August 18, 2025 • 48 mins
In this second episode of our four-week series on the Book of Ruth, Pastor Karl explores the theme of God's providence as seen in Ruth Chapter 2. He delves into the distinction between God's miracles and His providence, emphasizing how God supernaturally orchestrates the natural events of our lives for the good of those who love Him. Through the story of Ruth, a Moabite widow, and her mother-in-law Naomi, Pastor Karl illustrates how God's providence brings blessing to those who trust and obey Him, even in the face of hardship. The episode introduces Boaz, a wealthy and godly man who foreshadows Jesus as a kinsman-redeemer, and highlights Ruth's faith, humility, and diligence as she gleans in Boaz’s fields. Pastor Karl unpacks the biblical principles of generosity, trust, and staying faithful to God’s promises, showing how God’s unseen hand works to redeem and restore broken lives. Join us as we see how Ruth’s story of providence and redemption unfolds, offering timeless lessons for living with confidence and momentum in God’s plan.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
We're in the book of Ruth.
We started this series last week.
It's a four week seriesbecause there's four chapters in Ruth,
and I've titled this seriesThe Unseen Hand of God.
We have a Bible and brought one with you.
Go to the book of Ruth.
It's right after the Book of Judges.
So goes.
Genesis. Exodus.
Leviticus. Numbers. Deuteronomy.
(00:24):
Joshua. Judges. Ruth.
So it's right there at the beginningof the Old Testament,
and the book of Ruth is a book
about the providence of God, thoughit doesn't use that word.
We see what's called the providence of Godall throughout the book of Ruth.
(00:44):
And I want to help us understand the
what providence is.
It's different than the miracle of God.
There's the problems of Godon the miracle of God.
And Godis active in both most of the time.
And this is just a recap for those of youwho were here last week.
Most of time when we want God to movein our lives, we want a miracle of God.
We want him to step in right now,
(01:04):
do something miraculous, solve it,fix it, add it, change it, whatever.
While God does that,
that's not God's normal mode of operation.
Even in the book of acts
I cover some 30 years of time.
There's about 30 miraclesin the book of acts.
That's only one a year.
(01:25):
That's not a lot.
We read it as though that everybody
walking around the church got a miracle,and it just didn't happen that way.
Though that still happens.
God's normal mode of operation,
this world is through his providence.
And his providencesays this that God orchestrates
(01:45):
supernaturally the natural.
So God takes our natural world,our decisions, our mistakes, our success,
all that.
And he supernaturally mixesthose together for good.
The Bible saysfor the good of those who love God.
And that's an important thingfor us to stand to us to understand.
So the providence of God,
(02:07):
for those who are disobedient,
the providence works in alignmentfor those who are obedient.
Providence of God works for blessing.
Here's what I mean.
The Bible promises us that
we know Romans 828,that God works all things together
for the good of those who love him,
(02:28):
and were called according his purpose.
Jesus will tell us in John 1415
that you'll know you love meif you obey me.
So part of the litmus test of lovingGod is obeying God.
It doesn't mean being perfect, but it doesmean when I realize there's sin
in my life, I repent, I confess it,I repent of it, and I do it God's way.
(02:51):
That's living in obedience.
For those who live in obedience, God'sprovidence works and creates blessing.
That's the promise of Scripture.
But for those who don't love God,guess what?
Prophecy doesn't work that way for you.
Providence of God works for alignment,
for the blessing of those who do love God.
(03:14):
Because the Bible says
God providentially works together,all things together
for good, for those who love him.
So for those who don't love him,God is still providentially in control.
But those lives work in alignmentfor the blessing of those who do.
I look at the book of Ruth
in the book of Ruth.
This whole providence of God,
(03:36):
the Book of Ruth is a story about Ruthand her mother in law, Naomi.
Naomi was married to a mannamed Elimelech, and they had two sons.
God's providence did not work
for the blessing of those three men.
They all died
in a foreign land.
(03:57):
But it did work for the blessing of Naomi,and especially Ruth,
who came back to faith and camebecame women of faith.
Loving God
and God, providentiallyworking these together for them.
Do you understandwhat we're talking about here?
Yeah. So?
So it's not like likejust everybody just happens to get,
(04:21):
you know,
I mean, there's the common grace of Godthat the rain falls on the just
and the unjust.
You know, the sun rises and fallsfor everybody.
You know, like the common grace of God,
we all getfree air to breathe at this point.
They haven't taxed that yet.So we all get the, you know,
but but God's hand of
providence works for those who love him,
(04:41):
but for those who don't love him,God aligns
their lives to work on behalfand for those who do.
And and so and so.
I want you to understandhow this Providence thing works.
And so one of the wayswe say it is this, that, that God's hand
seems most powerfulwhen it is most unseen.
And the providence of Godwe don't see from the front windshield,
(05:03):
we see in the rearview mirror,we can look back and see,
hey, God was doing something,and this is how he orchestrated things.
We don't see itlooking through the front windshield,
but those who believe inand trust the providence of God
can look through the front windshield.
Unknown of what'sgoing to happen in the future,
and go into that unknown with confidenceand assurance, because they know
(05:27):
that the providence of Godis working on their behalf.
You follow fast.
So let me just
I think God gave this tome right before the first service started.
It was sitting right down here
and I got outthis posted on our job to this down
because it just kind of hit meall of a sudden.
Let me just let me just tell you.
(05:47):
Contentment.
Contentment is proof
that you trust God's providence.
Let that sink in.
Your contentment right now
is your proofthat you trust God's providence.
Because if you know that you love God
(06:07):
and he's working things right nowtogether for your good,
there's a lot of contentment in that.
You understand things now.
So let's turn that coin over
discontentment in your life right now
is proof that you do not trust
the providence of God.
(06:28):
Do you understand?
And so
when we start talking about doctrineand sound doctrine,
like the providence of God,it has profound implications
on how we live and how we view our lives
and the world.
It's easy to be it's easier.
(06:50):
It's easier to be contentwhen I trust that
whatever's going on right now,God is working it together for my good.
If I don't trust him, his heartor his hand,
discontentment is soon to follow.
You got it?
Yeah.
(07:12):
This is why Christ followers
and relationship with the father
should be the most contentedpeople on earth.
Because we know
that all things.
We're good. You.
(07:33):
So I'm not to verse one yet.
We'll get there.
Let me just recap a little bitto the story of
the book of Ruthis a story of providence and redemption.
And we're going to talk about
what redemption isand how it's fleshed out in chapter two.
But Ruth, the main character,there's only two books in the Bible
named after a woman, Ruth and Esther,both in the Old Testament.
(07:56):
So the book of Ruth named after this,
the the heroine in this story, Ruth,
she's not a Hebrew.
She's not from the Promised Land,from a land called Moab.
And how she got to the promised landin the story of God
is that this man Elimelech,whose name means
(08:18):
God is my king,
didn't live like it and didn't trust God.
He was married to a lady named Naomi.
And in the land of Israel, during the timeof the judges in the Bible,
there was a famine that hit.
It wasn't a natural famine.
It was a judgment of God against thembecause they had rejected
God as their king.
And so God allows this famineto happen in in this famine, Elimelech
(08:41):
and his wifeNaomi and their two sons decide to move
to the land of Moabbecause things were tough in Jerusalem.
Actually, there in Bethlehem, Ephrathah,the very place where Jesus was to be born.
So way beforeJesus is born, that there's famine.
And so they it's hardhere. It's difficult.
And so they, like us,
have to solve their problemand not wait on God to do anything.
(09:05):
And so they move to Moab.
The thing with Moabis, Moab was a land of the people
who came aboutby an incestuous interaction
between the lot,the nephew of Abraham and his daughter,
and he got her pregnant.
And this nasty old story and her son
(09:27):
out of that into incest, was named Moab.
So all these people comefrom that lineage.
And so God said thatwhole thing is just evil and bad.
I want my peopleto stay away from that people
because they're going to corruptyou and lead you away from me.
And so there were all these rulesand curses on like, don't go there.
(09:47):
And so that's where they go.
They're experiencing difficulties.
So they leave the promises of God andthey go to that place they shouldn't be.
And while there, they'relooking for greener pastures.
Elimelech and their two,
now with two sons, die.
Naomi's two,
two sons are married to these Moabitegirls that they met in this land.
(10:10):
They were there for over a decade.
And so now Naomiis forced with this decision.
Do I stay here in this Moabite landor do I go back?
Do I return to God and His people?
She starts hearing that God'sdoing great things amongst his people.
And she says, I'm going to go back.
And she tells one of her daughters in law,Orpah tells them both,
just stay here with your people.
(10:31):
Orpah says, yes,I will stay here with my people.
And Ruth says,beautiful, beautiful sentiment.
No, Naomi, where you go? I will go.
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.
Where you die, I will dieand they'll bury me there, she says,
I want to I want to convert to thisthis God that I hear you talk about now.
(10:53):
And so Ruth and Naomi make their way backto Bethlehem, Ephrathah
in the Promised Land.
Now that was all. Chapter one.
And so chapter two is like,they're here now in the Promised Land.
And we
start to see this story,both of Providence and redemption.
Redemption is when you buy something back,you redeem it and make it whole.
(11:18):
And we'll see in chapter two,these types, we're going to be introduced
to a man named Boaz.
And Boaz is a type of foreshadowingof Jesus the Messiah.
And Ruth will become his bride,
a Gentile bride,
just like the churches, the the non-Jews,the like the Gentile bride of Christ.
(11:38):
We're going to see these typesof this great story of of redemption,
but we're also going to see the redemptionof this broken
woman named Ruth,this broken outcast named Ruth.
And we're also going to see the redemptionof our hero, Boaz.
It's an amazing thing that God does.
And we'llI'm going to say that for the end.
But this is where we are.
(11:59):
And right at the end of chapter one,it says, they came back.
They just happened to come backright at the barley harvest, right as the
the as the as as the, as the,
the produce was coming back
as, as, as the famine in this partapparently was being lifted.
It was a time of great abundance.
(12:19):
They just happened to.
Have you ever had those moments in lifewhen you look back and like,
you know what, I just happened,
but it sure worked out well, right?
Yeah. Right. I just happened.
They happened to be here at the righttime. I happened to be there for Adam.
I happened to make this visionand it just happened to.
That's the providence of God.
(12:39):
If you love him.
And so,
right at the barley harvest,let's pick up chapter two, verse one.
Now, Naomi had a relativeof her husband's,
a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech,whose name was Boaz.
So this woman, Naomi,her name means pleasant.
(13:00):
She has lost everything.
She's going to change her name to bitterbecause she's lost her husband,
her sons, her possessions,her land, our home, everything.
She had a relative back in Bethlehem,
Ephrathah a relative of her husband.
This is going to be a really,really important.
And I'll unpack itas we go through this process.
Just remember thatthis guy Boaz is a relative
(13:23):
of her late husband,
and the Bible says he was a worthy man,
literallya wealthy man, a man of great wealth.
Both.
Okay, so during this time of famine,
Elimelech, Naomi and their two sons leave
because obviously they don't trustGod in times of trouble.
(13:45):
So they leave.
But obviously everybody didn't leave.
Boaz stayed.
Boaz stayed where God had placed him.
He stayed in the promises of Godin the presence of God
and in the presence of God's people.
And the Bible says specificallythat he was a wealthy man.
(14:10):
He has a lot of fields.
He's a farmer.
How does a farmer become a wealthy man
in a time of famine?
By the grace of God and his providence,
working things together for his favor.
(14:30):
Right. So here's what happens.
We get in these times of famineand difficulty and pain,
and we think God isn't doing anything.
I have to go.
I have to leave.
I need to solve my own problemrather than just staying.
And trusting this almighty, providential
(14:52):
God to work thingstogether for good, right?
Right.
They left,
and three of them died
and she lost everything.
Boaz stayed
trusted
God's heart and God's hand
(15:14):
and increased his wealthin a time of famine.
Amazing.
Absolutely amazing.
Don't chase Moab.
Some of you need to listen to meright now.
Well, don't chase Moab.
(15:35):
Stay.
I don't know how you translate that.
You're old right now,but you need to hear this word.
Stay.
Praise God.
They don't chase Moab.
Stay.
(15:56):
Trust his hand.
Trust his heart.
Trust his providence.
Stay.
Like a verse two and three.
And Ruth, the more I said to Naomi,let me go to the field and glean
among the ears of grain after him, inwhose sight I shall find favor.
(16:19):
And she said, or go, my daughter.
So she she set out.
Ruth set out, and went and gleanedin the field after the reapers,
and she happened to come tothe part of the field belonging to Boaz,
who was of the clan of Elimelech.
Let me just unpack this for a minute.
This idea of
gleaning this was God's welfare systemfor his people.
(16:40):
In ancient Israel.
The law of gleaningcomes to us from Leviticus 19, verses
nine and ten, and I have it on the slide.
I want to read it for youwhen you reap the harvest of your land.
He's talking to the, the,the, the farmers.
When you reap the harvest, you shall notwholly reap the corners of your field,
(17:01):
nor shall you gatherthe gleanings of your harvest.
Go to the next slide,and you shall not glean your vineyard,
nor, shallyou gather every grape of your vineyard.
You shall leave them for the poorand the stranger.
I am the Lord your God.
So this is what he's saying,
he saying, you farmers have,you know, barley, wheat, grapes, whatever.
(17:24):
When you go to harvest the crop,
you don't harvest the edgesand you don't harvest the corners.
Leave those.
And as your harvestersmove through the field,
if they drop something,they're not allowed to pick it up.
Okay. Why?
Because God knew that there were widows
and orphansand the poor amongst his people.
(17:47):
And he said, you and foreigners, okay?
And he said, you have to leavewhat's there so they can come through
and pick up what you dropand what you leave behind.
It's estimated that upto 20% of the farmers production
was left on the field for the poorand the needy, and the foreigner.
And what God is saying is twofold.
(18:09):
One of the things that he's sayingnow, pay attention here is that you
who have be generous with it.
You're leaving 20% behind.
You and Boaz willingly
left 20% on the table.
Do you know why?
Because he knew thatwhat he had wasn't. Is.
(18:31):
It was by the grace of God.
So for those of us who have
the implicationcommand here is be generous with it.
Don't hoard it. It's not yours anyway,
the other implication here in Scripture
is if you don't have be willing to workhard,
the welfare system of this country isbroken
(18:53):
and is created a nation of beggars.
The welfare system and God'seconomy was this.
You have must leave some on the groundfor those who don't up to 20%,
but you who don't have to be willingto work to get it.
You don't get free handouts.
What it does is give provisionfor the poor and dignity to the poor.
(19:17):
There's nothing dignified of walking upto the government with a handout.
It robs people of their dignity,
a rostrum of their personhood,and it makes them beggars and slaves.
And God
says, I do care about the poor,and I want to take care of the poor
through the people through whomI have given much to.
But the poor must workso they keep their dignity.
(19:41):
They understand
that's the law of gleaning.
And so Ruth is sitting here.
She has no idea of this law.
She's been in motion, raised in Moab.
And on their journey back,I had just imagined Naomi telling Ruth
all the glory of this gracious God,that she's coming back to his providential
hand, his miracle and his goodnessand his grace and his favor.
(20:05):
And so when they get back there,she asks her mother in law,
May I please go to work?
I love this woman. Yes,
she she virtuous,
honorable, hardworking.
She's in need.
And she doesn't just stay home.
(20:25):
And I'm just going to prayand ask the Lord to intervene.
I'm sure she did that.
And then she went outand worked to understand she had a need.
Yeah.
And she's so gracious to honor her motherin law and ask permission to go work.
She had every right to.
(20:45):
But she honored those over her.
May I please go?
I want you to understand, I'mgoing to talk about this.
I'm going to talk about this later,but I just want to introduce it here.
When you trust the providence of God, it
creates confidence and produces momentum.
(21:07):
Just keep that in your heart.
Don't show that slide yet.
I'm not there.
Just think about it.
You guys are doing greatnow. Thank you. But hold on.
Just keep this in your mind.
When you believe in trustthe promise of God,
it will create confidence in youand it produces positive momentum.
(21:28):
And both are super important.
Now listen.
If you have children,
you need to teach this to your kids.
The providential hand of God,
because it will create in thema great deal of confidence
and it will producea great deal of momentum.
Nothing will slow them down,not because of who they are,
(21:51):
but because of the hand of their God.
Your kids, my kids when they're young.
But why is this happening?Why does that happen?
And how come I don't?
How can they doI don't there's why don't the
and that's what they're supposed to do.
They don't knowthey're ignorant. They're children.
And so
those of us who are not ignorant,who know God.
(22:12):
So listen, relax.
It's God's providential hand.
You trust him as all over your life.
It's not going to go like you expect.
That's okay. Yeah.
And it creates this incredible
confidence when things don't go well
and this incredible momentum that thoughthis didn't, it's not going to deter me.
(22:36):
Do you understand?
And so here's this woman, Ruth.
She's lost her husband.
She's lost her family.
She's lost everything that she knewgrowing up with.
And she's here in this land.
And she's not deterred,she's not downtrodden.
It's just like, hey, can I go work now?
What incredible woman, incredible faith.
(22:59):
And she just happened
to come to the part of the fieldbelonging to God just happened.
Can you look back at the.
Just happened times
time and time again?
Listen for those walk in and faiththat Jesus, nothing just happens.
(23:19):
It's Amen.
Look at verse four.
And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem.
And he said to the reapers,and the Lord be with you.
And they answered, the Lord bless you.
Now this is a job site.
Have you ever worked constructionor in the fields?
(23:42):
This is not usually how people talk.
Your foreman shows up.
The Lord bless you
and all the good stuff hereand the Lord be with you.
And I just like this.
But this guy.
But he's just, he's a he's largerthan life is good and he's a faithful man.
He's a man of God, is a man of integrity.
(24:03):
And in the time of the judges,when everybody was running away
from doing all that through this culturalmoral relativism, nobody cared about
this was the one guy, the shining light,
the standard of a godly man.
Who leads
with God,who leads from the place of faith.
(24:24):
He's going to run his business this way.
He's going to treat his employees.This way.
And in response, they love him back.
It's just this guy.
It's just amazing.
Verse five.
Then Boaz said to his young manwho was in charge of the reapers,
whose young woman is this?
Now the difficult thing in the Bible,we don't have inflection.
(24:45):
We just read in his words.
And it could have beenhe sees the new woman gleaning
because he knew who was gleaningand was like, hey, who's the new one?
I got to keep track on the ledger.
Could be that or
it could be like the.
(25:11):
You know what I'm saying?
Like, who was this young chick over there?
Right?
I mean, let's just be real.
Let's not get too spiritual.
Who is this woman?
Verse six.
And the servantwho was in charge of the reapers answered,
(25:31):
she is the young Moabite woman who cameback with Naomi from the country of Moab.
She said, please let me glean and gatheramong the she's after the reapers.
So she came,and she has continued from early morning
until now, except for a little,you know, ten minute breather.
This servant.
Now, I told you already in the book ofRuth we have these typologies.
Boaz is a type of foreshadowing of Jesus.
(25:54):
Ruth is a type of foreshadowingof the Gentile bride of Christ,
the church,this unnamed servant in the Old Testament.
We have a few different instanceswhen the an unnamed servant does
the bidding of the master to go
look forand prepare a bride for the master.
The unnamed servant is the typeor a foreshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
(26:17):
What we know in the New Testament fromJesus is he says, the Holy Spirit
will not testify about himself,
won't talk about himself, but only whathe hears from the father about the son.
So the the Holy Spirit,who never talks about himself,
only points people towards the master.
The unnamed servantdoesn't talk about himself, only points
(26:38):
the one who will be a bride to the master.
This is the Holy Spirit'srole in our world and in our lives
leads us to the onewe're to be betrothed to.
Reportsto the one of the condition of his bride.
We see the Holy Spirit here.
(26:58):
And she is the one.
And she askedif she may glean amongst the others.
I love thisbecause what she could have done,
she had a legal rightto this Leviticus 19.
She had a legal right,and she could have come to the servant.
And Boaz the servant, said, hey,I'm gleaning I have a legal right to.
I have a legal right to this.
You can't deny me of my rights.
(27:19):
You better not try to transgressa marriage.
This is my legal right.I'm asserting my rights.
A right, because after all,
that's what good all Americans do.
I have a right.
You have no right to.
You know, cost me on this.
And though she has a right,
(27:40):
she leads with gentleness and honor.
A virtuous woman.
She is Proverbs 31.
And so she has a right.
She says, I will honoryou and your authority,
and I would like your permission.
(28:01):
Please pay attention
to the virtue of this woman.
Verse eight.
Then Boaz said to Ruth.
Now listen, my daughter,
not really his daughter is just alike a real tender language here.
Do not go to glean
in another field, nor leave this one,but keep close to my young women.
(28:25):
Let your eyes be on the fieldthat they are reaping and go after them.
Have I not charged the young mennot to touch you?
And when you are thirsty,
go to the vessels and drinkwhat the young men have drawn.
So this is is doing.
We have to understand.
He's saying, look, stay with me
and stay with my people.
(28:46):
You're safe here.
Stay here.
Don't look elsewhere.
And this is exactly what Jesus would sayto us.
Stay with me.
Don't look elsewhere.
Don't wander off.
Stay with me.
(29:07):
Boaz knows
the goodnessthat he will give this young lady.
She doesn't know it yet,but Boaz does. Listen.
Jesus knows the plans.
He has for you.
You don't know it yet, but he does.
And his word to us is stay with me.
Stay with me.
(29:29):
Do you hear this?
Yeah.
And honestly,
I think one thing like thisis also the first indication of there's a,
there's a budding attraction between Boazand and Ruth happening right now.
And Boaz, his role as a man
is to provide and protect.
(29:50):
That's what he's doing here. Stay with me.
Follow the Reapersyou will glean along the way.
I want to provide for you.
And I've commanded the guysnot to mess with you.
I want to protect you.
Now, listen, men,this is biblical masculinity.
Not because
women are ineffective or can't providefor themselves for comfort.
(30:11):
None of that at all.
This is just a reflectionof the heart of the father.
To provide and protectthose God has given to us.
This is biblical masculinity.
Ladies, please, if you're married
and your husband says, sweetie,I just don't like you driving at night.
He's not being condescending.
He's being protective.
To understand this.
(30:35):
And he says, honey,
I would rather worktwo jobs than borrow money from anybody.
He's not being arrogant. He's.
He wants to provide.
And any man that doesn't leadwith provision
and protection has a broken soul.
This is biblical masculinity.
And this is hardwired in the in the core of a man
(30:58):
and women in or moms in your sons.
This is who your sons are.
And that's why sometimes they blow up
because they're figuring outhow do I be a protector?
It's okay. It's good.
Like nurture that in biblical, godly ways.
This is a godly man says, I'mgoing to provide for armor, protect you.
(31:20):
You just have.
And I commanded the young mennot to mess with you.
This is the first anti-sexual harassmentlaw we have on the books,
and I amI might just go something like this.
Just go with me. In my mind,like Boaz is big old guy.
He's.
He's got all this,
you know, this farming system,this big conglomerate he's in charge of.
He rolls up on the fieldsand is, you know, in his F-250
(31:41):
or whatever is okay,come on, team meeting.
Get over.Come on. Get over here right now. Good.
Stop it! Get.
We got to get together in. Listen.
We all know the new girl.
All right.
No eyes over here. Quick! Look in hereyes. Over here.
All right. Right here. Yep.
Listen, don't mess with her.
(32:03):
You don't talk to her.
You don't touch her.
You don't even look at her.
I'm at. I'm saying.
Listen, you see, all these fieldsI own, they will never find your body.
I just see it going down like that.
(32:24):
You know what I'm saying?
A little sense of an archetype.
You know, you're like a, you know,because a big on knife on the size,
like this.
What's he doing?
He's providing for just protecting her.
Boaz has such great
things planned for herthat she doesn't even imagine right now.
(32:46):
So does God for you.
Just stay in that,
I don't know what verse I'm on.
Well, now on ten.
Then she fell on her facedown into the ground.
She's an act of of of honor and said them.
Why have I found favor in your eyesthat you should take notice of me
since I'm a foreigner?Let me just say this.
(33:07):
But me, I'm going to read more.Let me run!
But Boaz answered her,all that you have done
for your mother in law since the death ofyour husband has been fully told to me,
and how you left your father and motherand your native land, and came to a people
that you did not knowbefore the Lord repay you for what
you have done, and a full rewardbe given you by the Lord,
(33:29):
the God of Israel, under whose wingsyou have come to take refuge.
Then she said,I have found favor in your eyes,
my Lord, for you have comforted me
and spoken kindly to your servant,though I am not one of your servants.
Listen,she has lost everything to her husband.
Like I said, her family,she's in a foreign land.
She lost everything she had in herhomeland.
(33:50):
She's living with a bitter, bitter,bitter woman.
Rightly so.
This woman, Naomi, has leftall of her family.
She went to a land, lived therefor over a decade. Her son died.
Her husband died her once a night.
Her other son died. She lost everything.
No doubt she's bitter, right?
I mean, we can understand this.
And Ruth is living in this nasty, bitter,dark environment.
(34:12):
Lost everything.
And has she ever asked the question,Lord, why all this bad?
The only question she's asked.
Is why all this good to me? I'm.
(34:34):
Do you see that?
Most of the time when you and I gothrough deserts and seasons
and pain, our first question is, what?
God, why?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Ruth's question is.
I'm a foreigner to you.
(34:56):
Why the grace to me? I'm.
The are attitude.
God, I was once outside your family.
You've been so good.
Why would you be so gracious to me?
Do you understand?
Yeah.
Profound for me.
(35:17):
See? And this is what?
Now you pulled that slide.This is what I'm saying.
Providence createsconfidence and produces and creates
positive momentum.
This is what it does.
I don't know why, and
I don't like what's going on right now,but I trust the providential hand of God.
And when I'm
living in that realization,it creates incredible confidence.
(35:42):
I don't likewhat's in front of the windshield,
but I have confidence.
I don't like what I'm living in right now,
but it's not going to slow me down.
Momentum is so huge for it,so huge to have here.
Here's the thing about momentum.
Momentum is so powerful.
You take a big locomotive and put a threeinch wood block in front of its wheels,
(36:06):
and a threeinch wood block will stop a locomotive
from moving because it has no momentum.
But you take that same locomotiveand get it up to its top speed.
It has so much momentumthat you put a three foot,
concrete wall in front of itand it won't stop it.
That's the power of momentum.
(36:26):
And Christ followers ought to be livingwith the most confidence and momentum
in anybody on theplanet. Why? Because we know
the providence of God.
You follow well.
And if you've learned that, you darnwell better teach it to your children.
Yeah.
(36:47):
And if you haven't learned it, itdarn well better learn it.
And I love this about Ruth,that she is more amazed.
And this is what happenswhen I trust God's providence.
I'm more amazed by the gracegiven to me than I'm bitter
about what's taken from me.
When I understand
the providence of God,let me move through this.
(37:09):
Just a few more verses.
And that meantime Boaz said,
come here and eat some of the breadand dip your morsel in the wine.
So she sat beside the reapers,and he pastored, to her roasted grain,
and she ate until she was satisfied,and she had some left over.
When she rose to glean, Boazinstructed his young men, saying,
let her glean even among the sheaves,and do not reproach her, and also
(37:30):
put some out from the bundles for her,and leave it for her to glean,
and do not rebuke her.
So we invite her to dinner,
and my Bible says,when she she ate till she was satisfied.
The literal translationis that she kept some back
so she didn't eateverything on her plate. Why?
Because some
know.
Because it's a first date.
(37:50):
And ladies, you don't clean your plateon a first date.
You don't.
You don't ask for a second.
I'll have salad.
Right
now, she's also thinking about Naomi.
She's like,I don't want to eat at all. It's.
I gotta take some home.
(38:11):
I just like the way I think more.
But she's virtuous. And.
And Bill says,let her glean amongst the sheaves.
The sheaves after the harvest
is come through,and they gather and they bind it up.
That's a sheaf of.
And then they drop it on the ground,
and they let the others come byand pick up all these sheaves.
And so he says, listen, yes, she has aright to the edges, in the corners.
(38:33):
And this has a right towhat's just fallen.
But let's, let's go beyond what is legal,
let's grace her,let her glean, even amongst what
we've gathered, and even take some extraand throw it out for her.
She Boaz could have said, look, God,I'm right before you
because I've done what you asked, I obeyedthat was it I but
(38:54):
but Boaz knows
that what he has is come from his,and it comes from God's.
And so he can be extraordinarily generous.
So he goes above what is required.
He doesn't do it here.
He goes up by beyondwhat he gives more than
what is requestedby God and commanded by God,
because he knows
(39:17):
he's been given so muchby the gracious hand of God,
so he can extend thatsame grace to others.
Do you understand that?
So he becomes thisincredibly generous man, because he knows
that God will use to measure to himwhat measure he used to give out.
He wants a lot
from God, and so he gives a lotbecause that's what the Bible says.
(39:41):
Yeah, it's just beautiful.
It's interesting to me to that.
Just let me just say this,that Boaz had no idea what hung
in the balance of his obedienceand generosity.
Boaz knew this was the law from God.
I'm going to be it.
And God's been gracious and generous.
I'm going to be gracious and generous.
He had no idea what was hanging in thebalance, what was hanging in the balance.
(40:05):
His bride.
He wasn't saying, look,
if I be obedient and I'm gracious, God'sgoing to give me a beautiful woman.
He didn't know that. He didn't say that.
He said, I'mgoing to be obedient. Oh, God says,
and I'm going to be generous with that.
He's giving me.
He had no idea what hangs in the house.
Listen, my friends,
you have no idea what's hangingin the balance of your obedience.
(40:25):
You have no idea what's hangingin the balance of your generosity.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
You have no idea what the providential
hand of God is orchestrating right nowon your behalf.
Moving heaven towards youand for you in response to your obedience
and your generosity. You have no idea. You
(40:45):
so stay.
Be obedient
and go beyond what's expected into grace.
Follow my.
So she gleaned in the film till evening.
Then she beat out what she had gleaned.
And it was about an ephah barleythat means a whole bunch.
And she took it up and went into the city.
(41:06):
Her mother in law saw what she hadgleaned.
She also brought out and gave herwhat food
she had left over after being satisfiedbecause she kept some back.
Because she didn't want to, you know, looklike a porker eating on the first day.
And her mother in law said to her,
where did you glean todayand where have you worked?
Blessed be the man who took notice of you.
So she told her mother in law,with whom she had worked
and said, the man's name,with whom I work today is Boaz.
(41:29):
And Naomi said to her daughter,May he be blessed by the Lord,
whose kindness has not forsaken,the living or the dead.
Naomi also said, the man is a closerelative of ours, one of our redeemers.
This is really importantfor the rest of this book.
In the next few chapters,
the Hebrew word is called goel,and it means that kinsman redeemer.
(41:50):
The Old Testament law wasif a woman was left husband less than the
someone from the closefamily had the obligation to redeem her
out of her poverty and singlenessand redeem her into a family.
That was the law.
And so Boaz is one of those people.
(42:11):
It's the kinsman redeemer.
It's the Hebrew goel issues23 times in four chapters.
It's the most often, Ruth is uses
that word more oftenthan any other book in the Bible.
Per capita for chapter.
So this is an important thing.
And we're going to you'regoing to learn about this a lot next week.
So but keep that in mind for next week.
(42:32):
He's a he'sa redeemer is a kinsman redeemer.
Verse 21 Justin up.
And Ruth the Moabite said, besides,he said to me,
you shall keep close to my young menuntil they have finished all my harvest.
And Naomi said to her, Ruth, herdaughter in law, it is good, my daughter,
that you go out with this young women,lest in another field you be assaulted.
(42:55):
So she kept close to the young womenof Boaz,
gleaning until the end of the barley,wheat, and the harvest.
And she lived withher mother in law. Listen,
she said, it's good
for you to go out with him.
Don't leave him and his people,
because wherever you go, outside of him
and his people, you will be assaulted.
(43:18):
Listen, dear friends,
stay close to Christ and his people.
Everything outside ofthat will assault you.
Do you understand?
You hear me?
Right now?
Boaz.
The picture of Jesus redeeminga Gentile bride, the church.
(43:43):
But also this is the story of Boaz.
How many of you know who Boaz is?
Mom was.
Joshua to a lady named Rahab.
Rahab was a Gentile,
a non Hebrew in Jericho,who was a prostitute.
When God's people came into Jericho,before the walls came tumbling down,
(44:06):
they two spies met this lady Rahab.
This lady Rahab has a sensitivityto the God of the Hebrews
and promised to hide the spies,God's people.
So God could do his work.
Out of that agreement, Rahab
was saved, adopted into God's family.
(44:28):
A former prostitute adopted into God'sfamily redeemed her life.
Out of her life came this little boyshe called Boaz.
Boaz stayed in the land of God's
promises, stayed with Godand with his people.
And God providentially orchestratedhis life to be a man of great wealth
(44:49):
and prominence, tothen be so comfortable with broken lives,
to meet this other little foreignwoman of a broken life and redeem her.
If God can do that through a broken man,
a broken prostitute in Jericho,and a broken little boy,
the son of a prostitute,what can he do in your life?
(45:12):
Amen.
Oh, Redemption.
Dennis.
And so, Naomi,
whose name has been changedto bitter, says, now this is good.
And she begins to recognizethe unseen hand of God.
And that realization starts hertransformation.
(45:37):
And Naomi's advice to Ruth is, what?
Stay.
Why don't miss this?
Why does she encourage Ruth to stay?
Because Naomi didn't stay,
and she knows the periland the destruction
of walking away.
(45:59):
And she says, dear sweetie,please don't go down that road.
I've been there
and walking away from Christand walking away from
his peopleis so much pain and destruction.
You don't want to invite thatinto your world.
Stay.
God's doing something good.
(46:21):
Stay there.
Trust God's providential and unseen hand
because we know what Romans828 says, I know the plans,
and they are for your good.
All things together.
And we know what Romans nine says,that those who hope in
(46:43):
the Lord will never be put to shame.
And when you're living like that,
confidence and momentum,
we got a good God.
Good stay.
Father, thank you for this day.
You are a good God.
Encourage us more and moreand more to stay.
(47:06):
You know, some of us have walked away.
You know who we are.
You love us anyway.
Thank you,thank you. Love us though we are.
But you call us to change.
You call us to trust.
In father,
thank youthat we can trust your providential hand.
I want to give you an opportunityright now.
(47:28):
To trust God's providential hand.
To movefrom discontentment to contentment.
I don'tknow what that means in your world.
I don't know what you're going throughright now, but I.
But my guess is
that if you could correct God, you would.
And maybe this is the daywhere you say God,
(47:49):
I don't want to offer you any advice.
I don't want to give you any direction.
I just want to trust your providentialhand.
I choose you today.
You you.
Even when it's hard, I choose you.
And I trust you to workall things together for good.
(48:11):
Because I love you.
Father,I thank you for the promise of your word.
Encourage us with it.
In your name we pray.
Amen.
You okay now?
All right. Yeah. Listen.
Read Ruth two this week
with an eye towards the providence of Godand trusting him.
(48:35):
And to read Ruth three for next week.
It's an awesome chapter,
and it will tell you, young ladies,how to get a great husband.
Are you ready to sing Ali?
I. That's.
We're in the book of Ruth.
We started this series last week.
It's a four week seriesbecause there's four chapters in Ruth,
and I've titled this seriesThe Unseen Hand of God.
We have a Bible and brought one with you.
Go to the book of Ruth.
It's right after the Book of Judges.
So goes.
Genesis. Exodus.
Leviticus. Numbers. Deuteronomy.
(00:24):
Joshua. Judges. Ruth.
So it's right there at the beginningof the Old Testament,
and the book of Ruth is a book
about the providence of God, thoughit doesn't use that word.
We see what's called the providence of Godall throughout the book of Ruth.
(00:44):
And I want to help us understand the
what providence is.
It's different than the miracle of God.
There's the problems of Godon the miracle of God.
And Godis active in both most of the time.
And this is just a recap for those of youwho were here last week.
Most of time when we want God to movein our lives, we want a miracle of God.
We want him to step in right now,
(01:04):
do something miraculous, solve it,fix it, add it, change it, whatever.
While God does that,
that's not God's normal mode of operation.
Even in the book of acts
I cover some 30 years of time.
There's about 30 miraclesin the book of acts.
That's only one a year.
(01:25):
That's not a lot.
We read it as though that everybody
walking around the church got a miracle,and it just didn't happen that way.
Though that still happens.
God's normal mode of operation,
this world is through his providence.
And his providencesays this that God orchestrates
(01:45):
supernaturally the natural.
So God takes our natural world,our decisions, our mistakes, our success,
all that.
And he supernaturally mixesthose together for good.
The Bible saysfor the good of those who love God.
And that's an important thingfor us to stand to us to understand.
So the providence of God,
(02:07):
for those who are disobedient,
the providence works in alignmentfor those who are obedient.
Providence of God works for blessing.
Here's what I mean.
The Bible promises us that
we know Romans 828,that God works all things together
for the good of those who love him,
(02:28):
and were called according his purpose.
Jesus will tell us in John 1415
that you'll know you love meif you obey me.
So part of the litmus test of lovingGod is obeying God.
It doesn't mean being perfect, but it doesmean when I realize there's sin
in my life, I repent, I confess it,I repent of it, and I do it God's way.
(02:51):
That's living in obedience.
For those who live in obedience, God'sprovidence works and creates blessing.
That's the promise of Scripture.
But for those who don't love God,guess what?
Prophecy doesn't work that way for you.
Providence of God works for alignment,
for the blessing of those who do love God.
(03:14):
Because the Bible says
God providentially works together,all things together
for good, for those who love him.
So for those who don't love him,God is still providentially in control.
But those lives work in alignmentfor the blessing of those who do.
I look at the book of Ruth
in the book of Ruth.
This whole providence of God,
(03:36):
the Book of Ruth is a story about Ruthand her mother in law, Naomi.
Naomi was married to a mannamed Elimelech, and they had two sons.
God's providence did not work
for the blessing of those three men.
They all died
in a foreign land.
(03:57):
But it did work for the blessing of Naomi,and especially Ruth,
who came back to faith and camebecame women of faith.
Loving God
and God, providentiallyworking these together for them.
Do you understandwhat we're talking about here?
Yeah. So?
So it's not like likejust everybody just happens to get,
(04:21):
you know,
I mean, there's the common grace of Godthat the rain falls on the just
and the unjust.
You know, the sun rises and fallsfor everybody.
You know, like the common grace of God,
we all getfree air to breathe at this point.
They haven't taxed that yet.So we all get the, you know,
but but God's hand of
providence works for those who love him,
(04:41):
but for those who don't love him,God aligns
their lives to work on behalfand for those who do.
And and so and so.
I want you to understandhow this Providence thing works.
And so one of the wayswe say it is this, that, that God's hand
seems most powerfulwhen it is most unseen.
And the providence of Godwe don't see from the front windshield,
(05:03):
we see in the rearview mirror,we can look back and see,
hey, God was doing something,and this is how he orchestrated things.
We don't see itlooking through the front windshield,
but those who believe inand trust the providence of God
can look through the front windshield.
Unknown of what'sgoing to happen in the future,
and go into that unknown with confidenceand assurance, because they know
(05:27):
that the providence of Godis working on their behalf.
You follow fast.
So let me just
I think God gave this tome right before the first service started.
It was sitting right down here
and I got outthis posted on our job to this down
because it just kind of hit meall of a sudden.
Let me just let me just tell you.
(05:47):
Contentment.
Contentment is proof
that you trust God's providence.
Let that sink in.
Your contentment right now
is your proofthat you trust God's providence.
Because if you know that you love God
(06:07):
and he's working things right nowtogether for your good,
there's a lot of contentment in that.
You understand things now.
So let's turn that coin over
discontentment in your life right now
is proof that you do not trust
the providence of God.
(06:28):
Do you understand?
And so
when we start talking about doctrineand sound doctrine,
like the providence of God,it has profound implications
on how we live and how we view our lives
and the world.
It's easy to be it's easier.
(06:50):
It's easier to be contentwhen I trust that
whatever's going on right now,God is working it together for my good.
If I don't trust him, his heartor his hand,
discontentment is soon to follow.
You got it?
Yeah.
(07:12):
This is why Christ followers
and relationship with the father
should be the most contentedpeople on earth.
Because we know
that all things.
We're good. You.
(07:33):
So I'm not to verse one yet.
We'll get there.
Let me just recap a little bitto the story of
the book of Ruthis a story of providence and redemption.
And we're going to talk about
what redemption isand how it's fleshed out in chapter two.
But Ruth, the main character,there's only two books in the Bible
named after a woman, Ruth and Esther,both in the Old Testament.
(07:56):
So the book of Ruth named after this,
the the heroine in this story, Ruth,
she's not a Hebrew.
She's not from the Promised Land,from a land called Moab.
And how she got to the promised landin the story of God
is that this man Elimelech,whose name means
(08:18):
God is my king,
didn't live like it and didn't trust God.
He was married to a lady named Naomi.
And in the land of Israel, during the timeof the judges in the Bible,
there was a famine that hit.
It wasn't a natural famine.
It was a judgment of God against thembecause they had rejected
God as their king.
And so God allows this famineto happen in in this famine, Elimelech
(08:41):
and his wifeNaomi and their two sons decide to move
to the land of Moabbecause things were tough in Jerusalem.
Actually, there in Bethlehem, Ephrathah,the very place where Jesus was to be born.
So way beforeJesus is born, that there's famine.
And so they it's hardhere. It's difficult.
And so they, like us,
have to solve their problemand not wait on God to do anything.
(09:05):
And so they move to Moab.
The thing with Moabis, Moab was a land of the people
who came aboutby an incestuous interaction
between the lot,the nephew of Abraham and his daughter,
and he got her pregnant.
And this nasty old story and her son
(09:27):
out of that into incest, was named Moab.
So all these people comefrom that lineage.
And so God said thatwhole thing is just evil and bad.
I want my peopleto stay away from that people
because they're going to corruptyou and lead you away from me.
And so there were all these rulesand curses on like, don't go there.
(09:47):
And so that's where they go.
They're experiencing difficulties.
So they leave the promises of God andthey go to that place they shouldn't be.
And while there, they'relooking for greener pastures.
Elimelech and their two,
now with two sons, die.
Naomi's two,
two sons are married to these Moabitegirls that they met in this land.
(10:10):
They were there for over a decade.
And so now Naomiis forced with this decision.
Do I stay here in this Moabite landor do I go back?
Do I return to God and His people?
She starts hearing that God'sdoing great things amongst his people.
And she says, I'm going to go back.
And she tells one of her daughters in law,Orpah tells them both,
just stay here with your people.
(10:31):
Orpah says, yes,I will stay here with my people.
And Ruth says,beautiful, beautiful sentiment.
No, Naomi, where you go? I will go.
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.
Where you die, I will dieand they'll bury me there, she says,
I want to I want to convert to thisthis God that I hear you talk about now.
(10:53):
And so Ruth and Naomi make their way backto Bethlehem, Ephrathah
in the Promised Land.
Now that was all. Chapter one.
And so chapter two is like,they're here now in the Promised Land.
And we
start to see this story,both of Providence and redemption.
Redemption is when you buy something back,you redeem it and make it whole.
(11:18):
And we'll see in chapter two,these types, we're going to be introduced
to a man named Boaz.
And Boaz is a type of foreshadowingof Jesus the Messiah.
And Ruth will become his bride,
a Gentile bride,
just like the churches, the the non-Jews,the like the Gentile bride of Christ.
(11:38):
We're going to see these typesof this great story of of redemption,
but we're also going to see the redemptionof this broken
woman named Ruth,this broken outcast named Ruth.
And we're also going to see the redemptionof our hero, Boaz.
It's an amazing thing that God does.
And we'llI'm going to say that for the end.
But this is where we are.
(11:59):
And right at the end of chapter one,it says, they came back.
They just happened to come backright at the barley harvest, right as the
the as the as as the, as the,
the produce was coming back
as, as, as the famine in this partapparently was being lifted.
It was a time of great abundance.
(12:19):
They just happened to.
Have you ever had those moments in lifewhen you look back and like,
you know what, I just happened,
but it sure worked out well, right?
Yeah. Right. I just happened.
They happened to be here at the righttime. I happened to be there for Adam.
I happened to make this visionand it just happened to.
That's the providence of God.
(12:39):
If you love him.
And so,
right at the barley harvest,let's pick up chapter two, verse one.
Now, Naomi had a relativeof her husband's,
a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech,whose name was Boaz.
So this woman, Naomi,her name means pleasant.
(13:00):
She has lost everything.
She's going to change her name to bitterbecause she's lost her husband,
her sons, her possessions,her land, our home, everything.
She had a relative back in Bethlehem,
Ephrathah a relative of her husband.
This is going to be a really,really important.
And I'll unpack itas we go through this process.
Just remember thatthis guy Boaz is a relative
(13:23):
of her late husband,
and the Bible says he was a worthy man,
literallya wealthy man, a man of great wealth.
Both.
Okay, so during this time of famine,
Elimelech, Naomi and their two sons leave
because obviously they don't trustGod in times of trouble.
(13:45):
So they leave.
But obviously everybody didn't leave.
Boaz stayed.
Boaz stayed where God had placed him.
He stayed in the promises of Godin the presence of God
and in the presence of God's people.
And the Bible says specificallythat he was a wealthy man.
(14:10):
He has a lot of fields.
He's a farmer.
How does a farmer become a wealthy man
in a time of famine?
By the grace of God and his providence,
working things together for his favor.
(14:30):
Right. So here's what happens.
We get in these times of famineand difficulty and pain,
and we think God isn't doing anything.
I have to go.
I have to leave.
I need to solve my own problemrather than just staying.
And trusting this almighty, providential
(14:52):
God to work thingstogether for good, right?
Right.
They left,
and three of them died
and she lost everything.
Boaz stayed
trusted
God's heart and God's hand
(15:14):
and increased his wealthin a time of famine.
Amazing.
Absolutely amazing.
Don't chase Moab.
Some of you need to listen to meright now.
Well, don't chase Moab.
(15:35):
Stay.
I don't know how you translate that.
You're old right now,but you need to hear this word.
Stay.
Praise God.
They don't chase Moab.
Stay.
(15:56):
Trust his hand.
Trust his heart.
Trust his providence.
Stay.
Like a verse two and three.
And Ruth, the more I said to Naomi,let me go to the field and glean
among the ears of grain after him, inwhose sight I shall find favor.
(16:19):
And she said, or go, my daughter.
So she she set out.
Ruth set out, and went and gleanedin the field after the reapers,
and she happened to come tothe part of the field belonging to Boaz,
who was of the clan of Elimelech.
Let me just unpack this for a minute.
This idea of
gleaning this was God's welfare systemfor his people.
(16:40):
In ancient Israel.
The law of gleaningcomes to us from Leviticus 19, verses
nine and ten, and I have it on the slide.
I want to read it for youwhen you reap the harvest of your land.
He's talking to the, the,the, the farmers.
When you reap the harvest, you shall notwholly reap the corners of your field,
(17:01):
nor shall you gatherthe gleanings of your harvest.
Go to the next slide,and you shall not glean your vineyard,
nor, shallyou gather every grape of your vineyard.
You shall leave them for the poorand the stranger.
I am the Lord your God.
So this is what he's saying,
he saying, you farmers have,you know, barley, wheat, grapes, whatever.
(17:24):
When you go to harvest the crop,
you don't harvest the edgesand you don't harvest the corners.
Leave those.
And as your harvestersmove through the field,
if they drop something,they're not allowed to pick it up.
Okay. Why?
Because God knew that there were widows
and orphansand the poor amongst his people.
(17:47):
And he said, you and foreigners, okay?
And he said, you have to leavewhat's there so they can come through
and pick up what you dropand what you leave behind.
It's estimated that upto 20% of the farmers production
was left on the field for the poorand the needy, and the foreigner.
And what God is saying is twofold.
(18:09):
One of the things that he's sayingnow, pay attention here is that you
who have be generous with it.
You're leaving 20% behind.
You and Boaz willingly
left 20% on the table.
Do you know why?
Because he knew thatwhat he had wasn't. Is.
(18:31):
It was by the grace of God.
So for those of us who have
the implicationcommand here is be generous with it.
Don't hoard it. It's not yours anyway,
the other implication here in Scripture
is if you don't have be willing to workhard,
the welfare system of this country isbroken
(18:53):
and is created a nation of beggars.
The welfare system and God'seconomy was this.
You have must leave some on the groundfor those who don't up to 20%,
but you who don't have to be willingto work to get it.
You don't get free handouts.
What it does is give provisionfor the poor and dignity to the poor.
(19:17):
There's nothing dignified of walking upto the government with a handout.
It robs people of their dignity,
a rostrum of their personhood,and it makes them beggars and slaves.
And God
says, I do care about the poor,and I want to take care of the poor
through the people through whomI have given much to.
But the poor must workso they keep their dignity.
(19:41):
They understand
that's the law of gleaning.
And so Ruth is sitting here.
She has no idea of this law.
She's been in motion, raised in Moab.
And on their journey back,I had just imagined Naomi telling Ruth
all the glory of this gracious God,that she's coming back to his providential
hand, his miracle and his goodnessand his grace and his favor.
(20:05):
And so when they get back there,she asks her mother in law,
May I please go to work?
I love this woman. Yes,
she she virtuous,
honorable, hardworking.
She's in need.
And she doesn't just stay home.
(20:25):
And I'm just going to prayand ask the Lord to intervene.
I'm sure she did that.
And then she went outand worked to understand she had a need.
Yeah.
And she's so gracious to honor her motherin law and ask permission to go work.
She had every right to.
(20:45):
But she honored those over her.
May I please go?
I want you to understand, I'mgoing to talk about this.
I'm going to talk about this later,but I just want to introduce it here.
When you trust the providence of God, it
creates confidence and produces momentum.
(21:07):
Just keep that in your heart.
Don't show that slide yet.
I'm not there.
Just think about it.
You guys are doing greatnow. Thank you. But hold on.
Just keep this in your mind.
When you believe in trustthe promise of God,
it will create confidence in youand it produces positive momentum.
(21:28):
And both are super important.
Now listen.
If you have children,
you need to teach this to your kids.
The providential hand of God,
because it will create in thema great deal of confidence
and it will producea great deal of momentum.
Nothing will slow them down,not because of who they are,
(21:51):
but because of the hand of their God.
Your kids, my kids when they're young.
But why is this happening?Why does that happen?
And how come I don't?
How can they doI don't there's why don't the
and that's what they're supposed to do.
They don't knowthey're ignorant. They're children.
And so
those of us who are not ignorant,who know God.
(22:12):
So listen, relax.
It's God's providential hand.
You trust him as all over your life.
It's not going to go like you expect.
That's okay. Yeah.
And it creates this incredible
confidence when things don't go well
and this incredible momentum that thoughthis didn't, it's not going to deter me.
(22:36):
Do you understand?
And so here's this woman, Ruth.
She's lost her husband.
She's lost her family.
She's lost everything that she knewgrowing up with.
And she's here in this land.
And she's not deterred,she's not downtrodden.
It's just like, hey, can I go work now?
What incredible woman, incredible faith.
(22:59):
And she just happened
to come to the part of the fieldbelonging to God just happened.
Can you look back at the.
Just happened times
time and time again?
Listen for those walk in and faiththat Jesus, nothing just happens.
(23:19):
It's Amen.
Look at verse four.
And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem.
And he said to the reapers,and the Lord be with you.
And they answered, the Lord bless you.
Now this is a job site.
Have you ever worked constructionor in the fields?
(23:42):
This is not usually how people talk.
Your foreman shows up.
The Lord bless you
and all the good stuff hereand the Lord be with you.
And I just like this.
But this guy.
But he's just, he's a he's largerthan life is good and he's a faithful man.
He's a man of God, is a man of integrity.
(24:03):
And in the time of the judges,when everybody was running away
from doing all that through this culturalmoral relativism, nobody cared about
this was the one guy, the shining light,
the standard of a godly man.
Who leads
with God,who leads from the place of faith.
(24:24):
He's going to run his business this way.
He's going to treat his employees.This way.
And in response, they love him back.
It's just this guy.
It's just amazing.
Verse five.
Then Boaz said to his young manwho was in charge of the reapers,
whose young woman is this?
Now the difficult thing in the Bible,we don't have inflection.
(24:45):
We just read in his words.
And it could have beenhe sees the new woman gleaning
because he knew who was gleaningand was like, hey, who's the new one?
I got to keep track on the ledger.
Could be that or
it could be like the.
(25:11):
You know what I'm saying?
Like, who was this young chick over there?
Right?
I mean, let's just be real.
Let's not get too spiritual.
Who is this woman?
Verse six.
And the servantwho was in charge of the reapers answered,
(25:31):
she is the young Moabite woman who cameback with Naomi from the country of Moab.
She said, please let me glean and gatheramong the she's after the reapers.
So she came,and she has continued from early morning
until now, except for a little,you know, ten minute breather.
This servant.
Now, I told you already in the book ofRuth we have these typologies.
Boaz is a type of foreshadowing of Jesus.
(25:54):
Ruth is a type of foreshadowingof the Gentile bride of Christ,
the church,this unnamed servant in the Old Testament.
We have a few different instanceswhen the an unnamed servant does
the bidding of the master to go
look forand prepare a bride for the master.
The unnamed servant is the typeor a foreshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
(26:17):
What we know in the New Testament fromJesus is he says, the Holy Spirit
will not testify about himself,
won't talk about himself, but only whathe hears from the father about the son.
So the the Holy Spirit,who never talks about himself,
only points people towards the master.
The unnamed servantdoesn't talk about himself, only points
(26:38):
the one who will be a bride to the master.
This is the Holy Spirit'srole in our world and in our lives
leads us to the onewe're to be betrothed to.
Reportsto the one of the condition of his bride.
We see the Holy Spirit here.
(26:58):
And she is the one.
And she askedif she may glean amongst the others.
I love thisbecause what she could have done,
she had a legal rightto this Leviticus 19.
She had a legal right,and she could have come to the servant.
And Boaz the servant, said, hey,I'm gleaning I have a legal right to.
I have a legal right to this.
You can't deny me of my rights.
(27:19):
You better not try to transgressa marriage.
This is my legal right.I'm asserting my rights.
A right, because after all,
that's what good all Americans do.
I have a right.
You have no right to.
You know, cost me on this.
And though she has a right,
(27:40):
she leads with gentleness and honor.
A virtuous woman.
She is Proverbs 31.
And so she has a right.
She says, I will honoryou and your authority,
and I would like your permission.
(28:01):
Please pay attention
to the virtue of this woman.
Verse eight.
Then Boaz said to Ruth.
Now listen, my daughter,
not really his daughter is just alike a real tender language here.
Do not go to glean
in another field, nor leave this one,but keep close to my young women.
(28:25):
Let your eyes be on the fieldthat they are reaping and go after them.
Have I not charged the young mennot to touch you?
And when you are thirsty,
go to the vessels and drinkwhat the young men have drawn.
So this is is doing.
We have to understand.
He's saying, look, stay with me
and stay with my people.
(28:46):
You're safe here.
Stay here.
Don't look elsewhere.
And this is exactly what Jesus would sayto us.
Stay with me.
Don't look elsewhere.
Don't wander off.
Stay with me.
(29:07):
Boaz knows
the goodnessthat he will give this young lady.
She doesn't know it yet,but Boaz does. Listen.
Jesus knows the plans.
He has for you.
You don't know it yet, but he does.
And his word to us is stay with me.
Stay with me.
(29:29):
Do you hear this?
Yeah.
And honestly,
I think one thing like thisis also the first indication of there's a,
there's a budding attraction between Boazand and Ruth happening right now.
And Boaz, his role as a man
is to provide and protect.
(29:50):
That's what he's doing here. Stay with me.
Follow the Reapersyou will glean along the way.
I want to provide for you.
And I've commanded the guysnot to mess with you.
I want to protect you.
Now, listen, men,this is biblical masculinity.
Not because
women are ineffective or can't providefor themselves for comfort.
(30:11):
None of that at all.
This is just a reflectionof the heart of the father.
To provide and protectthose God has given to us.
This is biblical masculinity.
Ladies, please, if you're married
and your husband says, sweetie,I just don't like you driving at night.
He's not being condescending.
He's being protective.
To understand this.
(30:35):
And he says, honey,
I would rather worktwo jobs than borrow money from anybody.
He's not being arrogant. He's.
He wants to provide.
And any man that doesn't leadwith provision
and protection has a broken soul.
This is biblical masculinity.
And this is hardwired in the in the core of a man
(30:58):
and women in or moms in your sons.
This is who your sons are.
And that's why sometimes they blow up
because they're figuring outhow do I be a protector?
It's okay. It's good.
Like nurture that in biblical, godly ways.
This is a godly man says, I'mgoing to provide for armor, protect you.
(31:20):
You just have.
And I commanded the young mennot to mess with you.
This is the first anti-sexual harassmentlaw we have on the books,
and I amI might just go something like this.
Just go with me. In my mind,like Boaz is big old guy.
He's.
He's got all this,
you know, this farming system,this big conglomerate he's in charge of.
He rolls up on the fieldsand is, you know, in his F-250
(31:41):
or whatever is okay,come on, team meeting.
Get over.Come on. Get over here right now. Good.
Stop it! Get.
We got to get together in. Listen.
We all know the new girl.
All right.
No eyes over here. Quick! Look in hereyes. Over here.
All right. Right here. Yep.
Listen, don't mess with her.
(32:03):
You don't talk to her.
You don't touch her.
You don't even look at her.
I'm at. I'm saying.
Listen, you see, all these fieldsI own, they will never find your body.
I just see it going down like that.
(32:24):
You know what I'm saying?
A little sense of an archetype.
You know, you're like a, you know,because a big on knife on the size,
like this.
What's he doing?
He's providing for just protecting her.
Boaz has such great
things planned for herthat she doesn't even imagine right now.
(32:46):
So does God for you.
Just stay in that,
I don't know what verse I'm on.
Well, now on ten.
Then she fell on her facedown into the ground.
She's an act of of of honor and said them.
Why have I found favor in your eyesthat you should take notice of me
since I'm a foreigner?Let me just say this.
(33:07):
But me, I'm going to read more.Let me run!
But Boaz answered her,all that you have done
for your mother in law since the death ofyour husband has been fully told to me,
and how you left your father and motherand your native land, and came to a people
that you did not knowbefore the Lord repay you for what
you have done, and a full rewardbe given you by the Lord,
(33:29):
the God of Israel, under whose wingsyou have come to take refuge.
Then she said,I have found favor in your eyes,
my Lord, for you have comforted me
and spoken kindly to your servant,though I am not one of your servants.
Listen,she has lost everything to her husband.
Like I said, her family,she's in a foreign land.
She lost everything she had in herhomeland.
(33:50):
She's living with a bitter, bitter,bitter woman.
Rightly so.
This woman, Naomi, has leftall of her family.
She went to a land, lived therefor over a decade. Her son died.
Her husband died her once a night.
Her other son died. She lost everything.
No doubt she's bitter, right?
I mean, we can understand this.
And Ruth is living in this nasty, bitter,dark environment.
(34:12):
Lost everything.
And has she ever asked the question,Lord, why all this bad?
The only question she's asked.
Is why all this good to me? I'm.
(34:34):
Do you see that?
Most of the time when you and I gothrough deserts and seasons
and pain, our first question is, what?
God, why?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Ruth's question is.
I'm a foreigner to you.
(34:56):
Why the grace to me? I'm.
The are attitude.
God, I was once outside your family.
You've been so good.
Why would you be so gracious to me?
Do you understand?
Yeah.
Profound for me.
(35:17):
See? And this is what?
Now you pulled that slide.This is what I'm saying.
Providence createsconfidence and produces and creates
positive momentum.
This is what it does.
I don't know why, and
I don't like what's going on right now,but I trust the providential hand of God.
And when I'm
living in that realization,it creates incredible confidence.
(35:42):
I don't likewhat's in front of the windshield,
but I have confidence.
I don't like what I'm living in right now,
but it's not going to slow me down.
Momentum is so huge for it,so huge to have here.
Here's the thing about momentum.
Momentum is so powerful.
You take a big locomotive and put a threeinch wood block in front of its wheels,
(36:06):
and a threeinch wood block will stop a locomotive
from moving because it has no momentum.
But you take that same locomotiveand get it up to its top speed.
It has so much momentumthat you put a three foot,
concrete wall in front of itand it won't stop it.
That's the power of momentum.
(36:26):
And Christ followers ought to be livingwith the most confidence and momentum
in anybody on theplanet. Why? Because we know
the providence of God.
You follow well.
And if you've learned that, you darnwell better teach it to your children.
Yeah.
(36:47):
And if you haven't learned it, itdarn well better learn it.
And I love this about Ruth,that she is more amazed.
And this is what happenswhen I trust God's providence.
I'm more amazed by the gracegiven to me than I'm bitter
about what's taken from me.
When I understand
the providence of God,let me move through this.
(37:09):
Just a few more verses.
And that meantime Boaz said,
come here and eat some of the breadand dip your morsel in the wine.
So she sat beside the reapers,and he pastored, to her roasted grain,
and she ate until she was satisfied,and she had some left over.
When she rose to glean, Boazinstructed his young men, saying,
let her glean even among the sheaves,and do not reproach her, and also
(37:30):
put some out from the bundles for her,and leave it for her to glean,
and do not rebuke her.
So we invite her to dinner,
and my Bible says,when she she ate till she was satisfied.
The literal translationis that she kept some back
so she didn't eateverything on her plate. Why?
Because some
know.
Because it's a first date.
(37:50):
And ladies, you don't clean your plateon a first date.
You don't.
You don't ask for a second.
I'll have salad.
Right
now, she's also thinking about Naomi.
She's like,I don't want to eat at all. It's.
I gotta take some home.
(38:11):
I just like the way I think more.
But she's virtuous. And.
And Bill says,let her glean amongst the sheaves.
The sheaves after the harvest
is come through,and they gather and they bind it up.
That's a sheaf of.
And then they drop it on the ground,
and they let the others come byand pick up all these sheaves.
And so he says, listen, yes, she has aright to the edges, in the corners.
(38:33):
And this has a right towhat's just fallen.
But let's, let's go beyond what is legal,
let's grace her,let her glean, even amongst what
we've gathered, and even take some extraand throw it out for her.
She Boaz could have said, look, God,I'm right before you
because I've done what you asked, I obeyedthat was it I but
(38:54):
but Boaz knows
that what he has is come from his,and it comes from God's.
And so he can be extraordinarily generous.
So he goes above what is required.
He doesn't do it here.
He goes up by beyondwhat he gives more than
what is requestedby God and commanded by God,
because he knows
(39:17):
he's been given so muchby the gracious hand of God,
so he can extend thatsame grace to others.
Do you understand that?
So he becomes thisincredibly generous man, because he knows
that God will use to measure to himwhat measure he used to give out.
He wants a lot
from God, and so he gives a lotbecause that's what the Bible says.
(39:41):
Yeah, it's just beautiful.
It's interesting to me to that.
Just let me just say this,that Boaz had no idea what hung
in the balance of his obedienceand generosity.
Boaz knew this was the law from God.
I'm going to be it.
And God's been gracious and generous.
I'm going to be gracious and generous.
He had no idea what was hanging in thebalance, what was hanging in the balance.
(40:05):
His bride.
He wasn't saying, look,
if I be obedient and I'm gracious, God'sgoing to give me a beautiful woman.
He didn't know that. He didn't say that.
He said, I'mgoing to be obedient. Oh, God says,
and I'm going to be generous with that.
He's giving me.
He had no idea what hangs in the house.
Listen, my friends,
you have no idea what's hangingin the balance of your obedience.
(40:25):
You have no idea what's hangingin the balance of your generosity.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
You have no idea what the providential
hand of God is orchestrating right nowon your behalf.
Moving heaven towards youand for you in response to your obedience
and your generosity. You have no idea. You
(40:45):
so stay.
Be obedient
and go beyond what's expected into grace.
Follow my.
So she gleaned in the film till evening.
Then she beat out what she had gleaned.
And it was about an ephah barleythat means a whole bunch.
And she took it up and went into the city.
(41:06):
Her mother in law saw what she hadgleaned.
She also brought out and gave herwhat food
she had left over after being satisfiedbecause she kept some back.
Because she didn't want to, you know, looklike a porker eating on the first day.
And her mother in law said to her,
where did you glean todayand where have you worked?
Blessed be the man who took notice of you.
So she told her mother in law,with whom she had worked
and said, the man's name,with whom I work today is Boaz.
(41:29):
And Naomi said to her daughter,May he be blessed by the Lord,
whose kindness has not forsaken,the living or the dead.
Naomi also said, the man is a closerelative of ours, one of our redeemers.
This is really importantfor the rest of this book.
In the next few chapters,
the Hebrew word is called goel,and it means that kinsman redeemer.
(41:50):
The Old Testament law wasif a woman was left husband less than the
someone from the closefamily had the obligation to redeem her
out of her poverty and singlenessand redeem her into a family.
That was the law.
And so Boaz is one of those people.
(42:11):
It's the kinsman redeemer.
It's the Hebrew goel issues23 times in four chapters.
It's the most often, Ruth is uses
that word more oftenthan any other book in the Bible.
Per capita for chapter.
So this is an important thing.
And we're going to you'regoing to learn about this a lot next week.
So but keep that in mind for next week.
(42:32):
He's a he'sa redeemer is a kinsman redeemer.
Verse 21 Justin up.
And Ruth the Moabite said, besides,he said to me,
you shall keep close to my young menuntil they have finished all my harvest.
And Naomi said to her, Ruth, herdaughter in law, it is good, my daughter,
that you go out with this young women,lest in another field you be assaulted.
(42:55):
So she kept close to the young womenof Boaz,
gleaning until the end of the barley,wheat, and the harvest.
And she lived withher mother in law. Listen,
she said, it's good
for you to go out with him.
Don't leave him and his people,
because wherever you go, outside of him
and his people, you will be assaulted.
(43:18):
Listen, dear friends,
stay close to Christ and his people.
Everything outside ofthat will assault you.
Do you understand?
You hear me?
Right now?
Boaz.
The picture of Jesus redeeminga Gentile bride, the church.
(43:43):
But also this is the story of Boaz.
How many of you know who Boaz is?
Mom was.
Joshua to a lady named Rahab.
Rahab was a Gentile,
a non Hebrew in Jericho,who was a prostitute.
When God's people came into Jericho,before the walls came tumbling down,
(44:06):
they two spies met this lady Rahab.
This lady Rahab has a sensitivityto the God of the Hebrews
and promised to hide the spies,God's people.
So God could do his work.
Out of that agreement, Rahab
was saved, adopted into God's family.
(44:28):
A former prostitute adopted into God'sfamily redeemed her life.
Out of her life came this little boyshe called Boaz.
Boaz stayed in the land of God's
promises, stayed with Godand with his people.
And God providentially orchestratedhis life to be a man of great wealth
(44:49):
and prominence, tothen be so comfortable with broken lives,
to meet this other little foreignwoman of a broken life and redeem her.
If God can do that through a broken man,
a broken prostitute in Jericho,and a broken little boy,
the son of a prostitute,what can he do in your life?
(45:12):
Amen.
Oh, Redemption.
Dennis.
And so, Naomi,
whose name has been changedto bitter, says, now this is good.
And she begins to recognizethe unseen hand of God.
And that realization starts hertransformation.
(45:37):
And Naomi's advice to Ruth is, what?
Stay.
Why don't miss this?
Why does she encourage Ruth to stay?
Because Naomi didn't stay,
and she knows the periland the destruction
of walking away.
(45:59):
And she says, dear sweetie,please don't go down that road.
I've been there
and walking away from Christand walking away from
his peopleis so much pain and destruction.
You don't want to invite thatinto your world.
Stay.
God's doing something good.
(46:21):
Stay there.
Trust God's providential and unseen hand
because we know what Romans828 says, I know the plans,
and they are for your good.
All things together.
And we know what Romans nine says,that those who hope in
(46:43):
the Lord will never be put to shame.
And when you're living like that,
confidence and momentum,
we got a good God.
Good stay.
Father, thank you for this day.
You are a good God.
Encourage us more and moreand more to stay.
(47:06):
You know, some of us have walked away.
You know who we are.
You love us anyway.
Thank you,thank you. Love us though we are.
But you call us to change.
You call us to trust.
In father,
thank youthat we can trust your providential hand.
I want to give you an opportunityright now.
(47:28):
To trust God's providential hand.
To movefrom discontentment to contentment.
I don'tknow what that means in your world.
I don't know what you're going throughright now, but I.
But my guess is
that if you could correct God, you would.
And maybe this is the daywhere you say God,
(47:49):
I don't want to offer you any advice.
I don't want to give you any direction.
I just want to trust your providentialhand.
I choose you today.
You you.
Even when it's hard, I choose you.
And I trust you to workall things together for good.
(48:11):
Because I love you.
Father,I thank you for the promise of your word.
Encourage us with it.
In your name we pray.
Amen.
You okay now?
All right. Yeah. Listen.
Read Ruth two this week
with an eye towards the providence of Godand trusting him.
(48:35):
And to read Ruth three for next week.
It's an awesome chapter,
and it will tell you, young ladies,how to get a great husband.
Are you ready to sing Ali?
I. That's.
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