Ruth 2: Behold a Redeemer

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Behold a Redeemer

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in the book of Ruth. We're going to be in the second chapter today. If you have one of the blue Bibles in the row in front of you, it's on page 127.

If you have one of the black Bibles, I don't know what page it's on, but your words are big enough to read, so you get that. But if you don't own a Bible, take one of these blue ones home with you. That's our gift to you. We'd love for you to have a Bible. We'd love for you to be able to read it. We're in the book of Ruth, and we're going to walk through chapter 2 this morning, but I want to catch us up a little bit on what happened in Ruth chapter 1, so previously in the book of Ruth.

We're going to catch up on what we talked about last week. So Ruth is in the Old Testament. It is written during, it's set during the time of Judges, and so that's after the Exodus out of Egypt. It's after Moses, after the law, but before Saul, King David, Solomon, and the kings. So they've taken over some of the promised land, but the time of the Judges is a time of rebellion, then repentance, and then restoration, and then rebellion, and then repentance, and then restoration.

And it's kind of like the Wild West in Israel. It's sometimes good, sometimes bad. Depends on what's going on. Depends on what area you're in. And it's a little bit chaotic. So that's where this story is set.

And we were told last week that there was a man named Elimelech. He had a wife named Naomi. And they had two sons, Malon and Chilion. And they were in Israel, in Bethlehem, during a famine, which means complete economic collapse and starvation. Everything has fallen apart when people are no longer able to eat. And in an agrarian society, this shuts things down.

And so they pick up and move to Moab. And Moab is an area that's enemies of the people of Israel. And at times during Judges, they would rule over Israel. They would fight back and forth. And they go to Moab just because they got to get some food. And we're told that while in Moab, both the sons, Malon and Chilion, take Moabite wives, which they weren't supposed to do given the Old Testament law, but they do.

And so they marry Moabite women. And then Elimelech dies. Malon dies. Chilion dies. And so there are three widows, Orpah, Ruth, and Naomi. And in this time period, single women do not have much agency.

They don't have the ability to own property. They don't have the ability. You were in your father's household or you were in your husband's household. And a widow was in a very vulnerable position. We're told in chapter 1 that they hear while they're in Moab that the Lord has visited Israel and there's food. That God has blessed.

God has shown back up. And there's food in Israel again. And so Naomi says, I'm going back. And she tells Orpah and Ruth, y'all need to stay here. You need to go back to your father's household. And you need to find husbands.

And she said, I can't help you with any of that. So I'm going to go back home because at least there's food and y'all need to find husbands. And Orpah is sad, but she goes. And Ruth says, no. I'm going with you. Regardless of what happens, I'm going with you.

Your people will be my people. Your home will be my home. Your God will be my God. I'm going to stay with you until you die. And I'm going to be buried in the same spot. And may God curse me if I don't do that.

So it's an aggressive way to say, I really care about you and I'm going to stick with you. And so she does. She and Naomi head back, hopefully just trying to find a place to land, hopefully trying to find some food. When they show up, people in town say, hey, Naomi's back. And Naomi says, no, she's not neither. Naomi died in Moab.

Y'all can call me Mara because Naomi means pleasant and Mara means bitter. She said, Naomi's not here anymore. Pleasant's gone. Bitter's back. And she, in chapter one, refers to herself as hopeless, empty, and bitter. That's a bad spot to be in.

If you can take a second to just appreciate where they are. Everything that she thought was going to work out when she married Elimelech. Everything that she thought was going to work out when she had her first son and her second son. Everything that she thought would happen when they began their lives, none of it panned out the way she wanted it to. Just to survive, they had to leave their homeland. And then everything falls apart in Moab.

And she comes back and she says, I'm hopeless. I'm empty. And I'm bitter. And that's where we left them last week. So let's pray.

And we're going to go into chapter two and see if this gets any better. God, we ask for your help. We ask for your grace as we study your word. We're thankful for stories like this. We pray that you would help us through the work of your spirit and the power of your word to see you in the middle of this. So that we might learn to see you in the middle of our circumstances as well.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going to pick up in the last verse of chapter one because it sets the tone. That kind of gives us the setting. It says, so Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

A couple of things we need to note from this one verse. First of all, this is right after Naomi gives her whole speech about Naomi's not here anymore. I'm Mara, which had to be really awkward for the people who are like, hey, Naomi. And she's like, no. But what I love about this is the absolute next verse when she's done talking goes, so Naomi shows back up.

I just appreciate that she does not get to take her circumstances and redefine her identity. That's so good. She says, everything's falling apart from me. Pleasantness is gone. Bitterness is here. That's who I am now.

And the Bible says, no. God's just like, no, that's not how that works. And that's really good news for some of us because we get in these situations where we think everything's falling apart. I'm just worthless. I'm just unlovable. I'm just hopeless.

And isn't it good that we have a God who just goes, no, you don't get to use bad circumstances to rewrite your identity. That's a whole sermon right there. It's not today's sermon, so we're going to have to keep moving on. But that's a good thing. Then it says, and Ruth the Moabite.

Now, you know what Ruth was called in Moab? Ruth. Just like Swedish Fish and Sweden are just called Fish. She just is Ruth. But when she comes to Israel, they're going to call her Ruth the Moabite over and over and over again because her Moabiteness stands out now.

She feels it. They feel it. They see it. If you've ever been in a place where you were the only person who spoke your language, everybody else spoke a different language, or you're the only person who looked like you or dressed like you or had the same skin tone as you, if you ever dated somebody of a different race and then went to their family reunion, you know kind of how she feels. She notices herself in a distinct way than she usually does. And that's part of what the text is showing us is that she's now Ruth the Moabite as she has followed her mother-in-law.

And then it says it's at the beginning of the barley harvest, which for a place that's had a famine, this is really good news. There's actually a barley harvest now. This is what they had been told. It's rained. Barley's growing. There's food again.

Come back. Like she gets to go, there's going to be the barley harvest. And right after the barley harvest is the wheat harvest. And both of those are staple crops. Barley is used to make alcohol, but when you've been starving, that's not the first thing they do with it. It's a staple crop.

They use it to make bread. They use it to make soups and stews. It was something that they were immediately coming back into. We're going to get to eat again. And so they show back up at the beginning of the barley harvest. Now, this is chapter 2, verse 1.

Now, Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. All right, a couple of things we need to note from here. First, they're just introducing him, but he doesn't show up until later. So they cut over here and say, y'all need to know about Boaz. And then they turn back, and that was it. They just kind of give him a little introduction.

A couple of things that are helpful for us to capture. First is, Boaz is a really cool name. Name your kids that, and then you can call him Bo. That's for sure. It's awesome. Although, never mind.

Anyway, all right. And we're told that he's a worthy man. That word is used to mean wealthy at times, to mean prominent, to mean a war hero. He's well-respected, but it also means he's well-respected in a way he's helpful to the people around him. He's a blessing. He's a solid, worthy man.

He's a godly man. That's what that's saying. And then it says a worthy man. It says he's a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech. Now, for us, that's just background information. But for Jewish readers, their ears just perked up a little bit.

Oh, he's a relative. Oh. Because they would marry inside of their clans. And if you had a problem, the people inside of your clan were the people who would help you out of the problem. They were the people who could help buy back property. They were the people who could help you get your family line back in order.

They were the people who were to be helpful. So when they say, I just wanted to introduce you all to a man named Boaz. He's great and he's related. Jewish people went, oh. And so that's what we need to capture from that. Verse 2.

And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. So barley harvest. But she doesn't have – they don't own property. So she just says, I'm going to go follow behind the people who are reaping and I'm going to glean.

Reaping is where you get to take all the stuff that you can carry. Gleaning is where you get to pick through what they accidentally dropped. And so she says, I'm going to go see if someone will show me some favor. Be kind to me and let me glean. And they're leaning into, in Israel, a part of the Old Testament law. This is in Leviticus chapter 23.

It says, And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. Same laws are in Deuteronomy. It says you're going to leave them for the widow, the poor, the sojourner. So sojourners are people that have come and trusted in living in this area.

So the rule was, there was some social security that when you had a harvest, you weren't allowed to get everything you could get. You had to leave the edges for people to come by and pick from there. And you had to, once you went through once, you weren't allowed to go back and get everything you dropped. You were supposed to leave it so that there were people who could do exactly what she's doing. But we're in the time of the Judges, which means sometimes people were following the law, sometimes they weren't.

And we're not quite sure if this is going to work out. But she says, we got to get some food some way. I'm going to go do this. It'd be similar to if you were in a real bad spot and you said, look, it's Saturday morning. I'm just going to drive over to Lowe's and I'm going to sit outside. And I'm going to wait and see if I see somebody who looks like they're in a big project.

And I'm going to go over and ask, can I help you for the day? Pay me whatever you can. That's the spot they're in. And so Naomi says, go. So she set out, it's verse three, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers.

And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. Okay. The way this is written is a little bit tongue in cheek, a little bit. It's got a little bit of irony, irony. And it's, it's, he's saying like this.

So she shut out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she just so happened to come to the field belonging to Boaz. And then when it says, and behold, that's look. Oh, looky here. Boaz showed up. Oh, would you notice that?

That's the way this is written. It's got a little bit of, we're supposed to catch the fact that this wasn't just, well, what a coincidence. She's in the right field. And look at that strapping lad, Boaz, just happened to show up. It's written in a way that's trying to help you see that there's more at work here than just coincidence. And it's going to be written that way through the rest of chapter two and three.

There's going to be all these times where you're going, ah. And they're intending to make you go, ah, wait a second. Something else is going on here. And that's one of the things that we need to wrap our mind around is that God often works with his visible hand. That there are times where there are miracles. There are times where he parts the Red Sea.

There are times where there are plagues. There are times where an angel shows up and talks to somebody. But all the time, God is working through his invisible hand. That he's blessing and orchestrating and helping things work out according to his will. That he's moving in ways we don't see. That he's moving in ways that are helpful and grace-filled and loving towards us that just seem like, oh, what are the odds of that?

Exactly. What are the odds of that? God's really good. And they're going to see that as they go through. They're going to respond in the same way, understanding that God has blessed here. So would you look at that?

She shows up on his property. And he shows up. Well, I'll be. And he said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. So he comes up and says, may the Lord, that Lord capital L-O-R-D, when you see it in your scripture like that, means they use the proper name, Yahweh of the Lord.

It's the I am that I am that he tells Moses in the book of Exodus. And so they're saying, may Yahweh bless you. May the Lord bless you. And they respond, may the Lord bless you. And this is a bit of an uncommon greeting. It seems like it's a very genuine.

He's devout. And he seems to have a good relationship with his workers, that there's mutual blessing and care. Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? Now, what happened is he shows up. He sees his reapers reaping. And he's got young men and young ladies that are working, reaping his field.

And then there's another young lady following behind gleaning. And you'll notice the question is different than the way we would ask the question. We would say, who is this? But if you remember, females didn't have a lot of agency. He says, whose young woman is this? Whose household does she belong to?

Who is she under? And the answer, the sting that we're supposed to feel in this text is no one. Like when you're talking to someone and they go, how's work going? But you got laid off last week? That little, oh. How's your girlfriend?

She broke up with me. Oh, I'm glad I brought it up. That kind of thing. So he asked, whose young woman is this? And we know the answer. Nobody's.

She's got nobody. She's no father. She has no household. She has nobody. She's doing her best just to eat today. And the way the text is written is there's this little, but is there going to be an answer to that later?

Is she going to be with somebody? That's the way it's written. So whose young woman is this? And he answers. The servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, she is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. And she said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.

So she came and she has continued from early morning until now except for a short rest. The Hebrew phrase there is she's lived in the field. She's nonstop. She's been working. And she came and said, can I glean? And that's what she's been doing since forever.

She's working. And then Boaz said to Ruth. So he goes over to her. He didn't talk to her at first. He just asked about her. He goes over to her.

And now you can feel a little bit of tension because she's been working all morning. Head guy shows up. Has a little conversation. If you've been in these situations, you're usually paying attention to these sort of things. Boss man starts heading over to you. This may not go well.

If you've ever been in a situation where someone who is in charge of things suddenly knew your name. You're like, oh, is this good or bad? You know my name. What's happening here? So he comes over to her and there's this moment of what's going to happen.

And Boaz said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter. Do not go to glean in any other field or leave this one. But keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.

Y'all, he could have walked over and said, get out of here. He could have walked over and said, hey, it's okay if you do this today, but keep back from everybody. And find somewhere else tomorrow. He comes over and says, you find my young women and you stick close to them. And if you get thirsty, they've already drawn water for you. Which is above and beyond.

He says, you're welcome. He could have treated her like a Moabite. But he comes over and he says, you're welcome. You belong. You get to participate in the same level as everybody else. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

So she feels this. This, how much of a blessing it is and how odd it seems. But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me. And how you left your father and your mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward to be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. First of all, her character has preceded her.

Her grace and kindness has preceded her. We find out now she's also a hard worker. She's out trying to labor for her mother-in-law. It seems like her mother-in-law probably isn't capable. Is older and not able to go work in the sun all day. But Naomi says, I'm going to, Ruth says she's going to go help take care of this.

And he says, may you be blessed. I want to point out a few things. Oh, verse 11. Can you go back to verse 11? I want to point out something in that. Yep.

You left your father and mother and your native land and you came to a people that you had not known before. He acknowledges how difficult that is. And I think you ought to have that in your mind when you're dealing with anybody who has done that. That's difficult. It's difficult to be in a place where you don't understand all of the cultural things that you would have been trained in your entire life. It's difficult when you're speaking a language that's not your native language.

And so I would just say, as an aside, be extra gracious to people who are in those situations. And be like Boaz and go out of your way to be kind and helpful. Because we're supposed to. And that's actually what he says. He goes in chapter verse 12. He says, not only have you come here, but you have taken refuge under the Lord, the God of Israel.

And that's what he's understanding. He's saying, you're not just a foreigner. You're a sojourner. And that's what the law tells us in Exodus 22. You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him. For you are sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Meaning someone who's officially come. They're not just for him, but they've come and said, I'm going to live here. And that specifically was people who came to Israel and said, I'm going to worship your God. I'm going to follow your God. He says, no, you belong. You're welcome here.

And he treats her with great generosity and kindness. And I want you to wrap your head around something. He says, may the Lord bless you, even as he is blessing her. And he understands that part of the way the Lord blesses is that he uses us. And that it's the Lord's blessing that we get to participate. So I would ask you, where are you in a position of authority?

Where do you have something that's been given to you? Do you eat every day? Have food on your table? Do you have a vehicle that works? Do you set the schedule at work? Do you oversee people?

Are you the type of person who you don't set the schedule, you don't oversee people, but you can help control how the day goes? Are you one of the cool people in class? Are you guys that can raise and lower people? And are you using those things that God has given you to be gracious and generous to those around you? Do you have your eyes open for the person who's following after, just trying to glean and trying to figure out how can I be a blessing? How can God work through what I have?

In a lot of ways, God blesses people so that we can bless. In a lot of ways, you're the FedEx driver. You've got a lot of stuff he's given you, but it's not all meant to terminate on you. The FedEx driver shouldn't show up wearing the shirt you ordered. And so there's a lot of things that God has given us that we're meant to just let pass through our hands to be a blessing to those around us. And don't get confused.

Let's be like Boaz because God has been like that to us. So that's what he does. And then she says, verse 13, Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants. So he just says, keep at it. You're blessed. Be welcome here.

And he goes. Then it says, at mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine. So they all take a break to go eat. She would have just taken a break or kept gleaning. Maybe she would have taken some of what she'd gotten and chewed on a little bit of it. You can do that.

It's not great, but you can do it. And he says, no, no, no, no. Come over here. You don't have anything. No, no, no. Come eat with us.

You sit right down. You're welcome here. Which again, he's jumping past cultural things to do this, to be gracious, to be kind, to look a lot like the God he worships. So he says, you come eat. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed to her roasted grain and she ate until she was satisfied and she had some left over.

Now for a lot of us, that's a daily thing. She hasn't done this in a long time. She hasn't gotten to eat and eat and eat until she thought, should I eat this? I'm going to and we'll find out. And then she ate it and then she thought, I really can't eat anymore. Probably shouldn't eat in the last bite, but it was so good.

She ate so much and she had some left over. Do y'all see the blessing in that? For someone who's been hungry for such a long time, for someone who's just been probably every day having to try to find something to eat was actually really good. Times would have to sit and think, do I eat all this now and spend the rest of the day being hungry? But I probably won't get any more food.

Or do I wait and try to parse it out? And either way, I'm just going to be hungry and then I hope for, have some food tomorrow. She gets to sit and eat. She's welcomed at the table. All right.

So she sat. She ate until she was satisfied. She had some left over. When she rose to glean, meaning she's going to get back behind and keep doing the stuff, Boaz instructed his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her. He says, if she breaks proper protocol and she just starts going in the standing grain rather than the stuff that's already been knocked over, y'all don't say a word to her.

And if she's not doing that and you feel like she's not getting enough, you start just dropping handfuls. She goes home full. That's what he said. And I better not hear y'all say a word to her. And he does this. He doesn't tell her this.

He goes and blesses her without her knowing. Church family. Do that. Jesus says to be generous and not let your left hand know what your right hand's doing. Go out of your way to bless people that they don't even know. But he says she's going to be taken care of.

She is. Okay. Do not rebuke her. Verse 17. So she gleaned in the field until evening.

Remember, she's hard working. Then she beat out what she had gleaned and it was about an ephah of barley. And I know all of y'all were like, a whole ephah? Yeah, an ephah, you guys. My mind was blown too. Yeah, so it's a bushel and it's like 30-ish pounds.

And there are writings from the Babylonian empire that if you had worked all day, they would pay day laborers a pound or two of barley. She goes home with 30 pounds. This is enough for her and Naomi to eat for like three weeks. If she's able to do this every day for the whole barley and wheat harvest, which is about eight weeks, they're going to have enough food for a year. Which is such a blessing to Israel that they're doing this well, that God has blessed them in this manner. But it's such a blessing to Ruth and Naomi.

This is a crazy amount of food. Naomi's thinking, hey, she's sitting at home hungry, hoping it's going well. She's probably been praying for Ruth. Probably been hoping that she found a good place to be. Probably hoping she hadn't been run off. A little bit worried about her.

A little bit scared for her. She's a Moabite with nobody. So she gets all this and she says that she took it up, verse 18, went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. Isn't that kind?

She ate all that food, had some left over. She said, I'm going to go home. This is about to be Naomi's. I'm going to show up not just with food we can cook. I'm going to show up with some cooked food. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over from being satisfied.

I love verse 19. And her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. Y'all, that's incoherent, excited, sputtering. She asked the same question twice, doesn't wait for an answer and starts praising the Lord.

She shows up with weeks of groceries, puts this out, and Naomi says, where were you? Who was, where did this, thank you Jesus! Praise the Lord, bless the man who, like she starts praying over this stuff. May he always have barley. May he have so much he doesn't even know where it is and be able to take it. May Ruth always be there.

May Ruth always be there. She's so excited. So blessed to see how this has been provided and taken care of. And then, so Ruth responds. She says, where do you go? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.

And so she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz. The way that sentence is structured is that it just drags on until you finally hear Boaz. And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead. Now, a couple things to see here. when you're blessed by somebody, when they care for you and they go out of their way, do you bless them in return? And even just this, she's just speaking and bless them. She said, Lord, may you bless them.

May you care for them. May you notice. But the other thing that happens here is it's unclear in English and in Hebrew, which I don't read, but other people who read it wrote some stuff down and they told me it's unclear in Hebrew. Whose kindness? Whose? The Lord's?

Or he, Boaz. He whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead or the Lord whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead? And the answer is yes. Because that's how God works so often. You go to the grocery store and you get a gallon of milk. How'd that get there?

The truck driver? The person who milked it? The person who put the milk jug on the counter? The cow? God? Yes.

This means that there's a lot of joy in normal work because you get to participate in all the ways that God is blessing. And it also means that there are times where we pray for the visible hand of God and he blesses us with the invisible hand of God and we're supposed to recognize it and celebrate it. There are times where we pray and the tumor is removed and you show back up and it's gone. They scan, they say, I don't know where it went. And you say, I don't care where it went. It's gone.

High five. I'm out of here. There are other times where you pray and they show back up, they scan it again, they say, it's continued to grow. We need to do surgery now. And God, in his grace, has placed you here where there's a hospital, where there's a doctor, where there's a skilled medical team and they remove a tumor. Praise the Lord and praise the medical team.

Thank you, Jesus. That's how this works. So often, he provides food but sometimes he provides it through you got a job. Sometimes he provides it through church family brought some things over. But we get to recognize and appreciate how he blesses and cares all the time.

Now, a little bit of foreshadowing for next week. Chapter 3. Naomi said to her, this man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers. Now, if this was a 90s sitcom, the crowd would have just gone, ooh. Because there's a lot of hope packed into that, he's a close relative, he's one of our redeemers. This means a couple of things.

One is, he's a close enough relative to fit into the role of a kinsman redeemer and a kinsman redeemer is someone who can help get you out of bad situations and they're supposed to. They're supposed to help buy back land. They're supposed to help when a family line seems like it's going to end, which this seems like it's going to end, that there will be no heir for Elimelech because of no heir from Malon or Chilion. These kinsman redeemer can come back in and get property back. They can come back in and sort things out. And so it either just means he's close enough to do that, but it also seems that at times they actually had someone who was prominent, worthy enough, wise enough that they were almost assigned the role.

Like a mafia don, but in a really good way. He's a relative who's taken on this role and he can do special things. He can get some stuff accomplished. And so she says he's a redeemer, which means there's some hope that we can actually get reestablished. And for a Jewish reader, you go, wait, wait, wait. How reestablished?

He can help you get your house back and get your land back or is he going to help get your bloodline back? And for who? Is he potentially going to marry Naomi or is he going to potentially marry Ruth? And I don't want to give you away, give it away, but the title of the book's a hint. And so you start thinking is Naomi thinking what I think she's thinking? And chapter three is going to say, yes, she's thinking what you think she's thinking.

Naomi has noticed something, whether Ruth has noticed it or not, is that Naomi is suddenly very excited about Boaz's potential as a suitor, as a husband. And I'll tell you, she noticed some things that are worth noticing. So ladies who are looking for a husband, here are a couple things to look for. He loves the Lord, but he doesn't just talk about Him, he obeys Him. That's good. He showed up and said, may the Lord bless you.

And you go, that's a good sign. And then he was generous and kind and he knew the law and he applied it over and above. It's like, oh, that's a real good sign. So I'm excited. Can they come in here and sing and raise their hand? Yeah, that's good.

What do they do when they leave? They still follow the Lord? They know their Bible? Well, he has a job. Yeah. That's good.

Young men, you can only help what your face looks like so much. You can only help how tall you are so much. But you can go to work and you can work hard and let me tell you something. A nice Job smells good on a man. She poured out all that barley and she said, mm, this guy seems handsome. Third, he cared about Ruth's well-being, not his own.

He gave, he didn't take. Oh. If you're in a relationship, he doesn't care about you. He cares about what he gets from you, don't be in a relationship anymore. If you're married, that doesn't apply. And I'm sorry I said it that way, but I didn't need to clarify that.

And we can work on that and we'd love to help walk you through that because that's a very tough situation to be in. But if you're dating, that absolutely applies. One of the ministries I hope to take up in this church is to help young ladies break up with young men who don't have jobs, don't love Jesus, and don't care about him. And you can send them to come talk to me. You can say, oh, I broke up with you because my pastor said it. You don't have to blame it on Jesus, blame it on me.

And then I'll talk to him. I'll say, yeah, you have a job, you love Jesus, get in a group, we'll help you out. We'll make you handsomer by the day. Fourth, he's a close relative. I mean, he's checking all the boxes, you guys. That one's a joke.

I know we got some people from Kentucky in here, that's just a joke. Just list verse three. Okay. And so you're going, is Naomi thinking what I'm thinking? She's thinking, and she is. And watch this.

He's a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers. And Ruth the Moabite said, besides, he said to me, you shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest. He told me to come back. He told me this isn't just today, this is the whole time. That's such a blessing. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, less than another field you'd be assaulted.

Now, I just want to point something out because Naomi is thinking what you're thinking she's thinking. Ruth said, he said, you shall keep close to my young men until I'm done. And Naomi responds, that's good, you should keep close to his young women. She swaps that word out. But she also says this, less than another field you'd be assaulted.

That's a reality. It's a reality then for her to be no father, no husband in a situation where she has no real agency and they didn't really care the same way and protect the same way. But it's a reality now. I read a study one time where they asked college young men and college-aged young ladies and they said, if you were going to go running at night, what would you do to prepare? And the college men thought it was a trick question. They're like, shoes.

A lot of them put nothing. The young ladies, a lot of them said, I would not do this. Or they said, I wouldn't wear headphones because I've got to be able to hear what's going on around me. I'd tell a friend so they knew when I was going, what route I was running when I was coming back. And so I would just say to the men in the room, be like Boaz so that people are more protected around you, not less. And be mindful of the young women and the single women and just the women that are by themselves around you that you don't make them feel uncomfortable because you're not thinking about being assaulted, but they might be.

So be mindful of how close you stand to people, how you look at them. And in general, you can make people safer without being weird about it. So be aware. But she says, it's good. This will keep you safe. So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvest.

And she lived with her mother-in-law. So this continued. It was a blessing. They got tons and tons of food over the next eight weeks. That's what we're told. I want to point something out as we finish this up because I want to help you see a theological, logical point, a piece of theology that there's a logical point made from from the New Testament.

Naomi says, I'm hopeless, I'm empty, I'm bitter. But they find out that the Lord has visited Israel and there's food. And then we see this moment where the Lord visits Naomi. Where she had said, he's come out to harm me, but she sees how blessed and she immediately just pours forth with praise. Praise the Lord that he hasn't forgotten us. The Lord has visited us.

He cares for us. This is beyond anything I could have hoped for. And we need to be mindful to see where the Lord's at work and where he blesses. But I want to show you something that the New Testament tells us that helps us even more than the help Naomi. He gets. You see, this picture, this story of Ruth is a picture, ultimately, of God's story.

That we're bitter, we're empty, we're hopeless, we're foreigners, we're unwelcome, and that God visits his people in the form of Christ who takes on flesh to redeem us, to fill us, to make life good and sweet and pleasant, to give us hope. because he dies because he dies for our sins that we can trust in him that he'll work on our behalf. And so what I want to show you is this. In Romans chapter 5, it says, God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We actually didn't have a good report like Ruth had that goes before us. All we had was our sin. And then he says, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.

That's the hope of the gospel, that we're sinners, we're enemies, we're not welcome, we're worse than a Moabite. We don't even have a good report and that Jesus Christ came to redeem us, to give us hope, to rescue us out of our sin, to pay our debt. And then, chapter 8, it says this, He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? So this is a theological point, but there's a logical point made from it. If you right now have trusted in Christ, but you feel empty, hopeless, bitter, life circumstances have not worked out the way you wanted to.

You painted a baby room, but the baby didn't come. You got married, but it didn't work out the way you thought it would work out. You are in a situation where you thought you were going to get the job, you didn't get the job. You thought you were going to graduate, you didn't graduate. You thought things were going to work. You don't know why your mind is working the way it's working right now.

You don't know why your health is working the way it's working right now. And you just, you just don't know. We can trust and look for and celebrate everywhere we see his invisible hand, but we have something so much better that we can look and say, if he would die for me, if he would give his son for me, I can trust him with everything else. And I don't know why this has worked out the way it's worked out, and I don't know why it's been as hard as it's been, and I don't know why it worked out for them, but not for me, but I can trust that I'm not lost, that he doesn't, it's not that he doesn't know about me, it's not that he doesn't care about me, it's not that I'm on my own, it's not that he's turned his back, because he promises if he'll give me his son, he'll take care of everything else, and I can trust him in it, and not just trust him to work it out the way I want it to work out, but I can trust him in it, to work it out how he wants to work it out.

And that's good news, and that's an anchor for us when we have no other anchor, and that's why we have a hope that is not tied to circumstance. Matt's going to come back up, we're going to take communion, where as a church we remind ourselves of that tangible, real sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, where we remind ourselves of what he has done for us, and that we anchor our hope in the fact that he gave his life for us, that he died for us while we were still his enemies. If you are not a Christian, communion is not for you. It's where we celebrate and we take that his body was broken for us, that his blood was shed for us, that he says, my body is real food, and my blood is real drink, meaning that it actually satisfies forever, that it fixes forever, that it cures forever.

But if you have not placed your faith in Christ, I would encourage you to come to Christ, to trust that God is good in general while you're still an enemy, while you're still a sinner, now come to him and know that he is good specifically on your behalf to repent of your sin and to be redeemed and brought back into the family. That the promise of he has given up his son for us, how will he not give us all things, is for those who have believed. But it's open to all who would believe, and I would encourage you to place your faith in it. But church family, take a moment, consider your circumstances, look for the way that God has blessed, and then, as an anchor for our soul, remember that he died to redeem and to care, and that we have hope.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for how good you are. We thank you for how you care and provide and watch over and work and all these seemingly normal and mundane ways, and we thank you, Lord, that we can look to the cross to know that you have us and that you love us and that you are capable. And we don't know what happens next and we don't know how it all plays out, but we know that you are not withholding good from us, but that you know what you're doing and that you love us. And for those who have not trusted in you to rescue their souls, who have not seen their sin and known they need a Savior, we pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would work and that they would come to you empty, hopeless, bitter, to be restored by your word.

In Jesus' name, Amen.