God's Lovingkindness

And last week we talked about how God Delights in giving shelter to those who come to him in desperate need and Ruth and Naomi were in desperate need. But that points to also our desperate need for the Lord. That is the Redemption of Naomi and Ruth points us to the greater story of redemption throughout. The entire Bible. God saving desperate Sinners by his son, Jesus Christ, giving them new life, and giving them an eternal hope. And future Jesus is the new and greater kinsman-redeemer. Redeemer in the sense that God Put forth his own son, he paid that price. His son paid the price of his life, so that we might be brought back to God and a Kinsman that Jesus was a man just like us. That he was both God and man that qualified him to be, the be, the Savior be the Messiah. And so that the grand scope of the Bible fits into forwards. You may have heard this before but it fits into four words, the whole Grand scope of redemption. Good, bad new and perfect. Think of those four words, good bad, new and perfect God, created everything in the world was good. He called it good, he called it very good, then Humanity, send and rebelled against God. Isaiah 53, says we all like sheep have gone astray each. One of us has gone his own way. The new is that Jesus Christ came to bring bring us from death. To life, is Daniel mention. If we, but we have been transferred from the domain of Darkness, to the kingdom of light, when we have come to Christ and we have the Holy Spirit dwelling us. And so we are New Creations in Christ and then perfect. We are awaiting the day we labor for Christ. Now we serve Christ. Now groaning for the new Heaven and a new Earth. An amazingly before got before Adam and Eve sinned, God had that plan in place, he had a plan to redeem. We might call it something like this operation, steadfast love. You know, in the in military, they give operated different missions, different names. This is Operation, steadfast love. If you will that God Plan before the foundation of the world to send his son, Jesus to redeem, Sinners to save sinful people so that we might belong to him and so that we might serve him and glorify him and and and give him praise The Bible isn't about us, the Bible is about God, ultimately it's about what God is doing in humanity and bringing Humanity. Back to himself. Bringing those who would trust in Christ back to himself. Now certainly, we identify with characters in The Bible, But ultimately, the character's point us to Christ It's a Ruth, God demonstrates, his kindness through Naomi, Boaz & Ruth to show us our need for Christ. And for Jesus, our savior, And so, I hope the last couple of weeks that you've been able to identify at least a little bit with Naomi and Ruth, Naomi at the end of chapter one, she was bitter. Don't call me Naomi Pleasants. Don't call me Pleasant. Call me. Mara, for those, the hand of the Lord Almighty is against me. She comes to back to Bethlehem, bitter about the loss of her husband and her two sons. But while the people of God were rebelling in the Book of Judges, God Was preparing and preserving the line of the Messiah. God used a person who was an outcast Ruth the moabite, she was from Moab, she wasn't part of the people of Israel, but she came to know the god of Israel. She says, to Naomi your God will be my God, your people will be my people. So she came to know the Lord truly And so, God used a person who was an outcast to show his heart to bring all kinds of people to himself Divine and human actions working together. Now, chapter 3 in trusting cuz they have some cultural things that that we might not be familiar with, but I just want to go back to a little bit to what we talked about last week is the distinction between God's sovereignty and Karma. I think we have that on one of the slides. You know, you can easily read the story of Ruth and Naomi and think we'll where they just doing Noble things, doing good things, and then, you know, kind of what goes around, comes around, you know, Naomi had this. Of emptiness and then God brings her this. Of fulfillment. And we talked about last week, God is personal, he's involved in every event of Our Lives. God is directing all his street to a final judgment and God is the final judge. We are responsible to him for our choices. And so the universe isn't an endless cycle of reincarnation, the universe is heading towards God's directed ends. Amen. And so the difference is that we serve a God who knows Us by name who loves us and knows our names. So to take that a step further, I just want to clarify one more thing that I didn't get to clarify last week is that karma is not the same as God's principle of sowing and reaping We think of sowing and reaping that you reap, what you sow, so you, so certain things and then you reap similar things, the idea of of sowing and reaping, well, that's taught in the Bible, but it's not, it's not a mathematical calculus. It's not just the impersonal sense of Fate directing our action so that we do certain actions and then and then these other actions come back to us. No, do not be deceived. God is Not mocked for whoever, whatever one. So is that, he also he will reap for the one who sews to his own flesh, Will from The Flesh reap corruption but the one who sews to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. So how is sowing and reaping, which seems to have a sort of mathematical component to it, how is that different from other religions? Well, it's different in the sense that there's the source of sowing and reaping is a personal God, who calls us to trust him. the second difference is, there's a timeframe we reap now and we reap eternally We're not being recycled. Our lives are not going to be recycled. We are being directed towards God's perfect ends. And then, thirdly, the overriding principle is Grace, not Merit. We're saved by grace, reaping and sowing, is in the context of the Gospel. That what we sow, we will reap. If we sow to the flash, we will reap the things of the flesh. If we sow to the spirit, we will reap the things of the spirit. Galatians 5 talks about the Flesh, and the spirit battling one. Another, and God has given us his spirit, so that we might bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

So it would be too simplistic to say that Naomi and bow as well. They made good choices and they had noble character and things turned out, right. Romans 2:4 says, do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance and that's what I hope we see in Naomi and Ruth. Here is that God steadfast love God's. Kindness leading them to repentance. So in chapter to where we left off, 2:20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken, the living or the Dead. This man is a close relative of ours. One of our redeemers. So Naomi is a Stanish dat God's grace and timing at the end of chapter 2 wow Ruth you just happened to go to the field that belong to Boaz who is one of our clan relatives one of our Kinsman.

God guided them and so Naomi is declaring God's kindness that God had not forsaken Ruth and Naomi. So the question for us is MI astonished at God's grace. Am I thankful for God's grace? Am I remembering that God has provided everything in my life? Amaya Stars. Am I amazed when I see the depth of my sin and the constancy of my sin? Did I send everyday? It's one way or another and yet God is gracious. His mercies are new. Every morning, are you astonished and God's grace Naomi after? She came back again after they were harvesting, she starts to realize, God has been gracious. Okay, so then we get into chapter 3. Here's the, here's the, the scene that is a little romantic and it's, it's interesting in terms of the cultural Dynamics. So Naomi's role here. Now, as she's curiously, the Matchmaker sort of she says, well Ruth now it's time for me to seek shelter for you to, to find you rest and so bluntly what she's telling Ruth to do is well, here's how you make a marriage proposal Taboas. Okay, so the details first Boaz is our relative, he's of the same clan of elimelech, so that's important because because he's not in the immediate family but he's in the the The Wider Circle of their extended family. Secondly, she says wash and put on your cloak. Now we might think that, oh, she's dressing up a bit or what not, but it doesn't mention any jewelry or anything. Probably the word cloak. It's a word that's used both for a cloaks that men would wear and women would wear. I think what's going on is Naomi is telling Ruth put on a different cloak. That's different from the clothes that you would have mourning the death of your husband. So it's kind of I think it's kind of a significant thing of Now's the Time to put away your morning clothes. Here's the clothes that you wear in morning. Here's a cloak that you would put on to, basically, to signify to Boaz and that you're available for marriage. Now, Naomi knows where Boaz will be. And when the best time is so Naomi must have known the patterns of where Boaz was and, and all of that. And she says, well, they'll be threshing grain. They'll be, they'll be treading the Grain and then tossing it up, so that the chap separates from the Wheaton and they would gather up all the Kernels at the end of the day and they put them in a big pile and Boaz is probably going to be lying down by the Pilot. Green guarding the pile of grain. And so she says, lie down at his feet.

And so, as Naomi exercises experiences, excuse me, God, steadfast love. She takes she trust God and takes a step of Faith to seek a better future for Ruth.

I don't want you to get hung up on the cultural Dynamics here. But think about what state of mine Naomi had been in earlier. Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Lord's hand is against me, right? She had been bitter. But now we're at the end of The Barley harvest in the wheat Harvest. So, we're talking several months later, She came back to Bethlehem bitter, but she saw God's provision. She saw the field of Boaz the weeks of harvesting and her heart softened. One commentator, put it this way. He said perhaps she had been too quick to blame God. Perhaps she began to recognize her failure and take responsibility and repent of it. Bitterness drives us inward in self-absorbed, depression while true, repentance enables, and motivates us to start serving other people's needs. Isn't that isn't that true throughout the scriptures is that there's plenty of warnings about do not let the root of bitterness spring up among you. Because bitterness takes us into self-absorption. Is bitterness keeping you from giving? Thanks to God?

Is bitterness keeping you from seeing God's goodness in the situations around you? Are you blaming God for anything right now?

Are you self-absorbed in in a state of bitterness or an emotional state of Lord? I just don't understand what's going on.

The last for 5 months, I've learned how much of a complainer I am.

because, The counselor that I that I've gone to he'll say well when you have a tough conversation you have to kind of go back and re-evaluate you know how did that conversation go? What was I thinking or feeling during that conversation? And I replay conversations in my mind. And I realized why I spent a lot of time being negative. Complaining. Or the other thing that I've learned is, I'll say to the Lord. Lord, this isn't right. I've did exactly what I was supposed to do. Why is this situation not improving? When I did exactly what I thought you wanted me to do? Can lead to bitterness. But Naomi is moving forward. And an aspect of Naomi steadfast love in urging Ruth to go to Boaz, is that Naomi was not obligated to this. Naomi Naomi could have coasted. She could have said, hey, you know, Ruth is doing all the work here and I have it pretty good but she's thinking, not only of herself, she's thinking of Ruth and the Next Generation. So let's look at operation steadfast love from Roots perspective. Ruth trust in God and His steadfast love is Hesed. That's the Hebrew word by acting in obedience and faith in a situation with a lot of risk, okay? Think of what could have gone wrong here? Boaz could have taken advantage of her. He could have maligned her, slandered her. He could have rebuffed her and said, no, I'm not interested at all.

Ruth is not familiar with the Israelite Customs or laws. So so Naomi had to explain to her, this is this is how we we do this. Now, what is exactly the concept of a kinsman. Redeemer a couple a couple scenarios couple scriptures. Leviticus 27 and Deuteronomy 25 talk about redeeming land or being a kinsman redeemer or the law of levirate marriage. So in Leviticus 27, it talks about if someone has to sell a piece of property because there is that they become poor, they need to sell their property, another relative could buy back that property in order to keep it within the family name. And so it was a way of kind of helping families Pass Property on from one generation to the next. Secondly, a kinsman redeemer specifically had an obligation to buy his relatives back if they sold themselves into slavery in order to pay off debts. And then thirdly the the levirate marriage and Deuteronomy. 25 talks about how if a husband died without having any sons without having any male heirs? His brother was expected to take the Widow as his wife and have a son by her to perpetuate the deceased husband's family line that's called The Law of levirate marriage. So the big unknown for Ruth is what, what's Boaz going to do? How is he going to react? Is he going to see this as an opportunity to help Naomi and Ruth and keep the field in Alamo elimelech family? Or does he even want to marry Ruth at all? So, Roots experience of God's steadfast, love is trusting and acting. In a situation that has a lot of risk. Now notice when Boaz ask Ruth who are you, or he says, who are you? He notices a woman is lying at his feet.

Naomi said he will tell you what to do. So, does Ruth stay quiet. No, she says, I am Ruth spread your garment over me. You were a kinsman redeemer. I think she just blurted it out honestly because she didn't know what was going to happen next cuz of the tension of the situation, right? So he's lying down and she uncovers his feet and lies down, probably perpendicular to him. Since spread your garment over me, you are a kinsman redeemer. Do we obey in face when we are in situations, where we have a lot to lose?

Are we willing to obey Christ and lose a social reputation?

Somebody put it this way, you can't serve two reputations. Either we promote God's reputation and forget our reputation or we promote our own reputation and we forget God's reputation.

Roof trusted in God, steadfast love and acted in obedience in a situation that had a lot of risk. She was trusting God in a greater way in a way that she had not trusted him before. God had brought them back from Moab. God had provided through the field of Boaz & Ruth. Had already done a lot to to act in obedience to the Lord. Your your God will be my guy. Your people will be my people but here, she's trusting God in a new way because there's a new level of risk. She's she's being strengthened in her face by trusting in God steadfast love and acting in obedience. Okay. So what did Boaz do? He says He blesses Ruth, first of all, he says, my daughter know, to see how he addresses her. Politely Boaz was probably a number of years older. So there's no hint of impropriety here. He compliments and affirms her character. He says, you are a worthy woman in the Hebrew Bible is the order of books in the Hebrew Bible. Ruth comes right after Proverbs. And proverbs 31 talks about a woman of noble character. And so there's an implication there that Ruth is a is an example of a woman of noble character. he acts with Integrity, notice what he says, he says I'm a redeemer, but there's another Redeemer closer than I

I can probably out with him. No, he tells her honestly he says what we have to do this, the right way, he's first in line, he has first dibs on buying the field that belong to elimelech. So we have to see if he desires to redeem it first. He's committed to doing the right thing in the right way. Boaz is a man who examined his motives who desire to do what is right? And did not go after the immediate pleasures of intimacy with Ruth and he was willing to submit to God. It may be God's will that that this other man buys the land.

Notice there's commitment before there's intimacy.

Our culture has it the other way around.

If a young man says to a young woman and they're dating, he says, well you need to prove your love to me by being intimate with me. You need to prove your commitment. No, no no, no, no first. Intimacy comes later. That's the biblical standard. That's God's best way.

So, what else does he do for Ruth, he shows his intent by providing for her and Naomi, I'm not exactly sure what the eight measures is, but it was Heavy enough to where it says he put it on her. So he had to gather up some of this grain wrap it up in a blanket or or shawl that she had and put it on her shoulder. So, it was enough for her and Naomi for a. Of time. He's showing his intent, he showing his commitment.

So what do we learn about from Beau as in terms of God's steadfast love Boaz demonstrate steadfast love? Because he has no obligation whatsoever to do what he did for Ruth and Naomi. Boaz point us to Christ Our true kinsman-redeemer, the one who became Like Us in order to save us. I think I have that reference wrong. It should be 2nd Corinthians 8, verse 9, but I think we have a correct on the next slide for, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich though, he had the glory of Heaven. Yet for your sake, he became poor. So that you buy his poverty, might become rich. God sent his one and only son God gave up his only son. He gave his life, he paid for us with his life. That is steadfast love. That is loyal. Love, that is sacrificial. Love that is love Beyond degree.

Michael card is singer-songwriter has a book called has said, which is that Hebrew word for steadfast love or kindness? Notice where Boaz says in chapter 3 he says this kindness is greater than the first and that you have not going after young men, whether poor or Rich, basically saying you didn't seek after the young men of the village and Boaz is probably older than Ruth by a number of years. He has this kindness, this steadfast love that you were showing to me is greater than the first

Michael Card. The singer-songwriter had wrote that that book about the that Hebrew word kindness loving-kindness tested. And he says, he says, here's my best definition from what I understand of reading the scriptures. Steadfast love is when the person from whom I have a right to expect. Nothing gives me everything.

When the person from whom I have a right to expect, nothing gives me everything. Isn't that what God did for us? Isn't that, isn't that what God does for us and giving us Christ? What does God ask of us? What does God want for us? Life under him? What does he command of us to repent from sin? What does God ask of us to believe on Christ to trust him daily and live by faith one step at a time Romans 5 or 6 through 8 for while we were still weak at the right time Christ, died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person though, perhaps for a good person. One would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us while we were in the depths of our sin rebelling against God, having nothing to do with god with God, wanting nothing to do with God, he had a plan in place. He had his steadfast love with plan from all eternity to redeem us to give us new life. That's the good news brothers and sisters. That's the good news that God's love is deeper than any pit that we can get into in this life and there are plenty of pits. Amen. There's somebody. I forget, who said, I heard it this week. They said, well for every mile of road, there's two miles of ditches. You know, cuz you got a ditch on either side, there's plenty of ditches in life. But no matter how far we fall there is no pit. So deep that God's love is not greater deeper still Corrie Ten. Boom soon.

It's a. What does God ask of us? He asks us to trust him and then with the New Covenant comes the new commandment Jesus says to his disciples. By this, they will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another a new commandment I give to you that you love one. Another just as I have loved you you are also to love one. Another when we experience God steadfast love when we comprehend. God steadfast love, then the Holy Spirit. Propels us to share that. Love to practice. Steadfast love to one another. Brothers and sisters. God has given us so much in Christ. And let's, let's trust him with everything because he has already given us everything we need in Christ.