GODS HAND IN OUR REDEMPTION
Ruth, Part 4
This is the last week of our series on the book of Ruth.
Lets do a little review,
for those of you who may have missed a week.
The story takes place in the time of the Judges,
which is a dark period of Israel’s history,
about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.
You can read about it in the Book of Judges
which is just before the book of Ruth in the Bible.
The story happens in the town of Bethlehem,
which literally means,
“House of Bread,”
and then we discover that there was famine,
so there’s no bread,
and its likely the result of
God disciplining his disobedient people
in an effort to bring them to repentance.
The story is about an ordinary family
headed by a man named Elimelech,
who makes a very dumb decision,
and because of the famine decides to move his family
away from Bethlehem,
away from God’s people,
away from anyone who worships God,
to a place called Moab.
Moab is a strange place to move to,
Because the tribe of Moab got started
when a man named Lot got drunk
and had incestuous relations with his daughter.
They gave birth to a boy and named him Moab.
And the Moabites are all descendants of that incest,
and they worship a false God named Chemosh,
who requires human sacrifice.
Of course when they arrive in Moab,
there’s no church to attend,
no Bible studies,
no prayer meetings,
nobody knows the God of the Bible,
no fellowship for his wife or sons.
Elimelek is basically a foolish man
who is only thinking about economic opportunity and money,
and doesn’t think about the Spiritual implications
of where his family will live.
I’m sure you’ve never met anyone like that,
who places a higher priority on money,
than they do on spiritual things.
They live there for ten years,
and the two sons get married to Moabite women,
named Orpah and Ruth.
No children are born.
And then tragically,
Elimelech and his two sons all die,
leaving the three widows destitute.
Naomi then hears that God has blessed his people in Bethlehem.
The famine is over,
a harvest has come.
She decides to return home to Bethlehem;
return to God and his people.
One of her daughters-in-law, Ruth
is devoted to Naomi,
and decides she also wants to go to Bethlehem
so she can worship the true God along with God’s people.
So she and Naomi get to Bethlehem,
and the women there ask Naomi,
“It’s been a decade.
We haven’t seen you.
How are you doing?”
She says, “Don’t call me Naomi,
which means pleasant or sweet,
call me Mara, which means bitter.
I’m unhappy. I’m angry at God. I’m devastated.
I don’t like what God has allowed to happen to me.”
She opens up and shares her heart,
and by being honest,
and not pretending to be okay,
she also opened herself to God’s healing.
In Chapter 2, we then find that
Ruth and Naomi have no money, no food,no help.
They’re in a desperate situation.
So Ruth asks Naomi permission to go glean in the fields,
which is the equivalent of going to the food bank
or the soup kitchen in that day.
It was dangerous for a young woman
to go all by herself and glean in the field,
but she’s trusting that
God would give her favor in the eyes of someone.
And then we start to see
one the great themes of the Book of Ruth,
the providence of God.
We talked about how God works through two hands,
his visible hand of miracle,
and his invisible hand of providence.
Sometimes God works through his visible hand of miracle,
so we see God part the Red Sea,
and speak out of a burning bush,
a we see that virgin has a baby
who walks on water, and raises dead people.
In those situations it’s obvious that God is at work.
God’s invisible hand of providence is less obvious,
we can only see it through faith,
but this is happening everywhere around us all the time,
whether we realize it or not.
God is involved with even the little details of our lives,
determining where people live,
and where they move,
and who they work with,
who they happen to cross paths with.
Well, it just so happens,
of all of the fields that Ruth could’ve ended up in,
she happened to find herself
in the field of a man named Boaz.
Who just happened to be Godly, rich,
generous, and single,
When he finds out who she is,
Boaz praises her
because he’s heard how kind she’s been to Naomi,
and he prays for her,
give her a generous gift,
and says she can come back and gather grain every day
until harvest is over.
In fact, He’s so nice to her,
it looks like love is in the air.
Maybe they’ll live happily ever after,
get a cake,
go on a cruise,
name their kids Buffy and Fluffy
and get a poodle.
It’ll be like Sound of Music and they’ll all sing songs,
and live happily ever after.
You hope that’s the way the story is going.
But, then it doesn’t seem to go there.
For six, seven weeks,
she shows up to work
and Boaz does nothing.
No follow-up.
No second date.
No text message.
No coffee, No dinner.
Nothing.
Like so many men,
he apparently doesn’t know how to close the deal.
Finally mother-in-law Naomi,
the wise older woman says,
“Here’s what you do,
Go tanning.
get your teeth whitened
Get your hair done.
get your nails done,
shave the legs and pits so you don’t look like Chewbacca.
Get a new dress.
Put on some perfume.
and go the harvest party
where Boaz is gonna be.
So Ruth takes Naomi’s advice,
she gets ready to go,
and then Naomi also gives some advice
that would be really strange today,
but in that culture and time it worked out okay.
She says, wait until he goes to sleep
by the pile of grain,
then go uncover his feet,
and lay down there.
So Ruth does that,
and in the middle of the night Boaz wakes up,
notices there’s a woman there,
and says, “Who’s there?”
“Ruth says, Its me, Ruth.
Spread the corner of your garment over me
since you’re my family redeemer.
which is another way of saying,
I love you and want to marry you,
and be your wife,
and if we could make some babies that would be awesome.
Now, Boaz is a little surprised that she’s even interested in him,
but he’s definitely interested in her,
so he says, okay, done.
I would love to marry you,
but, actually there’s a complication.
He’s not legally first in line
with the right to marry her.
Under the laws of that time,
There’s another guy
who’s got the right to marry her first.
The bible doesn’t give the other guy a name,
so we’ll call him Mr. What’sHisFace.
So Boaz has to deal with Mr. What’s-his-face
before he can promise to marry Ruth.
That’s where we ended the story last week.
Now before we jump into Chapter 4,
Some of you here are single,
and when you love someone
and want to marry them,
almost always, you’re going to find that,
there will be some obstacle
that stands in the way of getting married.
And you’ll need to overcome that obstacle
to marry them.
The obstacle could be debt,
or kids from another marriage,
or job situations,
or other family problems,
or patterns of sin or addiction,
or geographical separation…
But whatever it is,
I believe God in his Providence
allows these sorts of complications.
And I believe God does that for two reasons.
First, it allows you to settle the issue in your own heart,
of how devoted you truly are to that person.
How much are you willing to sacrifice?
What are you willing to work through?
What are you willing to pay or endure
to be with that person?
Secondly, it reveals to the other person,
the depth of your commitment.
If she or he knows you’re willing to
go through this,
overcome that,
work through this obstacle,
overcome this financial difficulty
or geographic limitation,
he must really love me,
or she must really love me,
because they’re willing to go
above and beyond the call of duty,
to be with me.
This was certainly true for Kathy and I.
We met, dated for about 3 months,
I asked her to marry me…
and then two months later
I went out to sea on an aircraft carrier,
for eight months.
And this was in the dark ages before email,
before cell phones,
before texting,
before skype.
You’re not going to believe this,
but you know how Kathy and I had to communicate for eight months?
We wrote letters.
Yes, I know that’s completely barbaric and ridiculous.
But its true, we wrote letters,
put a stamp on it,
and then waited three weeks for it to get there,
because mail out to a boat in the Indian Ocean is slow.
We’ve got a box somewhere in our basement,
with about 300 love letters
because we were apart for 8 months,
right after getting engaged.
I’m amazed Kathy waited for me.
But the truth is,
that obstacle, that challenge, that difficulty,
actually strengthened our love,
and strengthened our relationship.
The point is,
when you meet the right person,
don’t expect it to work out easy,
because God doesn’t do things that way very often.
Now lets jump into
Chapter 4 Verse 1.
Meanwhile Boaz
[whose name means
mighty man of strength, ]
went up to the town gate and sat down there
So, he leaves his harvest in the field…
Now this is after ten years of famine,
so the harvest is really important,
but he makes the source of his wealth, a lower priority,
and goes to town to settle the situation with Ruth,
because she is now his first priority.
and he wants to marry her right now.
The gate of the town back then
was the main meeting place,
for socializing,
and also for business transactions.
So, first thing in the morning,
Boaz goes there to find Mr. What’s-his-face.
As soon as he sits down, the bible says,
it just so happens,
who comes by, but Mr. What’s-his-face.
Boaz sat down there just as the family guardian he had mentioned came along.
Again, the providence of God
is working behind the scenes,
making things work out.
Because Boaz was honorable with Ruth on the threshing floor,
didn’t have any inappropriate physical relations
but obeyed God,
so God blesses his next steps,
by bringing along Mr. What’s-his-face
as soon as Boaz gets there.
Boaz said, "Come over here, my friend, and sit down." So he went over and sat down.
Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, "Sit here," and they did so.
So, he grabs ten guys who were elders and says,
“I need to do a legal transaction.
I need witnesses.
You, you, you, you, you, you sit down.
Verse 3
Then he said to the family guardian, "Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelek. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line."
Now, Mr. What’s-his-face is a loser.
You say, “Ken, that’s kind of mean,”
yeah I know.
Why is he a loser?
Because he is legally and spiritually obligated,
as the closest living male relative to Naomi and Ruth,
to take care of them.
We talked about this last week,
that because he was the family guardian or redeemer,
he was supposed to help them out.
But at this point,
he’s done nothing for these women;
They’re living in poverty.
He probably lives only a mile or two away.
its a small town.
But he doesn’t go visit.
He doesn’t call, and ask,
“How are you doing?
Do you need any food?
Your husbands are dead.
Can I pray for you?”
No, he does nothing.
This is a man who has abdicated his responsibilities.
And some of you might look at him and say,
Well, he’s not a bad guy,
he didn’t anything wrong,
Sometimes a person sins by co-mission,
where he does a bad thing.
But sometimes he sins by omission,
where he doesn’t do anything,
when he ought to be doing something.
But though he’s a loser, he likes land,
So, in verse 4
"I will redeem it," he said.
But then Boaz says, not so fast,
before you buy,
you should know there’s some strings attached.
Verse 5
Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property."
Boaz is saying here
you really get two extras with this property.
You get a new wife, and her bitter mother-in-law.
Think about if you were looking at a new house,
walked in and looked around, and said,
Wow, this is a great house.
Its an incredible value.
I wonder why its so cheap.
The realtor says,
well, upstairs in the Master bedroom,
there’s a bitter old woman.
She stays.
Also, you have to marry her daughter,
have some more kids,
and support them all.
You might say,
You know, this house isn’t quite as nice as I thought.
The deal has suddenly lost interest for me.
Mr. WhatsHisFace is thinking,
You know, now I think of it,
I already got a wife and a mother-in-law,
already have some kids.
You know this deal is sounding like
an awful lot of mother-in-laws,
and more kids to support,
I’ve already done the kid thing,
they’re up all night,
take a lot of time,
cost a lot of money,
and at first they’re like sprinklers,
fluid coming out of all the holes.
And then these kids will grow up,
they’ll want a share of the inheritance
that I’ve already promised to my other kids.
So Mr. WhatsHisFace thinks it over,
and amazingly,
has a change of mind about this deal.
Verse 6
At this, the family guardian said, "Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it."
7 (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.)
8 So the family guardian said to Boaz, "Buy it yourself." And he removed his sandal.
This was the way they did a
legally binding contractual agreement,
back then.
Today we’d sign a contract and have a notary stamp it,
Back then, they’d gather witnesses,
and the way they’d seal the deal,
they would take off their sandal,
and give it to the other person,
and this would be the public declaration
that they had agreed to the deal.
Now I know what some of you women are thinking.
I would not have wanted to do much business back then,
because my shoe collection would totally not match.
I’d be missing half of the shoes.
Verse 9
Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, "Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. 10 I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon's widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown. Today you are witnesses!"
11 Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, "We are witnesses.
Then I love this next part,
the elders pray for them.
First they pray for Ruth.
May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.
Rachel and Leah were the mothers of the 12 tribes of Israel,
they’re the matriarchs,
the most respected women in Israel’s history.
So Ruth has now gone from being the Moabite outsider,
to the highly respected Matriarch insider.
Then they pray for Boaz.
May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
What they’re saying is this,
“Boaz, you’re a great man.
We all know it.
You’re good in business.
You love people.
You’re generous.
You’re kind.
You bless everyone.
We pray that you continue.
We pray that you keep it up.
Some people get off to a good start,
in life,
or in marriage and family,
or in their relationship with God,
they get off to a good start,
but then they get off track.
Would that describe you this morning?
Continue. Keep it up.
Don’t get off track.
The apostle Paul tells us,
You want to run your race well,
all the way till the end.
Don’t stop short,
don’t get off track.
You want to finish your life well,
So they pray, Boaz, keep doing what you’re doing.
Don’t mess this up.
God has provided,
and now you must continue.
And then the last thing they pray for
is the children who will come through them,
Verse 12
Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah."
Boaz and the people of Bethlehem
are descendants of Perez,
so this is a great honor.
Now let me talk for a second
to those of you are single and want to get married.
Not everyone’s going to get married,
Obviously Jesus himself, was not married.
But statistically, over 90 percent of you will marry.
And if that is the desire of your heart,
My question to you then is,
are you living in such a way
as to prepare yourself for marriage?
I want to ask some personal questions,
and I don’t want to offend you,
but I do want to challenge you.
And some of these questions will apply to you married folks as well.
First, If you’re dating someone who doesn’t love Jesus,
why would you do that?
If you want to marry someone who loves Jesus,
why would you get romantically entangled
with someone who doesn’t love Jesus?
That’s not leading toward the marriage you want.
Next question…
When you do get married,
Do you want to have a holy, satisfying,
blessed sex life with your spouse?
That is a wonderful goal to have.
So then ask yourself,
is messing around with your boyfriend or girlfriend
going to achieve that?
And will God bless that?
Another question…
If you’re working a dead-end job
simply because you’re lazy
is that going to prepare you for your future,
and be a blessing to your marriage and family?
If you’re racking up debt,
is that going to prepare you for your future?
If you’re sporadic in your walk with God,
in reading the bible, and prayer,
or in habits of sin,
is that going to prepare you for your future?
Is that going to bless the marriage and family,
that you want to have?
Boaz and Ruth lived in holiness
and obedience and Godliness
until God brought them together.
And when he did,
they were able to move toward marriage quickly.
Even though there were obstacles,
they were able to quickly overcome them
because they were living in such a way
that they were ready to enter into that next season of life.
Now, outside of the four walls of this building,
you will be strongly encouraged
to just have a good time.
In this building, as your Pastor,
I want to encourage you to
think not just about a good time,
but about a good legacy.
Are you living in such a way to build a legacy?
If you’re not living that way now,
let me assure you:
when you get married it gets harder, not easier,
and when you have children, it gets even harder.
The time to start building your legacy,
is now, before you’re married.
Let me tell you a little of my story.
And I want to emphasize that
I’m a sinner like everyone here,
I’ve blown a lot of things,
I am no better than anyone here,
but about 30 years ago I did some things right,
and made some good choices,
and its blessed me ever since.
When I met my wife Kathy, [wedding picture]
I was 25 years old,
and I was a virgin until our wedding night.
Now some of you are saying,
Well Ken, of course,
you’re a pastor.
At the time, I was a pilot in the Navy,
living in San Diego,
with no intention of ever being a pastor,
and all my buddies were sleeping with everything in sight.
But I made a choice.
I wanted to honor God.
I met Kathy at church,
and we started dating.
We both fell for each other very quickly.
But I didn’t kiss her,
not even a goodbye kiss, for 10 dates.
I wanted to make sure our relationship had a chance to grow strong,
and its been proven that physical contact early on
stops a relationship from growing.
Now, Kathy did not understand the no kiss thing.
She had a conversation with me on about the 6th or 7th date,
I think we were sitting in Marie Callendars restaurant eating pie,
she was basically trying to figure out if I was gay or not.
I told her that I was extremely attracted to her physically,
I mean, you see the picture, how could I not be,
and that was even more reason to take it slow.
Another thing we did
within a few weeks after we started dating,
was start a bible study together, just the two of us.
I bought some bible study books,
each week we’d have to read scripture
and fill out the answers, on our own,
then meet together to go over it.
And I remember sitting by the pool with her in San Diego,
we each had our workbook,
and we’re going over the answers together.
We did that every week.
We also started the habit of praying together,
at the end of each date.
Hey, if you’re not gonna kiss,
you gotta do something,
so you might as well pray.
Now let me ask you.
Do you think God noticed
the choices Kathy and I were making in our relationship?
Do you think God was pleased with that,
and do you think he blessed us as a result?
The answer to all 3 of those questions
is yes, absolutely yes, you better believe it 1000% yes..
God noticed, was pleased, and blessed us hugely.
Let me ask another question.
Do you think any of those choices happened by accident?
No, it was not an accident.
Before I ever met Kathy,
I was prepared, I had a plan,
I wanted to create a legacy with my life, and family,
and I knew that a legacy starts
when you’re single.
Now some of you hear this and you’re thinking,
its too late for me,
I’ve already blown it.
No. Its not too late.
You can change, starting today.
And God will notice if you do,
he will be pleased,
and he will bring blessings into your life.
It is not too late, ever.
So, ask yourself right now,
Am I living in such a way
that it’ll lead toward the goal of my life,
so that it’ll create a legacy
that one day I’ll be proud of.
Verse 13
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.
Finally, they get married.
This book is about the providence of God:
With God working behind the scenes,
it really doesn’t matter where you come from
or what you’ve done,
if you meet Jesus and follow him,
everything can and will change.
You can have a horrible situation, as Ruth did,
and you can have a wonderful conclusion, as Ruth does.
The story starts with her at a funeral.
It doesn’t get any sadder than that.
But it’s a beautiful story of redemption.
We see her in Chapter 1 go from a foreigner, immigrant,
to Chapter 2 being a broke, lowly servant,
Chapter 3, an honored and respected servant,
and now in Chapter 4, a beloved bride, wife and mother.
When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
So they get married and have sexual relations for the very first time.
At our church we would encourage you
to not be sexually active until you’re married,
and then make up for lost time.
That’s our official position.
If you already have been sexually active,
its not too late for you.
Jesus died for those sins, he will forgive you,
and you can have a clean, new life of holiness.
The idea is not for you to go out of here feeling guilty,
the idea is for you to bring God’s blessing
onto the rest of your life,
by giving him this area of your life today.
That’s what happened with Ruth.
the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
She had been previously married for how long?
Could have been up to ten years,
because that’s how long Elimeleks family was in Moab.
And how many kids did she have?
Zero.
But now she’s following God.
Wedding night, what does she get?
Pregnant.
But Ruth isn’t the only one blessed in this deal.
The scene shifts to the mother-in-law,
Verse 14
The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a family guardian.
Talking about this baby boy,
they say, he’s gonna be a family guardian,
or a better word is, a redeemer,
just like his dad was.
May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
Seven is the number of perfection;
seven sons is a picture in Scripture of the perfect family.
They say, Naomi, it looked like your life was destroyed,
but now it’s perfect.
And your daughter-in-law, Ruth,
she loves you so much,
she’s a better gift to you than seven sons;
not only that, but you got your grandson.
16 Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son!"
Naomi has gone from being a bitter old woman,
to being a blessed grandma,
her life has taken a dramatic turn for the better.
The final picture we have of Naomi in the Book
is holding her grandchild.
playing with him,
making him laugh,
rocking him to sleep.
And she’s in the rocking chair
just smiling and thanking God
that her life has been redeemed,
and that she gets to be a grandma.
What a blessed woman she is.
And they named him Obed
[which means worshiper, or servant of God].
He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Who is David? Is that anybody important?
Yeah, he fought a guy named Goliath,
and became the greatest king of Israel.
So King David was Ruth’s great grandson.
18 This, then, is the family line of Perez:
Perez was the father of Hezron, 19 Hezron the father of Ram,Ram the father of Amminadab, 20 Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, 21 Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed,22 Obed the father of Jesse,and Jesse the father of David.
There’s one other place in the Bible,
that the name of Ruth is mentioned.
Anybody know where it is?
Matthew, Chapter 1.
where it lists the family line of Jesus Christ.
I’ll read it to you fast,
because its like reading the Hebrew phone book?
And I’m gonna skip some.
Matt 1:1-16
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron,
…we’ll skip to verse 15
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David.
Then it keeps going…
David was the father of Solomon,
Then we’ll skip about 20 names…to verse 15
Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
Jesus Christ, who was called the Bread of Life,
was born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread,
the same town where Boaz and Ruth fell in love,
got married,
and raised baby Obed.
Jesus came to be the redeemer,
in every way like but superior to, Boaz,
the redeemer of Ruth and Naomi.
So Boaz is a redeemer
and Jesus is the redeemer.
Boaz was a close relative to Ruth
and Jesus Christ became a man
so that he could identify with us
and become of family member of ours,
He is the first-born of many brothers and sisters,
including you and me.
Boaz alone was able to redeem Ruth
and Jesus alone, is able to redeem us.
Boaz did it through financial power;
Jesus did it through the power of a perfect, sinless life.
Boaz was not forced or obligated to marry and redeem Ruth,
but he was more than willing.
Jesus is not forced or obligated to redeem us,
but he is more than willing.
Boaz redeemed Ruth because of love,
Jesus redeems us because of love.
It cost Boaz a lot of money to redeem Ruth,
It cost Jesus his own life.
He went to the cross and died,
to pay the price for our sins.
Ruth received that redemption freely, as a gift,
she did nothing to earn it.
We must receive our redemption freely, as a gift,
we can do nothing to earn it.
Boaz takes Ruth to be his wife.
He loves her,
and has a lifelong relationship with her.
Jesus Christ takes the church,
in other words, you and me,
to be his bride,
and he loves us,
and has an eternal relationship with us.
Boaz not only redeemed his bride,
he also redeemed the land.
We’re waiting for the Lord Jesus to return
when he will finish and complete his work of redemption,
by redeeming his land, the earth, and all creation.
Finally, the bride of Boaz lived in Holiness, trusting God,
The bride of Christ is to do the same.
PRAYER
God, I thank you that you are a father who loves us first, and then it is your kindness that leads us to repentance, and that you don’t hand us a list of religious rules. You hand us redemption. God I pray you would send your Holy Spirit so that we can understand redemption and that we would understand it in light of Jesus
Lord Jesus, I pray for the men here that they wouldn’t be like Elimelech and Mr. What’s-his-face, but they would be like Boaz. I pray that the ladies would be like Ruth, Holy and trusting wholeheartedly. I pray, Lord God, for the marriages that they would be endearing and enduring. I pray for the children that they would be part of the legacy.
Lord God, we come to you, as Ruth came to Boaz. We trust you, Lord Jesus, and we thank you for the redemption that you have given to us as a loving gift. Amen.
