Loyalty is a virtue. Loyalty is to be faithful, to stick to a commitment.
• But unfortunately loyalty is losing its appeal today. People do not see it as necessarily a good thing.
• Marriages are breaking up because spouses do not want to keep to their commitment to stick together “for better or for worse”.
• I once came across a cup with this caption on its side – “I like my wife the way I like my car…” – I was wondering what it means, until I lift it up and read the print at the bottom – “a new model every year!”
“Stickability” is what is lacking today. We want get out the moment the pressure is on or things have changed.
I was chatting with a young lecturer from a Seminary when they were here a couple of weeks back. He asked how long have I been serving here and I said, over 20 years. He was surprised that I stayed so long. “Over 20 years! You must have run out of stories to tell, illustrations to share, or things to say in your sermons, preaching to the same crowd over 20 years.”
You see, if you move to a new place, you can repeat all your sermons again!
I was actually surprised myself, by his view. To be a pastor and preaching to your congregation is not a vocation or a career move. It is not out of convenience that I serve. It is a calling. We are to do what God has called and entrusted, and stay faithful at it until the end.
What is loyalty? It is to stay devoted or faithful to a person or a cause.
• Biblically speaking, I like to define it this way: “Loyalty is to stay faithful (to a person or a cause) because it is the right thing, a good thing and the godly thing to do.”
We see this in the lives of many characters in the Bible.
• Job chose to not to curse God despite his many unreasonable sufferings.
• Abraham chose not to question God when challenged to offer up his son Isaac. He remained devoted to God above everything else.
• Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, suffered, wrongly accused and imprisoned, but not a word of complaint from his mouth.
• Daniel refused to bow to the King despite the threat of being thrown into the lions’ den. He stayed loyal to God.
We’re going to learn from Ruth today. Only 2 books of the Bible named after women, Ruth and Esther. Both tell the stories of brave and faithful women.
• Let’s read RUTH 1:1-18. The story took place during the time of the judges, probably during Gideon’s time.
• A family of four – father, mother and 2 sons – left Judah (homeland) because of famine and came to Moab. The 2 sons later married the women from the land.
• The father Elimelech died not long after. And 10 years later, the 2 sons also died, leaving behind the women.
As a widow with no man in the family, Naomi lost all standing in society. Being in a foreign land makes it more difficult, so when she heard of news of harvest back home in Judah, she decided to return.
• Naomi she said to her 2 daughters-in-law, "Go back. Return to your mother’s house. You will be better off there.”
• You can sense Naomi’s attempts at trying to convince them, that she had nothing to offer them. She had nothing that can provide them security, nothing.
• After much urging, one of them Orpah returned to Moab. The other, Ruth stayed.
Ruth 1:16-17 - "Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deals with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
Why did Ruth stay? No clear answer but we can get a hint from the exchange.
• They both wept badly, so it wasn’t for a lack of love on Orpah’s side. They had been faithful to her sons. Both knew Naomi had nothing to offer them.
• Despite the difficulties, they had been together for a while. So what tipped the balance for Ruth?
Ruth has already made a “pre-decision” apparently. It has something to do with Naomi’s God, at least we can tell from what she said.
• She said, “Your God will be my God. May the LORD deals with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
• She is saying, “God forbids that I do such a thing! Let God punish me if I do otherwise. She felt led by the Lord to do this good thing, the right thing, the godly thing.”
• It has nothing to do with what she can GET OUT of it. It has to do with what she wants to GIVE to it.
(1) LOYALTY SEEKS TO HONOUR GOD
Loyalty is driven by a desire to honour God, to do the good thing, the right thing, to do the will of God.
• By now Ruth has already gotten to know Israel’s God, through Naomi. She trusted God and was ready to let go of the false gods of Moab.
• It is not about choosing the easiest path, taking the least painful option, or avoiding at all cost the most difficult. It is about following God’s leading.
• Loyalty is our willingness to stay devoted to God’s leading. Ruth was obeying God’s call for her life.
• She is not just sticking to Naomi. She is STICKING TO NAOMI’S GOD!
The rest of her story in this book tells us that she made the right choice. God did provide for them, particularly for Ruth herself, in amazing ways.
• Ruth found a righteous man called Boaz, a relative of her late father-in-law, and started a new family. She had a son and her son actually became the grandfather of King David. David was her great grandson. And Jesus Christ came through this family line (lineage of David).
• Ruth and her family brought a blessing into this world, and she got her name and her life story recorded in the Bible.
(2) LOYALTY VALUES THE RELATIONSHIP
Common sense points toward Ruth returning home to Moab. Her options were better in Moab than living as a foreigner in Israel, with Naomi.
• Ruth’s reply was a declaration of love. It sounded like the vows we would usually hear at weddings.
• "I will not 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… 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deals with me… if anything but death separates you and me."
Ruth was not looking at her own interests, but to the interests of the other. That’s how Paul described Christ in Phil 2:4.
• If she had cared for her own interests – get married, settle down, be financially stable, and have a more certain future – then she ought to have gone back.
• But her desire was to be with Naomi, the one who could give her no security and no future. Why? She wanted to preserve something valuable – the relationship!
• She wanted to share a future TOGETHER with Naomi, not separately.
Many today give up on relationship too easily, and for lesser things like wealth, pleasure, freedom, career, or other goals. We give up too easily, too soon.
• How important is a relationship to you? You’ve got to ask this.
• Loyalty gives a high premium to the relationship.
Ruth values the relationship above all else. She chose to bless rather than be blessed. That’s like Jesus, who came to serve and not to be served.
• Maybe her way of feeling blessed, is to bless! God blesses those who bless others.
• Loyalty rewards. Loyalty takes sacrifices, but loyalty rewards.
If you are married, keep the relationship at all cost.
• Loyal friends forgive, accept one another’s mistakes, agree to disagree, because KEEPING the relationship is paramount.
• Loyalty values the relationship. Loyalty seeks to PRESERVE the relationship.
Loyalty is God’s trademark. God values His relationship with you. He is faithful.
• He is faithful even if we are faithless.
• God makes a pledge and He keeps it. He makes a covenant and it sticks forever. God will not go back on His promises. He is faithful to the end.
If we are called to be like Him, then we must be loyal. We will not make a promise and not keep it; we will not vow and not mean it.
(3) LOYALTY REWARDS
Loyalty rewards. God honours faithfulness. We see that in Ruth’s life.
• God is at work even in the worst of times. God sees into the future. God sees the end from the beginning.
• You can choose to stay faithful to God and His calling for your life, no matter how difficult the journey is. The God who sees Ruth through will also see you through.
We see that in the lives of Job, Abraham, Joseph, David and Daniel.
• For their steadfast devotions, God rewarded them – they were delivered from danger, promoted and ended up more blessed than when they started off.
• They were loyal to God and His cause. God rewards them for their faithfulness.
Can you be loyal to God even when things aren’t going well in your life?
• Why not, if God has been loyal to you?
Being loyal is part of what being a follower of Christ is all about.
• Let us show Christ’s character by being loyal in our relationships, in our marriage, and in ministries.
• Stay faithful to God’s calling in your life. Stay faithful in doing that which is good, right and godly.
May we follow His example and be loyal in all our relationships!
• Stick with your friends through thick and thin. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
