Ruth
Talk by Carolyn Jervis - Saturday 10 January 2015
The book of Ruth is usually described as a touching tale of romance. The Pride and Prejudice of the Bible. I believe it is much more than that! It is a beautiful story of 2 broken hearted women whose courage and trust in God is rewarded by undreamt of blessings showered upon them both by God.
Dead end or Doorway? God specialises in turning apparently hopeless circumstances into doorways of opportunity and blessing
Let’s look at the first scene in the story. There was a famine in Judah so Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their 2 sons to the green but idolatrous land of Moab – about 50 miles on the other side of the Dead Sea. Naomi’s husband dies and her sons marry local women who remain childless for 10 years. Naomi’s sons die too so when news comes that the famine in Judah is over, a distraught Naomi decides to return to her old home in Bethlehem. Accompanied by her 2 daughters in law she sets off but seeing only a bleak future for them she tells the young women to go back. Orpah returns to her family and pagan gods but let’s see what Ruth says!
Reading 1 – Ruth 1 v 15-22
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,[b]” she told them. “Call me Mara,[c] because the Almighty[d] has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted[e] me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Wow! Doesn’t that bring tears to your eyes? There is Naomi, a broken- hearted woman. Widowed a decade ago and now grieving for her 2 sons. No wonder she feels her name which means ‘pleasant’ should be changed to Mara meaning ‘bitter’. She feels empty yet she has a steely trust in the living God. She feels deserted by God but He is still involved in every detail of her life. She feels empty but is so bowed down with hopelessness that she fails to see God at work in her life. Empty? But He has given her an amazingly loving and courageous daughter in law who commits to her for life. Astonishing!
Yes-Naomi has had a tough life so far –
Famine in Bethlehem
Move to pagan Moab
Death of her husband and 2 sons
10 years of childless marriages for her daughters in law
But – she is blinded by her bitterness – ‘The Lord has brought me back empty’ NO! Naomi LOOK! Look up from your problems. Look at what God is doing. Look up! Look at Him. Don’t we all need to do that when we are bogged down with our own problems?
Dead end or Doorway?
Illustration –The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe (wardrobe-Lucy found Narnia, Edmund just the back of the wardrobe)
Can you trust God’s grace when clouds are so thick you can’t even see the road?
Feelings cannot be trusted! We may feel God has abandoned us but He never will! (‘Lo I am with you always…) We need to cling to the truth about God we can learn in the Bible.
.Saturate yourself in the Bible
Martin Lloyd Jones read Psalms when depressed. My sister set herself the task of learning them after being attacked by Alsatian dogs. Psalm 139 (I am trying to learn!). Soak yourself in Psalm 23. A psalm for the living not just for funerals! (Valley of the shadows NOT shadow of death…) I strongly recommend :
Travelling Light by Max Lucado. Naomi could have done with this book!
Read page 143-144
Only the Scriptures renew hope and so awaken lasting spiritual joy.
Naomi is so weary of her suffering that she can’t see what God is doing for her.
Not so Ruth- she shows absolute trust in the God Naomi has introduced her to. She has lost her husband after 10 childless years and has left her family and country to go with Naomi. She showed a faith in God that sees beyond bitter setbacks.
Isn’t it beautiful to watch a woman like this serve God with courage?
Ruth showed humility and absolute trust and obedience – did you know that Mary was a descendant of Ruth? Mary the mother of Jesus who said to the angel, ’May it be to me as you have just said.’ Knowing she would be rejected by many & probably stoned to death.
What a challenge to us ! Ruth shows a radical commitment in the relationships God has given her. Who is God asking you to show care for/ encourage? I say this to myself as well! O Lord help us to overcome our shyness or our British reserve and be more loving to those people God puts in our path. Ask the Holy Spirit for power to care with a costly love like our Saviour and Lord.
Take the risks of love
CSLewis again Mr Beaver says of Aslan – ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’
In his wonderful book on Ruth called ‘A Sweet and Bitter Providence’ John Piper says:
‘There is no safer place in all the universe than under the wings of the sovereign, all-wise, all loving God. But the shadow of these wings may take us to dangerous places in the cause of love.’
Will you serve the Lord no matter what? No matter where? No matter how?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scene 2 The harvest fields –Under the wings of God - Ruth meets Boaz (Security)
God is plotting for Naomi’s good
God guided Ruth to Boaz’ field.
He sees how hard working she is. Being a God saturated man he protects her from molesters (as a Moabitess and a widow she was v vulnerable) He ensures that she has extra grain left for her as well as food and water.
Ruth bows to the ground in humble gratitude asking why me? A foreigner?
Reading 2 Ruth 2 v 11-12
11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
‘under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
The picture here is of God as a powerful great winged eagle & Ruth is a threatened little eaglet coming to find safety under the Eagle’s wings.
Did you know an eagle has a wingspan of 6 – 8ft !
We have a similar picture again and again in the Bible especially in the Psalms
Psalm5 ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.’
Psalm 63v7 ‘Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.’
Ruth has set her heart on God for hope & joy.
We need humble confidence in the mighty & merciful wings of God.
God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under His wings.
It was the Lord who : Stopped the famine
Bound Ruth to Naomi in love
Preserved and prepared Boaz for Ruth
Led Ruth to Boaz’ field
Piper says, ‘The light of God’s love has finally broken through bright enough for Naomi to see. The Lord is good to all those who take refuge under his wings. Let us like Naomi and Ruth fall on our faces, bow before the Lord, confess our unworthiness, take refuge under the wings of God & be astonished at his grace.’
Well! Ruth has quite a story to tell Naomi when she gets home laden with left over food and grain. She works hard for all the harvest time caring for her mother in law.
Naomi only hoped to survive not to be blessed!
Look up!! See God’s mercy breaking through the clouds of adversity. Look for his blessings. NOT sit & count your blessings but look out for them and bask in the assurance of God’s unchanging love for you.
Piper ‘Seek refuge under the wings of God even when they seem to cast only shadows, & at just the right time God will let you look out from his eagle’s nest onto some spectacular sunrise……Hope is the birthplace of dreams. Hope, that is, based on the confidence that a sovereign God is for us.’
Hopelessness leads to inactivity, self pity and giving up.
Do you remember that party game? Associations? What words come into your head for hopelessness / hopeful
Remember our dead end or doorway? Hopelessness is a dead end but hope leads us through an open door. Hope leads to making plans and having God directed dreams for the future.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But look what is coming in the 3rd scene!
Scene 3 The Threshing floor – A Redeemer – (Strategic Righteousness)
Well this is a really dramatic scene! Naomi hatches a plan to provide security for Ruth. According to a Levirate law of the time when a man dies without an heir, the closest male relative to the deceased has the obligation to marry her and their first child will bear the surname of the deceased man so perpetuating the family name.
Well! Boaz has it all! Kind, gracious, well respected, Godly, he is a close relative and to top it all he is obviously a wealthy man too! Enter Mr Darcy!!
Ruth goes to the threshing floor as Naomi directs, to lie at Boaz’ feet. This would be a recognised way to propose marriage. The threshing floor would have been out on the open hillside above Bethlehem. Let’s see how the marriage negotiations proceed :
Reading 3 – Ruth 3 v 8-13
8 At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! 9 He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. (F)Spread your wings[a] over your servant, for you are (G)a redeemer.” 10 And he said, (H)“May you be blessed by the LORD, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than (I)the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. 11 And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are (J)a worthy woman. 12 And now it is true that I am (K)a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. 13 Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will (L)redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, (M)as the LORD lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.”
Ruth says in v 9 ‘Spread your wings over your servant for you are my kinsman- redeemer’ does that reminds you of Ch 2v12.’…God under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
Can you see how Boaz’ prayer for Ruth in Ch 2 May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” -is being wonderfully answered here?
You know, sometimes you may be the answer to your own prayers =Boaz
Picture the scene – the couple clearly drawn to each other. A beautiful starlit night on the hillside above Bethlehem. Ruth has asked Boaz to marry her and I am sure he could not believe that this young beautiful woman wanted to marry him. But Oh dear! There is a closer relative who has a prior claim on her. Boaz does the honourable thing as a godly man and resists the desire to claim her as his. He is careful to send her home and not compromise her purity.
Have you ever felt that everything seems to be going well and then there is what feels like a major hiccough? A spanner in the works?
‘Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next & then finally to heaven.’ Life is a winding & often troubled road. …Zig zagging.’The point of Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns God is not just showing up after the trouble and clearing it up. He is plotting the course & managing the troubles with far- reaching purposes for our good & for the glory of Jesus Christ.’ Piper
We come across rather annoying apparently time wasting circuitous routes. eg Bournemouth airport zig zag queue for passport control. (or Ikea!)
Well! As many of you know it is ok. The other kinsman doesn’t want Ruth so Boaz’ patient trust in God’s plans is rewarded. He gets the prize!! He gets the girl! The crowd is ecstatic and pray a blessing on them.
Reading 4 - Ruth 4 v 11-17
11 Then the elders and all those at the gate said, We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
12 Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.
The Genealogy of David 13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
14 The women said to Naomi: Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!
15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.
16 Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him.
17 The women living there said, Naomi has a son. And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
How God has blessed them all. And the exciting truth is that it doesn’t end with a besotted grandmother hugging her precious grandson. Through Obed we can follow the line all the way down to a couple huddled in a stable in Bethlehem hundreds of years later as our Saviour Jesus was born. Our Saviour who gave His life to redeem us. Ruth cost Boaz a shoe. You and I are redeemed by the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus.
Ruth was a pagan Moabite before God pursued her. She did not earn it. That is how our loving God pursues you & me!
God is at work in your life, my life in all the hills and valleys, the rough and the smooth.
Does that remind you of that verse in Jeremiah 29? Poor old Jeremiah had a really tough life but he proclaimed the goodness of God.
‘11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’
Practical Application – to sum up
A golden thread is woven throughout the whole Bible. God’s plan to rescue us from our sin and to restore us as His children living in a relationship with Him forever. We see this thread in the pages of Ruth but we also can experience it in our lives too.
God is faithful and trustworthy!
God’s faithfulness relies on God’s character not on our behaviour.
God is at work in you now to give you a future and a hope
Paul says in Romans 15v13
‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
‘He may not be safe but He is good!’ And He is the King of kings! And He is totally trustworthy.
(Unless stated otherwise all quotations are from the NIV Bible) Carolyn M Jervis January 2015
Dead end or Doorway? God specialises in turning apparently hopeless circumstances into doorways of opportunity and blessing
Let’s look at the first scene in the story. There was a famine in Judah so Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their 2 sons to the green but idolatrous land of Moab – about 50 miles on the other side of the Dead Sea. Naomi’s husband dies and her sons marry local women who remain childless for 10 years. Naomi’s sons die too so when news comes that the famine in Judah is over, a distraught Naomi decides to return to her old home in Bethlehem. Accompanied by her 2 daughters in law she sets off but seeing only a bleak future for them she tells the young women to go back. Orpah returns to her family and pagan gods but let’s see what Ruth says!
Reading 1 – Ruth 1 v 15-22
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,[b]” she told them. “Call me Mara,[c] because the Almighty[d] has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted[e] me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Wow! Doesn’t that bring tears to your eyes? There is Naomi, a broken- hearted woman. Widowed a decade ago and now grieving for her 2 sons. No wonder she feels her name which means ‘pleasant’ should be changed to Mara meaning ‘bitter’. She feels empty yet she has a steely trust in the living God. She feels deserted by God but He is still involved in every detail of her life. She feels empty but is so bowed down with hopelessness that she fails to see God at work in her life. Empty? But He has given her an amazingly loving and courageous daughter in law who commits to her for life. Astonishing!
Yes-Naomi has had a tough life so far –
Famine in Bethlehem
Move to pagan Moab
Death of her husband and 2 sons
10 years of childless marriages for her daughters in law
But – she is blinded by her bitterness – ‘The Lord has brought me back empty’ NO! Naomi LOOK! Look up from your problems. Look at what God is doing. Look up! Look at Him. Don’t we all need to do that when we are bogged down with our own problems?
Dead end or Doorway?
Illustration –The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe (wardrobe-Lucy found Narnia, Edmund just the back of the wardrobe)
Can you trust God’s grace when clouds are so thick you can’t even see the road?
Feelings cannot be trusted! We may feel God has abandoned us but He never will! (‘Lo I am with you always…) We need to cling to the truth about God we can learn in the Bible.
.Saturate yourself in the Bible
Martin Lloyd Jones read Psalms when depressed. My sister set herself the task of learning them after being attacked by Alsatian dogs. Psalm 139 (I am trying to learn!). Soak yourself in Psalm 23. A psalm for the living not just for funerals! (Valley of the shadows NOT shadow of death…) I strongly recommend :
Travelling Light by Max Lucado. Naomi could have done with this book!
Read page 143-144
Only the Scriptures renew hope and so awaken lasting spiritual joy.
Naomi is so weary of her suffering that she can’t see what God is doing for her.
Not so Ruth- she shows absolute trust in the God Naomi has introduced her to. She has lost her husband after 10 childless years and has left her family and country to go with Naomi. She showed a faith in God that sees beyond bitter setbacks.
Isn’t it beautiful to watch a woman like this serve God with courage?
Ruth showed humility and absolute trust and obedience – did you know that Mary was a descendant of Ruth? Mary the mother of Jesus who said to the angel, ’May it be to me as you have just said.’ Knowing she would be rejected by many & probably stoned to death.
What a challenge to us ! Ruth shows a radical commitment in the relationships God has given her. Who is God asking you to show care for/ encourage? I say this to myself as well! O Lord help us to overcome our shyness or our British reserve and be more loving to those people God puts in our path. Ask the Holy Spirit for power to care with a costly love like our Saviour and Lord.
Take the risks of love
CSLewis again Mr Beaver says of Aslan – ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’
In his wonderful book on Ruth called ‘A Sweet and Bitter Providence’ John Piper says:
‘There is no safer place in all the universe than under the wings of the sovereign, all-wise, all loving God. But the shadow of these wings may take us to dangerous places in the cause of love.’
Will you serve the Lord no matter what? No matter where? No matter how?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scene 2 The harvest fields –Under the wings of God - Ruth meets Boaz (Security)
God is plotting for Naomi’s good
God guided Ruth to Boaz’ field.
He sees how hard working she is. Being a God saturated man he protects her from molesters (as a Moabitess and a widow she was v vulnerable) He ensures that she has extra grain left for her as well as food and water.
Ruth bows to the ground in humble gratitude asking why me? A foreigner?
Reading 2 Ruth 2 v 11-12
11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
‘under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
The picture here is of God as a powerful great winged eagle & Ruth is a threatened little eaglet coming to find safety under the Eagle’s wings.
Did you know an eagle has a wingspan of 6 – 8ft !
We have a similar picture again and again in the Bible especially in the Psalms
Psalm5 ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.’
Psalm 63v7 ‘Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.’
Ruth has set her heart on God for hope & joy.
We need humble confidence in the mighty & merciful wings of God.
God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under His wings.
It was the Lord who : Stopped the famine
Bound Ruth to Naomi in love
Preserved and prepared Boaz for Ruth
Led Ruth to Boaz’ field
Piper says, ‘The light of God’s love has finally broken through bright enough for Naomi to see. The Lord is good to all those who take refuge under his wings. Let us like Naomi and Ruth fall on our faces, bow before the Lord, confess our unworthiness, take refuge under the wings of God & be astonished at his grace.’
Well! Ruth has quite a story to tell Naomi when she gets home laden with left over food and grain. She works hard for all the harvest time caring for her mother in law.
Naomi only hoped to survive not to be blessed!
Look up!! See God’s mercy breaking through the clouds of adversity. Look for his blessings. NOT sit & count your blessings but look out for them and bask in the assurance of God’s unchanging love for you.
Piper ‘Seek refuge under the wings of God even when they seem to cast only shadows, & at just the right time God will let you look out from his eagle’s nest onto some spectacular sunrise……Hope is the birthplace of dreams. Hope, that is, based on the confidence that a sovereign God is for us.’
Hopelessness leads to inactivity, self pity and giving up.
Do you remember that party game? Associations? What words come into your head for hopelessness / hopeful
Remember our dead end or doorway? Hopelessness is a dead end but hope leads us through an open door. Hope leads to making plans and having God directed dreams for the future.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But look what is coming in the 3rd scene!
Scene 3 The Threshing floor – A Redeemer – (Strategic Righteousness)
Well this is a really dramatic scene! Naomi hatches a plan to provide security for Ruth. According to a Levirate law of the time when a man dies without an heir, the closest male relative to the deceased has the obligation to marry her and their first child will bear the surname of the deceased man so perpetuating the family name.
Well! Boaz has it all! Kind, gracious, well respected, Godly, he is a close relative and to top it all he is obviously a wealthy man too! Enter Mr Darcy!!
Ruth goes to the threshing floor as Naomi directs, to lie at Boaz’ feet. This would be a recognised way to propose marriage. The threshing floor would have been out on the open hillside above Bethlehem. Let’s see how the marriage negotiations proceed :
Reading 3 – Ruth 3 v 8-13
8 At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! 9 He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. (F)Spread your wings[a] over your servant, for you are (G)a redeemer.” 10 And he said, (H)“May you be blessed by the LORD, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than (I)the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. 11 And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are (J)a worthy woman. 12 And now it is true that I am (K)a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. 13 Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will (L)redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, (M)as the LORD lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.”
Ruth says in v 9 ‘Spread your wings over your servant for you are my kinsman- redeemer’ does that reminds you of Ch 2v12.’…God under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
Can you see how Boaz’ prayer for Ruth in Ch 2 May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” -is being wonderfully answered here?
You know, sometimes you may be the answer to your own prayers =Boaz
Picture the scene – the couple clearly drawn to each other. A beautiful starlit night on the hillside above Bethlehem. Ruth has asked Boaz to marry her and I am sure he could not believe that this young beautiful woman wanted to marry him. But Oh dear! There is a closer relative who has a prior claim on her. Boaz does the honourable thing as a godly man and resists the desire to claim her as his. He is careful to send her home and not compromise her purity.
Have you ever felt that everything seems to be going well and then there is what feels like a major hiccough? A spanner in the works?
‘Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next & then finally to heaven.’ Life is a winding & often troubled road. …Zig zagging.’The point of Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns God is not just showing up after the trouble and clearing it up. He is plotting the course & managing the troubles with far- reaching purposes for our good & for the glory of Jesus Christ.’ Piper
We come across rather annoying apparently time wasting circuitous routes. eg Bournemouth airport zig zag queue for passport control. (or Ikea!)
Well! As many of you know it is ok. The other kinsman doesn’t want Ruth so Boaz’ patient trust in God’s plans is rewarded. He gets the prize!! He gets the girl! The crowd is ecstatic and pray a blessing on them.
Reading 4 - Ruth 4 v 11-17
11 Then the elders and all those at the gate said, We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
12 Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.
The Genealogy of David 13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
14 The women said to Naomi: Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!
15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.
16 Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him.
17 The women living there said, Naomi has a son. And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
How God has blessed them all. And the exciting truth is that it doesn’t end with a besotted grandmother hugging her precious grandson. Through Obed we can follow the line all the way down to a couple huddled in a stable in Bethlehem hundreds of years later as our Saviour Jesus was born. Our Saviour who gave His life to redeem us. Ruth cost Boaz a shoe. You and I are redeemed by the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus.
Ruth was a pagan Moabite before God pursued her. She did not earn it. That is how our loving God pursues you & me!
God is at work in your life, my life in all the hills and valleys, the rough and the smooth.
Does that remind you of that verse in Jeremiah 29? Poor old Jeremiah had a really tough life but he proclaimed the goodness of God.
‘11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’
Practical Application – to sum up
A golden thread is woven throughout the whole Bible. God’s plan to rescue us from our sin and to restore us as His children living in a relationship with Him forever. We see this thread in the pages of Ruth but we also can experience it in our lives too.
God is faithful and trustworthy!
God’s faithfulness relies on God’s character not on our behaviour.
God is at work in you now to give you a future and a hope
Paul says in Romans 15v13
‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
‘He may not be safe but He is good!’ And He is the King of kings! And He is totally trustworthy.
(Unless stated otherwise all quotations are from the NIV Bible) Carolyn M Jervis January 2015