A Story Of Redemption
(The Faith Of A Foreign Woman)
The Story – Chapter nine
OKAY… SO MGCC – are you ready to dig into some God-breathed, living and active, sharper than a double edged sword words from the Creator of The Universe.
Awesome! Me too…
TODAY – we continue in our journey through The Story…
A 31 week journey in and through the Word of God.
A JOURNEY – we started back in January that we will not finish until September.
A JOURNEY – to know better the God we worship and the Word He breathed.
A JOURNEY – where we are seeing re-enforced again and again and again… the same truths we saw in the very beginning… in Chapter one, that our…
God is great!
Our God is Good…
And Our God is gooder than we could ever imagine…
A JOURNEY, A STORY – that really could be summed up in these
words, ‘God’s passionate pursuit of a rebellious and prodigal people.’
NOW – another thing that we have seen played out each week as we have journeyed through Story… is the concept of an upper story and lower story…
The Lower Story is what happens in our day-today life. The lower story is the one that is being written and told from a six foot perspective. IN - the lower story we’re dealing with the things that, we all deal with day in and day out. It’s paying bills. It’s crying babies. It’s dealing with grief. It’s trying to get over the flu. It’s dealing with break ups and conflict.
It’s…
• Being throw into a pit by your brothers
• Living as fugitive in the desert for 40 years
• Wandering in the wilderness
• Being oppressed by an enemy
It’s just life. It’s just kind of what happens. That’s our lower story.
AND – the truth is sometimes our lower story, ain’t so pretty… is it? BUT – the good news is that the lower story is not the only story in town…
The Upper Story is how God is moving in and through those ‘lower story’ events to restore the world to the way it was meant to be.
It is about how God can take any circumstance in the narrative of anyone’s life and make it work out for good.
THIS MORNING – we are in Chapter 9 of The Story, ‘The Faith Of A Foreign Woman’ in a conversation that I am calling, ‘A Story Of Redemption…’
NOW – I gotta be honest after the last few conversations…
• Deliverance
• Rules Of Engagement
• Are We There Yet?
• The Battle Begins, and
• Breaking The Cycle
At first I was not all that excited about chapter 9, ‘The Faith Of A Foreign Woman…’ I was like… how awesome can it be without swords, shields, battles, thundering mountains, parting seas, crumbling walls and powerful visible acts of God… I mean – where’s the action…
This week I posted this question on my facebook wall… what are your 3 all time favorite movies… and I listed mine… 1) Braveheart 2) Gladiator 3) Count of Monte Cristo…
There were no clear winners…
A lot of different movies (60+ ladies, 40+ guys)
But for the most part, there was a common theme…
Action verses chick flick
The Story
Act One: “Famine and Return”
Chapter 9 of The Story opens up with these words… (page 121, Ruth 1:1)
In the days when the judges ruled…
(Now, those 7 words say a lot about the environment where this story of redemption takes place...) As we said last week the period of Judges was a 330 year period dominated by violence, sexual immorality, greed, pride, fear, sin and evil… A time where God’s people were stuck in a very vicious cycle..
UNDERSTAND - Chapter 9 of The Story takes place in an environment that God himself describes with these words…
In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. – Judges 21:25
Okay, back to Chapter 9…
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land…
Of course there was… and it was not just a lack of food…
So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. – Ruth 1:1,2
Not too far of a move geographically, but it was a big move in many other ways…
YOU SEE - the Moabites were enemies of God’s people, and descendant from Moab who was the son of an incestual relationship between Lot and his eldest daughter. They oppressed Israel for 18 years during the period of Judges.
BOTTOM LINE – Elimelek leaving the promise land and taking his family to a pagan country was not the right move to make.
Instead of trusting in God, he trusts in Moab’s food supply.
Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.
4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth…
AND HERE – we see another mistake that was made by this family… Marrying people who are not God’s people.
Sure sometimes it works out, but many times it does not.
NOW – I not sure if you knew this or not… BUT – when Oprah Winfrey was born her parents intended to name her ‘Orpah…’
But somehow the r and the p got switched…
NOW – I contacted Oprah this week and told her that we would be talking about this today – and she was so excited that she had us put keys to a brand new 2013 Camaro, under everyone’s seat in this room.
Just kidding…
But some of you are still going to look just in case.
After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
Yeah, talk about a rough ‘Lower Story…’
I am sure that most of us have heard, and have probably lived at times, the expression, "When it rains, it pours."
It seems that many times just as we think things couldn't possibly get any worse, they do. Often times, our lives can seem like a BAD country and Western song, our wife leaves us, the barn burns down, the crops fail and the dog dies - or something like that.
In the passage we just read we see Naomi going through a time of great crisis that is why some people call her, "The Job of Womanhood" and with good reason… I MEAN – as her story begins we see her… leaving her hometown of Bethlehem…
And I think as they leave that Naomi thinks, “Well, you know, I’ve lost…I’ve lost everything. We’re losing our home and our land. But I’ve got my husband, and he’s a good man and he takes care of us. And I’ve got my two boys, and they’re healthy and they’re strong. And I’ve got my God. I’ve got my faith. You know what? If I’ve got that, I’m okay.” She even says later in the book that when she left her town for Moab she left feeling full.
But they get to Moab and her husband gets sick…and he doesn’t get better. He becomes weaker and weaker, and eventually her husband dies. And here she is a single mom, a widow, in Moab, this hostile country, trying to raise two boys.
The two boys grow up and they fall in love with two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. And they get married. And it seems like a great day, right? Finally some good news for Naomi and for her family—two weddings! But these two weddings are followed very quickly by two funerals. No time for grandkids. As Naomi, after losing her husband, loses both of her sons. And she’s just experiencing incredible…incredible grief.
“Grief is the helpless wishing that things were different when you know they are not and they never will be again.” – Edgar Jackson
Some of you, you get it. You know loss and you know disappointment. And some of you don’t…but you will. None of us are exempt from this. If it’s not here, it’s coming. And Naomi experiences what would seem to be an almost unbearable amount of loss—just one thing after another.
6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
Now, I really like that phrase… it’s powerful. Motivating…
she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
Awesome, there always is a road back… From where we are to the place God intends for us to be… I don’t know, maybe that is why God brought you here this morning to tell you that you do not need to stay where you are, that there is a road back.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has turned against me!”
14 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” 16 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. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her…
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem…
Came to where? OKAY - here is our first clue… THAT - something just might be going on here… THAT - maybe God is doing some kind of Upper Story thing that we cannot see always see from the 6 foot level.
QUESTION – what emotions do you think Naomi felt as she arrived back in her hometown and saw all of those familiar sights? The place here Elimelech first met, the streets they walk down together, the places her two boys ran and played…
When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
Do you see the expression on her face? She’s angry. She is mad at God because He has not held up His end of the deal. This is not the way her story was supposed to go. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. And she says, “Look what God has done to me. He’s made my life bitter. The Almighty has brought this misfortune upon me. It’s His fault. He’s afflicted me.”
I wonder if some of this sounds familiar. You just reach this point where it feels like what you had hoped for, what you felt like God was gonna deliver or give you just…it hasn’t worked out.
I’ve been there and felt that way… A LOT!!!
So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Act Two: “As It Turned Out”
Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”
Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” 3 So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. – Ruth 2:1-3
I love it… As it turned out
IN – other words, get ready because we are fixing to see God’s Upper Story start unfolding right on top of Ruth and Naomi’s lower story, right before our very eyes…
AND – what I want to do know since most of you have read this story is to summarize what goes down in
Act 2: ‘As It Turned Out…’
• So Ruth is in this field that (as it turns out) belongs to Boaz, gleaning…
(Gleaning is a way that God provided in His law to care for the poor. God told his people in Leviticus that when they harvested their fields that they were not to harvest the edges or to go back and harvest a second time through the field to get what they missed. They were to leave that for the poor who would come behind the harvesters and glean the field).
• Boaz notices her… “who is she…”
• She is a Moabite who came back with Naomi
• Boaz goes over to her… she should only glean in his field where she will be safe… And that he has told his men to not lay a hand on her…
• Ruth is like… okay, why are you being so kind to me… are you wanting something in return
• Boaz – I have heard about how kind you have been to your mother in-law Naomi
• Boaz tells his guys to make things real easy for Ruth as she gleans and to even throw some extra stuff on the ground for her to pick up…
• When Ruth comes home and Naomi sees all the grain she brought back she is blown away and says in whose field were you gleaning?
• A guy named Boaz…
“The LORD bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.” - Ruth 2:20
A close relative that would marry a widow and raise up children in the name of the one who died…
• At this point Naomi begins to take on the role of a match-maker…
• Ruth continues to work in Boaz field until the harvest in over
• When the harvest is over Naomi tells Ruth to…
Take a bath – put on a nice dress – go to the threshing floor – don’t let Boaz see you – wait until he is done eating and is in bed and go to where he is sleeping – uncover his feet and lay down (yeah it seems weird but basically meant will you marry me) – Ruth does it (nothing sexual here) – Boaz wakes up – accepts her proposal – but says he has some details to work out with the guy who is in line ahead of him to marry her) – Boaz works out the details (redeems the land, marries Ruth, they have a son named Obed, and the live happily ever after)
Great story – here’s 5 takeaways…
The Takeaways
Your TRAGEDY: can lead to TRIUMPH
As we read - the story in the Book of Ruth of Naomi, and here’s… the question: What’s the story about? What’s it really about?
NOW - we read it and we think, “Well, this…it’s easy. The story is about loss. It is about a woman who just loses. She loses her home, her land, her husband, her sons. It’s a story about loss.”
And here is the question I would ask: Does the story have to be about loss? Does it have to be about that? YES - she loses a lot—incredible pain and loss. But does her story have to be about loss. Is that what the story has to be about?
There is a guy named Jerry Sittser, who was a professor at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. A number of years ago Gerald (was) in a car accident. He was hit by a drunk driver in a minivan. He lost…he lost three generations. He lost his mom; he lost his wife, and he lost his young daughter. But he was not hurt.
And he wrote a book about the journey he took after that night. The book is called A Grace Disguised (how the soul grows through loss).
I love the title. I love the book. It is the book that God used to help me get through the death of my first wife from cancer in 1996.
The week after Judy’s death I went to a Christian bookstore looking for a book… I just felt there was something there God wanted me to have.
The first books were not written by guys I felt had been there and done that…
And then I picked up Jerry’s book, and knew it was from God.
This book and God enabled to stand up in church 9 days after churches death and share a message about being a victor not a victim and turning our trials into triumphs!
Since then I always have a copy on hand and have passed 20 or more over the years… to people suffering loss.
AND CHECKOUT – what Jerry S. said in an interview…
“The experience of loss does not need to be the defining moment of our story. The defining moment can be our response to the loss. The story doesn’t have to be about the loss; the story could be about our response to the loss.” - Jerry Sittser (a Grace Disguised)
UNDERSTAND - we don’t get to decide what roles we play in the story of our lives, but we do get to decide how we play the roles that we’re given.
And so we reach this point in our loss… we reach this point in our story where we ask, “Is this going to define me? Is this going be what my life is about? Is my story just going be a story of loss? Is that it?” Or could the story be about something different?
Am I just going to go through this – or am I going to grow through this. My story, my choice.
AND YEAH - That’s hard. And I think it was hard for Naomi not to just get caught up in the pain of the lower story. We tend to just get focused on what’s happening right in front of us. Naomi says, “Don’t call me sweet because I’m bitter. I left full. I’ve come back empty.”
BUT LISTEN – here is what we know… That if there is one word to describe the story of Naomi, the word is not loss; the word is redemption.
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. – James 1:2-4
Your CHARACTER: matters and is REFINED in the fire
In this story we also see how much character matters…
UNDERSTAND – it was the character of Boaz and Ruth that enabled God to pour out such an awesome UPPER STORY on their lives
AND LISTEN – that character was refined in the fire…
There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. – 1 Peter 1:6,7
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. – Romans 5:3,4
So how is your character doing?
Could it use some refining?
Will you let what you are going through be that refiner?
Your SACRIFICE: may be your SALVATION
YOU KNOW - so many times when we make a sacrifice for someone… we think that we are being so kind… “I am going to help you…”
Typically our service to others is actually God’s way of saving us
UNDERSTAND – Ruth would not have been a part of God’s people if she had not made this sacrifice…
You see, so often it is not in spite of our sacrifice and in spite of what we gave up… but because of them that we have life…
For example - 2 times God just kind of dropped in and called Laurie and I to adopt orphans from China.
Each time we sacrificed – sold things – took out second mortgages, it was not easy or cheap…
BUT – in the end we have and are continuing to get back more and more than we ever sacrificed…
I mean 8 years later we cannot even imagine life without Mei-Leigh and Jin-Tao.
YES – our sacrifice became and still is our salvation… who needs an empty nest anyhow.
You know the truth is that every time… I think, ‘God look what I am sacrificing for you, giving up for you… When my heart is right, when it is in tune… I realize that it has been for my salvation…
Your HAPPY ENDING: is never just for you
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. 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.”
Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. – Ruth 4:13-17
Talk about a happy ending…
BUT LISTEN – it wasn’t just for Naomi… was it?
Actually it was for you and for me and for the entire world… Ruth is right there in the family line of Jesus.
In fact, if our happy endings do not result in others being blessed it should give us pause…
UNDERSTAND GOD - gives us happy endings so that our happy endings will bless the lives of others…
Years ago I went to a pastors retreat with Bob Russell.
And since then I (along with hundreds of others) am on this awesome email list.
You see – there is a friend of Bob’s who has the gift of making lots of money and several times a year… he dumps $500,000-1,000,000 dollars into Bob’s ministry – and Bob and turn send us an email saying who do you know that would be blessed by $1000!
I have been able to hand a bunch of people $1000 checks.
I don’t even know the guys name.
But he is blessing thousands of people every single year.
Your STORY: is to be one of REDEMPTION
Now, A Redeemer is one who has the right, the privilege, and responsibility to pay the price and set things right.
A redeemer… redeems.
Understand – if you are a Jesus follower, your story is to be a story of redemption…
AND – let me tell you Boaz story was one of redemption… it began with redemption and it become one of redemption…
QUESTION - do you know who his mom was?
Rahab the prostitute .
YOU KNOW – the Chapter 9 of The Story was just what I needed…
IT - showed me who some of the great heroes really are…
AND – they are not always, the guys waving a sword in a battle… though seems, so much more glorious and exciting…
God does not need us to be great in the moment,
He needs us to be good for a lifetime.
AND LISTEN – there are some of those kind of heroes in our church… WHOSE STORY - is one of redemption..
• Spouses caring for a sick spouse day after day
• Children caring for their elderly parents
• Grandparents who are raising their grandkids because mom and dad just are not around
If you could join Jesus in redeeming one thing,
who or what would that be?
AGAIN - one of things I grew to love about this chapter as I studied it this week- is that it is so different from the other stories we’ve looked at so far in this journey through God’s Story.
I MEAN… there are no great miracles or obvious acts of God. NO…
• burning bush
• thundering mountains
• no splitting of the Red Sea or the Jordan River,
• no crumbling walls
• No miraculous supernatural military victories like with Gideon…
NO - nothing at all like that…
BUT LISTEN - you get to the end of this story, and here’s what you know for certain:
God is at work. That’s the message. That is the message of this story. God is at work.
It may feel too late. Things may seem too broken.
But God is at work.
It doesn’t seem obvious. His hand is not necessarily apparent.
But God is at work.
It may not be dramatic. It may not be immediate.
But God is at work.
And so I’m just saying, when life hands you a Lower Story…
That is kind of a rough, one that comes with a label that says things like:
“widow” or “divorced” or “cancer” or “terminated” or “infertile” or “abused” “failure” “tragedy”
Don’t…don’t let that be your story. Your story does not have to be about loss. Your story can be about redemption. Give God a chance to work.
(note - some of these thoughts came from a message I heard Kyle Idleman preach)
