Ruthless (Part 2): Seeing God in Need

If I haven't met you before, my name is Joel, and uh I spend most of my time at our strip district campus.

The folks that I'm missing very much this morning, and just want to say welcome once again, uh, both Strip District Butler and all of you here in Wexford.

Um I spent this uh last week away with my family, uh, just spent some time on a vacation, and I come back with really good news.

Um, in other parts of the country, the sun does still shine.

Amen.

Um spent some time while I was away reading a book, uh, particularly about uh somebody who lived through the Holocaust.

And admittedly, this is not a great book to read while on vacation.

It's like every 15 minutes, uh, Margarita Senor, and why are you crying?

It's the sand, it's uh windy.

But I read this book, it's been read and reread many times by Christians since it was published in the 70s.

The Hiding Place is a book that tells uh the story of Corey Tenboom and her Dutch family as they lived through the Nazi Holocaust in the Netherlands.

But what makes this watchmaking family unique was that as the Nazis took uh possession of their country, they made a life-changing decision that they were going to actively assist in hiding and relocating Jewish people in order to escape the Holocaust.

The family went to great lengths to do so, even having bricklayers come in and build false walls within their house that were indiscoverable should the police ever enter into their home.

They devised schemes to steal ration cards, to move people out of town, and even to find medical care for Jewish women who were pregnant or uh or in other situations.

But all of their work came crashing down one day when the Nazi police entered into their home and arrested Corey, her father Casper, her sister, and others.

They began by taking them to a prison that was not far from their home.

And it was in this prison that everybody would appear before a judge and they would be tried, and then they would uh remain in that prison or be released.

But it all became worse uh shortly after their arrest because the Allied forces were advancing on this location, which everybody in this prison was quite happy about.

But the problem was that the Germans decided that they would need to move this entire uh prison deep into German territory to the concentration camps that you've all heard so much about.

And the conditions were awful.

You've heard many of the details.

People worked to the bone, many people died just based on preventable illnesses that they had.

Uh, fleas and lice were everywhere, but it was in the midst of all of this that Corey and her sister began a Bible study within sort of the little cabin of people that they were shoved together with.

And it was in the midst of that group that Corey talks about being able to name all of the things that they were thankful for in that experience.

One of the more notable incidences from her story is that shortly after their arrest, when they were brought to that prison, they were being lined up to appear before a judge.

And one of the men in charge saw her father, who was uh probably in his 70s, and approached him and said, This I'd like to send you home, old fellow.

I'll take your word that you won't cause any more trouble.

Corey writes that her father responded to this.

Casper said, If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door again to any man who knocks.

Casper was not in that prison more than a few days before he passed away.

Corey, while in this prison, was moved into solitary confinement because of a flu that she had had when she was arrested.

And eventually she somehow received favor from her hearing officer, and they started to have these conversations over time where he was asking her about her Christian faith and what it was that was causing her to have so much hope in the midst of all of this.

And she writes, she writes this The hardest thing for him seemed to be that Christians should suffer.

How can you believe in God now?

He would ask.

See, that question I think is one that's on the lips of many people, including many of us here today.

How can you believe in God now?

I think there are a couple things that you and I know to be true, a couple things that are not distinctly Christian, and so if you were drug here today, um I think you can still hang with this idea.

The first is that our world is full of unbelievable hardship.

Details in the story that can't even really be repeated appropriately.

Things that you've seen, things that you've heard about.

But the truth is that you too have gone through seasons of unbelievable hardship.

And if you were to weigh them on a scale and compare them to a Holocaust survivor's hardship, it might seem small compared to them.

But for you, it was real.

And in the midst of it, your reaction was based on everything that you've lived through up until that point.

And so for you, your hardship was real.

Maybe a feeling of disp disappointment, hurt, hopelessness, just an all-around sadness.

The second thing that I think you'd agree with is that this experience of hardship and suffering is one of the most repeated objections to the idea that a God exists.

Because suffering exists in this world, I could never believe in a God.

And maybe you've heard that from another person challenging your faith.

Maybe that's an objection that you've wrestled with for a long time.

By studying Ruth too closely, what we're gonna see is we're gonna come to a better understanding of hardship.

Gonna have a better response to that objection about the existence of God, whether that's your own or somebody else's.

But most importantly, you're gonna see your personal hardships in a whole new perspective.

The book of Ruth is set in a very dark and disheartening period in Israel's history.

Kurt brought us through chapter one last week.

If you missed that, not to worry, we'll catch you up.

But the very last verse before the book of Ruth begins, it's the very last book in the book of, the very last verse in the book of Judges reads like this everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

And so Ruth is written in a day when all of Israel was ignoring the commands and the teaching of God.

We're introduced to a family that lives in Israel, the family of Elimelech.

And we're learn- we learn that there was a famine in the land.

This famine is not a random coincidence.

Because we know from the very beginning that Israel is ignoring God, they're doing what's right in their own eyes, and as a result, there's a famine.

What's very clear from the Old Testament is that God made promises to his people in the Old Testament, not to be applied directly today, but he said to the nation of Israel, When you are faithful to me, when you obey me, the natural result is that your country is gonna experience unbelievable blessings and favor from me.

But when you ignore me, when you turn your back towards me, the natural result is gonna be unbelievable hardship and pain in your country because God wanted those hardships to lead them to repent.

And so it's a bad day in Israel.

A famine comes, Elimelech makes a decision to leave Israel and to go to the country of Moab in order to find food so that his family could survive.

They leave Israel, they go to Moab, and uh Moab, Elimelech and Naomi have two sons when they arrive in Moab.

Both of them marry two daughters in Moab.

Then all of the men die.

And so it's in chapter one that we see Naomi say to her two daughters-in-law, stay here.

I'm going back to Israel.

I hear that the famine has ended.

I'm gonna find and build a new life there.

You stay in your country and build a new life for yourselves here.

But Ruth is persistent.

She says, No, I'm coming with you.

Your God will be my God.

And so Ruth and Naomi return to the city of Bethlehem in Israel.

And when she arrives, people say, Isn't this Naomi a name that means pleasant?

And she says, Yes, but don't call me Naomi.

Call me Mara.

A name that means bitter.

Because God has brought me back empty, and my life is bitter.

And so at the very end of Act 1, things are looking very bleak for Ruth and Naomi.

To be a widow without a family in that day was unlike today.

It was to be doomed to a life of destitution.

In the Bible, orphan and widow are often paired together, and there was a reason for that.

Because in that day, without a man, they had no ability to find good work, to own land, to even build a life.

But as we transition to the next acts, there's a glimmer of hope.

And the glimmer of hope is that they arrive in Bethlehem at the beginning of the harvest.

Verse 2, here's what happens.

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.

See, in the Old Testament law, Israel was mandated that farmers were not allowed to pick every last piece of grain on their field, that they were to go over their fields, but they weren't to collect the grain from the very edges, and they were never allowed to go over their field a second time to pick up anything that was left behind.

That was to be left there so that those who were orphans and widows were able to come, collect food, and at least have enough to survive.

This was part of God's grace built into the very system of government.

And so Ruth does that very thing.

She goes, she follows behind the hired harvesters, and she's collecting all the grain that they miss.

Verse 3 says, So she went out.

She entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters.

As it turned out, surprise, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

Now all of a sudden, our story begins to take a sharp turn.

Because the last thing that we saw was Naomi and Ruth coming back to Bethlehem, and Naomi has this dramatic moment where she says, Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara because I am bitter.

And not only that, but God has made me bitter.

Next thing we know, Boaz walks onto the scene.

The Lord bless you, he calls out to his hired workers.

The Lord bless you as well, they call back to him.

I mean, this is comical.

The emotional narrative has shifted dramatically.

And the story begins to change.

Boaz sees Ruth, asks who she is, gets the whole story from one of his hired workers.

And then Boaz says this, verse 8.

So Boaz said to Ruth, My daughter, listen to me.

Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here.

Stay here with the women who work for me.

Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along after the women.

I have told the men not to lay a hand on you.

Just imagine for a second the context that this is written in.

Stay here.

I've commanded the men not to touch you.

She's in a very vulnerable position as a widowed woman with no man in her family to protect her.

No father, no brother, no one.

She's an outsider, a foreigner in a land and in a day when that was a much more significant reality than it is in our land today.

And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.

See, these couple sentences alone are just packed full of unbelievable statements of grace, ways in which Boaz is taking care of her that we can't even fathom because we don't live in a day when only women would draw water for the men.

Get a drink from the water jars that the men have filled.

It says at this she bowed down with her face to the ground, and she asked him, Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me a foreigner, an outsider in this land?

Then the very next scene, uh, it's lunchtime.

And all of the workers have gathered, and we have to understand that meal times in the ancient Near East were not just a simple means to fill our hungry bellies, but they were a very important social time.

Ruth would not have been able to just walk right into the lunchroom and join them.

But Boaz invites her in, shares the meal with her.

And then Boaz gives these instructions to his workers, verse 15.

Let her gather among the sheaves, that's the standing grain, not the stuff that they've missed, and don't reprimand her.

Even pull out some of the stalks for her from the bundles, and leave them for her to pick up and do not rebuke her.

So the workday ends for Ruth, and she goes home to Naomi.

She's so surprised.

Where on earth did you go?

Who on earth took such good care of you?

She asks.

And Ruth tells Naomi all about Boaz and how he provided for her.

Now, the obvious thing in Ruth II is that Boaz is kind to Ruth.

He shows kindness to her, he takes care of her.

But there is so much more in Ruth II than Boaz simply being kind to her.

And if all we see in Ruth II is Boaz showing kindness to Ruth, then we've missed the author's point.

But simply for the sake of understanding the more important theological points, let's just note some of the things that Boaz does.

He protects her.

He says, Stay here.

Don't go to another field.

I know what dangers lie out there for you.

Stay here.

I've commanded my men not to touch you, not to harass you, to leave you alone.

Harvest.

Collect the grain that we miss.

Come, join my social circle.

The men will pull water for you.

We'll share our food with you.

He speaks kindly to her, and he even goes beyond, way beyond the requirements of the law, by saying, Let her pick the grain out of the bundles that you have already picked and bundled together.

And so Boaz, Boaz shows kindness by giving temporary relief to Ruth.

Boaz shows temporary relief, shows kindness by giving temporary relief, and that's a good thing.

But that's not the point.

Because if all we see is Boaz's kindness, we've missed the point because somebody else is at work showing kindness to a Limelex family.

And there are three ways that I want to show you that God is the primary actor, the main character of this story.

Number one is that God is behind the luck.

God is behind the luck.

The story of Ruth is not just a good story, it's a story written by somebody who has a theological purpose.

And sometimes we have to do a little bit of reading between the lines and try to understand what the author is getting at.

When we read in verse 3, as it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz.

So the literal Hebrew could be translated something more like, by a stroke of good luck.

What a giant random coincidence.

Didn't see this coming.

How lucky is Ruth.

Man, she just rolled the dice and got so lucky.

Which is supposed to make each one of us sit on the edge of our seat and get a little emotionally engaged in this story and say, no, there's more going on here.

This isn't just luck.

God is at work.

Naomi, by the way, solidifies this interpretation.

At the very end of the chapter, Ruth comes home with all this food, and you know what she says?

Wow, isn't Boaz great?

No.

She attributes the kindness to God.

She says, God has not forgotten us.

God has continued to show this family kindness.

Kurt dealt with this word last week.

We'll continue to learn more about it throughout the whole book of Ruth.

Kindness is a very important Hebrew theological word that's used throughout the Old Testament.

Hesed is the Hebrew word that's often translated kindness or loving kindness or simply love.

And it deals with God's covenant love with his people, the kind of love that God continues to show to his people, even while they're turning his back on him and wandering away from him.

The kind of love that makes a God step out of heaven and go to a cross for the people that put him there.

I have a children's Bible that we we also use it here in Kidsburg that defines this chesed this way.

It says it's God's never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.

Naomi is saying in the in the in you simply showing up at Boaz's field, God is showing his covenant love to this family.

And so number one is that God is behind the luck.

Number two is that God is behind Boaz.

Of course, Boaz is the one who's showing kindness to Ruth.

But when Ruth falls on her face in front of Boaz and says, thank you, you know what Boaz does?

He says, You have found refuge under the wings of God.

See, even Boaz recognizes that it is the Hesed of God that's at work in the community, that's at work in him.

It is this Hesed of God that is providing refuge for Ruth and Naomi.

When I was a kid, my my dad was in the military his entire life.

And every now and then I'd go to work with him.

And my dad had a uh job where he managed a bunch of people in his unit, and uh and I never realized this at the time, but it's always like, why is everybody so friendly to me around here every time I show up?

But looking back, what I realized is the point was not my relationship with the random stranger in the hallway.

The point was the relationship between the random stranger in the hallway and my dad, right?

It was because of that relationship that I was treated differently.

And the exact same thing is going on here in Ruth 2.

It's because of the relationship between God and Boaz that something is happening to Ruth and Naomi.

And then the third here is that God is behind the kinsman redeemer.

The very end of this chapter, we're let in on a little detail that no human could have ever orchestrated.

By the end of chapter two, we have this sense that Ruth and Naomi, they're gonna be physically provided for at least through the harvest, but then we're let in on a little detail that makes us realize that God is up to a long-term plan.

Boaz, Ruth, Boaz, Naomi says, is one of our guardian redeemers or kinsman redeemer.

And this was a concept that was part of the law in their day.

We're gonna learn much more about it in the next chapter.

But the idea was certain individuals were able to rescue somebody when they came upon a very difficult situation.

One of the most common was somebody being widowed.

How would their family line be continued?

How would they be brought back into Into a family where they could own land and survive and do business.

And there are two questions that always accompany the guardian redeemer.

Does the person have the ability and does the person have the desire?

We know that Boaz has the ability, but the question for chapter three is does he have the desire?

See, this is the kind of thing that no human could have orchestrated.

And what I'm trying to show you here is yes, Boaz has showed kindness to Ruth by giving her temporary relief.

But God is doing something even greater.

God is working to bring meaning and life into Ruth and Naomi's world.

He offers them meaning, transcendent meaning.

Food is good.

They need that.

But what God is doing is he is offering them transcendent meaning.

Meaning that transcends their life, meaning that transcends their circumstances, meaning that will last into eternity.

See, there's a very important question that's embedded in Ruth, too.

You probably didn't notice it.

I've read this story plenty of times, never noticed this question.

But it's in verse 5.

And it's after Boaz returns to his field and he sees Ruth.

And the question that he asks is, who does that young woman belong to?

That's an odd question.

He doesn't say who is she?

He doesn't say where does she come from, doesn't say what does she need, who is she with.

She says, who does that young woman belong to?

Ruth, we've come to realize, is not just a woman with an economic problem.

She is a woman with an identity problem.

She has nowhere to belong.

She has left her homeland, left everything that she knew, left the language behind that was comfortable to her, left behind the god Kimosh that she was used to worshiping.

She comes to a new land where she is an outsider, and as an outsider was regarded as the lowest rung on the ladder, the lowest class of society.

She had no family to belong to, no hope for survival.

Her problem is much bigger than her economy.

Her problem is her identity.

And so Ruth II doesn't exactly end with that question of whom does this woman belong to being entirely wrapped up.

But what we see is the one that is pursuing her.

And that is exactly the point of Ruth II.

You know, a lot of people would have you believe that God's duty when you go through hardship is to give you relief.

And that's not true.

God doesn't promise that.

Many people will go through the economic ringer without a way out.

And they'll die living within the economic ringer.

That's not what Ruth II promises us.

Ruth II promises us that God offers a new name and a new identity to those who are going through the ringer.

The grain is not the point of Ruth II.

The identity of the woman in relation to the one who is helping her is what matters.

There's much to be said about names in Ruth.

Naomi, a name that means pleasant, is changed to Mara, a woman who is bitter.

She is defined by bitterness.

But as our story comes to an end, Naomi's name changes once again.

She's no longer known as the bitter woman.

She's no longer known as Mara.

She is known, she is remembered as the one who actually did something very great.

See, the book of Ruth is probably written during the reign of King David a few generations later.

And when King David reigned, it was one of the most prosperous and spiritual ages that Israel ever experienced.

And the book was probably written to give us some of the backstory on King David coming to the throne.

And what we'll learn as we go through Ruth chapter 4 is that Ruth will remarry, that she will have a child who will have a child who will have a child.

Ruth 4 · chapter mention

And that child's name is David.

And so Naomi and Ruth go down in the pages of Israelite history as having returned from Moab to the land of Israel, having lived through the most unbelievable hardship that they could imagine, losing all of the men, all of their family.

But it was for this purpose to usher in the most prosperous age that Israel would ever see.

Now for you and I, this is all the more significant.

Because we have the benefit of time.

We have the knowledge that Jesus was born in the lineage of King David, making Jesus also being born in the lineage of Ruth and Naomi.

And so it's through her hardship that God changes her name, changes their identity.

When Ruth goes through the ringer, God gives a new name and a new identity.

And the same is true for you and I today.

We will all face hardship in our lifetime.

Some of you can already point to those.

Some of you are already in the midst of those.

For some of you, it is or was a financial hardship, just like Ruth and Naomi.

For others, it wasn't so much financial, but it was nevertheless devastating to you.

But God has a great promise for you in the midst of it, that He gives you a new name and a new identity as you go through the ringer.

See, it's easy for us to let our hardships define us: penniless, divorced, demoted, widowed, jobless, unloved, lonely.

But God gives you a new name.

Three things that I want to point out that you can do in the midst of a hardship.

Number one is recognize the long-term plan in you.

See, you already know this to be true.

That hardships are what have made you who you are.

You are who you are today because of the hardships that you have gone through in the past.

A life lived without any hardship, without any struggle is a life that's weak.

See, for Ruth, her hardship brought about the changing of her identity.

She no longer belongs to her tragedy.

She no longer belongs to her poverty.

She no longer belongs to her outsider status.

She no longer belongs to Kemosh.

She belongs to Yahweh, the God of the Bible.

And so the question that you and I have to have the guts to face is to whom do you belong?

Do you belong to your money?

Do you belong to your status?

Do you belong to your image?

Do you belong to your success?

And if so, it just might be that God is going to bring hardship into your life to turn your allegiance away from those things and to turn it to Him.

But anybody who has been through that in the past would say that that is the grace of God at work.

Second thing to do.

The first is to recognize the long-term plan in you.

The second is to recognize the plan for humanity.

See, there are many times when suffering happens in this life and we don't get to experience the result of it in this life.

Talking about suffering that ends in death.

But I want you to consider the Puritans who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower.

In that first winter, over half of the crew and passengers died.

And for those people, it must have felt like it had no purpose.

Yet you and I have the benefit of time.

You and I can look back on that and say that was completely worth the sacrifice because them crossing the Atlantic has led to one of the most significant documents that's been written in modern history, not just for our country, but for the entire world, the forming of the Constitution.

So recognize the plan for humanity.

And then number three is to recognize the presence of Jesus in hardship.

The God of the Bible is not a God who sits far off and looks at our hardship.

In fact, the God of the Bible is one who looks at hardship, looks at suffering, and he says, I will voluntarily step into the worst suffering that could ever be imaginable because of the end result that that hardship will bring about.

And so Jesus steps into this world, he goes to the cross, he dies for the very people that hate him and turn his back on him.

And it's all because he saw the end result, the glory of God and the saving of humanity.

See, when you go through hardship, you can have comfort in knowing that there's a God who's right there with you, in the midst of it with you, hanging on the cross as you suffer, giving you a new name and a new identity.

When I was in college, I went to a church on Sunday nights, had my Sunday mornings free, and would often just visit lots of different churches.

And one Sunday I went to this Unitarian church.

It was really actually a cool experience.

And I'll never forget the sermon that was preached that day.

The sermon was about the storms of this life.

Referenced the disciples being on the boat with Jesus and the storm comes up.

But the whole point of the message was that you too will face storms in this life.

And when you do, take comfort in knowing that those storms will pass.

That is lousy.

What Christianity offers you is so much better than that.

Don't just weather the storms and hope that one day they're gonna pass.

Know that the storms, the hardships that you experience will make you into who you are.

That God is present with you, that he is doing his best work in that very moment.

There's this great quote that Corey Tenboom says, you know, looking back on her life.

She says, Every experience God gives us, every person he puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for a future that only he can see.

Man, I just hope that you come to see your hardships as something that God doesn't just disapprove of and say, I hope that that passes for you.

It's not something that he's just gonna give you relief from, but it's something that he's going to redeem in your life.

He's gonna give meaning to.

He's gonna allow you to find a new name and a new identity.

And I hope in the midst of the hardship that you will choose to lean into that new name.

Let me pray for us.

Father, I pray for the people in this space that are in the midst of hardship right now.

Might be big or small compared to a Holocaust survivor, but nonetheless, it's real for them.

And I pray that in the midst of their hardship that you would help them see the new name and the new identity that you offer them.

And help each one of us to rejoice in our hardship, knowing you are a God who redeems our suffering.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're gonna practice communion together as the team leads us in this next song, and I want to invite you to come forward to the tables and dip the bread in the wine and eat it.

And as you do that, I want you to remember the hardship of Jesus, that he has entered into your suffering by dying on the cross.

And it's in taking this communion that we're recognizing that Jesus is our hope, not for our temporary relief in this life, but for our redemption, our being bought back from our sin.

So please stand and we'll sing together.