that is in chapter one, we're told that, um, chapter two, that he brought a relief to the famine.

In other words, that he caused rain.

Now, that doesn't seem particularly miraculous to us.

And then we're told in chapter four that he opened the womb of Ruth so that she could bear a son.

And the point of, I think the way that this text is laying out is saying sometimes when we want God to work, we expect him to do the absolutely miraculous, the sensational, but sometimes what God does is he works in ways that aren't that obvious to us, even though it is still God's work.

Because he brought rain for the crops, he opened her womb.

And here's what this all points to.

And that is just because you and I can't see what God is doing doesn't mean that he's not doing anything.

Just because you don't understand or you can't connect the dots or you can't see where the where the fabric is leading doesn't mean that God isn't working.

Because what we'll sometimes do is we'll say, if I can't see it, if I don't understand it, it means that God isn't doing anything.

But but in the book of Ruth, in our lives, in your life, even when you can't connect the dots, God is still at work.

So just because God doesn't appear to you to be doing something, doesn't mean that he isn't doing something.

And just because it isn't revealed to us, or we don't see restoration now, doesn't mean, again, that God is not working in our lives.

Because he works often in ways we don't see.

So when we come to chapter 4, here's what we read.

Meanwhile, Boaz went up to the town gate and sat there just as the guardian redeemer he had mentioned came along.

Now, what had happened was when Ruth proposes to Boaz, when she goes into the barley harvest and she lays down next to him and says, Cover me with the corner of your garment.

We talked about this being her proposal to him, basically, to propose to her.

He said, You're our guardian redeemer.

And this is a phrase that has significance in this book because this plays on an Old Testament theme.

This is all talked about in Leviticus 25, Deuteronomy 25.

You can read about it.

But basically, what a guardian redeemer was was they were somebody who had the obligation or the right to buy back land if people in the family had sold it or put it into debt in order to just eat.

And so what had probably happened here is Naomi and Ruth, when they came back, had some land that was a limelex, and they had probably put it up on uh in in a collateral way in order to uh make it, and this was a chance now for somebody in the family to come along and buy this up, this land up.

So it would probably have been a deal for this guy and for Boaz.

And a guardian redeemer would also be the person who would try to buy back family members from slavery, and in some instances, they would be the person who would take uh a widow to be their wife to extend the family line.

And so all of this is in view when Boaz says there's somebody who is actually in the first position.

I'm in the second position.

And again, we see just a little hint here of God working because it says when he sat down at the gate, the guardian redeemer he had mentioned came along.

Now, it's likely that the gate, he knew he would come along, so he sat there waiting for him.

But it's also just another just moment of God working, bringing about events and orchestrating them in ways that we may not see.

So Boaz says to him, Come over here, my friend, and sit down.

So he went over and he sat down with him, and this is how business was often done.

Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, Sit here.

And they did so.

Now, ten was probably the number that was needed for a quorum.

So to get ten to sit meant that they could conduct legal business.

Uh this is kind of an aside.

I had a chance to go to Israel last year.

We have a trip coming this year uh for us here at Orchard Hill.

But I was in a hotel on a Saturday night, and one of the Jewish men approached me and said, Do you want to come pray?

And I thought, well, sure, that'd be cool, I guess.

And he said, Yeah, we need ten people.

And I said, Well, you realize I'm not Jewish, right?

And I don't know any Hebrew.

He said, That's all right, we just need ten people in the room.

So uh so uh it was interesting.

He ended up finding a Jewish guy.

But um so to this day, ten is still a significant number for Jewish people.

And it says this.

Then he said to the guardian redeemer, Naomi has come back from Moab and is selling a piece of land that belonged to your relative or to our relative, Elimelech.

I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, do so.

But if not, tell me, and I would um so I will know, for no one has the right to do it except you, and then I am next in line.

I will redeem it, he said.

Because he looked at it, he said, This is a good real estate deal.

I'm going to buy low.

This will be good for me.

And then Boaz says this on the day that you buy the land, Naomi, who you acquire, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.

So here's what he's doing.

He's saying, Look, we've got a great deal.

This house is in foreclosure in our modern day.

But when you buy it, you're also gonna get a living mother-in-law.

And by the way, she goes by Naomi, but she also has her own nickname for herself.

She calls herself bitterness.

You do you remember that name, Mara?

So you're gonna buy a house in foreclosure, but there's a living mother-in-law who calls herself bitter.

And you get to have the this Moabite woman who maybe the town knew about and knew her character because it says that, but you wonder a little bit if it's like, oh yeah, she's you know, one of those people who who loves the Lord kind of a thing, but she wasn't thought of as much.

And by the way, she'd been married and not had kids, so he's not gonna have kids.

And what he does is he says, you know what, I can't redeem this because this is going to cost me, it's going to cost my family.

I don't want to split the estate.

And so he basically steps away.

And Boaz says, I'll do it.

I'll do it.

Now, why is this significant?

They they exchanged sandals, which was a way of making a deal.

I think that the significance of this is that God is at work to redeem.

Notice the word redeem to buy back, but but he's working on several levels here.

First, there's Boaz, who is serving as the redeemer for the family, but there's also Ruth, who's working to be one who brings about life for Naomi, but ultimately it's their son that will be a redeemer, who will have a great, great, great, great, several times grandson Jesus Christ, who will be the redeemer of all people, who will offer to be people's guardian redeemer.

And the point I think here of Boaz is this, and that is Boaz did not have to buy the land.

He did not have to marry Ruth.

Now, some people look at this and they say, Well, the guardian redeemer was obligated.

The fact that the first guy in the first position could say, I don't want to, and it was all good, appears to me to say he didn't have to do it.

But here's the point.

Even when Boaz didn't have to, he took his resources and he had the will to say, I want to make a home for Ruth and for Naomi.

Might be a little bit like this.

Imagine you're buying a car, and you're all ready to buy the car, and then just to do due diligence, you get a car fax on the car, and you find out the car's been in an accident, it's been in a flood, that it's uh kind of had to be recalled because of the Lemon Law.

Now, what do you do in that situation?

You walk away from the purchase.

You say, that's not a good deal.

Boaz here, in a sense, is saying, even still, I'm going to redeem, I'm going to buy the land, I'm going to take the responsibility because I want their good.

I don't know if you've ever had this experience as a kid.

But have you ever been on a playground and been the last one chosen?

Where you stand there as a kid just agonizing, saying, pick me, pick me.

Some of you are saying, No, I was always picked first.

But some of you have had that experience, some of us have had that experience.

And what this is, is it's somebody saying, even though you're gonna hurt my team, I'm picking you because I want you to be a part of it.

Now, hear how much this goes against modern thinking when it comes to faith and when it comes to religion.

Because what most of us think normally, what most of our culture thinks, is that the way that we become commendable to God is we improve ourselves, and then God says, because of how well you've done, because of the way that you live, I'm going to choose you.

But but what this story shows us is that God's choice, God's redemption is not based on our performance.

Now, sometimes people will say, Well, does that mean I can do anything?

If the Carfax is ugly, can I do whatever I want?

No.

Romans 6 says says, in essence, that we are called to follow Christ, and it says, if grace abounds, basically when I sin, can I just sin all the more?

And it says, No, not at all.

Because you're not understanding it.

But but here's what happens for some of us.

And that is when we come to Jesus, not just Boaz, when we see what he has done, what we do is we tend to say, Well, my situation wasn't that desperate.

And here's the thing: the more moral you are, the more successful you are, the less you'll feel like you need the grace of God.

Because what happens is when you live in a way that you say, I'm pretty moral, I'm pretty successful, you say, Well, wouldn't God want me?

Well, aren't I a good ambassador?

But here's the reality: when you start to understand God's righteousness, you understand that it's not a ladder that you climb that you just get closer to, but it is something that the farther you get or the closer you get to God, that you still realize even more how far you have to go.

And so when we understand our need, what happens then is we say the gospel is really beautiful.

It's not just a transaction.

That it's God's way of saying, in essence, I want you through the story of Ruth and other stories to see that my love for you is something to behold, something to worship, something to celebrate, that it is not just something where you say, I'm going to make a transaction and try to somehow make myself get to where I can be accepted.

And here's what I mean.

For some of us, what we'll do is we'll approach faith like this.

We'll say, in essence, God, I want to have eternity, so what do I need to believe?

What are the doctrines I need to believe?

What's the bare minimum that I need to do in order to get whatever that is?

But when we understand the beauty of the love story that is Jesus for us, that's foretold in a sense, because Boaz and Ruth are a type pointing to Jesus, their ultimate descendant.

And what we get to do is we get to say it's beautiful.

And what it should do is it should move us sometimes to absolute wonder.

One of the reasons we sing when we come together is to be moved emotionally.

And if you're never moved emotionally, if if you are always just kind of saying, Well, I should go to church because my family thinks I should go, my husband, my wife thinks I should go, it's good for the kids.

If there's never a sense of anticipation, of joy, of wonder, then what's happened is you've become so transactional in your approach to God that you've lost the beauty, you've lost the wonder.

There should be times, and I'm not saying there's never an obligation moment, never a weekend where you say, I'm just gonna do it because I do it.

But what I'm saying is there should be days when you're standing in a worship environment like the one we've had here this morning, like the one in Butler County today, the one in the strip district today, in the chapel today, and the words of the songs aren't just words of the songs, but they become the cry of your heart where you start to say, My God, you're beautiful.

So here's the last thing that we kind of see in verse 11 is this.

Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, We are witnesses.

May the Lord make the woman who's coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel.

Now, this is a backhanded compliment.

Because Rachel and Leah had twelve children between them that became the twelve tribes.

But their family was a mess.

And so when they say, may you be like Rachel and Leah, what they're doing is they're basically saying, May you have offspring, may it be good, but this is a mess.

You're a Moabite marrying Boaz, like this doesn't work.

Verse 12, through the offspring the Lord gives you, may this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.

Now, why is that here?

Chances are, unless you're really into studying the Bible, you don't know who Perez is.

You might know who Tamar and Judah are.

Well, Perez is the son of Tamar and Judah.

Tamar and Judah's story is told in Genesis, and the story is told that Tamar was basically a lady who pretended to be a prostitute so that she could get Tamar to sleep with her.

She took his rings and stuff, and then when he accused her of being basically a woman who wasn't worthy, she took out his ring and said, I'm pregnant with your child.

Because Perez then would carry on the family line.

Words, this is a scandalous story.

And here it is in Ruth showing up, and he's saying, and singled out, because there's several generations here.

So why this one?

I think what they're saying is look at this mess.

And then if we read down just a little farther, we see this about this family.

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.

He made love to her and enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.

The women said to Maomi, Praise the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian redeemer.

Now here it's it's vague who they're referring to.

Is it Boaz?

Is it the son?

Is it Ruth?

Or is it her future lineage in Jesus Christ?

I think the Hebrews, somewhat intentionally vague.

May he become famous throughout Israel.

He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you is better to you than seven sons.

This is a radical statement here.

Because seven's the number of completion.

She's saying, the women are saying that Ruth is better to you than if you had had seven of your own sons.

Then Naomi took a child in her arms and called for him.

The women living there said, Naomi has a son, and they named him Obed, and he was the father of Jesse and the father of David.

Now, the lineage here is picked up in Matthew chapter 1, because it's told about the story and the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

And what we realize is that Boaz is the son of Salmon, and Salman married Rahab, who was the prostitute who held the spies or helped the spies in the beginning of the conquest.

And here's what I think is going on right here.

And that is the stories being told in a way that would be absolutely shocking to the people of Israel, because here's David, one of their most revered people, who comes from Judah and Tamar to Perez, down several kind of levels to Selmon and Rahab, who had Boaz, and then Ruth comes along, who is this Moabite who's been widowed and doesn't fit the lineage of King David.

And then it's all picked up in Matthew 1 as part of the lineage of Christ.

And here's what I think it's saying, in essence, to us, and that is there's no situation that's so messed up that it's beyond the restoring grace of Jesus Christ.

You see, some of us come here today, and what we're doing is we're saying, you know what, I was messed up.

I messed up my marriage.

I drank too much, I worked too much, I yelled too much.

Some of us will say, Well, I messed up my kids, I I I wasn't around, or I spent too much, I didn't take care of things the way I should have.

I didn't seek God when I was younger.

God can't use it.

Or some of us will say, I was abused, I went through hardship.

It wasn't my doing, but but it was other people who did things to me, who caused things to happen in my life that I had no ability to change.

But what this story shows us is that God can take any situation, no matter what somebody's done to you, no matter what's happened in your life, that he can take any situation or any decision that you've made and he can bring beauty.

Do you see how this works?

Our seemingly small choices, private decisions, random occurrences may seem like nothing's happening, but God is at work.

And he can take even the most difficult situation and bring about beauty.

And the gospel is ultimately what is the most beautiful part of what God does in our lives.

Billy Graham wrote a book years ago called Just As I Am.

It was a play off the song that he used to have played at the end of all of his crusades, where people would sing the song Just As I Am without one plea.

And then literally hundreds of thousands of people would stream forward to say, I'm committing my life to Jesus.

And in this, he he talks about heaven, about a place that he says will be more glorious than anything that we can ever imagine.

Then he says this: he says, This is the hope of every believer.

It is my hope, and I pray that it'll be your hope as well.

I know that soon my life will be over.

He wrote this about 20 years ago.

But I look forward to heaven.

Most of all, I look forward to seeing Christ and bowing before him in praise and gratitude for all he's done for us and for using me on this earth by his grace just as I am.

And he uses that phrase.

I think in many ways that's what Ruth is about.

Just as I am.

All the brokenness, all of the dysfunction that might exist.

By the way, this summer we're going to do a series during Kids Fest and Beyond called Messy Families, and we're going to look at some of the messy families of the Bible and talk about how we can bring beauty out of messes.

But but here in Ruth, the idea is just as I am, I come, and God brings beauty out of what doesn't look so beautiful.

And the question is, will you and I basically say, God, you're worthy of my worship and trust, so I can come just as I am, or am I going to say, No, I've got to continue to try to direct and control and lead every aspect of my life.

Now, again, if you've been here, you know that Ruth put herself in some places where what she envisioned could be.

But at the end of the day, coming and saying, Just as I am, God, will you work?

And celebrating the beauty of what this story ultimately points to, that there's a Redeemer, verse 15 says, who will nourish and restore.

One who will bring things to your life that you can't bring.

And that's what Jesus is, that's what Jesus has done.

And when we acknowledge that and say, just as I am, then we put ourselves in the place where even if we don't see it in the immediate future, God says, I'm restoring, even in all the brokenness.

Father, we thank you that your word is so clear, that your intentions for your people are for good.

And God, that when we can't see what is happening or what you're doing, that you're still worthy of trust, and that trust is ultimately saying, God, whatever comes, whatever difficulties, you're still at work.

You're doing what I can't do.

And Lord, even if I don't get the things that I think I want in this life, that that your redemption, your gospel really is beautiful.

And that I can rest in that.

Father, we pray.