Knowing And Doing The Will Of God

Knowing and Doing the Will of God – Ruth 4:1-22

BTBC - June 9, 2013

God’s plan is always the best plan.

Ron, Ruth’s brother is a runner and he’s a good one. A couple of years ago he ran the Niagara Falls Marathon, a qualifying race for the Boston Marathon. He said he had kept up his pace and in fact was running faster than pace right to within a couple of kilometers of the finish line. But then he got this massive cramp in his leg. It was so severe that he had to stop. He couldn’t move. The finish line was in sight, but he just couldn’t make it. He was able to work out the cramp and get moving, but he had lost a lot of time. Then with the last of his energy he ran with everything he had to the finish line. He collapsed at the end and in fact, had paramedics tend him. But he found out that he had finished one minute over the qualifying time. Ron said that he had never had a cramp like that before or after. At the time Ron wondered why God had given him the cramp. My wife Ruth went and saw most of her family, including Ron, at a track meet down in Cambridge last week. While there, Ron told her something very interesting. He said that if he had qualified for the Boston Marathon, he probably would have run in the race this year. And with his qualifying time, he would probably have finished right close to the time when the bomb went off. And his family in all likelihood would have been there to cheer him on. Ron wasn’t complaining about the cramp now. God’s plan is always the best plan.

This is the last chapter of Ruth and I want to look at three great themes that run through the book, but are emphasized in this last chapter. The first theme is this, the right way to accomplish God’s will. Last week we looked at the wrong way to accomplish God’s will when we focused on Naomi’s plan to get Ruth a husband. This week we’ll look at the right way to accomplish to God’s will. We’ll be looking at how Boaz secures Ruth as his wife. Let me refer again to the diagram I showed you last week from the Bible study book, Experiencing God, by Henry Blackaby (show slide).

The first step in the diagram is “God is always at work around you.” We see that throughout the Book of Ruth. God is working in and through the circumstances. From bringing Naomi and Ruth back to Israel to Ruth happening to pick Boaz’s field to glean wheat, God’s fingerprints are all over this story. The second step is “God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.” We have seen how Boaz had a relationship with God. He greeted his workers with a blessing, “the Lord bless you”, and received a blessing in return. He had an impact on the people under his employment, influencing them for God. The third step is “God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.” Where did the invitation come for Boaz? I believe it came when he visited his fields and saw a strange woman gleaning barley after his workers. He asked the workmen who the woman was and found out that she was Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi.

Now for Boaz, this news must have triggered something in him. He was Elimelech’s close relative and he had heard that Naomi had come back to Bethlehem. He was well aware of his responsibility to the widow. It’s clear that he hadn’t done anything to help the pair of widows up to that point. But now Ruth appears in his field. This is God’s invitation for him to become part of God’s plan. Ruth’s presence must have caused Boaz to become aware of his need to respond to his responsibility to help both Elimelech’s widow and Mahlon’s widow. And Boaz didn’t ignore the invitation. He went to Ruth and helped her by offering protection and provision. He made sure she was safe from his own workers, and he told his harvesters to make sure she had plenty of grain to glean, even leaving stalks loose on the ground for her to find. Later he shared dinner with her and gave her measures of roasted grain. Boaz saw the occurrence of Ruth in his field as an opportunity to join God in His plan.

But what if Boaz hadn’t noticed Ruth in the field? Or what would have happened if he saw Ruth and decided not to do anything to help her? The story would have ended right there. Nothing would have happened. But Boaz did see and did respond. I think many of us say we want to do God’s will, but then we complain that we don’t know what God wants us to do. We pray and then nothing happens. When you ask God to show you His will for your life, how do you think He will answer? Are you expecting an audible voice to tell you? Are you looking for the clouds to spell out written instructions for you to follow? God most often answers our prayers in the every day occurrences of life. Boaz was just going along his daily routine, checking on the workers in the field when he saw Ruth. I think God speaks in the same way. We may be going along in our lives when during lunch you talk with a co-worker and they mention that they are really struggling with an upcoming birthday and getting old. They uncharacteristically mention they wonder what life is all about. That could very well be God’s invitation to you to join Him in working in this person’s life.