Good morning. All right, grab your Bible.
We're going to jump straight in. We're going to be in Ruth
chapter 2 today. If you are new to the book of
Ruth, of you unsure of the backdrop, chapter 1.
Essentially what we believe that Ruth is written by Samuel and
what he does in chapter 1 is he reaches back into a time when
there's a moment of time of famine over a few years in the
nation of Israel and Judah. And he reaches out and tells the
story of one family that in the midst of that famine, they
decided worst possible decision you could make.
They're going to go to Israel and Judah's arch enemies, the
Moabites. And they're going to try and
make ends meet there while the famine is going on back home.
And the the man who leads the family into Moab is eliminate.
And over the course of time, he passes away, leaving his wife as
a widow. And also his two sons passed
away leaving their wives as widows.
And so Ruth, chapter one, we find a Naomi left to fend for
these two. She says to them, actually, I
think it will be better if you go back to your home, to your
people. I'm going back to my home and my
people. And, and Ruth Chapter 1 ends by
saying, so Naomi returned from Moab, but she was accompanied by
Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in
Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
So that's the backdrop to the story of Ruth Chapter 2 is where
the, the, the wheels of redemption begin to turn.
You know, everything that we've heard about today, all these
weavings that we've seen of God doing in and through our lives,
where you begin to see it in the book of Ruth.
And what I want to do is I want to just pick up on three
characters that we find in Ruth chapter 2.
And I want to show you how they lean into the redemptive
purposes of God rather than pushing back against it.
And this is the invitation that you and I during the course of
the book of Ruth and there's redemptive undertones that you
and I lean into the redemptive work of God rather than resist
it, rather than push back against it.
So I'm going to show you these three people as we read through
Ruth chapter 2, starting in verse one says now Naomi had a
relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan
of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
It needs a little bit of context here because I want to
differentiate between verse 1 and 2.
So it says then verse one, it refers to Boaz as a man of
standing. And this is just an ancient Near
East way of saying this is this is a man of caliber capacity.
He's a, he's a wealthy man, a wealth to do man, but he's also
got the character to match. And actually what we found about
Boaz is that he comes from a family of men of standing this,
this clan of the Limeluk, even the Limeluk himself who led his
family into Moab. These were well to do high
flying, effective quality businessmen.
These were families of good reputation.
You know, the kids were influencers on Instagram.
They had the homes in the in the Lani estates and the holiday
homes scattered across the country.
And so now you've got this entire tribe that's Naomi and
Ruth have access to when they come back, They've got a network
that they can milk. So they've come back.
They're literally come back the poorest poor, only with the
shirts on their backs. But the best thing is that
they've got a family that they can go to ask for help with.
They've got family that you can stay at one of our homes.
We'll furnish this plot, this spot or, you know, let's get you
a car when you donkey or whatever it was that they did in
those days. But essentially, they wouldn't
have felt it. And where we often miss this
because we know the story of Ruth, but it's important that we
stop there and realize actually there's this side of the story
where they have a Ways and Means of getting themselves back on
their feet. So that's first one.
Now, Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of
standing from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
If you were reading this the first time and you didn't know
the story, verse 2 would then surprise you knowing this access
that she has to resources because verse 2 says instead
Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the fields and pick
up the leftover grain behind anyone and who's as favored?
She's like, no, no, I'm going to go pick up scraps.
What is going on here? So in the ancient Near East,
there was a thing called gleaning, which was incorporated
into the law of God. It was there for the poorest of
poor. So gleaning, I heard someone
describe it as this saying they would plant in squares, but
they'd harvest in circles, which is, which is a great
description. Essentially the law said,
listen, you don't mock that entire field for everything it's
worth. So if they're harvesting olives,
you know, you shake olives off the tree, you have some stubborn
olives stay on the tree. You just leave them there for
the poorest are put to come and they'll take them for themselves
or for you. You know, you've got to a
vineyard and and you can't quite reach that bunch of grapes.
You leave it there for the poorest of poor, or in this case
with barley and wheat harvest, you know, you've got the stalks
that are falling together. You're carrying it to the to the
cart and it leaves stuff behind. You leave it there.
The poorest of the poor on their knees in the dirt would come and
pick up that little bit. And this is what she decides to
do? Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi,
let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind
anyone. And who's has a fan fare?
What on earth is she thinking? You've got this unbelievable
resource. You know, just ask him to put
your fingerprints on silver lakes, and you can get in there
and you can stay. And, you know, problem solved.
You can even play a round of golf.
And she decides instead to go and grovel in the dirt and pick
up grains. What's going on here?
You're familiar with the terms introvert and extrovert, right?
I think they've had a little bit too much of the limelight
because there's another way that we engage and interact with the
world. And this I want to overlay over
roof and that is a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset.
So I've been doing a little bit of research because, you know, I
mean, I always find myself down some rabbit hole somewhere
learning random stuff. But it struck me because they
say of scarcity, I'll get back to Ruth in just a second.
I say about scarcity is having a scarcity mindset captures your
mind, it encases it. It cements it in this idea that
there's not enough. There's no way that I can be
looked after. I've got to go make my own plan.
But added to scarcity, we've got what is called a negativity
bias. So negativity bias, it's, it's
facetious to say, well, you know, a glass half full, it's
way more powerful than that. A negativity bias, they say if
you have one negative opinion, you know, the economy or
corruption or whatever the case might be.
And even if you're wrong, it takes 6 or 7 positive
contradictions before you even start thinking, well, maybe I'm
wrong, doesn't change your mind. But to get you to the point
where you're going on. So it's, it's, it's completely
slanted in the wrong direction towards this negativity bias.
Plus we also have this part of our nature called a confirmation
bias. Yeah, you see, you see, I told
you, you see. And so you got these three.
You got a scarcity mindset undergirded by a negativity
bias, compressed by this confirmation bias that leaves
you, as they say, absolutely taken over and captured by a
scarcity mindset that says it changes the way we think.
It leads us to a higher degree of worry, a higher degree of
anxiety. And we took into rampant
selfishness and self protection because of the scarcity mindset.
Now here's the scary thing. They say there is a very small
percentage of people who don't have a scarcity mindset, which
means, and if I have to do quick maths, which is not my Forte,
but if we all are here according to the percentages, these front
2 lines here, front two rows would have an abundance mindset.
The rest of us are governed by a scarcity mindset.
Now that's secular research. If I can put a biblical lens
over that, essentially scarcity doubts God's sufficiency.
Now, those who carry an attitude of abundance, these two front
rows think about life altogether differently.
It goes on to say Christians with an abundance mindset live
from a place of understanding that God is kind, compassionate,
caring, and greater than we can even begin to imagine.
A abundance mindset says there's no limit to his grace.
There's no limit to his capacity to provide, protect, rescue,
restore and redeem. And so I heard someone say that
if the distance between the sun and the Earth was as thick as a
piece of paper, OK, if we had to shrink this down ratio wise to
the the the width of a piece of paper like this, the next star,
you'd need to line up pages 22 meters long distance wise to get
to the next nearest star. And the diameter, if you're
using this ratio between the planet Earth and the edge of our
Galaxy would mean paid to pages lined up for 500 kilometers.
And then he went on to say, which basically means that if
you had to hazard a guess of how big our God is, he says the
entire universe is the size of a contact lens on the end of God's
finger. Now, here's the thing.
You don't say to that God. Yeah, I think you can be my
assistant. You don't say to that God.
Don't call me. I'll call you.
You don't say to that God. Once I've exhausted all my
possible options, spoken to all my relatives who I've worked my
next network, If I don't come right, I might give you a call.
But scarcity does. They say that the proud would
rather starve than stoop to the purposes and plans of God.
Let me show you how Ruth responds to the redemptive
purposes of God and read that same verse again.
Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the fields and pick
up leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.
Why? She has an abundance mindset.
She is looking at the piddly, pathetic wealth of her
relatives. And she said I'd rather trust
the purposes of God, even though they don't make sense, even
though it requires A loneliness and a humility from me.
I would rather put my faith in God who says, listen, I have put
into the law a way for you to be provided for.
I've put into the law a plan and a purpose for the wheels of
redemption to turn. Trust in me that I know what I'm
doing, even though it looks contradictory to a humanistic
worldview. So don't believe the lie of
scarcity. I'm a God of abundance, a God
who's able to do exceedingly abundantly above, irrespective
of the situation that you're in. And we're going to look at some
dark situations that you're in. So that's where we start with
Ruth, and then we bump into Boaz verse 3.
So she went out, she entered the field and began to glean behind
the harvesters. As it turned out, she was
working in a field belonging to Boaz.
I think the 1984 NIV says it just so happens so you don't get
a. It just so happens when you're
working the system. You get a.
It just so happens that we've got Portuguese people getting
baptized while we're giving feedback on Portugal.
When you're trusting in the redemptive purposes and plans of
God, we don't get a it just so happens unless you're leaning in
on the redemptive purposes of God.
And there's the cedar tree in the middle. 100 year old cedar
tree when it's meant 100 years ago God was going.
I wonder if they see this. Let me put the little cedar seed
in the ground here. Anyway, I'll digress.
As it turned out, it just so happened I'm captivated and
fascinated by that. Unbelievable web God weaves.
As it turned out, it just happened.
She was working in a field belonging to Boaz.
OK, here we come, Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.
Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the
harvesters. The Lord be with you, the Lord
bless you, they answered. Boaz asked the overseeing of his
harvesters. Who does that young woman belong
to? I wanted to.
I just want to stop there. So Samuel's writing the story,
right? I looked at it and I thought,
like, you know what, it would have been far more
straightforward if he's just said so.
Boaz arrived, said to the overseer, who the heck is that
working in my field? Do you know who she is?
But he intentionally inserts these things.
Every word. The real estate and scripture is
prime property. So he's not just haphazardly
including the fact that Boaz arrives and he says hello.
Everybody doesn't just say that. He says the Lord be with you.
And they respond positively, I'll all be with you.
And then he shows as well that he goes to the oversea and says,
listen, I've noticed someone new.
What's what's his story? Because I want to show you the
character of Boaz. So we're talking about how
people lean into the redemptive plans and purposes of God versus
push against it. And sometimes it's revealed in
our character. So Boaz can see he's he is a man
of standing the way that he deals with the the least of
these, his employees and all of that.
But then in verse 8, he says something that bothered me.
He's an older man. And in verse 8, he says, so Boaz
says to Ruth, my daughter, stay here, listen to me, hang around
in my spot. But he uses this term my
daughter. And knowing that he's a whole
lot older, I kind of thought like, oh, that's maybe is a
little bit sleazy, you know, Hey, girlie.
So I did some digging, just wanted to make sure that he
really was a man who's standing, you know, and I found that it
does mean daughter and one says, but here's the thing, right, I
noticed it says so Boaz said to Ruth comma.
He doesn't say to Ruth the Moabite, his standing and his
conversation is to her as Ruth and then he calls her my
daughter, which in the Hebrew is Baath and it means to be a
daughter. But it's an unbelievably
endearing term, like apple of my eye.
One person says it's a term of endearment of the utmost
respect. And then it got like properly
confusing because the one guy I decided, you know, let me help a
brother out and and just make it as muddy as possible.
He says when he called her my daughter instead of Moabite, it
says farm the mud. The bath is as far away from
Moabite S as an EW lamb is from a she goat.
Makes perfect sense, right? Unlike you, sometimes we give us
preachers. We can make things so difficult
like OK, so he calls her my daughter, and my daughter is as
far away from Moabite S as AU Lam is from a she goat.
So I'm going like OK, but I'm feeling there's something in
here. It must be Samuel doesn't just
include stuff for random. So I'm busy my my system is busy
twitching while we're driving in the car.
I said to my wife like, how's this?
He says, no, it's like that's why because you know, calling
her my daughter so far away from mow my tests like a you lambs
from a she goat. And my wife says, yeah, that's
because a she goat as part of the sacrificial system and
suddenly a lot came on. You see, because a you lamb,
you're taken to your arms and into your home, the she goat
he'll sacrifice and slaughter. And we're talking about his
character. He deals with her like one who
he'll wrap his arms around and bring into the home, not as one
that he would slaughter. And that reminded me of John
Gottman. I don't know if you know him.
He's one of the foremost researchers around relationships
and marriages. And John talks about marriages
being masters or disasters. So you get guys who are masters
at their marriage and those who are disasters at their marriage.
Anyone here who's disasters, and I'm just kidding, don't put you.
I thought my wife and just you're lucky.
Oh, here we go, babes, come on. But he says this.
He says he can sits with a couple and in a matter of
seconds, he can discern whether they're masters or disasters.
And he talks about the four Horsemen of the apocalypse.
I like that. He says never include these four
in your marriage. This is free marriage advice.
OK. They are #1 we'll pop it up on
the screen if you want to take a photo because I'm going to go
through them quickly #1 criticism talking about the four
Horsemen of the apocalypse. You want to turn any
relationship into a disaster. Criticism, attacking your
partner's character instead of addressing specific behavior.
Two, defensiveness, self protection through counter
attacks or victimhood. Oh, you don't understand how
hard it is to be married to you #3 stonewalling, emotional
withdrawal and shutting down. And #4 contempt.
This is disrespect, Belittling someone's sarcasm, mocking or
speaking with superiority or disgust as if someone is
worthless or beneath consideration.
And then he adds, of these 4, contempt is the strongest
predictor of divorce. Contempt belittling sarcasm.
And my mom always used to say sarcasm is the lowest form of
wit, to which I always used to respond, but it's the funniest
to which I've had to repent because contempt is the
strongest predictor of divorce. He actually says contempt is
sulfuric acid for relationships. Men, what comes out of your
mouth? Sulfuric acid See, it's
belittling. We do that in the workplace.
Sarcasm, speaking with superiority or disgust as if
someone is worthless or beneath consideration.
You know, contempt is like, did you seriously trigger the alarm
again? How many times does I tell you
before you go downstairs, just switch off the alarm now I'll go
to answer my phone. Contempt, belittling, where
someone is worthless or beneath consideration, What comes out of
your mouth? He then goes on to say kindness
is the most important predictor of a stable, healthy
relationship. And she says kindness glues,
couples together. This is an unsaved man saying
the very words of Scripture. It is God's kindness that leads
us to repentance. It's his kindness.
It takes those of us running from him and glues us to him.
You know what comes out of Boaz's mouth, He says to his
staff. He says don't reprimand it.
Don't rebuke her, he says. I want to serve her.
I want to honor her. I want to protect her.
You know what he says to Ruth? He goes to her and she says, he
says, I've been told all about you.
And now he could drop anything in there.
She was a Moabiteess. Her history, her past.
That's shame. He could have dropped anything
in there, but he doesn't. He doesn't say.
Yeah, but you remember last time and yeah, you said that
Christmas. And yeah, you're doing it again.
Ladies, Contempt is sulfuric acid to a relationship.
He doesn't say that. Says I've heard all about you.
How you've served your mother-in-law, how you've loved
it to the point of leaving your family and coming and making our
God, your God, our people, your people.
Kindness, kindness. Kindness.
What best describes you, Boaz or a bully, contempt or kindness?
Heard a story about Brian Chappelle tells that he lived on
a neighborhood of all farms and his farmers divided from his
neighbor's farm by river and the neighbors kids decided they were
going to go play down by the river one afternoon.
The mom as always, like listen, just make sure you're back by
sunset. You know, the good old days.
And so they disappeared and, and what had happened was there was
a little bit of a development going on next to the river where
they built these massive mounds of sand as they were busy
preparing to build. And they'd had some heavy rains.
And what these boys didn't realize, they wanted to go climb
up these sand mounds and do like our kids do on the beach where
they make little landslides down the side there.
But because of the amount of rain, the, the, the moisture in
that sand turned it essentially into quicksand.
So these two boys climb up to the top and they start getting
buried under the sand so they don't come home for supper.
By the time it's dark, the mom is really, really worried.
It's the husband and farm hands. And they go to try and find
these boys and eventually discover them down by the river
buried in the sand mound. One of the sons just managed to
get just a little bit. He's taking sips of air as he
struggles to hang on, and the parents lean in and pull him
out. And the first question is,
where's your brother? Where's your brother?
And his answer was, I was standing on his shoulders.
See, that is the heart posture that allows redemption not just
to come to you, but redemption to work through you.
It's the heart posture that we find in Boaz that is so
attractional, so remarkable, that Samuel years later is
looking through the filing cabinets, the history of the
people in Jerusalem, and says that is a point of redemption
because of that hot posture. See, Ruth, because of her
abundance mindset, is able to say, I can trust this God even
though it doesn't make sense to me.
And redemption comes to her. Boaz, because of his
understanding of the nature and character of God, is able to
lean in and show kindness rather than contempt.
And we see redemption throwing, flowing through him.
So I'll ask again, what best describes you?
And then last we come across Naomi verse 19.
Naomi asked her talking about Ruth.
Where did you glean today? Where did you work?
Blessed be the man who took notice of you because she's
coming in with wheelbarrows and donkey cost full of food.
She's got leftovers from lunch and food to spare.
The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz, she said the
Lord bless him, Naomi said to her daughter-in-law.
He's not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the
dead and then Sia says she added.
She added that that man wields a time and then is our closest
relative. He's one of our kinsmen,
redeemers. I wonder what God is up to.
I want to show you something. What I believe is going on in
Naomi's heart of this stage, which we see very clearly in the
next chapter next week. We'll get there, but I want to
show you what's going on inside here so you can see the fruit of
it next week. But to do so, we're going to
take a serious detour. OK, Bear with me.
We'll come up for air. It's going to be like 4 years of
Bible college into 4 1/2 minutes, OK.
And then we'll come back to Naomi, right?
And we're going to start in Two Chronicles chapter 34.
It's a young boy. You don't have to turn there.
Pop it up on the screen, a young boy.
His name is Josiah. And verse one says Josiah was 8
years old when he became king. So his dad passes away.
He naturally moves into the role as a king and says, and he
reigned in Jerusalem 31 years. He did what was right in the
eyes of the Lord and followed the ways of his father David,
not turning aside to the right or to the left.
Now we're talking about what is it that shows our leaning into
the redemptive purposes of God versus pushing back against it?
And what's interesting here, it's it's names almost three
times over. He did what was right in the
eyes of the Lord. He followed the ways of his
father, David. And he didn't turn aside to the
left, to the right. But there's one problem right in
the middle there. It says he walked in the ways of
his father, but David. But David wasn't his father.
Actually David was like 15 generations back.
This is way after that. What's going on here?
See, Josiah's father was Amon. Amon's father was Manasseh.
Historians say the following about Manasseh.
Manasseh was the worst king Israel ever had.
He was a thoroughly wicked man presiding over a totally corrupt
government. He reigned for 55 years, a dark
and evil half century. He encouraged Pagan worship that
involved whole communities and cult prostitution at shrines
throughout the country. He imported Wizards and
sorcerers who enslaved the people and superstitions and
then houses for a paragraph. The man could not do enough
evil. There seemed to be no end to his
barbarous cruelties. His capacity for creating new
forms of evil seemed bottomless and as as appetite for the
sordid was insatiable. One day he placed his own son on
the altar and some black and terrible ritual and burnt him as
an offering to Molech his God. That's Oprah.
Opah passes his way, has one son who he doesn't sacrifice, Amon,
who becomes the new king. And it says Amon did what was
evil in the Lord's sight, just as Opah did.
And then you've got Josiah. Josiah scripture speaks of his
devotion to the Lord, how you remove Pagan worship, idols,
witchcraft, Pagan priests. He repaired and restored the
temple. He is repentant and responsive
to scripture. He ultimately leads the nation
in revival. OPA is sacrificing children, BA
is doing the same and Josiah brings revival.
How on earth does that happen? Well, to answer that question,
we've got to look at these portions of Scripture, these
tucked away in these quiet recesses of Scripture like Ruth
chapter 2 and 2 Kings 22. We find the answer.
So this is 2 Kings 22, same story.
You've got Chronicles and Kings documents the life and towns of
Israel and then Kings 2 Kings 22/1 it says Josiah was 8 years
old. We've heard this before in
Chronicles when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem 31
years. We heard this in Chronicles, but
then we see something that wasn't in one Chronicles 34.
His mother's name was Jedidah, daughter or of Fadiah.
So anytime we hear of his mother Jedidah, and it is placed in 2
Kings 22 between him coming as king and the revival that he
brought about. And it is so stark and it's a
dissonance between the two that theologians say it was put in
there because she is. Why?
Jedidah is one who represents what we see actually throughout
Scripture dotted through the annals of history.
We see, for example, Moses. Moses gets born when Pharaoh
wants to execute and destroy all the boys under the age of 2 and
his parents put him in a basket. They save him, send him off down
the river Nile and he gets rescued by Pharaoh's daughter
and adopted. And then Moses sister says, hey,
listen, would you like me to get a witness to raise that little
one? And she does.
And Jochebed and Amram, the two parents pour their lives into
Moses, and his future is not the same because of it.
Or in Judges. Remember, we went through Judges
before we jumped into Ruth, where it says that there was no
king and everyone did whatever they pleased except when there
was a judge, one person who stood up for the redemptive
purposes and power of God, and an entire nation knew peace for
a generation. Or like we've just read, Josiah
had Jedidah refined, Esther has Mordecai, or Timothy has Eunice
and his grandmother Lewis and Ruth has Naomi.
Naomi steps up and responds to the redemptive power of God.
And it breaks the cycle. It breaks the barrenness and the
brokenness. It breaks the the death.
And what I want to show you here, we're talking about
leaning into the redemptive purposes of God.
Sometimes we get to experience it.
Sometimes it flows through us, but ultimately, when we respond
to God's redemptive purpose, one person can change the lineage of
an entire family life. One person, even if OPA and
Pennsylvania were Manasseh and Amon, when there's a Jedidah,
there's a Josiah. When there's a Naomi, there's a
Ruth. And from Ruth eventually David
and eventually Jesus. You see, in Exodus chapter 20 we
get the 10 commandments and God as an aside.
He says, listen, I want you to know something here.
Sin is so poisonous that it can actually it will, it will poison
down to the 3rd or 4th generation.
So he says, hang on to my 10 commandments, hang on to my word
in my ways, trust in my redemptive purpose.
Because while sin can go to the 3rd or 4th generation, his
redemptive power as it says in Exodus 20 verse 6 says my, my
love, my favor, my power will flow to 1000 generations of
those who love me and keep my command, 1000 generations.
Such is the redemptive power of God in one life.
Now I don't know when Jesus is going to come back.
I phoned Donnie Berta, he also doesn't know, but if he decides
to delay for 1000 generations, your response to his redemptive
power and his work in your life today will show itself through
your family line all the way till he returns.
If we respond, if we lean in rather than push against the
redemptive power of God. See it just so happens that
we've been through the book of Ecclesiastes and we've wrestled
with what is heaven meaningless, meaningless.
What is tough, that which carries eternal weight.
And then we've gone through Romans chapter 8 and we've seen
the inheritance of a fully redeemed life looks like, and
now we have been shown in full living color.
What's that redemptive power looks like on the dusty streets
of Bethlehem and Ruth and Naomi and Boaz.
But that we need to know the weightiness of what we're
dealing with when we decide not for me.
And so I'm going to go all the way back to the very beginning
and remind you of the God of the universe, the God who is so
great it's as if he holds the universe the size of a contact
lens on the edge of his finger. I want to show you that picture
again, because this God wants in.
This God wants in your mindset. He wants to show himself
abundant. He wants to show his grace as
inexhaustible. This God wants in.
He wants in even to the dark recesses of your heart and your
marriage and your relationships. But most importantly, this God
wants in because how he gets in and how you allow him in will
affect generation upon generation upon generation.
And if you are here and OPA is just like Manasseh or something
as sort as as that. We love to highlight the rubbish
that's been thrown to us. But here's the invitation.
How we respond to the redemptive work of God in our lives can
change the direction of an entire family line, the script
says. As for me, in my house we will
serve the Lord.