Ruth 1: Faithfulness Sometimes Looks Dumb

Theme: We overestimate what we can do in the short term. We wildly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness.

The sovereignty of our great God is clearly seen in the story of Ruth. He guided her every step of the way to become His child and fulfill His plan for her to become an ancestor of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5). In the same way, we have assurance that God has a plan for each of us. Just as Naomi and Ruth trusted Him to provide for them, so should we.

Let’s read it together.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Daily Bible Focus
• 0:24 Theme: Faithfulness That Seems Foolish
• 0:40 Community Shoutouts & Engagement
• 1:12 Setting Ruth Within Judges’ Cycle
• 3:12 Authorship, Timeline, And Cast
• 4:34 Reading Ruth 1: Famine To Bereavement
• 7:20 Naomi’s Bitter Return And Ruth’s Vow
• 10:57 Faithfulness When Logic Says Leave
• 12:54 Legacy: From Obed To David To Jesus
• 13:41 Prayer, Key Verse, And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us. Let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon, today, Ruth chapter one. And if I could give this one a title, it would be Faithfulness Sometimes Seems Dumb. I know that sounds terrible. It's going to make a lot of sense when we're done with this. But as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Leave us a comment. Let us know how you're engaging with God's word. Also, if you're a podcast listener, you are my personal favorites. I love you so much. Thank you for leaving us a five-star review. Also, sharing this with people. And then where we gather as a group, the Facebook discussion group called the Bible Breakdown Discussion. It's an amazing team of people who are gathering together and they are leaving us some different wonderful devotions. We're interacting with one another. And then the more we dig, the more we find. And that's going to be true with the book of Ruth. So if you have your Bibles, you want to open them up with me, it's the book right after the book of Judges. I love this book. It's just four chapters, but it is amazing. And there's an amazing picture of what Jesus does for us at the end of the book of Ruth. And if I were to give this amazing but small book, a kind of an overall thing would be this, and that is that we overestimate what we can do in the short term. But we wildly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness. Let me say it again. We tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term, but we wildly underestimate what God can do through us through a lifetime of faithfulness. And Judges was what happened right after Joshua. And Joshua, they came into the promised land and they they conquered the land and divided up most of the land. And then what God's plan was is they were going to, you know, be Vulcans, you know, live long and prosper. That's what they were going to do. Is it was going to be great. But the problem was the nation of Israel couldn't quite do that. They weren't going to have a king. God was going to be their king, and they were just going to be a peace. But what they ended up doing is getting into this cycle of sin. And what would happen is they would honor God, everything would be good, and they'd turn their back on God and start worshiping, you know, pagan deities, and God would lift off his hand of protection, somebody would overtake them, they would be subjugated and slaved to them, and then they would cry out to God, God would deliver them, and they would be blessed. And it was just a cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle. Well, during one of these cycles of sin, toward the end, about 1160 to 1100 BC, that's when the story of Ruth happens. It's during that time frame. Right there toward the end of the time of the judges, right before the time of kings. Now the author is not stated in the book of Ruth, but the Talmud, that's the Jewish oral traditions that were eventually written down. They say that Samuel, the one who most likely wrote first and second Samuel, he likely wrote the book of Ruth. And it is a telling of this that happened that actually eventually became a part of the lineage of David. David known as the greatest king in Israel's history. And what's very interesting about this is Naomi, which we're going to meet in just a moment, where she kind of is compared to the female Job. You know, and we're going to see that that's kind of basically what happens to poor Naomi. She even changes her name at one point to just reflect that. Ruth, who this is named after, she kind of embodies like loyal, faithful love. And kind of the most interesting fact that I love about this is that God rewards you for doing the right thing. That doing the right thing is not always fun, doesn't always make sense, but being faithful is what God is looking for. Another interesting fact about this is there is a verse in here that I often have people say, and I have opportunity to officiate weddings, to go, oh, Pastor, this this wonderful, beautiful verse of love, would you mind quoting that over us at a wedding? And always kind of smile and go, Yeah, sure, you know. What they think is like one young man quoting this wonderful, you know, declaration of love to his soon-to-be wife is actually a daughter-in-law proclaiming loyalty to a mother-in-law. And and I never want to tell these two young, you know, people that are about to get married, like, you're really quoting a daughter-in-law saying, hey, I'm not gonna desert you like everybody else. Because it kind of ruins the verse a little bit or makes it better depending on what you think. So let's dive into this because I think this is just an amazing story of God's faithfulness and an amazing decision that this young lady makes. So let's dive into this to get today. And I want you to remember this idea that we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term, but we wildly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness. Let's read this and see what happens. Ruth chapter 1, verse 1. In those days, remember toward the end of Judges, when judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and his two sons with him. Now remember, Moab most of the time was a natural enemy in Israel. So this isn't really the best thing to do, but he did anyway, because it was a famine in his land. Verse 2. The man's name was Elimelech, and his wife's name was Naomi. Their two sons were Mehlon and Kilion. They were Ephraimites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there. Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with their two sons. But listen to this. Then the two sons married Moabite women, which they weren't supposed to do. These are Gentiles. They're not supposed to do this, but they did anyway. One married a woman named Orpah, which, if you don't say it right, it's going to sound like Oprah, which by the way, pause. There is a someone said this one time, and I don't know if this is true or not, uh, but Oprah, you know, Oprah Winfrey has not said this is not true. Uh someone once said that her mother was trying to name her after this lady in the book of Ruth, but they misspelled her name on the birth certificate. So Oprah's name was supposed to be Orpah, but they put the P in the wrong place. And so she became Oprah, and nobody ever changed it. I don't know if that's true or not. You can look it up. That is the claim. So let's go back to that. The two sons married Moabite women. One name was Orpah, and the other's name was Ruth. But about ten years later, Melon and Killion died and left Naomi alone without her two sons or her husband. Now, for the time, this was devastating because during the time it was the men that mostly worked on farming and in livestock, or if they were a merchant, and they were the ones who would take care of and bring in any of the things to subsidize the home, and it was the women who took care of the home. And so therefore, all of her skills would have been with inside the home. And so if your husband and your sons died, you were left penniless, completely devastated. And that's what the story is trying to convey is that Naomi went from having a husband and two sons, which means she's going to be cared for the rest of her life, down to nothing. Verse 4. Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. In other words, they're on the upswing of the Zen cycle. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab and return to their homeland. And with her two daughters-in-law, she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go back to your mother's homes, and may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage. Then she kissed them goodbye, and they all broke down and wept. No, they said, We want to go with you and to your people. But Naomi replied, Why should you go be with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up and to be your husbands? No. My daughters return to your parents' homes, for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, and if I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up and then refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters. Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has raised his fist against me. Now it's not true. Isn't that how it feels sometimes when bad things happen? Now, again they wept together, and Orpa kissed her mother-in-law and said goodbye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. Look, Naomi said to her, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same. And then here's the verse that everybody wants me to read at their wedding. But Ruth replied, Don't ask me to leave you and to turn back. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us. Sounds beautiful, right? But it's a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law. Verse 18. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. So the two of them continued on their journey, and when they came to Bethlehem, the entire town was excited by their arrival. Is it really Naomi? The women asked. Don't call me Naomi, she responded. Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made my life very bitter for me, which by the way, Mara means bitterness. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer, and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me? So Naomi or Mara returned to Moab accompanied from Moab, accompanied by her daughter-in-law Ruth, the young Moabite woman. And they arrived in Bethlehem in late spring at the beginning of the barley harvest. So as you can tell, everything begins with this wonderful moment of Naomi, who he her and her husband Elimelech, find out that there's, hey, nothing's working here, everything's bad, so let's go over there. And they for a season things go well. But then tragedy strikes, as it happens for so many of us. And then when she returns, she returns minus two sons and minus a husband, but with what seems like a sweet young lady, but really no help at all. And I don't mean that bad against Ruth, but if you think about it, if you have a husband and you have two sons in that culture and that time frame, you're gonna be okay. But if now you're penniless and now you've got one more mouth to feed, what could God do with that? But don't forget that we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term. But we tend to underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness. Don't forget that I said that sometimes faithfulness seems like a dumb decision. We gotta understand what what Orpah did. She's just like, hey, look, you know, I love you. But this is really going nowhere fast. I really gotta look out for myself. So I'm gonna go and do what you told me to do. She had every reason to go. We shouldn't think bad of Orpah. As a matter of fact, it seems as though Ruth made the wrong decision. It just seems like, why would you do that? And can I tell you, sometimes in life, faithfulness can seem like the wrong decision. And there's a balance here. Sometimes it's time to let something go. Sometimes we can beat a dead horse just because we're afraid to move forward, right? And sometimes we need to kind of give a funeral for things and let things be buried, mourn that loss, and then move on, right? There's time for that. There's also a lot of time when we want to give up on something because it's not fun anymore. Want to give up some on something because it's become hard, it's become difficult. The new has wore off. When really, most of the time, it's those that are faithful that God tends to use. That's why the key verse I've chosen for this that I love the most is Ruth chapter 4, verse 17. It says this The women said, Naomi has a son, and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David. What may seem like a mistake now, what may seem like silly faithfulness now may lead to the most amazing thing ever. Because this silly little lady who decided to be faithful in a no-win situation gave birth and was the great grandmother, or the grandmother rather, of David. And guess who David was? David was the great-great-great great great great great grandfather of Jesus. So I think she might have made the right choice. Faithfulness can seem dumb for a moment, but it actually can be beautiful wisdom in the long run. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the book of Ruth. Thank you that it reminds us how important faithfulness is. As we read Ruth, a simple but powerful story, I pray you will ignite a passion for faithfulness in all of us. Because I really do believe we wildly underestimate what you can do through a lifetime of faithfulness. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, once again, don't forget Romans, or excuse me, Romans, Ruth 4, verse 17. The women said, Naomi has had a son, and they named him Obed. And he was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David. If you stay faithful, God may put you in line for some of the greatest blessings you can imagine. I'll see you tomorrow for Ruth, chapter two.