Working All Things Together

Ruth. Chapter four, let me read our text for us. Now,

Boas had gone up to the gate and sat down there,

and behold, the Redeemer of whom Boaz had spoken came by.

So Boas said, turn aside, friends, sit down here. And

he turned aside and sat down. And he took ten

men of the elders of the city and said, sit

down here. So they sat down. And then he said,

to the redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from the

country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that

belonged to our relative Alimelech. So I thought I would

tell you of it and say buy it, and the

presence of those sitting here, in the presence of the

elders of my people, if you will redeem it, redeem it.

But if you will not tell me that I may know,

for there is no one besides you to redeem it.

And I come after you. And he said, I will

redeem it. And then Boa said, the day you buy

the field from the hand of Naomi, you will also

acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in

order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.

And then the Redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself,

lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of

redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Now, this was

the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging.

To confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal

and gave it to the other. And this was the

manner of attesting in Israel. So when the Redeemer said

to Boaz, by it yourself, he drew off his sandal.

And then Boa said to the elders and all the people,

you are witnesses this day that I have bought from

the hand of Naomi all that belonged to a Limelech,

and all that belonged to Killion, and to Maclon. Also

Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Maclan, I have bought

to be my wife to perpetuate the name of the

dead and his inheritance. If the name of the Dead

may not be cut off from among his brothers and

from the gait of his native place. You are witnesses

this day. Then all the people who were at the gate,

and the elder said, we are witnesses. May the Lord

make the woman who is coming into your house, like

Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.

May you act worthily in Ephratha and be renowned in Bethlehem.

And may your house be like the house of Perez,

whom Tamar bore to Judah. Because of the offspring that

the Lord will give you by this young woman. So

Boaz took Ruth, and he became and she became his wife.

And he went in to her and the Lord. The

Lord gave her a conception, and she bore a son.

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. Then Naomi took the child,

laid him on her lap, and became his nurse. And

the women 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, Hesron,

Hesrn fathered, Ram, Ram fathered, a Menidab, a Minidab fathered, Nashon,

Nashon fathered, Salmon, Salmon fathered, Boaz, Boaz fathered, Obed, Obed feathered, Jesse,

and Jesse fathered David. This is the word of the Lord.

There are passages in the Bible that often make me

think of the illustration of embroidery, like cross stitching or

like needle point, where if you look on the back

side of the work, you just see a total mess

of threads going this way and that way. It's all

tangled up. I know some people's work is neat than others,

so I've heard, but it's a mess. But if you

look on the other side, if the result is revealed

to you, it's a beautiful picture. And Ruth is meant

to be that kind of passage. The whole book together

culminates here at the end where the author of the

Book of Ruth just sort of like flips it over

for a minute and says, all of those threads that

have been running all throughout this book and earlier prior

to this book, which we're gonna touch on a little bit.

They've all come together and God has done something and

is doing something that's beautiful. I mean a redeemer, a child,

and not only a child. The line of David is

established the king the kingdom. That's where we're headed. In fact,

if you're if you've ended the Book of Ruth and

you look just to your right, you see that Samuel begins,

and first and second Samuel is the whole story of

the establishment of this one David to bring the nation

to its heights of fidelity and prosperity. It's glorious. God

has been using all of these different threads to pull

together his own glorious kingdom purposes which they all get

to partake in and enjoy. And a question we have

to ask ourselves when we see something like this in

scripture is yeah, but is this just a special occasion?

Is this just a picture of something that God did

once for them? Then I mean, certainly it's a special occasion.

Certainly this is the establishment of the line of David

in a way that is not going to happen to

us now like it did to them. Then certainly it's

a picture of something unique, but not all together unique.

This is more than just a picture. It is a

display of a promise that we receive in Romans eight,

verse twenty eight. He is working all things together for

good for those who love Him and are called according

to his purpose. God's providence is at work in the

lives of every one of his people. And this is

one of the most beautiful demonstrations of that promise and

principle that He is working what things, all things, what

kinds of things, all kinds of things. These are the

kinds of things that we can entrust to God to

work together for His glorious kingdom purposes, which we all

then can enjoy and participate in. All kinds of things

we can entrust to Him. And I'm going to start

with these three categories this morning that I think it'll

just be helpful for us. They're right there, You're We'll

go with these categories. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Those kinds of things, those kinds of things we can

entrust to God to work together for good. Let's talk

about the good. What I mean by the good, Yeah,

I mean the good stuff. I mean you're good. I

mean I'm when I'm talking about good, I'm talking mostly

about Boaz in chapter four. That is a good dude.

And the question is does God use the good that

we do? Does God use the good works that He's

laid out prepared beforehand for us to walk in? Yeah,

of course he does. If God can draw straight lines

with crooked sticks, how much more does he draw straight

lines with straight sticks? Also, look at this dude. I

love this dude Verses one and two. First, see Boas

is standing the esteem that this whole community has for him.

This guy is a good dude. And the way you

can tell that he's a good dude is the way

everybody else treats him. Now, it's true that sometimes there

are good dudes who get treated poorly. That's that does happen.

But this guy, first of all, he keeps his word.

He tells Ruth, I'm gonna go settle this. He gets

out to the city gate, which is kind of like

the town square in the courthouse. It's like the place

of commerce and legal transactions. He gets to the city gate,

he finds the guy. He's like, hey, my man, we've

got something to talk about, So would you have a seat,

And he does, and then he rounds up ten of

the elders of the city is like, Hey, I've got

something to talk with you guys about. Would you guys

just have a seat right here? And they do. How

is he it is it for you to call a meeting?

It's not hard for boas they know he's he's a

serious guy. And so he calls this meeting, and clearly

he has the esteem of the people there. I mean,

Ruth is the Book of Ruth has already told us

this is a worthy man, and everybody treats him as

such right on. But then he takes the next step.

Not only does he have standing, he decides to make

a sacrifice. And that's what verses three through six are

all about. If you look there. After he's called this

meeting of the Redeemer and of the elders, and verses

one and two and verses three through six. He approaches

this this otherwise redeemer, this this right of first refusal guy,

and he says, here's what's going down. You want to

you have the right to buy this land. But when

you do, you get Ruth. Oh, by the way, that

little buzzing you hear that buzzing you hear a little

hum you hear it? Yeah, I hear it too. We

heard it in first service. We don't know what it is. Yeah,

so time to ignore it, all right, I'm sure we'll

figure it out, like Tuesday or something. So he he says,

you get Ruth and the runner, first Refusal redeemer guy.

He's like, oh, yeah, no, I don't want to impair

my own inheritance by perpetuating the name of Machlan. Now

it's kind of a complicated ancient custom. But what Boaz

is doing here by taking on Ruth and Naomi is

he is being self sacrificing. He is he is agreeing

to become the caretaker and the steward of somebody else's

family and land for a time being that is going

to revert back to that family later on. He is

restoring Ruth and he is restoring Naomi, and although it's

his pleasure to do so, it's still a sacrifice. He's

becoming a steward toward others, the kind of steward that

this writer First Refusal Guy isn't willing to become. He's

a good dude, and God is using his goodness and

so then in verses seven through twelve, we get this

detail of the sandal and the transaction and the testing,

and what is that all about. Why is an ancient

author including all of this rioting about this transaction. Well,

I think there are two reasons. We're gonna get to

the more important one later. I think one of the reasons, though,

the less important one, is that it is just highlighting

Boaz's thoroughness. He has standing, he's making sacrifice, and Boaz

takes care of business. I love this dude. He undertakes

this entire transaction. He knows how many people it takes

in order to settle this legal transaction. And of course

the elders after all of this it takes place, and

he got the sandal and all of that. Then the

elders they hint at what this is all about by saying,

the Lord bring you children, the Lord build up your house,

as the Lord built up the house of Israel through

Rachel and Leah. So the author is acknowledging like that,

you know what this is all about. This is all

about God being in control, and God in his sovereign providence,

is using Boas's goodness. He's using bo As his goodness.

But I want us to notice something about the most

significant impacts of bo As his work. I mean, he

gets ruth, he gets obed. But the most significant impact

that Boaz makes in this book is who, It's what.

It's the last word of the book, David. The establishment

of the King of Israel is through bo As is

good work. And guess what clue Boas has of it. Zero?

He never probably even sees David. He certainly never sees

what God makes of David. The King. The establishment of

Israel's fidelity and prosperity the King is beyond the horizon

of Boaz's view as he does all of this good work.

As you consider the threads that God is pulling through

the fabric of your life and the lives of the

people around you, the good that you do, the diligence

you show, the sacrifices you make, I think it's important

to understand that so much of the impact and the

fruitfulness that you will have will be beyond your horizon.

Of you on this side of eternity, you will only

see a fraction of the fruit. It reminds me of

a story that John Piper told about a significant turning

point in his life. Who here has been impacted by

the ministry and preaching and writing of John Piper. Yeah,

a lot of us. And those of you who don't

know that you've been impacted by John Piper, you've been

impacted through me. So there, John Piper was a student

at Wheaton College. He was pre med, he had he

had really no intentions of taking on gospel ministry as

his primary vocation at all. And that first week of school,

they they had a preaching series there. Every first week

at Wheaton College they would have a Spiritual Emphasis week

and they brought in Harold Auchingay to preach there in

their chapel. But John Piper was sick, he had mono,

and so he was back in what they used to

call the infirmary now it's the medical center, but the infirmary,

and he was laid up for the week and he

had nothing to do but listened to the radio as

Harold Auchingay brought the message day after day throughout this

week at Wheaton, and it completely transformed John Piper's thinking

and his passion. By the time that week was over,

he was locked in as trajectory was completely changed, and

his passion became to make an impact of fruitful ministry

for the Kingdom of God. Awesome. Here's the thing about

Harold Auchingay though they never met. They never met. In fact,

Harold Dockingay passed away never knowing the impact that he

had made on John Piper, and through John Piper, on

millions of other people all over the world. Harold Dokingay

just kept putting one foot in front of the other,

trusting that by faith, God was going to bring about

fruitful impact through the ministry and the diligence and the

thoroughness and the sacrifice that he was making. Did he

see some, He saw some, But on this side of eternity,

he never saw all of what God was weaving together

that one day will be revealed. He is using your

good works. He's using all of your good works, all

of your diligence, all of your sacrifice, all of your thoroughness.

In fact, one of the things that I like the

most about Boaz, this is a conversation I was having

with my friend Cody Garnett. We're both preachers. What we

like about Boaz is that he's not a preacher, like

this is a man of God who's not a priest,

and he's not a prophet. He's a farmer. And yet

everything about the way he's thinking is centered on Gotwegh

is centered on the living God and making sacrifices for

the good of others. He's a man of standing, but

he uses that standing to bless others. I love this guy. Sacrifice, diligence, thoroughness.

It reminds me actually of so many men in this

church who are men of God. And we need more guys,

young men. I mean, the title of this sermon isn't

be a boaz, but be a boass. Can you imagine

a whole church or neighborhood, or city or nation full

of guys like this? We need them. And as you

take steps in that direction, just realize you're going to

have to entrust. You're gonna have to entrust that your

diligence and your sacrifice and your thoroughness in God's hands

will bear fruit beyond your horizon. Well, what kind of

things do we entrust to him? Certainly the good? Certainly

the good? What about the bad? What about the bad?

Does God use bad things and work them together for

his kingdom purposes which his people will come to enjoy? Yeah,

he uses the bad. And by bad I don't mean

just hard or tragic. I want to be clear, I'm

talking about bad. I'm talking about immoral, twisted evil evil.

Do we entrust those things to God and believe that

He works even those kinds of things together for the

good of those who love Him and are called according

to his purpose. He does. Remember, I said there were

probably two reasons why the author of the Book of

Ruth makes such a big deal in seven through through

twelve about this transaction and the sandal and the perpetuating

and the name of the dead and all that stuff.

I think the main reason is to focus our attention

to this entire issue of perpetuating the name of the dead,

and so bring a lot of things into focus. I

mean this custom. This custom was worked like this. The

basic custom was if if a man had a brother

and that man's wife died, the brother was obligated to

take that widow to perpetuate the name of the dead.

And this was to protect this to protect family, and

to protect a property, and to protect the whole community.

I know it sounds super weird to us now, but

this was an important custom. And if in fact that

brother wouldn't take the widow, what she was to do

is to take his sandal off of his foot and

spit on him. That was the look he earned. And

this idea of perpetuating the name of the dead, this bloodline,

it's meant to draw our attention to the fact that

Ruth is from Moab's family. When it came to Moab,

Mowab was the result of an immoral and deceitful attempt

to perpetuate the name of the dead, to perpetuate a bloodline.

Here's how it went down. Lotte had two daughters and

they had gotten isolated from their city and they were

living far off and they realized that there's no man

around here, and who is going to perpetuate this bloodline?

And so these desperate women came up with a plan,

and their plan was to get their dad drunk and

sleep with him two nights in a row, and the

older daughter becomes pregnant through that twisted move, and that

baby's name it's Moabb. This is where Ruth comes from.

Something as broken as that. But not only is Ruth

from Moab's family. If you notice in verse twelve and

also later the end of the book, the author makes

a lot out of the fact that Boaz is from

the house of Perez. You know where Perez comes from, Well,

we're back to this perpetuating the name of the dead thing.

I'll tell you that story. It was a man named Judah,

and Judah had two sons, three really, one of them

was married to a woman named Tamar. That man died.

The brother was supposed to take the widow and perpetuate

make the sacrifice to be the caretaker for his brother's name.

And he took Tamar and he used her, but he

did everything he could to just not get her pregnant.

Let the listener understand. And God was so displeased by

the way that Onen that his brother treated Tamar that

God killed him. And so Tamar went to Judah and says, hey,

you got any more sons? This is how we're supposed

to do this, and Judah just dragged her along. He

also just basically despised this desperate woman. So what she

does is she dresses up like a prostitute and she

goes and hangs out where she know that Judah is

going to show up. She seduces Judah, her father in law,

gets her pregnant. That baby's name is Perez. That's Bo

as his family. It's messed up. And my assumption, my

guess and It's a pretty educated guess, is that everybody

sitting in this congregation, it's familiar enough with that kind

of messed up in family brokenness. It's bad, and we

expect God to use boaz Is stand up moves and

his thoroughness and his sacrifice. But does God use this

kind of stuff, this kind of brokenness. And the answer

is yes, he does. He works all things together for

good for those who love him and are called according

to his purpose. And I know, just as I glance

across his congregation of so many personal stories not only

of brokenness, but of brokenness redeemed, brokenness redeemed and being redeemed,

being redeemed in ways that are still beyond the horizon

of what you can see that God is doing. Even

with the bad, we can absolutely entrust our worst, the

worst we have done, and the worst that has been

done unto us, to a God who is expert in

working the bad for his kingdom purposes that his people

will all one day enjoy Moab's family and paris Is

family together. Bring King David, and through King David, King

Jesus Praise to the Lord. God is an expert at

working the bad out. He is a redeemer all kinds

of threads. I mean, Christ himself was set on by evil.

He was set on by injustice and death, and it

was by that that your soul is redeemed. There's nothing

so bad that you have done that you can't entrust

it to Him as a redeemer. There's nothing so bad

that has been done to you that you can't trust

it over to him as a redeemer. I have watched

Christ turn wounds into strengths, and selfishness into real generosity,

and rebellion into Christian leadership, and sexual sin into rallying

cries for purity across entire communities. If you have entrusted

yourself to the one who redeemed your life by his death,

then you know you can entrust every bad thing done

by you or to you, to him who works all things. Well.

It's not just the good, and it's not just the bad.

He works those kinds of threads. He also works the uglies.

By ugly, I mean not immoral, not sinful, just hard,

just hard, tragic. He works those threads too. I mean,

consider Naomi. Now, it's chapter four. Praise God is chapter four.

In chapter four, verse thirteen, for example, the Lord brings

a son. In chapter four, verse fourteen, for example, the

women say, blessed be the Lord. He's brought you a

redeemer and a nourisher and a restorer of life. Verse fifteen,

and following she's got that kid on her lap and

beyond her view and the view of all the other

characters in Israel. The author still shows us the King

is coming. That's chapter four. You don't get chapter four

without chapter one. In chapter one, Naomi's husband is dead,

Ruth's husband is dead, Naomi's boys are dead, and the

threads will be worked together beautifully. But at this point

chapter one, Naomi all she's got are tragic threads. She's

destituted after a decade of being out hard threads. And

the thing about hard threads is that you all got them.

I think we've all got hard and tragic things that

have gone on, that are going on, that will go on.

It's not just Naomi yet. The promise is this for

all who love God and are called according to his purpose.

He's working those hard threads. Maybe even that came to

mind together for your good, for his kingdom, purposes in

which his people will enjoy. I don't know the particulars

of the good, but it's coming. I mean, in Second

Corinthians and Second Corinthians very start of the letter, here's

where Paul's at Kent Shaw reminded me of that. This week,

he says, Paul starts this way in Second Corinthians. You

know the kind of hard stuff we were putting up with.

We despaired even of life itself, which is Bible talk

for saying, God, kill me now. But by the time

he's a few chapters in, he's encouraging the Corinthians about

these light and momentary afflictions. What makes them light? Paul,

kill you now? Now? They're light? What makes them light

because in God's hands he is working them, and then

through them he is working eternal weight of glory that

just doesn't compare. It doesn't compare. I mean, is what

God is working out through these hard things going to

fill a very specific emptiness in your life right now?

I don't know. Is it going to sweeten a very

specific bitterness in your life right now? I don't know.

Often he does. But what we know is that He

is working things together in ways you don't yet see.

There is a promise that you can trust and Naomi

and Ruth are just examples of God at work in

ways that He has promised to be at work at

in all of his people, through all kinds of things,

the good, the bad, the ugly. You can entrust all

of those things to him. But I think I have

to say that in trust sounds a little vague and sentimental.

I mean, what do we mean when we say we

can entrust these things to him? Well, when it comes

to the good, the good work that you were doing,

the diligence that you were doing, the sacrifice that you

are making, I think in trusting that to God means

to continue on, keep putting one foot in front of

the other, don't stop your diligence, don't stop your sacrifice.

Do it faithfully, but just faithfully, do it in faith

that He is going to bring about through these things

more fruit and more impact than you could possibly see

on this side of eternity. So good your good work,

Keep doing your good work, and entrust it to Him.

For the bad, I think in trusting, I think in

trusting for the bad that's been done to you, I

believe that in trusting has to involve forgiving. We can't

take what has been done to us in its immorality

and its sinfulness and its twistedness. We cannot say that

we are entrusting it to the God who works all

things together for good if we won't forgive. And forgiveness

doesn't necessarily mean opening ourselves up to other injury, and

there's lots of wisdom to be had, but before the

Lord forgiveness and for the bad that we have done.

If we really mean to entrust to the bad that

we have done to the Lord, to him who works

all things, then I think it has to involve repentance.

It has to involve forsaking ungodliness. We can't say, Lord,

I'm entrusting the wrong that I have done to you

and then continue to walk in it willfully. That's hypocrisy.

But what it also means that if we're going to

take what we have done and entrusted to the Lord,

that means we come to him with it in our

hands and say, Lord, cover it. It's yours to deal with.

I'm entrusting this to you. I've been wrong, I've been immoral,

I've been thinful, and I'm counting on you to cover it.

By the blood of Christ. It's entrusted to you. You

work all things together for good and for the ugly,

the hard stuff, the things that are just tragic. I

think in trusting it that the Lord means we count

it all joy. We wait for the Lord to redeem

every place that is empty and that is bitter, because

he's working all things together, and he knows how