Advent Week #2 - Love

We're going to continue in our second week now in a series for

Advent. And so we'll begin by looking at

the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1, and then

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

we're going to move over to the book of Ruth.

And before we do those things, just to kind of kind of explain

why it's so good and right to take a moment to prepare our

hearts for the incarnation. The celebration that Jesus

became flesh came into the world in what is called Advent is

because it it reminds us that just as the people of old had to

wait for Jesus to come in a time that sometimes felt dark and

confusing, so do we. The the times that you live in

will not always be the excitement of the sanctuary at

church and the blessing of hearing the word of God preached

in the community of Jesus. No doubt you you should know

this by now and in case you you don't, your life will go through

times that are very hard. And that is what what the Advent

season reminds us of that in waiting you wait sometimes in in

darkness and confusion. I was reminded of the importance

of of remembering that for believers that the church

calendar gives us this time to to remember that life is not

always just joy and happiness. As I was listening to Christmas

music this week that it's the time is among us.

How many of you have turned on light One O 8 and you're just

enjoying all of the holiday classics.

And so in listening to the Christmas music, I, I think I

can confidently say I found the most inappropriate Christmas

song. And I'll share it with you with

confidence that it's not inappropriate in the worldly

sense. So just hold off.

I'm not going to declare what that song might be, but the most

inappropriate in the Advent sense is sadly one of my

favorites. And it goes, it's the most

wonderful time of the year. It's the hap happiest season of

all. And I love that song.

And I know many of you are already singing that song with

your turtleneck and your Christmas sweater and your

eggnog. Because it is a wonderful time.

I love Christmas lights. I love Christmas movies.

I love it all. But it's inappropriate for the

church calendar. It is not meant to be a time for

us to just sing how wonderful life is right now.

When we when we remember that Jesus came into a world in the

expectation and longing for people in darkness, it gives us

a reminder that we too have to embrace that in our lives.

In fact, the season that we celebrate Jesus coming into the

world as the light of the world is the season on the seasonal

calendar that is the most dark. It's the month of December.

The days have been getting increasingly darker since June

and they're going to get darker still until they finally turn

right before Christmas. And God has put into the rhythms

of the, the, the, the year darkness.

And he's put into the rhythms of your life, your journey from

earth to heaven. There will be, in fact,

darkness. You will have to wait through

times where you're not quite sure the path forward and you're

not quite sure what God is up to.

That is why we take a moment to celebrate Advent.

It's a a time to look at different stories of the Bible

that had to wait on the Lord without seeing all the details.

And so last week we looked at the story of Abraham.

He hoped against hope. He trusted God against all of

the specific details he could see.

Today we'll look at another story and I'll remind you where

these stories come from. They actually come from the

genealogy of Jesus, and that is why we're starting each week of

our Advent series in Matthew chapter 1, where we find the

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

genealogical record of the Messiah.

Jesus comes into the world and the gospel writers are in fact

declaring him, confirming him as the Messiah.

And the Messiah has to meet certain genealogical

requirements, one of them being the in the line of David.

And so we look in Matthew chapter one that the genealogy

each person tells a story of God's plan all along to send his

son into the world says in verse one, the book of the genealogy

of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, who

we looked at last week. These are two major players in

the the proof that Jesus is in fact qualified to be the savior

that everyone was waiting for. And the story of Abraham was a

reminder that the redemptive story came through unlikely

odds. And we continue down the line

each week looking at a story that we're going to highlight

from the genealogy. This week we'll find it in verse

5, Simon begot Boaz by Rahab. Hold on to that name.

We're going to look at her story next week, but notice she begot

Boaz, and Boaz begot Obed by Ruth and Obed begot Jesse

throughout the genealogy. As you study it, it is so worth

your attention that God surprises the people that were

waiting for the Savior with all sorts of circumstances and

people that you wouldn't think would be in the line of the

Savior of the world. And one of them, maybe one of

the best examples of that, is in fact Ruth, a woman who's very

rarely women are very rarely given in the genealogical

records of kings. So praise God that that Jesus

breaks that tradition. Also, a woman outside of the

nation of Israel. We'll read her story today.

She was actually from Moab. So this surprising woman of Ruth

is going to be given to us as a story that reminds us that God

takes very confusing, difficult, hard circumstances and uses them

as his plan for redemption. That's true in Ruth's life.

It was true in the nation of Israel waiting on the Messiah.

And it is in fact believe this true of your own life.

So I hope you'll be encouraged as we essentially do a fly over

of the entire story of Ruth. We're going to look at a few

details along the way as we go through these 4 short chapters.

There's only 85 verses. It takes you about 25 minutes to

read the entire book of Ruth. So I encourage all of you to go

and read it. The the book of Ruth is much

better than any sermon that can be preached on the book of Ruth.

So we'll start in Ruth chapter one, verse one, and really we're

just going to get the whole story.

And by the end of the story, we'll have some moments to, I

hope, find encouragement that God uses dark times to bring

redemption. So we start in Ruth chapter one.

Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there

was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah,

went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his

two sons. The name of the man was

Elimelech. The name of his wife was Naomi,

and the name of the two sons were Malon and Kilian Iphrates

of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of

Moab and remained there. This is an incredible

establishing shot of the story because just in these few verses

that we've already read it, it shows us that this is in fact a

story that happened in times of great darkness.

It it begins by telling us that it was in the days when the

judges ruled. And if you've studied the Bible

and read through the book of Judges, you know that this is

probably the most chaotic and difficult and unruly time for

the nation of Israel as they were waiting for God essentially

to bring them a king before they ever had a king.

They had basically judges that ruled different regions as

needed. And it was gruesome.

It was violent. And the, the, the refrain that

comes up over and over again to describe that period of the

nation of Israel was that everyone did what was right in

their own eyes. Now, if you've ever been in a

small setting where everyone does what is right in their own

eyes, you know that chaos breaks out very quickly, let alone an

entire nation essentially just doing what each person thought

was the best. We also see not only were was

this the most chaotic time in the history of the nation, it is

also a specific time when there's a famine in the land.

And there's this family, Naomi, her husband and two sons.

The famine is so severe in Bethlehem, Judah that they

actually are on the run looking for food.

So, you know, we don't have to look too far back into our own

nation's history to relate to a famine in the land.

It wasn't but 100 years ago that our nation went through the

famine of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the middle

America where all of the agriculture was supposed to be

happening, just went dry. And what you find is a nation

that was desperate to just find any kind of sustenance, and many

people had to travel everywhere looking for it.

So if you've ever known that story, you have a reference

point for what Naomi and her family were doing.

They were looking for a way to survive.

And that's the setting. That's the, as I said, the the

establishing shot to let us know that this is a dark and serious

time of trouble. And the trouble only gets worse

as the story continues. What we'll find is Naomi's

husband dies as they get to Moab.

The husband, the patriarch in those days, very important

figure of the family. He dies.

And so the sons marry the women of the land who are Moabites.

So they're living in a foreign land.

The patriarch has died and they're having to take foreign

wives. All of this is spiritually

dangerous and not good for an ancient Jewish person.

The story gets worse. Naomi's sons marry 2 Moabite

women. One is Orpa and one is Ruth.

And then the sons die. So within a short moment of this

story we have a widow named Naomi now living in a foreign

land without her husband and with her two daughter in laws

who are also widowed. This is a story that is meant to

set the bar of of hard times so high that anyone could walk

under it. And I'll just pause here and say

one of the reasons this is worth studying now.

It's because all of us need to have moments where we're reading

the word and seeing the God that we believe in reaching into

people's lives to help them. Because all of us are going to

find ourselves in moments where life seems chaotic and hard,

generally speaking. And some of you are specifically

speaking in that right now. Even this morning, I've listened

to people's stories of just the year that has unfolded for our

church family. And people have walked through

unexpected death. People have walked through

unexpected diagnosis, broken relationships.

And if you're in that, the Bible is meeting you and it's

reminding us that we are not supposed to be a people who just

walk in a direct upward line to heaven.

Life is hard and God knows what to do about it.

And so the story will continue. It takes a turn as Naomi gets

word that back in Bethlehem, back in her her land where she

has been 10 years away from, she hears that God has visited the

people and there's now a harvest, that he's provided them

bread. So Naomi, being a widow, decides

to do her last resort, which is to go back to her homeland where

people may remember her, where she has some rights to land and

restart her life alone as a widow who essentially has no

other choice. Before she leaves, she gathers

her only existing family, two daughter in I'm going home, you

guys. I've never been to my home.

You are Moabites in Moab. You need to leave me and you

need to go and find husbands in this land.

And it's a serious, painful moment.

In fact, it says that they all wept.

All three of these widows weep as as as she's saying, it's time

for you to leave me. I'm going to go.

Orpa listens to this. And although she didn't want to,

the advice was sound and she went back to her foreign to her

land to look for a husband, to have the hope of restarting her

life. And then we have one of the

great moments in all of scripture to give us a picture

of what covenant unrelenting faithfulness looks like.

Although Naomi begged Ruth to leave her, although she she made

a great case that there's no hope for Ruth to stay with

Naomi. She would do.

Naomi says I'll never be able to give you another son to marry.

And if I did have another son, he'd be too young for you.

And yet Ruth says this verse 15, it says and she said, look, your

sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her Gods

return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, entreat me not to

leave you or to turn back from you, following after you.

For wherever you go I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will

lodge. Your people shall be my people

and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and

there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me and more

also, if anything but death parts you and me, this is one of

the great commitments of undying love that you will see not only

in the Bible, but in any literature ever.

And we begin to find a glimmer of hope in this story.

You know, as you get to know the church calendar and the Advent

tradition, there's there's different themes that you'll

find each week are the emphasis of how to maintain a posture of

trusting God in dark time. So last week we looked at hope.

If you're going through a dark time, stay hopeful.

In the future weeks, we'll look at joy.

And today we are also going to look at one of those themes that

is right here. If you're going through a hard

time, cling to love. One of the keys to the the

themes of the Bible that if you're looking for the

ingredient for how people endure and what makes someone

successful and what makes someone go to the end of the

line. It is, in fact, this thread

throughout all of God's stories that is love, that this story

begins to take a turn when there's nothing left but love.

And so as your first bit of encouragement, if you're going

through one of those times where you feel like you're in pruning

or you feel like you're in waiting, you feel like you're in

confusion or one blessing, one of those surprising blessings

will be that there's something so beautiful about coming to a

place in your life where there's nothing left but love.

And in this moment, Naomi has nothing left in her life but the

covenant faithfulness of someone who is committing to her undying

love. And and with this, the story

will start to take a turn. We continue to read after the

the vow of commitment. It says in verse 18, when when

Naomi saw that she was determined to go, she stopped

speaking to her. She gave up.

I can't convince you to go back to your foreign gods.

So worst evangelism ever. She's like, fine, you can follow

me and my God. And then verse 19, it says now

the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem and it

happened when they came to Bethlehem that all the city was

excited because of them. And the women said, is this

Naomi, imagine you've been away from the place where you, you

know, grabbed roots and you grew up and and for 10 years you've

been away. This is a homecoming.

And the the great news is that people do remember her and

they're so excited to see her. They see Ruth and Naomi coming

and they give her a fanfare. But she said to them, Do not

call me Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very

bitterly with me. I went out full and the Lord has

brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi?

Since the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has

afflicted me, This is Advent. This is why we have to

acknowledge that life is hard because there will be times in

your life that test your trust in God.

She says don't call me Naomi, call me bitter.

Naomi meant pleasantness. She wants the name Mara, which

describes a life that is soured and bitter.

And this is something that in fact, we all at times probably

relate to. One of the tests of your faith

will be when you go through the funeral, when you go through the

famine, when you go through the years of waiting without an

answer, you may begin to question whether or not God

still cares for your life. Notice that this is not an

atheistic declaration that God doesn't exist and she's just

moving on with her life. She still believes in God, she

just doesn't believe that he loves her anymore.

And this is a story that I think we should all embrace.

A moment four times past, present or future.

When life gets so hard, we begin to wonder, God, do you even

care? God, do you actually care?

Because I'm beginning to get bitter.

Your life cannot be sustained by 24 hour sanctuary worship as

much as it would be great if all of your days and every minute of

your life was as powerful, as exciting as coming to church,

singing. No one else is worthy hearing a

sermon, being encouraged and leaving without any doubt in

your mind. But that's not the way that God

designed it. There will be times when you

really wonder, God, are you still with me?

And This is why I love the book of Ruth, because it is in in, in

a sense, the Advent season unfolding chapter by chapter.

It starts with the extreme darkness and now the story will

turn 1 chapter at a time to bring a little bit of light and

then a little more light and then the grand revelation of

what God had planned the entire time.

And here's where it begins to turn.

Verse 22. Naomi returned and Ruth and Moab

Itis, her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the

country of Moab. Now they came to Bethlehem at

the beginning of barley harvest. Impeccable timing.

They've come at a time, April or May, when it's they're beginning

to gather all of the produce. The field has been ripe with

harvest and now the workers are going out to bring the field in.

And this is now the backdrop that Naomi and Ruth walk into.

And it's a very important one because at the time of harvest,

Ruth's life and by Ruth Naomi's life is about to be changed

radically by something that God had planned.

It says there was a relative Chapter 2 verse one of Naomi's

husband, a a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech.

His name was Boaz. So Ruth the Moabite has said to

Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain

after him, who in whose sight I may find favor.

And Naomi said to Ruth, go my daughter, this is a practice

that is the the practice of gleaning that God had designed

as a form of very wise and loving welfare for those in

need. You'll find in the vault law in

Leviticus and also in Deuteronomy that those who had

the fields that oversaw the harvest of the fields were meant

to leave a certain percentage on the corner of the fields.

And also they were, they were told not to pick up whatever

they dropped so that while the harvest is happening, anyone who

was poor, hungry, willing to work to find the provision could

go pick the corners of the grain and pick up whatever was left,

take home and have provision for themselves.

It was essentially a welfare program for those who are

willing to take part. And Ruth said, let me go.

I want to go in. I'm going to bring home

something for us to be begin to restore our lives by the harvest

of the Lord. And of course, this is what they

would call in the romantic comedy, the Hallmark season.

This is what they would call the meet cute.

You know, when the the the two people that you just know are

meant to end up together in spite of crazy circumstances,

they bump into each other and you say, OK, this is how the

movie's going to end. But I can't wait to watch the

next 45 minutes. Ruth goes out to the field that

happened to belong to Boaz and Boaz immediately immediately

notices her, says to his workers, who is this woman?

To which they say, this is the woman that was so faithful and

loyal to Naomi. Remember when Naomi came back,

the word is now spreading that she brought back this determined

person to stay by her side. It had spread to the field

workers under Boaz's authority. They told him.

And Boaz is blown away by this woman's covenant love, and he

takes it into his own hands. He he meets Ruth and says, I'm

so impressed. May, May, May God give you

blessing in this land. And then he tells to his

workers, I want you to take care of this woman.

I want you to make sure nothing happens to her.

I want you to purposely leave some out for her in such a way

that by the time the day of gleaning had ended, she walks

back home with 40 lbs of barley. Just imagine this woman and

Naomi's waiting. I wonder how this is going to

go. And she doesn't come back with

enough to make one or two pieces of bread.

She comes back with an entire haul.

Naomi's like what happened? And Ruth gets to share a little

bit of light that is going to open up Naomi's heart away from

bitterness and back towards faith just a little bit more.

Says in chapter 2 verse 20, Ruth essentially says his name is

Boaz Naomi light bulb moment. Naomi says to the

daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord, who has not

forsaken his kindness to the living and the dead.

And Naomi said to her, this man's a relative of ours, one of

our close relatives. Naomi is realizing what you may

have often heard about the ancient culture that is revealed

in this book. Naomi is realizing that Boaz is

in the same family of her deceased husband, which makes

him one of her kin in the family line in ancient days.

So that a woman or someone that owned a field could be restored,

the field could be bought back by someone who was in their

family line next of kin. So because of this, Naomi is

getting stirred with a little bit of hope.

Maybe they don't have to glean the corners of the field

forever. Maybe God is up to something

bigger. And so Naomi pulls Ruth aside

and, and, and prepares her. She says, I, I want you to, to

follow my instructions, Ruth. Tonight, the the harvest is

going to come in and Boaz is is going to be guarding the

harvest. He's going to be winnowing the

harpist, essentially separating the wheat from the shaft.

At the end of that, he's going to have a meal.

He'll enjoy some drink, celebrate all that God has done.

And then he's going to sleep by the the the the harvest that he

pulled in. And Naomi says to Ruth, I want

you to put on something really nice and I want you to spray

yourself with some perfume and and time it perfect after he's

done. Don't bother him while he's

working, after he's eaten, after he's made merriment, after he's

gone to bed. I want you to go in and I want

you to uncover his feet, expose them to the cold so he wakes up

naturally and he will see you at his feet.

And then I want you to tell him that he's our, our kinsman

Redeemer. This is a beautiful, beautiful

moment. And This is why I want all of

you to read the story because the plan works perfectly.

Boaz already had such respect for for Ruth.

Ruth had such respect for Naomi that she would do whatever was

asked. And in an upside down kind of

way, Ruth essentially proposes to Boaz and he says, yes.

Someone between services showed me a, a video of her

granddaughter getting proposed to.

And it was just, it was like gave me a picture of maybe what

happened with, with Ruth and Boaz.

The girl just jumped up and down and dug the guy.

I'm like, this is the moment he says yes, Maybe because Boaz,

being the righteous person that he is, says to Ruth.

I will redeem this land. I will bring you as part of the

land into my family. But there's one person closer to

me. There's one person in the family

line that actually has what we would call in real estate, the

first right of refusal. So Boaz, being the righteous man

that he is by Chapter 4, he calls everyone together.

He finds the person that is one step closer to Naomi than he is.

And he says, hey, Naomi's field is available.

Would you like to redeem it? And the guy's like, oh,

definitely. I could pick up some real

estate. I would love to redeem it.

And then Boaz says, OK, it also comes with Ruth the Moabite.

You have to marry her. And the guy's like, I actually

can't do that anymore. I'm not willing.

I'm not ready to take on Ruth. What would be with my

inheritance? I'm out.

And Boaz is like shaking his first.

He's like, next item up, forbid. I'm taking it.

I'm taking the land. I'm redeeming it.

And this is a beautiful moment from famine to wedding.

And Boaz redeems the land. He takes Ruth as his wife.

And this story concludes in the most beautiful way.

It says in chapter 4, verse 13. So Boaz took Ruth and she became

his wife, and he went into her. And the Lord gave her

conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi,

Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a

close relative, and may his name be famous in Israel.

And may he be to you a restorer of life, and a nourisher of your

old age for your daughter-in-law, who loves you,

who is better to you than seven sons born to him.

Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom and became

a nurse to him. Some translations say she

literally became a mother to this young child.

Also, the neighbor women gave him a name saying there is a son

born to Naomi and they called his name Obed.

He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

This is how we get the line of Jesus that goes through David

came through a foreigner named Ruth who relentlessly loved a

widow named Naomi who trusted step by step that there was a

reason to keep trusting God until he brought everything into

a conclusion that seems too good to be true.

And so it truly is the Advent story.

It's extreme darkness to a revelation of light that's

indescribable joy. This is the story of Ruth from

30,000 Feet. So what are the takeaways?

How can we be people who may be related to the beginning of the

story, who can somehow be encouraged by the end of the

story? I think there are countless

lessons of course, to do Ruth and you know, one Sunday sermon

leave so many things that we could be encouraged by unsaid.

But I will share with you 2 threads that I find through the

whole story that I believe can also be threads that we can find

in our own lives that will encourage us from beginning to

middle to end to trust God. And the first is the thread of

God's provision. The story is truly a story that

puts provision in question. Is there anything more

questionable than famine in the way that you're going to provide

for daily sustenance? It starts with a a need to have

basic needs of life met. And the the story unfolds with

God changing a famine into a harvest.

And how he does that very practically is through simple,

ordinary means. You know, often times we think

of the provision of God or the prosperity of God or the

blessing of God. And we're waiting for, you know,

one of those jumbo checks that has finally God has delivered in

some way that is undeniably a testimony of the miraculous.

And yet what we find in this story is that God provided in

specific, practical, daily ways, in ordinary means.

He provided after a long time of waiting by bringing a harvest.

And then they received that provision by going out and

picking up grain off the ground. And I will encourage you as

maybe you relate to those seasons of life where you say,

God, where are you and what are you up to that it can sometimes

be dangerous to wait for the giant miraculous provisions of

God. But it's always glorious when

you're willing to acknowledge the small and specific ordinary

ways that God has been providing the whole way.

When you go through a season of darkness, you're confused.

You don't see the path forward to start looking for this.

How is God providing right here and right now?

And he doesn't just provide their physical needs.

I think the the bigger lesson in the thread of God's provision in

this story is that he provides people to act on his behalf.

It was so important that Ruth was, was provided or with Naomi

was provided with a person who showed the faithfulness of God

in everyday, ordinary ways. She said wherever you go, I'm

going. He provided her with a person

that had the hands and feet of love in her life.

And as the story unfolded, it was more pictures of provision

through people they provided him with.

As it says, blessed are you who did not leave you without a

close relative. He provided a way for the field

to be redeemed and for her to be brought back into the story of

her own inheritance through Boaz.

That is a provision of God. And ultimately it says that he

provided her with one of her biggest question marks.

She said, well, I ever have a son.

She thought she was going to die alone with no one to pass off

her her, her family to. And he, it ends with her holding

a baby in her arms. And the bigger picture is that

this is a story that is very specifically about Naomi and

Ruth and Boaz, but it's also a story of God's plan to redeem

his people. He didn't only provide Naomi

with Obed. Remember how the story starts,

It says in the days of the judges.

And look how the story ends. And Obed begot Jesse and Jesse

begot David. In other words, King David, God

sovereignly provided the nation of Israel, the long-awaited and

much needed King, to be the heart of God's leadership on

behalf of the people. He did that through Obed.

He provided not only for Naomi, but for the entire redemptive

arc for those who are waiting on God.

God is a provider. And here's the beautiful thing

about where we see His provision turn into His sovereignty.

This is the second thread that will radically change your

ability to trust God in difficult times.

The thread of provision is always part of the thread of

God's Providence. The story is so difficult.

For 10 years it it came to us in one paragraph on the page.

For 10 years Naomi waited as a widow with no plan.

God knew the plan the entire time.

One of my favorite tells that this is one of the great threads

of this story is in Ruth chapter 2.

Ruth 2 · chapter mention

It says then she left and went out to glean in the field after

the reapers, and she just so happened to come to the part of

the field belonging to Boaz. We we often think of God's

Providence and God's plan and His sovereignty in the same way

we think of provisions. We're waiting for the big

moments where clearly God was up to something.

And yet what we find here and throughout Scripture is that

God's Providence is everyday and always.

She just so happened to be in the perfect field with the

perfect kinsman Redeemer at the perfect time.

It's important for you to think about all of the things that

just so happened in your life. How you just so happened to meet

the person that just so happened to tell you about Jesus, just so

happened to invite you to church when you just so happened to

have your heart open to the reality of God in your life.

It may seem like a small thread of coincidences, but it is in

fact the Providence of God every day and always.

And I love that word Providence. It comes from 2 Latin words put

together, pro meaning before and V day which means sight, which

if you put them together, Providence means before sight,

in other words foresight. Providence means that God sees

before you do. Providence means that when we

open the book and we see a funeral, he knew that there

would also be a feast. Providence means that God knows

how he's going to work out all of the confusion and the things

you don't quite understand, moment by moment and story by

story. To trust in the Providence of

God is to trust that he knows your story better than you do.

And aren't you glad? Maybe you can use Naomi as an

example of why it is so important to trust that God

knows your story better than you do.

Can you imagine if Naomi got her way From what she could see?

There's so many moments where Naomi is essentially telling

people the story and she got it all wrong.

She said. Ruth, I'm begging you, almost to

the point of frustration, Go worship a different God and

leave me alone. Go find a husband.

If if Naomi had it her way, Ruth would have stayed in Moab.

And if Naomi had it her way, everyone would have called her

Mara, which means bitter. She would have been known for

the rest of her life as someone who truly believed and lived out

the story that God was against her.

If Naomi had it her way, she never would have met Boaz and

there never would have been an Obed.

But praise be to God that God Providence had foresight in ways

that Naomi couldn't see. You have to be so careful when

you try to have it your way, when you try to tell God what

the story is or what your name is or what you should actually

do with your life if you want to make it through the seasons of

Advent. That will happen surely outside

of the calendar that we celebrated.

You look for those two threads constantly.

Look for the thread of God's provision in simple and ordinary

ways to remember to trust Him that He's faithful and look for

the threat of His provisioning people.

You go through the hard time and just think to yourself, has God

provided me this person to be an encourager, this person to pray

with me, sometimes to the point where you don't want them Now

I'm sick of you praying for me or sharing scripture with me,

inviting me to church. I know the answer.

God is providing you with the people that you need to know

that He's faithful. And likewise, when you're going

through the difficult times, cling to the Providence of God.

He knows exactly what He's doing.

There was not one moment in the story of Naomi where God was off

the throne or He was not working the details of her life together

to make her the grandmother of King David.

And it's true of your life. You don't know the incredible

ways that God is going to do something with your life.

He's going to turn your life into something that is beautiful

for His namesake. And you don't know how, but you

can trust in the Providence of God that He does.

And if you ever forget those two things, if you ever forget the

thread of provision and the thread of Providence, every time

you gather, you can be reminded because there is no better

picture of the provision in the Providence of God than the

ultimate kinsman Redeemer. That as we were all waiting to

be redeemed, not just by land but by soul, God sent His Son to

provide a way into the family to pay the price that someone else

couldn't pay to be the Redeemer of your life.

He provided a person, and it was all part of his Providence at

the perfect time. Jesus was born in the time of

great darkness. A light shined at the perfect

time. He died on the cross, rose

again, and the message has gone out at the perfect time, story

by story by story since and at the perfect time you heard the

gospel of Jesus in your life. God has provided by His

Providence your redemption. So I hope you'll be encouraged

that whatever you're going through now is just a living

parable of something so much bigger to give God glory.

Thanks for joining us today. If you would like to watch the

full service, check out the link in the description.

For next steps and to learn more, visit calvaryboise.com.