Close to Home | When Home is Gone — Forrest Coleman

Close to Home | When Home is Gone — Forrest Coleman | Ruth 1

Transcript

Forrest 0:06

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast. Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life. We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message. Now, let's dive into this week's sermon. Last Sunday, we jumped into this new series, close to home, and we got kicked off with my friend Rachel Adams, who did a wonderful job on Mother's Day, sharing about Matthew chapter one and the lineage of Jesus and the heritage of Jesus and the genealogy of Jesus of leaving a legacy. And she kicked off this series close to home for us as she took a look at five women who are in the genealogy of Jesus and that they each of them have their own stories that are filled with brokenness but also redemption. And what we're gonna do over the next three weeks is we're gonna zoom into one of those five women. And so as I've been thinking about this series, I've really just been thinking about it kind of as like a movie. Last week is the opening credits, and you see the genealogy of Jesus, and you see these five women who are in the lineage of Christ, and then the the camera zooms in on one of those names, which is the name Ruth. Most of you who have heard of Ruth or heard of the story of Ruth, you normally think, oh, it's a Bible romance story. Nope, it's not. Ruth is not a Hallmark movie. Nobody is moving back to the small town to save the bakery and accidentally fall in love with Boaz. I don't even watch Hallmark movies, but I've seen enough people talk about the plot that I know the plot to every Hallmark movie. Ruth, it opens much darker than that. It opens with these first words of in the days when the judges ruled. And what that is, that's Bible language for telling you that everything is falling apart. Ruth comes right after the book of Judges, and what has happened is that people have forgotten God. The people of God, they have forgotten him. And the vulnerable are suffering, women are being hurt and children. The nation is unstable and there's a famine in the land. And we zoom into Ruth and her family, and we zoom into Bethlehem, and Bethlehem, it means house of bread, but there is no bread in Bethlehem. This story of Ruth, it's not just this cute story, a romance story. It's opening in a ruined world. It's opening, opening almost in this kind of post-apocalyptic famine, desolation, and then the camera zooms in onto one family. And that's where Ruth's story begins, not with love at first sight, but with loss that's close to home. And this family that's leaving home because the famine that's in the land and they cannot feed themselves anymore. And suffering all of a sudden that was out there has now come very close to them. And so what do we do? What do we do when home is gone? And that's the title of my message today. When home is gone. What do you do? What do you do when the place that is supposed to feel like home doesn't feel like home anymore? What do you do when the family that you've been building starts to fall apart? What do you do when that person who's supposed to stay all of a sudden isn't there anymore and is gone? And some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, and you felt this before, this grief, this grieving being close to home. And as we take a look at this story, what it's gonna show us, and it's so relevant today because I've sat with many people who in the midst of grief are asking, What do we do? What do I do now? Things don't feel like they should feel. I've gone through difficulty, I've experienced something, I've experienced a loss. Somebody's gone. And what can end up happening is that person they can still believe in God, they can still even go to church, they can even pray, but they can start to believe, yes, there is a God, but maybe he's not that good. And Ruth one pulls us into this moment of grief. And if we're going to, if we're going to stay faithful in the midst of grief, we have to see God walking with us in the midst of our grief. See, Ruth starts out, and it's not just saying, like, hey, bad things happen. We know that bad things happen. In this story, famine happens. Death. Family breaks, a future that they're building, all of a sudden it is disappearing. Listen, we we we know that death comes for all of us. But but hope is not that just nothing bad is ever gonna happen. That's not faith, that's like just denial. Hope is that in the midst of death and of famine and of grief and of loss, believing and knowing that God's redeeming love is unfolding even if we cannot see it. And that's where we find Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. They've lost their home, they've lost family, security, but God is beginning this redemption plan that she can't see yet, they can't see yet. This redemption plan to restore them back to their rightful place, which is what redemption is. And and Naomi, mother-in-law, she's she's wounded because of all the grief that's happening, the suffering that's happening, and she's she's she's not denying God, she's not anti-God, she's not atheist, she's she still believes in God, she just cannot currently see his kindness. And so that's where we start in Ruth chapter 1. And so if you have your Bibles turn to Ruth chapter 1, we're gonna start in the first verse. And it starts with this in the in the days when the judges ruled, there was famine in the land. The judges, like I said, it's this, it's it's this time where the covenant is breaking down, where the the Israelites, they've forgotten God. There's idolatry in the land, there's injustice, there's war, there's suffering. And Naomi and her family. They leave out from their homeland and they go to Moab, the rival sibling nation, just so that they can survive and find food. And so, if you have your Bibles, if you have your phone up, we're gonna go through this entire chapter starting in verse one. In the days when the judges ruled, there was famine in a land. So a man from Bethlehem and in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man's name was Elimelech, and his wife's name was Naomi. And the names of their two sons was Melon and Kileon, and they were Ephraith from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died. And she was left with her two sons. And they married Moabite women, one named Orpha and the other Ruth. And they, after they had lived there about ten years, both Malon and Kileon also died. Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. Now, these are just the first five verses. It's a lot of bad stuff that happens in just five verses, right? It goes very quickly, but I don't want us to miss the meaning of these first five verses and really what's going on. Because these five verses, they're pregnant with so much meaning because we see one that this family has left home and they've gone to Moab. This is this rival nation that is serving other gods that have cursed Israelite and God's people. And so they're heading out of the promised land, going into Moab, just so that they're able to survive. And some things that don't meet the eye is we as we meet her family, we see the meanings of the names of the family. First, her husband, Naomi's husband, Elimelech, his name is My God is King. And Naomi, her name means sweet delight or pleasant. And then Malon and Kilion, both of their names are indicative of what's to come. Malon, which means sickness or is a connotation of sickness, and then and and Kilion of that coming to an end. And then we see Ruth, which her names mean her name means refreshment. Refreshment. And so Naomi, this mother-in-law, she's experienced death now of her husband and her two sons, and now she's in a foreign land, and she's left now devastated by the fact that the future that she was building in the midst of this hardship, what in the world is she going to do next? Well, just in the first five verses and on to the sixth verse, then she hears that the Lord has started to stop the famine and brought food back to the people of Israel. And so she makes the decision to head home. So in verse 6, this is what happens next. 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. 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. Then Naomi said to who 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. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband. And then she kissed them goodbye, but they wept aloud and said to her, We will go back with you to your people. These two Moabite daughters-in-law, they said, We'll go back with you. But Naomi said, Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons that who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters. I'm too old to have another husband. Even if I thought that there was hope for me, there's still hope for me. Even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons, 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. At this, they wept aloud again. An Orpha kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. Naomi, in the midst of her grief, she starts making decisions and letting her grief start making some decisions for her. First, she hears that the famine is breaking and that there's food now in the promised land with her people. And so she decides, okay, I'm gonna go back because Yahweh is providing. And she decides to go back, but she tells her daughters-in-law who are Moabites, they're from this foreign land. She says, You don't need to go back with me. You just need to, you need to, you need to head home. Just start over a whole new life without me. Just let me go. But instead, they say, No, we're gonna stay. And she says, she's she's fighting with them. No, you need to go. And Orpha goes, but Ruth stays. And Naomi makes this statement. She says, My life is now turned bitter. I'm bitter because God's hand is against me. You know, I don't about you, but for me, I just want to rush through all this and just get to the good part. Isn't that how we want to do our life? In the times where we're going through grief, we're going through bitterness, we're going through hardship, we just want to rush through and find the redemption. But here we find a woman who's saying, Hey, my life has now turned bitter, and I'm believing that God's hand has come against me. And maybe for you, whatever you're going through, whether it's grief now or in the future, it's possible that you would allow your pain to distort the picture of God's goodness in your life. Then all of a sudden, you start interpreting your life through the pain that you're going through. You start interpreting God through the pain that you're going through, you start interpreting your future through the pain that you're going through. And it's so easy for us to stay stuck in the grief, stay stuck in the pain and not see at all beyond it. But what we have to do is we have to actually face it. And the first thing we need to do, if when home is gone and we've gone through hardship and we're dealing with bitterness and we're upset and we've had pain and we've had grief, you've got to face the grief that's right in front of you. Praise God, Naomi. She may be hurt, but she wasn't fake. She was honest. She didn't curse God. She didn't say, I hate God. She just said, Hey, I'm I'm hurting. I'm bitter. I feel like that God has left me. She's being honest. How many of you know that you don't have to fake your faith? You can go to God honestly in prayer and tell him what you're going through. He already knows. He already knows how you're feeling. He already knows the pain that's going on. He already knows what's going on. So you just need to grab a hold of it and not bottle it up because we all know what happens when we bottle up our grief. It blows up and leads us into a path of destruction instead of us trusting in our God who is good and who can carry us through it. If we bottle up the pain, if we bottle up the bitterness, all of a sudden we start turning away from God and not trusting God and His faithfulness to us, and we start to trust in other things that seem to feel good. Sin. Other people's opinions. Here's the thing about pain: pain can tell you the truth, but it's not going to tell you the whole truth. Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth? So help you, God. Pain doesn't tell the whole truth, it tells the first part of the story. And Naomi, she's she's raw. She's honest about the pain that she's going through, and she faces it head on. And maybe for you, maybe it's that there's been a pain in your past, there's been a grief in your past, and right now it's become a prison. It's become a prison. You lost someone, someone died, someone walked away. And instead of letting God walk with you in that grief, you've had it stop you and break, make a break in your relationship with God, a wedge in your relationship with God, and make you think that God cannot be trusted. Can I tell you He loves you? He died for you. God has a redemption plan that He's working through you and for you. But it's so easy for us to let grief and pain just put labels on us. You've gone through a divorce and all of a sudden you feel unwanted. You have a child that walks away, all of a sudden you feel like a failure. You got strained family relationships, all of a sudden you start feeling rejected. You got financial hardship going on, all of a sudden you feel cursed. Maybe you have a death that's in your family, or somebody's close to you, and all of a sudden you're starting to feel abandoned. Maybe in church, maybe somebody hurts you in church, all of a sudden you're saying, you know what, I'm I'm done. Can I tell you that you cannot let grief name you? You cannot let grief hold you back. You cannot let grief take over who God has called you. He loves you. In Christ, you are walking in victory. Who knows that after every single battle, there is a blessing when we have God. If we'll just, if we'll stay close to Him and walk through the battle with Him, He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. And yes, we've experienced grief. Yes, there's pain, but we can't let that pain arrest us and put us in a prison. Instead, we've got to walk forward with God. Ruth stays. Naomi tries to tell them to go. Ruth clings to her. In verse 15, Naomi says, Look, said Naomi, your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her. And Ruth replied, Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Everybody say, Stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. This famous verse from Ruth. She sticks beside her in verse 19. The two men, two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women exclaimed, Can this be Naomi? Don't call me Naomi. She told him, Call me Mara, which means bitterness. Because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 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. So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth, the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. Everybody say, Harvest. Ruth says, I'm not leaving you. I'm going with you. We're family. I love you. I'm not letting you go on your own. And your people are going to be my people. And your God is going to be my God. And Naomi is trying to literally push her away. Naomi is trying to get her to go. Because she feels like her life is over. I don't know about you, but there's there are times for me where all I can focus on is the negative in my life. It just feels like there's just a soundtrack going of just negative things. My wife and I, we've started saying to each other, just to encourage each other, when we start getting in a negative mindset, we look at each other and we say, everything is always working out for us. I mean, we've said it, I don't know, probably thousands of times since the beginning of this year. To change the soundtrack that's in your mind. Who knows that you need to change the soundtrack in your mind? You need to change, there's a soundtrack to your life, there's a soundtrack to your mentals, there's a soundtrack to what is what you're telling yourself and what you're believing, because ultimately we know that with God, everything is gonna work out for us. Because even if that means that we leave this earth, even if that means that we get taken out, guess what? Our next breath is gonna be in glory with Jesus. Everything is always working out for us. And it's so easy for me to get in this mindset, negative, negative, negative, just believing that every single thing that I feel that it's actually true. And I'm sure that Naomi was in this place where she just her the bitterness is the only lens she's able to really see her life. She thinks that it is just completely her destiny, and and what is completely clear is that her life is over and that she has been abandoned by God. I just wonder. Naomi shows up to her old hometown and she's talking to her old friends, and she says, I went away full. But the Lord brought me back empty. What do you think that Ruth was thinking when she said that? She was probably thinking, if I'm Ruth, I'm like, hello? Empty? I'm literally right here. What am I? Chop liver? I have pledged myself to you, and now you show up and you tell your old friends that you went away full, but now you're empty. But here I am standing right beside you. When home is gone, you have got to see the loyal love that is standing beside you. That's my second point. You've got to see the loyal love that is standing right beside you. Naomi's like, I'm empty. I've got nothing. There's no future in my life. And Ruth is standing right there. I said, uh, do what? Excuse me? Say that again? I've committed myself to you. I'm standing right here with you. Had she lost her husband? Yes, that's true. Had she lost her sons? Yes. Has she lost the future that she had imagined for herself? Yes. But did she lose everything? No, she did not. She had Ruth standing right beside her. And it's it's so easy for us to feel like God has completely abandoned us and say, hey, nobody stay. Nobody, I'm all alone. Can I tell you today you are not alone? There are those of you who feel like when you walk into this place that you're walking in, you're all alone. Can I tell you that you are not alone? You have the God of the universe who loves you, who cares for you, has a purpose and a plan for you, and he's also given you his people. His people. And sometimes we allow grief to get so overwhelming in our life that we're not able to see the loyal love of God that's standing right beside you. Yes, you've got great, you've got grief that's right in front of you, but you've got the loyal love of God that's standing right next to you, walking with you through it. And God's grace, it doesn't always just arrive with like an all-explanation. You get to know the whole thing. She's the Moabite, she's the outsider. She's the one that everybody should be questioning in the story. She's like the risky one in the group. She's not an Israelite. She didn't grow up worshiping the one true God. And then she becomes the clearest picture of faithfulness in the story. Where you go, I'll go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. Where you die, I'm I'll die. I'm going with you. It's loyal love. It wasn't just something that was cheap. It was something that actually cost her. It wasn't just some easy decision that she made. Yeah, Ruth at the time didn't feel like she could fix it all. But she wasn't gonna leave Naomi alone. Isn't it interesting in a story that's full of famine that God sends a woman named Refreshment? That's what Ruth's name means. In the dry land. Naomi's dry soul and future outlook. Here's Ruth refreshment that's standing right in front of her. I don't know about you. I just want God to explain everything. Can you just give me, God, the whole details of how this is gonna play out and work out? Can I just go ahead and have the end of the story now? God, can you just I just want you to fix everything? I just want you to make all this pain make sense. And sometimes in our life, God's not gonna give you an explanation, he's gonna give you a roof. A tangible display of his loyal love to you standing next to you in the midst of the hardship. And the grief that we have, it just pulls our vision down and it narrows us and just makes us stare at the things that have we've lost. But we're missing what God has left for us. It's easy for us to fixate on what's gone and miss what God has kept aside you the entire time. The gratitude of the blessings that you do have, of the people in your life that you do have, for the people who love you and will pray for you, the people who actually show up for you in the midst of the hardship, the family of God and brothers and sisters in Christ. And so as we look at this story, I don't just want us to admire Ruth. I want us to be a Ruth. So that for us, that you would be a tangible display of the grace of God in the midst of somebody else's grief. That's the third thing we need to do. To be grace besides somebody else's grief. Ruth, she couldn't fix it all. She wasn't the savior of the situation. She didn't have all the perfect words to say, but she had the loyal love, and they show up back to Judah at the time of harvest. This last verse here in chapter one is kind of a wink from the author saying they showed up at the time of the barley harvest. They showed up at the time in the midst of the famine where they left because they were trying to survive, and now God has brought food back to the land and they show up in the time of harvest. The barley harvest time, you want to know what that time is? It's the time of Passover. The barley harvest is the time of Passover, this time where they are remembering the redemption that God did for them to allow them to escape from slavery in Egypt and reminding them of the redemptive story that God has written through his people. And Naomi and Ruth, they show up in the time of Passover. Guess what else is the time of Passover? We just experienced this with Easter. Easter, and we went through the last few weeks. Easter happens during the time of Passover. God's redemptive plan, his redemptive story. And so Ruth shows up with refreshment in the midst of a difficult and dry famine situation. And she on her own, she can't redeem the whole situation. But what we're gonna see in this story is that she's gonna walk in God's redemption story for her and for Naomi. They're stepping into and walking into this time of harvest. And because of her loyal love, God is then gonna begin to unfold this harvest story and redemption story through Ruth. And ultimately a redeemer in God and her kinsman Redeemer that ultimately is going to lead to the genealogy of Jesus. But in the midst of it, Ruth didn't have a bunch of sermon to tell to Naomi. She didn't give Naomi like a theological talk about her grief and pain. She didn't look at Naomi and say, Well, everything happens for a reason. She stays. With a redemption story that ends up being the vehicle that turns death to life, slavery into freedom, isolation into family. And uh I was I told part of this story last week to a group of pastors, but years ago when the church was beginning and we were meeting in this weird office space over the Treasury Department, and I was praying of where we're gonna go next and what we wanted to do next. And some of y'all were there at that time, and the Lord put the dirty, sticky old movie theater on my heart to be the place where we launched and began the church and met with them, and God was just lining it all up, and I was juiced up. I was like, man, this is great, this is gonna be so great. Yeah, this is all gonna work out. And so I went back to a group that we had at the time of people who were helping to launch the church, and I'm like, y'all never gonna believe this. This is so awesome. We're gonna get to go and launch in the movie theater here in Frankfurt. And there was mixed reaction, I'm gonna be honest with y'all, okay? So mixed reaction. Actually, there were five families who left. Which was a lot at the time. And like, couldn't believe that we would go to that dirty movie theater and that we try to do church there and you want us to have kids' ministry in the movie theater space? Are you kidding me? And they called me names, said I couldn't read good and I couldn't tie my shoes and all kinds of things like that. That was the worst. And I I I was I was feeling like, man, I I have I was just really messed up. And I went and met with a pastor friend of mine, and he told me to read this book called Leadership Pain. And in this book, there's this formula in the book that the author says that growth equals change, change equals loss, loss equals pain, so growth equals pain. And the and the thesis of the book was basically hey, your trajectory and ministry, your ministry is going to be as long as your threshold for pain. Are you hearing me? Are you hearing me? Your longevity, my longevity in life, my longevity in ministry is going to correlate with how much pain I'm willing to endure. How much being misunderstood I'm willing to endure? How much conflict, how much difficulty, how much hardship, how much difficulty on my family. It's a direct correlation. In the book, it said that only 10% of pastors make it to retirement. Only 10%. And it was it was that four years ago now that I was praying, God, let me be in the 10%. Let me be one of the ones that make it. Let me be one of the ones that make it. Because in growth, what we're gonna experience, we're gonna experience change. What is change? Change equals loss, which equals grief. And so that's gonna be painful, but growth is gonna equal pain. And for me, I just I just wonder if multiply could be a place that when people walk in, even if they walk in bitter, they're gonna find love in this house. If people walk in and they walk in and they feel empty, they're gonna recognize the fact that God can make them full. People who walk in and no matter what their situation is, they've lost a loved one, they've lost a husband, they're a single parent, they're a college student, have a broken family, are grieving the lost, they're feeling lonely, they got complicated stories, that they would find the loyal love of Christ in this house. Because his people are willing to be a tangible representation of his grace. So then we can see his redemption story play out over and over and over again in that way what we have seen. And this isn't like some over-the-top thing. This starts small. It starts small with you right now, not letting your pain and your grief hold you back from God. For you to be honest with Him. God, I'm hurt right now. God, I feel empty. God, I I believe in you, but I'm struggling to feel your kindness and see your kindness right now. Would you show me the loyal love that you have for me that's near me, that's beside me. And so for you, be somebody who's willing to do that. You be somebody who's willing to do that in your small group, to be God to somebody who is near to you, to stay with somebody, to check in, to pray, to invite, to be a Ruth. Send that text message, make that phone call, invite that person to church, bring that meal, sit with them, pray with them. Don't just take I'm fine, but ask that second question to sit with somebody, sometimes even in the silence. Can I tell you a few years back? My first church, there was a man in our church, and I knew him and his younger brother, and he was a prominent man in the community. And his younger brother, who's a was a friend of mine, was dealing with so many mental health issues. And um, I can remember when the younger brother took his life, and I showed up to the house with his body still in the bathroom, and I was sitting next to his older brother, and there were no words, there were no words that I could say. I just sat next to his brother, and I put my arm around him, and we sat in silence, and I just said, I love you, I love you, man, I love you, man, through tears. You don't have to have the perfect words, you just have to be willing to stay, you just have to be willing to sit with somebody, you just have to be willing to show up in the middle of the grief and be a tangible representation of the grace of God. Are you hearing me this morning? Are you hearing me? Because grief and pain is coming for all of us, but it's God's great love that he's given us Jesus, who's never leave, will never leave us or forsake us, and will send his people, his tangible love to us. Will you stand to your feet now, church? God, I pray right now, all across the room, over every single person who's in this house, that God has experienced difficulty and battles and grief and loss. And Father, I pray, God, right now that, Lord, when life is challenging and hard, that God, we would be like Ruth. That amidst of grief, amidst of pain, that we would be the ones to show your loyal love. That we could know and trust God, and know the fact that because you died for us on the cross, Jesus, we no longer are in the chains of death, but God, we have life in you now and into eternity. So, God, right now I pray, right now, all across the room, anybody in this place, Father, who calls himself a Christian, calls himself a follower of you, calls himself saved that God, in the midst of pain, in the midst of grief, God, you would help them, Father, to be Ruth, to be a tangible display of the redemption, God, that you have. Trusting and knowing that the harvest is gonna come. And Father, right now I pray in this room, anybody here today, God, who doesn't know you as Savior, that today would be the day that they received the redemption that you purchased for them on the cross 2,000 years ago, that you died in their place, that you gave your life and bled for them to take their sin and their mess-ups on your back and to forgive them. That today would be the day that they trust you. That today would be the day that they receive you, that today would be the day that they pray. And so, if that's you today, and you you need to receive Christ as your Savior today, I ask you to pray, Jesus, save me. The genuine place in your heart, calling out to God, crying out to God, Jesus, save me. I believe that you died on the cross for my sin. That you walked out of the grave, that you're alive. Forgive me, cleanse me, wash me so I can be in heaven with you one day. I give you my life as you gave yours for mine. I trust in your redemption, I trust in your resurrection, now into eternity.

Sallie 41:13

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message. At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone. If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey. Visit multiplyky.com to let us know. We love you and we'll see you again soon.