Luck, Favor, and God’s Providence
Ruth Part 2
Would you consider yourself a lucky person?
I’m not very lucky,
if my wife and I are in some kind of raffle, or door prize drawing,
I never win,
if we win anything its almost always her ticket.
Some of you would say,
Yeah, that’s how I am,
if it wasn’t for bad luck,
I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
You know what’s interesting?
There are about 800,000 words in the Bible,
and over 12,000 different words,
but the words luck or lucky
are never used a single time.
Its as if God doesn’t really believe in luck.
Its as if God really plans everything out,
and has a purpose for it all,
so that luck doesn’t really exist.
The bible doesn’t talk about luck,
but instead it talks about favor.
Instead of blind chance,
the Scriptures describe a personal God
who shows favor to certain people.
Now those people who receive God’s favor
may look to outsiders like they’re really lucky,
that things just always work out in the end for them,
they may look lucky,
but the Bible says its God’s favor, not luck.
So then the question is,
how does God’s favor work?
God obviously doesn’t show favor to everyone,
but does he show favor to all Christians?
And if so,
Does he show favor equally to all Christians,
or are there some who get more favor,
and some who get less.
And if that’s the case,
is there anything I can do,
that will cause me to receive more favor from God?
We’re in the second week of our study
on the Book of Ruth
so if you have a Bible, turn to Ruth chapter 2. [page 179 pew]
In the story this week
we’re going to see what appears to be
a change of luck for Naomi and Ruth.
Their luck appears to go from really bad, to really good,
but as I said, the concept of luck
isn’t even found in the bible,
it’s really God’s favor.
and so I’m going to try to answer this week
those questions I just raised,
about luck and favor.
Now, if you weren’t here last week,
I’ll catch you up on chapter 1, first.
We said last week that,
This true story of Ruth
is one of the most well-written stories
in all of scripture and all of history –
and it takes place in the time of the Judges,
which is over a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.
If you read the Book of Judges in the Bible,
you’ll find that this was a time of sin and rebellion.
It’s one of the darkest periods in the history of God’s people.
And the story tells us that
in the town of Bethlehem,
which is ultimately where Jesus was to be born,
there was a family, a very ordinary family.
They weren’t kings and queens or rich people,
just a normal, average family
headed by a man named Elimelech,
He had a wife named Naomi, whose name means, “Sweet,”
and two sons with cool, sort of Star Trek Klingon names,
named Mahlon and Kilion,
but their names mean “Sick” and “Dying”
so don’t name your kids that.
And what happens is that
a famine comes into the land of Bethlehem,
which is ironic because Bethlehem literally means
House of Bread,
but there’s no bread.
The famine is possibly God’s judgment against his people
for their continued hard-heartedness and sin.
So, Elimelech makes a foolish decision
and decides to relocate his entire family
some 50 miles away to a place called Moab.
But that was a bad move,
that is not where God’s people are supposed to go.
The Moabites were a perverse, pagan people
who worshipped a false god named Chemosh.
Elimelech’s sons grow up,
and marry two Moabite young women, Ruth and Orpah.
What happens then is tragic.
We don’t know the details,
but Elimelech moved there to save his family from the famine,
but tragically, he and then his two sons, all die.
That leaves three women
in destitute and devastated circumstances,
Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah.
Naomi then hears that
God has come to the aid of his people in Bethlehem,
he’s blessing them,
and the famine is over,
and so she decides to return home
to be with God and his people again.
So, she takes her two daughters-in-law
and they begin the journey home.
Along the way, Naomi realizes
she’s got nothing to offer these young women,
and they probably shouldn’t go to Bethlehem with her.
So she stops on the road
and tries to encourage Orpah and Ruth to return home.
Orpah does, because
even though she appears to be a worshipper of God,
she’s really not.
Ruth, though, makes a commitment to the one true God,
and she decides that she’s gonna continue in faith
and go to Bethlehem
where she can worship the true God
and be with his people.
So the two women arrive in Bethlehem;
and everyone there is excited,
its immediately all over Facebook.
Everybody’s wondering what Naomi’s life was like,
and she tells them,
My life stinks,
and its God’s fault,
He hasn’t helped me,
In fact he’s ruined my life,
so I’m changing my name to Mara,
which basically means “Bitter Old Woman.”
And that’s the end of chapter 1.
Then, in chapter 2 we pick up the story.
Verse 1
Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.
What does it mean, A man of standing?
“Man of standing” in most bible versions
is translated “man of wealth”,
or in (KJV) “mighty man of wealth”
The literal meaning of the Hebrew words is
“mighty man of strength”,
Now the strength could be financial,
or it could be physical,
or reputation and character.
In Boaz case, it refers to all those,
the strength of his reputation,
and noble character,
as well as wealth.
It says he was a mighty man of strength,
he was a man’s man.
I mean, this guy doesn’t own a sweater vest.
He’s never heard Lady Gaga or the Spice Girls.
He doesn’t drink decaf, like Greg Hull does.
He’s a real man.
Plus, Boaz loves God,
and he’s a man of integrity.
So I would say, guys,
especially those of you who are single.
Boaz is a guy to look up to and imitate.
So far in the book of Ruth,
all the other men have been losers.
Elimelech – a loser who leads his family away from God.
Mahlon – sick.
Kilion – dying.
But Boaz… mighty man.
And what’s weird, he’s a little bit older,
and rich and successful, loves God,
and yet he’s still single.
Women, how often is it you find a mighty man,
a guy who loves God and he’s got it all together,
he’s successful, a man of integrity,
and he’s still single into his thirties?
Not very often.
Some bible teachers speculate that,
maybe he wasn’t very good looking,
Like, maybe he had a goiter on his head,
or a horn growing out or something…
I think maybe there’s a better reason,
I think what we’re seeing here
is God’s providence at work.
God kept Boaz single for a purpose.
Because God had a plan for him,
that involved waiting for Ruth.
We talked last week about God’s providence,
how he is involved in every detail of our lives,
and he’s got a good purpose behind it all,
even though we don’t always see it at the time.
Some of you ladies are like,
“I cannot find a good man.”
God’s providence is at work in your life too,
just like Ruth’s,
So if you’re waiting for a Boaz,
then the best plan is to
follow God faithfully, and obey him completely,
because when a Boaz looks at a woman,
we’re going to see in a minute that,
he’s impressed by character and godliness,
not by your great hair
or cool tattoo.
Verse 2
And Ruth the Moabite
[ the woman from the bad family,
the immigrant,
the woman with nothing going for her,
except for her wholehearted commitment to God ]
Ruth said to Naomi, [her bitter mother-in-law] "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor."
There’s that word favor we talked about,
Ruth doesn’t say,
maybe I’ll get lucky,
but maybe I’ll find favor.
Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter."
You see, they arrived in Bethlehem the day before,
and they’re hungry.
They have no food.
They’re flat broke.
They’re all by themselves.
and the fridge is bare.
So Ruth looks at her mother-in-law, and says,
“I’m asking your permission to go out in the fields
and pick up the leftover grain.”
In some of your bibles this is translated as
gleaning, the grain.
Let me explain what’s going on.
When God gave the law, to the people of Israel,
through Moses,
he included this command:
Lev 19:9
"When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. It is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you.
This was basically the Hebrew welfare system.
Everybody knew this system,
even Ruth from Moab
knew that the poor could do this,
so the law may have been copied by Moab as well.
Some Christians try to teach that
the government should have no role in caring for the poor
and that our taxes shouldn’t go toward that,
but we see that God put in place this law in Israel
that required everyone
to set aside something for the poor,
it wasn’t an option, it was the law.
And in Deut 24:19-22 it adds to this law:
Leave (the gleanings) for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all you do.
So there’s actually a blessing from God
that’s promised to us,
when we make sure the poor are cared for.
So Ruth knows this law,
and goes out to gather behind the harvesters.
Verse 3.
So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.
Notice the words,
as it turned out,
or some translations say, as it happened.
The word turned out, or happened,
is the Hebrew word miqreh
which means by accident, chance, fortune, or fate
That word is only used a few times in the whole Bible,
and this right here, is the only time
it refers to an actual incident or story.
Why?
Because with God,
just as there’s no such thing as luck,
there also is no such thing as
accident, chance, fortune, or fate.
Its all part of a plan.
We talked last week about
the theology behind the Providence of God,
or the invisible hand of God,
that God is involved with every detail of our lives,
even though we don’t see it.
And so the writer of Ruth
is being a little sarcastic here,
or saying this with sort of a wink,
It just happened that Ruth went to the field owned by Boaz,
the guy who just happens to be rich and single and loves God,
and he just happens to be related to Ruths father-in-law Elimelek.
It all just happened, wink wink.
Why does the Bible say it that way?
Its to get our attention,
and emphasize that
this isn’t just happenstance, circumstance, fortune, chance.
Because for a follower of God, nothing ever is.
This is providence.
God was hard at work behind the scenes here.
It’s the providence of God,
which is the theme of the Book of Ruth,
that God sometimes works through
his visible hand of miracle,
but most of the time works through
his invisible hand of providence.
And when it looks from the human perspective
like this hungry, homeless, girl goes out,
looks at a bunch of fields
and says, “I guess I’ll go to that one.”
It isn’t just a lucky chance,
its God’s providence.
No angel spoke or led her,
there was no miracle,
she didn’t see a burning bush in the field,
and say
“Oh, that must be the one!”
She just picked a field.
And what looks to you and I like
chance, circumstance, or lucky day,
is really what?
God’s providence,
Because as we saw last week,
God is both sovereign, he controls everything,
and God is good.
Now, did Ruth understand God’s providence,
and what he was doing at the time?
No.
Do you and I, understand it in our own lives.
No, usually not,
though you can look back in your life,
and see it in hindsight a lot of times.
I’ve love the illustration of a tapestry.
When problems in your life
are coming one after another
and it’s hard to make sense of it all
or find meaning,
Or maybe you’re like Naomi,
and start to wonder if God even cares,
At times like that
it helps to see God’s work in your life as a tapestry.
Have you noticed how
the front side of a tapestry looks beautiful,
but the back side looks all mumble jumble
with all of these threads and yarn
that have been pulled through and tied off,
and you can’t even recognize the pattern from the back.?
It’s like God is making a tapestry of your life,
and He looks down from heaven
and sees the tapestry work in all its beauty.
But we look up from beneath
and all we see is the underside of that tapestry,
and we can’t make any sense out of it,
so we say, that knot doesn’t fit
and that problem doesn’t fit
those threads don’t look like they belong,
this area looks messed up
and the whole thing looks kind of ugly.
We can’t see it now,
but when we get to heaven and we look down,
we’ll see the tapestry
that God was building in our lives,
and it’ll be beautiful.
We’ll see how every circumstance and problem
added to the intricate weaving,
and how even the most painful times
were used by God
to add to the overall beauty
and to grow us closer to Him.
And then we’ll know that it was all worth it.
Now you ask,
How do I step into God’s providence,
or how do I receive God’s favor,
and make sure that he’s shaping all my circumstances,
to work out for good,
and bring blessings into my life,
just like he did for Ruth?
Simple.
You make sure God’s favor is on your life,
by following him wholeheartedly.
By going all in,
not sitting on the spiritual fence.
but following with your whole heart,
and you’ll receive his favor.
You see, people confuse God’s grace,
and God’s favor.
God’s grace means that you can be saved,
you can become part of God’s family for eternity,
without ever earning it.
You don’t have to do anything
except receive his free gift,
by making Jesus Lord of your life.
That’s because of God’s grace.
But Gods rewards are different from salvation.
His rewards definitely do depend
on what we do,
and how we follow him.
Jeremiah 17:10
"I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward everyone according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve."
God looks at what’s in our heart,
and what’s in our mind,
and our conduct,
and rewards us based on what our deeds deserve.
Again, we can’t earn salvation,
that’s based on grace,
but we can earn rewards or favor from God,
when we follow him wholeheartedly.
And in the same way,
we can receive discipline from God,
if we’re not following him wholeheartedly.
Some of you are saying,
but Ken, don’t we get our rewards in heaven?
Yes, absolutely, we get rewards in heaven,
but not only in heaven.
The bible is full of examples of people
who received at least some of their reward
here on earth,
because God was blessing them
for their faithfulness.
And those blessings come in many ways,
one of them is simply
increased happiness.
Just a couple weeks ago,
results of a new study were released,
which I thought was really interesting.
The study was done by the Yale School of Management.
They surveyed over 6,000 people from all 50 states,
asking questions about their overall well-being,
and also about their religious activity.
They found that people at the top
of the religiously active scale
reported much higher levels of well-being
than the least religiously active people.
In other words,
the people most committed to their faith
were significantly happier than the rest.
That was no surprise,
studies have found that before.
But here’s the surprise:
They found that,
people with moderate or low religious activity
actually reported lower levels of well-being
than atheists and agnostics."
So the study’s basic conclusion was,
if you want happiness in life,
either be fully committed to God,
or be an atheist,
but you don’t want to be halfway committed
because that’s where the unhappy people live.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus basically said,
I’d rather you be hot or cold,
but the lukewarm stuff will kill you.
Or another way of looking at that might be,
the fully committed followers of Christ
are happier, because
they’re receiving more of God’s favor,
and the halfway committed people
are less happy, because
they’re receiving more of God’s discipline.
Lets go on.
verse 4,
Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The Lord be with you!" "The Lord bless you!" they answered.
Another lucky chance, right?
Ruth just happened to pick the field of Boaz;
and she happened to be there
right when Boaz happened to be riding out from town,
in his Escalade with rims
to see how his business was going.
Boaz gets there,
and greets his employees, the harvesters,
and how does he greet them?
“The Lord be with you.”
and they respond,
the Lord bless you.
How many of you do that with your boss at work?
You’re sitting in your cubicle,
and the boss walks in
and says, The Lord be with you.
and all the employees respond in unison,
and the Lord bless you.
Some of you are going,
Not my boss,
My boss has horns and a tail.
He is certainly not blessing us every morning.
This tells you what kind of boss Boaz is.
He shares his faith with his employees,
he loves ‘em,
he blesses ‘em,
He’s a good guy,
follow his example.
Verse 5
Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, "Who does that young woman belong to?"
So Boaz immediately notices,
there’s somebody new here,
a woman he’s never seen before.
6 The overseer replied, "She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7 She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter."
8 So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. 9 Watch the field where the harvesters are working, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."
10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?"
11 Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
Now lets talk about this.
Ladies, does Ruth look her best right now?
Is her makeup on perfect,
and her hair fixed nice.
No, I don’t think so.
She’s working in the fields!
She’s sweaty and grimy,
hair in a ponytail,
no makeup,
she’s pitted out.
This is not her finest hotty moment.
Some women, if they knew,
Boaz the rich single bachelor is coming,”
they’d run for the hills,
and say, I’ll be back in four hours.”
And they’d be sandblasting and spray painting.
But Ruth is sweaty and dirty,
and it doesn’t seem to bother Boaz.
Let me say something to the singles here.
First, what attracts Boaz most
about Ruth
is her character.
Verse 10
She asked him, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?"
11 Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband…
He’s impressed by her character,
by her servant heart.
You singles out there,
if you get married,
you need to marry someone who’s not just attractive –
Now, you need to be attracted to your mate,
but not just attracted physically,
you also need to be attracted
to his or her character
and their work ethic
and devotion to the Lord,
Guys, there are some women who are a good time,
and there’s others who are a good legacy.
And most 20-year-old guys are like,
“Good time!” Yeah.
No, good legacy!
Because you want to spend 50 or 60 years with her.
“Well, she’s really hot.”
Oh yeah? so is hell?
And if you marry based on that,
you’ll feel like you went there.
And you single women,
you don’t want the guy
who’s pressuring you to sleep with him before being married.
Because you already know 2 things:
#1: he’s short on integrity,
#2: he loves his sex drive more than God.
You don’t want that.
You want a good legacy,
you find the guy who puts God first.
And good legacy also means
you gotta ask some questions, like,
Can you read?
Are you sober?”
Can you hold a job for more than 2 weeks.
Things like work ethic,
and integrity, and patience,
Those are important
when you’re looking for the right one,
don’t just pay attention to the looks.
What Boaz saw in Ruth, was that
her character, her godly heart,
was more beautiful than anything else.
And Boaz sees that character,
that inner beauty.
So he tells her:
Verse 8
"My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. 9 Watch the field where the harvesters are working, and follow along after the women.
He’s protecting her
and making her equal to his employees.
Instead of a beggar
she’s now equal to his other workers.
Verse 9
I have told the men not to lay a hand on you.
First sexual harassment policy in all of scripture.
Boaz gets all the young guys together,
“Hey, boys. You see that Moabite lady?
Yeah, I know she’s cute.
You touch her, I have a big field, They will never find your body.
This is Boaz, mighty man.
Protector, provider, defender,
He didn’t mess around.
Then he says,
And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."
In that society, the women served the men.
But he’s telling her,
you’re not a servant here,
you’ll be honored,
you’ll be treated as an equal,
we’ll take good care of you.”
You see, Boaz is a godly man.
And he’s not doing this for any ulterior motive,
he’s not trying to score points with her,
because we’ll see later in the story,
he doesn’t have any clue
that she would ever be interested in him.
This is just how he treats all women,
with dignity and respect, and kindness.
Men, we should all be taking notes right now.
Then he prays for her.
Verse 12
May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
I mentioned last week that
this story is filled with prayers
and by the end of the book
every prayer is answered by God.
Sometimes, when we pray,
God uses us
to answer our own prayer,
and Boaz doesn’t know it,
but that’s going to happen here,
with his prayer.
We’ll see that in a couple weeks.
They’re gonna go out on their first date.
And then they’re gonna go to the threshing floor.
You know what happens there, right?
If you don’t,
you’ll have to come back and find out.
Verse 13
"May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord," she said. "You have reassured me and have spoken kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants."
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar."
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, "Let her gather among the sheaves and don't reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don't rebuke her."
17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.
Now, when she left Naomi that morning,
what did Ruth say,
What was the request of her heart?
Maybe I’ll find someone who will show me favor.
And what happened?
Here’s the answer to the prayer of her heart.
She’s found favor in the eyes of Boaz.
How can we tell she found favor?
Because the law simply required that
Boaz allow a poor person to glean in his field.
But Boaz went far beyond the law,
all the way to grace.
He went far beyond
what she asked, or hoped for, or even prayed for.
He honored her,
treated her as an equal,
fed her lunch with the rest of the employees,
then gave orders that she be given extra barley,
so that she ends up the day,
with an ephah of barley.
That means nothing to most of you,
because you have no clue what an ephah is.
An ephah is 7 ½ gallons of barley,
or about 35 pounds.
Now if you went to the store
and brought back 35 pounds of bread,
how long would that last you for?
It’d be way more than a day or a week,
its several weeks worth of food.
Some bible teachers say this was the equivalent of
at least 2 weeks wages for an ordinary worker back then,
and she got it in one day.
Boaz is unbelievably generous with her.
The question, then, is
why would Boaz do this?
Its because Boaz understands
the gospel, the good news.
Some of you say,
“No, no, no, Ken,
the gospel’s just in the NT.”
Actually not.
The NT says that
the gospel was preached to Abraham.
Galatians 3:8
Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."
The gospel, in other words,
the good news about salvation,
that comes through Jesus Christ,
is found throughout the OT,
And we see a clear picture of it in Ruth.
You see,
you and I, before we come to Christ,
are Ruth,
we were pagans,
we’re sinners,
we’re rebels.
We come from the wrong background.
We come to the Lord empty-handed and needy.
And Boaz is a picture of Jesus,
the ultimate mighty man of strength.
Just as Boaz went to survey his fields,
so the Lord Jesus came to earth,
to survey his field here.
Just as Boaz looked out and saw Ruth,
so Jesus has seen us,
Just as Boaz pursued Ruth,
so Jesus has pursued us,
Just as Boaz spoke to Ruth kindly,
so Jesus has spoken to us kindly,
Just as Boaz went beyond the requirements of the law,
all the way to grace,
so the Lord Jesus has gone beyond the requirements of the law,
all the way to grace, with you and I
And just as Boaz was unbelievably generous to Ruth,
so Jesus is unbelievably generous to you and I,
giving us new life, eternal life,
and abundant blessings,
none of which we deserve.
To use the words of Ruth,
we have found favor
in the eyes of our Lord Jesus.
That’s the gospel right there in Ruth.
Why does Boaz go beyond the law to grace?
Why does he give so much more than he needs to?
Boaz understands that
everything he has belongs to God anyway.
And because he’s received everything as a gift,
he is generous with it,
he’s a gift-giver.
He’s a man of grace, of favor.
And you and I, should look at Jesus,
just like Ruth looked at Boaz,
and say, “Why have you been so nice to me?”
Why have you shown me favor?
And Jesus would say,
“It’s grace. It’s love. It’s mercy.
I don’t owe you anything, but I love you.
It’s in my nature to love, it’s just who I am.”
And, because Jesus did that for us,
you and I have the great opportunity
to be like Boaz, and to be like Jesus,
and to show grace and generosity to others.
We can give money, or food, or time,
or serve people,
or visit them in the hospital,
We can be unbelievably generous,
just like Boaz,
Because we understand that,
just like the field of Boaz,
everything we own actually belongs to God.
We’ve received his grace and favor,
so that we can then give it away.
Lets stand for prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your loving Providence, for you goodness and care for us that guides even the little details of our lives into your good purpose. We ask you Lord for your favor toward us, We ask that you will speak to us, bless us, give us your mercy, and in all this draw us close into relationship and friendship with you.
And Father we pray that we’d learn the joy it is to become people who lavish your grace and kindness to others all around us, not because we have to, but because we get to.
And whether we’re poor, like Ruth, and only have a little bit to share, or rich, like Boaz, and have much to give, I pray God, that our hands would be guided by your hands, and that you would give us opportunities to bless others. I pray that we would be a church that would share in the great joy of doing the work of the gospel, and following the example of Boaz, and proclaiming the love of Jesus. Amen.
