Galatians 3:10-14 – I Will Sing of My Redeemer
Turn with me to the book of Ruth. Today’s message was fairly difficult to bring together. Not because there’s not much to say on Mother’s Day, but rather there is so much to say. We’ve been looking at the holiday of Pentecost. That in itself is not hard to tie in with a sermon directed towards women. Even to this day, in a Jewish worship service on the holiday, there is a section read from the book of Ruth.
Well, why then? What’s the connection between the book of Ruth and the holiday of Pentecost? Quite a number of connections, actually. I’ll summarize the book in a minute, but Ruth was a gentile becoming a Jew, receiving the Law. Well, Pentecost is an anniversary of God giving the Law to Moses, of the Jewish people receiving the Law. Also, Ruth participated in the harvest of barley and wheat. Well, Pentecost, also called the Feast of Harvest, happens during the barley season and right at the start of the wheat harvest. As well, Ruth’s great-grandson was King David, and Jewish tradition says that David was born on Pentecost and died on Pentecost.
There’s at least one more connection, but I’d like to share it with you after I sum up this short book. The setting for the Book of Ruth begins in the heathen country of Moab, a region northeast of the Dead Sea, but then moves to Bethlehem. This true account takes place during the dismal days of failure and rebellion of the Israelites, called the period of the Judges. A famine forces a wealthy man named Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their 2 sons from their Israelite home to the country of Moab. While in Moab, Elimelech dies and Naomi is left with their 2 sons, who soon marry 2 Moabite girls, Orpah and Ruth. Later both of the sons die, and Naomi is left alone with Orpah and Ruth in a strange land.
Naomi sends the 2 girls back to their parents. Orpah returns, but Ruth determines to stay with Naomi as they journey to Bethlehem. These are Ruth’s words in 1:16-17: “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. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”
Now, it so happens that they had return to Israel at harvest time and Ruth is able to take advantage of the laws of Israel concerning gleaning. The law requires that reapers in the fields leave a portion of the crop to be collected by the needy and if the reapers miss a part of a field they are not to go back to it. It was part of God’s care for the poor.
So Ruth goes out into the fields to glean. The story says in 2:3, “As it turned out, she finds herself” working in a field owned by a man called Boaz, but this is no accident. What to Ruth is coincidence is part of God’s grace and care.
Before long Boaz, the owner of the field, spots her, He has heard of all she did for her mother-in-law, and makes it clear that she is welcome to gather from his field, wishing her a full reward from the God of Israel, in whom she has come to trust. In addition, he tells his foreman to look after her and make sure that bundles of corn are "accidentally" left behind for her to glean.
Ruth gets home, and tells this all to Naomi. Well, Naomi realizes that God’s hand was working. Naomi tells Ruth not to stray from Boaz’s field because he’s now her benefactor. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to become her kinsman-redeemer, too. Let me explain.
Maybe you’ll remember that God had assigned each family of each tribe a section of the Promised Land to inhabit. Now this land was very important to God and the Israelites. If a Jewish family were to lose its property or possessions by some kind of misfortune or distress, their property could not be permanently taken from them. However, their losses were listed in a scroll and sealed seven times. Then the conditions necessary to purchase back the land and their possessions were written on the outside of the scroll. The kinsman-redeemer law was instituted to bring the land back to its proper ownership.
So if a man died and left land and a widow who had borne no sons, his nearest kinsman would be given the opportunity to buy his land and to marry his widow and have sons to carry on the deceased’s name. If he wouldn’t, then the next closest kin could redeem and so on. This kinsman-redeemer would buy back the land, and the one who had taken the property was required to return it to the original owner.
But now here was the catch. The kinsman-redeemer couldn’t make the decision to redeem. He had to be asked by the widow to redeem her husband’s land. The kinsman–redeemer would buy back the land and the person, but he had to be asked.
Now, a word of advice, guys: never underestimate the wisdom of your mother-in-law. Naomi knows Boaz can be the kinsman-redeemer here. So, Naomi encourages Ruth to flirt with Boaz. She wants Ruth to keep close to Boaz as the harvest workers camped together. In the middle of the night when everyone else is fast asleep, she proposes to him on the grounds that he is her kinsman-redeemer.
Well, what does Boaz say? He says yes. After some political maneuvering and smooth talking, Boaz eliminates the competition, a relative actually closer to Elimelech than he is. Boaz marries Ruth, redeems her family and her land, and they eventually become great-grandparents to King David, and distant ancestors to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. It’s a great story of love, compassion, faithfulness, commitment and so on.
Now, a typical Mother’s Day sermon would tell you the glowing qualities of Ruth. It would tell of her adventurous life, or her faithful life, or her consistent life, or her risky life, or her valuable life. These may be true, but I think they also miss one of the major aspects of the story. They miss the point that she needed a redeemer. And so do you.
Each of us was lost. We were wandering in a foreign land, serving gods not worthy to be served, alone and starving. We had sold ourselves to slavery, laboring for harsh taskmasters, for that’s what sin is. We had lost our privileges to the good land and the good life. What we needed was a redeemer. Let me read to you from Revelation 5.
“Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain… He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Jesus is our Redeemer. He’s the one who paid the price to buy us back from slavery. He bought our land and our home. He bought our souls. 1 Cor.6 says we are not our own, but we have been bought at a price. Jesus took the scroll, the plans and the future, the salvation of our hearts, and He paid for us.
And the Spirit being poured out for us at Pentecost was proof of His salvation. Peter’s Acts 2 sermon had one main point: that the Spirit’s presence was proof that Jesus was the Savior, God’s choice to be our Forgiver and Leader.
And our Redeemer, much like Ruth’s, brought us into the family. Galatians 4:6-7 says, “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
Which means several things for us today. Because we have a Redeemer, we don’t have to be perfect. Moms, remember that you are not alone in your efforts to raise your children. You are working together with God. They are not in your hands, so make sure that you place them into His.
Because we have a Redeemer, we have someone fighting up for us, standing up for us. The Bible says that Jesus is always praying for us. The battles we fight, we do not fight alone.
Because we have a Redeemer, we can serve Him only, not all the other things that demand our attention. People will vie for your time and your heart, but they belong only to the Lord. He bought you. It means that when you make it your desire to serve Him first and foremost, you can feel free not to serve everybody else that wants you.
Because we have a Redeemer, we are forgiven. The mistakes and failures of the past have been forgiven. And what’s more, God can bring good from the past. That’s what “redeemed” means. Taking what was lost and making it found, taking worthlessness and finding value.
Because we have a Redeemer, what we do matters. Our service, our work, our ministry matters. 1 Cor.15 says that we should “stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
Let me share with you from Galatians 3. “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”
Moms, live by the Spirit. Learn to listen to Him. Take time to get His directions. That’s the gift of a legacy to leave your children with.
PLUS: I used this illustration at the beginning of the service...
When A. J. Gordon was pastor of a church in Boston, he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, “Son, where did you get those birds?”
The boy replied, “I trapped them out in the field.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I’m going to play with them, and then I guess I’ll just feed them to an old cat we have at home.”
Gordon offered to buy them, and the lad exclaimed, “Mister, you don’t want them, they’re just little old wild birds and can’t sing very well.”
Gordon replied, “I’ll give you $2 for the cage and the birds.”
“Okay, it’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain.”
The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.
The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ’s coming to seek and to save the lost—paying for them with His own precious blood. “That boy told me the birds were not songsters,” said Gordon, “but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, ‘Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!”
