Boaz's Field

Studying the Bible can be hard.

I mean, reading the Bible sometimes can be hard.

One of the things that can make reading the Bible difficult is we often project ourselves into the account that we are reading.

And what's kind of funny and dangerous about that is that we usually make ourselves out to be the hero in the story.

Right?

David trusting God and slaying the mighty Goliath.

Or Samson, known for his mighty strength.

Caleb and Joshua wanting to trust God against the giants in the promised land.

Or maybe we want to be the great followers of faith, or in faith, like Esther, willing to risk it all, or the things that Abraham and Noah did.

This is how we want to see ourselves.

But the truth is we're often more like the others in the accounts.

Mockers standing in the crowd.

The responsible adults pulling kids back from Jesus.

Or scared soldiers hiding in the hillside.

Or just simply avoiding it all in a tent.

It can be dangerous projecting ourselves into the biblical narrative.

It's not all about us.

But hey, I like being dangerous.

So we're gonna do that today.

Kind of.

I'd like to go to a place this morning, and this place is Boaz's Field.

Now, for some of you, just me saying Boaz's field, it prompts some thoughts, right?

Some details, some images maybe.

For others of you, it may not mean nothing at all.

But that's okay.

I'm not going to assume that anyone really knows the book of Ruth.

I want to take the next few minutes and I want to tell you about the book of Ruth, which will give us all the context we need to understand Boaz's field.

The book of Ruth is in the Old Testament.

It took place in the time of the judges.

Probably around 1100 BC.

It was probably written down maybe a hundred years later, closer to a thousand BC.

It starts out with this guy named Olimelech, who lived in Bethlehem with his wife Naomi.

Two sons, Malon and Killian.

Well, in Bethlehem at that time, there was a famine.

There was no food.

Elimelech had heard that there was food in Moab.

So he takes his family and he travels to Moab, leaves the country.

While there, Elimelech passes away.

At some point along the way, his two sons marry.

One marries a woman named Orpha, and another one a lady named Ruth.

The Bible tells us that about ten years goes by, and then, unfortunately, both sons die.

Leaving now three widows, Naomi, the mother-in-law, and the two daughters-in-laws, Orpha and Ruth.

Naomi hears after this that there's food back in Bethlehem, and she wants to return.

She prepares to return and tells her two daughters-in-laws that they should go back to their families, and she is going to leave and go back to Bethlehem.

They say, No, we're coming with you.

Now, based on the account, I'm really not sure.

Did she start to leave after this or is she still just preparing?

But she goes to them again and says, No, really, go back to your families.

There's nothing for you in Bethlehem.

I'm going back alone.

And Orpha says, Yeah, you're right, and goes back to her family.

But Ruth answers differently.

She wants to stay with Naomi.

And she goes as far as to say, Your people will become my people, your God will become my God.

I'm staying with you.

And she does.

And they return to Bethlehem.

Now, as two widows arriving in Bethlehem, it's a struggle financially.

In this culture, it's a problem for them to survive.

Ruth realizes, the daughter-in-law Ruth realizes she only has one option, which is to go glean years of grain from the fields after the reapers and harvesters come through.

She gets the scraps, right?

That's all her only option to try and find food.

God just works it out that this field that she's in is owned by a man named Boaz, who, when he meets Ruth, has already heard about Ruth because Ruth had come back to take care of her mother-in-law and was taking care of her, going through the fields, picking up the scraps to feed them.

Now, this man, Boaz, has this title, as we look at the story, Kinsman Redeemer.

Kinsman, because he was from Limelech's original family, which Naomi had married into.

When Naomi, the mother-in-law, hears that Ruth ended up in Boaz's field, she realizes that he can redeem them and/or the property that she has rights to still as the widow of alimelech.

Um and she tells Ruth what to do in regards to that.

This is kind of an interesting thing culturally.

We wouldn't really necessarily understand today.

It's kind of, like I said, interesting.

Doesn't seem that it's anything inappropriate, but she describes and tells Ruth to watch him as he eats and drinks and finishes the day and goes and lays down to go to sleep out in the field, approach him at night, lay down next to him and uncover his feet.

And that's it.

And wait.

Well, in the middle of the night, he awakes and says, Who is who is here?

He wakes probably because his feet are cold.

And he says, Who is here?

And me, Ruth.

And he realizes we read into the text the implication of this.

And she basically asks to be redeemed by him putting his blanket over her, which he does.

And then in the morning he says, Go back to your mother-in-law.

I will try and figure this out to redeem them.

Boaz goes into the city, and in at this time, the kind of the courtyard, the gate of the city is where a lot of the business is done.

Other people need to be involved to see that, whether it be elders or city officials or whatever.

He finds out that there's another redeemer that is actually in line in front of him that has first right at redeeming this property.

Uh that Naomi would be selling back, the mother-in-law would be selling back to the line.

So he has to find this guy.

He gets this guy to come to the city square and uh in front of all these elders and says to this guy, hey, Elimelech's uh widow wants to sell the land back, get it back in the family line of Elimelech, their family, and asks this other redeemer, Would you like to redeem this?

And he says, Yes, absolutely, I'll redeem her.

And then he tells him, Upon redeeming this, you also get the widow uh Ruth that you'll be responsible to take care of.

And he says, Whoa, I can't.

I don't have the resources to take care of someone else.

It could jeopardize my other investments, my other properties, trying to provide for someone else.

I don't want it.

You redeem the field and the property.

And he does.

Uh, there's this interesting little uh taking the sandal off and exchanging sandal that's kind of neat culturally as they make this agreement.

And um Boaz ends up redeeming the field, uh, and in so doing um eventually marries Ruth.

Um they become husband and wife, they have a child, a boy named Obed, who eventually grows up, marries, has a child named Jesse, who eventually grows up, marries, and has a child named David.

And suddenly, if we haven't caught it yet, we are in the line of Christ.

How did that happen?

From a field.

That is really a quick run through of the book of Ruth.

I would encourage you to read it.

I believe it's only five chapters.

You could sit down and read it probably in one sitting.

Uh there's a lot more to it as we see God working through there, but that gives you an idea of why and what I mean by Boaz's field, this place that she went.

I'd like to look closely this morning at Ruth going to Boaz's field.

Let's think through the humility it must have taken for her to do what she did.

She was going to the field to pick up the scraps left after the reapers went through to attempt to feed her mother-in-law and herself.

She was not the owner of the field.

Right?

She was not the servant or manager of the field.

In the story, if you read it, there's someone that is in charge of the reapers that's underneath the owner but above the reapers and harvesters.

She's not the owner, she's not the servant manager, she's not a reaper or harvester, someone employed to work in the field.

This the account also tells us about maidens in the field that seem to be taking care of the reapers and the harvester.

She's not one of them.

She's not the owner, she's not the manager, she's not the reaper or harvester, she's not one of the maidens in the field helping.

She's below that.

She's low.

She's lower.

And she knows it.

I cannot see her walking into the field, held head held high, proud or arrogant.

In any way.

We see her broken, but determined.

And in this culture, with the death of her husband, she had lost all earthly provision.

Keep in mind she had also left her family right back in Moab.

Really, the one other place that she may have returned for provision and care.

She was humble.

She was low.

And this is when Boaz first takes notice of her, as she is humbly taking care of her mother-in-law and herself.

The opposite of this is a person with great arrogance.

There was a guy a few years back who was dominating his weight class in the UFC.

UFC is the ultimate fighting championship.

If you don't know what that is, probably don't look it up.

But um, it was like boxing with kicking and wrestling, and it can be pretty violent.

He was dominant though.

For a few years, he was one of the best.

The problem was he knew it and he acted like it.

He even had this arrogant walk when he would come into the ring with his arms back and his legs forward, and he would just he was so arrogant, it was unbelievable.

His name was Connor McGregor.

And eventually, with things like this, he was not the best anymore.

I'm not sure that the arrogance has faded, though.

You know, Ruth didn't stroll into the field, arms back, like she was something special.

Like Connor McGregor would stroll toward the ring.

This was not the way or the attitude that Ruth had.

Now, Boaz, as I mentioned, was known as a kinsman redeemer.

Someone to redeem a person who was in need.

Boaz is also what we would call a type of Christ in this situation.

Meaning, what I mean by that is he represents some of the things that Jesus would come to do in a way or partially.

Redeeming those who are in need of being redeemed.

We don't show the need to be redeemed through being arrogant.

We show the need to be redeemed through humility.

I would say to you today, we are in a type of Boaz's field.

Right here.

Right out there.

This is a type of Boaz's field.

From a spiritual standpoint, without Christ, we are Ruth.

Broken.

Lost, in need of a Redeemer.

We have no way on our own to provide for ourselves spiritually without Christ.

But our Redeemer will not be Boaz.

Our Redeemer has been Jesus Christ.

Our Redeemer is Jesus Christ.

Our Redeemer will be Jesus Christ.

Today we must have the humbleness of Ruth.

We cannot walk around with the arrogance of a winning fighter.

Without Jesus, we are bankrupt and lost.

Without Jesus, we are destined to spend eternity separated from God in eternal torment.

We are unable to make a way for ourselves spiritually.

We need a redeemer.

We must come to the Redeemer Jesus in humble brokenness and ask for grace and mercy, forgiveness to receive eternal salvation.

We must believe in him, our Redeemer, and trust him with our eternity.

Now, like I said, studying the Bible can be hard.

Mistakes can be made.

We can't just take one story or one account and develop some new theology or some new process that we think is right based on that one thing.

Could there be other places in the scriptures as examples that we need to approach the Lord with humility?

Are there other biblical examples of humility needed to approach the Savior, the Redeemer?

I'm glad you asked.

There are.

And there are many.

I've chosen four to look at today that support this humility of Ruth that we should have in our lives.

They're on the outline if you have it.

The first one we're going to look at is from the book of Luke.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Chapter 18.

Verses 9 to 14.

Luke chapter 18, verses 9 to 14.

Luke 18:9–14

This is a parable of Jesus, direct teaching on this subject from Christ.

Luke 18, 9 to 14 says this.

And he also told this parable for some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt.

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself God, I thank you that I am not like the other people swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, I pay tithes of all I get.

But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner.

I tell you this man went to his house justified rather than the other.

What sounds more like the person who needs a redeemer?

What sounds more like the person who gets a redeemer and a savior?

The humbleness of the tax collector.

I can almost see the uh Pharisee doing the Connor McGregor walk.

I fast twice a week, I pay all my tithes.

God be merciful to me.

This is the correct answer.

The second thing I want to look like look at is regarding the Apostle Paul.

Uh, I'm gonna call this Paul's step down.

And some of you may have seen this before, or people have talked about it before, but it's interesting as Paul ages, he describes himself differently little by little as he writes different letters, and he ages in those as about four to five years seem to go by.

In between these different books.

So let's look at the Apostle Paul.

The first one is 1 Corinthians 15 9.

And this is simply just Paul describing himself of what I want to look at here.

1 Corinthians 15 9.

For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.

I am the least of the apostles.

So there's this group up above, these leaders, these apostles, and he says, Of this group, I am the least.

That's where he puts himself.

Not long later, in the book of Ephesians, which is just a little over Galatians, Ephesians 3, 8.

Paul refers to himself again.

To me, the very least of all the saints.

This grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.

So now he doesn't say I'm the least of the apostles, this elite group.

Now he's looking at the saints, possibly referring to all the believers, a much bigger group, and he says, I am the least of those.

He has lowered his value of himself, at least in relationship to his sinful life, to being the least of the saints.

And then the last one is 1 Timothy 1 15.

It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.

I'm the worst of this really high group of apostles.

I'm the worst of all the saints.

I'm just the worst of the sinners.

Yeah.

God be merciful to me.

The humility of Ruth.

The third one comes from the book of Matthew fifteen.

Matthew 15, 20 through 22 through 28 says this.

And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon possessed.

But he did not answer her a word, and his disciples came and implored him, saying, Send her away because she keeps shouting at us.

But he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

But she came and began to bow down before him, saying, Lord, help me.

Lord, help me.

And he answered and said, It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

But she said, Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table.

And then Jesus said to her, O woman, your faith is great.

It shall be done for you as you wish.

And her daughter was healed at once.

Jesus said her faith healed her, but she presents that faith by describing herself or her family, her daughter, as a dog getting crumbs from the table.

That's pretty humble.

She didn't fight to be known as something else.

She simply wanted God's mercy on her daughter.

Chapter 14, 711.

Luke chapter 14, verses 7 through 11.

Luke 14:7–11

And he began to speak a parable to the invited guests when he noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, now this is Jesus speaking, When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him.

And he who invited you both will come and say to you, Give your place to this man, and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.

But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, that when the one who has invited you comes by, he may say to you, Friend, move up higher.

Then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.

For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Humbleness.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

These two parables, these two other two examples of people are right in line with what we can glean from what Ruth teaches us.

We must approach the Lord with a broken spirit and contrite heart.

We will have that attitude when we see who we actually are, and that is sinners in need of a redeemer.

Now I do have a little bit of a sidebar for a second.

A little extra credit, extra point to make.

Earlier in the story of Ruth, I talked about Boaz finding out that there was another kinsman redeemer.

The other Redeemer actually seemed in line before him.

But if you recall, the other Redeemer did not have the resources and did not have the ability to completely redeem as needed.

Oh, he could have redeemed the land, but he would have left the women exposed.

Don't miss this example.

The world will offer you other redeemers.

None.

None other than Jesus has the resources to finish the job for you by ushering you into eternity with the Father.

There will be other redeemers out there that they will leave you wanting.

As we wrap this up, we should see ourselves more like Ruth.

Humble and in need of a redeemer.

Or even better than see ourselves, we should believe that that is our true condition without Christ.

Lost and in need of a redeemer.

Jesus Christ is that Redeemer.

He came and he died on a cross to be your Redeemer.

If you do not know Jesus is your Savior, I can think of no better way to start 2026 than to humbly turn to Jesus and ask him to be your Redeemer today.

In 2026, let's act more, let's act less like an arrogant champion fighter.

And more like the broken tax collector.

More like the old wise Paul.

More like the desperate mother.

Even just a simple seat in the back.

Let's pray.

Father, the psalmist tells us in Psalm 84, 10 better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

That is my prayer, Lord, to simply be in the house of my God.

Let us have that attitude.

Oh God, be merciful to us.

Amen.