We're going to be in Ruth Chapter 3, so you could open
your Bibles there. And we we're kind of going to
jump around a bit. So we're not really going to put
the script up on the screen. But Ruth, as Clinton shared,
it's this incredible love story. And it really is like a like you
could make a Hallmark movie about this.
You know, it's got all the, all the right characteristics.
There's, you know, a little situation at the front.
There's tragedy, everything goes wrong.
Yeah. Things are slowly restored.
Suddenly there's a bit of jeopardy.
And then and then there's this beautiful love story at the end.
And and it's you almost miss, you almost miss something there
because the story is told on on multiple levels.
And the one level you've got this Naomi and Ruth and Boaz,
and you've got this, the story about how God redeems a family.
But the author of the book is telling a slightly bigger story.
He's telling a story of how Israel is redeemed through King
David. And so to, to give a bit of
context, I know Stephen said there's a, the book of Judges,
the one that sits both in the Bible just before and
chronologically just before this one.
It ends with this verse. In those days, there was no king
in Israel. Everyone did what was right in
his own eyes. And and it's really a picture of
tragedy. The book of Judges.
And so to do a quick recap on the book of Judges, you've got
the story of the, the, the promised land.
The people move in and they and they, and they start to live in
the promises that God has. And then they walk away.
And then God, there's a, there's a disaster and a judge comes and
then they everything gets restored.
And then the judge goes and then they walk away.
And there's this sort of like cyclical story of a judge coming
and restoring something of what God wants for his people.
And then the judge going and they're walking away.
And you get the feeling if you read the book of Judges that
this is just going to continue forever.
But if if you read from Judges 19, there's a story of a Levite
and his, his concubine, which is like a, like a second class
wife. And he treats his concubine
incredibly badly. And what happens is there's
this, this, this crime is committed, this atrocity, and
she ends up dead. And, and that thing snowballs to
the point where one of the 12 tribes of Israel is basically
wiped out. This thing doesn't fit my head.
One of the 12 tribes of Israel is wiped out.
This this crime just just wreaks havoc in the tribes of Israel.
And you think to yourself, you know it, it was the tribe of
Benjamin completely wiped out other than a a few hundred men
left. And you think, you know what
caused that? Was it the Philistines?
Those dirty Philistines? Did they come through and wipe
them out? Was it the Moabites?
Who was it? No, it was the Israelites.
The Israelites wiped out one of their own tribes, 11 tribes rise
up against one, and one of them is completely wiped out.
And you have the scenario where you have a judge rise up and the
sun is restored and then goes away.
And suddenly, how do you restore a tribe that's gone?
How do you bring back to life what's dead?
You can't. And so Samuel, writing this book
is starting to sow the seeds of a story of how God is going to
redeem. And he uses a picture with a
real story of Ruth and Boaz and Naomi.
And then 1000 meters higher than that, he's telling the story of
how God is going to redeem Israel through King David.
And then 100,000 meters above that, the Holy Spirit's telling
a story about how God will redeem all of mankind through
Jesus. And that's the book of Ruth.
And so it's important to know where we sit in this book
because we can learn a lot from the character of Boaz and, and,
and Ruth's behavior and all these things.
But but let me put it to you that we are not Ruth in the
story. We are Naomi.
You see, Ruth is a picture of Jesus.
So is Boaz is also a picture of Jesus.
But Ruth is this picture of Jesus.
And here's why Ruth left her home.
She she had a place where she was, she, she could have been
looked after there. She left, she gave up everything
she had there to serve Naomi. Ruth came and served Naomi.
She cleaned and feels and and and and she was the only reason,
not only reason Naomi had food. And then at the end, Ruth is the
one that throws herself at the feet of Boaz.
Ruth is the one that brings about this child Obed, which
brings the family of Elimelech back from the dead.
So we start the, the, the, the book of Ruth with, with, with
three men that die. They walk away from the purposes
of God in their life. Elimelech and his two kids,
they, they leave Israel and it's a picture of them walking away
from what God has asked him to do.
Now, I'm not saying, and I mean sometimes you hear if if you
immigrate, you're walking away from the But God had asked these
people to be in a specific land at a specific time under a
specific authority. He had given them a way of
living and an area to live, and he had asked them to be there.
Elimelech walks away. He walks away from where God had
asked him to be, and he walks away from God's authority in his
life. And he pays the price for it,
him and his whole family. And then we pick up with Naomi.
She's now a picture of us. She is like the prodigal son in
a foreign land with nothing but the clothes on her back.
She has nothing. And at that point she decides,
actually, I'm going to turn and I'll come back.
I'll turn and I'll come back to Israel.
There's this incredible as she decides to turn and come back,
God adds Ruth to her. Remember, Ruth is a picture of
Jesus. And so for you and I, no matter
how far off we are when we decide to come back, Jesus
journey is with us. He's with us there.
He starts journey. He he he God doesn't wait until
we've arrived back. He doesn't wait until we've,
we've got things right, right, right.
When we decide to turn, that's when Ruth is added.
And that's the first gift that Naomi gets.
She gets this gift of Ruth. Anyway, she journeys back, she
gets to the land of the land of Israel.
And the second thing she picks up is that irrespective of what
you've done, irrespective of where you've been, if you come
back to Israel, your land is there for you.
That's the law. That's the authority that God
had put over the people. So she arrives back and even
though her husband is dead and her sons are dead, the land is
still hers, Elimelech land. And so she picks up the second
blessing. She's now got land.
And then what happens in Ruth chapter 2 is, is Ruth decides
she's actually going to go glean, which is a practice put
in place by God to look after poor people in, in, in Israel.
And so Ruth goes to glean and in, in chapter 2, so they, they
arrive on the first day of the body harvest.
She arrives back home after the first day with 22 liters of
barley. So if you like barley, you're
going to be fine. You're going to eat well.
And we start Ruth Chapter 3 with, it's the end of the barley
harvest now. And so if she arrived back with
22 liters on the first day, every day of the body harvest,
you know, these people have been kind to her.
So she's probably arriving back with more.
So we start Chapter 3 with the scenario where Naomi is now not
destitute anymore. Her house is full of food.
She's not going to die alone. Ruth is there with her.
She has land, She has some options.
She can sell the land, She can lease the land.
There's a number of things that she can do.
And actually, this is for for us when we put ourselves in the
story. And I believe Samuel wants us to
put ourselves in the story. He wants Israel to put
themselves in here. And we see that if we look at
Naomi and Ruth in chapter 1, it doesn't really resonate too much
with me. And here's why.
And I'm going to do this not because I'm I lack humility, but
because I think many of us find ourselves in the same situation.
If you ask me, Matt, how you doing?
Like, you know, there are two ways of asking, like, hey, Pete,
how you doing? And then you don't even wait for
the answer or you like, Dennis, how are you doing?
And then you get the real answer.
If you ask me, Matt, how are you doing?
My marriage is good. It's really good.
Like we're doing well. I feel sorry for the rest of
you. You're all competing for 2nd,
you know, like it's good, like going well.
I can't, I can't say I'm like Naomi.
I've lost my whole family. We've got three kids.
I mean, it's early days yet. We can still mess them up.
But they seem to be doing OK. Like we're getting there.
We're getting there. Financially, we're in a strong
position. It's not a, you know, we are.
I keep having to remind my wife we're not poor, but we mustn't
be stupid. So we're doing well in my
career. It's just sort of it's, it's
gone well. My parents, they're good
parents. Some people have terrible
parents and and it's something they have to deal with as they
learn to walk with Jesus. I've got good parents, got good
grandparents. Maybe the only thing I've got is
I drive like a 15 year old polo. That's my car.
Like that's the one thing I'm like, OK, maybe up there.
And then I really felt the sense of conviction that I keep
running around telling people I drive a 15 year old polo.
It's actually just false humility.
And so God's told me to stole my car and stop bragging.
And so my life is not bad. I've got there are many
blessings and there isn't a sense.
That's how God works. Jess and I honored each other
and the way we dated. We didn't mess around.
We, we have honored God with our finances.
We, we've, we've put the principles and the, the gods
love over our lives. We have listened to it and we've
walked in it and we've walked in it for a couple of decades and
we walk in the blessing of it. And Naomi as she starts Ruth
chapter 3 has walked in some of this blessing for a while.
She's no longer poor. And I think for many of us, it's
a better picture of where we are than Ruth chapter 1.
I think all of us at some point in our lives will find ourselves
in Ruth chapter 1, if not in every area of our life, in an
area, maybe we're barren, maybe our business tanks, but maybe
something goes wrong and we find ourselves in this place where
it's just desperation. You've got no option.
You have to turn to God. And it takes a certain type of
faith at that point. It takes it takes faith to be
poor. It takes faith to be barren and
not be able to have children. It takes faith to have really
poor parents and still trust in a loving heavenly Father.
These things take faith. But there's another picture here
in Ruth chapter 3. And so we've I want to point out
one, one more thing in Ruth chapter 2 and then we'll jump
into Ruth chapter 3. So there is a statement that
Naomi makes to Ruth in in Ruth chapter 3 when she says, is not
this man one of our one of our close relatives, one of our
redeemers? And so in addition to having a
house full of food, land and Ruth, there are many, many
options on the table for Naomi to consider for Ruth.
Boaz is not the only one. There's a whole bunch.
And so we start chapter 3 with Naomi's choice.
What is she going to do? What is she going to do with the
life? What is she going to do?
And how is she going to go about it?
And so let's read in your Bibles, Ruth 3 verse one.
Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, My daughter, should
I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?
Is not Boaz our relative? With whom?
With whose young men you were? See, he is winnowing barley.
Tonight at the threshing floor, wash yourself and anoint
yourself. Put on your cloak and go down to
the to the floor. Do not make yourself known to
the man until he has finished eating and drinking.
But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies.
Then go uncover his feet, lie down and he will tell you what
to do. And she replied all that you say
I will do. Now, I've heard many people
preach out of Ruth Chapter 3 on how to find a husband.
And so I would just like to take a moment.
Can all the Single Ladies quickly come up to the front so
we can Now I'm kidding. We're not going to do it.
But but honestly, would you give
your daughter that advice? Naomi is nuts.
What has gone wrong? Like this is like, if my
daughter comes to me and says there's this guy I really like
and you know, I'll be like, you know what, Juliet?
You know what I think you should do?
Dress up nicely. Hide in his garden while he's
catering with his mates. When they all start passing out
on couches and stuff, make sure you see where he is.
And then in the middle of the night, jump him.
That's the advice. And we can put a metaphor on
this and explain how the wing of the covering is this, but it's
actually nuts. Naomi has gone nuts.
What is she thinking? Hey, and, and, and here's the
thing. Let's break down the risk she's
taking. Let's let's break down so
there's more than one Redeemer. There's more options for her.
I mean, if I was Naomi, I would, you know, walk up to Boaz in the
market and be like, have you met Ruth?
Like she's quite nice, you know, but that's not her approach.
She goes for this nuts all in play.
She walks into the casino and she says, I put it all on black
roll. It's just like insane.
And here's what she risks to to lose.
Firstly, there's a reputational risk here that she's going to
lose. If someone spots Ruth at night
with Boaz, it kind of removes or eliminates any other option for
any of these other men that come from eliminates family.
It's kind of like this. It's this all in and Naomi has
no real control over who will see Ruthie or not.
She goes all in. She goes all in on this one.
Let me give a little bit of a context and a background for,
for this practice of of a Redeemer and you can go look it
up yourself. There's 2 scriptures, Leviticus
25, the redemption of land. And then Genesis 38 was the
practice of this sort of this Redeemer.
And and what it is, is when you look for a Redeemer, this land
belongs to Elimelech and his family.
However, if there is no child, if there's no child, they're
going to lose it. This family is finished and
there's no ability to produce a child.
And So what would happen? If you read in Genesis, they
can't. There Judah has three sons, and
the one son marries a woman and the son dies.
And Judah asks his second son, go have a child for your
brother. We don't practice it today.
That's not what we do anymore. But then they did and and and he
refuses to do it. Why?
Because that son would not be considered his.
The inheritance then would go would go the other way.
And so as a Redeemer, you a, you've got the land of the
person. But actually you had the
obligation to produce a child to produce life and other
redeemers. If we go to if we go to chapter
4, you read when the other Redeemer is approached, actually
he's unwilling or unable or does not have the financial means to,
to, to do so. And so Boaz is not the first
Redeemer. There is one closer.
He says as much as we carry on in chapter 3.
So let's keep reading. If we jump to so she does
basically what what not what now?
I mean also, and if we jump to to verse 10, Boaz says to her,
may you be blessed by the Lord. So he wakes up at night there
she is at his feet and says, may you be blessed by the Lord my
daughter, you have made this last kindness greater than the
first underline that this last kindness greater than the first
and that you have gone after that you have not gone after
young men with a rich or poor. He goes on to say in verse 12,
you know he is willing, but there is another Redeemer closer
yet. There is one.
There is a Redeemer nearer than I and then in verse 14, if you
think I'm making it up that this is a completely nuts play verse
verse verse 14 she lay at his feet until morning, but arose
before one could recognize another.
Both her and Boaz knew that if she spotted there's big problems
and he said to her, let it not be known that the woman came to
the to to the threshing floor that it could be a woman or that
woman. But but given the line before
it's let it not be known that you have come here.
It's not about a woman being there in the early hours of the
morning. You can see people moving.
You can hear them. You can oh, that's a kid that
looked like a man that was a woman.
But you can't quite see the face.
And so before anyone could recognize her, he sends her
away. And so this choice that she has
is really based on one thing. Naomi has now got a comfortable
life, house full of food, land, roof, but she knows if there is
no child, it ends there. It ends with her life.
There needs to be a child. And so she's willing to risk all
of that for a Redeemer that's willing to produce a child.
And So what she is effectively saying to Boaz is there is
another Redeemer closer. Boaz, you are not Plan B.
In fact, Boaz, you not even plan A.
Boaz, you are that plan. This is it.
Boaz also knows that if someone spots Ruth, he's in a very
difficult, very difficult situation that they stand to
lose the income. You know, there's, there's,
there's a lot there. And so in this book of Ruth,
everyone's got a name, Emilia Kick like the the boys have
names, Ruth, Naomi, Boaz. But the first Redeemer is never
named. You never find out what the
guy's name is. And it's not like the author
Samuel didn't have all the genealogies in the temple when
he was writing this. He could have gone and looked up
where's where's Emilia? You know, who's his family?
Which Redeemer was closer than Boaz?
That's that's, that's the guy's name.
That's who he is. And it's not like the Bible is
shy to put people's names in, you know, people that do things
that you would really not want to be remembered for.
They would put their name in. But the name is not mentioned
here. And the reason for that is that
there is always something closer.
There was always something closer to us than Boaz.
And in this book it's not named. But I believe in our lives, we
need to name these things. We need to understand that
without the life of God, the blessings of God become
meaningless. Without God's life, unless there
is a child for Naomi and Ruth, all these blessings are
meaningless for Israel unless unless God can restore something
of the government or something of the blessing of God in David,
there's you know they will, they will slowly self destruct.
No judge will give them enough of a blessing.
They need, they need King David. See, there in our lives there
cannot be a plan A and AB Jesus is the plan.
He he. He is the plan that line.
This last kindness is greater than the first.
Many of us live in that first kindness.
We live in the kindness of God's blessing on our lives.
There is something of when you walk with Jesus there, there is
a blessing. You, you, you, you're.
It's not always the case. And we do believe in in that
things can go wrong even without sin, but somehow, somehow it
goes well, there's this first kindness, but there's a second
kindness that he's talking about here.
Now remember, we find ourselves in Naomi's position.
Ruth is a picture of Jesus. Without Jesus, all the blessings
in my life are meaningless. It's not that they're bad
things. It's not that this first
Redeemer is a bad person. He was quite honest and upfront.
He says he cannot redeem. He just cannot bring a life to
that family. He cannot restore.
There's two places in the New in the New Testament I want to go
to and the one is the the parable of the prodigal son.
And there I think there is a parallel with the book of Ruth
in that while Naomi was far off, Ruth starts to walk with her and
the son that walks away from his father while he's far off, he
comes to his senses and he starts to walk back.
There's a there's an incredible blessing there.
But the parable of the of the prodigal son is actually about
the oldest son, the one who stays at home, the one who lives
with this, with, with the blessing of being with the
father. And when the youngest son comes
home, he's upset. But there's this line that the
father says to the son, Son, you are always with me and all that
is mine is yours. And the blessings I have on my
life, actually, those cannot get in the way of a heavenly father
that says all I have is yours. All my heavenly Father has is
mine. And that's it to the oldest son.
And the second, the second part, and then you just want to get to
is the rich young, the rich, young, rich young ruler who
comes to Jesus and he's and he's got wealth, He's got, he's got
his life figured out. And he says to Jesus, what shall
I do to have eternal life? It's a picture of life again.
He's obviously got a lot, but he says, Jesus, I need, I need
eternal life. And Jesus says, you know, he
goes through a little bit of an exchange and eventually he walks
away and, and Jesus looks at the stop and he said, you know, one
of his disciples said, who can be saved?
Like if, if that's the requirement, who, who, who then
can have eternal life? And he says, then with man it is
impossible, but with God all things are possible.
And, and, and, and, and Peter began to say to them, see, we
have left everything and followed you.
Jesus said, truly, I say to you, there's no one who has left
house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or
lands for my sake and for the Gospel who will not receive a
hundredfold now in this life houses and brothers and sisters
and mothers and children and lands with persecution and in
the age to come, eternal life. Naomi was willing to lose all of
that in the end. She didn't lose it.
This is not a preach to say go solo.
You have people moved to Outer Mongolia.
But if the blessings of God get in the way of the purposes of
God, all we do is live in the first.
We do not live in the greatest second blessing.
There's this principle that comes through Ecclesiastes and
and also through Proverbs. It's this idea that there is
like a man who stores up wealth and has no, no ability to enjoy
it. It's like you you you have the
funds to buy the best food in the world, the sweetest 1 but
you lose your sense of taste. I don't know if you've ever
experienced this. I feel like maybe for someone
here today you have thrown extravagant parties, actual
parties and people love it. They flock to your house.
Just amazing hospitality and everyone enjoys it except you.
We can live in the first blessing, but there's there can
also be no life there. We need life and that second
blessing, that line that this last kindness is greater than
the first. Boa says to Ruth.
The kindness that Jesus gives us is not that he walks us back
into blessings in our lives, but that he gives these blessings we
have in our life. Meaning you see no one who's
walked away from house or brothers or sisters or land.
You kind of have to have those before you can walk away and
there's something of the Kingdom in there.
It's one thing to have faith when you're poor, to have faith
when you're barren, to have faith when you're when you have
difficult parents. But there is a type of faith
that you require to be rich, to do it well, to have a good
marriage and make sure that marriage, it counts for the
Kingdom. It counts for something to raise
your kids and they not becoming the obstruction.
There's this question that's played in my head for for many,
many years and it's is this The thing is this the thing that
blocks me from walking in. You see the the the whole New
Testament screams to us walk into the Kingdom, walk into it
and many things will block us. Bad church will block us.
And so if you're a part of this church, it's a fantastic church.
It's a great church, but it will disappoint you unless you're
willing to pursue Jesus here. See this last.
It takes faith to be poor. It takes faith to be barren, but
it takes faith to be rich. It takes faith to have kids who
do it well. It takes faith to do marriage
well. And that's the picture that
Naomi gives us in the beginning of Ruth chapter 1.
She says all these blessings, all these blessings I'm willing
to risk. I'm willing to risk if a child
can be born. And the greater picture that the
Holy Spirit paints is that a child is born.
This whole story takes place in Bethlehem and there is a child
born in Bethlehem who is the greater blessing, greater than
greater than living in the purposes of God and greater than
that, having your marriage work out well and your kids.
There is a blessing that comes with following Jesus that puts
purpose and meaning in your life.
This book ends with a genealogy. Boaz was the father of Obed,
Obed, the father of Jesse, Jesse, the father of David and,
and, and the book of Matthew uses exactly the same language
to describe the genealogy of Jesus.
It's a it's a direct picture. There is something on my life
that even if I do it well, Here's an example.
My my grandfather left a trust fund.
It was sizable. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe took
care of some of it, and my grand living into her 90s took care of
the rest. But where's Rockefeller's wealth
today? Where's the greatest marriage of
the 1910s? Today it's gone.
But here we have this very simple story of a child being
born and 123 generations the salvation of Israel, and 456
carry on. You eventually have Jesus.
When the gospel story grips our lives and when the blessings we
have are actually poured out in that purpose, we can expect that
actually generation after generation, God's gospel does
more, more than anything, the best life that we could live
could achieve. I want to encourage you that
that the, that line, the last kindness is greater than the
first. We've, we've got this ability to
live with an incredible purpose that Jesus gives us.
Sometimes the blessings of God get in the way.
We're not willing to risk those to walk in, in the, in the
purposes of God. Naomi didn't walk into a casino
and put it all on black. Well, with, with, with Boaz, it
was a risk with us and with Jesus.
It's not a risk. It's not a risk.
It feels like it. It feels like when you do it,
you fly upside down and the rest of the world.
But as as Nick Davis used to preach in this church, we're
actually flying the right way up and the world is flying upside
down. It looks like recklessness.
It looks like foolishness. Ruth, chapter 3.
But actually Naomi understands that it's better.
It's better to be foolish and have that son and in our lives.
It's better to be foolish and live with the blessing and the
fruit that the gospel produces in our lives than just with the
good things that we can get by by listening to some principles.
Come on, plenty.