Whatever It Is, Let’s Face It Together

Hi.

I love you.

So good to see you all doing okay?

So excited for Pastor Robert to come back next week, but I'm excited to be home and to be with you all serving this weekend.

So I want to give a shout out to all the campuses.

Uh Jackson Ho, I'm waiting on an invitation from you.

Hurry up.

If you have your Bibles, I want you to go to the book of Ruth, chapter number one.

The book of Ruth, chapter number one.

I'm going to read the entire chapter, and you're going to deal with that.

Okay?

Some of you have slipped on your devotion reading this week.

I'm just going to catch you up all at once.

But I want to read this chapter because there is a video that we played at our church, uh Embassy City, a few weeks back that uh started this kind of conversation with me and the Lord, uh, and it just had to do uh with some faces.

I want you to see uh the video first, and then I want to read you the narrative, and then we'll pray and see what the Lord would say.

Is that all right?

All right, watch this.

Anybody ever had one of those faces?

Anybody had a face that you couldn't fix?

There was something uh about looking at those faces that uh made me realize that when we have areas in our lives or situations that are going on in our lives that that we need support and we need help.

The biggest thing about those pictures uh that broke my heart is that they were all alone.

None of us should face difficult times in our life alone.

We shouldn't even celebrate incredible times in our lives alone.

So I want to read you uh this narrative in Ruth chapter number one.

I'll try to read it in an interesting way so you won't get bored.

Here's what it says, reading from the New Living Translation.

In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land.

So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the t the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him.

The man's name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi.

Their two sons were Milan and Kileon.

They were Ephraithes from Bethlehem in the land of Judah.

And when they reached Moab, they settled there.

Then Elimelech died.

Naomi was left with her two sons.

The two sons married Moabite women.

One married a woman named Orpah, the other a woman named Ruth.

But about ten years later, both Milan and Kileon died.

This left Naomi alone with her two sons, without her two sons or her husband.

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again.

So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland.

With her two daughters-in-law, she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah.

But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughter-in-laws, Go back to your mother's home, and may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me.

May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.

And she kissed them goodbye, and they all broke down and wept.

No, they said, We want to go with you to your people.

But Naomi replied, Why?

Why should you go with me?

Can I still give birth to other uh uh sons who could grow up and be your husbands?

No, my daughters, return to your parents' homes, for I am too old to marry again.

And even if it were possible and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what?

Yeah, Naomi, then what?

Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else?

No, of course not.

My daughters, things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has raised his fist against me.

And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to Naomi.

Look, Naomi said to her, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods.

You should do the same.

But Ruth replied, Don't ask me to leave you and turn back.

Wherever you go, I will go.

Wherever you live, I will live.

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

Wherever you die, I will die.

And there I will be buried.

May the Lord punish me severely if I if I allow anything but death to separate us.

When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.

So the two of them continued on their journey.

When they came to Bethlehem, the entire town was excited by their arrival.

Is it really Naomi?

The women asked.

She responded.

Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me.

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

Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer, and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me.

So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by her daughter Ruth, the young Moabite woman.

They arrived in Bethlehem in late spring at the beginning of the barley harvest.

If you're taking notes on this message, it's the same thing that appeared at the end of these faces.

Whatever it is, let's face it together.

Whatever it is, let's face it together.

Would you bow your heads?

Let me pray over you before we get started.

Holy Spirit, help us to face tough times together.

Amen.

I pray quick.

We'll intercede later.

And so I want to jump right into them and we'll unfold them for there.

Is that alright?

Point number one, please write this down.

Life happens.

All of these are going to be Captain Obvious, no duh points.

Just want you to know that now.

Point number one is simply life happens.

Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.

By a quick poll, how many people would say life is good right now?

Just raise your hands.

And you should be happy to raise it too.

Life is good right now.

Things are going well.

I haven't killed my kids.

My spouse is smiling.

Job is great.

It's good right now.

Now, how many of you would say life is bad right now?

And you shouldn't be embarrassed to say that too, if life is bad.

Show of hands, life is kind of bad right now.

There's no fault in that.

There's nothing bad about that.

There's seasons that we go through in our life where things are just happening.

These people, Elimelech, Naomi, Milan, and Killian, they were living in Judah.

Everything was well.

They were feasting.

Things were wonderful.

And then life just happened.

A famine hit.

It was out of their control.

There was nothing that they could do about it.

And life happened.

And things uh needed to change course.

That happens in everyone's life.

There is movement from Judah down into Moab, and it seems kind of like a head scratcher because uh Moab is not uh a city or a territory that would be under God's covenant, yet God is strategic in certain times of our life where He will allow us to go into places that we never thought we would be in.

Sometimes we go into seasons and we're around people or we're uh around a circumstance or a situation that we thought we would never be in, and there is where God wants to prove his next point.

There is where God wants to give us the next revelation, there is where God wants to breathe fresh revelation into us, and we have to trust, and as we said earlier in Romans chapter 8, verse number 28, that all things are working together for our good.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Life happened to them.

Feasting in one season, a famine in another season, and that they had to move down to my way.

Which brings me to point number two.

Please write this down.

Life changes.

Life changes.

Life changes again.

Oftentimes life is not asking your permission to change.

It's just changing.

Elimelech down in Moab dies.

Life change for Naomi.

But Milan and Kileon got married to these two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth.

And so there's there's this there's this tension between uh uh uh uh grieving what we have lost, but then celebrating some things that we have found.

And so, and so you have to be able to integrate the two realities that sometimes there's things that's going on good in your life and bad in your life at the same time.

Anybody but me ever been in this season where somebody said, How are you?

And you go, Well, it just depends.

What part do you, I mean, what do you?

I need you to point towards something and I'll tell you.

That guy I'm sitting next to you, his he's great.

That children, that cut, that kid I had, mm-mm, no.

Not sure.

Not sure if it's even ours.

We did Ancestry.com and 23andMe.

Still confused.

Life changed.

In one moment, Naomi is is is settling into her new life, but then her husband dies, leaving her a widow, but then her her sons find two uh uh beautiful girls to marry and and and they're celebrating.

But then the the the writer of Ruth, I just want to meet this guy when I get to heaven, uh because man, he gives it to us quick.

I'm like, let it unfold.

Can you let it breathe a little bit more?

Did they go on vacation?

Or did all of this just happen in four verses?

But ten years later, Milan and Killian died.

Dang! Now, one widow turns into three widows, and there's a lot of pain.

There's been a lot of change.

There's been a lot of things that have happened in this time.

The famine that drove Elimelech, Naomi, Milan, and Kileon down into Moab has changed back into a land of prosperity and feasting.

Isn't it funny how the rhythms of life are?

That that you can be in a season where everything is going great, turn around, and the season's not going as great, but then turn around and then it's great again.

It's the it's the ebb and flow of life, which is why uh uh I really caution people when I counsel them, going through troubling times, uh, not to make uh permanent decisions based on temporary circumstances.

Life throws too many curveballs for you to uh uh allow a season to magnify uh and pressurize your perspective to the point that you literally make a permanent decision on something that's going to change very soon.

This is a principle that all Texans should have.

Yesterday I could wear a full-length shirt.

My kids had on some hoodies, it was overcast, it was cooler, and then psyching inferno once again.

If you don't like the weather here, just wait 18 minutes.

It's going to change.

I understand that life might not move in 18-minute increments, but you have to understand that wherever you are right now is not where you're going to be.

This too shall pass.

I I feel like I'm on assignment to talk to some Naomi's today.

That's the burden that's been on my heart since the Lord gave me this message, and I knew that I was going to be speaking this weekend.

I I really feel like there's some Naomi in the room that that need their perspective tweaked so that they don't live their life feeling like what has happened in one season will continue for the remainder of your days.

Which brings me to point number three.

Please write this down.

It's very, very important.

Life goes on.

I know that sounds tough and blunt, but life goes on.

But please write this down.

That's why I put it in all caps.

It's your choice how life goes on.

How your life is going to go on is a matter of how you are going to choose for it to go on.

It's a matter of who you're gonna place your faith in, it's a matter of who you're gonna put your trust in, build your hope in.

If it's in you, it's probably gonna be bitter.

If it's in God, I guarantee you, it's going to be better.

But that decision is simply up to you.

They have this this this uh uh uh uh realization that that that back home in Judah uh everything has changed.

The famine is over, and now people are feasting again.

We moved down here, we've been here over a decade, but we got the news that that that things are better back in Judah.

Three widows have some choices to make.

Are we gonna go back?

Are we gonna stay here?

What are we gonna do?

And they decide.

Let's go back to Judah.

Judah, by the way, means praise.

Let's go back to the place of praise.

Maybe we can go back home and celebrate again, even even though we've had loss and even though we've had uh uh some some tragedy, we can go back home and we can and we can praise again.

Let's go home.

And and Naomi and Orpah and and and Ruth, they get together and they're going to go back home.

But on the way back to praise, Naomi starts to rehearse a narrative that we know as the story unfolds is not from the Lord.

And on the way back to Judah, she stops and she just goes, You know what, girls, just go home.

You guys are young and you're still pretty.

Just go home.

And they started crying because she was crying.

Have you ever been around that person?

They they they are so in uh uh the well of their own experience that that that it just makes you didn't even come to cry.

You were just like, hey, how you doing?

Like, it's not good, and you were like, oh my god, it's not good.

Weeping and Naomi tries to break up with both of them, and they're like hugging her, like, and then like, no, we want to stay with you.

And then and then and then when you when you're in a pit by yourself and and you start rehearsing a negative narrative from the enemy, you start sounding kind of crazy.

And we know you start sounding crazy because you start sharing your craziness.

And when we hear it come out of your mouth, that's when we're like, ooh, you're in a bad spot.

We already read it.

She's like, I mean, what are you guys gonna do?

Are you gonna wait till I get married again and have babies and then wait for them to grow up and then marry them?

It's like, first of all, whoa, Naomi, ooh.

That's I'm wow, you have taken this a little too far.

I just said I wanted to go back to Judah with you.

I didn't say nothing about babysitting my future husband.

That is that is slightly creepy, girl.

I don't know.

You thought about all this on this walk back?

You you need a hug.

We need to get back to Judah quick.

And she insists, like, you should go back, and then Orpa was like, all right then.

When I'm in character, I have to do the whole thing.

She, but I forgot how big this platform was, so I gotta close quick now.

Um, she left.

And Ruth is still there.

Like, yeah, no, I'm I'm staying.

She goes, no, Orpa left, get a clue, girl, go.

And she goes, no, and then what comes out of her next is the most romantic, expressive gesture that every single one of us needs to have.

See, when I showed you those pictures before, the reason why those pictures broke my heart is because uh when you're alone and you have no Ruth in your life, you can stay in that face for a very long time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that every single one of us needs a Ruth.

Every single one of us needs to be a Ruth to someone that's going through a painful experience so that they can have the hope of God's glory that it will not end like this.

Ruth says, I'm not going anywhere.

I I want you to understand something.

Uh uh wherever you go, I'm going.

Where where your God is gonna be my God.

I don't even know who he is, but I'll get I'll I'll when we get back to Judah, take me to Bible class.

I'm gonna figure out who your God is.

Wherever you die, I will die.

You need some people in In your life that will not take your no for an answer.

Because here's the truth of it you don't mean it.

It's just the narrative is so loud, the only thing you can do is repeat it.

Anyone got one of those friends in your life that you can't stand?

Because they're going to cheer you up on the day that you want to be in your funk?

Like you almost roll your eyes when they come over.

Because you just want to have a pity party and you want to enjoy it and you want somebody to play the violin for you and they come in.

Hello.

Like, well, you know it's just bad, and it's the fourth job, and then it's still, and then it's now eight months, and I'm tired of asking you for money.

And it's like, you know it's not gonna be like this always, right?

You know God is gonna open a door.

I know God's gonna open the door.

Just shut up.

Why would you just grieve with me?

No, you need a roof.

You don't want to stay there.

I know it feels good, but it's not good for you.

You need God's perspective even in the middle of your trial.

That's why we declared so powerfully that he's a way maker.

That he's light in the darkness.

That no matter where we are in our lives, he is with us.

Which brings me to point number four.

Please write this down.

Don't face life alone.

Don't face life alone.

Please write down this sentence afterwards because I worked hard on it.

How life happens, changes, and goes on is drastically impacted by who you face life with.

Anytime I talk about this, there's inevitably some people that say, Well, I don't have any friends, and and and there's no one that I can trust.

I've been hurt by everybody.

No, you haven't.

I'm a literalist.

So when people say things to me, I'm taking it literally, and you haven't been hurt by everyone.

You've been hurt by everyone around you.

And if you've been hurt by some people and trust is a thing that you're really struggling with right now, I have good news for you.

You can pay people to listen to you.

I don't know if you knew this, but you can buy a friend.

It's the most amazing thing.

And if you have insurance, it's less money, and then it's even less than that, and then you sit down and you just like verbally vomit to this person.

You don't even know, and you don't need to.

And but they they just you just tell them everything.

And here's the best thing about this paid type of friend.

At the end of it, and you're like, oh, I needed to.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Like you don't even have to say, now, how are you?

Like, it's the best thing ever.

You don't even have to check on them.

You paid them to just, you just and then right when they're like, you're like, no, I don't care.

Bye.

And you just leave.

They have to get their own friend.

It just keeps working.

Don't face life alone.

I remember uh when my brother got killed in a car accident, September 17th, 2004.

Um, it was probably the darkest season that I've ever had in my entire life.

Uh my brother and I were 17 months apart.

My parents dressed us like twins uh until the whole world knew we weren't.

Um but when he died, uh it was the darkest season of my life.

For four months, I had never been that depressed in my life.

I felt like it would be wrong to smile after his death.

I felt that chuckling at something that was remotely funny was dishonoring to his life.

And I wanted to stay there forever.

I felt like the grief was the only thing that kept me connected to him.

I assure you that if it were not for friends, my wife, my best friends, people that love me, calling me out and saying, I'm not leaving you in here.

I'm coming to get you out.

I could see life in a completely different way.

The darkest moment for me is the day that I've made a decision that I would take my life.

And the only reason why I'm standing here is because of some people that loved me and prayed for me and would not leave me alone.

If you don't have a Ruth in your life, your life will be Ruthless.

I thought that uh Ruthless was just somebody bad.

It never dawned on me to check for a definition of Ruth.

I just thought it was a girl's name.

Or the last name of the second best bass player ever.

Turns out, Ruth is actually a word that you can use.

If ruthless means means means bad or or or or somebody that is without empathy, do you know what Ruth means?

Someone with empathy.

Give me a Ruth.

I need a Ruth.

Break me off with a piece of that Ruth bar.

I just changed the whole thing.

I know it's Kit Kat.

I'm freestyling.

Let it go.

Listen, I feel like there are some Naomi in here that have been pushing their roots away.

And I'm exhorting you to bring them close to you.

Because when you have a root you can face the tough times and see God's hand on the other side.