Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Video: Gospel Project re-introduction

Good Morning,

We are launching out into another season of the Gospel Project this morning.

If you remember, the idea behind the Gospel Project is that the Bible is one continuous story of God’s plan to rescue His people from sin and death through Jesus Christ.

Typically, when we hear about “The Gospel” we think of the first four books of the New Testament, but in the Gospel Project we are made aware of God’s movement toward this end through out all of human history.

And when we see this, it changes how we understand all of God’s Word, especially the Old Testament.

we have discovering God’s plan for redemption has been in operation since the beginning of time.

And when we understand this, it changes how we understand all of God’s Word.

Beginning next week week will be following up the morning service with Bible studies for all ages where we will have the opportunity to dive even deeper into our text for the week and reflect on how we might apply it to our week.

I am really excited about the insights and reflections that I believe will come from studying God’s Word like this so let me encourage you stick around next week and check it out with us.

What we once taught as motivation toward religious duty or sacrifice, now frees us to live and serve with grace and love.

The credit we once gave to extraordinarily heroic men and women is now given where it belongs, to the one true hero of the Bible.

Our good deeds are no longer aimed at personal recognition, but they are done as part of the great mission that God has designed.

It is all about Jesus, so it is all about the Gospel.

The Gospel Project exists to point kids, students, and adults to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Beginning next week week will be following up the morning service with group Bible studies for all ages where we will dive even deeper into how God’s plan of redemption unfolds throughout all of Scripture and into our lives today.

The whole idea of reading and studying this is that we would be compelled to join God in His mission to rescue people from the devastation of sin.

So I am excited about getting back into another season of the Gospel Project.

This morning we are going to spend the bulk of our time today looking at the book of Ruth, but we need to get a bit of a running start at it to understand it’s significance.

It’s been a while now since we have been in the Old Testament, so we need to switch gears a bit.

When we left off last spring we were in the book of Joshua, where the children of Israel finally take their rightful place in the land that God promised their forefather Abraham many generations before.

So I am excited about getting back into this, and this morning we are going to spend the bulk of our time today looking at the book of Ruth, but we need to get a bit of a running start at it to understand it’s significance.

When we left off last spring we were in the book of Joshua, where the children of Israel finally take their rightful place in the land that God promised Abraham many generations before.

We are going to spend the bulk of our time today looking at the book of Ruth, but we need to get a bit of a running start at it to understand it’s significance.

When we left off last spring we were in the book of Joshua, where the children of Israel finally take their rightful place in the land that God promised Abraham many generations before.

... but we need to get a bit of a running start at it to understand it’s significance.

When we left off last spring we were in the book of Joshua, where the children of Israel finally take their rightful place in the land that God promised Abraham many generations before.

The book of Joshua ends with this epic scene where God renews his Covenant with his people and Joshua is addressing the whole nation of Israel with his very famous words:

“...choose this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Joshua 24:

and the peop

And then Joshua sends them all out to their inheritance, and then he dies and the book of Joshua ends and then the wacky book of Judges begins.

Some of you might remember almost 3 years ago when we went through the book of Judges verse by verse, or more accurately story by story.

We found that the children of Israel did not follow through on their promise to obey God as the LORD or King over their life.

The entire book can be described by this one verse:

The did not obey God as King, they just did whatever they wanted to do and the book is just packed full of story after story of sin, selfishness and death.

These “Judges” were not guys in robes with gavels, they were instruments used by God to Judge the enemies of God who were oppressing His people.

Not that the people deserved rescuing, because they didn’t, they were not being faithful to the LORD but because they were God’s people He sent rescuers.

So they found themselves over and over in this cycle of sin.

Do you remember this graph?

The People Sin - The People Suffer - The People Cry Out - The Savior Rescues - Peace in the Land - Savior Dies - and we start all over again.

These “Judges” were not guys in robes with gavels, they were instruments used by God to Judge the enemies of God who were oppressing His people.

And we found that not only does this cycle go around and around it also spirals downward so that which each new Judges the sins of the people plummeted further and further into such barbaric and inhumane behavior that we cannot image any person doing such things, let alone the people that God chose to represent himself as a light to the whole world.

In the end they were chopping up some of their own people and mailing pieces around.

It was horrible and evil and it accurately represents what happens to God’s people when they stop fearing God and “Everyone does what is right in their own eyes”.

YHWY was supposed to be their King, their LORD, their sovereign and yet they were faithfully unfaithful

It is right after the barbaric story book of Judges is where we find this little book called Ruth, and it is important to keep Judges in mind because this little book is time stamped with the beginnings words being:

“In the days when the judges ruled...”

So it is against the background of this ugly and barbaric time for the people of God that this story of Ruth takes place, which is especially striking since some of the prominent themes of this little book are Loyalty and Love.

It is crazy to think that such a beautiful story would take place in such a dark and bleak time in the history of God’s people, but that is one of the most important points of the book.

It is a beautiful story with many ups and downs.

Tension

Something really interesting about the book of Ruth is that at first glance it doesn’t seem like God plays a very active role in the plot line.

Unlike all the books before it, God doesn’t seem to be written as one of the main characters:

He doesn’t have any lines.

He doesn’t do anything uniquely miraculous

His name is only mentioned twice outside of the dialogue of the other characters.

It could make you wonder if He has an active role in this story at all, and if He doesn’t, why is it in the Bible?

Probably to teach us about that very thing.

I didn’t mean to set you up, but the truth is that when we ask a question like that, it proves that we really aren’t thinking rightly about God and His relationship with the world that He has created.

There is no story that God does not play the leading role.

I don’t just mean in the Bible, I mean anywhere in our world.

This is God’s created world.

He designed it for His glory.

He sustains it for His purposes.

History truly is “His -story”.

As a sovereign God, He is the author, director and hero of every story in our world...even when it might not seem like he is a part of the story at all.

The book of Judges is loaded with miraculous events where God intervened in the lives the characters giving them supernatural strength, wisdom and knowledge, but the book of Ruth is about ordinary God fearing people just going about their daily lives.

Sometimes all God asks is that his children be faithful in doing ordinary things, trusting that in the midst of those things He is weaving together something extraordinary.

And this is what the book of Ruth is all about, lets see how this happens together.

In the book of Judges we read of fantastical stories where God gives the characters supernatural strength, cunning or wisdom, but the book of Ruth is about ordinary people just going about their ordinary lives.

Sometimes all God asks of us is to be faithful in doing ordinary things, and then He will take those things and make something extraodinary out of them.

And this is what the book of Ruth is all about, lets see how this happens together.

Open up your Bibles with me to the book of Ruth.

It is only 4 short chapters, only three pages in most Bibles.

You can find the book on page 222 in the Bibles in the chairs.

As you are turning there, I will pray and we then we will get to enjoy this extraordinary story of ordinary people .

Truth

Time of the Judges was a barbaric time

So our story begins with the setting, timing, characters and plot tension...

Tension

God is barely mentioned in the story, but his movement is seen extrodinarily in the very ordinary... espcially in contrast to the message of the book of Judges.

Let me begin by saying... Yes, that Bethlehem…and I am glad you didn’t miss that, but there might be other things that you might have.

I have said this before, but we don’t really get the severity of the catastrophic event called “famine” in our world.

I know this because our grocery stores have entire isles dedicated to peanut butter.

How many different ways are there to smoosh up peanuts?

Anyway, a famine means that people are daily starving to death because there is no food, “creamy or crunchy” there was nothing to eat.

So it was a very natural decision for this family of four to pack up their belongings and at least for the short term to move somewhere that had food.

And this is where the plot thickens because unexpected tragedy strikes.

They moved to Moab to escape death by starvation, but it found them some other way.

So to make a short story shorter, Elimelek, the patriarch of their little family, dies and the two sons, who had since married Moabite women, also die.

So of the original four members, only Naomi is left and her life is marked by these terrible losses.

So to make a short story shorter, the patriarch of their little family dies and the two sons, who had since married Moabite women, also die.

So of the original four, only Naomi is left and her life is marked by loss.

This is when we encounter the first of only two narrative mentions of God’s movement in this story:

Long story short, the patriarch of their little family dies and the two sons, who had since married Moabite women, also die.

So of the original four

Ruth 1:6movement, because in his perfect love for Naom

Being that she is found here in the fields of Moab, she was already surrounded by food, but as she has heard that their is now also food in Israel, she made her plans to return home.