Ruth & Naomi
Notes
Transcript
Why Relationships?
Why Relationships?
Why have we decided to spend the summer talking about relationships?
What relationships do we have?
Romantic: boy to girl, girl to boy, husband to wife, wife to husband
Child to parent, parent to child
Employee to employer, employer to employee
Sibling/sibling
Teacher/student
church goes/pastor
citizen/government
friend/friend
neighbor/neighbor
student/youth leader
We are all in relationships.
What’s wrong with our relationships?
They are broken, shattered.
The best of relationships are messy, tainted by sin.
For the context of the summer we are not going to get into specifics of romantic relationships, thats not what this is about. When I say relationships I mean the connections, the friendships, the interactions we have with these groups of people.
Sin has shattered these and we have to choose do we want to fight or flight.
Are we going to press on and work through these or are we going to run?
At summer camp we are going to look at how we can make these right again, how we can fix these. On Wednesday nights we are going to look at various relationships in the bible and how these relate to us today.
Turn with me to the book of Ruth.
While you are turning there, what do we know about Ruth?
She was a widow, foreigner, outcast, exile, in the line of Christ
She had no hope, no way for redemption. Her story is a great reflection of the Christian life. She was wandering aimlessly with no hope and someone stepped in and saved her.
Some context for our story today: this takes place in the Old Testament, during the reign of the judges, roughly 100 years before King David. Lets read Ruth 1:1-5.
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. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Who are some of the characters so far?
Elimelech (the father) his wife Naomi
Sons: Mahlon and Chilion
Their wives (Orpah and Ruth)
And what happens to Elimelech (he dies)
And then to Mahlon and Chilion (they die)
Okay, well lets step back for a second. Whats the biggest rivilary you can think of? (Michigan-Ohio State) (Browns-Steelers) (Manchester City-Manchester United)
Let’s add the Israelites and the Moabites. On one hand you have God’s chosen people, descendants of Abraham, inhabitants of the promised land.
On the other hand you have the Moabites: does anyone know where they came from? They come from Moab, who was the son of Lot and his daughter. Remember one of those weird bible stories, Lot is saved from Sodom and Gomorrah (a land of gross sexual perversion) and flees to the mountains. His daughters suddenly are concerned there family branch won’t go on so they come up with a plan.
Side note: this is the snapshot of the Christian life, isn’t it. God just literally wiped out a city because of sexual perversion. He saved Lot and his family despite the mob kicking at the door. He did great and marvelous things. And moments later all the daughters were concerned about were there desires. They wanted kids.
So they got there day drunk and go pregnant with him. And that child was named Moab which came the Moabites.
The Moabites and the Israelites were related, second cousins. But they hated each other.
And so Naomi came from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, the city of David, the burial site of Sarah, the museum of Christian history. Jerusalem may of been the hub much like New York City or Washington DC is to the US but Bethlehem would of been the Boston of the Philadelphia. Rich with history, all the important events happened there.
That is where Naomi came from but now she is in the this land of God-haters. They worshipped there own god and hated the God of Israel.
She is in a foreign land, with those who don’t worship her God, has no food, no home, and has two daughters in law, who by the way were Moabites.
Her and her husband didn’t trust the lord, the fled to Moab when times go hard to find a better life and it left her alone and broken. And yet the Lord was providing back home.
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”
She hears times are good back in her land and so she returns. And before she goes, she tells her daughters in law, stay back, start a new life. The Lord will deal graciously with you.
They refuse, they want to stay with her. Probably thinking its the right thing to do; they haven’t weighed the costs yet.
But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
Naomi again says, no, listen, you should stay. It will be better for you. I have nothing for you, I can’t give you anymore sons to marry, You should go, remarry and have a family. And so we see Orpah realizes you know what, thats not a bad idea. I am going to stay here in my land, with my people, with hope of remarrying and not being part of this three widowed homeless, broke family.
But Ruth, she is determined to stay.
And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “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 shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
Ruth is being pressed again—go, your sister in law did it, just leave me, you will be better off.
Ruth delivers one of the most powerful lines in the bible: “Where you go, I will go. Where you stay I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
Wait a second, Naomis God is not Ruth’s God. The God of Israel is not the god of the Moabite people. Ruth at some point during this great trial in her life has come to know the truth and the living God. And this supernatural work has been done in her life and now she wants to stay with Naomi, go through the thick and the thin with her.
We see in this example of friendship this great affection and commitment to one another. I have great respect for what Ruth did.
But I want to suggest something tonight perhaps a little outside the box.
Naomi was not wrong in what she was saying. Ruth’s life probably would have been better off if she would have stayed behind and married someone from her land. Her life would have been easier, for one she wouldn’t of have to make the journey back to Bethlehem with Naomi (a long a tiring journey) nor would she have to try and find a husband in a land full of people that hated her and her people.
It would have been easier, she probably could have easily found a husband and had kids and stayed near to her family.
There are times that it may be easier to not have a relationship with someone. They may constantly negative or burdensome. Perhaps even your own walk may be bogged down less if you weren’t friends with so and so.
But there were greater things in store for Ruth because of her commitment and faithfulness to Naomi. It wasn’t easy. But the life she lived because of it, which by the way includes being in the line of Christ, was worth it.
Now the results from our hard relationships wont be that extreme or that transformative. But oftentimes there are far greater things in store for us and for others when we battle through the tough relationships. At the very least it is helping us in our sanctification process by working through those hard relationships.
Hear me out: don’t go looking for all the most hard and difficult relationships so you can be some sort of Christian martyr and be “better than others”. I would suggest your motives ruin any gain you may get from that.
However, when times do get tough. When relationships get hard, don’t give us. Fight through it. Think of others more than yourself. Ruth was more concerned about caring for her mother-in-law then she was about her own comforts. Those are ways the Lord is working in us to grow and sanctify us.