Ruth - The Epilogue

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Amen.

You got your Bibles in Ruth chapter 4.

Ruth 4 · chapter mention

Let's start reading in verse 13, and we'll finish out the book of Ruth.

It says this, so Boaz, Ruth chapter 4, verse 13.

Ruth 4:13

I want to talk to you this morning.

I said earlier about the epilogue.

The epilogue now.

And you say, What is the epilogue?

I confess this is my age.

When I was a little kid, we used to watch a show.

We watched FBI and we also watched Barnaby Jones.

Anybody remember Barnaby Jones?

Anybody?

Buddy Epson?

It was in like scenes, scene one, two, three, four, and then it had the epilogue.

And the only reason I remember the epilogue was because my dad would say to us, You boys can stay up, but when the epilogue comes on, you need to get ready to go to bed.

And as soon as this is over, I don't want no back talk, you go to bed.

And so when the epilogue came on, I knew my night was fixing to end.

And I never knew what an epilogue was until I started studying the book of Ruth, because this section, this last little section, is the epilogue.

You say, What is an epilogue?

Let me tell you, an epilogue is a section or a speech at the end of a book or a play that serves as a comment or a conclusion to what has happened.

It's this part, it's a section at the end of the book that kind of comments on what has happened.

And that's what this last section of Ruth is.

And so I want to talk to you briefly today about the epilogue.

Ruth chapter 4, verse 13.

Ruth 4:13

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.

And then the Lord, excuse me, uh, and then the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a redeemer.

And may his name be renowned in Israel.

He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age.

For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.

And then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse.

And the woman of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, A son has been born to Naomi.

They named him Obed.

He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Now these are the generations of Perez.

Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Aminadab, and Aminadab fathered Nashon, and Nashon fathered Solomon, and Solomon fathered Boaz, and Boaz fathered Obed, and Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

Now that's the parts in the Bible that usually when you start into those, you just skip, don't you?

When you just get to all these names, you're just kind of like fast forward, here we go.

But see, the epilogue, when you skip forward, you skip over some of the things, it's the subtle things in the Bible that we need to kind of pay attention to.

And so the epilogue of Ruth, basically, Ruth is telling us three things.

Number one, he's telling us that God is telling a story big enough for everybody to live in.

Number two, he's saying, she's saying that, hey, everybody has a story.

And then number three, saying, your story is really God's story.

Your story is really God's story.

And that's where the genealogy comes in.

We'll get back to that in a minute, but let's start at number one.

God is telling a story big enough for everyone to live in.

Look, if you would, in verse 13, just the first four words.

So Boaz took Ruth.

So Boaz took Ruth.

You say, What do you mean?

Uh this is the woman.

Remember they started off?

Nobody wanted her.

She didn't have, she was married for 10 years before and wasn't able to have a baby.

Her husband died, and then her mother-in-law says, Hey, we're gonna, I'm gonna go back because there's nothing for me here.

And she says, Hey, don't urge me to turn back from following you.

Where you go, I'll go.

Where you lie, I'll lie.

Your God will be my God.

She says, Listen, I grew up a Moabite.

I grew up, and and nowadays it would be bigger, but for just for a modern-day thing.

It would be like, I grew up in one denomination, and now you want me to come over here and worship in this thing, but it she grew up in Moab worshiping a foreign God, and she says, Listen, where you go, I'll go.

And your God's gonna be my God.

I'm not gonna don't don't make me go back from following you.

And so she's kind of comes back and she's nothing.

She's Ruth, the foreigner.

They did not like them.

The Moabites were not friends of the people of God.

So she comes back, and this woman who nobody wanted, who has to go out, she lives with her mother-in-law.

Remember that?

Just drink that in again.

She lives with her mother-in-law, just her and her mother-in-law.

And yet the Bible says, in the epilogue, first four words, so Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.

And not only did he take her and she becomes his wife, he went into her.

I love the way the Bible talks about intimate things.

He went into her.

He just went into her room and all of a sudden she was pregnant.

The Bible says this.

It said she he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.

Now we just stop right there.

What do you mean God's telling a story big enough for everybody?

There was a time in Ruth's life where nobody would have believed it would have been this good.

You realize that, right?

Hello, let me try this again.

Has the rain dampened your spirits?

You should have been here at 8 45 this morning.

It was raining canned hams, and I said to the eight people that were here, we're going to meet in my office.

It'll be a short little devotional time.

No, no, you say, what do you mean?

Is he still a story big enough for everyone?

Boaz takes roof.

There was a time when nobody wanted her when the story looked pretty pretty gloomy.

And here's why I say that.

Because for all of us, there's different points and periods along the time.

I remember one point in my own life when I was in college and I was dead broke and I wanted to kill my roommate.

That's bad.

I couldn't stand the guy.

As a matter of fact, I went for a walk and I told God, listen, I'll do anything.

I'll go back and get a job in the steel plant.

I can't live with this person.

He's driving me crazy and I'm just racking up debt.

What in the world is going on here?

Are you kidding me?

And I went back and opened the refrigerator to get something.

You just when you think it can't get any worse, you open the refrigerator and the refrigerator's broken and it's been broke for two days.

And you hadn't opened it for two days because you didn't know it was broke.

You ever opened a refrigerator?

By the way, they're hermetically sealed.

I opened that refrigerator and I was just like, whoa.

I just cried.

I just closed it back and I was just like, why do you hate me?

Last night I just stood.

I have a side-by-side upright refrigerator freezer.

My wife's gone.

She's been gone for a week.

She took my kids to Florida to see her in-laws.

My body's like, You want to go see my parents?

Nah, I'm good.

I'm good.

Why don't y'all go so y'all can have some time together, just family binding together?

Last night I was thinking about it, because see, we forget how hard, because I mean, I stood there, I opened both the doors, and I just stood there in it, just kind of like my refrigerator's not broke.

There's not mold growing on stuff.

And I just stood there and I wanted to cry again because I got God just kind of took me back to, hey, hey, remember how hard it was at one point?

Yeah, yeah.

And that guy, oh man, that crazy person had to, oh, are you kidding me?

What am I saying?

Here's what I'm saying.

God tells a story that's big enough for everyone to live in.

Ruth the Moabite is now a God follower, Naomi, who said, Hey, don't call me, don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, which means bitter, because God has laid the wood to me and God's made it hard on me.

The book of Ruth reminds us that no one's beyond the pale, sin too much, or can be given up on.

You say, What do you mean?

This past week, most of you know I was in uh Winter Park, Colorado, speaking at a youth camp.

Somebody's got to go to Winter Park in the dead of the summer.

Might as well be me, right?

By the way, it was 46 one morning.

Thought about y'all here.

About 15% humidity.

I was walking around, just nothing with my wife beater shirt on.

They're like, Are you cold?

Nope, I'm from Houston.

Uh and so I had to ride the gondola lift down from my condo and walk through the ski village, past the Starbucks, where I stopped in every morning, and I got to beat a lady that worked in there named Audrey.

And and people that work in in winter people that work in resort towns have like seven jobs.

I don't know if you know that.

They're just hard scrabble, rugged individualists.

And so I'm walking in, and there's a guy there, and he's got like a red band tattoo and a green band and a star and a P on it, and I'm like, hey, I like your ink.

Sometimes that tells a story.

He says, Yeah, it's kind of personal.

I said, I'm not being nosy.

I just wanted you to know it looks kind of cool.

Wouldn't look cool on me because I'm like a middle-aged fat guy with a minivan.

And he just kind of laughed and goes, You don't look that fat.

I went, What do you mean that fat?

But it's like, how pregnant are you?

And so this lady started snickering.

I looked over and she had, I'm like, everybody there has tattoos.

I wanted to get my wife's name on my back or something, like a big eagle.

But I didn't.

Anyway.

And so I looked over and I noticed she had this spirally thing on her arm.

And so the next day I was in there, and I was just talking, and she came over and they're getting ready to close.

She goes, Well, we're closing in 15 minutes.

I said, Okay, that's great.

I said, Me and my friend are just vista, and we'll wrap it up.

And if we're not done when you time to close, we'll walk outside.

And I said, Hey, tell me about your tattoo.

And she said, Well, this is the Fibonacci spiral.

Oh, yeah.

See, I failed algebra two in high school.

It's the only class I ever failed.

And she said, This is the golden design of life.

And I was just like, Why do you love me so much?

And I said, tell me about this whole Fibonacci spiral.

She said, Well, this explains how geometry and design, you can explain, not with Darwinianism or creationism, which you probably believe probably believe.

And I said, Listen, it ain't no crying to whack a surly bartender lady, okay?

She's like, I said, Never, never mind.

It's a it's a it's a line from Lonesome Duff.

And she said, Well, uh, this this this thing kind of explains how everything came to be without creationism or without Darwin.

It's all design.

I said, Yeah, but is it intelligent design?

Well, I mean, I I I well I uh ooh, now now you're slow dancing with a tar baby, you're stuck to me right now.

We might as well just talk.

Well, well, I mean, it depends on what you mean by intelligent design.

If there's an if there's design, there's got to be a designer, don't you think?

And all of a sudden the other dude comes over and he's like, Well, uh, I'm not very religious, neither am I.

See, let me just tell you something.

This may be your first time to be in church in a long time.

God did not come to make you religious people.

We got enough of those in the world.

And so we're sitting there talking, and she's like, Well, I mean, and we're five minutes into the conversation, and she goes, Well, I mean, I mean, you don't know everything.

I said, You know what I sense about you?

I sense you're highly intelligent, I sense you come from money, I sense you're a rugged individualist.

How am I doing so far?

She goes, Well, I grew up Jewish on the East Coast, my dad's a millionaire, and I went to pin.

Scoreboard?

Your turn.

She said, Well, I mean, I said, I don't have a tattoo to prove it, but I'm just saying if there's design, there's got to be or there's got to be somebody there, or you just smash up all the pieces of a watch and put them in a bag and they all come together?

What causes this, the, the, the particles, the elements to come together?

Well, you no, no, no, no, no.

Stop point at your arm because that ain't gonna do it.

Well, well, I said, I'm not preaching to you.

I don't preach till about an hour and a half from now with a bunch of kids, and I'm gonna descend on them like a herd of drunken monkeys.

She goes, Is that why these kids come and talk to you?

That and I sell crack.

But beyond that, no.

You are not like a reverend or something.

Yes, I am.

I'm a reverend.

She said, Don't stand like that.

Well, makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?

I said, Listen, me and my friend are gonna go outside.

And she said, Okay, well, we're closing.

Walked outside, and I knew she was just kind of like I had her.

We walked outside, 15 minutes later, she walks out with a piece of paper.

Here, you need to read this book.

I said, Okay, I hey, I'll read whatever it is, as long as it's not like inappropriate.

She goes, No, it's called Skinny Legs in All by Tim Tom Robbins or something, and explains all the worldviews and all the philosophies of life.

I said, All right, I'll snatch that out of her hand.

I said, I'll read that.

If you'll read a book, I'll tell you to read.

Deal?

Because if not, I will come down here and put the beat down on you.

She said, All right, I like to read.

And I said, I want you to read a book by C.S.

Lewis entitled Mere Christianity.

She said, Well, yeah, yeah, I see.

I've read him.

The Chronicles of Narnia, I read like to the fourth book, and then I just got frustrated because they wouldn't tell you who the bad guy was.

Well, listen, if if this is all just all came together and it's human instinct and the Zen spirit of nature, she said that phrase.

I'm like, How much pot do you have to smoke to put words together like that?

She said, Well, I said, This is just the Zen spirit of nature, then you don't need a bad guy because no one's bad.

She goes, Oh, they are bad.

Well, if they're bad, by what standard do you measure their badness?

There's got to be a standard of right or or good if there's badness.

I gotta go, I I gotta go close.

Come back now.

You start losing, you're like my kids.

You flip over the checkerboard and quit.

I'll read your book.

I said, Alright, I'll read your book.

And next time I'm in Winter Park, guess where I'm coming?

I said, by the way, you went to Penn.

I ain't hating on you or anything, but you went to Penn and you're working at Starbucks.

One of these things is not like that.

You know what I think?

I said, This is this is my last gut read on you.

And she said, Okay, so far you've done pretty good.

I said, You you think this is me?

I just think God's reading your mail.

I said, Here's the thing.

I think you're out here trying to figure out what this is all about.

Your dad's a millionaire back on the East Coast, you grew up in a religion that you don't follow anymore, and you're working at Starbucks for Howard Schultz.

I don't work for Howard Schultz, I work for Winter Park.

You ain't got to yell at me.

Add to that, you got a lot of unresolved anger inside of you.

Just read my book.

I said, okay, I'll read your book.

If you'll read mine, now let me ask you something.

If my wife and kids lived here, would we be friends?

Would you come over for dinner?

Yeah, you're you're you're not that bad.

Thank you for your vote of confidence.

C.S.

Lewis, mere Christianity.

I got it, I got it.

I don't need you to write it down.

I know you went to pen.

You've got it.

And you work at Starbucks.

My buddy Chris, I was talking to, he looked at me and he goes, it happens all the time.

I don't try to hard sell people.

I don't say, hey, hey, do you hear it?

Why?

Because God's telling a story big enough for everyone.

The next morning I go speak to these 300 teenagers.

There's a kid in the far back with a mohawk.

And I was like, I want to meet him.

Somebody said, Yeah, we've had some issues this week with marijuana.

And we can't prove it.

And I went, Oh, I used to smoke marijuana.

I can smell it a mile away.

And if I smell it, I want to listen to a journey album.

One of the adults looked at me and said, Journey?

I went, yeah, or you can listen to Led Zeppelin sing Black Dog, either one.

Hey there, Mama, when ya.

And she's like, don't sing Led Zeppelin.

Okay.

And so the next morning I was walking by and that kid just so happened to be in a small group and he goes, Hey, can I ask you a question?

Because the first night I told these teenagers, hey, relax, don't fake it this week.

Don't be phony.

We don't need more phony religious people.

We all start off at the same place of being spiritually dead.

I preach from Ephesians 2.

But as for you, you are dead in your trespasses and sins in which you used to live.

But God who's rich in mercy, I said, I didn't come to beat you up with a guilt sec, I came to tell you that God's rich in mercy.

So relax, have fun, meet people, get phone numbers, eat, drink, and be merry.

Because the God of mercy is here to bring you back to life.

Three days later, I'm walking by, drinking my Starbucks, and the little kid's sitting there, his name's Noah.

He says, Hey, can I ask you a question?

I said, Sure.

By the way, nice mohawk.

He said, You should try it.

I'm like, I got too much head for that, dude.

He said, and I quote, how do you go from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive?

You ever go fishing and you get that first little bump, you know, oop, and you tighten down, and you just kind of wait and just let that line move and put that wow pow! So I just I just told him.

I said, here's the deal.

I said, it's not math, it's music.

If it was math, it would all add up.

I mean, who says, I want to go to hell when I die?

I never want to know forgiveness in this life, and I never ever ever want to have any purpose.

I said, it's music.

And I said, when you hear the music, it's God kind of in your guts, kind of saying, Hey, I'm not as bad as you've been told.

I'm more enjoyable than you've ever realized.

He's like, Okay, whatever that means.

That used to mean something different when I was in school, just for the record.

As I walked off that night, I just preached the gospel.

I just told the story of this merciful God.

And I said, if you've never begun a relationship with this God and you'd like to, why don't you just stand up right now?

We're not gonna sing or humcoombaya or dim the lights and make out with the sky fairy.

But this merciful God, you can start right now a personal relationship with him.

And guess who stood up?

One of the first kids.

My little Mohawk friend.

I look back at him, I said, I've been praying for you since this morning.

He's like, Yeah.

Yeah.

What am I telling you?

I'm telling you that God tells a story big enough for everybody.

There's a point when the story was really bad for Ruth and Naomi, but it's so big, God knows what he's doing.

Second thing that the epilogue of Ruth tells us is simply this everybody has a story.

Just look at verse 14.

Just one little phrase in verse 14.

He says, Then the woman said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a redeemer.

Blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a redeemer.

Why is that so important?

Because it looked like for the most part, for the most part, that there was gonna be no hope for Naomi.

That it was there was gonna be no redeemer, no one to kind of continue her husband Elimelech's line, no one to ensure that she was gonna get his property and his land.

It was just gonna be, hey, I'm gonna kind of live.

Have you ever couch surfed?

You know what couch surfing is?

Couch surfing is when you're so broke, you just sleep on different people's couch until they get tired of you and kick you down the street.

Like this week, there was a kid in the band that I mean, it looked like I mean, I was a little, they'd give you swirlies, they'd put your head in the toilet.

That's what his hair looked like.

It just was going everywhere.

But it was beautiful.

He could pull it off.

His name was Levi.

And I said, Levi, tell me your story.

Well, I got a story.

Yeah, I uh I started making some bad choices a while back.

And I'm like, oh, that's religious talk.

What'd you do?

Well, I smoked a lot of weed.

You know, marijuana's a gateway drug.

He goes, Yeah, I know it leads to other drugs.

No, it leads to laid around your sweatpants eating Cheetos watching Star Wars.

He was like, Yeah, I did that too.

And I said, What got you turned around?

I love this.

He goes, I was couch surfing.

I said, What?

He goes, I was couch surfing.

I would just sleep on people.

Yeah, I would sleep, I would live with these people, and then I'd get up one day, and my friend would look at me kind of like, hey man.

I said, Let me guess.

He blamed it on his wife.

He goes, Yeah.

I said, men always do that.

You're not married, argue.

He goes, No, I said, When you get married, your wife, if she's not around, everything's her fault.

My friends were like, hey, ma'am, my old lady kind of thinks you need to go.

And so, you know, if it was up to me, I'd let you stay.

But so I'd go down the road and I'd call somebody's and I'd crash on their couch.

That's what, that's what Ruth and Naomi were like.

They came back, women with no home, no lineage, no nothing.

Everybody has a story.

Can you imagine coming back and saying, hey, I'm so depressed, I'm so angry, call me bitter.

She was so overwhelmed with her circumstances, she couldn't even go out and try to get a job for herself.

Can you imagine now the story that Naomi has to tell?

And I hope you can, because here's the application part of the sermon.

I want all of you, each one of you in this room, to think about your story this week and how you're gonna tell it.

I told the team I'm leading to Costa Rica in a couple weeks, I said, hey, when we meet on July 18th, I want every one of us, because we're going to Costa Rica and they speak Spanish down there, and most of us don't speak Spanish, despite the fact that some people on my team are trying to learn Spanish by putting an O on the end of every word.

Uh, do you all want O to come out to churcho?

Cayete la boca bollio.

Anyway.

Oh, you Caucasians don't know what I just said, did you?

Gotta wash me.

I'm amphibious.

I know English and Spanish.

Ambidextrous, too, but that's a whole nother story.

See, I said, I want you to know, because we're all like, well, we we can my 14-year-old, I took Spanish in middle school.

Shut up.

I said, here's the deal.

Here's the universal language of redemption.

I said, I want every one of us, and I want every one of you.

I said, I want everyone of when we meet on July 18th to have the packing party to pack all our stuff and get it ready for our trip.

We're gonna get in a circle, we're gonna go around and we're gonna say, Hi, my name is so-and-so, and my story is a story of blank, like, my name is Neil.

This is my story.

And I said, You gotta be able to tell it in less than two minutes.

My fourth-year-old is not gonna make it.

She's gonna get to two minutes, I'm gonna go, eh, time up.

But dad, I just introduced myself.

Live on an economy of words.

I said, we all gotta say, hey, this is my story.

My name is like for me, my name is Neil.

And my story is a story of peace.

And in two minutes, I'm just gonna tell my story to these Costa Ricans through a translator.

And I get to the end of it, I'm just gonna ask.

I said, that that's why your your story is personal.

No one can say, well, that may or may not be true.

You just tell your story, and at the end of it, you just ask them, has anybody ever explained to you what it means to be at peace?

Like, my story is this.

My hi, my name is Neil.

My story is a story of peace.

And what I mean by that is that I grew up in a home where there wasn't a whole lot of peace.

I didn't grow up in a Christian home.

I didn't go to church hardly ever.

My dad abandoned us when I was 11, so I grew up really angry, took responsibility for myself when I was 11.

And orphans can be ruthless people.

And I was ruthless.

I acted without regard for anybody but myself.

Uh, when I was 16, I started working for a Christian businessman who kind of made me start thinking about the things of God.

When I was 18, I asked a girl out and she said, No, best thing ever happened to me.

Because I realized there's something different.

About her because I didn't like church people.

I thought they were all phony, I thought they were all hypocrites, didn't want to be around them.

But I realized there's a difference between God's people and God.

People mean well, God's always good.

When I was 18, I heard the gospel and I gave my life to Christ.

I didn't become a religious person.

I realized that Jesus had died for all the things I was mad about, and so I didn't have to be mad anymore.

And I don't know how to say it any other way other than I just sat down on the inside.

And I became at peace with myself and at peace with God.

Shortly after that, I realized that God had called me into the ministry.

Not to go around yelling at people, but to go around helping people understand how to be at peace with God.

Have you ever come to the point where you realize you can be at peace with God?

That's my story.

Here's what I want you to do this week.

That was less than two minutes, wasn't it?

Thomas, did you time that?

90 seconds at least?

You can have the other 30 seconds.

Here's what I want every one of you in this room to do.

You say, well, I'm a visitor.

That's okay.

I want you to think about what your story is this week.

How do you tell your story in two minutes or less?

Just write out, maybe before you go to bed tonight.

My name is Thomas, and my story is a story of blank.

Pick your word.

Pick your word.

Give me any word.

Some of you aren't there yet.

Some of you are like, hey, I'm just exploring this, just checking this out.

I've got a friend that comes every Sunday.

He's like, I don't know about this little Christianity thing.

I'm like, keep coming.

Keep asking, keep knocking on doors, keep asking God questions.

He said, Well, can I ask you questions?

Absolutely.

As a matter of fact, how about if I come sit down in your office, we have a coffee?

You can ask whatever you want.

So we're starting this week.

Why?

Because God tells a big story.

The doubters, the disillusioned, the questioners, everybody's got a place in the story.

See, God has a story.

We have a story.

That's what the book of Ruth tells us.

We've all kind of been at the point where things were overwhelming.

I want to read to you from Lamentations chapter 3.

Lamentations 3 · chapter mention

By the way, Lamentations is a book in the Old Testament.

Somebody asked me a while back, they said, what does lamentations mean?

And I said, it's not a city or anything.

It's from the word lament.

You know what that means?

There's in the book in the Bible about people that were just so sad, they had to realize how to be sad to the glory of God.

Their story wasn't always, whoo, it's great.

Sometimes it was open the refrigerator.

Oh yeah, our refrigerator died two days ago.

And there's stuff growing in the milk.

Lamentations chapter 3 says this.

Lamentations 3 · chapter mention

All our enemies opened their mouths against us.

Panic and pitfall have come upon us.

Devastation and destruction.

My eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees.

My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.

I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause.

They flung me alive into a pit and cast stones on me.

Water closed over my head.

I said, I am lost.

I called on your name, O Lord.

From the depths of the pit, you heard my plea.

Do not close your ear to my cry for help.

You came near when I called on you.

You said, Do not fear.

You have taken up my cause, O Lord.

You have redeemed my life.

See, all of us, not just us, but the Bible's full of people whose story had many twists and turns, and at the lowest point, when it was the darkest, the hardest, and the most overwhelming, God is most present, unafraid, and willing.

It's a great thing about going and spending a week with total strangers.

They'll tell you anything.

They'll tell you their darkest secrets.

And I got to say to multiple people, not just students but adults, hey, when it's the hardest for you, God stands closest and most ready to intervene and do something about it.

The writer of Lamentations says, you know what?

God, that's like I was in a pit and people were throwing rocks down on me.

And the water was filling up.

I mean, that nailed guy's whining about his broken refrigerator.

I'm about to drown while people are trying to kill me.

And I just cried out and said, God, I'm lost.

I don't know what to do.

I have a brother that's a year older than me that's not a believer.

He loves money.

I think he puts it on the floor and rolls around on it.

He worships it.

Tells me what a fool I am for working for the church.

You can be a very successful businessman.

Okay.

The other day, my brother, I said the other day, this was a long time ago.

He got so overwhelmed.

I thought about him with us reading and studying for this week.

He just laid down in the shower and just let the water just run over him.

And he just said, I just laid there and cried, and I just said, God, what do you want?

What do you want me to do?

Third marriage just fell apart.

He's seeing another woman.

He can't be by himself.

That marriage wasn't over five minutes and he had somebody else.

I just asked him, Are you have you ever just considered just being alone just for a little bit and thinking about your life?

Shut up, I don't want you preaching to me.

Okay.

Alrighty.

Is that what you consider preaching?

See, when it's the worst, when you're laying there in the bottom of the bathtub and the shower's running over you, your thoughts, you may not have words for it, your words may be different, but the sensation of your heart is that I'm just lost.

God's standing very close to you.

Now I just say to my brother, it doesn't have to be this hard.

It doesn't have to be this hard.

Thirdly and finally, the epilogue of Ruth tells us simply this your story is really God's story.

You still with me?

Look at verse 15, and we'll be done.

Beat the Methodist to all the good restaurants.

Verse 15, he shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who's more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.

Then Naomi took the child and laid it on her lap and became his nurse.

And the woman of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, A son has been born to Naomi.

They named him Obed.

He was the father of Jesse and the father of David.

Now these are the generations of Perez.

Perez fathered Hezron.

Hezron fathered Ram.

Ram fathered Amenadab.

At this point, look at me.

You're thinking, is he going to read all those again?

Absolutely.

I had to learn them.

You have to hear them.

Amenadab fathered Nashan.

Nashan fathered Salmon.

Solomon fathered Boaz.

Boaz fathered Obed.

And Obed fathered Jesse.

And Jesse fathered David.

No, I wasn't just reading them because I had to learn them.

I was reading them because when I say your story is really God's story, the Bible says this.

You don't have to turn there, but Isaiah 55, verse 9, God says, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:9

He says he's the restorer.

He gives back to Ruth and Naomi what they forfeited through disobedience, through sin.

He says also he's the nourisher.

He finished what he starts.

But here's the deal: redemption is the goal of the story that God is telling.

See, my story and your story is really God's story because you think, hey, God's taking care of Ruth and Naomi.

No, what God is doing is telling a much bigger story, and you don't see it unless you read.

You don't have to turn there, but let me just read another list of names from the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew chapter 1.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

It says this Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez, and Zarab by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nashan, and Nashan the father of Solomon, and Solomon the father of Boaz by Rahab.

Remember Rahab?

What was Rahab?

Say it again.

You feel like you're getting away with something saying that in church, don't you?

She was a prostitute.

Boaz, the hero of the book of Ruth, that was his mother.

See, God tells a story that's big enough for everybody.

But it goes on.

And by going on, I mean it gets better.

And Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obad the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat, the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.

Pinch your husband, don't let him fall asleep yet.

We're getting to the big good part.

And Hezekiah, the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers.

And at the time of the deportation to Babylon, God sent him into exile in Babylon because they wouldn't listen.

But his purposes, his story didn't stop.

And after the deportation to Babylon, Zechaniah was the father of Shiltiel, and Shiltiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abuid, and Abuid the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, who came to Houston and opened a jewelry store.

They've done quite well.

And Zadok was the father of Achim, and Achaemen the father of Eluid, and Eluid the father of Eliezer, and Eliazar the father of Mathan, and Mathan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

Say, whoa, I don't, I don't, well, none of these people knew how big the story their lives were telling actually turned out to be.

You realize that, don't you?

Let me say it again.

None of these people knew how big the story their lives were telling actually turned out to be.

And you're invited to be a part of it.

Not just today.

Don't just live your life for today.

You're the way you live, men and women, you're shaping the generations that are to come.

Elohim, Jehoiakim, they had no idea.

We're gonna be in the lineage of the Messiah when the Bible says.

Simple statement.

Who is Jesus?

Of Mary of whom Jesus was born.

And then it says who is called Christ.

Messiah.

The Christ.

The fulfillment of every promise that God ever made.

Once again, none of these people knew how big the story their lives were telling actually turned out to be.

And I want to close just asking you this morning, how big of a story is your life telling?

Because God's inviting you.

Your obedience matters, your choice matters.

Why?

Because your story is really God's story, and you you may not understand how big it is.

And by the way, the kid that I was talking to, the guy Chris, was in my youth group in 1987.

I used to be a youth pastor, but those days are over.

And he said to me, he's now the pastor of a church, and he has a he's also a therapist.

Church gives him a day off.

He runs his own counseling practice, has four therapists under him.

He's married and got four kids.

Like, dude, I am old.

And I was walking back to my room, and you ever just you're just walking, all of a sudden you feel like you feel like I'm fixing to cry.

What's going on?

I need to go see a doctor or something.

And here's what overwhelmed me.

God just kind of whispered in my ear on the lift.

By the way, did I tell you I stayed in a condo I had to ride a ski lift to get to?

They won't leave that part out.

I'm riding up the lift, and God just kind of said, See, I've been telling a story since 1987.

Through a goofball like you.

And this kid heard it.

And now he's not a kid anymore.

He pastors a church and he's an incredible in-demand therapist.

It takes months to get an appointment with him.

He's that good at what he does.

And he looked at me over a cup of coffee.

He's not a kid anymore, he's a man.

And he just said, Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for prophetically telling me the truth when I didn't want to hear it.

I just stood there.

I was like, I I don't know.

Here's what I'm saying to you, and I'm done.

Don't miss the bigness of the story that God is telling through your life right now.

Stand to your feet.

We've been here long enough.

Hold your hands out.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Since you were little kids, your father has known that you love stories.

That's why he told you a story of a Savior that left heaven, a prince that came to earth to rescue and redeem that which was his.

You are what he came to redeem.

Depart now and live like people who have been paid for, who are loved and accepted by God.

But also live and speak as if the story's not over.

Give yourself to that now, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.