Sermon Tone Analysis

*“In The Thick of It”*

*Ruth 1.1-5*

 

Does God help those who help themselves?

Is God good?

Always?

Even when loved ones are diagnosed with malignant brain tumors?

When struggling financially?

It’s easy for us to update our Facebook status “God is good!” when we land the job, people are healed, and people get saved.

But, do we feel the same under these other conditions?

And if we can nail this point down – that God is good in all things, we need to determine whether he acts providentially.

In other words, is God’s hand involved in all circumstances?

Good or bad (in the ways that we interpret good and bad)?

These are some of the issues that we will investigate in our new study.

In order to answer some of these questions, we could derive our answers from Pauline epistles or the Law of Moses or biblical poetry.

Our study in the Book of Ruth will pursue these in answers from a story.

Many people like to search for answers in straightforward and logical fashion and may turn to Paul or John or Peter.

But we will have the benefit of immersing ourselves in a story.

This is partly why I have entitled the sermon *“In the Thick of It.” *

Narrative portions of Scripture allow us to use more of our senses in order to learn something of God and his ways.

We can imagine ourselves in the place of certain characters and anticipate responses.

We can grieve over mistakes and rejoice in their triumphs.

But you may be wondering, “why study a book that is thousands of years old?

How can this be relevant in the 21st century?

What can gleaning a harvest or kinsmen-redeemers have anything to do with me?

We’ll answer these sorts of questions with our first point, which is *Why Ruth? *

2 Timothy 3:16–17 says that “*16* All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, *17* that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

So a very broad understanding that pertains to all of God’s Word is that our study of it is beneficial with our walk with Christ.

We affirm that the Bible is our final authority and God’s very words breathed out for us.

And according to Paul here, we conclude that *all *of it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.

In fact, it is his plan for our spiritual growth.

Genesis is important.

Romans is important.

Leviticus is important.

Revelation is important.

Ruth is important.

You get the picture.

Ruth is the God-breathed Word of God that he determines will be profitable to us and our spiritual growth.

1 Corinthians 10:1–11 provides us with perspective as well.

Paul writes, 1 For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink.

For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

6 *Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did*.

7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”

8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.

11 Now *these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction*, on whom the end of the ages has come.”

The immediate context for these pertained to the nation of Israel, but the principle is that these accounts serve to benefit us.

We learn lessons from others’ failures and victories and how they pertained to their relationship to God.

Romans 15:4 confirms this as well.

Paul writes, “4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Ruth certainly will help us in this regard.

A few of us recently attended The Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago.

The theme this year was “They Testify of Me – Preaching Jesus and the Gospel from the Old Testament.”

From the preaching in the Old Testament we saw glimpses of Jesus and the gospel from the Exodus, from the Psalms, Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, Zephaniah, and Ruth.

In our recent studies during the Christmas season, we’ve investigated clear prophecies from Isaiah pertaining to Jesus.

In fact, Luke endorses this understanding in Luke 24:27 “27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

A proper understanding and approach to studying God’s Word is seeing Jesus as the fulfillment and the hope for mankind.

The same will prove true in the book of Ruth.

We will learn of Jesus and his gospel even in this narrative account written perhaps 1000 years prior to his birth.

The book of Ruth tells the story of a few individuals at a particular place and a particular time.

However, it is also part of the Grand Story that God lays out from cover to cover in our Bibles.

So we must seek to understand how this story fits within the context of God’s history of saving his people.

The Book of Ruth has some distinctives that are noteworthy.

First, only two Old Testament books receive their names from women.

They are Esther and Ruth.

It is the only book in the Old Testament that is named after an ancestor of Jesus.

We will see this as we go through the book.

The events recorded in the book cover roughly 12 years – 10 of which are in these opening verses.

Some of the key teachings that we will encounter are 1) Salvation is for both Jews and Gentiles.

Ruth, we will learn, is a Gentile from Moab. 2) Women are co-heirs with men of God’s salvation grace.

3) Ruth displays some of the characteristics of the Proverbs 31 woman.

4) David’s and Jesus’ right to the throne comes through Ruth and Boaz.

5) We will see in Boaz a type of Christ in that he is the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth.

We will explore what this means in the coming weeks.

This is significant because it will have bearing on how we understand Jesus to be the Redeemer of all believers.

And as an overarching theme, we will see that Ruth describes God’s sovereign and providential care of seemingly unimportant people at apparently insignificant times which later prove to be monumentally crucial to accomplishing God’s will.

This should continually remind us that God has a plan.

And his plan is sometimes difficult to discern.

So, lest you think that you are insignificant, recall that God primarily uses such for his great purposes.

And so we should not focus unnecessarily on our inabilities and humble circumstances, but to his greatness and his glory.

This will lead us to our second point – *Where Are We? *If what we’ve said is true – that Ruth plays a significant part within the Great Story – where does this plot fit?

Well, the opening verses here help us out.

Actually, let’s read the first five verses and then we’ll backtrack a bit.

*READ.

*With these introductory verses, the curtain is raised (as it were) and we are given a good picture of the setting of the story.

Like I mentioned, these few verses contain at least ten years.

So, where are we historically?

The opening words supply this information – “In the days when the judges ruled…” This certainly helps.

In fact, we even have a book in the Bible that is dedicated to provide us the background for the historical setting of Ruth.

Please turn a few pages back in your Bibles to the Book of Judges.

Judges 2:6–19

The people of Israel had entered into the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.

The opening pages of this book details the continuing conquest of Canaan, their failure to complete the Lord’s directives, and his response of the consequences of their actions.

The inhabiting people groups would continue to be a snare and a nuisance to the people of Israel.

After the words from God, we have this information.

6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land.

7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.

8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years.

9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. 10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers.

And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.