Ruth: Our Redeemer (6- He Redeems Our Story For His Glory)

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Okay, all right.

Well, if you've been with us over the past few weeks, then you know that we are ending this amazing book called the Book of Ruth, and it's a small book it's only four chapters but it has some really big ideas and it's actually there's a really big dare in the book of Ruth, and that is that, if we will, god will, and what we've been talking about is the biggest promise.

The biggest dare in this entire book of four chapters is this, if you're taking notes, and that is that God uses ordinary faithfulness to redeem people in extraordinary ways that God uses every day, ordinary what some people would consider to be just invisible to the rest of the world, and it might be, but what's important is that God sees it and that God uses ordinary faithfulness to redeem people in extraordinary ways.

And what we are seeing throughout this story is that God is always doing more than we realize and God is that.

God is always doing more than we realize and God is always doing more in our lives than we realize.

Most of the time it's our perspective.

That is the challenge.

We can't see all that God is doing because we are blinded by some of the circumstances that we're involved with.

But if we step back a little bit, we can see that man, god's been doing something the whole time, and we're going to see the grand finale of this story today.

So if you have your Bibles, you're ready to join with me.

Let's get into chapter four, and this is a long chapter, but we got to finish the story.

And so here we go.

Ruth, chapter four, verse one, says this Now, boaz went to the town gate and took a seat there.

Now pause, so what?

Okay, if you haven't been with us, you're like great Guy had some business to do.

Here's the thing, If you haven't been with us, this started in chapter one with a lady named Naomi who had a husband named Elimelech and had two sons, milion and Kilion.

And because of a famine they had to go to a foreign nation, in Moab, and while they were there the two boys married, orpah and Ruth.

But unfortunately tragedy struck and both the father and two sons died while they were there.

And so Naomi decides she's going to go home and one of the daughters-in-law goes with her and her name is Ruth.

But when they get back they have nothing.

They're basically homeless, they're beggars and they have nothing going for them.

But then they decide Ruth decides this may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility, I'm going to do something about this.

And so she decides to go work in one of the fields and just trying to do the best she can.

What she doesn't realize is that there was a law in the nation of Israel, and that is that if you lost everything, you had, a close family member named a kinsman redeemer or family redeemer could kind of buy everything back and help you out.

Well, what she didn't know is the very field she went to work in was the field of that family redeemer, or one of the closest ones, named Boaz.

And so time passes and they get to know each other, and then where we left off last week was that she decides that she is going to take the next step, and so one night she goes up to him and basically gives him a marriage proposal.

And then afterwards he's like, okay, I'm gonna see what I can do, you go on back home.

And so we ended last week with the cliffhanger of Ruth going back to Naomi going.

He said he was gonna do his best and Naomi gives her this wonderful wisdom, which is wait, not the worst thing in the world to hear.

When someone wants to marry somebody else.

It's like just wait, I don't want to wait, I want it over with.

Well, she said just wait, because let the man cook, okay, let the man do what he needs to do, okay.

Because there's a problem, and that is he is not the closest family redeemer.

So watch the man do what he does, okay.

And so now he says or he goes to the town gate, which is where all the business was done, and he took a seat there, which means plop, I'm ready to do some business, okay.

And now, just then, the family redeemer just then, just so happens, looks like God knew what he was doing.

The family redeemer he had mentioned in the last chapter came by, and so Boaz called out to him Come on over here and sit down, friend, I want to talk to you.

So they sat down together and then Boaz called 10 leaders from the town and asked them to sit as witnesses.

The reason why is because it took 10 witnesses to make a deal.

So he's getting ready to make a deal.

Boaz said to the famed redeemer you know Naomi, which came back from Moab.

She is selling the land that belonged to our relative Elimelech.

I thought I should speak to you about it so that you could redeem it if you wish.

If you want the land, then buy it here and now, in the presence of these witnesses, but if you don't want it, let me know right away, because I am next in line to redeem it after you.

The man replied all right, I'll redeem it.

Wait, that is not how that plan was supposed to go.

Boaz is supposed to to which, once again, pause, let the man cook, okay.

So he says oh, and of course, your purchase of the land from Naomi also requires that you marry Ruth the Moabite widow.

That way she can have children who will carry on her husband's name and keep the land in the family.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Then I can't redeem it.

The family redeemer replied because it might endanger my own estate.

You redeem the land, I cannot redeem it.

Oh well, in that case.

Now, in those days there was a custom in Israel for anyone transferring the right of purchase to remove his Jordans and hand it to the other party, or his Jordan sandal.

Okay, yeah, this publicly validated the transaction.

Nowadays we just sign pieces of paper, but they did it differently back then.

On the uh, the other family redeemer drew off his Jordan and he said to Boaz, you buy the land.

Then Boaz took his stinky shoe and he looked at the elders and the crowd standing around and said you are witnesses that today I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, kilion and Milion and with that land I have also acquired the right to marry Ruth, the Moabite widow of Milion, and for her to be my wife.

This way she can have a son to carry on the family name of the dead husband and to inherit the family property here in his hometown.

And all the witnesses said you're all witnesses today.

Then the elders and all the people standing in the gate replied yes, we are witnesses.

May the Lord make this woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, from whom all the nations of Israel descended.

May you prosper in Epaphra and be famous in Bethlehem.

May the Lord give you descendants by this young woman who will be like those of our ancestor Perez, the son of Tamar and Judah.

So Boaz took Ruth into his home and she became his wife.

Then he slept with her and the Lord enabled her to become pregnant and she gave birth to a son.

Now move forward nine months.

Then the women of the town said to Naomi praise the Lord, who has now provided a redeemer for your family.

May this child be famous in Israel.

May he restore your youth and care for you in your old age, for he is the son of your daughter-in-law, who loves you and has been better to you than seven sons.

Naomi took the baby and cuddled him to her breast and she cared for him as if he were her own.

The neighborhood women said now, at last, naomi has a son again, and they named him Obed, which means servant of the Lord, by the way, and he became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David, to which that would have been the end of the story.

And you ever watch one of those movies when all of a sudden it starts to like zoom out, you know, and you just kind of get to see, you know, the happy, ever, happily, ever after.

Well, that's exactly what would have been happening.

The story is over.

But then the narrator says oh, by the way, as we are drawing away from this story, the genealogical record of their ancestor, perez was.

Perez was the father of Hezron, hezron was the father of Ram, ram was the father of Abinadab, and Abinadab was the father of Nahashon.

Nahashon was the father of Solomon.

Solomon was the father of Boaz.

Boaz was the father of Obed.

Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David, to which everyone reading this, the original generation, was what you mean that David?

You mean David.

The whole time.

This was about David.

Yeah, turns out, turns out, it is.

And there's so much in this chapter that we are not gonna have a chance to cover, but wow, there's so much that ended up happening as we wrapped up this story.

And so please make sure and subscribe to my blog.

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We'll give you a lot more details, even why shoes are so important in the Old Testament, if you are so bored.

But the main thing is is to get the overall idea of this story as we are walking away from it, and that is this that God can redeem our story for his glory.

The overall idea is that God does extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness and he can redeem anything.

He can redeem our story for his glory.

And what I love about this is that when we first started reading the book of Ruth, it was very, seemed very, disorganized.

You know, there was a famine, which is why Naomi and Elimelech had to leave, and then they go to another area and then folks be dying, and then one of the, the daughter's-in-law, was peace out, she didn't want to come.

I mean, it was just.

It was just chaos.

But as the story continued to go, it went from looking like just disorganized chaos to where you start going.

Wait a minute, god is not passive in this situation.

Actually, god has been weaving and doing things all along the way, and one of the amazing things about this story is that God was redeeming everything that they were losing along the way and redeeming the story.

And so you can see that, as in chapter one, as he was redeeming their suffering and then he was redeeming their sorrow, and then in chapter two and three, when they, god, used their courage and then he used the hope and then he used their obedience to redeem their story.

And remember, the definition of redemption is to restore something that was lost, broken or in need and that God wasn't.

What I love is that God wasn't restoring their successes, he was restoring their faithfulness.

He was restoring their ability to never give up, their willingness to say God, I can't do everything, but I can take the next step.

And as they continued to do that, he continued to restore everything in their life.

And our story is our part of God's amazing plan to realize that we have the opportunity to be part of what God is doing in ways that we could never imagine.

We've seen that throughout the story.

Remember, we talked about the idea that when Ruth and Naomi came back to the land, they have absolutely nothing and they realized this may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility.

They began to realize that their job really was to be faithful and to faithfully do their best and then take one step at a time.

Because the thing is is none of us in here.

We can't work miracles on our own.

We know what we can do.

We can take a next step.

We can honor God and take one next step.

And the hope was is that, as they started to be faithful and as they started to take next steps, that maybe they would then somehow find God's plan.

They would then step into God's plan.

Have you ever felt that way?

You felt like if I just keep taking next steps, at some point I'll just start just discover God's plan for my life.

Well, what they began to realize is that when you are faithful and you take the next step, you don't walk into God's plan.

You slowly begin to realize that God's plan was already working the whole time, that God doesn't like meet you somewhere along the journey and then decide to do something with our life, that actually, the whole time before we were seeking after him, he was working in our lives.

And what we're beginning to learn at the end of this chapter is the idea that, as God is doing this in their life, what we unintentionally do is we think, okay, well, that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to do that, and what we think is going to happen is like, well, I'm over here doing my best and you're doing your best and somebody else is doing their best, that everybody's going to do their best and we're all going to be in our own little island doing what God's called us to do and that's what we're supposed to do.

But to realize that's not what God does.

God doesn't move in your life and in your life and in my life separate from one another.

But actually, as we are in God's plan, actually he has this amazing way of working it all together, that as we grow together for his glory.

It's amazing what God gets to do.

Because the thing is, god was moving in Naomi's life.

God was moving in Ruth's life.

God was moving in Boaz's life.

I don't know what he was doing with the guy who didn't even get a name.

He was just the guy that didn't want to marry Ruth.

In chapter four he's doing something in his life, kind of getting him out of the way.

You know, he's got a different plan somewhere else, but God was moving all their lives, not so they could be independent of one another, but so that together they could work for this amazing plan that God was doing.

And can I tell you, god has a plan for your life, but it is not independent of his plan for what he wants to do in the church today that we work together, and as we do that together, it's amazing what the Lord can do.

That's why our rallying cry this year is that we want to grow together, we want to take next steps together, because when I grow, you grow, when you grow, your neighbor grows, and when we all do that, we work together.

Because that's what God wants is he wants to redeem our story for his glory.

And so here's the thing If Ruth were with us today here's the question of the day what would Ruth say to us as we are walking away from her story today?

What would she say to us if she could encourage us through her story?

What would she say At the end of it?

She's now got a son.

His name is Obed, which is short, probably, for Obadiah, and so if you need any baby names, obadiah, he'd be the only one in the class to have that name.

No-transcript.

Just stay faithful, because God can do extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness, and so I want you to encourage your neighbor, and I want you to look at your neighbor and say stay faithful, my friend.

No, don't do that.

Don't look at them anymore.

Look at somebody else and say now, stay faithful, my friend, stay faithful.

You know why.

You know why.

I think this is what Ruth would say to all of us.

I think she would say God is going to ask for faithfulness while he restores us by fighting our impossible battles.

I think she's going to say stay faithful, my friend, because you know why, while you are being faithful, god is going to say stay faithful, my friend, because you know you know why, while while you are being faithful, god is going to fight your impossible battles.

That also means God will not always fight our possible battles.

He'll give us the tools and give us the ability and then give us the strength to fight them, but there are some battles we can't fight, there are some things that we can't do anything about, and God wants to fight those battles for us.

Notice how the Bible said that Boaz went to the town gate and just then the family redeemer he had mentioned came by, and so Boaz called out to him.

And then Boaz called the leaders of the town and asked them to sit down as witnesses.

At this point it's all in God's hands, because number one Boaz can only do this much.

He can't convince this other family redeemer not to do this.

He's got to just trust the Lord to do the impossible you want to talk about.

What would be even worse is Naomi and Ruth.

They're not even there.

They're back at home going.

Man Lord, I'm so glad you're in charge because I have got no idea.

I can't do anything about it.

And can you imagine how difficult it is when there's things going on that you can't control?

But it's got to do with you?

Some of you would say, yeah, I know exactly what that feels like.

That's that private battle that I got past.

Well, here's the thing all of us do.

But the amazing thing is is just because you can't control, it doesn't mean that God doesn't know what he's doing.

Doesn't mean that God's not already moving in amazing ways.

What would it look like like?

Here's the question how would you live for God today if you knew he was already working on your tomorrow?

How would you live for God today if you knew that the things that were outside of your control is not outside of his and that, actually, the battles that were impossible for you are just the right size for him and that, even though you couldn't do it, that had nothing to do with what he could do.

And I wonder if Ruth would say you got to stay faithful, because when you get to the end of your strength, you're just now at the beginning of his.

And that's one of the reasons why we read God's word is because all throughout God's word there are so many stories about how people got to the end of their strength and then God does something amazing, and if he did it for them, he'll do it for us.

One of the most amazing examples of this in the Old Testament is about a guy named King Jehoshaphat.

Also, ladies, if you're looking for a family or looking for a name, nobody's gonna have that name, okay, and you can't even shorten it King Jehoshaphat.

So no, it's Jehoshaphat, it's what you have to call him.

And there was this moment when he was the king of Judah and all of these other nations decided we're going to kill you.

They, just they all.

And one of them was Moab.

Thanks, ruth's family, right that one of one of them was the nation of Moab.

They were.

They all decided they were going to come together and kill the nation of Judah, and they had no idea what they were going to do, and so the only thing they had left to do was to pray which is sad, because isn't that the first thing we ought to do?

But all they had left to do is to pray.

And so they got together and they said God, we can't handle this.

There's all these nations that are coming against us.

And while they were praying and while they were fasting, god spoke by his spirit through somebody, and they said this listen, all you, people of Judah and Jerusalem, listen, king Jehoshaphat.

This is what the Lord says.

Don't be afraid, don't be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God's.

Look at somebody and say it doesn't belong to you.

Now look back at them and say but it does belong to God.

That was why he was reminding them hey, listen, it's impossible, perfect.

That means it's not yours, that means it's mine.

He said tomorrow, march out against them.

You will find them coming up from the ascent of Ziz and at the end of the valley that opens up the wilderness of Jeruel, but you will not even have to fight.

Take your positions then stand still and watch the Lord's victory.

He is with you.

O people of Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid or discouraged.

Go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you.

You know, what's amazing is that God said I'm going to tell you exactly where they're coming from.

There's going to be, there's going to be the enemy.

They are going to line up against you.

Your job is not to run from them, your job is to stand there and to trust me.

And you know it's amazing.

The Bible said the next day they went out to do exactly what it was, and as they went, they had a theme song.

And the theme song was they saying give thanks to the Lord, for he is, for his faithful love endures forever.

When is the last time that we trusted God so much that, before he did the miracle, we started celebrating it?

They haven't even seen anything yet, but before it happened, they're saying God, thank you so much for doing the impossible.

And the Bible said, at the very moment they began to sing and give praise the Lord calls the armies of Ammon, moab and Mount Seir to start fighting amongst themselves.

And they killed everybody.

And there they are singing.

You imagine how much more they started singing.

When they walked up and everybody was gone, they were like I knew he would do it.

But the reality is is that God didn't tell them that they weren't going to have to line up.

He didn't tell them they weren't going to have to march out on the battlefield.

He just said when you get there, I'm going to take care of the rest.

How many times do we wonder God where are you?

When he will say I'm going to be with you.

I may need you to step into that environment, I may need you to step up and do what I've called you to do, but I'm going to be there to do the impossible every step of the way.

And can I tell you, whatever's going on in your life, I think what Ruth would tell us is this.

I think she would say to stay faithful, do what you can and trust God with the rest.

To stay faithful, do what you can and trust God to do the rest.

Sometimes we can't even see the strength of God until we get to the end of our own, because many times, if we're operating under our own strength, we think we did it, we think we came up with it, but when we have nothing left, we don't know what else to do and then something amazing happens.

We realize only the Lord could have done that.

And I think what Ruth would tell us is that God does extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness and that God wants to restore our story for his glory.

So I think she would say if you're in the middle of a impossible battle, stay faithful, do what you can and trust God with the rest and watch what he can do.

So look at your neighbor and say stay faithful, my friend.

Now look at him.

You got to have a little bit of an attitude, but not really.

Stay faithful, my friend.

Look at him, stay faithful.

Now there you go.

You got to stay faithful.

You got to stay faithful because God wants to work in our impossible battles.

But here's the other one is that God wants to restore us by using our many disasters.

God wants to use not just our victories, but many times we see him working through the difficult situations, through the difficult things.

That's going on when things don't make sense.

But somehow God is able to work out impossible situations.

And God asks for faithfulness while he restores us by using our many disasters.

And what I love about this is if you remember that you know, boaz goes through that whole situation where he's talking to the, to the redeemer, and he decides he's going to.

You know, give up to to Boaz.

And Boaz is like all right, everybody's witnesses, Give me your shoe, you know I am.

I am now going to own the property, I'm going to marry Ruth and all this.

And then what's amazing is it's the townspeople that start to notice what God's been doing the whole time, cause notice how they went and they started celebrating.

Praise the Lord, who has done these things.

And they said this.

They said we are witnesses.

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

May the Lord give you descendants by this young woman who is like those of our ancestor, Perez and the son of Tamar and Judah.

Praise the Lord.

They said to Naomi, who is now provided a redeemer for your family.

May this child be famous in Israel.

May you restore your youth and care for you in your old age, for he is the son of your daughter-in-law, whose love for you is better than seven sons.

And so they're saying wow, out of all of this devastation, look at what God did.

In other words, what they were saying is when they said that, like Rachel and Leah, they were saying is may the Lord take a barren widow and give you a family.

Most scholars believe that the reason why the narrator was very careful to say the Holy Spirit inspired them to say and then they had a baby was because, remember, ruth was married to Mahalon for 10 years.

They had to have a child, so it's likely that she was barren and, as I said now, because of this terrible situation, now look what God did, look how God brought her into your life, look how God put that together.

And now, may what was considered a disaster create for you a legacy of joy that will span generations.

What started as a tragedy ends in a little boy named Obed, an amazing moment.

And then they say to them may the Lord give you descendants by this young woman who will be like those of our ancestor Perez, the son of Tamar and Judah.

Now, what that means is that was the first time in the book of Genesis where the Leverite law, which is what the kinsman redeemer, comes and creates a family and all that.

That's the first time that was there, and it became a situation because of a tragedy where someone passed away without having a son and they had to go and kind of what happened to Ruth and they were saying just like that tragedy created the nation of Judah, let that be so.

In other words, may the tragedy that brought you together actually become a blessing.

May the fact that this was even necessary become one of the greatest blessings in your life.

And then I love how they were talking to Naomi and they said praise the Lord, your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has been better to you than seven sons.

In other words, what started as a disaster turned into a miracle because the fact that all of that bad stuff happened and it caused you to come back here, you got to see the beautiful thing that God was able to take out of that disaster and make something beautiful.

And my question would be what if we stopped looking at our disaster as a mess and started seeing it as an opportunity for God to make a miracle?

What if the worst day of your life God can use to do something beautiful?

Can I tell you, some of the most amazing people I've ever met have been through some of the darkest places, but then God took those dark places and turned it into a testimony that they're able to share with other people.

And I'm not saying that God did those things to them, but I'm saying he's able to use anything and everything to do amazing things.

And what if that's your story?

What if that's my story?

What if the bad things that happened to us wasn't what disqualified us, but what if it's what qualifies us for God to do something amazing in our life?

Because he is able to use our worst disasters to make something wonderful?

Because God's word is true when it says we know that God causes everything.

Somebody say everything, somebody else say everything.

I looked that word up in the Greek and it means everything.

Yes, god causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

And can I tell you I love this verse two times.

I love this verse when I'm telling somebody else and they're going through a hard time.

I love that verse because I want to encourage them.

Be encouraged, whatever it is you're going through right now.

All things are going to work together.

I also love this verse after something is over with and I can look back and go.

You know what God works everything out for the good together for all those who love it.

I love it when it's over with.

You know, what I don't love it Is when it hasn't happened yet, when I'm in the middle of the everything and I'm having to stand on that promise and say, god, I know you work everything for the good, and if you could do it by 3 pm today I'd really appreciate it.

And then 3 pm gets there and goes God, I know you're busy.

There's a lot of people, there's seven, eight, 20,000 billion people, so how about 4 pm?

God can love your word any day now.

You know this kind of thing and it's just that's when I don't like it.

But it's true and it's huge and it's valuable.

And for some of us, we've been walking this journey long enough to realize that God is faithful and he's able to take the darkest things in our life and to turn them into beautiful things.

And I don't know for some of you, if we had time, you could tell that testimony about something that you'd never want to go through again.

Wow, you wouldn't take anything for it because of what God did.

Let me give you an example.

This is a silly example.

There's a lot more serious ones.

Let me give you a silly example of this Back several years ago.

I can tell you how long.

So then you figure out how old I am.

Several years ago, we had not moved to Bowling Green yet and we were in this season where I knew God was doing something different in my family.

I knew that there was something changing in our family, something changing in our ministry.

Didn't quite know what it was, and so I started praying, trying to figure out what we were supposed to do, and started looking online somewhere If there was other churches that maybe we could go to, just didn't know what else to do, right.

And so one day I'm looking online and I see a church online and I instantly knew it had to be God.

I mean, I just you just have one of those moments.

You just know I knew it had to be God because it was located in Hilton Head Island.

God speaks to people on the beach.

Have you noticed that?

Right, absolutely, I knew.

I knew instantly that had to be the will of God, already had my house planned, but there it is.

Right there, okay, that's where the Lord was gonna meet with us.

I mean it was gonna be awesome.

And so I contacted them and they were like absolutely, come see us.

Then I knew it had to be God, and so we drove out there, kept the kids at home, we drove out there and we went and we saw the beach.

And then we were even more certain that's got to be the Lord.

Have you seen the beaches at Hilton Head Island?

The Lord speaks on the beach.

It's in the Bible, in like second hesitations, chapter 12, it's there.

And so I was so excited.

And so then we, we go to the church.

Here's the thing honest truth.

The church looks like a resort.

You walk in and you expect them to like take your bags.

I mean, you know what I mean Like can I take your Bible and escort you to your seat?

I was like this has got to be the Lord.

This is amazing.

We go in there, we go through the interview process, we do the things and the stuff when it's over with, the pastor says we love you, everybody loves you.

I think this is okay.

We got a couple of things we got to figure out.

You guys go ahead and go on home out.

I was like the Lord is good, someone's got to suffer for Jesus on Hilton Head.

Might as well be us, you know.

And so we're on our way home and I'm so excited.

Two days go by, this pastor calls me one of the sweetest guys I'd ever met and he said Brandon, I just got to tell you something, man we love you, we love your, we love your wife, we love what's happening, we love everything, but we can't hire you.

Well, the devil is a lie in Jesus name.

I mean, I didn't know what was going on.

He said no, but we can't.

He said here's the thing.

I've been praying about this and I don't think this is right.

He said I feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me God has something else for you and if we hire you, that's not going to be God's plan for your life.

So I don't know what God's got for you, but you can't come to Hilton Head.

Can I tell you I started binding the devil in Jesus name and said Lord, I don't know how the devil got in his ear, but if you want to call him back and tell him something else, he didn't call me back.

And can I tell you I was so mad, because it's beautiful, it was awesome, but you know, it was amazing about that.

I really was.

I was, I was.

It was a disaster.

I was so discouraged, I was so disappointed, I didn't know what to do, but can I tell you what it did, though, is it humbled me to say, god, I have no idea what you want to do, and I started saying this prayer for the very first time.

I started saying, god, I don't care what it is, where it is, how you do it, I just need to know what you want me to do, and I'm willing to do whatever you want me to do.

And it was in that final, those moments of humility, where God started planting some seeds.

That is now what we're able to be part of today, called real life church, and it all happened in a disaster where God had something else.

And can I tell you, I I'm so glad I don't live in Hilton head Island.

I'm so glad I live in Bowling Green, kentucky, because none of this would be here if we went to Hilton head Island, or maybe it would be, but it'd be somebody else.

But I get the honor of being your pastor because God said no, and now we get to be here together, and so can I tell you, sometimes the very best thing that God can do for us is to tell us no and to give us disasters, allow things, not stop these things, so then he can cause them to be building blocks to make something beautiful.

And I think that if Ruth were here, she would say stay faithful.

God can take a mess and make a miracle if you just stay faithful.

Look at your neighbor one more time and say stay faithful.

My friend, you got to stay faithful.

I have no idea what God wants to do in your life.

What I do know is that he wants to do something.

But what we got to do is realize that God does extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness and that God wants to redeem our story for his glory.

And what he wants to do is he wants to fight our impossible battles.

He wants to take our messes and make miracles out of them.

And one more thing, and that is this that God asks us for faithfulness while he restores us by doing more than we can see.

If you want to take extra notes, you can say more than we can see or even imagine.

God is always doing more.

We can only see with our perspective.

God sees with an eternal perspective and God is always doing more than we can imagine.

Remember how I was telling you that at the end of the story it was that they named this little boy Obed, which means servant of the Lord, and he became the father of Jesse.

The end of the story.

It was that they named this little boy Obed, which means servant of the Lord, and he became the father of Jesse, the grandfather of David.

That would have been it.

And King David wasn't the only David that had ever been, you know, been alive.

So they've been.

Oh cool, look, there was a guy named David.

But then that's when the narrator inspired of the ancestor Perez, that was the son of Judah, from the tribe of Judah, that he had children and eventually had Solomon, which is the father of Boaz, the father of Obed.

Obed was the father of Jesse and Jesse was the father of that David.

To us, once again, the original audience would have said what?

This whole time I thought you were telling some sweet story about a poor lady who was down on her luck and then God worked a miracle for her and they just went off in the sunset and he's like I was, and that was a piece of a big plan that God had.

And here's the amazing thing they never knew, they never realized that they were part of a royal dynasty, they were just of a royal dynasty.

They were just trying to be faithful.

They were just trying to do the next right thing.

They were just trying to say God, this may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility.

So I'm going to do the next thing, not knowing that God was using their faithfulness and their obedience to bring the nation out of the darkest period of their life, of the nation's life, called the time of the judges and usher in the kingdom.

They had no idea, but the reality was would it have mattered?

Because what mattered was not to do the impossible.

What mattered was to do the next right thing.

And so the reality is, our job is to stay faithful.

We have no idea what our faithfulness is doing for people we may never meet.

We have no idea what God is doing through the fact that you decide to get up and go to work every day and honor your family, that you decide to step back into a difficult situation, that you decide to not give up on raising your kids, that you decide to not give up on your relationships.

You decide not to give up on going to school.

You decide not to give up on your relationships.

You decide not to give up on going to school, you decide not to give up on your job, you decide not to give up on your grandkids.

You're just taking the next right step.

What if God has you a part of something that's so much bigger than you can imagine and you won't even know about it until you get to heaven one day?

And then you realize I had no idea, but God was always doing something more than I could imagine.

It reminds me of what we're reading right now in God's Word.

For those of you, yes, we made it through the book of Ezekiel, praise the Lord, and we made it to this book called Daniel, reading one chapter at a time, and if you'd like to read God's word with us, you can text RLCBible to 94000, or you can scan the QR code and man, I just love the book of Daniel and I love that really, the theme of Daniel is that God is in control, and what I love about this is I think about Daniel in a lot of ways, that I think about kind of the situation that Ruth and them got into because Daniel spends his entire life being somewhere he doesn't want to be.

The reason why Daniel was in Babylon was because the nation of Judah was destroyed.

They kept turning their back on God until finally God removed his hand of blessing and they were destroyed and Daniel was taken to the capital city, the Susa of Babylon.

He doesn't want to be there, he's a prisoner, basically.

And while he's there, can you imagine?

Everything you ever wanted, everything you ever hoped for, is now gone and you know you're going to spend the rest of your life not where you want to be, not doing what you want to do.

You feel like maybe your life is over.

But instead of giving up, instead of realizing, hey, I can't make a difference here, so I'm just going to go along, just kind of, whatever the Bible said, really the only thing that he could do to honor God was something that may seem kind of silly at the time.

The Bible said this in Daniel 1.

It said Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king.

He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat the things of the unacceptable foods.

Well, why?

Well, because the other food was offered to idols in idol worship and offered up as sacrifices to the emperor, and he didn't want to be part of that.

It's like I can't do everything, but I can take one step of faithfulness.

And what's amazing is that one step led to another step, to where he had three friends who they started taking that step.

And then the king had a dream and because Daniel was obeying God and God was moving in his life, he was able to interpret that dream.

And then we see how the three his three friends, were able to stand up against the emperor because of their faithfulness.

And then God continued to move in Daniel's life and he kept interpreting dreams, and all because he decided from an early age I'm going to be faithful, I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this, but if I'm gonna be here and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna trust the Lord.

And he kept doing that.

And then there was a time when they didn't want him around anymore because he was worshiping his God, and so they decided to try to kill him, threw him in a lion's den.

Didn't work.

He's being faithful, just being faithful.

And then what was amazing is, as you read toward the end of the book of Daniel, god started giving him amazing dreams about the future, and in these dreams he was telling about one day.

A king is gonna come.

We're gonna call him the Ancient of Days.

It's gonna be amazing.

It's gonna be awesome.

The nation will be restored, all of this.

And then he finished writing that and he died.

He never got to see that happen Spoiler alert.

But the part that he was part of what he was over was called the kingmakers, and since he was a revered leader, according to history, when the nation of Israel went back to Israel, they took his letter with them, his book, but they also kept it in Babylon and they read it because they knew that Daniel was a holy man and they read it.

And for 500 years they read the letter of Daniel, until one day, as they're reading the letter of Daniel, they look up and they see a star they'd never seen before and they said, wait a minute, that Daniel was talking about that star.

That must mean that a king has been born, and so we call them magi.

They were king.

Makers.

They get on their camels, they travel on the Silk Road until they get to the very same field, same fields where Boaz met Ruth.

Same field, same fields where Boaz met Ruth, because it was in the town of Bethlehem, where they saw the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, all because people were willing to be faithful.

We have no idea what God could do through your life and what God could do through my life and what God could do for all of us if we quit trying to change the world and instead try to take a step and let God do that impossible thing.

But I got a feeling that if you take a step, and you take a step, and I take a step, god can change things.

And so the promise of God's word is this and that is let us not get weary.

The promise of God's word is this and that is let us not get weary, let us not get tired of doing what is good For at just the right time.

We will reap a harvest if we don't give up.

You know the greatest act of faith is faithfulness.

You know we overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do through a lifetime of faithfulness.

I heard this phrase one time that said the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago.

The second best time is today.

So I don't know what might be going on in your life right now, but what I do know is God can do extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness.

I don't know what that means for you.

Maybe you would say but, pastor, I've made a lot of mistakes, I've done a lot of things.

I've not made some of those steps.

Okay, well, what about today?

Where could we start today to take those next steps?

Where could we say, god, I have some impossible battles, but I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to give them to you.

Maybe we would stop looking at the messes in our life and say, god, you've got some amazing opportunities to work some miracles.

I'm going to be faithful and take the next step and watch what you can do.

And what if we trusted that your life has amazing value?

Do you know that in the kingdom of God, you are already significant, you're already accepted.

You're already secure.

You got nothing to prove and nobody to impress.

In the kingdom of God, god isn't waiting to love you.

He's in love with you right now that you've got all the value you'll ever need, because the king says you're his.

What would it look like if we trusted that faithfulness?

In just a moment, the band's going to lead us in a song of worship and I don't know what next step you may need to take.

Maybe you're in the greatest season of your life.

Right now, god's doing amazing things, and this is the moment of just celebration.

God, thank you for what you're doing, thank you for how you're being faithful, thank you that I've seen the mess and now I can see the miracle.

Maybe that needs to be you.

Maybe you're in here and it's the opposite of that.

You feel like you're right in the middle of a mess and you love that verse that God works everything to the good, but you're right in the middle of the everything and you want to know.

God, are you going to make it?

Are you going to do it?

Can I tell you, yes, and so maybe you just need to lay that back down and say God, I'm gonna trust you, I'm gonna let you have your way In just a moment, as the band leads us in this time of worship, it's gonna be our opportunity to lay something down before the Lord and for one other person.

Maybe you're in here and maybe you don't have a relationship with Jesus.

Maybe you've heard all about him.

You celebrated as we had our time of baptism, but you've never made a decision to follow Jesus.

Can I tell you you've never been more in love than you are right now, that God's not mad at you, he's not offended at you, he's in love with you.

God is not interested in how many times you fall.

He's interested in how many times you get back up again.

And what salvation is is not figuring it out for yourself.

Salvation is giving it all over to him and saying God, I'm not gonna be able to figure it out, but I turn my life over to you.

I confess my sin.

Wash it away, be my Lord and my savior.

Jesus himself said the only way I can describe it is like being born again.

Is that you, in just a moment, when we stand to worship, maybe your next step of worship is inside your worship God is that connect card, and on the back of worship is inside your worship guide is that connect card, and on the back of it is the plan of salvation.

And we don't want you to do this by yourself.

We want to celebrate coming alive into the kingdom of God with you, and so whenever we begin to worship, I want you to take this card and I want you to slip out of your seat and go back to the prayer table and say I want to know Jesus.

I'm going to tell you.

It's one thing to know about the love of God.

It's quite another to experience him for yourself.

If you go all in with him, god wants to change your life in every way.

Let's pray together right now.

God, thank you so much for today.

Thank you, god, that you see us and that you know us and that you're for us.

God, I'm so thankful for the book of Ruth because it reminds us, lord, that you are working in so many ways, that, lord, there are things that we will never know until we get on the other side of heaven that you were doing the whole time, god, that you are always working and you are fighting those impossible battles.

God, there's been battles that we'll never even know were there, because you fought them and won them and we walked in freedom, that we didn't even know that we needed.

God, I'm thankful that you can turn every single mess into a miracle and, god, I'm so very thankful that you do extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness.

God, as we get ready to end our time in the book of Ruth and we have other things coming up I pray that you will burn inside of our heart that our goal is faithfulness and as we stay faithful.

God, you do amazing things.

You redeem our story so we can be part of yours.

Thank you, jesus.

In Jesus' name we pray Amen, amen.

Would you stand with me all over the house this morning?

Like I said, the band is going to lead us in a song of worship and I don't know exactly what next step you need to take.

Maybe you want to find a quiet place up here and just kind of symbolically lay some of those battles down.

Maybe you'd like someone to pray with you.

We have a prayer team in the back.

You're welcome to slip out and we'd love to pray with you about whatever is.

Maybe you want to receive Jesus today Be the greatest next step you could take.

But we have the next few moments.

Let's focus our attention on the Lord and just allow the Lord to move in our hearts and our lives today.