God’s Favor to the Humble
Our Kinsman Redeemer • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Good morning Church! If you have your Bible and I hope that you do, please turn with me to Ruth 2. We are going to be looking at The God Who Orders Our Steps today. You see, like faithful Esther, God is quietly in the background of our lives working and guiding all of redemptive history to where you and I are at now. We look at life and we see coincidences, chance, and randomness.
God doesn’t operate that way. It’s His universe, and He doesn’t leave anything to chance. In fact,
33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
So things that are even designed to be “chance” from our perspective are guided by the Lord. Paul teaches us
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
Providence isn’t fatalism; it’s the personal hand of a loving Father guiding every event for His glory and our good. You see in the story of Ruth, you have Naomi and Ruth coming to Bethlehem empty. Chapter 1 ends with death, famine, and bitterness. But chapter 2 is where the story begins to bloom and things don’t change because Naomi and Ruth get it right, but we see God orchestrating everything beautifully to teach us about His grace.
But we don’t see it in the moment do we? John Flavel, the famous Puritan, once said like this: “The providences of God are like Hebrew words, they can only be read properly backwards.” That’s true isn’t it? If you would have told me when I started here in 2016 that I would be the Senior Pastor here in 2019 I’d have told you you were crazy and I likely would have been screaming in the other direction. But God has a way of leading us gently and we can look at our lives and if we look closely, we will see His hidden hand at work everywhere.
We’re learning about God’s Providence, His Protection, and His Provision for us today. So please, stand with me in honor of God’s Word as we read Ruth 2:1-13
1 Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. 4 And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” 5 Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” 8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” 10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” 11 But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12 The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” 13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”
Our passage begins with Naomi’s relative named Boaz. He’s introduced to us as “a worthy man” or literally “a man of standing”. This is a man who is strong physically, and morally. He’s a good man and he is righteous. He’s wealthy and honorable. He comes from the clan of Elimelech. You might remember him as Naomi’s husband from chapter 1. His name meant “God is My King” but he lived as though God was not. But while Elimelech’s choices denied that confession, Boaz’s life embodies that confession.
Now, this is an important point because God made it clear that all things belonged to Him.
23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
So the family name, the land, the covenantal inheritance is all God’s and each house was entrusted with parts of the land and if a family’s name or property was at risk of being lost then a “go’el” or a redeemer was sought out to redeem the land.
So what did “go’el”s do?
They redeemed relative’s property
25 “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27 let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28 But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.
So you have the family owning land that was directly tied to God’s covenant promise. Land was supposed to be sold to others within the family so that it didn’t get shifted around. If it did then a redeemer could purchase the land back legally.
In Ruth’s case, Elimelech’s land had been lost by the family during his time in Moab. Boaz was a close relative and had the right and duty to buy it back and redeem the land.
2. They redeemed relatives from slavery
47 “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan, 48 then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49 or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself.
So here you have the same principle but applied to people.
3. They redeemed childless widows
This is called a levirate marriage.
5 “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. 7 And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ 9 then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ 10 And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’
Mahlon was Ruth’s husband and didn’t have a surviving brother. The nearest male relative had the right and duty to marry the widow and it moved down to the next eligible kinsman. Boaz, being from Elimelech’s clan, was a blood relative and could lawfully continue the family name and inheritance.
So we meet Boaz who is introduced as one who could redeem the whole situation and the topic shifts back to reality. Ruth the Moabite, the lady from a pagan, inbred culture, was starving with Naomi. Ruth asks her mother to “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain”
This is what Ruth is asking to do. During a harvest you had reapers that would go and collect barley or wheat and they would take sickles and cut the barley and bind them together into these sheaves.
And all over the place were these fallen bits of barley that the poor could go and pick up in order to grind and make bread with.
This is the equivalent of people picking up cans or bottles to take to the recycling center to get some cash for food. It’s respectable. Ruth isn’t looking for a hand out, she’s looking a hand up. But who on earth is going to let a foreign stranger who is a widow come into their field to do this?
She doesn’t know. But she is trusting God. You see, Ruth is a woman of sincere faith and she’s trusting the God is Israel to meet her needs as she walks by faith.
9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
So we see God’s plan for compassion for the poor, it’s not handouts, it’s by the poor working with dignity. And Naomi responds to Ruth in 2 words in Hebrew, “Go my daughter”. The bitterness is there. And Ruth went and gleaned and then we have a unique phrase in the Bible, “she happened to come”.
This is presented almost tongue in cheek because the author is not ascribing this story to a chance encounter, but to God’s Providence
Providence
Providence
The literal translation is “Her chance chanced upon the field” It’s like when Tolkien writes that Bilbo finds the One Ring by chance in Gollum’s cave. But later Gandalf says “there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker.”
Ruth ‘coincidentally’ entered the field of Boaz, Ruth’s redeemer, through whom the line leads to Jesus Christ, our true and better Boaz, in whose field we find grace.
Then we meet Boaz and the first thing He does is pronounce a blessing on his workers. Which tells us a lot about Boaz’s character doesn’t it? I doubt many of us or any of us really have bosses that start the day blessing us in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But this man does and his workers respond as well.
If you want to know the worthiness of a man, you don’t look at his time in the church, but you look at his legacy at home and work. That’s where faithfulness is truly determined.
Boaz knows his workers and the small community there in Bethlehem and immediately noticed Ruth. “Whose young woman is this?” In other words, who does she belong to? And the foreman of the reapers speaks up and Boaz gets filled in on all that Ruth has been through. Now, Boaz would have known Elimelech and Naomi being from the same area, the same tribe and Boaz was roughly ten years younger and endured through the famine in Israel.
It’s clear that the Lord keeps a remnant of faithful people even when a culture may be against the Lord.
But let’s look at Ruth because she’s a hard working, humble, faith-filled woman. She is gleaning among the sheaves which was typically forbidden but she is trusting that God is going to provide favor through His people and Boaz approaches Ruth and listen to what he says
8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”
He calls her “my daughter”, he knows she is a Moabite and yet he welcomes her to his field as though she were part of the family. This is an invitation to belong and to be secure. And he tells her that she can keep close to the women that are working. He invites her to friendship, and community and he invites a foreigner to drink along with what his workers have drawn up from the well.
This is so foreign to us so I think we need to understand that this a total reversal of cultural norms, foreigners were to be the ones to wait, they were to get their own water and get it last. They were to serve everyone else. And yet here we see Boaz including her as one of the family which is exactly what Ruth and Naomi need.
Here we learn about
Protection
Protection
Here we see God’s proving Himself through His people. Often we will pray for blessings for others by the hand of God and yet you brother and sister are called to be the hands and feet of Christ. When you pray for you family member, church member, neighbor, or stranger, God is calling you to figure out ways that He might use you to answer those prayers.
When you pray for a lost friend, we pray for God to open their hearts but simultaneously, He is calling you to be faithful in sharing the Gospel with them.
When you pray for a church member that is in a difficult place and they need in encouragement, God is calling you to provide that encouragement and to write a card, send a text, or take a meal over to be a blessing to them.
God uses His people as agents of His protection and grace. Can you imagine what Ruth’s reaction was when she first met Boaz? I mean, she was used to the Moabite culture which it’s whole origin was morally bankrupt.
30 Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” 33 So they made their father drink wine that night…36 Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.
In Numbers, we learn that the Moabite king Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel as they came from Egypt. In the wilderness the Moabite women seduced the men of Israel to commit idolatry in Numbers 25. Moab was condemned by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel for arrogance, idolatry, and cruelty. Moab was one of the nations God used to oppress Israel in the book of Judges for 18 years.
In fact, God said in Deuteronomy 23:3-6
3 “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, 4 because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you…6 You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever.
Their primary god was Chemosh who was the god of war and death. His name means destroyer or subduer. The priests of Chemosh would make human sacrifices
26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. 27 Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.
They were sexually immoral, had prostitutes in their temple, and hosted drunken feasts
1 While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
So why was Ruth allowed to become a part of Israel?
Because none of us are a part of God’s family by being born into it. She turned away from her false gods, her sinful way of life and trusted in the God of Israel alone! She was accepted because God loves turning curses into blessings! Just as he did with Balaam.
5 But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.
You see God’s Law
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
But 1 Corinthians 6:11
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
So Ruth didn’t just cross a border — she crossed from darkness to light, from Chemosh to Christ. So for you, it doesn’t matter your background, your heritage, your past, even your present. What matter is this— will you turn from your sin and your Moab and trust in Christ? That’s what matters!
And Ruth hears Boaz’s words how he is giving her such love. Think of this terrible time she’s gone through. She’s lost her father-in-law, husband, brother-in-law, her sister-in-law has walked away from the family, her mother-in-law is full of bitterness. They’ve had to travel a long way to come to this place. They’ve dealt with hunger and thirst. She’s struggled with loneliness and yet Boaz makes sure that she has food, water, protection, and community!
It’s so overwhelming to her heart that she falls on her face, bowing low because there’s so much grace! She asks, “Why are you being so nice to me? I’m a foreigner!” You see, she doesn’t look at grace and think that she deserves it, she humbles herself in awe.
Here we see God’s
Provision
Provision
Boaz tells her, it’s because of her faith. You left your father and mother and your people to be with God’s people and you have come and taken refuge in the Lord. This isn’t teaching us that God has wings, but it’s the idea of a baby chick finding shelter under the wings of its mother.
4 He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
In this case, Boaz becomes the visible wings of God to Ruth. Ruth makes herself lower and says
13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”
She calls herself a servant but there were different kinds and statuses of servants in the Old Testament. Here Ruth uses the word “siphah” which means a servant girl of the lowest status. You see she knows this grace is undeserved. That’s true of everyone. You cannot gain greater favor with God because Jesus Christ is our righteousness. We don’t earn grace. We receive it as a gift from God because our righteousness isn’t any good. It’s of no use!
This is like a beggar being invited to live and dine with the king. It’s just grace upon grace.
For you and I, these three points of God’s Providence, Protection, and Provision all converge at the cross of Jesus Christ. God ordained His Son to be crucified
23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
The worst day in all of human history was the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan. But Christ was not abandoned at His death. God vindicated His through the resurrection
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
And through that act, God provided the redemption that we could never earn.
14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
The Lord ultimately provided the perfect sacrifice of His Son at Calvary. Boaz redeemed a field and gained a bride; Christ redeemed the world and gained His Church.
Which teaches us that God leads, guards, and supplies all our needs until His purpose is complete.
God leads, guards, and supplies until His purpose is complete. And God did not even spare His own Son for you, but rather gave Him up for your soul! Won’t He also give you all the things that you need to finish the journey He has planned for you?
Chapter 1 ended in emptiness but chapter 2 begins with abundance. Its amazing how quickly things can change from bad to good when we know God is directing our lives.
Head: God wants you to know that He directs the steps of His people, and those who take refuge in Christ the Redeemer can trust His providence, protection, and provision.
Heart: God wants you to believe that He works all things for good through Christ our Redeemer.
Hand: God wants you to trust Him by walking faithfully and obediently, even when you can’t see His plan.
