Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand

Ruth Chapter three.

Yeah, then Naomi, her mother in law said to her,

my daughter, should I not seek rest for you?

Should I not seek rest for you? That it may

be well with you?

Is not Boaz, our relative with whose young women you were,

See he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.

Wash therefore, and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak,

and go down to the threshing floor. But do not

make yourself known to the man until he has finished

eating and drinking. But when he lies down, observe the

place where realis. Then go and uncover his feet and

lie down, and he will tell you what to do.

And she replied, all that you say, I will do.

So she went down to the threshing floor and did

just as her mother in law.

Had commanded her.

And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart

was merry, he went to lie down at the end

of the heap of grain. And then she came softly

and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight, the

man was startled and turned over, and behold a woman

lay at his feet. He said, who are you? She answered,

I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant,

for you are a redeemer. And he said, may you

be blessed by the Lord, my daughter, you have made

this last kindness greater than the first, in that you've

not gone after a young man or whether poor or rich. Now,

my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you

all that you ask for you. For all my fellow

townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. And now

it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there

is a redeemer nearer than I remain tonight, and in

the morning, if he will redeem you, good, let him

do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you,

then as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie

down until morning. So she laid his feet until the morning.

But arose before one could recognize another, and he said,

let it not be known that the woman came to

the threshing floor, and he said, bring the garment you're

wearing and hold it out. So she held it, and

he measured out six and he measured out six measures

of barley and put it on her.

And then she went into the city.

And when she came to her mother in law, she said,

how did you fare, my daughter? Then he told her

all that the man had done for her, saying these

six measures of barley. He cave to me, for he said,

you must not go back empty handed.

To your mother in law.

And she replied, wait, my daughter, until you learn how

the matter turns out. For the man will not rest,

but will settle the matter today.

This is the word of the Lord.

I titled this morning's message Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand

after a book book that was written by doctor Paul

David Tripp, released a little over twenty years ago.

If you haven't read it, you should.

Phenomenal book. The premise of the book is this that we,

as brothers and sisters in Christ, have been called by

God to actually be instruments in God's hands to speak

into the lives of each other one another, brothers and sisters,

as we counsel one another from God's word, we are

meant to care for one another's souls. We are instruments

in God's hands. And that was groundbreaking for some that

we would actually have a job to do in counseling

and advising and caring for the souls of the people.

In the family of God.

Probably doesn't seem remarkable to you here now, but it

was twenty years ago.

But for some.

It was a renewal of the idea that we are

instruments in God's hands at all, that God doesn't just

and only miraculously act in the world, but that he

actually uses people as his instruments to get things done.

In Ruth, the theme of providence, God's action in the

world is strongly tied to the theme of instrumentality. That is,

God acting in the world through people, and remarkably in

such a way as they are actually aware of the

fact that they are acting on behalf of God. That's

what we want, right, I mean, yeah, we want to

be blessed by God, but what I know of you

is that you also want to be instruments in God's

hands to be a blessing to others. I mean, yes,

we want to grow and we want to change, and

we want to be comforted. But what I know of

you is that you also want to be instruments in

God's hands to bring growth and change and comfort to others.

Looking at this idea of instrumentality is what we have

this morning. So we consider what are some ways God

uses people.

As his instruments and what does that mean for us?

Two main ways that we see this in this passage,

and I'm just gonna call them the bold and the beautiful.

Let's start with the bold. That means starting with Naomi

and Ruth. Let's look at how Naomi boldly purposefully becomes

God's instrument for Ruth. At first, look at verse one,

Naomi says to her to her daughter in law, Ruth,

look at the language carefully, my daughter, Should I not

seek rest for you? Now? If you've been with us

for the last few chapters, do you hear the echo?

The echo is from the very first chapter, verse nine.

What is NAO say?

She says, the Lord grant that you may find rest

each in the house of your husband.

So what's happened?

Naomi has realized that this thing that she said the

Lord should do in your life, that you might fight

rest in the house of a husband. She has now

come to realize I should be the instrument and seek

out rest for you in the house of a husband.

Not only that, Naomi doesn't just become an instrument of

God's for Ruth. Ruth becomes God's instrument towards Boaz. Notice

verse ten, Verse ten Boaz says this, May you be

blessed by the Lord, my daughter, for you've made this

kindness greater than the first. Do you hear how that

echo those Chapter two, verse twenty, Naomi has said to

her daughter in law, may he Boas be blessed by

the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or

the dead. So Naomi has declared, God should bless that man.

And Ruth is showing up.

To get the job done. Yeah, we're gonna have some

googols today. It's true. And God.

Is not only bringing rest to Ruth instrumentally, and not

only bringing blessing to Boas instrumentally. He's doing it. I

want you to notice this. He's doing it through a

bold plan, through a bold plan. So you see the

instrumentality is This is the concept that I want to

make sure we get. God is doing something and he's

using an.

Instrument.

Now, I want to consider a few things about this instrument,

because I think we too rarely think of these things

in connection to being.

Used by God.

Here's the first thing I think we should consider is

that us being used by God in this case was

boldly purposeful. It was boldly purposeful. Look at verse two

Naomi's laying it out. Boaz is our relative, He's the man,

he's winnowing his barley.

Tonight, harvest is over. Now's the time.

These ladies have a specifically articulate related purpose getting Ruth

married to Boaz for family redemption. This is on purpose

whose purpose Naomi and Ruth's are God's.

Yeah, we're getting better and better at this.

God is doing this. God is doing this by using

Naomi and Ruth. And God is using this by using

Naomi and Ruth's purposeful plan. Why do I highlight this?

I highlight this because so often we can have a

mistaken intuition that for something to be an authentic move

of God, it has to seem like an accident, as

if moving with purpose is somehow moving without faith. Of course,

God can use accidents and serendipity, we see that in

the Bible too, but he also uses purposeful action. In fact,

he quite ordinarily uses our purposeful, godly wise action to

accomplish his ends. And yet sometimes, especially in certain areas

of our lives, it seems we don't take purposeful action

because we want to quote leave it up to God,

as if that's somehow more faithful. I heard a story

from a friend. He was talking to somebody else at

some other church. I mean, the guy had lost his

job and my friend said, well, so what kind of

job are you pursuing? What are you gonna go after?

How can I push your resume around? And the guy said, well,

let's be godly about this. I just want to see

what God brings. And he said, I think God might

bring you skinny kids. This the idea of let go

and let God is this actually not what we usually

find in the narratives of the Bible, but rather with

purposeful intention, what.

We usually see is let God. So let's go.

Naomi says, may the Lord give you rest. I'm gonna

seek for you.

I've got a plan for your rest. And there's no contradiction.

Because sometimes, in fact, quite ordinarily, God uses our purposeful,

godly wise actions. And it's funny, actually, how we tend

to have this mistaken intuition in some areas of our

lives and less than others, or more than others. Like

they'll be there'll be some people who, if if it

came to job hunting, they would send out their resume

and they would scour the internet, and they would do

their research. But when it comes to dating, they just

want to like, see what God does, bro get your

resume out there. Or or people who who would never

just sit around on a medical issue but would would

attack it with rigor and purpose. When it comes to

a financial issue, they're just saying, like.

Well, let's just see what happens.

Get yourself to the financial doctor.

There's nothing ungodly about that ordinarily.

Actually, God uses our purposeful, godly wise actions to accomplish

his ends. Now, there's something else about the instrumentality of

Ruth and Naomi's plan that I think is important, and

that is it's not only boldly purposeful, it's boldly persuasive.

It's boldly persuasive.

Verses three through eight, we see how these ladies moved

to persuade Boaz to this good purpose. Nay says, wash,

get cleaned up, annoint yourself, smell good. Don't just rush

up on the guy. Wait until he's had a good

meal and he's snuggling up with a big pile of plenty,

and then go and have a very private conversation. There's

some human ingenuity involved. And this point is actually similar

to the last one. Just like we can have a

mistaken intuition that God's instruments somehow have to move accidentally.

We often also have this mistaken intuition that God's instruments

have to move disinterestedly instead of persuadily, like it's somehow

more godly to just put this out there. I'm just saying,

we'll see what resonates, rather than to seek to move

people's minds to do good. When Paul brought the faith

from city to city, he didn't just put things out there,

just saying to see what resonated. The Book of Acts

says he quote explained and proved and persuaded. He quote

reasoned and tried to persuade. Quote spoke boldly, reasoning and

persuading them. It is reasonable to expect God to instrumentally

use our good and godly persuasion of people towards good

and godly things. Some of you might be asking, well,

is this good and godly persuasion? I mean, she's sneaking

up in the middle of the night and taking his

covers off.

Is this okay? Is this inappropriate?

I don't think, and most commentators don't think that there

was anything inappropriate about this. It was intimate, for sure,

it was private.

For sure. She didn't leave any questions.

About what she was proposing, but it wasn't inappropriate. And

I think we're safe to assume that because the Bible

never really sidesteps around inappropriate things. The Bible doesn't whitewash

inappropriate things.

It goes right at it.

In fact, both of these two had ancestors that the

Bible had spoken very clearly about in regarding to sexual

impurity and.

Immorality.

Ruth was a Mobidis, that is to say, she was

of the ancestry of Lot and his daughters who got

their father drunk to perpetuate their genealogy. And Boaz is

of Judah. And if you were at man camp, you

remember the story of Tamar. The Bible doesn't tiptoe around

what's inappropriate. Instead, what we see here is a bold, purposeful,

persuasive private conversation. As Naomi very symbolically uncovers Boaz, and

as he comes to the chill of night, she says,

and would you cover me? It is reasonable to expect

that God would instrumentally use our good and godly persuasion

of other people toward good and godly things. One of

the things God has used in my own life. To

bring about some of the most profound changes was an

act of purposeful persuasion. An acquaintance of mine set up

a meeting, came to town. This is back in Austin,

came to town, gathered this meeting together.

My wife and I were a part of it.

And like the first things out of his mouth was

He's like, I am here to persuade you to plant

a church. And then he spent the next twenty five

minutes laying out the case. He was bold, he was purposeful,

he was persuasive. He had something very specific that he

believed God was about. And he also thought that we

might be those instruments that God would use to do.

This thing in Austin, Texas.

And that's church is still there, and that church sends

us to San Antonio and has changed my life. Praise

God for his use of persuasion. And that will have

to stay clear.

In our minds.

If we are going to counsel one another and advise

one another from God's word to actually put changes into

our lives from God's word, We're gonna have to be bold,

We're gonna have to be purposeful, We're gonna have to

be persuasive. Not just putting things out there now, hmm,

all right, the beautiful, the beautiful, that was the bold

Boaz is the beautiful Boas is also an instrument in

God's hands, And that becomes very very clear. It comes

clear in this way if you look at verse nine,

what does Ruth say to Boaz's it's almost directly parallel

to the way that scripture highlights Naomi's instrumentality. Says in

verse nine, I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings

over your servant. What does that echo?

Do you hear it?

From chapter two, verse twelve, what Boaz says to Ruth

is you have come to take refuge under the wings

of the God of Israel. So Ruth has come to

Boaz and said, if I have come to take refuge

under the wings of the God of Israel, I think

I know who is the instrument of that refuge. Spread

your wings over your servant. And not only is Boaz

an instrument to Ruth, he is through Ruth, an instrument

to Naomi, the one who was emptied out and needs refilling.

Because what does he say to her at the end

of the chapter, Let me scoop all of this stuff

into your cloak.

And go back to your mother in law. You can't

go back empty handed.

Naomi is God's instrument of rest to Ruth.

Through Ruth is.

God's instrument of blessing to Boaz. Boas is God's instrument

of refe huge to Ruth, and through Ruth is God's

instrument of filling to Naomi. It's a beautiful symmetry. But

not only is the symmetry beautiful, I have to say

the kind of instrument bo As is in God's hand

is absolutely beautiful. He is the sort of instrument we

should strive to be. And one of the ways that

he he is so beautiful is his humble kindness, his

humble kindness.

Look at how he speaks to Ruth.

Ruth comes in verses nine and ten and eleven saying

I'm your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, and

boa As always refers back to her and says my daughter,

my daughter, which I know probably sounds creepy since we're

thinking about the fact that he's gonna marry her, but

culturally that that that was just like my dear one, right,

dear one, so Boas in humble kindness, he seeks to

lift up and make noble She comes and and he

and he says, everybody knows you are a worthy woman.

Like what you're doing right now is fine, This isn't inappropriate.

I'm not gonna show you a way. Everybody knows that

you're a worthy woman. And in fact, I'm gonna pivot.

I'm gonna pivot the spotlight off of the kindness that

you're asking from me. I'm gonna pivot to the kindness

that you are actually showing.

See that. So in every way he lifts up and

he makes noble ruth.

And one of the reasons why bo as his instrumentality

is so beautiful is because it's good and fitting and

worth emulating, exhibiting the attributes of God.

That he has called us to, like kindness.

That's not to say you can't be an instrument in

God's hands and be cruel. You can, God says, the

Assyrians will be a sword of judgment in my hands. Well,

the Assyrians weren't kind, they were cruel. So in many ways,

the question isn't will you be an instrument of providence?

The question is what sort of instrument will you be?

Will you be the sort of instrument that exhibits the

attributes of God.

That he calls you to like humble kindness.

Will you be that kind of good and fitting and

beautiful instrument that reflects his heart and character and reflects

his commands to us, and then demonstrates that in the world.

Here's the thing.

You have the opportunity to show humble kindness every day.

You don't have to wait for marriage proposal. We're inundated

with opportunities to be an instrument in the hand of

God just through humble kindness.

But this other part of.

His instrumentality is his sacrificial generosity. That's another reason why

he's beautiful. He's beautiful. Verses twelve and thirteen start to

go into this discussion of the custom of redemption. We

won't talk much about that today. We have next chapter

four to talk more about it, but suffice it to say,

what Ruth is asking Boaz to do is gonna cost him.

She's asking Ruth is asking Boaz to marry her in

an act of family redemption, and that is to invest

in the whole line of Naomi's dead husband. He's gonna

take on all of the responsibilities of Naomi's dead husband's

land and maybe debts, and there will come a time

when everything that he's invested in actually doesn't come back

to him, it actually goes into someone else's heritage. He's

everything that he's doing is going to benefit not so

much himself, but others. He and he's going to bear

the cost, and his heart is.

More than willing.

You can even see his expression of generosity there at

the end. You're like, he takes Ruth's jacket and he's.

Like, how much can this jacket hold? I'm gonna load

you you up.

This sacrificial generosity is one of the reasons why commentators

so often suggest that the heart and actions of Boaz

are really one of the ways that the Old Testament

preproclaims the heart and actions of Christ.

And his sacrificial generosity.

If you're a Christian, you are a beneficiary of his generosity.

He didn't hesitate to bear the cost of bringing you

into the family of God.

It was a joy set before him.

And if you're not a Christian yet, you should know

and we can testify that though you may come to

him for refuge, and a greater refuge than Ruth sought out,

because you were becoming broken and repentant, looking for coverage

of sins. Christ, in humble kindness, he lifts up and

he makes noble, just like the prodigal son was welcomed

by his father. Hey, let's get shoes on your feet,

let's get the best robe on you.

Let's put a ring on your finger.

And day by day, even in this moment, Christ generously

scoops up sustenance for us, materially and spiritually, that we

wouldn't be empty but would continue.

To be filled up by His grace.

His heart towards you is beautifully sacrificial and generous. So

if we are going to be beautiful instruments, how can

we neglect.

To be sacrificially generous. Doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense that we would seek to be a

beautiful instrument in the hand of the sacrificially generous one

and then resist being sacrificially generous ourselves, That we would

resist working hard in order to provide not just for

ourselves but for others, employees, family, people in need. And

you know, sacrificial generosity will also be an aspect of

the discipleship, life and counseling and mutual ministry that we

do amongst us. It takes sacrificial generosity like starting with me.

We are all needy messes, the kind of needy mess

that require your sacrificial generosity for anyone to care for us.

And this we are called to do, one for another

as instruments in his hands, the sacrificially generous one. How

can we resist being sacrificially generous toward our brothers and

sisters as they need our time and attention. The point

is this, God doesn't just and only and merely do

things in this world in a direct and unmediated or

miraculous way.

He can, and he does, but he usually uses instruments

like you.

And it would be a mistake to think that in

order to be a move of God's hand, your actions

have to be accidental.

Or haphazard. Not at all.

God uses our purposeful plans, and we should see that

it is our joy. It is our joy to be

a beautiful instrument in God's hands. Yeah, he can use anyone,

and he can use anything to accomplish his purposes.

But our desire.

Is to be a good and fitting and beautiful instrument

that exhibits his own character like humble kindness and sacrificial

generosity that others would recognize. The redeemer's face when they

see us at use in his hand,