You're Not The Boss Of Me Series

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.