When God Goes Before Us

Good afternoon, church. Today we are back in our series through the book of Ruth, which we have titled The God Who Redeems. This is now Part 4, and as we’ve done throughout this series, each sermon has its own title and with that in mind today’s sermon has been titled: When God Goes Before Us.

In the middle in 2024, my father, was preparing to sign a contract for some work. And he and my mom talked and decided that they wanted to do something special for our family.

They came to my brother and me and basically said, “We want to pay for a family vacation for you and your families.” You choose where you want to go. And they gave us a pretty good budget.

So I went to my wife and said, “Hey babe, this is your opportunity. Normally when we plan a vacation, we have to choose where we’re going based on what we can afford. But this time we have a good budget, so you get to choose. Where do you want to go?”

And my wife tells me I want to go to Switzerland.

Now, I had never been to Switzerland. I didn’t know anything about Switzerland. I didn’t know where to stay, how to get around, what cities to visit—nothing.

So I started researching companies that specialized in planning these kinds of trips. Eventually, I found one, looked through the different packages, and we paid them to put everything together for us.

And church, when I say they took care of everything, they took care of everything.

When we landed at the airport in Zurich, there was already somebody waiting for us with a sign in order to drive us to our hotel. When we arrived at the hotel, our reservation had already been made.

There were activities already scheduled for us. People would simply show up at the hotel at the right time, pick us up, and take us where we needed to go. (Given a stack of documents - instructions)

When it was time to leave Lucerne and travel by train to another part of Switzerland, the tickets had already been purchased. All we had to do was pick them up and get on the train. And when we arrived at the next train station, guess what? Somebody was already there waiting for us to take us to the next hotel.

And this continued throughout the trip.

So, you get the picture: everywhere we went, we were arriving at places we had never been before, however somebody had already been working ahead of us to prepare for our arrival.

And church, that gives us a small picture of where we find Ruth and Naomi as we enter chapter 2.

Two Sunday’s ago, we left these two women arriving in Bethlehem. They had traveled a road they did not fully understand. They didn’t know what awaited them there. They didn’t know how God would provide for them. They certainly didn’t know where this road would ultimately lead.

However chapter 1 ended by giving us one small detail: They arrived at Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

Which meant that something had already begun. And now, as chapter 2 opens, we’re going to discover that before Naomi and Ruth ever placed a foot in Bethlehem God was already working ahead of them on their behalf. In other words:

There are provisions already in place that Naomi and Ruth know nothing about.

There are people Ruth has not even met yet.

There are circumstances they could never arrange for themselves.

And yet, as we will see none of this means that Ruth simply sits back and waits for something to happen. And that’s precisely what makes this passage so important for us.

As we will see throughout our text Ruth will get up. She will go to work. She faithfully works with what’s in front of her, while God providentially directs what is beyond her.

And this means that trusting in the providence of God does not mean living passively. Trusting in the providence of God means that we faithfully respond to what God has placed before us while trusting Him with everything we cannot see or control.

So as we come to Ruth 2:1–7

We are going to consider three ways faith responds when we trust that God is providentially at work ahead of us.

Ruth 2:1–7 NASB 2020

Now Naomi had a relative of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. (V2) And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain following one in whose eyes I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” (V3) So she left and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. (V4) Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.” (V5-6) Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant in charge of the reapers replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. (V7) And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ So she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.”

Now, let’s go to the First way faith responds when we trust that God is providentially at work ahead of us. And according to our text faith first responds by:

I. Trusting That God Is Already at Work

Ruth 2:1 NASB 2020

Now Naomi had a relative of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

Now, before unpacking this verse, let’s take a moment and remember how we got here. Chapter 1 began with a famine in Bethlehem. Because of that famine, Elimelech takes Naomi and their two sons and moves his family into the land of Moab.

What appears to have been intended as a temporary stay eventually becomes ten years.

During those years, Naomi’s sons married two Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. However tragedy struck as Naomi loses her husband, and eventually she loses both of her sons and is left with her two daughters-in-law.

Then we saw that Naomi heard that the LORD had visited His people by giving them food again, so she decides to return to Bethlehem. Orpah eventually remains behind, but Ruth clings to Naomi, she turns from the gods of Moab, and entrusts herself to Naomi’s God.

And that’s how chapter 1 ended. The chapter that began with famine ended with God visiting His people by providing a harvest.

We know this because at the end of chapter 1 we were told that Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem “at the beginning of barley harvest.”

However there was still a problem. They were two widows with very little means of providing for themselves. They were back in Bethlehem, but they still didn’t know what awaited them there.

And then chapter 2 begins by introducing a new character: “Now Naomi had a relative of her husband…”

Church, I don’t want us to move past that too quickly. Because before Ruth ever does anything, the narrator introduces us to someone Ruth has not even met yet. And his name is Boaz.

And notice what we are told about him. He is a relative of Elimelech, Naomi’s deceased husband. Which means that He belongs to the same family. And the text describes Boaz as “a man of great wealth.”

Now, that expression can communicate more than simply having money. The Hebrew expression can describe someone of substance, strength and standing in the community. However at the very least, the narrator wants us to understand that Boaz is a man with resources.

Now think about the contrast:

We have just spent an entire chapter following a woman who believes she has come home empty.

And the very next chapter begins by introducing us to a man who has plenty.

And Naomi doesn’t yet understand the significance of Boaz:

And Ruth hasn’t even met him.

But Boaz is already there.

And this shows that before these women understand how God is going to provide for them, God was already at work ahead of them. And church, this is one of the most beautiful realities of the providence of God:

1. God’s work does not begin when we become aware of it.

Think about it. We live our lives responding to circumstances as they come. Something unexpected happens, and we have to figure out what to do next because we don’t know what tomorrow holds. (AC Unit)

But God is never caught by surprise.

Even the word providence carries the idea of seeing beforehand and providing whatever is needed.

In other words:

2. God already knows what He intends to accomplish, and He sees to everything necessary in order to fulfill His purposes.

And this is some of what we’re beginning to see here.

Before these women understand what they need, God is already at work providing for what He intends to accomplish.

And sometimes it is only when we look back that we begin to recognize how God had already been at work before we even knew what we were going to need.

I remember experiencing something like this when my wife and I went to Puerto Rico in 2022. We had planned this entire vacation. We were going to enjoy the island, spend time together, and basically experience Puerto Rico as tourists.

And before we went, I got the COVID vaccine. And church, I’ll be completely honest with you: at the time, my motivation was very simple. Puerto Rico still had very strict COVID restrictions, and I knew that being vaccinated would allow me to eat without any restriction. That was all I was thinking about.

I had no idea what was coming.

While we were in Puerto Rico, I became extremely sick. Eventually I ended up in the emergency room in Aguas Buenas, and what we discovered was that I had developed sepsis. And all of a sudden what began as a vacation became a very serious medical emergency.

Now, looking back there were things that happened before and during that situation that I could not have understood at the time. First, having met the vaccination requirements made navigating the restrictions surrounding my medical care much easier.

But there was something else.

My wife had not received the vaccine, and because of the restrictions at the time, there were questions about whether she would even be able to remain with me. Yet somehow she was allowed into the emergency room with me.

Then when they transferred me by ambulance from Aguas Buenas to the hospital in Cayey, she was allowed to ride in the ambulance with me. She arrived at the next hospital with me. And because of this, she was able to remain with me throughout those days in the hospital.

Church, I could not have planned any of that. When we got on the plane to Puerto Rico,

I didn’t know I was going to develop sepsis.

I didn’t know I was going to need an emergency room.

I didn’t know I was going to be transferred to another hospital.

And I didn’t know how desperately I was going to need my wife beside me during those days.

But God knew.

And when I look back now, I can see that before I ever knew what I was going to need, God was already providentially ordering circumstances that would become His means of caring for me when that moment came.

And beloved, that is part of what makes God’s providence so comforting.

3. God does not discover our needs when we do. (God is not reactionary like we are) By the time we become aware of the need, God has already worked on its provision.

Now, this doesn’t mean we will always understand what He is doing. It doesn’t mean every circumstance will immediately make sense. But it does mean that when we cannot see what God is doing, we can trust that He is already at work.

So, Ruth doesn’t know Boaz yet. But God does.

And this brings to the 2nd way faith responds when we trust that God is working ahead of us:

II. Faithfully Doing Whatever God Has Placed Before Us

Ruth 2:2–3 NASB 2020

And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain following one in whose eyes I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” (V3) So she left and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

Now as begin to unpack V2 it’s important to establish the setting:

These two women have arrived in Bethlehem with very little. They are both widows. They don’t have husbands providing for them. And Ruth is also a foreigner living among a people she does not know.

So Ruth looks at the situation in front of her and says to Naomi: “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain.” Here we see Ruth taking the initiative in the midst of her circumstances.

Now, in order to understand what Ruth is proposing, we need to understand what it meant to glean. God had actually made provision for situations like this in His law.

Leviticus 19:9–10 NASB 2020

‘Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. (V10) And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.

In other words, when the people of Israel harvested their fields, God commanded them not to collect everything. They were not to squeeze every last piece of grain out of the field for themselves.

Whatever remained along the edges, whatever the reapers missed or left behind, was to remain available for the poor and the foreigner to gather. And church, Ruth qualifies on almost every level.

She is poor.

She is a widow.

And she is a foreigner.

But understand something: gleaning was not easy work. (Woman in Honduras collecting cans with her daughter)

Ruth is not walking into a field where somebody hands her a basket filled with grain. She is going behind the workers. The reapers go first, harvesting the crop. Then Ruth follows behind them, bending down and gathering whatever has been left behind.

It is physical work.

It is intense work.

And for a foreign woman working among strangers, there was vulnerability involved in it as well.

But this was the opportunity God’s law has placed in front of Ruth.

And Ruth essentially says: “I can do that.”

Ruth doesn’t sit in Naomi’s house saying, Well, God brought us to Bethlehem. He knows we need food. I guess we’ll sit here until He provides it. No. Ruth gets up and she goes to work.

And this is important because sometimes we misunderstand what it means to trust in the providence of God. There’s an old illustration about a man trapped on the roof of his house during a flood.

The water keeps rising, and the man begins praying, “Lord, rescue me.”

A man comes by in a boat and says, “Get in!” And he responds, “No, I’m waiting for God to rescue me.”

Later a helicopter comes and offers to rescue him. Again he says, “No, God is going to rescue me.”

Eventually the man asks, “God, why didn’t You rescue me?”

And the response is: “I sent you the boat. I sent you the helicopter.”

Now this is just an illustration. But it exposes something tend to do. We say we’re waiting on God while ignoring the ordinary means God has already placed in front of us.

Church,

4. Trusting God’s providence is not an excuse for passivity.

Sometimes the provision of God looks like an opportunity to work.

Sometimes it looks like a difficult conversation we need to have.

Sometimes it looks like a responsibility we need to fulfill.

Sometimes it looks like simply getting up tomorrow morning and faithfully doing whatever God has already given you to do.

And notice what Ruth says: “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain following one in whose eyes I may find favor.”

Ruth doesn’t know which field.

She doesn’t know who’s the owner of the land.

She doesn’t know how much grain she will bring home that evening.

She simply knows: There is something I can do today faithfully.

And church, sometimes that’s all God gives us. We want God to show us the entire road.

Lord, where is this going?

What are You going to do?

How is everything going to work out?

And sometimes God’s answer is simply:

Be faithful with what I have placed in front of you today.

Be faithful in the marriage you are in.

Be faithful in the job you have right now.

Be faithful in the church where God has planted you.

Be faithful with the resources He has placed in your hands.

Now, that doesn’t mean circumstances can never change. It doesn’t mean you can never look for another job or make a wise change in your situation. It simply means that:

5. We should not become so consumed with getting something else that we become unfaithful where God has placed us today. (Ungrateful of what God has provided for us today)

And look at what happens next.

Naomi says: “Go, my daughter.”

And V3 says: “So she left and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers…” Ruth went to work.

And then comes one of my favorite statements in this chapter: “…and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.”

She “happened” to come there. But Church, we already know something Ruth doesn’t know. We met Boaz in V1.

Ruth has no idea whose field she has just entered.

From Ruth’s perspective, she simply went looking for somewhere to glean.

But in the providence of God, her faithful steps have brought her directly into the field of the man the narrator introduced to us before she ever left the house.

Do you see the picture?

Ruth was responsible for getting up.

Ruth was responsible for going to the field.

Ruth was responsible for working.

But Ruth cannot orchestrate where all of those faithful steps will ultimately lead.

That’s where she has to trust God. And beloved, that’s where we have to trust Him too. As believers our responsibility is to:

6. Be faithful with whatever God has placed before us today, and trust Him with where those faithful steps will lead tomorrow.

And this brings us to the third way faith responds when we trust that God is working ahead of us, faith responds by:

III. Trusting God With Whatever We Can’t Control

Ruth 2:4–7 NASB 2020

Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.” (V5-6) Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant in charge of the reapers replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. (V7) And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ So she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.”

Now remember what we just discussed.

Ruth got up.

She went to the field.

She asked permission to glean.

She went to work.

These were all things she could do. However there were other things Ruth couldn’t control.

Ruth wasn’t aware in regards to whose field she had just entered.

She could not control when the owner of that field would arrive.

She could not control whether the owner of that field would notice her.

She certainly could not control what he would do once he did.

And yet V4 begins with two little words: “Now behold…”

Ruth 2:4 NASB 2020

Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem.

In other words Boaz has arrived.

The man we were introduced to in V1 has now entered the story. And Ruth doesn’t know what we know. She doesn’t know that the field where she has been working on belongs to a relative of Elimelech. She doesn’t understand the significance of the man who has just arrived. She’s simply working.

And we are told that Boaz notices her. He turns to the servant overseeing the workers and asks: “Whose young woman is this?”

Now, the text doesn’t tell us exactly what initially caught Boaz’s attention. Ruth may simply have been unfamiliar to him. But when Boaz asks about her, notice what the servant tells him.

First, he identifies her: “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab.”

Apparently Ruth’s story has already become known. But then he tells Boaz something about what he has observed: “So she came and has remained from the morning until now…”

In other words, Boaz this woman has been working all day.

Ruth didn’t know Boaz was coming.

She wasn’t working because she knew the owner was watching.

She wasn’t trying to impress him.

As far as Ruth knew, this was simply another day of trying to provide food for herself and Naomi. She was simply being faithful with what was in front of her. But while Ruth is doing what she can do, God is providentially arranging what Ruth cannot do.

Ruth can go to the field.

God can bring Boaz to the field.

Ruth can work diligently.

God can cause her work to be noticed.

And church, I think that’s where these first seven verses bring us.

7. There are things God has given us responsibility for, and there are things He has never given us control over.

So the question before us today is: What has God placed before you today? Be faithful there.

8. Our responsibility as Christians is faithfulness. The outcome belongs to God.

And we’re going to see beginning in V8 just how significant this encounter with Boaz will become.

But for today, I want us to see the bigger picture. Ruth entered this chapter needing provision. She did what she could do. But ultimately, she had to depend upon provision that she could never arrange for herself.

And church, ultimately, isn’t this the story of the gospel?

9. Our greatest need was something we could never provide for ourselves.

There is nothing we could do with guilt

There is nothing we can do with our sin

There was nothing we could do as a sinful people in order to be reconciled to a holy God.

But:

10. What we could never provide for ourselves, God provided for us in His Son before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1:3–4 NASB 2020

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, (V4) just as He chose us in Him (When?) before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. (God provided for our salvation before us)

Christ came. He lived the righteous life we could not live. He bore our sin upon the cross. He died the death we deserved, and He rose again, accomplishing the salvation we could never accomplish for ourselves.

And that is why our faith ultimately rests not in what we can do for God, but in what God has already done for us in Christ.

And that’s really what we’ve been seeing throughout this passage. Ruth and Naomi arrived in Bethlehem not knowing what awaited them.

They didn’t know how they would be provided for.

Ruth didn’t know which field she would enter.

She didn’t know Boaz.

And she certainly didn’t know what significance this man would eventually have in her life.

But God did.

And before Ruth ever arrived at that field, God had already gone before her. And Ruth simply responded by faithfully doing what God had placed before her and trusting Him with everything she could not control.

And church, that’s where we’re going to leave Ruth today.

She’s in the field.

She’s been working all day.

But something has changed. Boaz has arrived.

He has noticed her.

He asked about her.

And next week, as we continue into verses 8–17, we’re going to begin to see what God’s provision actually looks like. Because the God who goes before His people does not merely know what they need. He graciously provides it in order to fulfill His glorious purpose.