Ruth Who Is Your Family

Ruth 1

Who Is Your Family?

Intro: What makes a family? And how do you get into one? You are born into one or you can marry into a family. Who gets to say you are in or you are out? You know who is related to you when you see them at gatherings and pictures or reunions. Sometimes the families are huge and sometimes they are small. I’ve done my ancestry and if I am correct I have traced most of my family back fairly far. But it is interesting to see the names of the people in my family tree. I am mostly Scottish, Irish, English with the rest German. Most people are familiar with the Clan system and the clans are easily recognized by the plaid tartans that wear when they wear Kilts. So even if you are out somewhere if everyone was wearing their kilts, you can find someone in your clan because you have the same tartan.

The overall Theme for the series is that during the time of people doing what they see fit in their own eyes, the Christian or the God fearing people must live as god would have them live and not the way the world says to live.

Read Verses:

Main Point: God’s Love is the Light that Shines Against the darkness

I. The Problem: A Family Lost (1-7)

The first thing to do is get the setting and time period

The story opens with in the days of the judges or chieftains, a famine hit the land. So most scholars think that this coincides with Judges Chapter 6 and the story of Gideon and the Midianites. The famine was caused by God because the people were rebelling against God.

During this time, a family from Bethlehem moved to the country or region of Moab.

Verse 2 says they were Ephrathites. Ephrathites were members of a clan that held the prominent position of being one of the first families … they were among the aristocracy of the town of Bethlehem. That simply underscores the riches-to-rags crisis hitting this particular family. this family was essentially royalty but now they are essentially dead broke.

In Hebrew stories the names of places and people indicate something. Bethlehem means roughly, House of Bread. It is a bit of a play on words here sending the message of the bread basket is empty and so they have to go somewhere to get more food.

To add even more to the play on word meanings is the fact that this family will move to Moab. The Lord called Moab a washbowl (Psalm 60:8). A washbowl was used to wash dirty feet. It would be akin to calling Moab a trash can—a plot of ground where you dumped things you wanted to throw away. Moab was a spiritual wasteland.

To put it succinctly, the commentator says that the family moved from the breadbasket to the wastebasket.

Since we are talking about names, I want to give you the list of names and what they mean in Hebrew so it makes some sense in the story.

The patriarch Elimelech = God is my King. The tragedy of Elimelech’s life was simply the fact that he didn’t live up to his name.

Wife Naomi = Gracious one

Sons Mahlon = Puny or Weakling

Chilion = Complaining or Pining

These boys had rhyming names in Hebrew, implying they could have been twins. More than likely, their mother, like many mothers, just wanted her children’s names to rhyme.

Orpah = Obstinate—literally strong neck.

Ruth = Comfort or, perhaps, Friend.

To recap, we have a man who is named God is my king, but he doesn’t obey his king and moves his family outside the boundaries of God’s decree. His wife is usually gracious, but as we will see will turn bitter. And the two sons who Puny and Piny or maybe we could call them weak and whiny, marry two gentile women, which

They live in Moab about ten years and then all the menfolk die. Leaving the women in Moab. But then Naomi hers some good news.The lord had visited his people and given them food.

They had broken commandments by leaving Judah. And Don’t miss the fact that the sons of Elimelech disobeyed God by not returning with their father’s body for burial. They hadn’t even converted their wives to the God of Abraham. They had equal disregard for the Word of God and the will of God. Their early deaths were judgments for having been assimilated into the lifestyle and culture of Moab.

The story opens with a journey and now the middle part of the story is a trip back to Naomi's home Bethlehem.

II. The Discussion: A Family In Crisis (8-15)

Of course Ike any road trip there can't be just an easy walk back home. It was about a 50 mile trip or so, depending on where they end up in Moab.

The ladies start the trip and then Naomi says, look o you can go home and marry someone else. I can have more sons to marry you. The law said that the next brother should marry the wife to keep the family intact

But she encourages the Moabites to go back to their mothers, go back and find other husbands.

She even uses the excuse or reasoning, to go back to your own gods In verse 15.

What in the world is Naomi doing demanding that her daughters-in-law go back to their gods? Their chief god was Chemosh, and their worship included child sacrifice. Why would a Jewish woman—a daughter of Abraham—encourage two pagan women to worship their false gods?

Naomi, who is supposed to be pleasant, has given up on God and she doesn’t want her daughters in law to be disappointed and bitter as well. So she tries to set them free. And the one daughter, Oprah, stiff-neck, takes the offer and her release papers and goes back home. But Ruth The one who is the comforter, sticks with Naomi and we see this love and loyalty strengthen the family.

III. The Solution: A Family Strengthened (16-22)

So instead of three pole going two separate ways, we have two people going back to were they came from, Naomi and Orpah,and Ruth is swearing allegiance and going into a new land. A place she has probably heard may not like her kind.

But we see Ruth’s strength here. In verse 16,

16 But Ruth replied:

Don’t plead with me to abandon you

or to return and not follow you.

For wherever you go, I will go,

and wherever you live, I will live;

your people will be my people,

and your God will be my God.

17 Where you die, I will die,

and there I will be buried.

May the Lord punish me,

and do so severely,

if anything but death separates you and me.

They walk the rest of the way in silence it seems. So i guess it was a really fun few day walk.

Application

1. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish

Ruth was the Moabite, but she was also referred to as the widow of Mahlon So that makes her in the family. She also swore to Naomi that she shall be my people and your God my God. She attached herself to the God of Israel. Even if the sons did not convert the Moab women to become a God follower, Ruth was aware of Yahweh and pledges herself to Him.

Naomi is so changed she requests the people call her Mara, which means bitter.

Naomi says “I went out full, but the LORD has brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:21).

She’s right, in a way—God has brought her back. She just doesn’t realize at the moment that God hasn’t deserted her, even though she has, effectively, deserted Him.

Paul realizes this as well. He says I was the one tracking down and killing Christians and now I’m here planting churches on at least two continents. But he knows that God brought him exactly where he wanted him to be to convert. Paul and use his zeal and intelligence to push Christianity all around the known world.

God sent Jesus to pay for your sins and the sins of the many We have been bought with the blood of Jesus we have been in grafted onto the tree.

Galatians 3:13-14 says 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.

2. It is Important to share God with those Around You

There is no mention of their religious conversations, and Naomi says go back to your own gods. But somehow, Ruth knew about The Jewish God Yahweh. And she was compelled by God to convert. Her heart was set on God and she meant to fulfill her covenant Ben if Naomi was willing to end the contract. This is important because in al the events God is behind the whole story line. He is the author. He is writing he story one so that David will be born and that brings the royal line into existence that extends all the way to Jesus, the messiah.

Write this name down: David Wood. Look him up on YouTube look up David Wood testimony. It’s about 35 minutes long but it is an interesting story. In a nutshell he was an egotistical atheist that thought, in his own words, evolved as a human and he was better and smarter than everyone else. He tried to kill his own father with a hammer and went to jail. In his jail cell he met Randy a Christian as his cellmate. Randy challenges him to think and he challenges his artistic assumptions or world view. Basically as David did his research to try to destroy Randy’s arguments and the Bible, he is led by the Holy Spirit into accepting Christ. He asks the question What could have convinced all the apostles to go to their deaths for something if it was made up. They were dying for something they saw.

All of a sudden David Wood is let out of the darkness and into the light. Because he finally met the real Jesus, not the straw man that any atheists or non-believers think they know of him and his followers.

In John 8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

We are called to be the salt and the light to the people as well. We are the lightbringers. Led by the Holy Spirit. We can go into the dark places because God is in front of us leading us to find His people. Our family members.

After his conversion he helped convert a Muslim to Christianity named Nabeel Querishi. Both of these men have led countless people to Christ because they didn’t believe at first. And while people helped them through things, But God

3. God has it worked out.

The method if we are not careful puts all of the stress on us to go and reach everyone and we get discouraged if nobody decides to follow Christ.

Our allying to go and make disciples comes for and is backed by God. So we have to rely on Him to lead us to the right words to the right people. Does this mean we take the easy way out and say God. Hasn’t led me to talk to anyone yet? No. We must listen to God to tell the message of God

Paul tells the Ephesians in chapter 3:14 For this reason I kneel before the Father[c] 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.—Peter wrote this letters to gentiles to let them know they were included in the family.

God was strengthening the Royal line with Gentile Blood. Ruth was filled to the brim with God by her actions and words while Naomi seemed to be empty.

Conclusion

It is Elimelech’s faithlessness that sends him and his family to Moab. From the breadbasket to the wastebasket.

It is unfaithfulness of the sons that lead them to marry Gentile women.

Naomi’s unfaithfulness tries to send her daughter in-laws back to their gods and away from the one true God.

But it is Ruth’s faith that keeps her family together and brings her back into Judaea and Bethlehem.

This journey has huge implications, no only on her life, but the rest of the world in the centuries to come.

We must remember that we are saved and if you haven’t been saved, do you feel the pull to ward the light? Are you finally being drawn to the brightness and the heat that God provides? Are you ready to join His family.

Doxology

20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen