Scripture: Ruth 1:1-18; Romans 16
Theme: Thankfulness - Thanking God for Friends
Sermon: Based on the life of Ruth and Naomi - a sermon about the joy of friendship - a sermon designed to start a series on Thankfulness.
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Savior and LORD!
How many would agree this morning that Friendship is a Good Thing?
How many would agree that for the most part many people have forgotten how important it is to have some friends; especially some close friends.
In a recent study done (by sociologists) it was discovered that it is very likely that more than once we have:
+Taken our friends for granted.
+As we raised our family or are continuing to raise our family we have tended to neglect our friends counting on members of our family to fill that need.
+Believed that we no longer see the need to put in the effort to make and keep close friendships - we can make it quite nicely on our own.
In fact, what is perhaps even more surprising is that while the average number of "friends' that the average Facebook user has is around 200 the truth is most people have fewer friends that they call close friends than they have fingers on one hand. Back in 1985 most people stated that they only had 3 close friends. That number for most people was under 2 by 2004 and today stands about the same (under two).
Perhaps what is most shocking is that around 25% of our population stated that they have no close friends - no one to go and share a cup of coffee with, no one who they can take a walk with or do anything with - the majority of the time they live without any close friend or connection at all.
That is not only shocking it is quite dangerous. A majority of physicians and health professionals tell us that it is physically and mentally detrimental for us not to make and retain friends. Friends are quite beneficial. Friends keep us strong and vigorous. They keep us energetic and alive. Some studies have shown that not having friends is more dangerous than being obese and is the equivalent health risk of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Friends can help our mental health because they can be the mirror to our minds, our souls and our emotional health. Friends are better at describing our behavioral traits than we are at self- diagnosis. Friends can help us enjoy life more, endure grief and sorrow and help us understand how to be more kind, patient and loving.
This morning, if you have just three close friends there is a 96% chance that you are among a group of the most happiest people on our planet. Now three close friends are vastly different that having people who "like" your picture, your comments or something you post on Facebook. Facebook friends and real friends are not always one and the same.
This morning, our Bible story reveals to us some wonderful truths about friendship. It's a story about a friendship between two women - Ruth and Naomi. At first we get the impression that while they are relatives they may not have been close friends. After all, Naomi does her best to get Ruth and Orpha to leave her alone after the death of her husband and her two sons. Naomi wants to return to Israel in all her misery, alone, depressed and dejected.
But it is right here that Ruth begins to teach us the value and importance of friendship. Ruth would not let Naomi stay depressed, lonely or miserable. In fact, it could be said that Ruth stalked her, bugged her and pushed herself upon Naomi. Ruth realized deep down in her soul that if she allowed this woman to go by herself that it wouldn't be too long before she would hear about her getting sick and perhaps dying. Naomi felt she had nothing to live for. I believe that Naomi merely wanted to go back to Israel, tell everyone her sad story and die. The Bible tells us that she had even given herself a new name - Mara - Bitter Woman. Wow! Now that's falling into a pit of depression.
Ruth takes a chance - a chance that saves Naomi's life and in the end enables the both of them to receive a blessing, a miracle and an anointing that has to be one of the greatest stories that we read in the Old Testament. It is a story of how we need to make sure today that we are reaching out to make friends and make sure that we keep alive the friendships that we already possess.
It is vital that we keep making new friends because it is normal for us to lose at least half of our friends every 7 - 10 years or more. People move away, we change jobs, our lives change and the circle of friends that we had 7 - 10 years ago are suddenly gone. It is also very possible that if we do not keep making friends that by the time we get to be senior citizens and beyond that we may not even have any friends and as we have seen that can be disastrous.
So, let's look at some things that Ruth and Naomi can help us to see how we can not only keep our current friends but also make sure that we always have friends. Because the truth is we can be living with a group of people and be around a group of people all our lives and miss out on really being anyone's true friend.
I. Friendships Are Intentional
Sometimes we get the Pollyanna idea that friendships just float out of the air. That there is this mystical thing called friendship at first glance.
Well, sometimes it really appears that is true. We meet someone and there is an automatic connection. We share the same taste, the same styles and the same thought patterns. But more often than not we become friends because one or both of the people involved decided to become intentional.
It was that way with Ruth and Naomi.
And at the time of our passage Naomi was doing her best to run away from Ruth. She wasn't reaching out to anyone for friendship. She was doing the exact opposite. She was a little caustic. In her mind the only thing that her and Ruth had in common was Chilion and he was now dead.
There were no grandchildren and there were no extended family. Realistically, neither woman was the idea match for the other. They were from different generations, their skin pigments were different, their backgrounds were vastly different, they had grown up in different cultures and they had been raised to believe in very different things.
When you first look at this passage and take it to heart - you have to think that there is no way these women could ever be friends. Oh, because of Chilion they may have had some kind of relationship but it appears that it was nothing deep - Naomi was just the mother-in-law and Ruth was just some girl that my son married.
She's dark skinned, I'm olive skinned. She was raised to believe in Chemosh and comes from Lot's people while I believe in Yahweh and I am from Abraham's people. She is in her 20's and I am well into my 50's.
But Ruth didn't let any of those things cause her to stop reaching out to Naomi. Naomi is bitter, she is surly and no doubt a little judgmental. She doesn't want to stay in Moab so she doesn't like your home Ruth. She doesn't like your people. In fact, when you really think about it there is no real good answer to why Ruth wanted to hang around Naomi. They would have never been friends if logic or reason had anything to do with it.
And that is the key. It is easy for us to find "Facebook" friends who are like us, who like the same things that we like and do the same things that we do. But if we are going to be God's change agents in our world then we have to intentionally be looking for ways to befriend others that may not be like us, may not speak like us or may not even have our religious background, skin color or cultural background.
Jesus does that with his 12 disciples. Most of them were not like him nor did they have the same taste in things as Jesus did. Jesus was a carpenter while some of them were tax collectors and fishermen. Jesus is single while some of them were married. Some of them have a few coins in their pockets while Jesus at times tells us that He didn't even have a pillow to put his head on.
And yet, Jesus goes out and makes the strangest of friends - the Woman at the Well, Nicodemus, Mary and Martha along with Peter, James and John. Now of course, not all of those friendships were of the deep kind. But some of them were so deep that together they experienced resurrections, epiphanies and miracles of all types.
Not all of our friendships will reach the depths of a Ruth and Naomi, a Jonathan and David or a Paul and Silas but we all need to be doing what we can to develop friendships.
If you have watched the business news recently you know that Sears has filed for bankruptcy. There is a great chance that after being in business for some 125 years that they will be forced to close all of their stories.
Why? What happened to what was one of the retail giants of 20th century? What happened to the store which had one of the few catalogues that everyone in America wanted?
It appears that bad management might have been one of the problems. However, bad management, I believe was not the sole problem. Neither was their merchandise. Sears still offers some of the best clothes around, the best appliances and the best tools.
I believe what happened started slowly and developed over time. It also happened to K-mart and if things don't change will one day we will watch it happen to Wal-mart. All of those retail stores along with many others were built on the platform of being friendly. On intentionally being friendly.
The truth is after a period of time it doesn't matter how cheap you are or how good your stuff is if you don't greet people with a smile, have a kind word to say or are not truly interested in a person. No one wants to be shoved down the sales line, gruffed at and sent on their way without a genuine kind word. Just popping of "have a good one" is not the same as showing genuine concern and friendship.
If we are going to enjoy longevity and have friends then we have to be friendly. We have to intentionally friendly. Ruth was intentional even when Naomi was mean, surly and depressed. Ruth was reaching out making herself available.
We must do the same if we want friends as individuals, families and as a church. We can't just be friendly when people walk in but we must be friendly out on the street. We must be friendly by inviting people to church. We must be friendly by doing things for others that friends do - helping, being compassionate and reaching out. We must be known as the church that is both friendly inside the doors and outside the doors. We must look for ways to deepen friendships and start new ones.
II. Friendship Involves Sacrifice
Another major thing that we notice about friendships is that deep, lasting and meaningful friendships don't come cheap. They involve commitment, time and resources. Deep friendships require sacrifice and the willingness to accommodate the other person and many times to surrender to their will.
As soon as Naomi and Ruth came back to Israel they had to hustle to find food and shelter. We know originally that Naomi and Elimelech had lived in Bethlehem so we can safely assume that their house was still standing and that was where Naomi and Ruth went back to stay. That took care of the shelter part. The food part proved to be a little more problematic.
The good news was that Bethlehem was an excellent place to grow all kinds of grains. The name itself (Bethlehem) means "house of bread" and it appears that the two women had made it back right around harvest season.
Now, even though they personally did not have a crop to harvest, Mosaic Law stated that all the farmers had to leave the corners of their gardens unharvested for the poor and the widows. And that when possible the poor were allowed to come and pick up the remains that were left behind after harvesting. The first gleaning was the owners and the second gleaning was suppose to belong to the widows and to the poor. This is exactly what Ruth did for Naomi and herself. She went out and gleaned for grain.
Each morning she would get up and go out and work in the fields. She would go to the corners and see if there were any vegetables or staples available. Then she would pick up anything that remained after the workers had harvested the field. This was not only hard work, it was dangerous work for a woman who unmarried, beautiful and a foreigner.
Ruth had already sacrificed a great deal for Naomi. She had turned her back on her homeland, her family and was now every day risking her life and future. In fact, according to the tradition at the time Ruth had no future. At least not in the land of Israel.
First of all, she was a Moabite. That meant that she was a woman whom any orthodox Jew would spit on. Moabites were seen to be cursed people. These were the people who had led Israel into sin in the days of Balaam and most Israelites believed that God had put a curse on them for at least 10 generations.
Added to that Ruth was young, widowed, helpless and poor. Sadly, it wasn't even seen as wrong for the men of the field to abuse her. She was fair game. I know that is hard to fathom but the truth is at Ruth's time when the Judges ruled the land of Israel things were a mess. The nation was in a flux. It had yet to decide whether it would follow God, trust one another and be a positive light to the nations around it. Sadly, often the tribes did the opposite. Too often they picked up the immoral ideas of the Canaanites who still lived around them.
Ruth literally took her life into her hands each day she went to the field. Who would believe a Moabite woman if someone attacked her? After all, her kind should have stayed back in Moab. Who would care what happened to her or even to Naomi who had after all left Israel to live among those God forsaken people.
While we relish in the ending of this story the fact remains that for a few months or perhaps even years life back in Israel was no fun at all for either Naomi or Ruth. Each day they had to do all they could to stay alive. There was no governmental safety net, no EBT cards and no monthly welfare check. It was either scratch out a living or die. It was put yourself in harm's way or die.
Who would have missed them? Who would have missed Naomi? In fact, it would be better for her to go ahead and die so that Elimelech's land could be given to his next of kin. And really would have missed Ruth, some misplaced Moabite young woman?
Ruth's sacrifice shows us the depth at times our commitment to making friends needs to achieve. She did not shy away from Naomi. She held fast to the growing friendship that they were experiencing. Even when it meant that she had to do all the heavy lifting. Even when it meant for months she had to wait hand and foot on this woman who was deep in depression and mental anguish.
Being a friend sometimes is tough. It requires a great deal of commitment, sacrifice, sweat and blood. It requires us to reach out to those who cannot reach back. It requires us to put our own wants and needs to the side to be there for another person. It requires us to be the one who is doing the heavy lifting.
The Bible is full of such stories - Jonathan helps David even when it means that David will replace him as being the next king. Barnabas helps Paul even when it means that one day Paul will be the leader in charge and Barnabas will have to take on a secondary role. Dorcas helps the widows of her area providing their care. Lydia helps Paul on his missions trip out of her own pocketbook.
One of the more intriguing stories in the New Testament is found in Acts 11:19 - 30. The people of Jerusalem needed some financial help. Word was sent out to all the Jews outside of Jerusalem to send some help if they could. The Church that met in Antioch wanted to help but just recently a prophet had come to the church to warn them of an oncoming famine that would devastate their economy. Plainly it was time for them to trim the budget and prepare for some hardships.
However, that is not what they did. Because of their love and friendship for those in Jerusalem they decided that they could sacrifice what little they had to help their friends. And so, Luke tells us that all got together and shared what they could and sent the offering through Barnabas and Paul. They knew that the upcoming months might be difficult for them but their love for their friends in Jerusalem outweighed their circumstances. Now, that's a story of friendship - a story of sacrifice and love.
Today, we all know of such things happening all across our country and all across our world. People who out of love and friendship willingly sacrifice what they have - time, resources, supplies, money, ideas, knowledge, wisdom and whatever it takes to help others. They want to be a friend to all those around them.
We in the Church must do the same for our local communities. We cannot be seen as just those people who meet in that building or who have those stained glass windows or who have all these do's and don'ts. We must not just focus on taking care of the needs of those thousands of miles away forgetting that we must make friends here at home. We need to be sacrificial to those around us just as much as those in other countries. After all, it is those who are around us that we can influence the most.
III. Friendship Elevate Us
One of the greatest things about friendship is the way they can assist us to become better people than we ever thought possible.
At least that is the way it was with Ruth and Naomi. By the time you get to Ruth chapter four so much has transpired. Through Ruth's constant loving and intentional friendship we see a change in Naomi. So much a change that in return Naomi makes it possible for Ruth's life to be changed in ways that I am sure Ruth thought was impossible.
For months (and perhaps years) Ruth had to depend on the grace of others. She had to work in other people's fields. But by the time we end our story it is others that are working in her fields. She went from being the servant to being the queen of her household. She went from being the woman who had to listen to the directions and instructions of those who oversaw the land to being the one to whom they had to report.
And as amazing at that transformation is the one that Naomi experienced was even more amazing. At the beginning of our story Naomi is a mess. She is depressed, surly and a royal pain. But as you read chapter four of Ruth she is a woman with a future who is filled with joy. She experiences a miracle by which she is even able to even nurse baby Obed.
What happened was that her friendship with Ruth not only brought healing it also brought wholeness. So much wholeness that she in turned Naomi did all she could to help Ruth reach her destiny to become one of the greatest Old Testament women.
That is what true friendship does. It cause both people to reach new levels. It enables each person to experience the ability to become more than they ever thought possible.
True friendship is a lot like Peanut Butter and Chocolate. Separate they are great but together they are heaven. True friendship is a lot like biscuits and bacon. Separate they are great but together they are heaven.
Now, not all friendship end that way. There are some friendships that we start that end up being toxic and we have to let them go. There are others that don't last the phase of sacrifice. There are those that we discover one day were built on sand and they are washed away when the storms arrive.
But true friendships, friendships that are healthy, that are intentional, that are sacrificing and that enable us to become a better person - those friendships are the sweetest. They even last when we move away or when we cannot be together for long periods of time.
Most of us have friends that just by being in our lives they have help us become better people. Cherish those people today. Rejoice in those people today. Reach out to them and let them know how much they have meant in your life. Thank God for those people.
When you read all the stories of the Bible you find these amazing friendships that through their friendship each person was elevated - Moses and Joshua, Paul and Timothy, Elijah and Elisha, Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego as well as Paul, Priscilla and Aquila. Each one started off with intention and each one involved sacrifice, love and grace. And each one helped the other(s) become the person(s) that God wanted them to become.
We all know that the best friend that any of us can have is God - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. There is no other group of friends that are more loving, more sacrificial and more grace filled. Not only towards us but towards one another. One of the amazing discoveries we can realize is to see just how much love, friendship and grace is shared in and among the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are the supreme examples of what it means to be a loving friend.
And there is no greater friendship that any of us experience than the one that we have with God. And there is no greater friendship that any of us can share with another than to share with them the Good News about Our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Ruth's life was changed because Naomi shared God with her. Not at first but as you read the story the healthier Naomi got the more she shared God. And God shared Himself and changed Ruth's destiny forever.
Paul is forever sharing with others his best friend - Jesus.
The same is true throughout history. People have been intentional not only to make friends but to share with those friends the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The saddest thing we can do is to not share Jesus with our friends. For who wants a friendship to only last for this lifetime. Who wants to just be friends with someone for 70 80 or 90 years? Who wants to go to heaven and enjoy all the fruits and the wonders of heaven without their friends?
To many people have friends that they have not shared the Good News of Jesus Christ. They fail to understand what this truly means. It means that when they die so too does their friendship unless that person knows Jesus as Savior and LORD. It is imperative that we share Jesus with our friends. It's the only way for us to enjoy that friendship in the New Heaven and New Earth. What better gift can we give our friends than introducing them to the greatest friend of all - Jesus!
Today is the first Sunday of November. It is a month that we celebrate the joy of being thankful.
Today, let us be thankful for our friends and future friends.
+ Let us be intentional about making friends - we need them and they need us.
+Let us be sacrificial towards our friends - giving, pouring and investing our lives into them.
+Let us help them become more than they ever have thought possible.
+Let us share Jesus with them and allow them to enjoy the peace, the comfort and the joy of salvation.
Today, let us pray that our church becomes more and more friendly. Let us pray and seek ways in which we can reach out and make new friends in our communities and around our church. Let us commit to becoming sacrificial so that people do not see us merely as those people who go there, whose church looks like that or who believes those things but people who are our friends - people that love us, reach out to us and want to make our lives better.
There are many good things that people should be able to say about a church, a congregation and a fellowship of believers. They should be able to boast about our integrity, our love for Christ and for those that are a part of the group. But they should also be able to say that we are a friend to our communities. They should be able to say that those people over there are interested in us, they want us to become their friends and they want to tell us about Jesus.
Today, let's pray that we are those people, continue to be those people and become even more those people.
Heavenly Father,
We come before you with hearts full of grace and mercy. We thank you for your promise to reveal your glory to us. We praise you for your grace, everlasting love and salvation.
Father, we come before you to pray for our friends. We uplift our friends, our closest friends and companions here on this Good Earth.
We pray that you give them the strength to overcome their battles. We pray for knowledge and wisdom to be their constant companions. We pray that they be filled with and guided by Your Holy Spirit. We pray for healing and wholeness in their lives. We pray that our hearts be ever tender towards them and that we be a positive influence in their lives.
We pray for new friends. We pray for new friends that we can enjoy, love and share Jesus with today. We pray that as Your Body here on earth that we be known for our love for you and for others.
Thank-you Lord for each of our friends - those who have gone before us and those still around us. Thank-you Lord for sending us new friends. Thank-you Lord for allowing us to be someone's friend today. Thank-you Lord for being our Friend. Amen.
Benediction
