A Position Of Transition

A POSITION OF TRANSITION

As I thought about what my sermon topic would be on this final Zoom service the word transition came to mind. Transition means change, move, switch, alteration, modification. I can see how all of these could apply to what's happening with Cornerstone. We are making a transition as we get ready to start attending NSCC.

Actually, we're making a couple of transitions. We're going from Zoom services to in-person services and we are transitioning from going to church at 713 Catherine street to 911 Church street.

The word transition doesn't appear in the NIV but as I thought about the transitions that were made throughout scripture, a couple stood out to me. Let's take a look and see what we can learn from them.

1) Ruth's transition.

The story of Ruth starts out with Naomi, her husband Elimelech and their two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, traveling from their homeland of Judah to the country of Moab because there was a famine in their land.

Sometime later, Naomi's husband died. Her two sons married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Ten years later, Mahlon and Kilion both died. When Naomi learned that the famine had subsided she decided to leave Moab and go back to Judah.

Orpah and Ruth started out with her but at some point, she decided it wasn't fair for them to go with her. Naomi explained that even if she was to marry again and have two more sons, would they really wait until they were grown so they could marry them?

So she encouraged them to go back to Moab and remarry. After some back and forth between them, they wept together and Orpah said her goodbyes and went back but Ruth didn't. Chapt. 1:14 says that Ruth clung to Naomi. She wouldn't let her go, even though Naomi insisted.

Ruth 1:15-18, “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her."

It wasn't that Naomi didn't want Ruth to be with her, but she felt Ruth was shortchanging herself by not going back to find a new husband and have kids. Think about it-Ruth was married to Naomi's son for ten years yet there's no mention of children; for either woman. It's understandable why Orpah would go back to Moab.

That makes what Ruth did more remarkable. She was willing to go to a foreign land, knowing only Naomi, with no guarantees of ever finding a husband or having children. This was how dedicated she was to Naomi. This was the level of relationship she had built with her.

Ruth said that Naomi's God would be her God. Ruth wasn't only willing to change her living situation, she was willing to change her god! That's amazing. This shows what kind of an influence Naomi and her family had been on her.

We're not told but I'm sure over the course of time Naomi, her husband and her sons would've talked about their hometown of Bethlehem along with the stories about God and how he delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and brought them through the desert and into the promised land.

This, along with the example of godliness Ruth saw in Naomi, would cause her to look up to her and build an inseparable bond with her. So much so, that she was willing to leave her familiar surroundings to venture into the unknown. But she knew she would be okay as long as she was with Naomi.

This made me think about our relationship with Jesus. We need to do to Jesus what Ruth did to Naomi-cling to him. There's a song we sing called Rock of My Salvation. There's a part that goes, "I believe in you for your faithful love to me; you have been my help in times of need-Lord unto you will I cleave".

Jesus is the rock of our salvation. It doesn't matter what happens, when we cling to him we will be okay. For Ruth, nothing else mattered as much as being with Naomi. She could transition from the only life she knew in Moab to starting a new life in Judah because Naomi was with her.

Likewise, for some of you, Cornerstone is the only church you've known or it's the church you've been at the longest. Now you'll be going to a new church; a foreign church. Cornerstone is the only church I've ministered in. Although I was a member of NSCC for nine years I'm going back in a new way-as a minister. So, like you, I'm starting over too; I'm transitioning.