The Village Church
The Trail that lags behind: Hope - Audio
So you need to move in a mighty way this morning. You know what we need to hear. You know what every individual is dealing with. And so I pray that the words that I spoke in today will be applied to their heart and applied to whatever they're dealing with. And cry for my prayer, amen. Hope rises in the valley, and it begins as a sparkle hope, and that's what we see in verses 14 to 16. This sparkle hope is seen in the extra measure of kindness that Boaz showed toward Ruth. You see the law only required him to let her glean in his field. And he did that, but he goes beyond that, let her eat with his reapers. He invited her to eat, and he serves her to test if she sent beside the reapers, and he passed her some roasted grain. You see Ruth not being treated as a greener here, but she's been treated as an equal with the rest of Boaz's reapers. He extends kindness and favor without hurting and destroying her dignity. And not only that, but as one Christian says, he elevated her status from a greener to a reaper. And on to his circle, a status chain, she's welcome at his table, that's one of theirs. She's not part of the circle, she's not in his group, and she eats until she was satisfied. This kindness toward her was good. It showed another way in which Yahweh was providing for Ruth. You see, she no longer had to pick up leftovers either. She no longer had to glean behind the reapers. Now she was part of the group. What else does he do? He tells the men, "Let her glean among the shes." And not only that, I want you to pull some stuff out of the things that are already packed up, and let her have those too. Now he's going way beyond kindness, he's taking money out of his pocket. Now, I want you to do that, you know what, you don't say nothing to her, and you don't even rebuke her, let her have it. Do not insult her, do not rebuke her. What do you think about this? Why do you think he did that? Has he just been a nice farmer or a nice Christian, or is he sweet on Ruth, or interested in that? I think it's a bit of both. He's generous, and he's interested, because chapter 3, he tells Ruth, "For all my fellow times, they know you are a worthy woman." He knew she was a worthy woman before chapter 3, because he heard about her before he actually met her. The stories about how she left her family to go help Naomi, so he knew who she was. Now he just sent her face to face, and showing her after kindness. In this encounter with Ruth, he knows she's worthy, and his interest in hers has sparked a hope for rest, rest that Naomi prayed for come to Ruth back in chapter 1. See we can clearly see the Lord moving him. Now she can't see it, probably because she's living it. We're looking back into her life, and so we see sovereignty, we see his provenance working out on her behalf. I see, I hope you realize that Ruth is clueless too, who Boaz is really, who he is. She doesn't know where he's a relative on Naomi. To her, he's just some nice farmer who gave her a job, and some food to eat. At this point, that's all she sees. She doesn't even realize the true blessings that fell into her life, that he elevated her status. He's throwing out still from letting her get it, and it's falling into her life. Now, it's always extending kindness to her toward generosity of Boaz. She is unaware of the Lord that's ordering you behind the scenes of her life, and so are you. You know that right? We are always unaware of what the Lord is ordering behind the scenes of our life, because we can't see his hand always, it's always at work, but it's working through the simplest thing you think is just a coincidence the Lord is using that for you. What is she doing? She is just being faithful. She just wanted a job. She just wanted some food, and she's focused on what's right in front of her. What's in front of her work? That's what's in front of her, and cleaning in Boaz's field, and so out that she eats, she goes back to clean, working, and filling in to evening, what's in front of you this morning? What's in front of you? Are you being faithful to what is right in front of you? Some of us got to stop looking deeper into the forest and focus on the trees that we can see. That's what we need to do. My problem is that I'm always looking down through the forest, and I forget the trees that are right in front of me, and that goes for the problems in your life. You can't worry about the problems ahead. What about what's in front of you that you can see? Often I send out a thought of the week to the church, and the reason when I send out, I said sometimes I feel like a social worker. The social worker pastor. Why did I say that? Because ministry here is different, it's not what I envision when I went to seminary. It's more than just teaching and preaching on Sunday, it's more than that. It's more than just arguments about the church building, or whether or not we're going to have stained glass windows and all that, or we're going to take the baptism all out. Every day I said we come face to face with some of the worst consequences of sin. We see generational sins that still hold people and families in bondage. We see individuals who are still suffering from the sins placed on them by other people, and what is our reality, reality for us, is that there are no quick fixes. There's not a book or tape or CD I can give you that's going to make things magically happen. There's no blueprint for ministry here, though I wish there was. You see, the only one we truly realize that work is bigger than us, will we ever consistently humble ourselves up to the Lord and pray and trust Him to do what we cannot do. Second Chronicles 1411 says, "There is none like you to help between mighty and new weak. Help us, O Yahweh our God, for we were out on you, and in your great name we come against this multitude, Yahweh, let not man prevail against you." You see, as a church, or as an individual, as a family, each of us need to pray. These words daily, because we need to rely on Him that when you come up against a multitude of brokenness, a multitude of family issues and drama, abuses, poverty, parental neglect, broken marriage, disobedient kids, sickness, addiction, depression, etc., you have to believe that none of those will prevail against Yahweh. None of them. You have to believe in that hope, that He is at work on your behalf. The word says, "We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on Him, or your eyes are on Him, or your eyes are on Him." Just look at how He ordered the steps to lose Him. She just went to go to work, but she ended up in the field of someone that's going to change her life forever, and she didn't want to work. What's the lesson? Just be responsible where you are, just be faithful where you are, faithful to what guys call you to do. He has not given up on His beloved people. He's at work. Just be faithful. She's faithful. The text says, "So she gleaned into the field until evening, and then she bid out what she had gleaned, and then she took it up and went into the seed, and she men up with her mother-in-law. When she meets up with her, you see the spark of hope, then it turns into a rail hope, because of who Boaz really is." After work, she meets up with Naomi. She shows her what she gleaned, and the food that she had left over. She gave it to Naomi to eat, and then Naomi asked a very important question, "Where did you glean today?" "Where have you worked today?" "Blessed be the man who took notice of you, who has sent the kindness and favor to you." And Ruth replies, "The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz." And with those words, Naomi had a hallelujah moment. If you know what those moments are like, you know what those moments are like. When the hallway makes the way, you're like, "Hallelujah, praise Jesus." She probably fell off a chair when she found that out, and we know what those moments are like when we finally see the Lord's hand at work. We can finally see Him work within a difficult situation, and all we can say is, "Amen." The Lord is working, and what does she say? "May he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead." That's Ruth. That's Naomi's response. Wow. These words are a turning point for her and for Ruth. A spark of hope is now a real hope, and look at how different these words are from what she said when she first got to death for him. You know what she said when she first got there right, "Well, call me Mara. Call me better. I don't call me Naomi. The Almighty has dealt their ability with me. He took away all I got. I went away full. He brought me back empty. Why call me pleasant? The Lord testified against me. It's his fault. I lost all my family. And now she's like, "Blessed be the Lord whose kindness has not forsaken the living." Or the dead. Even her dead family. He's faithful to them, and what's taken place. The message, which is of no translation, I like what it says. It's translation of this verse that says, "Why God bless that man who hasn't quite walked not on us after all, he still loves us in good times and bad. He has not walked out on us." That's what she thought when she first got there. That he abandoned me. He walked out on me, and now she's saying, "No, in surfing he does not walk out. He still makes a way in the midst of the surfing." That's what she's seeing and understanding. Do you see that? Do you understand that? For your own suffering or the suffering that's going to come because it's going to come. If you're interested, you always hand us all over what has happened. This kindness produces this array of hope in her, for she sees that the Lord did not walk out on her, but remained faithful to her, O how he loves his people. We all know that life is not going to always be sunned inside of. I wish I can sit here and tell you that it is, but it's not. You know what is sunned inside of his faithful to you, his kindness to you, his favor in love to you. It's always sunned inside of, even when he's disciplined. It's sunned inside of her because it's for our good, for our good. This is what Naomi is seeing now that, "Yes, I'm not going to have this easy going life but not suffering, but I got a God who was always there, God who was always faithful." That's what he's learning. He would never walk out on us. Our pop was not a rolling song. I don't care what the song says. I don't care what it says. Not this pop, but anyway, never will he leave his beloved. Psalm 95 says, "This I know, the Lord is for me." Do you know that, for you and for your beloved, for you and for your family, he's for you. You got a whole firm to that truth in the midst of what you're going through. Naomi's filled with great hope and excitement about Ruth working in Boaz's field and I asked myself why she decided to be honest. Ruth is probably asking herself the same question. Why are you excited about this mother-in-law? It's just an old farmer on this working in his field. It's also special about him. He's one of our close relatives, our redeemer, chance or problem, problem. You see, Boaz is not just in the Israelite farmer, not just in the relative, but he's one of the close relatives, one of the redeemers, a kinsman redeemer, and that's not by chance that she came to his particular field. She had, this had to happen, because she went to anyone else who wasn't a redeemer, but he's just a farmer, but he's more than just a farmer. He's able to help them get the rest that Naomi wanted for Ruth. The word in the word of the kinsman redeemer, Alex, in ancient Israel, kinsman redeemer had a special role within his particular clan. He was a protector of the clan and in certain circumstances, as one office says, he redeems family members in need, it could be property, it could also be individuals. Leviticus 25 gives us two responsibilities that are redeemer, one is to redeem a family member's property that has been sold, second is the redemption of family members, Ruth and Naomi are family members of Boaz, and so you can see why Lou Naomi is excited, why she has hope, because she sees the possibility of redemption, out of where she is. Try to see this from Naomi's point of view, try to see this from her where she is standing. She came to Bethlehem in great grief and despair, hopelessness, and even blaming Yahweh for all her hardships, but now her heart turns a page, and it's seeing clear that Yahweh did not quit on her, even though she lost everything, he is still working, still working. You can see why she is excited and filled with hope, redemption may not be for all, but it's probably standing right in front of him who Boaz. Who made this happen, Yahweh made it happen, he made it happen, and you say what's so special about them being redeemed because the redemption she's looking for is marriage for Ruth, and for an Israelite woman, marriage for her meant everything, there's benefits that came with that, protection, provision, stability, and security, death through rest that she's longing. See everyone here who is a believer should know something about what it means to be redeemed. Right? You should know what it's like to, you should know something about that word because that's what Jesus did for us, redeemed us, saved us when we were lost in our sin, and if you don't know him this morning, if you don't have a relationship with him this morning, and then guess what you can. We live in a world that loves to be redeemed, it's like how many people went to the Batman movie, that's about redemption, that's about salvation, that's about wanting to save you, our hero, Jesus more than this a hero, he's a redeemer. He can change someone's dead heart and give them a new one. That's more powerful than what any superhero can do, and if you don't have that, that's available to you. Romans 8, 32 says, "He who did not spare his own son, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how would he not also with him graciously give us all thanks." But you see, he sent Jesus to the cross, and that little thing that you're dealing with now, that little hardship of that frustration that you're dealing with now, it's not too small, not too big for him, not too big for him, but it hurts, now as I know it hurts, he knows it hurts, but guess what, he's at work through the pain, go to this verse, don't lose hope, he's going to try to tell you, he said, "Well I have hope now, Alex wants to say it, have it in the midst of the pain," he said, "Well, not in pain right now, but it's going to come, look around you, some of us are going to have great loss in our life, you really need to accept that, some of us are going to lose loved ones, some of us are going to get sick with something, that's just life, but you, if you don't have a firm belief in the goodness of God, it will take you to a deep despair." So you got to know that whatever comes your way, it can be well with your soul, if you really know that God is at work for me, he's not against me, and no matter what the enemy does, the father receives you, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how would he not also, with him, graciously, give us all things of this place. Father God, I thank you, that in this book where we are seeing how you work, this is what this book is about, we're seeing how our God works, the things that seem to be coincidence or chance, is actually you working on behalf of your people. And I pray as we continue though, that we will see how you're working in our own life through this natural things of life, the things that we think are just about chance, or fate, or not. It's how God at work. We sometimes won't pry in the sky Christianity, but Lord, just be faithful where we are. As I pray earlier, you know what we need, you know what every marriage here needs, you know what every Christian here needs, you know what every individual here needs. And Spirit, give it to them, help them to hold firm to the hope that they are not alone in this life, that our God is forever faithful in Christ's name I pray. [BLANK_AUDIO]