Sermon Tone Analysis

Well good morning, Forest Glen.

It’s good to be with you all.

For those of you I haven’t met yet, my name’s Dan Osborn and I’m one of the Pastors over at our Near North location.

Well good morning, Forest Glen.

It’s good to be with you all.

For those of you I haven’t met yet, my name’s Dan Osborn and I’m one of the Pastors over at our Near North location.

Grateful for Scott.

Honor of preaching his last Sunday at park

Scott’s Party at 6:30 in the Auditorium

This morning we’re continuing in our series call Great Stories as we’re looking at some stories form the Old Testament that point to the greater story of Jesus and the Gospel.

This morning we get the chance to look at what I think is a literary master piece..the story of Ruth!

So if you have a bible, would you open with me to the book of Ruth.

If you have one of the house bibles, it’s on page 222.

Let me pray and we’ll get started.

Pray

The Story of Ruth:

Chapter 1

Alright, look with me starting at v. 1. “In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.”

V. 1 helps set the scene for us.

This story takes place during the time of the Judges.

Like the Dark Ages… “Every did what was right in their own eyes”.

And there a famine in Bethlehem.

And this is where we meet our first character, Elimelech.

He moves his family away from Bethlehem to the land of Moab.

Let me show you on a map where this is [MAP of MOAB].

Because of the geography of the area, the region of Moab often wasn’t affected by famines like other places in that area.

Here’s what the region looks like today…[PICTURE]

But this an odd thing for Elimelech to do because Moab was NOT part of the Land that God had promised to the Israelites...in fact, often the Israelites and Moabites were at war with each other…and yet Elimelech takes his family out of the Land God had promised to them and moves to live as refugees.

And they end up living in Moab for about 10 years.

While they’re there, Elimelech dies, and Naomi is left with her two sons.

Now loosing her husband would have been a significant threat to Naomi, because as a woman in that culture, there was not much she was able to do for her own protection…but she still had her two adult sons to take care of her.

After he dies, she marries off her sons to Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth.

And then, we're told, her sons died.

We don’t know why…we’re not told.

But beyond the grief and sorrow they would've felt, what we need to understand is that this puts the three women in a very dangerous position.

It was nearly impossible for a woman to provide for herself in that day, let alone someone in Naomi’s position who is older and not likely to get married again…because where is she going to go?

Where is she going to live?

How’s she going to provide for herself?

In her eyes, she's lost everything.

So here’s Naomi…she’s poor…a refugee…a widow…she has no sons and no hope left at all that things will work out for her.

Eventually, the famine back in Bethlehem ends, so Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to head back to their families and remarry while they still can.

She’s going back to Bethlehem.

And you get this pretty bleak picture of Naomi…because she’s not going back to anything…she’s going back because when she dies in Bethlehem, at least she’ll die at home.

And the three women have this final moment together…and Orpah kisses Naomi one last time and heads back to her family…but Ruth…stays.

She will not leave Naomi’s side.

Look at Ruth’s response in v. 16. “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you.

For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge.

Your people shape be my people, and your God my God.

Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

This is a deep commitment from Ruth, isn’t it?

This is really a profound statement of faith, from someone who is NOT even an Israelite…remember, she's a Moabite!

See Ruth is young enough to go back home and just have this whole experience a be a rough chapter in her life…but she can get remarried…she can still have kids…she can have a fresh start!

But if she goes with Naomi…not only is she a widow…but she’ll be a foreigner…a stranger…an outsider in Israel.

But Ruth chooses the thing that doesn’t make any sense.

And she leaves Moab, her home, to live Bethlehem with Naomi.

You can image after being gone for 10 years, when they get back to Bethlehem, people take notice…it’s a small town—no more than a few hundred people—people are amazed that Naomi is back!

And they have questions for her about what’s been going on…why she decided to come back and as she begins to tell the story, she tells everyone “Don’t call me Naomi anymore…her name actually means ‘Pleasant’ or ‘Sweet’…call me Mara…which means bitter…for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”

And she explains everything that’s happened with her husband and her sons and how Ruth, her daughter-in-law, the Moabite, has decided to stay with her…

Chapter 2:

But already there’s a glimmer of hope in their story because they arrive back in Bethlehem just as the barley harvest was getting started.

Ruth can go out to the fields and ‘glean’.

Gleaning is gathering left overs…the crops that were left behind or had fallen to the ground out in the fields.

And the reason she could do this was because the Israelites had actually been commanded by God to make sure that they left part of the crop behind so that people in situations like Naomi and Ruth’s could have way to get some food!

Let me show you a couple places where God set this up.

…it’s on the screen behind me,

In other words, don’t touch the edge of the field and don’t pick up the stuff you dropped.

Let me show you a picture of what this would have looked like [SLIDE].

And these things were done for the poor, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow…which is really a general way of talking about the person in need…the person who can't provide for themselves…for whatever reason.

Now there’re a couple different ways the bible talks about a person in that situation…with words like: Foreigner, Stranger, Alien, Sojourner…but all these things are really talking about the same thing…an outsider…someone who was either NOT an Israelite—God’s people, or because their situation excludes them from the rest of the community…the bottom line is that it’s for the outsider…the one who doesn’t belong.

And yet in commanding these, God shows kindness to the outsider.

And so Ruth, the outsider, is out to glean in the fields.

Look with me at chapter 2, v. 1.

It says this, “Now Naomi had a relative of her husbands, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.”

Boaz, we find out, has got a pretty good situation for himself.

He’s a little older in life, but he’s got a good foundation, He’s a property owner…he’s got some money…he’s got a good number of people who work for him in the fields, and he is a worthy man which is the bible’s way of saying, ‘he’s legit’…he’s a man of character.

He is cousin of Elimelech.

But most importantly in this story…he’s single.

And while Ruth is gleaning she happened to come to the part of the filed belonging to Boaz.

And Boaz sees Ruth in the field and he doesn’t know her, so he asks one of his workers who she it.

And this guy gives the back story a little bit, but he also goes out of his way to let Boaz know that Ruth is an outsider and tells him that she’s a Moabite whose come back with Naomi from Moab.

And so, Boaz calls her over, and they begin to have this conversation.

And yet even though she is an outsider…Boaz shows a deep kindness to her.

He tells her she doesn’t need to go out to anyone else fields, but that she can continue to glean from his field as long as she needs…he promises that he will protect her from anyone harassing her while she works, AND he will get water for her to drink when she’s thirty!

But the thing is, this is way more that what God had commanded his people to do for the outsider.

Boaz was going above and beyond what he was supposed to do.

And Ruth picks up on it!

After Boaz lays all this out, she says in v.10 ‘Why have I found favor in our eyes, that you should take notice of me, since i am a foreigner?’

This isn’t what she expected to happen…she knows it’s more than she deserves!

And Boaz tells her he’s heard all about what she's done for Naomi…about how she had left everything she knew to come and be with Naomi and to care of her.

And look what he says in chapter 2 v. 12, “The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be give you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

Which really is an incredible picture of God’s provision and protection.

And from that moment on, Boaz begins to treat Ruth like she’s part of his very own family.

He call’s her, ‘My Daughter’.

He has her come and eat a meal with him after she's been working in the fields…and then when she heads back out to work, Boaz tells he servants to basically lay out the grain for her to come around and gather…and when the day is over, she heads back to Naomi with a huge stock pile of barley.

Naomi can’t believe how much she’s brought home…it’s close to 30 pounds of grain…and says, ‘Where’d you get all this?!”

And Ruth tells her, ‘I was at the fields of a man named Boaz.’

And as soon as Naomi hears that name, something clicks for her because she remembers that Boaz was actually a relative of her husband!

And so she explains to Ruth that he is actually one of the family redeemers!

Now let me pause here for a moment because we’ve got know what a family Redeemer, or Kinsman Redeemer is.