A Message From Mothers

You are listening to the Gateway Franklin Church podcast.

To learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, including our service times here in Franklin, Tennessee, visit us online at GatewayFranklin.com.

And now, here is this week's message.

I'm sure you've already been told Happy Mother's Day, so let me tell you Happy Mother's Day.

It's an honor to preach on Mother's Day.

My mom has been with the Lord now for 24 years.

And I still miss her.

I still honor her for her strength, her courage, and her gritty determination, which I'll talk about probably at the end, that it took to live her life and to raise a stubborn little boy like me.

President Woodrow Wilson declared the first Mother's Day in May, uh May 9th, 1914.

Now, what what a gift to give to your mom.

Like, we just wake up and I'm president and I can, or maybe it was her idea.

I mean, you just never know.

Um, but I always wonder what he did in 1915.

Like, like, right?

How do how do you how do you top that?

Mom, I've already given you a day.

No, mom, I can't give you a week, right?

A day, a day is good enough.

Um, but there's nothing like motherhood or even parenthood that draws more funny and serious quotes.

And here's some of my favorite.

Um, one from Rudyard Kipling, you know, author of the jungle book.

He said, God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.

And then from St.

Teresa of Lesotho, the loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.

I remember preaching a Mother's Day once.

I taught, I taught, I called it the mother, the mother's heart of God.

Here's a Spanish proverb that will stick with you.

An ounce of a mother is worth a ton of priest.

And then one all of us men should agree with that is nothing is really lost until your mom can't find it.

Right?

That is that is the uh ultimate loss.

Like if if Gina doesn't know where it is, it's just gone.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, it's just gone.

No use trying to find it.

Um today's message isn't necessarily, I wouldn't qualify it, quantify it as a mother, a message for mothers, as much it is as a message from mothers.

So so this is this this should be applicable all across our our spectrum here today, but it is definitely a message from mothers.

There are 41 fathers listed in the genealogy of Christ.

41.

There are five mothers listed.

And before you call foul, um it they had to be exceptional women to be included in such a really a Jewish limited kind of um sociological framework.

They just didn't list mothers in the genealogies, they just list followers.

But these five women, these five women break, they break the mold and they get listed.

And the even more unique is four out of these five mothers were not Israelites.

They came from outside of Israel, which makes them even more uh amazing stories.

Um, obviously the red thread between the five women is going to be Jesus, but I want to tie, uh highlight a red thread between two, um, Rahab and Ruth.

The overarching message, I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna tell you, and I'm gonna tell you, and I'm gonna tell you what I told you.

All right, so I want you I want you to remember.

So here the the big idea today is you can trust God with your season and your story.

You can trust God with your season and your story.

The following thoughts are also trustworthy and true that we'll dig out today.

One life season doesn't tell your whole life story, it takes all of our seasons to complete our whole story.

Number two, your story is a part of a bigger story.

So when you change your story, you change a generation.

The third one is that God is still writing your story, and God is the most superlative of all story writers.

So the connected stories between Rahab, who is a Canaanite, and Ruth, who was a Moabite, would not be possible without a third woman.

She's the connector piece here.

And when you read the book of Ruth, it actually you could, based on quantity of mentions, you probably could call it the book of Naomi.

Um, but Naomi is the connecting piece.

Naomi is Ruth's mother-in-law.

So um there was a famine in Bethlehem, and and um Elimelech, who was Naomi's husband, led her and their two sons, Malon and Kilion, led them to Moab in order to escape this famine.

We don't have um some specifics here, but chapter one of Ruth is pretty compressed at all that takes place.

What we learn is in the course of ten years, we don't know when exactly all this took place, but in the course of ten years, she loses her husband.

Elimelech dies.

Her two sons end up marrying two Moabite women.

Um Moabites were distant relatives of Israel, but they were definitely, you if you're not going to say they're not the enemy, if they weren't the adversary, they're definitely well thought of.

Moab kind of stands in the way when Israel comes out out of Egypt.

So, but her but her sons married two Moabite women, and both of those sons die.

So over that course of ten years, she's dealing with the death of her husband, dealing with the death of both her sons.

And then she hears after ten years that the famine has lifted in Bethlehem, so she decides to take uh or she decides to return to Bethlehem, and she releases both of her daughter-in-laws from coming with her, Orpa and Ruth.

Um it comes with some explanation in scripture, like I even if I had a child tomorrow, even if I had a son tomorrow, would you really wait to marry my son?

She's the the heartfeltness of uh Naomi is pretty strong here, saying, No, I want you to, I want you to stay.

It says that both Orpah and Ruth, they both cry, but Orpah stays.

Orpah stays, but Ruth comes.

And and this is some of the more like potent verses of scripture uh in the in uh in all of the Bible.

You read it in Ruth chapter 1, verses 16 through 22.

Ruth 1:16–22

So this is Ruth speaking.

Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.

Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay.

Your people will be my people, your God, my God.

This is coming from a Mobite.

Your God will be my God.

Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.

May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely.

You read that.

That that kind of that phrase appears multiple times in Scripture.

I don't know if it would have ever appeared from someone who was raised to not recognize Yahweh.

May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.

And when Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Tells you a lot about both women, really.

That that how what a what a bond that Naomi was able to build in such a short period of time, really, relatively to your life.

What a short period of time she was able to build that kind of rapport with Ruth.

That also tells you a lot about Ruth.

Tells you a lot about the life that she found in a country that would not have had the life of God.

And it tells you what life she found in Naomi, and that life was so strong that she was unwilling to let that life go.

So we pick up verse 19.

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.

When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the woman exp and the women exclaimed, Can this be Naomi?

Don't call me Naomi, she told them.

Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.

I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.

Why call me Naomi?

The Lord has afflicted me.

The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.

So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, and you just just catch how many times the writer of the story says Moabite right after Ruth.

I mean, he's proving a point.

Arriving in Bethlehem as the bear the barley harvest was beginning.

So names carry significance in scripture.

Um, names either speak to someone's character or they become very prophetic to what the person is going to become.

Um Naomi means pleasant, lovely, and winsome.

Lovely, pleasant, and winsome.

There are multiple cases in scripture where God changes the name of someone.

I can find no other reference in scripture where someone else changes their name.

Now it's not as if Naomi went to the Social Security office and registered under Mara, right?

But what was happening is she she went away.

They knew her as lovely, pleasant, and winsome, and that's how she left ten years ago.

And I can imagine the whole trip back to Bethlehem for Moab, she's wondering how she is going to explain her circumstance to her old friends.

I imagine the closer she got, the more bitter she became.

She wanted them to understand that although she left full in her words, she has returned empty.

So she didn't necessarily change her name, but she was completely wanting to identify and wanting to people understand the bitterness that she was experiencing and what she was feeling in that moment.

So let me give you a couple hard season pro tips.

It's not like I've been through every hard season or I've been through all of your hard seasons, but hard seasons have come knocking on my door.

And here's some pro tips.

Hard season number one who you are in a moment, God can transform in a minute.

Don't lose yourself in a hard season.

Right?

She was losing herself because she was lovely and pleasant and winsome.

She was losing herself in her lostness and her bitterness.

Here's hard season pro tip number two: be bitter, but don't be a quitter.

This is some of the strongest things that I can gather out of Naomi.

There is no denying her loss, there's no denying her pain.

She herself says she's bitter.

She's blaming God for her bitterness.

But she goes back to Bethlehem.

She doesn't quit.

Her bitterness didn't grow roots in Moab.

That's a word for somebody right now.

Your bitterness, grow roots where you are.

You can't quit, even though you're bitter.

You've got to keep walking, which is the hard season.

Pro tip number three is to respond to God's pullback.

You know it when he's calling you back.

You know it when he says, okay, that's enough.

I do.

I do.

I know when he lets me just simmer by myself.

Anybody else?

Quiet.

Let it simmer, let you work through it.

But then there's a distinctness in his voice when he says, Alright, that's enough.

I've heard it.

I've heard it.

That's enough.

You ready to come back?

You ready to come back?

And when he pulls you back, it's always at the right time, at the right place.

So let me read verse 22 to you.

So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem, say right place.

As the barley harvest was beginning, say right time.

Bethlehem.

Bethlehem, we know Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is the birthplace of Christ.

We know Bethlehem.

It's a little old tiny little outskirt, no-name village.

Birth of Christ.

She left Bethlehem and she's pulling back to Bethlehem.

Interesting enough, since her daughter-in-law was going to be in the lineage of Jesus.

And then the right time.

Harvest time.

Harvest time.

The other name for Bethlehem, Epaphrah, means fruitful.

Bethlehem was going to be fruitful.

Now, when they get back, it's not like someone held Naomi's job.

She didn't have one, right?

Elimelech was the provider.

Somebody has to find a way to eat.

Ruth, gritty.

Ruth's going to find a way to eat.

There was a practice called gleaning.

It was actually written into Jewish law that when you were to harvest from your field, you were to purposely not harvest everything.

Like there wasn't this run of trying to develop the kind of equipment necessary to completely strip that field.

But there was purposely some to be left.

And I I would assume that Naomi would have had to convey that to Ruth.

And so Ruth goes and gets herself a field.

Now, there is no indication that either one of them knew whose field this was.

So you have you would have to assume it had to be the closest field.

I mean, why would you walk past three other fields to get to a fourth field to glean the same crop the other three fields were gleaning?

Okay?

This is what I'm getting at, right place.

That there just had to be this right place.

And so she goes gleaning in this field.

There's something else that was written into Jewish law, and that was um the idea of a kinsman redeemer.

It's written into the law that if someone was in Naomi's spot, no husband, no kids, then in order for um for her line, for that line, her husband's line, not to be wiped out through the generations, that the nearest relative was to take them into their home to continue the lineage.

And look at this.

And also, they had lost their problem.

When they left Bethlehem, they left at Bethlehem, right?

They didn't have time to sell their business.

You know what I'm saying?

They left.

And so the kins of Mary would buy back that which was theirs.

All right.

So let's pick up the story in verse in chapter 2.

Uh Ruth is in this field gleaning.

Boaz is returning to check out his field, and he had to have.

I should have included it, but verse 5, you know, who's that woman?

Who's that woman?

The overseer replied, She is the Moabite.

She's not shaking that.

She's the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi.

She said, Please let me glean and gather among the sheath behind the harvester.

She came into the field and has remained here from morning to now, except for a short rest in the shelter.

What is he talking about there?

He's making a great observation.

This is an overseer, right?

He's there to manage the field.

He's paying attention to how the workers are working.

This is what he does.

And he makes special note here that this woman is gritty.

Like that she stayed put, like she's not taking a bunch of breaks.

And so Boaz now approaches her.

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.

Follow along after the women.

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

The kinsman redeemer is also a very much very good protector.

And whenever you are thirsty, going at a drink from the water jars, the men have filled.

At this she bowed down with her face to the ground, and she asked, Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me a foreigner?

Stuck with her too.

Boaz replied, I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law, small town, since the death of your husband, and how you left your father and mother and your homeland, and came to live with a people you did not know before.

May the Lord repay you what you have done.

May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

What a blessing.

You come here without a husband.

You've come here, and this is not your home.

Naomi may have lost everything, but you did too.

And the Lord's going to repay you.

This this man is speaking prophecy over this woman that he just meets.

Now, here is um kind of a note for all of us.

I I I never liked roller skating, but for some reason all skate always has stuck with me.

So this is an all-skate.

Your character isn't forged in public wins.

It's forged in the shadow of hard seasons.

See, what was what was going on here is is she was being singled out for her character.

That's what the overseer sees.

Hey, she hasn't she hasn't stopped since she's got here.

Oh, oh, and she left everybody she knew so Naomi wouldn't be by herself.

Your character isn't fern isn't established when everything goes your way.

Your character is established generally when stuff is going completely against the grain.

The second is that your reputation always beats you in a room.

Always.

What people say here, no, you enter a room, it gets there before you get there.

So you say, well, what does what I do in secret matter?

Yes.

You know why what you do in secret matters?

Because it's never in secret.

And there might not be anybody around at the moment, but it doesn't stay secret.

Okay?

So that that's from a good side and a bad side, right?

So that means you don't have to go, you don't have to go wearing some t-shirt saying how good you've been.

That stuff done in secret, God rewards publicly.

Last one, especially if you're an employer, you will know this.

Your charisma may get you in a room, but it's your character that keeps you in the room.

Plenty of people can talk themselves into a job.

They just can't do it.

All right.

So recorded in chapter four, Boaz fulfills his role as the kinsman redeemer, which includes taking Ruth as his wife.

Now, an interesting point of the story is that he wasn't the closest kinsman redeemer, right?

So it would there would have been steps to this.

There was someone closer, and it would have been their responsibility.

And Boaz, he is so smart.

So he gets into the city gate, he gathers the elders, like he is determined he's gonna get this done.

And he's gonna get it done in one fell swoop.

And he gets to the city gate, he calls the elders as witnesses, and the first kinsman redeemer, the first line comes through, and he says, Hey, come over here, we need to talk.

Naomi's back, she needs the property reestablished.

Are you are you gonna do this for her?

And he said, Yeah, yeah, okay.

I'll yeah, I'll do that.

He said, Oh, and by the way, it also comes with Ruth.

And you're gonna have to take Ruth into your household so that their line can continue.

And he's oh, I can't do that.

Now you're asking too much.

That's too pro that that puts that puts what I have at risk, and I'm not willing to put what I have at risk.

And he said, Well, funny you should say that, because I'm ready to put it all on the risk for her.

And he does the transaction right there in fun tidbit.

The the way those deals are consummated, he gave them a sandal.

I don't know.

Do you do any sandal handling when you're close a loan or anything?

So property transfer.

I don't know which one, I don't know what sandal.

I don't know if you wear your bad sandals on that day.

I don't, I don't know, I don't know what happens, but that's what happened.

So then uh Ruth 4, 9 through 12, so then Boaz announced to the elders of All the people.

Today you are witnesses, and I have bought from Naomi all of the property of Elimelech, Killion, and Malon.

I have also acquired Ruth the Mumabai, Malon's widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with this property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown.

Today you are witnesses.

Then the elders and all the people of the gate said, this is fascinating.

We are witnesses.

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

I'll unpack this in a second.

May you have standing in Epaphrah.

Remember the old name of Bethlehem, fruitful, and be famous in Bethlehem.

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

All right.

Rachel and Leah.

Rachel and Leah are the wives of Jacob, as in God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And so these elders are folding this Moabite woman, Ruth, into this fatherly lineage of saying, may her equal Rachel and Leah.

And they knew what they were doing because when they list Tamar, Tamar is the first in this in the list of women that appear, mothers who appear in Jesus' line that is not an Israelite.

They know exactly what's going on.

Tamar has already established that God weaves anybody story he wants to weave into his story.

And so what this Moabite, Moabite, Moabite, Moabite turns into I don't care.

This is a story God's writing.

And he's writing Ruth.

He's writing Ruth into the story.

So look, all because man, Naomi, tough as nails.

Tough as nails.

So Ruth 4 says, So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.

When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son.

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

May he become famous throughout Israel.

He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.

For your daughter-in-law who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons.

That's what we're worth, gentlemen.

We're worth one daughter-in-law.

Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him.

And the women living there said, Naomi has a son.

Isn't that interesting?

Naomi doesn't have a grandson.

Naomi has a son, and they named him Obed.

Obed means worshiper, devoted, and serving.

Now follow out the genealogy.

He was the father of Jesse.

So Obed was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

This then is the family line of Perez, who married Tamar.

So Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Aminadab, Aminadab the father of Nashan, Nashan the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse, the father of David.

Your story is part of a bigger story.

Change your story.

Change a generation.

So let's talk a little bit about Rahab for a second.

Rahab was a prostitute.

Rahab lived in the city of Jericho.

Jericho was the first city across the Jordan that Israel takes over, destroys on their move into Canaan.

It's the first obstacle.

It's the famous story of the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

But these walls were as wide as in places that chariots could ride.

Rahab lived in one of those walls.

Before Israel attacks Jericho, they send out two spies.

These spies then are enter the city, they are recognized as not being from there.

Rahab rescues them, brings them into her home.

In fact, Rahab says everyone is so afraid, everyone's shaking in their boots about what your God can do.

She hides them up on the roof.

Some men of the city come directly to her home, accusing her, knowing that she's taken them in.

She completely said, Yeah, yeah, but they've left, and so when they sent, she sends them in another direction, she lowers them down out of her window, but not before they had some negotiation.

This tells you a little bit about Rahab.

We don't have any background on Rahab.

But by the fact that she made a deal for her whole family, tells me that she was in prostitution because there wasn't any way to support her family or anybody to support it other than her.

And she did what was necessary to take care of her family.

It's kind of an amazing, gritty story.

So she makes a deal.

Hey, I know you're coming.

I know your guy will be successful.

I'm asking for my family.

Will you protect my family?

And the answer was if you get everybody into this room and you hang a cord out this window, these walls will fall, but not yours.

And that's what happened.

The walls fall, not hers.

Family is saved.

And then there is a man who marries Rahab.

It was Salman.

One of the spies she saves.

Salmon knows she is a prostitute.

Salmon knows that she's a Canaanite.

That she don't fit.

And yet, in that moment, Salman knows that she was ordained by God.

That there was a future that didn't represent her present or her past.

And Salmon was a God man enough to look past that.

Listen, this is for my single people in the room.

Well, first let me say this.

God is still writing your story, and God is the most superlative of all story writers.

You can trust God with your season and your story.

So here's to the single women in the room.

Let me say this.

To don't give up.

I'm not saying you're sitting around waiting on a man, but you may be.

I want to tell you to not give up because God can produce a man in a minute who won't overlook you.

And so to the single men in the room, let me tell you not to overlook or dismiss who God is putting in front of you.

And for both of you, you do not have to manufacture your moment.

But you do have to step out in faith when that moment presents itself.

So God writes his story through all of our seasons.

Rahab had a fighting season.

Naomi had a bitter season.

Ruth had a leaving season.

All of them were hard seasons.

But all of those hard seasons had a generational redemptive purpose.

Years and years ago, I preached a message called More Grit, Less Quit.

So you hear me talk more about my dad than my mom most of the time.

What I've learned recently of some of my mom's story, I did not know.

Um I didn't know until like maybe a month ago.

So I knew my mom had me young.

I knew she was 20 when I was born.

What I didn't know was that she was 19 and not married when she was pregnant.

What I did know was that her father was abusive and he was a drunk.

And he he he beat my mom and my grandmother, plus a whole lot of other things that I've just been kind of hinted towards.

I knew by looking at the family history that everybody that could get out early and young, they got out.

She had uh she was born with a heart defect, um, a hole in her heart, and it limited everything for her physical activity.

When she was pregnant, she was advised to have an abortion because they said her heart would not survive childbirth.

Two years prior to that, she had open heart surgery, so it'd been 1962, open heart surgery.

Um, and so open heart surgery in 1962 was like opened up your entire chest cavity.

Right?

Um, that's why they didn't think she could survive childbirth.

Um and yet, obviously, here I am.

My grandmother had her own toils.

Um and when I when you look back and I trace from my grandmother to my mother to all of mom's brothers and sisters, and their kids, and then grandkids, and on, there is a trail, a generational trail of people following Jesus.

That didn't happen if it wasn't for a gritty mom.

Her mom and her grit.

And so the the lesson that moms teach us, now you know, my dad was tough.

You know, I remember my my dad was changing oil in a vehicle one day, you know, working on or something, and we had a big shop fan.

So um, so high revolution, big fan, and the cage of this fan um couldn't even spell OSHA.

Right?

I mean, it was like three metal guards.

So my dad got one of his shop rag caught and it pulled his hand into the fan and it it it sliced his finger from tip to in in that circular pattern, and he wrapped it in a rag and finished the car.

And then when he got a little faint, he drove to a guy next door that stitched it up.

I don't know if he was a doctor or what, but it it was that so my dad, my dad was a was a tough man, but my mom was much tougher.

She was much grittier than my dad.

So, moms, that grit, that fight that you feel for your family, that's God given.

God gave you that.

We gotta have it.

We gotta have your grit.

When everything says go left and you know they're supposed to go right, you gotta you gotta get in there gritty and do it.

Husbands, we gotta know when our wife's right.

So we can stand behind them.

Because they're gonna see stuff and hear stuff and send stuff that we don't.

It's okay to be mad at God.

It's okay to blame him.

We just read that he has all of our days in his hand.

But you can't, you've got to be able to look past your season to a big story.

The stuff that he's writing and weaving into your life now matters.

It's important.

It will reap, it will reap fruit.

There is there is a season of fruitfulness, even if you feel like you're in a season of barrenness, it's a season.

And I don't say that flippantly, like get over it.

You know, life's hard, then it gets harder sometimes.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying God can do amazing things in that season that you won't see for generations.

That's the story of Ruth, that's the story of Naomi, that's the story of Tamar, that's the story of Bathsheba.

Look, even Mary didn't even understand what was going on, right?

Like she was an Israelite, but she didn't even have a husband.

God just does amazing things in our lives, guys, if we will just hunker down and keep moving forward, even when you're bitter.

So I don't know where this message finds you or hits you today.

What I do know is the Holy Spirit's in the room.

And I know at some point in time in these stories, something grabbed your heart.

And that wasn't how I phrased something.

It was the spirit in your life.

And I don't want you leaving today.

I don't want you leaving today in the same condition in which you came in.

Naomi was lovely and pleasant and winsome.

She was living in a bitter season, but she was still lovely and pleasant and winsome.

May that spirit rest on you today, regardless of the season you're in.

Stand with me.

I want to pray.

I'm gonna invite you to come.

People will be here available to pray with you on my right.

On my left, you can come to the altar and pray and spend some time by yourself with the Lord here.

And I we have communion on my left and on my right.

So, Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for such a rich history you've left us.

What a rich history.

You told it, you told it for a reason.

For a reason.

All of this points to you that Bethlehem was fruitful because you were gonna come out of Bethlehem.

And you were gonna come from the line of David.

And you leave this, these wonderful, rich, full, theologically dense stories.

That you are our kinsman, Redeemer.

You didn't have to redeem us, and you did.

It was costly, and you redeemed us.

Lord, may we be encouraged in our redemption today, beyond the season in which we sit in.

Lord, continue to write our story.

You are the best of all story writers.

Lord, meet us in our need today.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

I invite you to come.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.