You're Not The Boss Of Me
PPT 1 Series Title Naomi From Bitter to Blessed
Today I am starting a series on the book of Ruth, it is only 85 verses long but it jam packed with layers of biblical and spiritual truth. You will be amazed at some of the nuances and things that are hidden between the lines that God has put in this short book.
David prayed in Psalms 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Thy law. That is my prayer for us as we go through this book.
This series is a great book for almost anybody no mater where you are in life right now.
It is a Cinderella Story, a girl who goes from rags to riches.
It is a love story, a single man late in life meets the girl of his dreams
It is a tragic story of heartache and death, but filled with an amazing "the rest of the story."
It is a wonderfully hopeful story of life after the painful end of a marriage.
It is a story of bad choices that lead to great suffering
It is a redemption story of going from tears to great joy
It is a story with multiple wonderful endings
It is a story where God is seemingly hidden, and yet glaringly present.
It is a story about tragedy away from God, but blessing to those who draw near.
It's your story, it's my story
Gladys Night and the Pips sing what I believe could be a wonderful summary of this book, and our lives in general.
PPT 2 Video Clip Gldys Night and the Pips
If anyone should ever write my life story, for whatever reason there might be, you'd be there between each line of pain and glory, for your the best thing that ever happened to me.
Today we begin with a message I had 4 different titles for it, I cut it down to 3, the other one I will mention next week. here are the 1st 3.
PPT 3 Message titles: The Road Away From God
(Showed a picture of terrible road.)
PPT 4 Alternate Title: Living Under The Power Of A Bad Decision
(Showed a picture of a person being controlled like a marionette.)
PPT 5 You're not the boss of me
Big Idea: Is God the boss or are you? In short I will be talking about making a bad choice, and then being forced to live under the power ot that bad decision. Then how to break the power of that bad decision to hold you in its grip.
The message will finish today in a hopeful, but tough place, but it is not the end of the story.
Don't let your story end in chapter 1. Especially the first half. Because God has good in store even for those who have made bad decisions.
So Let's begin reading in Judges chapter 21 verse 25 which is the last verse of the book that precedes the book of Ruth, and a summary of the times in which both books were written.
PPT 6 text
Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land.
The book of Judges could be called the book of cycles. They sin, God sends trouble, they repent, God sends help. Over and over again for almost 400 years. As we begin the book of Ruth, we can tell from the verse we just read the cycle of trouble is about to start again. In fact as we pick up in the book of Ruth, trouble is in full bloom.
It is interesting and insightful when we put these two verses next to each other, I can easily see how they could be talking about America right now. Something to think about.
Look at Judges 21:25 There is something terribly wrong theologically about that verse. It is not true that there was no king in Israel, there absolutely was a king, and His name is Jehovah. In the very next book of the bible, 1st Samuel, the people of Israel ask the prophet Samuel to appoint a king over them, and here in part is God response to that request:
PPT 7 text
1 Samuel 8:6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.
1 Samuel 8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
So there was a king, but they had removed God as king and everyone was doing whatever they felt like was right. Everybody was their own king. When people reject God as king, trouble will follow. Now lets take this story form 1100 BC and bring it right up to 2021. Lets look at those two verses again.
PPT 8 text
Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land.
Every man did whatever he/she thought was right, and there was a famine in the land. There are famines in the bible that are of unexplained origins. But God warned the people of Israel that if they didn't obey Him
PPT 9 text
Leviticus 26:19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
Leviticus 26:20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
Everyone forsook what God said to do, and were deciding to do things the way they wanted. Everyone was saying to God, "You are not the boss of me, I am the boss of myself." We don't accept your bible, we don't accept your rules. We don't even accept biology. We will decide for ourselves what is male and female. We will decide when life begins and ends, and we also reserve the right to have doctor assisted suicide if that is what we want. And so on. That is America today.
Right now a lot of people are pointing at Joe Biden and saying he is the cause of the shortages in our country. That is so shortsighted. Can I say to you church, we need to stop looking at 1 tree and back up and see the forest. There are natural causes and their are Divine causes.
What if the shortages we are experiencing are not simply because of governmental policies but can more directly be related to rejecting God as king and everyone following their own rules? What if we are living out our own version of the book of Judges. Perhaps man's rebellion is reaching a tipping point. It has before. I'm not talking just about a tipping point in America, but the whole world. What if God is saying, "enough!"? I will shake this world one last time so that only that which cannot be shaken will remain.
That is the story of the book of Judges over and over again, they kept hitting a tipping point with God. God has been very patient with our country, and our world, what if that patience is wearing thin? Let's stop thinking of political causes of problems and get real and recognize they have a spiritual basis. Let's stop trying to solve spiritual issues with political solutions. Do you think the famine in the book of Ruth would have ended with a different political leader? The answer is no.
Let's continue, you will be amazed at truths layered into this story.
PPT 10-11 text
Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons.
Ruth 1:2 And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.
Ruth 1:3 Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.
Ruth 1:4 And they took for themselves Moabite women as wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they lived there about ten years.
Ruth 1:5 Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; and the woman was bereft of her two children and her husband.
So I've said this book has layers, and with God's help we shall peel some of them back so that we can see wondrous things in this book.
Now, let me summarize what we just read substituting the English for what the Hebrew names actually mean, and you will see an interesting story played out.
PPT 12 text
My God is King, and his wife Mrs. Pleasant, left the house of bread in the land of praising God, with their two sons, Sickly and Wasting Away, and moved to God's pot for washing dirty feet. Once they were there her husband and sons died. She came back a broken bitter woman.
Here it is with both the Hebrew and the Hebrew meanings side by side.
PPT 13 text
Ruth 1:2 And the name of the man was Elimelech, (My God is King) and the name of his wife, Naomi (Pleasantness); and the names of his two sons were Mahlon (Sickly) and Chilion, (Wasting Away) Ephrathites of Bethlehem (House of bread) in Judah (Praise). Now they entered the land of Moab (God's wash pot) and remained there.
A couple notes, the bitter broken woman we will see a little later in the chapter, and the actual definition of Moab is of the father, or the father's water, but I get God's wash pot from Psalm 60:8, and Psalm 108:9 where in both these verses God says Moab is my wash pot. Meaning the place full of dirty water. A vessel to dishonor. I'm letting God Himself define the word Moab for us.
Something very ironic is going on here, a guy whose name is my God is king, is not living up to his name. He is living according to his times, doing what was right in his eyes. By his actions My God is King, is saying, "God You are not the boss of me." For financial reasons he left the promised land. He left the house of bread in the land of praise to go to the place where God says is filled with dirty stanky feet water. The House of Bread is the place where the bread of life will be born. It is where the One Who said, I am the true bread which came down from heaven. My God is king has chosen to leave there.
I think you can understand the equivalent of the sinfulness of what Elimelich is doing if I put his destination of choice in a place you can relate to. My God is King moved to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. A place where live sex acts are advertised and performed. Moab was a nation birthed by immorality and incest, which became a dominate feature of its existence. They practiced child sacrifice, and there wasn't one place of worship in the whole nation for the God of Israel. Elimelech went to a place where every God, but Jehovah was worshipped, and he didn't go there to be a witness but to live a comfortable life.
We are not told he was starving, we are not told his life was at risk, we are just told the nation is going through a rough time.
Elimelich made a very bad decision, and trouble will follow.
My people have committed two evils, forsaken me and hewn for themselves cisterns.
From the scriptural record My God is king made this decision from a purely financial standpoint. He made it without prayer, he made it without considering the spiritual atmosphere in Moab, he made what he thought would be a good decision for his family based simply on what he saw in front of him and what was the best way to thrive financially.
His story closely parallels another sojourner in the bible. Lot. He moved to the well watered plain of Sodom to the spiritual destruction of his family. He pitched his tent toward Sodom and the next thing we read he has left the well watered plan and was living in that hell hole Sodom. When you make a wrong choice before long it will take the power of choice away from you.
Once Elimelich made that bad decision he came under the power of that decision.
What do I mean by that? Some bad choices will hold on to you a lot longer than you want to hold on to them. Let me show you it in the life of Elimelech
PPT 14 text
Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons
Ruth 1:2 And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.
Nice the words sojourn and remained. His idea was he would just go there for a little while, but he came under the power and control of that bad decision and he is now stuck there. A sojourn turned into more than 10 years. Be careful if you own credit cards or they can own you.
In fact Elimelich never made it back from that bad decision, he went to sojourn, but never returned. He died in a foreign land. He died having never returned to the fold of God.
He came under the power of a bad choice.
His children came under the power of his bad choice. They never returned, and before they died they married Moabite women. Which they should have never done. One bad choice gave birth to others. But that thankfully is not the end of her story.
This is a summary of how her story played outs. She went from bad to worse, from worse to horrible, from horrible to hopeful, from hopeful to incredible. Fortunately chapter one doesn't end in horrible. Chapter 1 shows there is a redemption story God has for you.
The power of a bad choice can be broken, and that happens when a person makes 2 key decisions. Before I get to that, I need to make one more point about being under the power of a bad decision. Bad decisions cloud your thinking.
PPT 15 text
Ruth 1:19 So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came about when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was stirred because of them, and the women said, "Is this Naomi?"
Ruth 1:20 And she said to them, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
I want you to note she thinks everything that happened to her was God's fault. What about the decisions you and Elimelich made? Hurting people don't see God in the right light.
Hurting people become blind to what they have and the good God has in store for them.
Ruth and Orpah there is no future for you with me, stay here in Moab.
PPT 16 text
Ruth 1:21 "I went out full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?"
Hardship had made her blind to what she had, and God's purposes for her.
Turn around begins when you stop listening to yourself and start listening to God.
Here story began to change, when she heard from God.
PPT 17 text
Ruth 1:6 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the land of Moab, for she had heard in the land of Moab that the LORD had visited His people in giving them food.
It wasn't much of a word, but it was enough of a word. It signaled a turn in her life, because now she is hearing and listening to God. It was a crack in the hold that the power of a bad choice had over her. In that little whisper she heard, came hope.
David heard that hope. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which You have broken may rejoice. He compared his suffering to broken bones.
Quickly here are the two keys decisions Naomi made that turned her life around.
1. She decided to leave where she was.
Return the word return is used 15 times in this short book- 13 of those times is in this 1st chapter.
It is as if God is saying as loud as He possible can, return, return, return.
Return involves leaving one place and going to another. Some people get stuck in the land of death, never moving on from a painful death. Some in the land of a marriage that ended in a bad way. The book of Ruth teaches a very powerful truth to people stuck in a bad place.
I know the plans I have concerning you says the Lord, plans to give you a hope and a future. That is always God's word for His people. The lie says God is against me, the truth says God is for you.
She decided to leave where she was and #2
2. She decided to stop rejecting God as King.
Is he king?
Can you say He is king?
When is he king? …always, only when it suits you, in the past? Sometime in the future? Only when things are gong well?
As soon as you use the word king, it speaks of authority, lordship, rule, jurisdiction, who and what is he king over?
What jurisdiction does the king have and where?
How is your life a declaration of MY GOD IS KING?
Her life began to turn around when by her actions she declared:
Your word is the boss of me. Not finances.
Your Spirit is the boss of me. Not ease in this life.
Naomi Makes that choice and we will see a wonderful change in her fortunes, let's look at the last verse of chapter 1:
PPT 18 text
Ruth 1:22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
Not just the end of famine, but the time of joyful harvest is beginning.
I left a lot out of this story and we will cover more next week. For now notice the book began with a famine, went downhill from there, but now we are reading of harvest. The difference can be found in one simple truth who is the boss of you?
PPT 19 God is my King
Close: Maybe you are here today and you have made some bad choices. Watching online.
God is my king. Harvest season awaits.
Maybe you are living in the land of Moab, stuck in a place of suffering, of loss, of death. There is bread in the Fathers house for you. There is a hope and a future for you.
The best is yet to come.
