Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever felt out of place?

Story of when I first arrived in Canada (1987) and attended the public school

How does that feel?

Oddly strange

Don’t know how to react

Try to go with the flow

Today we come to a beautiful story of an ordinary woman, I would even call her an underprivileged and emptied woman in society but by God’s providence, hailed her to become the extraordinary vessel filled with the compassion of God.

We begin by knowing that:

Ruth 2:2 “2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”

Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.””

Ruth 2:6 “6 The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi.”

The location of Moab plays an important role in understanding the book of Ruth

Genesis 19:37 “37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today.”

- The Moabites were hostile to the Israelites

Number 22:2-3 “2 Now Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites, 3 and Moab was terrified because there were so many people.

Indeed, Moab was filled with dread because of the Israelites.”

The Moabites remained hostile even after the conquest.

Here’s where the story of Ruth plays out.

You have Ruth, the Moabite, her mother in law Naomi the Israelite and Boaz the Israelite.

In hindsight, there should be tension where Ruth, the underdog, would’ve gotten pick on or seen as a stranger.

Even Ruth admits that she is a stranger of the land,

Ruth 2:10 “10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground.

She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?””

So obviously, there is something happening between all these characters where the boundaries of ethnicity, cultural diversity, and status differences are overshadowed by the lovingkindness of God.

We will focus mainly on the relationship between Boaz and Ruth, the Israelite and the Moabite today and how “hesed,” the lovingkindness of God turns someone that is an outcast into something extraordinary.

No strings attached

A couple of years ago, we often hear that phrase in many mobile phone carriers!

“Unlimited data!” “Talk and text anytime and everywhere!” Soon, as our world became more “online,” mobile carriers soon had to drop the term “No strings attached” to their data plan.

It makes sense since we all begin to stream most of our favourite content and personal connections are built virtually, mobile data is essential to most people nowadays.

So mobile carriers have cleverly worked around that catchphrase where they give you a certain amount of “normal speed” data and after a certain amount that you have burned through, you will only get “slower speed” data.

I am sure that many of you have much better examples than this, but it is true that there are “no free lunches” in what the world offers us out of its greediness.

Fortunately, we have the Bible, the Word of God.

His “hesed” is everlasting and really is no strings attached.

We see that right off the bat by how Naomi, the mother in law of Ruth describes Boaz.

The “He” mentioned in verse 20 is Boaz and what has he done to deserve such praise from Naomi.

When Naomi says, “He has not stopped howing his kindness to the living and the dead,” she is implying that Boaz had not abandoned his kindness even though the recipient doesn’t feel like they deserved any of it.

This same sentence structure of “not stopped showing kindness” appears back in Genesis 24:27

That’s Eliezer, the servant of Abraham praising God for providing a wife for his master’s son.

Not just any woman, it was one that exceeds expectation!

Sometimes in life we need to know that God’s lovingkindness is more than what we think it is.

Often His hesed is overshadowed by the box that we put God in and could never expereience His fullness because of the experience that we have come across in our past.

As we can see in Ruth 2:20 that God’s lovingkindness has no boundaries, living or the dead, deserve or the underserved, His hesed has no limits.

Free of obligation

Hearing this verse melts my heart.

Under the Mosaic law, landowners were to leave the edges of their field unharvested so that the poor can go and take whatever is there.

Ruth, being a foreigner, was poor, and had no food felt rightly into that category.

But that doesn’t stop Boaz from extending the same kindness that God would to His people.

He said to Ruth, “come alongside the other women that are working for me!” “You don’t need to go to another field once the edges have been gleaned.

In fact, don’t go anywhere.

Just stay here and take all you need!”

It is obvious that Boaz knows Ruth would not have the ability to pay him back.

In other words, there was no obligation when Boaz decides to extend his kindness to Ruth.

It is also obvious that Boaz knows Ruth is a Moabite – a historical nemesis and bully to the Israelites.

Boaz didn’t care, he goes as far as calling Ruth one of his daughters.

That is incredible.

What Boaz is doing is portraying God’s righteousness.

The outcome was only accomplished though, through Boaz’s righteous response.

An article from the Reformation Bible College writes that,

“Through his actions, Boaz communicates Christ.

His person and character illustrate the incredible hesed that Christ possesses for his people…”[8]

To make this point of what God’s righteousness is, we must point to Paul’s explanation in the book of Romans,

We never deserved the death of Christ because we all have sinned against God.

Collectively, we put Jesus on the cross.

But it is the nature of our living God that He, not us, loves us so much by showing us His hesed unconditionally.

Doesn’t matter where you are from, what ethnicity, or cultural background you are from, when you cast your faith on our Lord Jesus Christ, we are indwelled in his lovingkindness.

God’s lovingkindness, collectively, extends to all those who believe to be received by faith.

No obligation.

No strings attached.

Beyond the call of duty

You think that providing food for Ruth was enough as a relative to her mother-in-law.

Boaz doesn’t think so.

He goes as far as providing protection, comfort, and divine providence for Ruth.

Ruth knows that she does not qualify for any of the above.

She thinks that she is a nobody, just an ordinary outsider that has landed in a place, and in the midst of strangers that she doesn’t know.

But Ruth could never imagine the power of lovingkindness that would change her life’s trajectory.

It was Ruth’s loyalty to her mother-in-law that inspires Boaz, who extends generosity beyond the call of duty toward Ruth.

The story of Ruth is not just about kind people doing good things, but rather an example of how ordinary people with mixed motives become extraordinary through the cultivation of hesed.

What that means is that the lovingkindness of God is like a domino effect – it is passed on from one person to another, a perpetual motion that never ends.

And that is what’s being displayed between Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz where each person’s life was changed no matter what their initial motives were.

“…those who act with hesed mirror the ways of God, serving as agents of God’s hesed through their deeds of kindness.”[10]

What does that have to do with me?

In Ruth’s story, we saw a woman of God that didn’t even belong in God’s chosen people group.

Ruth was an outsider, an alien, and a foreigner.

But God did not limit his lovingkindness for Ruth.

God used Boaz to display His lovingkindness to Ruth which gave Ruth the providence that she needed to rise up and receive the dignity she deserved.

Take this $50 bill for instance…

No matter how much I disfigure it, it is still $20.

It kept its worth.

“I’m a child of God, Yes I am!” - Brooke Ligertwood

God sees us as his children in all His worth.

He created each of us in His own image and His lovingkindness to us has never changed.

Like in the story about Jacob, who is a treacherous liar, even to his own family.

But despite that, God chooses him and repeats the promise he made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham—that he would have a huge family, through whom God would restore his blessing to the nations.

And so twenty years later, when Jacob realizes how undeserving he is, he says to God, “I’m not worthy of all the hesed you’ve shown me.”

And he’s right.

But God’s hesed was never about Jacob’s actions in the first place!

It’s a display of God’s generous loyalty to his promise and our worthy before the eyes of God!

For thousands of years, humanity has betrayed our commitment to God, God still kept His promise in a dramatic and drastic way: by becoming human and binding himself to us in the person of Jesus.

And in his life, death, and resurrection, God opened up a new future for all of us and for all of creation.

And God did this because it’s just who God is, generous, loving, and eternally loyal to his promises.