Living Stones: Ruth and the Redemption Story

Well, today I'm going to preach topic, a story from the Bible that I have never preached.

Whatever. I've never preached about Ruth. Ruth is one of those stories that

you usually only see at women's conferences.

Or Valentine's services.

If you look it up, people call it the romance and redemption.

Ruth is not a romance story, my friends.

It's not a harlequin romance though there are some weird scenes but it is one

of the most important books in the bible particularly in the old testament full

of so much theological depth,

and i want to preach it today as we kind of connect to i'm not going to read

the first slide as living stones as we've been talking about the reality that

we are called to be royal priests and living stones.

But what are we building for? We're not just building so that people can see that we're better.

That is part of it, displaying the good, not we're better, but that we have the good life.

But we are building for the kingdom. We're not even building the kingdom.

Jesus brought the kingdom.

But we are building for the kingdom.

And we talked about over and over again, I've constantly talked about the theme

of the temple and the space where heaven meets earth. And that is our reality.

And we talked about the theme of the priest, but today I want to talk about

one of the most important themes, one of the most overarching themes of the scriptures.

In fact, I would say the Bible at its simplest is simply a redemption story.

And today I want to talk about redemption. What is redemption?

More specifically, what does it mean in the context of the scriptures?

It's not taking back your cans for five cents. It's not having your car repoed.

When you hear the word redeemed, it's one of the catchphrases of particularly

evangelical Christianity. I'm redeemed by the blood.

But what do we mean when we say I've been redeemed? I think often we just simply

mean I've been forgiven.

I've been saved. I get to go to heaven someday. And I'm not going to talk about

heaven today, you all know.

I've talked about it a lot. The story of scripture is not about a someday heaven.

It is about heaven coming to us today. It is about a someday restoration of all things.

But redemption in scripture paints a much bigger picture than,

well, I've just had my sins forgiven so I can go to heaven.

In Exodus chapter 6, one of the most pivotal stories in Israel's history and,

Exodus 6 · chapter mention

filters through the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is a central theme and a central story.

And that is that of the Exodus, the redemption story of God's people.

And it says in chapter six, verse six, as God is telling Moses what to tell

the people, he says, therefore, say to the Israelites, I am the Lord,

and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched

arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.

Then you will know that I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out from under

the yoke of the Egyptians.

Redemption is simply the transfer of possession where something currently is

to where it truly belongs.

Something belonged to me. It

is no longer in my possession and And therefore, I am going to redeem it.

In the story of the bible humanity belongs to

god if you're here today you can

say god is a beautiful feature in your life

but the reality is you belong to god

whether you acknowledge that or not someday it will be your reality you belong

to god you know bible is this redemption story where something else has claimed

ownership of creation and of humanity.

The Bible usually calls this sin and death. It's not just bad behavior.

It is the very sickness of our souls.

It is now we are owned by death.

There is a way that seems right to a man. His end is the way of death.

And redemption, this whole story in the scriptures, is God taking back life from the dead.

Tim Mackey in the Bible Project says, redemption is rescuing someone from loss

by paying a cost to bring them home.

You see, the redemption story of the scriptures, our story that we are living

in, it means that we are not just someday going to go to heaven because God

says, it doesn't matter, I've

forgiven your sins, it doesn't matter what you do, you can go to heaven.

No, we've been rescued from the slavery of our sin.

We've been restored to a new story and a new family. He said,

I will make you my people.

I will bring you home. Redemption is returning to inheritance. It is home.

It is future. It is belonging.

As I've already said, the Bible in a nutshell is a redemption story.

But it is a redemption story, not born out of God's vengeance and you stole

what I had and I'm taking it, but born out of God's love.

Or a term in the Old Testament called chesed.

Chesed. It's a complicated Hebrew word. And one of the first places we see it,

not the very first, we see it in other places in Genesis, but when God,

the most quoted scripture in the scriptures, by the scriptures,

let me say that again, the most quoted scripture by the scriptures is a verse

in Exodus 34, where God tells us what his name is.

And when you tell someone your name, names in the ancient world,

they're not just like, hey, I'm going to call you John because it sounds good.

I mean, we name our kids for the dumbest reasons nowadays.

There's some really weird names. That's okay. I'm not trying to shame your kids' names.

But in the Old Testament and in the ancient world, names, they actually translated

who you are, your character.

And in Exodus 34, when God is talking to Moses, he tells him his name.

And he says this, then the Lord came down in the cloud and he stood there with

him and he proclaimed his name, the Lord, or Yah.

And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord,

the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in hesed,

or love and faithfulness.

Now this Hebrew word hesed, which God has now used to describe who he is,

it's a very hard one to translate into English.

And if you've read different translations of the Bible, often they translate it differently.

Loyal love, kindness. Sometimes it's translated kindness.

It's hard to translate because unlike our English words, which generally have,

although nowadays they have so many meanings, but they carry so much meaning.

I can't just use one English word to translate it.

But if I want to translate it simply, the simplest way is loyal love.

Not just love, but loyal, faithful, constant, consistent love.

Redemption is the result of God's hesed, one of the most famous scriptures in

the world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

He redeemed the world because he loved it.

Redemption has ever been the theme from the Exodus to the law and the Torah

and the Jubilee to Jesus.

For he stands up in Luke chapter 4, quoting from Isaiah, the spirit of the Lord

Luke 4 · chapter mention

is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for

the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, to redeem his people.

But here's the question for today's messages we understand

maybe a little bit better the concept of redemption it's literally buying us

back for something bringing us into with the story we were created for into

the reality we were created for but what does it look like actually in everyday day life,

well, it looks like chesed.

It looks like loyal love, God's loyal love, but usually expressed through the

faithfulness of humans.

And nowhere do we see that more clearly than in Ruth.

It's a small, very personal version of the bigger story.

And so today I'm going to preach from the book of Ruth for the very first time

in my entire life. All 50 years of them.

And we're going to read most of it. So buckle in. It's warm inside.

You don't want to go outside anyways.

Some of it I'll paraphrase, but

I want us to just tell it's just four chapters, not very long chapters.

And we're going to break this down into four acts because this is a story.

This is something that reads almost like a play.

In fact, if it was written today and made into a movie, there'd be all kinds

of moments of breaking out into song, somber songs and happy songs and dancing

and cheering and crying.

Let's begin with Act 1, and we'll call this Act Two Stories.

Craig Williams, and I quoted this last week, said, In every situation there

are always two stories, the story you see and the story God sees.

Ruth 1, verses 1-5. In the days when the judges ruled, or the actual translation

Ruth 1:1–5

is when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land.

So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons,

went to live for a while in the country of Moab.

The man's name was Elimelech. His name means God is king.

His wife's name was Naomi, which means sweet delight.

The names of his two sons were Malan and Kilian. Their names actually mean,

literally, sicko and done for.

Which kind of shows us the beautiful narrative way that the writers of the scriptures

wrote. They're not just jotting things down.

They crafted these stories to tell true stories and wrote them in such a way

to give us a beautiful picture.

They were Epaphrodites from Bethlehem, Judah, and they went to Moab and lived there.

Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left with her two sons.

They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth.

And after they had lived there about 10 years, both Malan and Killian also died.

And Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

First, as we dig into this story and we can see the reality of,

as always, there's two stories going on.

The story that you see, the story happening around you, and then the story that

God sees, the story that God is using the story you see to tell his story.

And it gives us some very key information in the beginning of this chapter,

in the days of the judges, it says, and wants the reader to see something because

that is a very important statement. In the days of the judges,

it is giving us the backdrop for this story.

And my friends, the days of the judges is one of the darkest periods in Israel's history.

Judges followed the exodus, followed Joshua's return to the promised land,

to the inheritance, and it begins kind of ending Joshua's story.

He dies, and then it goes into this statement.

When the generation that came out died, another generation grew up who neither

knew the Lord nor what he had done, and they did evil in his sight and chased

after the gods of the land.

This is the backdrop of the story of Ruth that we are about to dig into.

And the reader wants us to see this is a bad scene. It's dark.

Israel has forgotten the generation that knew who God was and what he had done.

They've died and they failed to communicate his faithfulness to the children.

And now a new generation rises up and they don't neither know God nor what he's done.

Perhaps they've heard rumors, but they're just rumors. They're just stories.

They're just my traditional Christianity.

My parents talk about it, but I don't know him, nor do I really know what he's done.

And the result is that they chase after, it says they do evil in God's sight.

This is where we get phrases like everyone did evil in their own sight.

We get that in Noah, but we see that continue, that theme here.

As they've forgotten God, forgot his ways, forgotten the Torah,

which was not an oppressive law of rules.

It was a way to life. In fact, it says that when he gave it to them,

he says, so the nations will see how good your God is, that he gives you such

life-giving precepts to live life differently and beautifully.

Well, they've forgotten all of it, and they begin to live for themselves,

and in living for themselves, chase after all the gods of the nations that offer

them all kinds of freedom, but only bring oppression and bondage.

And the result of idolatry is not just that they're worshiping other gods.

Idolatry always leads to violence man it was a bad scene they're not just not

worshiping God they're oppressing people there's murder there's rape there's

all kinds of evil all kinds of evil that come with idolatry it's a dark time.

A roller coaster. We have a couple of keys. You know, you get Gideon,

you get Samson, who, dude, Samson was just a, he was just a loser.

He's a hero. But that dude, I was reading it in my 30, doing the 30 day shred

and I get to Samson and I love Samson.

You get the Bible school stories, you know, or Bible Sunday school stories and

the felt boards and Samson's, this is awesome guy. This dude was an idiot.

He's the end of his life. He's with a prostitute he loves and she asks him the

source of his strength so she can trick him. He gives her different answers every time.

And every time he gives her the wrong answer and all of the people come,

the Philistines come to kill him. And she's like, you lied to me.

And then she asked him again and he gives her another answer.

And eventually after he's been attempted to be assassinated over and over again

by this woman, he tells her the source of his strength.

Not my message, but just these are the people that are living.

This is the dark backdrop.

And I can't help but think that it reminds me of the dark backdrop that we continue

to live in. This is ever the backdrop of redemption.

There is no redemption unless there's a need.

We live in a day where people have forgotten if we ever even knew who our God was.

And I'm not saying we've all forgotten, but we live in a dark day of idolatry,

self-worship, worshiping our sexuality, worshiping pleasure,

worshiping addictions, and the end result of idolatry is always violent.

Well, come on. We're just living for ourselves.

To live for yourself, you've got to hurt somebody else. Wow,

what are you talking about? I don't hurt anybody.

Every time you use somebody's body sexually for yourself, you hurt them.

I don't mean to talk about sex a lot today. I'm sorry. Forgive me.

Every time that you live your truth, worshiping yourself relationships break

it's violent it's messy it's dirty we are living in an epidemic where children

now are cutting off their parents,

because they weren't perfect parents and they're living their truth worshiping

themselves it always creates the dark backdrop of oppression and violence oh but there's good news.

Redemption always comes at the darkest places. And my friends, we need to be redeemed.

And with the story in this dark backdrop of the judges in this time of idolatry and violence,

we also see in Ruth's story the reality of pain and suffering and grief as we

are still living in a world that is to some degree governed by death.

Naomi, it means sweet delight. And there's a drought.

And her husband and her, he takes his family to move to this land of Moab,

which is their ancient enemies.

I mean, Moab, they were the one of the ones that would not help them as they

were coming through the wilderness.

And Moab is the descendants of Lot, born out of incest when his two daughters

tricked him so that they would have a lineage. And they're hated.

They're the enemy. And here they go, supposed to be God's people.

But in this backdrop, there's a drought, which is also tied,

I think the writer wants you to see the drought as tied to the reality of the

brokenness of their condition.

Because in the Torah was, as long as you live as me as your God,

the land will be fruitful. It will produce fruit.

But if you choose yourselves and other gods, the land will spit you out.

And here they are in Moab.

To find some kind of relief, and the story is all about women,

because the reality is in a broken world of idolatry, the weakest are always the first oppressed.

I'm not here to preach a women's liberation message, even though I believe that

men and women are equal, but the truth is that women,

particularly in these stories, are always the first to be oppressed,

and here's now Naomi, Her husband's dead.

She's left alone with her daughters-in-law without options.

But again, I've got good news. Redemption stories always start with emptiness and loss.

I don't know what your loss is, where you feel empty.

And this story is not about our personal emptiness, but we can see how God moves

in the earth and in our lives, how his redemption works.

And redemption stories always start with emptiness, not with strength.

And he goes on to say, sorry, I feel like a 50 year old man today.

When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of the people,

talking about her homeland by providing food for them. This is the thing about the scriptures.

I just want to stop here for a minute. Often we just kind of break the Bible

into this false psychotomy.

There was a law which was just bad and it was just oppressive.

And then there's grace and it was good.

And they didn't keep every ounce of the law that God would abandon them.

They never kept most of the law and God continually came on their behalf. They were his people.

That's redemption. And here we see, even though during this time there's been

a famine and it says that she's heard that God has come and he is blessed by

providing food for them.

So she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.

But the two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she'd been living and

she set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go back each of you to your mother's home.

May the Lord show you kindness as you've shown kindness to your dead husband,

using this word, has said.

May the Lord show you has said, as you have showed has said to your dead husbands and to me.

May the Lord grant each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud. And they said to her,

we will go back with you to your people.

But Naomi said, return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me?

Am I going to have any more sons?

Who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters.

I'm too old to have another husband, even if I thought there was still hope for me.

Even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons,

would you wait until they grew up?

Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters, it is more bitter for

me than for you because the Lord's hand is turned against me.

Here's Naomi and her pain. First, we see that she hears that God has begun to bless her homeland.

And besides to turn home, though still without a husband and no means to work

the family land. This is all the only option she's got.

And I just want to pause for a second and show us that this is the first time

that God is mentioned in the story.

He's only mentioned a few times. He never shows up in big, miraculous,

spectacular fireworks and moves. It's not how this story works.

In fact, John Goldengay in his commentary says, Then she hears that the famine

is over. For the first time, the story mentions God.

Throughout it, we'll be recitant about doing so.

In other words, it doesn't do it very often. It parallels the way we experience

our lives, recognizing the importance of coincidences and of human initiatives

that you can see and believing that God is involved behind the scenes.

But it does not usually make it clear on the precise way that this is so.

I love this story because it is very human, yet it is very divine.

And throughout it, we don't see God come and say, I will do this.

We see things like, it just so happened.

And this happened. One of the most beautiful characteristics of this book,

because we see God's hand without necessarily seeing God's hand.

Yet God, my friends, is active in every story.

But here's Naomi, and she, now in her pain, she has a view of what it means

to be happy, has a view of family.

It's a husband, it's sons, and grandchildren.

And that has now been lost.

And with that grief, she cannot see any possible way that there could be anything

good for her with these two daughters.

Here they are saying, we can be your family. Nope, that's not family.

Go back to your own families. I'm going to give you a blessing,

but this isn't family. I can't give you family.

She, like all of us in the middle of pain, is trying to reconcile where God is in it.

My friends, that's not a sin. If you've ever found yourself in a tragedy,

in a trial, and your first response was kind of like Naomi's,

and God has turned his hand against me, I can't give you family.

Go home. But again, my friends have got good news.

Redemption comes to the places of grief and loss.

See, the good news that redemption is not just about going to heaven someday,

is that the good news of the kingdom is that even in our grief,

the world can look upon us and say, man, they've got the good life.

Even in our loss, come on, life is still beautiful she goes on to say at this

very wept they wept aloud it says again and orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye

orpah's like fine you're absolutely right i want to go with you i love you but

there's no hope for me with you.

But Ruth clung to her. Look, said Naomi, your sister-in-law is going back to

her people and her gods. Go back with her.

But Ruth replied, 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 and your God, my God.

Where you die, I will die. It's not even saying I'm going to go with you until you die.

No, wherever you die, that's where I will die. And there I will be buried.

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

and me." When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her,

she stopped her. She doesn't even say she was grateful.

Don't forget, Naomi's still in her pain. She's like, whatever.

I can't convince you. Just fine. Come with me.

The two women went until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem,

the whole town was stirred because of them.

And the woman 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? Why call me sweet delight? The Lord has afflicted me.

The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. So Naomi returned from Moab,

accompanied by Ruth to the Moabite, her daughter-in-law arriving in Bethlehem

as the barley harvest was beginning. Another key element they want us to see.

This is a moment where there's perhaps opportunity for divine intervention.

But here also in this story, in this particular part, we see another theme that

is often repeated in the Old Testament.

And that's the reversal of roles.

You see, Naomi, sweet delight.

She, in some way or another, has a memory of God's faithfulness.

And then here we have Ruth, a Moabite, a stranger, a foreigner, an enemy.

And Naomi's now changed her name to bitterness, unable to see beyond her grief.

But Ruth is a foreigner. She has no reason to even stay with this woman.

Her husband's dead. this foreigner, this unseeming character,

this vulnerable widow is the only one so far in this story who displays the characters of God.

She shows, has said, I will not leave you. This, my friends,

is our redemption story.

I love when Paul says in Ephesians 2, remember that at that time you were separated

from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenant

of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Here's this foreigner woman who's saying, I will abandon everything because I love you.

Chesed. Chesed. It means loyal love. It means covenant faithfulness.

It means love that stays, love that costs something, not feelings, commitment.

In fact, most Hebrew translators or Jewish translators of this book see the

key moment, the key theme of this story is commitment.

And here, this stranger, this foreigner who doesn't even really belong in this

story, is the only one demonstrating the characteristics of God in her faithful,

loyal love. Where you go, I will go.

Your people will be my people." That's chesed. Ruth refuses to leave Naomi.

We get to act two. We call this one commitment that makes a way.

Verse one of chapter two, now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side,

a man of standing from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the fields and pick up the

leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor. And Naomi said to her, go ahead, my daughter.

So she went out and entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters.

As it turned out, or some translation says, it just so happened that she was

working in the field belonging to Boaz.

This is just, just happened, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

Just then, it just so happened that Boaz arrived from Bethlehem at this moment

and greeted the harvesters.

The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you, they answered.

Gleaming the fields was a provision of the law that required the harvesters

of a field to leave the grain that fell on the ground to allow the poor and

the foreigners to gather provision.

In other words, if grain falls, you got to leave it there because there are

some who don't have access to their own lands and they're poor.

We will make in our law provisions for those people, for the foreigners who

are with us. We're going to feed them too.

That kind of reminds me of this weird story, but when I

was working years ago and during break went

out with some friends who were smoking and one of them was someone who had come

from kind of hardship and had been homeless and the other person you know chucks

a cigarette butt on the ground and steps on it it was like half still half there

and this other person's like don't do that don't step on it you gotta leave it for the bumps,

know that's weird, but to me, I remember at that time thinking,

this person is very kind.

Sorry, it just made me think of it when I was talking, but it's kind of the

idea, except it's not cigarettes.

And it was in the law. It was for the poor, for the foreigners.

And now, even though Naomi was now back home, she's poor.

She's unable to, she's got her own field, but she can't harvest that it is growing weeds.

And Ruth is just a poor foreigner out of her own homeland. Yet out of her love

for Naomi, she finds a way.

See, this isn't even about Ruth for this moment. This is about Naomi.

She's like, I'm going to bring you food. I'm going to eat some too.

So she goes out of her love for Naomi and she finds a field that she can work

in to provide for her new little weird makeshift family.

And she just happens to be in this field.

And Boaz just happens to arrive while she's hard at work.

And again, no, we don't see God working out in these manifestations where you

actually see, oh my gosh, God just came down. He sent an angel.

Yet we see God's hand,

not through spectacular displays, but in what we might call chance.

Limboa sees how hard this woman is working as he comes at this moment.

He asks the overseers, who is she?

Who's this woman that's working as hard as a man? He says, they tell her that

she is the Moabite woman. She's the foreigner who came back with Naomi.

And that she had asked if she can come and gleam here. Is that okay?

And she's been working all day and the son only took one rest in the shelter, a very short rest.

And so then Boaz, it says, he comes to Ruth just overwhelmed by this woman's

kindness to her mother-in-law that she'd come here with her.

And now she's working like a slave to feed her.

And he says, I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law

since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and your

homeland and came to live with the people you did not know before.

May the Lord repay you for 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.

This is a very, a very cool guy.

Didn't just come here with your mother, but you came to serve her God.

And you've come here now to take refuge under his wings.

May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord, she said.

You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant. I can only imagine

the fear. I'm a foreigner. I don't belong here.

I'm gleaning the fields. At any moment, they could kick me out. They could oppress me.

And so to hear the kindness of this man just overwhelms her.

You have put my soul at ease, she said, by being kind to me,

though I do not have the standing as one of your servants.

This is a mealtime that Boaz said to her, come over here and have some bread

and dip it in the wine vinegar.

He doesn't just say you can gleam. He says, come over and eat with us.

And when she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain

and she ate all she wanted and had some leftover.

And she got up to glean again. And Boaz gave orders to his men,

let her gather among the sheaves and don't reprimand her.

Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up.

Don't rebuke her. So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening,

and then she thrust the barley that she had gathered, and it amounted to about

an ephah. I don't really know how that equals.

It doesn't matter. It was a lot.

She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered.

And Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over when she had eaten enough.

So God's providence brought Ruth to the right field, brought Boaz at the right time.

But here's the cool part of this story. It was God's providence working these

things out, but it was Ruth's loyal love and commitment to Naomi that caught his attention.

This is a love story, but not a romance story. It's about one woman's loyal love for an old woman.

And this faithfulness makes a way for redemption.

And Naomi and Ruth's story, the loyal love of Ruth met the loyal love and kindness of Boaz.

This man is kind. He's not. So you might read the story as romance,

and you might think Boaz is trying to get this woman, and I'm going to be nice.

That's not the case. He's an old man, actually.

He just sees faithfulness. And Boaz is the next character in this story who

is also displaying the characteristics of God.

He sees faithfulness, and he says, I will be faithful to this woman who has been faithful.

I will be kind to this woman who has been kind.

This loyal love of Ruth meets the loyal love and kindness of Boaz,

which meets the loyal love of God and made a way for provision.

May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings

you have come to take refuge.

God's love, my friends, doesn't usually come dropping from the sky in angels'

wings, but it comes through people.

Goes on to say in verse 19, her mother-in-law asked her, where did you glean

today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.

Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working.

The name of the man I worked today was Boaz, she said. The Lord bless him,

Naomi said to her daughter-in-law.

He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.

It's unsure whether or not this statement is about Boaz or about God.

It's actually in English, it feels like Boaz, but in Hebrew,

it's completely ambiguous because I think it's supposed to be ambiguous.

Boaz has been faithful, but it's trying to communicate how God has been faithful.

And I think in Naomi's statement is, bless him because God has been faithful to us.

She added, that man is our close relative. He is one of our guardian redeemers.

Then Ruth of Moabite said, he even said to me, stay with my workers until they

finish harvesting all my grain.

And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it will be good for you,

my daughter, to go with the woman who worked for him because in someone else's

field you might be harmed.

So Ruth stayed close to the woman of Boaz and to gleam until the barley and

wheat harvest was finished and she lived with her mother-in-law.

Ruth's love not only makes a way of provision, but here we see in this part

of the story, Ruth's faithfulness, Ruth demonstrating the loyal love of God as a foreigner.

It doesn't just make a way of provision, but actually we can see it begin to

do a work in Naomi's heart.

It begins to bring some healing to the bitterness, the grief that she hasn't

been able to see through.

She says he has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.

Never underestimate, underestimate the power of faithful love expressed and

demonstrated to those who are in pain.

Never underestimate how powerful your kindness, your showing up,

your hesed is in someone else's brokenness, the healing balm that it is.

And then she says, this man is our ga'al, our guardian redeemer.

This is one of the two words in the Old Testament in Hebrew for redeem.

And it is the two words that the Greek word is using both of these.

It's used for both of these words.

The one, I forget what it is. The first one is more economic,

but this is the one that speaks of a person, a.

Host relative who has the right to buy back someone in their land who has lost

their land to hardship, usually ending up in slavery.

So we don't realize that this story isn't just a couple ladies just having a

hard time. The reality for Ruth and Naomi is that they've got nothing.

And once they can no longer glean, they're going to run out of options.

And the reality is because they can't tend their land, they're going to eventually

have to lose their land. And they themselves will become servants,

slaves, not slaves like man stealing, but this is the way it was.

You would give yourself over as a slave because you've got nothing and hopefully

find somebody kind enough to take you in for a season as a slave and you live

for them, you'd be owned by them.

And this is where these two vulnerable women are heading.

This is a reality. This is the state that they're and no options left to them.

But Ruth's loyal love, this foreigner, and her kindness has begun a process

as God moves through it in his providence to redeem.

Ruth has become part of God's redemption plan. And then we get to act three, the plan.

Naomi tells Ruth that she's got to find her home. I got to find you a home to

ensure this is going to paraphrase this part.

I want to make sure you don't become a slave. I got to find you a home.

So he tells her tonight, the men are going to be threshing wheat,

which is a time of feasting and celebration. And Boaz will be there.

So I want you to take off your mourning clothes and I want you to put on your finest clothes.

I want you to put on some makeup. I want you to make yourself beautiful,

which is symbolizing that I want you to make sure that everybody now knows you're

no longer in mourning. You can be married.

And I want you to go and I want you to wait until Boaz is finished celebrating

and he goes to lay down and sleep.

And I want you to go and uncover his feet and lay down at them and wait.

This is weird, my friends.

I've never read this story and not been like, what the heck?

Us, it certainly is weird. And I believe there are many implications.

There's so many hyperlinks in this story.

I think some hyperlinking back to her ancestors.

And I think there is this implication of a potential vulnerable sexual encounter.

It's certainly there. She's a foreigner. She's got no status, no value, no worth.

And going to lay at the feet of a sleeping man is dangerous.

But this is Ruth. It's an act of placing herself at the mercy of Boaz's kindness as her family's gall.

Kingsman, Redeemer. He didn't have to act that way. But here she is,

her only option. I will place myself. I will make myself vulnerable.

I will uncover your feet, and I will lay at your feet, putting myself at your

mercy. I need a Redeemer.

My mother-in-law needs a redeemer.

And it goes on to say, in the middle of the night, something startled the man.

There was a woman at his feet.

And he turned, and there was a woman lying at his feet.

Who are you? He's asked. I mean, it's not clear. Oh, Ruth has come to lay at

my feet. It's like, what the heck?

Are you? And she said, I am your servant, Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment

over me, since you are a guardian redeemer of our family.

Now, this is very important because this word for garment that she says spread

over me is the exact same word that Boaz used when he used it for wings.

It really just means the outer. It could be a building could have wings.

Jehovah's wings, he says, have come to, you've come to take shelter.

And here she is using the same word as she makes herself vulnerable. I need a redeemer.

You are the only one who can do it.

Come and cover me with your cloak.

Cover me. She's appealing for redemption for her mother-in-law and herself.

Again, she has made herself vulnerable. This man could say, take off your clothes, wench.

I know it's kind of weird, but she could. But out of her love for her mother-in-law.

She made herself vulnerable.

She inserted herself into the story and said, my mother-in-law,

yes, she needed redemption too, but she could leave.

But don't forget, she could have left. She could go home to her own family.

But she's doing this out of his said loyal love for her mother-in-law.

And this is what he says, the Lord bless you, my daughter. This kindness is

greater than that which you showed earlier.

You're like, this kindness?

Have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.

And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all that you ask.

All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character.

Boaz could have responded by exploiting her vulnerability, but he responds out

of love, not romantic love. This isn't like, ooh, you're so hot,

but has said kindness and loyalty. He's astounded at her kindness.

She made herself vulnerable for somebody else. She, she put herself in a position

for the woman that she loved for her mother-in-law.

He's like, you could have chased after younger men. You could have chased your

own dreams, your own desires, built your own life, screw everybody else and

just be happy, live your truth.

But you instead have shown such

kindness to this woman, but you come to me and I will do what you ask.

He's not a young man. She could have chosen to live her own story,

follow her own heart, but instead she chooses loyal love for a poor mother-in-law.

This is redeeming, has said love in action.

And Boaz tells her that though he will, he'll do this, I'm almost done,

he'll do this act of redeeming, but that there's actually another relative that's

closer, and he's got to be given the opportunity to do the redeeming if he wants to.

Technically, he's next in line. But if he won't do it, he vows,

is he says, God, God curse me. If I don't do it, I will redeem you.

And he tells her to wait. Don't go back yet. Wait until morning.

He gives her as much grain as she can carry. He says, you got to take something

home to your mother-in-law.

This is so beautiful because he's actually protecting her dignity and her reputation.

He didn't have to do that.

This is his, has said, his loyal love as a response to the loyal love of this young woman.

He says, wait, I want to make sure no one can say anything bad about you because

you are a woman of noble character.

And then we get to act for the redemption.

Verse 1. Meanwhile, Boaz went up to the town gate and he sat down there just

as the guardian redeemer he had mentioned came along. And Boaz said,

come over here, my friend.

And it says friend, it translates friend, but it's actually what it says.

He names the person so-and-so.

That's the name in Hebrew. Hey, so-and-so.

Because he doesn't really matter to the story. He's not going to do it.

He says, come on over here. And let's sit down. And Boaz took 10 of come on,

come have a cup of tea. Oh, by the way, I brought 10 elders with me.

Let's sit down and they sit here and they did so.

And then he said to the guardian redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from Moab

is selling the piece of land that belonged to a relative Elimelech.

I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy

it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of

my people. If you will redeem it, do so.

But if you will not tell me so I will know for no one has the right to do it

except you and I am next in line and I will redeem it. He said, I'll do it.

I'll take it. This isn't more land. This is great.

Boaz said, oh, on the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also require or require

Ruth and the Moabite, the dead man's widow in order to maintain the name of

the dead with his property.

So in other words, you get the lamb, but you also get the, you get the,

the widow and her mother.

And the guy says, uh, I can't.

Redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it. I can't do it.

So first Boab doesn't just talk his love. He puts his money where his mouth is. He goes to the gates.

This is a place that legal business was performed and he makes his case and

the other redeemer is in when it's just about the land.

Yeah, but he's out when it gets more complicated and requires him to care for the two women.

Here's the thing. What may look at times like the best way in our life,

the best human experience, the best way to have a good story,

usually apart from God, it proves to be inadequate.

Always apart from God, it proves to be inadequate.

And it leaves us in the end. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death.

And this man's like, no, I might be the one, but this is too complicated for me.

But Boaz becomes the human representative of God's love, a true image bearer,

and a love that costs him something, costs him everything. He says, I will do it.

The guardian redeemer said to Boaz, buy it yourself. And he removed his sandal.

This is the way they did business.

And Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, today you are witnesses

that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, Kilian, and Mahon.

I have also acquired Ruth, the Moabite, Mahon'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.

This is so amazing. This is such kindness.

I will do this so this dead guy's name doesn't fade away.

Today you are witnesses.

And the elders and all the people at the gate said, we are witnesses.

May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah,

who together built up the family of Israel.

May you have standing in Epaphrathah 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.

Again, Boaz loyal love and meets Ruth's loyal love as a manifestation of God's loyal love.

And Boaz pays the price of restoration and redemption.

He restores land. He redeems family. He redeems their future.

And Naomi is now redeemed, but guess what? So is Ruth.

Because now, as he's used his influences, it's cost him his money,

his wealth, his protection. It's cost him something.

Now Naomi's restored to her land. She came in empty, and now she's coming back full.

And now Ruth, the foreigner, the enemy of the covenant, is now given family,

community, love, faithfulness. That, my friends, is chesed at scale.

He says, the redeemer steps in to someone else's loss and makes it his own.

See, Boaz took a risk. He said, this is your loss. I will make it my loss.

He doesn't just feel compassion. He acts.

Let me get to the end of the story. 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 woman said to Naomi praise be 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 has given him birth then Naomi took the child in her arms and

cared for him she became the child's nurse,

Naomi, who had lost everything.

See, redemption doesn't just give us heaven.

It actually redeems our pain. It redeems our suffering. It brings life to when there was once death.

And now she who was empty is now carrying in her arms the fullness of a child.

And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

The end, we see that this little book is actually David's origin story.

You see, God doesn't just redeem Ruth and Naomi. He includes them in the greater redemption story.

These two people, Boaz and Ruth, and their obedience, their choice to live and

chesed and to be faithful and loyal and to love unconditionally,

it brings redemption to their story, but it also folds them into the greater story.

And their little obedience, their small obedience changes history.

Without Ruth and Boaz faithfulness, no David.

Without David, no Jesus.

Tiny family story becomes the seed of God's rescue plan for the world.

And now as we bring it all home, as I already said, first that we can see that

this little story is a small retelling of the bigger story of redemption.

Boaz stands as a representative of Christ, who as a human and divine is our

closest relative, our guardian redeemer, who paid the ransom price for our redemption

while we were foreigners.

And poor sinners. I love what Paul says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Just like Ruth, while we were nobody, strangers to the promise,

our guardian redeemer came and didn't just come to say, your sins are forgiven,

you can go to heaven, but to say, you can now be God's people, his chosen people.

I love in our verse in 2 Peter or 1 Peter, you who were once not a people are now a people.

And this story reminds us, it ties into the reality of our story. We have been redeemed.

We once were lost. We belong to God.

We belong living in his faithfulness. We belong connected to our vocation of

his image bearers, bringing his faithfulness and goodness to the world.

But because of sin and death, we have been misplaced.

We no longer were owned by him,

but we were owned by death and all of the forces that live in that space.

Have been purchased, not just to go to heaven, but redeemed to be God's people

today, to allow his story to invade every part of our story, our grief, our pain,

our loss, to redeem our suffering,

to redeem our pleasures and our rejoicing.

All of them folded into his story. Ephesians 1 says, for he chose us in him

before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight, In love,

he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance

with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace,

which he has freely given us in the one he loves.

In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance

with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

Our story is a redemption story and then

second the story gives us insight as

we've unpacked throughout it into how God

interacts with the world it's true at

times we see God's hand alone in spectacular miraculous

displays where God doesn't need people he doesn't need people he can just come

and poof there's food poof there's this but we can see through the scriptures

as we are reconnected to our story that god often.

Is love and faithfulness working through the love and faithfulness of people.

And for those of us now in Christ, reconnected to that story,

redeemed, the royal priesthood, redemption doesn't just happen to us. It happens through us.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians, all this is from God who reconciled us,

redeemed us to himself through Christ Jesus, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.

And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation or redemption.

We are therefore God's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

N.T. Wright says, the smallest acts of faithfulness are caught up into God's larger purposes.

And then he says, God normally accomplishes his purpose through the ordinary

obedience of his people.

The people where God's loyal love doesn't just become something we experience.

It becomes more than an idea, but a way of life.

Shows us that staying faithful, choosing his said, that we don't need a platform,

just obedience today, that we can actually be people that redemption throws through and not just to.

When we practice his said love as a community, when we live for others instead of ourselves,

when we stay, when we're present, when we serve, when we protect,

I'm so grateful for how many people have flown through this church,

and some have come and some have gone, but I've gotten to be a part of so many stories.

I've got to sit at tables and stay, bring my presence, and as they've done the same for me.

We get to trust God in hidden seasons, knowing that He is working even when

we don't feel Him speaking.

We get to become a redeeming community, starting with each other hear, know one another.

It should look like Bethlehem's field, the place where the vulnerable find provision and loyal love.

Our faithfulness can become someone else's origin story.

I say all this, I think this is a very important book because we sometimes take

for granted what God has done for us and we miss the reality of how important

what we do matters, how much it matters.

Ruth was just faithful.

Ruth thought she was just staying

with her mother-in-law. Boab thought he was just helping one woman.

They had no idea they were starting David's story, which would lead to Jesus,

which would lead to us. And that's how God works.

We are his body. We are the place where heaven meets earth and the earth.

We are Jesus still walking the earth and our loyal faithfulness to God and to

one another and to everyone in our lives, choosing to live out of that love,

choosing not to live for ourselves,

choosing not to exploit weakness for ourselves, but instead choosing to make ourselves vulnerable,

choosing to pay the price, whatever it may be, so that somebody else can have a new origin story.

Redemption story unfolding, not just in us, but through us.

When I think of the baptism service we just had, each of those people as they

went down and came up, there's a new origin story that we as a church get to be a part of,

that, my friends, is what it means to be a Christian, to be the church, to be redeemed.

It means that we get to be the ones now whose simple acts of obedience and faithfulness

and love, whether it's to our spouse, to our children, to our co-workers,

to our friends, to our families,

choosing to love, love that costs us something, so that somebody else can have

a new story. Go ahead and stand up.