Advent Week 2: The Amazing, Abiding, Adoptive Love of our Father

One of the wonderful things about Advent is the love of God on full display through the life of Jesus Christ. We see God’s love in sending His Son as a baby. We see God’s love in Jesus growing up and teaching, healing, and discipling others. We see the ultimate display of God’s love on the cross as Jesus Christ died a criminals death for sinners like you and me. We see God’s love from Genesis to Revelation as God loves Himself and us enough to not leave us where we were at… but He came. He didn’t send an army of Angels. He didn’t send another prophet. He didn’t send a human king. He sent His Son and as we look back, we celebrate all that Jesus has done! But, we also look forward and we know that God’s love is an adoptive love that will impact us for all eternity if we’re born again followers of Jesus Christ!

Several years ago there was a pastor at home with his school age kids because it was a snow day. He had a plate full of things to do so he told them that they would play in the morning and then around lunch time that he’d need to get a couple of things done and then they’d play more outside in the snow in the afternoon. Sure enough, they played in the morning and after lunch the dad went to work. About 30 minutes into working his daughter came into his office and said, “Daddy, is it time to play again?" The father said, “I’m awfully sorry, but I’m in the middle of preparing Sunday’s sermon and I’ll be done in 1 hour - then we can go play!”

The daughter said, "Okay, when you're finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great big hug."

He said, "Thank you very much." She went to the door and then she did a U-turn and came back and gave her father a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug.

The father said, "Darling, you said you were going to give me a hug after I finished."

She answered, "Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to!"

One meaning of Christmas is that God wants us to know, through this First Coming, how much we have to look forward to in the great Second Coming.

As we celebrate the love of our God in sending His Son, we know that we have even more to look forward to whenever Jesus Christ comes again… This isn’t because of our greatness but because of His amazing love.

This morning we’ll continue going through the book of Ruth and we find ourselves in Ruth chapter 2. Last week Naomi and Ruth had lost nearly everything they had. They lost their husbands. They lost their land. They didn’t have anything of value - so they made their way to Bethlehem. God provided them with hope - and today we will see the bigness and purposefulness of God’s love in continuing to provide for these women. I pray that today you understand that the God of the Bible provides for His children and loves them dearly. Let’s study from God’s Word.

Ruth 2 CSB

1 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side. He was a prominent man of noble character from Elimelech’s family. His name was Boaz. 2 Ruth the Moabitess asked Naomi, “Will you let me go into the fields and gather fallen grain behind someone with whom I find favor?” Naomi answered her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” 3 So Ruth left and entered the field to gather grain behind the harvesters. She happened to be in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from Elimelech’s family. 4 Later, when Boaz arrived from Bethlehem, he said to the harvesters, “The Lord be with you.” “The Lord bless you,” they replied. 5 Boaz asked his servant who was in charge of the harvesters, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 The servant answered, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the territory of Moab. 7 She asked, ‘Will you let me gather fallen grain among the bundles behind the harvesters?’ She came and has been on her feet since early morning, except that she rested a little in the shelter.” 8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Don’t go and gather grain in another field, and don’t leave this one, but stay here close to my female servants. 9 See which field they are harvesting, and follow them. Haven’t I ordered the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, go and drink from the jars the young men have filled.” 10 She fell facedown, bowed to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor with you, so that you notice me, although I am a foreigner?” 11 Boaz answered her, “Everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband’s death has been fully reported to me: how you left your father and mother and your native land, and how you came to a people you didn’t previously know. 12 May the Lord reward you for what you have done, and may you receive a full reward from the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.” 13 “My lord,” she said, “I have found favor with you, for you have comforted and encouraged your servant, although I am not like one of your female servants.” 14 At mealtime Boaz told her, “Come over here and have some bread and dip it in the vinegar sauce.” So she sat beside the harvesters, and he offered her roasted grain. She ate and was satisfied and had some left over. 15 When she got up to gather grain, Boaz ordered his young men, “Let her even gather grain among the bundles, and don’t humiliate her. 16 Pull out some stalks from the bundles for her and leave them for her to gather. Don’t rebuke her.” 17 So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening. She beat out what she had gathered, and it was about twenty-six quarts of barley. 18 She picked up the grain and went into the town, where her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She brought out what she had left over from her meal and gave it to her. 19 Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you gather barley today, and where did you work? May the Lord bless the man who noticed you.” Ruth told her mother-in-law whom she had worked with and said, “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz.” 20 Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May the Lord bless him because he has not abandoned his kindness to the living or the dead.” Naomi continued, “The man is a close relative. He is one of our family redeemers.” 21 Ruth the Moabitess said, “He also told me, ‘Stay with my young men until they have finished all of my harvest.’ ” 22 So Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “My daughter, it is good for you to work with his female servants, so that nothing will happen to you in another field.” 23 Ruth stayed close to Boaz’s female servants and gathered grain until the barley and the wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Our text this morning reminds us of God’s amazing love as He went ahead of Ruth and prepared the way for her to arrive at the perfect time to gather food and eventually meet this “family redeemer” in Boaz. God doesn’t leave things up to chance. He has a perfect plan. He provides. He loves His children dearly! This Christmas season we are reminded of His grace and love. Today let’s give Him thanks for continuing to be a God who pours out His grace and love on us even whenever we go the wrong way.

God’s Love Leads God’s People to a Life of Generosity (1-7)

Love is one of the most overused words in our society. Think of some of the ways that we use the word “love” - we say that we love food, we love sports, we love nice weather outside, some of you love snow, some of you love 100 degree weather. We love church. We love activities. We also love people - we love our friends, family members, spouses, children, and parents. We use love all the time but we use it to varying degrees. You might say in the same minute that you love pizza and you also love your husband or wife… You might mean what you said, but you love those two to different levels, right? What is different about God’s love? Whenever we say that God loves us or that an attribute of God is that God is love - do we mean that God loves us like we love pizza? Absolutely not! Whenever we talk about God’s love, we have to be careful to do so based on how it is described in God’s Word! We see throughout the Bible that God is love

1 John 4:8 CSB

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

2 Corinthians 13:11 CSB

11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice. Become mature, be encouraged, be of the same mind, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

What does this mean, though? What is the big deal about God’s love? God’s love impacts us in 4 distinct ways: Benevolence, Grace, Mercy, and Persistence

God’s love benefits us because it isn’t based on selfish motives or interests - He loves and He seeks us out as Luke 15 tells us. He demonstrates this love by not giving us what we deserve but instead what He deserves. This is grace and mercy as God is compassionate toward His people. Finally, God is patient. He doesn’t immediately give judgment, but He continues to offer grace and salvation. We must see that God’s love isn’t based on our greatness or something that we can give to God on our own power. God’s love is sacrificial love. God’s love is purposeful! If you have experienced God’s amazing love, then you cannot help but be changed and demonstrate that same love to other people.

This is what we see in our text this morning with Boaz. Naomi’s husband Elimelech passes away at least 10 years ago and we’re introduced in verse 1 to a man named Boaz - a relative of Elimelech. Who is this man? We see that he is from Bethlehem, he owns a field, he is well respected by the people, he was wealthy, and we will see that he is willing to redeem. You and I both know people who are wealthy and have much by the way of earthly things, but they don’t have the willingness to offer assistance and help where there is a need. This is not true of Boaz: He has been blessed by God and he uses that blessing to in turn assist those in need and bless others! This is what God’s Word commands of His people, friends. God commands our generosity with how we act, how we speak, and also how we give to others and to our church. Boaz, as we’ll see next week, points us to Jesus in so many ways, but one of the foremost things we see about this person is that he is generous. This must be a mark of God’s people!

In our world whenever someone has a need for food because they can’t afford to buy it, there are government programs that they can get assistance through. There are organizations that will provide things like food and clothes to those in need. In the ancient world this wasn’t the case. You didn’t have church buildings on every block like you do in Salem where people can go to the church office and ask for assistance. Instead, you had a system in place where the field owners would leave part of their harvest. The harvesters, the servants, would take the majority and leave the scraps behind. Ruth is going into this field in order to get some scraps. There would have been other fields in Bethlehem to gather grain from… The author of Ruth tells us in verse 3 that “she happened to be in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz.” Some would argue that this is random or luck - but we know better! We know that this is God providing for Ruth and God demonstrating His divine love.

In the middle of a hopeless situation of loss and darkness in chapter 1, God is providing light left and right. When did they arrive in Bethlehem? The beginning of the barley harvest. Whose field does she go into to glean? Boaz, her kinsman. Do you see that God is arranging the circumstances in this story? Boaz takes notice of Ruth and she is provided for. Ruth is much like Esther - and many people take issue with the book of Esther because God is never once mentioned in the entire book… But if you read these books, you can’t help but see the hand of God at work in bringing about His perfect plan. We’re reminded that nothing happens here by accident because of God’s amazing love. Anyone here a Hallmark Christmas movie fan? Doesn’t this kind of have that type of feel? You know that every hallmark movie is the same, don’t you? Girl goes from one place to another and randomly happens to be at the right place at the right time and witnesses a guy do something really nice and he notices her out of the corner of his eye and they fall in love. They’re all the same! Aren’t you thankful that God does something that not even Hallmark can do?

He still works in our lives. Sometimes He works in obvious ways and we would likely say that those are miracles… but God works in the non-obvious ways as well. That is called His providence. Here, this foreign, poor, widow, former pagan worshiping woman is not only present but welcomed into this field to collect food that is not hers in the first place. This is love, church. If you have received this love from God, then you are responsible to extend this love and generosity towards others. We’re all Ruth’s in this story as we’re all broken sinners in need of rescue. We need God’s generosity and this is what we celebrate during the Christmas season as God loved us enough to send Jesus. Think during this Christmas season of a way that you can display the love of God through generosity.

God’s Love Leads God’s People to a Life of Grace (8-16)

As Ruth continues to talk with Boaz, she asks him a simple question. What has she done to deserve such generosity? Boaz replies that she trusted in the Lord and came to Him for refuge in verse 12. Ruth was in a foreign land, worshiping a God that she didn’t grow up knowing, she had no other person to rely on in order to provide for her… yet, here she is being cared for by what many theologians call her Kinsman Redeemer. What is the answer to this story? Why is Ruth receiving these things? Simply because of God’s amazing grace. Ruth is safe in this field, secure in Boaz’s protection, satisfied by the food, and sealed by his instruction to the other servants who are now told to help her gather grain. This is grace that she could never deserve! Whenever you come to know your Kinsman Redeemer, you too find salvation, security, satisfaction, and you are sealed by His power and presence! This is good news - and this is what the Christmas season is all about.

Psalm 91:1 tells us this

Psalm 91:1 CSB

1 The one who lives under the protection of the Most High dwells in the shadow of the Almighty.

What does this exactly mean? Elizabeth Elliot wrote a book following the loss of her husband wrote a book entitled “The Shadow of the Almighty” and this verse is the launching point for her book which focuses on how God’s strength carries you through seasons of darkness and difficulty. At Christmas, we celebrate how light broke through the darkness and how Jesus Christ brings about His otherworldly kingdom and changes people from the inside out. What we see in the life of Jesus in one word is grace. We see the Father’s love in sending His Son and we see Jesus grow up and distribute grace upon sinners who could never deserve it! Jesus not only saves, secures and satisfies, but He also seals us for eternity. God’s love is big enough to not only forgive our sins but to hold us whenever we straight up drop the ball.

Several years ago there was a man who moved from the city to the country in Minnesota and bought a good amount of land. One of the first things that he did was buy some chickens and several months down the line one of his 3 hens had chicks! This was an exciting time for the new farmer and his wife but they didn’t entirely know what to do. They were cleaning out the brooding area and took the chicks inside and moved the mother hen in a pen with the other 2 hens… Fast forward a few hours and they were bringing the chicks back out from the house to unite them with their mother but a problem quickly ensued. Which hen was the mom? They tried hen #1 and she was looking bored and as though she wanted to be anywhere but with those noisy chicks. They tried hen #2 and she immediately began trying to climb out of the fence. 0-2 to this point! They brought the 3rd hen over and as soon as the hen saw her chicks, she immediately moved her wings to draw the chicks inside as if to say, “You will not touch these chicks because they are mine!”

Friend, this is God’s love in living under the protection of the Lord our God. This is the blessing given to Ruth by Boaz as God provides for His people.

Whenever you come seek refuge in the wings of the Almighty, you find yourself in the safest place in the entire universe! You encounter grace and love like you’ve never known before. Ruth not only experiences this grace once or twice in this chapter, grace is found from cover to cover. This is how it is with our God. He lavishes His grace upon us and His grace produces something inside of us. Whenever you take refuge in the person and work of Jesus and what He has done for sinners, you experience His grace. You also come to realize that you are not saved because of your goodness or actions or status… you are wholly saved because of the work of Jesus. As one preacher put it years ago, “God is not an employer looking for employees… He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under His wings.” Has God’s love changed your life to the point that you seek refuge under His wings? If this is you, there is no room to boast in what you’ve done, there’s only time to talk about God’s amazing grace and love. His love abides with us as we take shelter in Him.

God’s Love Leads God’s People to a Life of Giving Thanks (17-22)

For the person who knows Christ, who lives under His protection, who have experienced and continues to experience His divine love, you, friend, have the Christian duty to live a life of grace to others. See, Boaz gave Ruth grace but that’s not where it stopped. Ruth took the food she picked up and she brought it to her mother in law, Naomi. Ruth has no option left to her other than to give thanks to Boaz for his generosity and to provide her mother in law with food. Her cup has been filled and now she desires to help someone else in need. This is what God’s love does in our lives as Christians. He fills us up. He loves us dearly. He gives us grace. He forgives us. He gives us His mercy. Why? So that we can go and do the same thing to others - who, guess what? Like us, don’t deserve any of it.

We’ll see this in 2 weeks in chapter 4, but in Jewish custom in order to have this type of kinsman redeemer you need to have 2 things:

You need to have the right to redeem. You need to be a relative of some type - Boaz is because he is a relative of Naomi’s late husband Elimelech

You also need the desire to redeem. It’s not enough to have the rights and privileges, you also most possess the desire to do this thing

I ask you today, in this story, who are you? Are you the generous provider who has the means to help and save other people from their suffering? Or are you the person who is the outcast, suffering because of your sins, and find yourself in desperate need for basic things like food and saving?

We have this desire whenever we read the Bible to insert ourselves as the hero in the story - but the more we reflect on what the Bible teaches, the more we realize that we aren’t the hero… we aren’t even the side-kick… we’re the one in desperate need of help. We’re the one in need of saving. In this true story, we see a deeper picture of a vertical relationship between ourselves and God. Because of God’s great love, He is willing to provide for us even though we have a checkered past. He is willing to feed us even though we don’t deserve it. The Biblical Gospel is that you and I are even more wicked than we could ever imagine.

Ephesians 2:1 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins

I’m not sure about you but I don’t like to think of myself in those terms. We like to think that we’re just a little bad. We need a pep talk. We need some self-help tips… but dead in my sins? Not a fan of that one! Why is it so important that we understand the reality of our position before God, though? Because of what comes after the bad news.

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

You were dead… but because of Jesus, you are now alive. You are saved. You have been redeemed! The Christmas season is one of anticipation, celebration, and redemption. And we see this story play itself out in embryonic form over 1000 years before Jesus as this poor, foreign, widow is provided for and redeemed by Boaz.

Is this your story? Has Christ done this work of redemption in your life?

If this is your story, friend, you cannot help but give thanks to God for His amazing, abiding, and adoptive love in bringing you into His forever family! You cannot help but share this news with others. You have experienced God’s amazing love in sending His Son to die in your place. You experience His love each day because He abides with His people through His Spirit.

Conclusion

Is Ruth’s story, your story?

During this Christmas season when our schedules fill up quickly and where we can be tempted to get bogged down by the darkness around us, we have to stop. Advent is all about preparation. Remembering and celebrating what Jesus has already done and looking forward to what He will do when He returns. We pause and reflect on the hope that He gives to us, the love that He shares with us, the joy that He brings to our weary hearts, and the peace that He offers to our chaotic world. In this season of the year, it is so important to focus on the love of our God.

God’s love must impact our lives in 3 ways:

God’s Love Must Awaken Our Hearts

Ephesians 2 tells us that we’re walking in darkness as children under wrath. Our hearts are dead and dark and we can’t trust them as Jeremiah 17:9 tells us. What do we need? We need God’s love to awaken our dead heart and create in us a new heart that seeks first His kingdom. This is what God’s love alone can do in your life!

God’s Love Must Change our Attitude

God’s people must have an attitude of gratitude that extends to the way that we view all the things that God gives to us. His love must change the way that we approach our lives, our relationships, and our wealth.

God’s Love Must Change our Actions

God’s love is unconditional - it is an agape love. Years ago there was a boy who looked across the street and noticed that his neighbors got a new puppy for Christmas. The puppy was happy as could be but the neighbor boys began to be mean to the dog. They would tease it and throw things at it and hit it with sticks… If you did this to any other person or animal, they’d want nothing to do with you. But what do you think this puppy still did every single time he saw the boys get home from school? He’d run and greet them with a wagging tail and smile with his tongue sticking out of his mouth. This puppy had an unconditional love for these boys even though they were mean to him and didn’t deserve that attention and love. The love that God has for His children is even greater and even more unconditional. People threw rocks at Jesus, they hit Him with sticks, they crucified Him on the cross… But Jesus loved them anyway.