Sovereignty – Ruth 2:1-10

I would like for someone to tell me about a time when God took you out of a situation was pretty good and led you into a situation that was even better. Maybe it was a job or a relationship or even a church. Tell me how God led you from good to better.

I hope that you continue to give God glory and honor for blessing you the way that He has. He deserves that, does He not?

Now I want you to think of a time when God took you out of a good situation and put you in a situation…much worse. Have you ever been there? Of course you have. You just may not have looked at it that way. Everyone has been through a time when things seem to be rocking along just fine, all is well, and the bottom drops out of it. Maybe it is a report from a doctor. Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one. A car wreck, a cheating spouse, a hang nail, or your favorite idol got voted off the show, whatever it is, is that God’s fault?

Think about it now, if you gave God credit for the good things that come your way, shouldn’t He also get the blame when bad things come? Wouldn’t it be disingenuous to not look at it that way? That line of thinking may make some of you uncomfortable, but God is big enough to handle our exploration of this subject.

I believe it is especially applicable in the wake of the recent shootings at that church in South Texas. Here’s a hypothetical situation for you: suppose that insane gunman had not gone into that church that morning (and he was insane by the way. He may not meet the legal definition but sane people don’t do that and more gun laws are not going to keep insane people from killing people.) But suppose he had not gone in there. Those people who worshiped at that church could go home and eat lunch and thank God for a safe and good time with friends and family, right? I don’t know that they would, but they could.

But since many of those will never go home again at all and others will have physical and emotional problems the rest of their life, should God not get the blame? And if He is to blame and since we know Him to be all-powerful, who does He think He is to put us through that kind of pain? Have you ever felt that way? If you have you are not alone. David often cried out to God in frustration. Elijah told God to just kill him. Job wished he had never been born. Jonah told God he was so angry at Him he wanted to die.

In fact, I would imagine that the vast majority of people have at one time felt that way. I can remember a time in my own life where I was driving down the road and pounded on the steering wheel and shouted, “I don’t know what game you’re playing, God, but I don’t think it’s very funny!” Humphrey Bogart, the great theologian, once said, “Things are never so bad that they can’t get a little bit worse.”  I have an idea that at the end of the first chapter of Ruth that Naomi and Ruth were feeling just this way. Our message is going to come from verses 1-10 of chapter 2 but I want us to take stock of what has happened in these widows’ lives up to that point. In chapter one the family endures a difficult time of famine and so they leave Bethlehem and go to Moab where Naomi’s 2 sons marry women but then not only does her husband die but then her 2 sons die as well and she is left with only 2 daughters-in-law.

The one d-i-law, Orpah makes the decision to go back to her family home but as you remember, Ruth says so eloquently in verses 16 and 17 that she will follow Naomi wherever she goes even unto death. Boy, who doesn’t need a Ruth in their life? That must have been a great comfort to Naomi. I can just picture the 2 of them walking back to Bethlehem. They are still in grief from losing their husbands. They don’t understand why all of this is happening to them but at least they have each other.

It’s a long walk back home to Bethlehem from Moab and I can just picture the 2 of them walking along and talking. I bet there wasn’t a moment’s silence, with both of them expressing their feelings to each other, both of them thinking they can’t get a word in edgewise. You married men know the feeling, right? So, while they still have a lot of problems, things are looking up for them. At least they have a plan and pretty soon they will be where they can get some help and then they top that last hill that overlooks the Jordan River.

The scriptures don’t say anything about all this but I want you to see one quick thing in verse 22 of chapter 1. Read. “So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.”  And we know from one other scripture that there is a problem. In Joshua chapter 3 we see the story of Joshua leading the Israelites across the Jordan and God stopped the flow of water and they passed over on dry land because in verse 15 it says the Jordan is at flood stage all during the harvest.

Now can you imagine how Naomi and Ruth felt as they topped that last hill and saw all that water? Can you just hear the desperation in their voices? “God, why? We are trying to do what you want us to do. We are trying to be obedient. We are already in trouble NOT of our making and now this?! Why would you do this to us?”

We don’t know how they got across. Maybe they found a boat or maybe they walked all the way around or maybe they swam. I don’t know. The point is, it was just one more thing! Hadn’t they been through enough? I bet you know that feeling. I bet you have had that same desperation in your voice as you talked to God. But just as God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can endure, He also knows how much heartache we can endure and so Naomi and Ruth finally make it back to Bethlehem. Let’s pick up what happens next as we read chapter 2, verse 1-10.

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz. 2And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor." Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter." 3So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. 4Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The LORD be with you!" "The LORD bless you!" they answered. 5Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, "Who does that young woman belong to?" 6The overseer replied, "She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter." 8So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. 9Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled." 10At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me-a foreigner?"

I would bet there are 25 different sermons in that one little passage but I want us to see only 2 things this morning.  I want us to look at what I believe are the main reasons this passage is in here.  Is the reason this passage is in here to teach us about good luck?  Is it to show us how Karma works?  Is it to show us an example of how by working hard we can change our destiny?  No.  I believe that we can see from this passage that God is sovereign and that God has a plan.

The first instance of God's sovereignty is in the first verse.  There is a saying that you can pick your friends but you are stuck with your family.  It's a good thing for Naomi and Ruth because Boaz is described here as a man of standing or maybe in your Bible it says he was a mighty man or a man of wealth.  None of those are wrong.  The original word includes all of that but leans more toward the ethical side than the prosperous side.  In fact, Boaz uses the same basic word or phrase to later describe Ruth in chapter 3 verse 11 where he says she is a woman of noble character.

Ruth proves that she's not lazy by getting up early the next morning and going to look for food.  She knows she is going to have to provide for Naomi and herself and she goes out, a foreigner in a strange land, and decides to glean some grain or corn.  I said last week that there was no Social Security or Welfare but there was an OT law that commanded the owner of a field to leave behind just a little bit, some scraps, to those who may be in need and that is what Ruth is after here. It says that Ruth just happened upon this field.  The King James says she happened upon it and that makes it sound like dumb luck.  It sounds like a blind pig finding an acorn.  Finally, some good luck, advantageous circumstance, fortuitous providence, chance encounter. 

In John chapter 4, was it coincidence that Jesus was sitting by the well in Sychar when the Samaritan woman came to draw water?  Was it good luck when Philip saw the Ethiopian eunuch in the chariot?  Was it good karma that Peter and John were going to the temple at 3 pm and saw the beggar?  No, it was the guiding grace of our Heavenly Father who sees and knows everything and has great, great love for you just like He did for Ruth.

It is the sovereignty of Almighty God who allows us to have free will and still ordains our footsteps.  Sovereign means to have supreme and independent power.  All through the Old and New Testaments God is called Sovereign Lord.  Romans 9:18 says, "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."  God doesn't need your permission to do something.  You don't see or understand everything like He does so we just have to trust Him.

Let's say for a minute God did ask you before He did something.  Let's say God comes to you and says, "Uh, hey David.  I have this plan and I need to break your leg.  Will that be okay with you?  You would probably say no.  But if you knew that in the hospital that you would speak to a nurse about Jesus and that nurse would come to have a life-changing relationship with Jesus 10 years later, remembering what you said and that she would then witness to a doctor who would council a young woman not to have an abortion and that child would grow up to lead your grandson to Jesus?  Would that change your mind?  Was that broken leg fair to you?  Did it hurt you badly?  Were you affected by that the rest of your life?  None of those questions even matter anymore!

We don't see things as God sees them so who are we to complain or even question God?

I want us to look at another verse in this passage.  We see that Ruth finds favor in the eyes of Boaz and he treats her with respect and fairness even though she has done nothing to deserve it in his mind.  I want us to read verse 8 again.  "So Boaz said to Ruth, My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me." There are 2 ways you can look at that.  First you could look at it as restrictive.  That is narrowing my options.  Who does he think he is to try to limit what I can do?  He's not the boss of me.  Another way to look at that is to think of what a blessing it is to be separated or holy to these people and this field where Boaz can protect and provide for me.  God doesn't want you to do certain things or go certain places, not because He is mean but just the opposite. He wants you to be in the right place at the right time because He has a plan for your life.  Just like He said in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

We see that Boaz is an OT picture of Jesus Himself and He wants us to stay in His field.  He knows there is nothing but trouble in another field and even though we don't deserve it He wants to bless us and protect and provide for us.  Ruth is a picture of the church and as part of the church of Jesus we want to do as we are told.  We want to stay under the protective wings of Jesus.  There is work for us to do there just like there was for Ruth but we don't see it as restricting us but it is protecting us.

One last thing I want us to see in verse 10 is the response of Ruth.  “At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me--a foreigner?" I am reminded of another such question.  I Chronicles 17:16 says, "Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: "Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?”

You may think, "Oh sure.  That's easy for a king to say."  David knew heartache like I hope most of us will never know.  He knew great physical, emotional, even spiritual pain.  He often cried out to God.  He spent years running for his very life for reasons he couldn't understand.  In the end, he acknowledged God's sovereign will was for his benefit and the benefit of the Kingdom of God. Did he understand why everything had happened to him?  Did it make it not hurt to lose an infant child?  Did knowing that God was sovereign and had a plan bring his son Absalom back to life?  No, of course not.  There will always be things we don't understand.  There will always be things in life that still hurt and things that aren't fair; things we can't know until we see Jesus.

My friend Scott told me about visiting a castle in England a few years ago.  He was amazed at the architecture.  He said the furniture was beautiful.  The gardens were amazing.  The pictures on the wall were all incredible.  He said they had in one room several huge tapestries hanging down from rods.  These tapestries were works of art that were sewn by hand and depicted all sorts of important places or events.  The handiwork was intricate and perfect.

He looked on the back of one of them, though, and he said it was awful.  It was nothing but a mass of different color pieces of material that made no sense.  It was ugly and distorted and you couldn't tell at all about what was on the front by looking at the back.  On the back was ugly nonsense but the front was beautiful and perfect. It's the same way with our lives.  From our vantage point, it doesn't make sense.  It's not fair.  We don't deserve it.  It's ugly and horrible for no good reason.  And it may be that way our whole lives.  God doesn't promise to make it make sense.  He never says life is going to be fair in the end.  We just have to trust that He is sovereign and that He has a plan.  And when we do that we are in place to ask God just that one question like Ruth did:  Why have I found such favor in your eyes, Sovereign Lord?

I have mentioned before that in January 2018, this church is preparing for battle.  We have just been talking about it for the last few weeks as we have gone through the book of Ruth.  We have seen that decisions have consequences and we know that we have to decide to fight, as Jesus said in the Lord’s Prayer, against the evil one. We have seen in Ruth what true devotion to God and others looks like and that, too, is vitally important in this fight. But in this battle, we are going to see that we have been given orders by God who is our great General and we won’t always understand why or how or what is going to happen next but we know that God is sovereign and He can see the whole battle field and He knows what is going to happen next and He has a plan and so all we have to do is just be obedient.

To do that we have to be true followers of Him; true disciples of Jesus who are learning from Jesus and telling others what we have learned, as we go.  That starts by repenting of our sin; turning away from that sin and going in the other direction.  Then ask God for forgiveness of that sin and scripture tells us He is faithful to forgive ALL of that sin.  That’s grace.

All we have to do is believe that Jesus Christ died for those sins to be the punishment that we could never be. He took your sins, all of them, to the cross and died and rose again and lives today and wants to have a relationship with you and by His grace allow you to live with Him in Heaven forever.  Is that something you want?  Of course it is.  Do it today.  We aren’t guaranteed another.

Devotion – Ruth 1

If music be the food of love, play on.

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is woman, and therefore to be won.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service.

Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

What is light, if Sylvia be not seen? What is joy if Sylvia be not by?

You know, with a little practice that Shakespeare guy is gonna be pretty good someday. Everybody loves love. Everybody loves a good love poem or a good love letter written by the one they love. What woman wouldn’t want their name to be written in that last line? “What is light if Judy be not seen? What is joy if Carol be not by?”

A young man wrote his sweetheart a love letter and mailed it to her. She opened it up and read how the young man would gladly walk the burning desert to bring her a flower. He would scale the highest mountain to gaze into her eyes. He would fight the wild beast for just one kiss. She was so moved she called him and said, “I must see you. I’m madly in love with you and can’t wait to see you right now!”

The boy answered, “Well, it’s raining right now. How about tomorrow?”

The Bible has often been described as God’s love letter to us. In it you find that God loved us so much He sent His Son to die on the cross and that if we just believe in Him we can have eternal life. But there are also love stories within the love letter. I love the story of Isaac and Rebekah. Jacob worked for 14 years to get Rachel. Hosea loved Gomer even though she was unfaithful. There are lots of others.  But there is no greater love story in the Bible and arguably all of literature than the story we find in the Book of Ruth.

A story about a man’s love for a woman is common enough. Or a woman for her child or a father for a daughter, maybe. A story like David and Jonathan is rare but I have never heard of another story that talks about a mother-in-law / daughter-in-law relationship like this.

Do you remember last week when we read in Ruth 1 what Ruth said to her mother-in-law Naomi? Turn to Ruth chapter 1.  I want to read just verses 15-18. “Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her. Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.7 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Ruth and Naomi and the other daughter-in-law Orpah had all just lost their husbands. They had no children. They were in a foreign country with no relatives around to help them and it looked pretty bleak for the 3 ladies and so Naomi told them to just go back to their own people. Orpah finally agreed but Ruth said, “no way”.  Ruth was devoted to her mother-in-law Naomi.

You can't blame Orpah.  As nice and sweet as Naomi must have been there was no guarantee of even surviving if Orpah stayed with her.  There was no Social Security, Welfare or food stamps and if you didn't have a man to provide for you back then you could easily starve or be abused and so Orpah made the difficult decision to leave and go back to her family home.

In verse 15, Naomi tells Ruth that Orpah is going back home to her family and to her gods and the chief god of the Moabites was Chemosh.  The Moabites were called the Children of Chemosh and they not only worshiped this idol, they also performed human sacrifice to it.  Evidently Orpah had given that up while in Naomi's family but she returned to it.  And nothing is ever mentioned of her again.

I'm reminded of 2 Timothy 4:10 where Paul says that Demas deserted him because of his love of this world.  Orpah made her decision and as we saw last week, decisions have consequences and we never hear from her or Demas again.  I can't blame someone for trying to better themselves but when you turn your back on God you can expect to reap the consequences.

Ruth, on the other hand, says in 16 and 17 that Naomi's God will be her God and even then calls Him "Lord".  The name "Lord" was considered God's personal name or title.  It was used by someone who knew Him, not just knew of Him.  Ruth made the decision to stay with Naomi not just because she was devoted to Naomi but also because she was devoted to God.

The Jordan River divided Moab from Bethlehem and all of Judah and when Ruth crossed over that Jordan, she left behind that old way of life.  She left behind the old idols.  She left behind her old ways and just as the waters of baptism mean to us that we are leaving behind our old life and we are being buried with our Lord and raised to new life in Christ, devoted to Him, Ruth devoted herself to Naomi and to Jehovah God, forsaking completely every tie she had to the old way.

Now, I wonder how Naomi felt at first when her sons came home and said they were marrying Moabite women.  I wonder if she had mixed feelings.  I'm sure she was glad they found someone but for her, as a Hebrew, it must have been bad news to hear that these girls were Moabites.  You see, Moabites weren't just enemies of Israel.   Ammonites and Moabites were the offspring of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters and the Mosaic Law in Deuteronomy 23 forbid them from being in the assembly of the Lord with the Israelites.

This was the equivalent of your son coming home and telling you he was marrying a woman who had been a member of the Branch Davidians or Scientology or some other cult. 

Now, I want to ask you a question.  God has laid out some rules.  There are laws that we are to live by.  There was the Law of Moses, the 10 Commandments, Jesus said we are to live certain ways, Paul told us in his letters what God had told him and there are others.  I would include the laws of our land today.  But we mess up all the time. 

You can call it youthful indiscretion or a mistake.  Maybe you feel better calling it a shortcoming or a deficiency.  Peccadillo is a pretty word, maybe that’s what you want to say.  It means a minor offence.  But God calls it sin.  When we disobey, when we go against what God says, He calls that sin.

My question is, when we sin, is God a just God or is He merciful?  I ask this because Ruth is a sinner.  I don’t mean just an average, petty, no big deal sinner.  She comes from a long line of sinners.  She is a Moabitess and as I told you before the OT law says that no Moabite will enter the assembly of God with the Israelites.  In fact, no Moabite to the 10th generation will worship God with the Israelites or be a part of their religious assembly.  God tells the Israelites not to have anything to do with them or their descendants!

I want to skip over to the last 2 verses in the last chapter of this beautiful book.  There is so much good stuff in this little book and I don’t want to give it all away before I have a chance to preach on it but I have to point something out at the very end.  Let’s read just verses 21 and 22 of chapter 4.

21 Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, 22 Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Now, if you were to just read those 2 verses they don’t mean a whole lot unless you see that Boaz is the great-grandfather of David and then you realize that that David is King David and then you realize that King David and the others are in the lineage of Jesus Himself.  And who is married to Boaz?  Ruth!  (I know I just gave away part of the story there but that’s ok.)

That still may not mean a whole lot to you.  To see God’s grace and mercy in the life of a Moabitess in the OT may not be a big deal to you.  If not, it is probably because you are one of those peccadillo kinda sinners.  You are one of those folks who sin little sins and so you can’t appreciate when God forgives big sins.  But I can appreciate it.  I can appreciate the mercy that allows a woman who should be forbidden to even be near God’s people to actually be related to the Messiah.

I can appreciate that kind of grace and mercy because, like Ruth, I am a big-time sinner and I come from a long line of sinners who don’t deserve that kind of grace and who, yet, have received it.  I’m not a peccadillo sinner.  I have done some genuine, messed up, bad stuff that I thank God none of y’all will ever know about; stuff that is hard for me to think about, but God says I don’t have to think about it because He doesn’t think about it.

Because I came to Him and called Him “Lord” just like Ruth did and I repented and begged Him for forgiveness, He says all that nasty stuff is forgiven and forgotten.  And do you know why?  Because He is devoted to me.  Do you believe that?  Can God possibly be devoted to me?  Well, not just me.  Just like Ruth was devoted to Naomi and devoted to God, we see that God is devoted to her and He is devoted to me!

God is so devoted to all of us that He sent His Son to die in our place.  I assure you there is nothing redeemable about me and yet He came to redeem me like an expired coupon.  And like Job says in chapter 19, I know that my Redeemer lives.  And because He lives I can face tomorrow without guilt or shame but not only can I face it, God, like He did with Ruth, has chosen to use me.  And He has chosen to use you.

In Isaiah 55:8 God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”  And this is one of those things I don’t understand.  Why would God use me?  Why is He devoted to me?  I don’t know but it makes me want to please Him.  It makes me want to obey those laws and those commands and it makes me want to tell other people about the all-powerful, all-knowing God who is devoted to them.  I want them to know the great love story written to them.

We talked last week about how we are going to battle in 2018.  As Christians we are in a battle for our very lives against Satan and all his demonic powers.  That’s why the last part of the Lord’s Prayer says, “protect us from the evil one.”  Jesus knew we were in a battle against someone bigger, stronger and meaner than we are and we need God’s help.  So, we are preparing for that battle starting in January of 2018.

I’m tired of seeing Satan pick us off one by one.  I’m tired of feeling helpless when we are attacked and I’m not putting up with it any longer.  We will be going through boot camp first and then have further training just like they do in the military. We will learn what weapons we have and how to use them and where our real strength comes from.  We will learn tactics and methods of attack as well as defense.

Now, if you want to join this fight, it is going to take some commitment.  If you are okay with being attacked and failing, getting hurt and hurting others, then you just keep doing what you are doing.  Just keep coming to church every so often unless you have something better to do.  Just keep praying only for what YOU need.  Don’t worry about scripture or worship or giving or quiet times alone with God.  Some people aren’t happy unless they are miserable, so you keep on doing all that.

But for the rest of us who want to live a full and abundant life as overcomers with our chains broken who are blessed by God in this life and the next, we are going to battle.  We have to.  But it will require commitment.  We learned last week that as we lead up to this battle that choices have consequences.  We are free to choose but our consequences affect us and the ones we love around us.  Do you choose to be part of the battle or do you choose failure when Satan attacks?

Now, this week we see what devotion looks like from the book of Ruth.  Ruth was devoted to Naomi and was devoted to God.  She gave up a lot of things with that devotion.  She gave up her old life, the life she and her family had always known to follow God.  You will too.  It’s not always easy but we are called to be holy, different and set apart for God’s work.

The good news is that when we devote ourselves to God, God devotes Himself to us.  He promises to protect us and provide for us in this life and even more so in the next where we will spend eternity with Him as co-heirs with Jesus to every good thing Heaven has to offer.  This world is a battle.  Choose today what side you are on.  Choose you this day whom you will serve.  As for me and this house, we will serve the Lord.

Maybe you have never really chosen what side you are on before today.  The Bible says today is the day for salvation; salvation from Hell and salvation to Heaven.  Both are real places.  We are all sinners and what we deserve for that sin is Hell.  Romans 3:23 and 6:23 tell us that.  But God is devoted to us and He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for all of our sins, even the really nasty ones.  All we have to do is believe in Him and that belief will manifest itself as a changed life. 

Repent of your sins; turn away from them and ask God to forgive those sins and to forget them.  He says He throws them away as far as the east is from the west.  Accept that salvation today and devote yourself to Him.  We have no guarantee of any kind of tomorrow.