Ruth: Our Redeemer (4- He Redeems Our Hope)

getting that out and getting that ready.

If this is your first time joining us, I want to say welcome.

Thank you so much for being here with us today.

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We even have free binders for you to put your notes in, so make sure you get all of that.

And this is an exciting day for us at RLC because we're going to honor some graduates at the end of the service.

Can we go and celebrate some of them?

They've been working hard and may I be one of the next people to tell you all those finals are over, in Jesus' name.

For those of you who graduated high school, don't worry, they just get more difficult from here.

That's fine, all right.

And for some of those who graduated college, you're done.

So congratulations to you, and we're going to honor you and pray over you at the end of the service.

But also, this is life group preview day.

We absolutely love life groups and might I ask you, let us summer together.

Okay, we're going to use summer as a verb around here and we're going to have a good time.

We've got some great life groups and so make sure, before you leave today, you stop by any of the displays and you ask about those life groups and you sign up for those, because those will fill up fast and summer's a great time to get involved in life groups.

It's a shorter semester, so if you've never checked one out before, you can do that.

And you know a lot of traveling.

A lot of things happen during life during summer, so it's good to be connected through a group.

All right, okay.

Well, if you've got your Bibles out I know it takes a minute to find the book of Ruth.

It's a small book.

It's in the Old Testament.

If you haven't found it yet, just stop there and we won't know any different.

Okay, we will assume you found it.

And if you've been with us over the past few weeks, the book of Ruth is a small book but it's got a really big idea, and this is the big idea we've been working with, and that is that God uses ordinary faithfulness to redeem people in extraordinary ways.

God uses the everyday, what some people don't always notice, ordinary faithfulness, to redeem people in extraordinary ways.

And that's why I'm saying it's a small book with a really big idea that God knows what he's doing, that God's got a plan and, right in the middle of one of the worst times in Israel's history, god was doing something amazing through some ordinary people who just decided they were going to be faithful, and they did some extraordinary things.

And we're going to see today how, as the story continues to turn, god is going to start to show someone in this story that he's moving.

But in order to kind of help us get our minds around this, this, this I don't know if this happens to you, but it happens to me all the time that God kind of has to help me get perspective, I want to kind of play a game, if you don't mind.

I want to see if you can name an object.

Okay, you ready.

Here we go, see if you can name this.

Okay, some of you got this, some of you got a quarter, some of you are going.

I don't see a quarter.

Yes, of course it's a quarter.

Well, yeah, it's a little close, but here's another one.

Can you name that A couple of people saw it as a palm tree.

Yeah, yeah, some of you are going.

No, let me get a little more.

Okay, now you see, maybe palm tree.

Of course, that's where I want to be, not right now, but as soon as church is over with.

All right, yes, I just wanted God to translate me, like he did in the book of Acts.

Here's one more.

Tell me y'all know it's a cat, all right, how about this one?

It's got to be a cat.

Now, this is the natural face of a cat.

Yes, he's plotting on somebody and somebody's not going to live to see the next morning.

Okay, you could tell that by that cat, right?

So?

So here's the thing is, when you, when you first look at some of these pictures, you kind of get a little bit of an idea.

You're not so sure, but the more perspective you get, the further away you get from an object.

So many times you can see it more clearly.

Can I tell you?

That's a lot of times what happens in our own lives.

So many times we are just so locked into this moment, this current situation, this current.

Let's get that picture off there as fast as possible.

All right, it was looking at me.

Okay, that's what was the problem.

But we get so locked into the moment that we don't always see what God is doing, which is why sometimes we have to step back a little bit and get a bigger picture of what's going on, and when we do, we're surprised sometimes about what the Lord is actually doing.

We're going to see that in our text today, and my hope is is that for some of us, god's going to reveal that in our own lives.

And so, if you're ready, let's jump into God's word today.

Ruth, chapter two, verse 18, says this she, ruth, carried her harvest back into town and showed it to her mother-in-law, who's Naomi.

Ruth also gave her the roasted grain that was left over from her meal.

Now, if you weren't with us last week, what happened was is Ruth decided that she's got to do something right.

It wasn't her fault.

They were in the situation, but it was part of her responsibility to do something about it.

So she goes out to try to work in a field, and it just so happens, wink, wink.

Just so happens that she goes and works in the field of a guy named Boaz, and Boaz has heard of her story and he decides he's going to bless her.

And so instead of getting just enough grain for her and Naomi to make it for an afternoon, he gives her enough grain that she's able to eat on it for like two weeks.

So it was a huge blessing.

And so when she sees this, naomi kind of has a little bit of a fit.

She's like wait a minute, where did you get this grain?

Where did you work?

May the Lord bless the one who helped you.

So Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man whose field she had worked.

She said the man I worked with today is named Boaz.

And Naomi just goes crazy.

She's like May the Lord bless him.

Naomi told her daughter-in-law.

Then Ruth said Then Ruth said what's more, boaz told me even told me to come back and stay with his harvesters until the entire harvest is completed.

Well good, naomi exclaimed Do as he has said my daughter, stay with the young women right through the whole harvest.

You might be harassed in other fields, but you'll be safe with him.

So Ruth worked alongside the women in Boaz's field and gathered grain from there until the end of the barley harvest.

Then she continued working with them through the wheat harvest in early summer, all the while she lived with her mother-in-law.

Now this would be the moment when there was like the montage of her working and every once in a while, just kind of winking at Boaz and kind of going back to what she was doing.

And they're just kind of winking at Boaz and kind of going back to what she was doing and they're just kind of whatever.

So about six weeks would have passed between that moment and the moment we've got right here.

Here it is.

Next chapter says one day, naomi said to Ruth, my daughter it's time that I found a permanent home for you so that you will be provided for.

Boaz is a close relative of ours and he's been very kind by letting you gather grain with his young women.

Tonight he will be winnowing grain in the threshing floor.

Now do as I tell you.

First of all, take a bath.

The Lord's gonna speak to her If she'll just take a bath, all right.

Put on some perfume and dress in your nicest clothes.

Then go to the threshing floor, but don't let Boaz see you until he has finished eating and drinking.

Be sure to notice where he lies down and then go and uncover his feet and lie down there.

He will tell you what to do, which is usually put that back.

I was cold.

No, that's not what happened.

He'll tell you what to do, which is usually put that back.

I was cold.

No, that's not what happened.

He'll tell you what to do.

I will do everything you say.

Ruth replies.

Now what in the world is going on, right?

There's way too much to cover here, which is why at the bottom of your message notes if you're taking analog notes there's a QR code you can scan that.

You can go to my blog and tomorrow I'm going to release for you a whole lot of other stuff that's going on.

But today we're going to focus on Naomi Because if you were with us back in chapter one, when she got back to Bethlehem, she told everybody don't call me Naomi anymore, call me Mara, which means bitterness, because Naomi's name in Hebrew means sweetness, as we would say in Alabama.

She was a sweetie pie.

Right, she was sweetie, but when all this happened, she said don't call me sweetness anymore, call me Mara for its bitterness.

But something happened in this chapter that she went from Miss Bitterness back to Miss Sweetness.

Now she is trying to do something good for Ruth, and my thing is is if we can realize what this is, I wonder for some of us, god wants to start to do that in our life.

And here's the big idea today and that is, by the way, I made an error, okay.

So if you are taking a digital notes, don't pay attention.

Okay, I didn't make any error, I don't know what that other guy was talking about.

If you're taking analog notes, I made an error and I put God redeems us through our can we just act like that's not there?

All right, mark that away.

And it's supposed to say God redeems us as we dare to hope again.

I don't know, I have no excuse.

I typed it wrong.

Okay, so that's okay.

God redeems us as we dare to hope again.

Look at somebody and say dare to hope again.

Something happened in Naomi's life to where she goes from feeling bitter to now she's excited.

She's now starting to realize something is going on, and it kind of so.

Remember in chapter one, when she developed this bitterness.

It was because her and her husband, elimelech, and her two sons, milion and Kilion.

They were in a famine, and so they had to leave and go to a foreign nation called Moab.

While they were there, milion and Kilion married Orpah and Ruth, and then disaster happened.

All three of the men died and she decides she's going to go back to Bethlehem, where she's from, and one of the daughter's-in-law, orpah, decides to stay, so it's just her and her other daughter-in-law that go back.

And we talked about how, even in the middle of some of the darkest moments in our life, god can redeem our suffering and he can redeem our sorrow.

But then, as we get into chapter two, we realized that Ruth said hey, listen, we didn't come here to die, we came here to survive.

And it may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility.

And so she decides to be faithful and take the next step of what she can do, and she's starting to realize that God does amazing things through ordinary faithfulness.

And it just so happens that she ends up in the farm, or at the farm, in the harvest fields of Boaz, and what we are going to see is that God is able to redeem us to a point that we're able to hope again.

And so what does that word redemption mean?

If you've been with us, redemption means to restore something that he wants to restore, anything that is lost, broken or in need, and he wants to restore our ability to hope again.

And the word hope is kind of a slippery word.

It can mean something different for everybody, but in the context of this, hope to me means I am certain that God is up to something Like.

I don't know what it is, I can't put my finger on it, but the more I back up and the more I get a little bit more perspective, the more I am absolutely certain that God is doing something that I just can't see yet.

And we're going to see how this happens in the life of Naomi and how maybe for some of us today it's time for us to dare to hope again.

So let's look at the text again.

The Bible says this.

It says where did you gather all this grain?

Where did you work?

May the Lord bless the one who helped you.

And so Naomi sees all of this and she's blown away.

That means to tell us she didn't expect her to have a lot of luck.

She thought maybe she'd have a little bit of grain.

But not only did she have enough grain for like two weeks, she even brought a doggie back where they had went and had dinner and she brought leftovers so they can eat right now.

They don't have to wait until something else cooks.

And then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man whose field she had worked, and she said the man I worked with today.

That person's name is Boaz.

And that's when you can tell the light starts coming on, because then she says may the Lord bless him.

Naomi told the daughter he is showing his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband.

Now the thing is is when we read this in English it's kind of lost on us, but most scholars believe that when she's saying he, because of the way it's constructed in the original language, we think that she's talking about Boaz.

But she's actually likely talking about the Lord when she's saying this, and so what she's actually saying is may the Lord bless Boaz.

But she's actually likely talking about the Lord when she's saying this, and so what she's actually saying is may the Lord bless Boaz.

The Lord is showing kindness to us as well as to your dead husband.

And so when she realizes where Ruth has been, it's like all of a sudden she steps back a little bit further and goes wait a minute.

I think maybe something else is going on here that I don't realize, because what she says is that man is one of our closest family redeemers, so do what he says.

Now that doesn't mean anything to us.

What is a family redeemer or family restorer?

But in the Old Testament, a kinsman or family redeemer is someone who restores what is lost, dead or stolen.

Because what would happen back then is they didn't have, like a social safety net like we would have in the United States today.

If something happened, you couldn't call the police, they didn't have a police force.

What they had was family and they had a very close-knit family.

So what would happen is is if anything happened in your life and you couldn't take care of yourself for one reason or another, a kinsman redeemer the closest family redeemer, closest family member to you was the one who would step up to try to help you.

So, for instance, if you became destitute and you had to sell your land, you could sell it to your family redeemer and then at the year of Jubilee they would give it back to you.

If, for some reason, something happened and someone passed away, that other person would step in and fulfill that role to continue that family line.

If something bad happened, something was stolen, that person would step in to redeem.

So pretty much whatever you needed, you or them would operate as that family.

This is the guy they've been looking for.

This is the guy that they were hoping for.

Ruth had absolutely no idea, but all of a sudden, naomi is starting to realize something, and that is this that when we faithfully do our best and we take one step at a time, that's all God asks for us to do.

Did you know that?

This is it?

This is what God says you faithfully do your best and you take one step at a time.

And what we talked about last week is many times when we do this, what we think we're doing is is we're not walking into nothing.

We're walking into the plan of God, and that's true.

But what Naomi is starting to realize, as she's stepping back and she's looking at this and getting better perspective, she's not walking into the plan of God.

She's just starting to notice that God's plan has been going on this whole time, that it wasn't as though God was busy somewhere else blessing somebody else, and then he was like, oh yeah, by the way, I need to not forget about those two ladies.

And then he decides to create a plan and then they walk into God's plan.

Actually, god has been moving behind the scenes all the time, and when she starts to step back and go.

Wait a minute.

Are you telling me you had no idea where to go and you just so happen to go?

Get to know the very guy who's the one that can rescue us?

That can't be a coincidence, it can't be.

And then he blessed us.

It can't be.

Something else must be going on, and you can tell she's starting to realize the Lord is at work, and as the Lord is at work, it begins to transform what she's thinking about.

And that's my hope for all of us today.

Sometimes we get so locked into what's going on right now we forget that the Lord is moving and that we're not just walking into God's plan, but we're right in the middle of a plan that God has had for us for quite a while, and God is real good at performing everything he said that he was going to do.

And so my hope for some of us today is to realize that God does extraordinary things when we decide to have ordinary faithfulness and do our best.

And for some of us, god wants to restore us and cause us to dare to hope again.

And so this is the question of the day, and that is this what happens when we begin to see our lives through the lens of God's long-term faithfulness.

What happens to us when we start to look around and go wait a minute, god's not just getting started.

God's been at this for a long time.

God's been preparing this.

God didn't raise Boaz up in a weekend, like he's not.

He's not like a weekend old.

I mean this guy.

He's probably in his forties.

He's been around for a while.

God has been working on this guy's character for a while.

God's been preparing this over here Like God's on the move.

Can I tell you God's on the move in your life.

And if we can get the same idea that Naomi got in her mind, I think that God maybe wants to do some things in our life.

And I want us to look at the first five verses in chapter three, because now Naomi has gone from this bitterness to miss sweetness all over again and she's going to start playing her role.

She's starting to realize, okay, god's up to something.

So instead of now me trying to work against him, I'm going to start working with what God is doing, and maybe for some of us, it's our time to start doing that as well.

I want to show you three things that happen when we start to see our lives through the lens of God's long-term faithfulness.

Here's the first one, and that is when we see God is working.

Our hope leads us to faithfully dare to end our mourning, to faithfully dare to end a season of mourning in our life.

Look at somebody and say I dare you, I dare you, I wanted to do the whole, I dare you to move, but then I want to go into that song.

You know, I dare you to move that whole thing.

Okay, I would sing it in my head like for three days but I dare you.

So it's the thing of you could stay there.

But what if God is daring you to move?

What if he's daring us to trust him to do something else?

Naomi got it.

I see that God is moving, so now I'm gonna step into what's possible.

Look at what happens.

She says one day, six weeks later.

So maybe it took her a little while to get in her mind.

Okay, how can I get in on what God is doing?

But six weeks later she says my daughter, it is time that I found a permanent home.

By the way, the Hebrew word for home means permanent rest.

It's time for me to find a permanent rest for you.

Tonight, boaz will be winnowing barley.

And now do what I tell you take a bath, put on some perfume and dress in your nicest clothes.

Now, can I tell you, and dress in your nicest clothes.

Now can I tell you.

This is daring to hope.

This is daring to do something that not everybody did, and some of the things that we don't realize in this text is, first of all, that, unfortunately, they didn't have access to showers as much as we have today.

This was a dry and humid place, and so when you got ready for a big event, you went and took a bath, praise the Lord, right, but then also you would put on perfume.

So, in other words, she's saying you're going to have one of the biggest days of your life.

Get ready, something amazing is about to happen.

But then what I love is she says go, put on your nicest clothes.

And what we don't always realize is, up until then, most likely she had probably been wearing mourning clothes because she was a widow, she was a beggar, she was at the lowest class of society, and so she would have been working in widow's clothes, which what that would tell to all the men is leave her alone.

She's mourning, she's off limits for anyone that is wanting to start a family not her.

And you know what Naomi tells her.

She said hey, listen, it's time for your mourning to be over with God's up to something.

So I want you to go take a bath, go put on some perfume, and then I want you to dress up like you can dress up, because for a long time you've been mourning over something.

You've been mourning over my dead son, and I'm thankful for that.

But your life is not over.

It's time for you to move forward.

It's time for you to get rid of your mourning clothes and put back on your available clothes, because it's time to live Again.

Can I tell you the truth, and that is bad things have happened.

What if it's time to stop defining ourselves by our worst moments?

What if we can acknowledge, for some of us, that bad things have happened?

Bad things have happened to us that we had nothing to do with.

Bad things have happened to us that we had something to do with.

And the problem is is we are in a season of mourning over what could have been, what should have been, what was, and there's a place for that.

But what if, for some of us, what God is challenging us to do is to dare to hope again and to say that's what was, but I'm not going to be defined by the worst moments of my life.

What if it's time to turn the page because God is moving?

What if it's time to realize what was?

Carry it with you, but step forward again, because your life is not over.

God still has something else he wants to do in your life.

There's a season for mourning and then there's a season for moving forward, and that's what Naomi realizes is that God wants to restore us to dare to hope again.

It reminds me of another place in the Bible when this happened and it was in the life of Samuel, and Samuel was the one that God used to anoint the first king of Israel, and they thought they had found the best king.

He was head and shoulders above everybody else, apparently, he was handsome, he was strong, he was all the things, and God worked these amazing miracles so that he could become the first king.

But then it went south like bad, like really, really bad, and Samuel was trying to retire, like he was trying to be done with it and let the king take over.

And then the king messed up, and someone we don't know exactly whose fault it was.

You know, if you're Sam, you're like somebody messed up around here and he actually goes into a season of mourning because that was supposed to be the king.

He was supposed to be the one, but I love what God told him.

The Bible said.

He said now the Lord said to Samuel you have mourned long enough for Saul.

I have rejected him as king of Israel, so go to Bethlehem, find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king, which, by the way, was David, the great grandson of Ruth.

And so long before the king ever fell, god had been working a plan so that, when the time was right, god was going to raise up a new king.

Part of his story is the ordinary faithfulness of Naomi and Ruth, and God had been preparing all this time.

And so can I just challenge maybe some of us in here today, and that is no matter what's been going on in your life.

In no way am I trying to cheapen or lessen how difficult it has been and what a process it's been for you to get through.

All I'm doing is is saying that we don't need to be defined by the worst moments of our life, but we can be defined by what God can do in our life.

That's why Jeremiah we just got through reading him as a church, when he saw the devastation of Jerusalem all around him and it seems like everything is over with he still says I still dare to hope when I remember this the faithful love of the Lord never ends.

His mercies never cease.

Great is his faithfulness.

His mercies begin afresh each morning and I say to myself the Lord is my inheritance, therefore I will hope in him.

How can Jeremiah say this when he's looking at a devastated city?

It's because he's not just looking at the city, he's stepping back and he's seeing God's faithfulness and he's going.

This is a page in my life, but this is not my life.

God is doing something bigger than I can imagine, and here's, here's my question for you, and that is because God is in control.

Is it time to stop mourning over something?

Is it time to forgive yourself and to let yourself move forward?

Is it time to say you know what I'm not taking away from what happened, but it's time to remove those clothes of mourning, remove what could have been, let it be what it was and is it time to start moving forward again, because God wants to restore.

When we are willing to dare to hope again that if God is moving, then maybe he still has a plan for our life.

Look at somebody and say, dare to trust the Lord, he still has a plan for our life.

Look at somebody and say, dare to trust the Lord, dare to trust him, dare to say that God is still moving.

And when you dare to hope in the Lord, then maybe for some of us, he wants us to move out of a season of mourning and into the next season that God has for life.

Here's the second thing that Naomi dared to do, and that is that she dared to faithfully pursue God, to faithfully pursue what God was doing.

She didn't have all the details, but she knew enough to take the next step Because, remember, god does extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness.

She didn't have it planned, she just went with it, and some people love that.

I know some people that are in this room that your idea of a great day is just a full tank of gas and just go.

Who are you crazy people?

Some of y'all in here?

Yeah, I see some of you, that's.

Praise the Lord for you.

And then there's others of us.

You got to give us a schedule.

If it could be an Excel spreadsheet, color coded, would be great.

And let us know what stores we're going to, because my wife might have a coupon.

How many of you are those people, right?

Yes, can I tell you I'm that person.

When I go talk to God, I'm like God.

If you could give me a spreadsheet, color coded coupons, all this.

And what God says is take the next step.

Yeah, but what's at the next step?

Me?

Take the next step.

And that's exactly what Naomi's doing.

She's like I don't know, but I'm pretty sure God's on the other side of that next step.

Look, look at what happened.

It says he's.

She says my daughter, it's time I found permanent rest for you.

So go to the threshing floor and be sure to notice where Boaz lies down.

Wouldn't that be hilarious if she went laid down by a fool?

You know, look, don't do that.

Lay down by Boaz, all right, be Aussie, go find him, all right.

Then go and uncover his feet and lie down there.

Notice, there's two things she's supposed to do.

First of all, don't get distracted.

Now, the reason why is because this is a harvest.

They're at the winnowing place, the threshing floor, rather all the things, and so they would have been partying, having a good time.

They now know they're going to have food for the winter, so this is a big deal for them that they're going to do this.

They're going to spend the night there as a way to protect their crops as well.

So it's a big to-do, and so what Naomi is telling her is don't get distracted by all the other things.

Don't get distracted by all the other stuff.

Keep your eyes locked on where Boaz is.

That's the guy you're looking for.

So, first of all, she says focus, make sure you remember who's the one you're looking for, and then, secondly, go and uncover his feet.

Now, it is very possible Ruth had no idea what she was talking about, and for some of us we're going me neither Okay, and so this was a custom of the time, and it likely meant two different things.

Number one is it meant that once you uncover his feet, poor guy's going to get cold and wake up?

The second thing is is it was a custom that when you did that, it was a symbol that you were wanting to come underneath their protection?

What's also kind of cool is.

It is a double meaning.

That means something else, but you gotta go to the blog to find that.

We ain't got time for that.

But the thing is is that what was gonna happen is is that when she uncovered his feet, he was gonna look up to see what happened and he was gonna see ta-da Ruth in her I'm ready to get married clothes.

That's bold, okay, I mean, she has went to find him, uncovered his feet ta-da, you wanna get married.

That's amazing and that is absolutely bold of her to do that.

And that's what Naomi is realizing.

Say, listen, I don't know exactly what's happened, but I'm going to, I'm going to encourage you to take a bold next step, because I'm pretty sure if you take that step, god's going to be there.

Can I tell you that God rewards people who boldly pursue after him not after his hands, but after his face that I want see him, I wanna know him, I wanna get closer to him.

And when you boldly step out and look different from everybody else around you and you stay focused on him, it's amazing what God begins to do.

We can see this happen.

In the New Testament there's an amazing story of a lady.

We don't even know her name.

She was just a bold lady who had hope in Jesus.

It's this amazing story of how God rewards those who passionately pursue after him.

The Bible says this is there was a woman in the crowd who had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding.

She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them.

But she had gotten worse, not better.

In fact, she had gotten worse, and then she had learned about Jesus, and so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe.

Now, the reason why this is so bold is because, according to the culture of the time, she's considered unclean because of this, and she wasn't supposed to be in the crowd the very fact that she was supposed to be in the, that she was in the crowd.

She could have been killed for this, because she was making everybody else unclean, and if one person noticed her, they would start yelling unclean, unclean, and they would take her outside of town and they would kill her.

And so it takes a lot of boldness for her to just to kind of try to make her way in.

But she did it because she thought to herself if I can just touch his robe, I will be healed self.

If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.

I don't need everything, but if I can just touch the edge, an edge will do.

Immediately the bleeding stopped and she could feel in her body that she had been made healed from her terrible condition, and I love this.

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked who touched my robe?

The disciple said to him look at this crowd pressing around you.

How can you ask who touched me?

But he kept on looking around to see who had done it.

And then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell on her knees in front of him and told him what he had done, or what she had done, and I love this.

He said daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace.

Your suffering is over.

You know what I love.

Jesus wasn't just interested in healing her body, but he also wanted to heal her soul, because how many steps would it have taken before she started to wonder is it gonna last?

I bled for 12 years.

For 12 years people told me I was going to be better, and it came back every single time.

Is it going to work this time?

And so Jesus wasn't just interested in healing the moment, he wanted to heal her completely, to say you're never going to worry about this, ever again.

There may be other things that happen in your life, but it will not be this.

And, can I tell you, for many of us.

I wonder if God wants to restore us so that we can hope again, because many times we go through seasons and situations that we don't mean to, but we get hurt and broken and we start to think God did it, and so, because of that, we start pulling away and isolating ourself away from him, and what God maybe wants to do for some of us is to encourage us, to say it's time to run after him again, to notice where he is and to press into him.

Maybe it's time to stop isolating from our redeemer and start moving toward him again.

Maybe it's time to realize that God is on the move.

God is doing more in your life than you realize, and we didn't mean to, but because things didn't work out the way we thought they would and that person didn't do what they were supposed to.

Unintentionally, we isolated ourself away from God and we realized that doesn't work.

And then, with God, he starts to open our eyes, to see that he's been moving this whole time.

And so I want to encourage you what would it look like for you to start moving toward him again?

That would be my question for you today, and that is this that because God is in control, are you ready to start moving toward God again?

Because God is in control, it's a time to stop isolating from him, stop blaming him for what happened and start to realize that every time you hurt, he hurt too.

Every time that you were dealing with those difficult issues, he was right there with you, and that he wants to renew all those broken days, all of those difficult moments.

He wants to renew them again in your life.

That's what it looks like when God takes ordinary faithfulness and does extraordinary things with it is that all of a sudden, we step back and we can see that God is moving in amazing ways.

We have no idea how.

We didn't see it before, but now we can see God is doing something.

And then God wants to use that to then challenge us to hope again, and for some of us that means to take off the clothes of mourning and to trust God to do something in your life again.

For some of us, it's time to stop isolating from him and to start pursuing him again, and to be bold in your relationship with God and say this this far, no further.

I'm not going to live that way anymore.

I'm going to pursue after God and watch what will happen.

And if we'll do that, there's one more thing that God wants to do, and that is that he wants to encourage us to faithfully, dare to fully surrender to him.

He wants us to fully surrender, to get to the place where we can trust him, to fully surrender to him Again.

Look at somebody and say I dare you to trust him.

I know that's terrible.

I've been changing it all three times.

Do it one more time.

Look at somebody and say I dare you to trust him.

I dare you Because you know what happens when you start to trust the Lord.

You start to see God moving.

You know God's love language is trust.

Now, when you trust him, he likes it and so reveal himself more to you.

Every time you trust him a little bit more and then get to the place where you just trust him enough to say okay, god, just like Peter, I'm gonna step out on the water, because if that's where you are, I trust you, because this is what happened, naomi, said.

My daughter it's time for me to find a permanent home for you.

So go to the threshing floor, lie down there and he will tell you what to do.

And you could tell Ruth is not up on this tradition, so she's like all right, I will do everything you say.

What I love about this is, at this point, ruth, who went from bitterness to now she's trying to take care of Ruth.

She starts to realize God is up to something.

God has positioned Boaz right where he's supposed to be to do exactly what God has called him to do.

So now I'm just going to fully surrender to what God is doing.

And so she says I now trust what he's doing, so I no longer am worried about it.

Just trust the Lord, just step in.

I trust that God is going to lead him.

I trust that it's going to be okay.

I've done everything else I know to do.

I'm going to trust the Lord and watch what he does.

Can I tell you there's something about that that is both terrifying, especially if you're a control freak.

God, if you show me, then I will trust.

And God says it don't work like that.

You got to trust me and then maybe I'll show you along the way.

But there's also something freeing, because we know that God is faithful, which means he very well may not do it our way, but he's going to do it in his way.

It reminds me of the story of.

One of the greatest stories to involve this idea of fully surrendering to the Lord is in the book of Exodus.

And in the book of Exodus there's been this amazing thing of God has done all these different plagues in Egypt right To set the nation of Israel free and finally they're free.

He delivers them and they start going across the wilderness and Pharaoh decides no, no, no, y'all don't get away like that.

And so he sends the army after the Israelites.

These are people who were born slaves.

They don't know how to fight and now, all of a sudden, the army the most elite army in the known world at the time most likely is bearing down on them and they've got an army of Egyptian chariots on one side and they've got a massive sea on the other side, and now they're going okay.

So this is how this God thing works, so we're not going to die in Egypt.

We, this is how this God thing works, so we're not going to die in Egypt, we're going to die here instead.

And they actually are telling Moses like Moses, why did we leave Egypt?

We could have picked out better graves back there.

And he was like wait a minute, what are you talking about?

Well, all we see is an impossible situation, and an impossible situation.

Thank you, moses, because they weren't used to this thing about walking with God.

And so Moses looks at them and he says this.

He says the Lord himself will fight for you.

Just stay calm.

Can I tell you, for some of us, one of the greatest words that God may give us today is the Lord is fighting for you more than you realize Sometimes.

One of the greatest acts of faith is faithfulness.

Just stay calm.

And then the Lord said to Moses why are you crying out to me?

Other words, stop panicking, tell the people to get moving, pick up your staff, raise your hand over the sea, divide the water so the Israelites can walk through the middle on dry ground.

What?

So you're saying I pick up this stick.

You know where I got this stick?

I got this stick off that tree.

It took me six months to whittle it down, this stick.

I put this stick over this body of water.

I put this stick over this body of water, okay, you know.

What's amazing, though, is God can do extraordinary things through ordinary acts of obedience.

God did not ask Moses to part the sea.

He asked him to hold up a stick.

If you can hold up a stick, I can part the water, and that's what happened.

He held up a stick, and God did a miracle we still talk about today, and what's amazing is is that, after they got through on dry ground, by the way, can you imagine being a fish watching this?

Well, I'd never seen that before.

You know, they get to the other side, pharaoh's army decides they're going to follow, and the water comes back over top and drowns all of the enemies.

That's what it looks like when God fights your battles.

That's why, when we surrender to him, we're not surrendering ourselves into a mystery.

We're surrendering ourselves into I don't have a clue when, how or why.

I just know that he will, and most likely he'll do it in a way so that only he can get the glory, because in the process of blessing us.

He's also showing other people what his faithfulness looks like.

And so can I tell you I don't know where you are in your life right now, but I feel like, for somebody in here, god is wanting to speak to you through the story of Ruth and tell you, just because you've been in a situation where you feel like God is not looking and God doesn't see you, and that God's not in your life, it doesn't mean that he's not.

It means your perspective is probably a little too close.

So if you step back and see the goodness of God, you'll begin to realize that God's been moving this whole time.

God's been working in more ways than you can realize, and that maybe this isn't the end of your life, but instead God wants to restore your ability to hope again, and this is the promise he has for you, and that is, he wants to turn your mourning into joyful dancing.

He wants to take away your clothes of mourning and give you the clothing of joy.

Now joy doesn't mean happiness, the clothing of joy.

Now joy doesn't mean happiness.

Joy just means a settled, confident assurance that God is in control, that I know that God is in control, that maybe for some of us it's time for the Lord to challenge you to let the morning go Now once again, remember.

That does not mean that what happened in your life wasn't a big deal.

It doesn't mean that it didn't change your life forever.

It doesn't mean that it didn't shape who you are now.

But for some of us, maybe it's time that we stopped identifying ourself with the worst moments in our life, stopped identifying ourself with the worst moments in our life, and maybe it's time to dare to hope again.

For some of us, can we get real honest and say the reason why you're so worried and you're so so just full of fear about what's going on in your life is because at some point you stopped trusting God because you thought he should, you knew he, you really knew he would, and then he didn't do it the way you thought and so, unintentionally, you wanted to guard yourself against being hurt like that again, and so you took some steps away from the Lord.

And the reason why you've got so much fear and so much worry is because you think you have to figure it out all by yourself when the reality is, god has no intention if you're going through life all by yourself, and so maybe to step back and to see God is actually moving in your life.

Maybe the next step is to say, okay, god, I'm going to follow after you again and I'm going to get bold in what I do.

I'm going to say no to some stuff I've been saying yes to.

I'm going to put some other things away and I'm going to start walking toward you again because I see, god, that you're moving in more ways than I realized.

And then maybe for some of us is to realize it's time to surrender.

And maybe you're like me and I surrender as long as I got a plan.

I surrender as long as I know exactly what's going to happen.

And you know what?

I know people who have a plan.

I surrender as long as I know exactly what's going to happen.

And you know what?

I know people who have a plan when they surrender, and the reason why is because they don't need one.

God gives it to them because they don't need it.

They don't need to grow through that.

But can I tell you, most of the time in my life, the reason why I have to surrender everything over to the Lord is because he knows that otherwise, you know, I'm going to, i'm'm gonna push for that plan all the time and he's like can you trust me?

Can you trust me?

Yeah, but God, I don't know.

I don't know what this next step is gonna look like.

I know that, but can you trust, with whatever it is, I'm already gonna be there, I'm already gonna be moving, already gonna be preparing a way.

Maybe, maybe that's what God's asking you to do, maybe.

What if it's not the end?

What if it's just the turning of a page?

What if what you're going through right now is not the end?

What if it's just the turning of a page?

But how do you know, Pastor Brandon?

How do you know that's what's going to happen?

How do you know that, if I dare to take off this season of mourning and I dare to step in, how do you know it's going to work?

How do you know that, if I start to pursue God, that he's going to reveal himself to me?

And how do you know if I fully surrender over to him?

How do you know?

I tell you why.

It's for the same reason why, when I showed you this picture, you automatically knew it was a cat.

When I showed you that picture, you were absolutely sure it was a cat and you knew I was gonna say something bad about that mug.

Okay, you knew I was.

And you know why?

Because if you've been going to church here longer than about three weeks, you know that one of my greatest joys in life is to make fun of cat owners.

Can I tell you, when I see you grimace, it just brings me joy.

Pray for your pastor.

Okay, bad pastor, I know, I know I got it, but I love, I love teasing cat people and so, because of that, get that away from there.

All right, because of that, you knew, because you and I have been doing this thing called life together for a little while, you knew that if I had a chance to make fun of cats, I was going to do it.

Can I tell you, for some of us, we've been doing life with God long enough that we just know he's going to make a way.

You know why.

We go through God's word one passage at a time, and a lot of times use illustrations.

We use God's word to do it is because we want you to become familiar with who he is, so that you begin to expect him to do what only he can do.

I know God's going to make a way, because that's just who he is, because every time I see him, I see him mending broken hearts.

I see him making a way where there is no way.

I see that when people pursue him, the Bible says if we draw close to him, he draws close to us.

I see that when we surrender to him, he shows himself to us in fresh and new ways.

And just like you knew I was going to pick on cats, I know God's going to be faithful If you're willing to dare to hope again.

In just a moment, the band's going to lead us in a song of worship and I don't know exactly how God may speak to you through this message.

Maybe you're in here and you've been identifying with a season of mourning in your life, and maybe what the Lord is saying to you today is it's time to move forward, not in any way to disrespect what happened in the past.

It's time.

Maybe you're in here and you would say it's time to just admit you've walked away from your relationship with God.

You've isolated yourself away from him, but he's still calling after you.

It's time to draw close to him.

Maybe there's something in your life that you've not yet surrendered to the Lord.

I don't know what that would be.

I trust the Holy Spirit to reveal to you right now.

But what do you need to fully surrender over to him?

I'm going to make you a promise God does extraordinary things through ordinary acts of faithfulness.

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

Can I tell you you've never been more loved than you are right now, maybe as just a moment when we begin to sing these songs of worship.

Maybe your act of worship is inside your connect card, inside your worship God.

On the connect card on the back is the plan of salvation.

Maybe that's what God is calling you and drawing you to do today is to fully surrender your life over to him While we're worshiping the Lord.

I'd love you to take this card with you.

Step out of your seat and go back to our prayer table.

Bring that to them and say I want to know Jesus, and they'll lead you through this prayer and watch how God changes your life.

God's word said.

Jesus himself said the best way I can explain it to you.

It's a spiritual thing.

It's like being born again.

It's one thing to know about the love of God, quite another to experience him for yourself.

But if you're willing to surrender your life over to him.

God wants today to be your spiritual birthday.

I don't know what next step you need to take.

What I do know is if you're willing to dare to hope again.

God wants to do something amazing in your life today.

Let's pray together right now.

God, thank you so much for today.

Thank you, god, for seeing us and for knowing us.

Thank you, god, that in this place, right now, as many people that are in here, are the many different things that you're wanting to do.

Thank you, god, that you see us and that you know us.

And then, for some of us, god, it's time for us to fully surrender over to you.

For others of us, god, it's time for us to dream again.

It's time for us to get rid of the clothes of mourning and it's time for us to embrace a new day.

Maybe, like Naomi, god, we couldn't see what you were doing, but, god, we see that you're doing more than what we can imagine.

Maybe for some of us, it's time to stop just kind of playing around with our faith and it's time to start pursuing you with everything that we have.

I don't know, god, but what I know is, on the other side of that next step.

You're already waiting for us, god.

I'm thankful for those who are gonna give their lives to you today.

They're gonna trust you with their salvation, god.

For those of us who have taken that step of faith, we know that it is one of the most certain steps we could ever take and I pray, lord, that you will have your way in their life today.

In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.