The Complete Gospel: Cross and Resurrection

The cross is central to the gospel, but it is not the end of the story. Without the resurrection, there is no victory over sin, no assurance of forgiveness, and no promise of new life. This episode examines why the resurrection completes the gospel message and why the church’s mission remains the same every Sunday, not just on Easter. As we begin a study through Ruth, we also see how God’s redemptive plan has been unfolding throughout Scripture all along.

Transcript

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What great truth to remind us of. You know, so many times when we think about the message of the gospel, we stop a little short. We get to the cross, we get to the fact that Jesus died and atone atone for our sins. How are we now? Any feedback? It might be these monitors here that are on. Can we turn those back off a little bit? It might be this one here that's facing me. What about now? Now, now, now, now, now. That's right there, is why I don't lead singing right there. All right, well, very good. But anyway, what I was saying is so many times when we're talking about the gospel and focusing on this message and plan of salvation, we we stop a little bit short. We get to the cross and rightfully so, where Jesus atoned for our sins, where he went and died in our place and he took all of our sin and the punishment for our sin upon him. But we stop in making sure that we declare the beauty and the glory of the resurrection. That if it wasn't for the resurrection, there would be no forgiveness of sin, because the resurrection is proof that Jesus did conquer sin and death for us, that everything that God sent him to do had been completed, and indeed you and I will have a new life because he resurrected from the dead, guaranteeing that now we have life and have it more abundantly. And so I think it's always important for us when we make sure we cover this doctrine of the gospel, we sing, we talk about it, that clearly we talk about the cross, but we don't lose sight that there's more to the story than that. And if we get to the cross and just tell people that Jesus died for their sin, but don't explain how he came back to life, conquered sin and death, ensuring that we have life, we have a gospel that's not sufficient. We have a gospel that's not complete, uh, that isn't able to do for us everything that is necessary to bring about true salvation and reconciliation to God. And so, of course, Easter is that reminder for us. Uh, every day for believers is a day of us living in the reality of what Jesus has done. Uh, but Easter is that time that we kind of focus on it more. I'm a guy, and I'll just kind of you know let you a little glimpse into my mind. Like some pastors say, well, Easter's the Super Bowl for pastors. It's not for me. And I'll tell you why, it's just another day. And uh and it's not enough, not that it's not important, but like I'm not building everything we're doing as a church on that one day, thinking that one day a year, all of a sudden, there's gonna be some message that's just gonna change the lives of people, or one day a year we're gonna gather, and because we have a big crowd, that all of a sudden means more than the other days. I mean, we're constantly working, constantly building, constantly proclaim the gospel. And uh, so while Easter is exciting, there is a lot of fun to it, but to me, when I look at it, I'm like, we're not doing anything different on Easter Sunday uh than we're gonna do any other Sunday. And the other reality that I'm reminded of is there's no smoke or mirrors ministry going on here that we're gonna like put on some grand production and bait and switch you and get you in the door, and then next week be like, oh, well, we tricked you. Uh, we're just going back to normal. No, this is what we do every week. We make much of the name of Jesus. We proclaim the truth of God's word. We gather together as the people of God to remind ourselves of all that Jesus has done. Easter's just the day you get a to use an excuse to go get a new dress. It's just an excuse for guys to wear pastels, right? It's just that time of the year where a wife talks her husband into wearing pink. And uh, you know, so there's some neat stuff that goes along with it, uh, but not any more than anything else that we do regularly as the people of God. So with that little side note, let's go to the book of Ruth. Why Ruth? Well, uh, I wish I could tell you that there was just some great revelation that God gives me on what we preach through regularly, but that's not really how it works. Uh I wish I could tell you that God just came to me and said, here is the word that I want you to bring, or here is the book of the Bible that I want you to preach from. And again, that's just not really the way that it works. I mean, uh, by and large, you seek the Lord, you walk with the Lord, God begins to draw your attention maybe to some things in some different ways. Sometimes as a pastor, you see that there's a need going on in your church, and you're like, you know what, this book of the Bible will speak to that need. For instance, when we knew that it was time for us to start looking at new deacons, I said, you know what, let's preach you the book of 1 Timothy. Here's why. It's gonna line out for us what we need to know, what the Bible says about this, why it's important, how it fits in what God is doing in the life of the church. Uh, but here's what I've come to know over all the years, that the Bible's filled with good stuff. The Bible's filled with truth, the Bible's filled with things that we need to know about God and how he's working and ruling and reigning and what he's accomplishing in and through the person of Jesus. And so as a pastor, when I'm sitting there trying to figure out what to preach on, I'm just sometimes trying to make sure that I, if my job is to feed you as a pastor from the Word of God, that I'm giving you a healthy diet. I know what I'm what I'm liking, you know. I mean, it's kind of like this. If you made me uh pick out your menu for you to what you're physically gonna eat, you're probably gonna get a lot of beef, because I like beef. You're probably gonna get a lot of just, you know, those basic, you know, things. I'm not a real extravagant person. Now I do like some Asian food and some things of that nature, but by and large, I'm gonna feed you the things I like. Now, there is some good to that and some bad to it. It's good if you like it. But also there's some things I'm probably not gonna feed you that you might need, like spinach. I'm not going there. Uh I will eat some vegetables. You know, my dad hated everything green, and so as a kid, like uh the only vegetables I can really remember eating regularly were potatoes, corn, and green beans. I was basically taught that everything outside of those beans were a result of the curse of Adam and uh what he had committed, because my dad just didn't like vegetables. But lo and behold, as I got older, I began to find out there's like some good vegetables out there. You know what else? There's some not good vegetables out there. And so uh, you know, I'm just gonna feed you what I like. Well, the reality is, as a pastor, there are some things in the Bible that I just navigate toward. Uh it just resonates with me. It's what I like, it's what I'm comfortable with. Uh so for instance, I could just preach through the epistles of Paul for all of my days and be happy. And because he just won, he's two-thirds of the New Testament, right? But the other is like he has a very linear, logical way that he approaches things. And it's very clear and it's very deep, and it's very practical, and it's very important. And so, like, I can just sit there in those letters, and for the rest of my ministry, I could just cycle through them over and over again and uh preach on those things and be very happy. But there's more to the Bible than that, right? I mean, you got the gospel narratives, and so you got these stories of uh these accounts of what God is doing in and through the person of Jesus. And as much as I like those, they're hard to preach through because there's a lot of narrative and it's very repetitive. You know this when we went through the Gospel of Luke together, and you're like, yeah, don't take us back there. Uh we about likely never got out. And so again, right? I mean, and some of you are like, no, you could spend the rest of your life in Luke and I would be okay with it. We went through the book of Psalms together, not verse by verse, because my goodness, there's so many of them, and and they can be very repetitive at times, but some of you are drawn to that poetic language. And man, you could just sit there for days upon days reading through the Psalms and thinking on them. And I've grown in my appreciation of the Psalms. You know what I don't like? It's trying real hard to figure out what did you mean by that. I don't need you to describe it figuratively, just tell me what you mean, right? And so my personality is don't describe it in flowery language, just like be very clear. But when you're reading through some of those psalms, you're trying to figure out the heart behind it because it's poetry, it's it's songwriting and things of that nature. Uh, you know, you can be drawn to prophecy and trying to figure out those things about it. And so my goal as a pastor is just to try to make sure we're constantly balancing back and forth the beauty of the Bible. It puts some um, what's the word I want to use here? Some growth in me to stretch myself, to preach through things that are not as easy for me to preach through, or I'm not as comfortable with preaching through, and trying, you know, to wrestle with that. And and how do I take this and articulate it in a way that's gonna help you grow closer to the Lord rather than just giving you information? You know, sometimes in some of the Old Testament passages that we get, you feel like you're just giving history lessons and Old Testament lessons. And while they're important to us understanding the framework of the Bible, sometimes you're like, you know what, it's it's hard to pull out from this story about a group of people fighting a battle in the middle of a you know area that most of us don't even know where it's at. Like, like, what's that really about for us day to day? But God works in and through it. And so why Ruth? Well, because we haven't been in the Old Testament in a while, is part of it. And so as I was thinking through the Old Testament, I'm thinking, all right, well, what's something short? Just gonna be honest with you. You know, there's a lot of books in the Old Testament that, man, you can get bogged down in for years uh working through, and that's not always a bad thing, but man, it's it's it's laborious, it's hard. So short was part of it. Part of it is there's this beautiful story of redemption, and so here we are working into Easter, and this this message of redemption, and we see that this message of redemption is a theme that runs throughout the Bible over and over again in a variety of ways. Uh, it's a beautiful story about a woman in the Bible. And because, you know, the bulk of the Bible is about a male-dominated culture and what God is doing there, sometimes we don't see as many pictures of what God is doing through women. But you know what? God very much has worked in and through the lives of women in the Bible and historically. The majority of our churches that exist today wouldn't exist without women, without women being faithful to the Lord. And in my experience as a pastor, you know, women tend to unfortunately, uh, and I say this because it speaks not so much uh about women as it does poorly of men, that there's often a lack of male leadership in churches and women hinge, or excuse me, churches hinge on the backbone of women who serve in so many ways and do so many things to make the church successful. Uh, we get a beautiful story about how God is working through a Gentile woman. And one of the things that we see is how God is weaving this story throughout the Bible, and he's including people in the narrative that were uncommon to be included in the narrative. I mean, when we look at the gospel of Matthew, and we've talked about this before, but he doesn't list very many women in the genealogy. You want to know why? Because he's recording the genealogy as given to Jews, and Jews didn't really care about the women in there. They wanted to know what men, they wanted to know who the men were that you were connected to. And what's interesting, of all the women that Matthew could have included, he picks women from the Old Testament that are not the ones you would really want in your genealogy. And so, like, for instance, if you were to go to school having done a family tree, and you knew in that family tree that you were related to George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or some other great person of history, you would be like, hey, look at who I'm related to. But if along your study you found out that you were related to a notorious harlot, that's not necessarily the person that you bring up, right? I mean, it's not necessarily like, hey, by the way, I don't know if you know this or not, but there was this great prostitute back in the day, and she was so notorious, like she was known as Rahab the harlot. And I'm related to her. Yet Matthew looks and says, Hey, you know what? Here's a story of how God is working in and through the life of even someone like this, an outcast. Hey, one of my great-great-great-great-grandmothers was a well-known adulteress, right? You don't you don't tend to bring that up. You try to cover that stuff. Yet what we see is that Matthew's pulling out and saying, hey, this is this is how God worked. And and he worked through the mess that people were creating back then. He worked through the mess, and and his plan is always to include this. And Ruth is gonna record us a woman who is a Moabitus. I mean, she's from a pagan land, a place where they uh sacrifice children and infants. I mean, not a great place that she's from, yet God changes her life, pulls her out of that muck and mire, and then is gonna use her to bring about David, who then is gonna bring about the Christ. And so again, God's working and moving into all of our stories, and it's one of the reasons why there are parts of our life that we shouldn't be proud of, meaning that there's things that we've done, all of us, that create some form of shame. But as new believers in Jesus Christ, we don't have to be shameful of all of it. Why? Because God's rescued us from that, and that's part of our story. God is weaving together a story for all of us, and one of the things that frustrates me sometimes in life is that we think everyone has to have the same story, and they don't. God's striding a different story for all of us, and we're real bad about like charting out, well, here's what this position or this person needs to look like, and they need to have done all of these things. And you want to know something? When you look throughout most of the Bible, what you're gonna find is God does not use the people who you think check all the boxes. And Paul says that he does that. That way, when the story's all written and all said and done, God alone gets the credit for that. Because you can't sit there and say, well, he was able to accomplish or do those things because he was this or that, or because he he knew these things. No, but God, but the Bible says that God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, right? And you're like, every Sunday we see that, Charlie. Every week that you step up there in the pulpit, we're like, you know, once again, God uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. And praise be to God for that. So what we're gonna look at is this little story of Ruth, four chapters long, might take us four weeks. I don't know. You know me, I don't have like this set out plan. Uh, somebody asked me one time, well, how long do you you know are you gonna take to go through the book of Ephesians? I'm like, I don't know, we're not at the end yet. I'll let you know when we get there. And it's not that I don't have some form of like a bit of a plan. So like I could tell you right now, realistically, in case you're wondering, we'll get through with Ephesians sometimes, probably close to the end of the summer. And so on my little chart, but sometimes you get in the middle of it and you're like, you know what, we're not gonna be bound by this outline that I put together three months ago. We need to spend a little bit more time here. There's some things that I don't want us to pass over. I one time heard John MacArthur say, uh, you know, the best thing I can do for you when we're preaching through books of the Bible is not to speed up, but to slow down. And I've come to believe that to be true. In our speeding up, we tend to gloss over, miss some very important things, or we'll skip over things that are easy for us just to say, you know what, let's just ignore that one. But in our slowing down, we're forced to stop and think about what God is doing and what he's revealing. And I've come to learn in my own life, you know, uh slowing down oftentimes is far more profitable than just speeding up. So the book of Ruth. Uh there's a lot we know about the book of Ruth. There's a lot we don't know about the book of Ruth. For instance, Jewish tradition would tell us that Samuel wrote the book of Ruth. We don't know that for certain. That is a Jewish tradition. It seems plausible. Uh, there are those, though, who want to try to poke holes in that, like they often do with what we uh know about Old Testament and some of the things that are going on there. We do know from verse 1, it was written during the time of the Judges. And so I think after we're done with this, uh, unless something changes, we might go back and spend some time in the book of Judges, which was a very dark period in the life of Israel. Uh God has led them into the promised land at the end of Joshua, and Joshua has basically, toward the end of his life, challenged them and said, All right, you guys need to make up your mind today. Are you gonna serve this God that brought you here, or are you gonna serve yourself? And I know what I'm gonna do. I know what my family's decided to do. Uh, we're gonna serve the Lord. And the people said, No, we're gonna serve the Lord, we're gonna follow him. And Joshua does something that you would think, uh, especially in our politically correct culture today, it's not popular. Rather than him saying, that's right, guys, you're gonna do it, he looks at him and says, I don't know if you are or not. I mean, I've known you all these years, I've been a part of you. You're a stiff-necked, stubborn people, and you're quick to turning away from the Lord. And I'm just gonna warn you that if you don't follow him, there are some things that are gonna happen. And so what happens is they say, No, we're gonna do it. And interestingly enough, what we find in the book of Judges at the beginning of it is that it says, that generation did follow in the commands of the Lord. Yet, however, the generation that followed them, it says they did not know, nor did they follow the commands of the Lord. Now that's a very interesting passage. Because in just one generation we see this departure from God, and part of it is not just because they're willfully disobedient, that's part of it, but it says they did not know. Now, why did they not know? Well, even though there was some obedience to the commands, there clearly wasn't obedience to all the commands, because part of the commands that God gave them was what? Teach this to your children. Make sure they understand. And one of the reasons that as pastors and as Jason working with Next Gen, we we push so hardly and lovingly so at parents to take the responsibility to be the primary disciplers of their home is because we know this. We're just one generation away from a collapse in the life of a church. You know, in every church that I've ever been in, interestingly enough, there's always a missing generation. And there can be explanations sometimes to why that generation is missing. But as you look, what you're gonna find is there's this generation, this generation, and then just boom, there's a whole generation that's missing. And it always makes you stop and say, why? Why is there abandonment of this generation in the church? And what's important is if you don't correct that, if you don't find a way to reach subsequent generations, now all of a sudden there is not just one small hole, but it's a gaping hole that gets bigger and bigger. And not only is the children missing, but the grandchildren are missing, and then the great-grandchildren are missing. And that's one of the ways that a church can quickly lead to its demise. And so in the time of judges now, what happens is there is this generation that's grown up, and now there's just this pattern of waywardness that just begins to develop. And so they're rebellious, they're disobedient to God, and they turn from God and they don't listen to God, and God says, All right, I've warned you, I'm gonna send judgment your way in the form of one of these other nations, and they'll come in and they'll wreak havoc in the life of Israel, and then Israel will come to their senses and they'll say, Wait, God, help us. And God's like, All right, I'm gonna send a deliverer, I'm gonna send a judge who's gonna come rescue you, and things get a little bit better, only for them to fall into the cycle again. And you know what? This sounds a lot like my life and your life, doesn't it? I mean, it's so easy for me when I read about the people of Israel. I'm like, this is the biggest group of idiots on the planet. I mean, like, I look at their lives and I'm like, man, God has provided so much for them and done so much for them and given them so much, only for them to walk wayward, and then I stop and look at my little short life and think, you know what, there's been a lot of that there too. A lot of blessing, a lot of God showing, a lot of God teaching, a lot of God providing, only for me to go be wayward and and and stupid. And so finally we we reach a point in the book of Judges where it says this, and I think this is just the most fitting thing to understand this, that every man did what was right in his own eyes. Oh, what a terrible way to live. Now it sounds good to the world, right? I'm a free man, I'm gonna live however I want. Nobody gets to tell me to do anything. And that right there is just a picture not only of our sinfulness, but our foolishness. For you and I to think that if we just got to live our way the way we want to, that things would go out better for us, is just proof that we have no idea what we're talking about. I mean, and this is just proved in our child child uh childish stages of life, meaning when we were children. If you literally allowed your child at any stage to do whatever they wanted, however they wanted, the chances of them making it into adulthood go down dramatically, right? I mean, they're gonna be out in the middle of the road, they're gonna just wander off somewhere. I looked out one day some years ago, we have a pond in our backyard, and the pond had frozen, and some of my neighbors' kids were out. There walking on the pond. And at which I quickly put my head out there and said, Hey, idiots, get back home. I didn't say that. I said, kids, get off of there. Like, there's no way that ice is thick enough to be walking on it. Like, we're just trying. I'm like, I don't care what you're doing, get off of there. Why? Because if I had to let them continue, there's a real chance one of them doesn't come back. Things, tragic things happen. Is it because they're terrible? No, they're kids. It's boys. They're doing what boys do, stupid things. And but the end result can always be tragic. You let kids do what they want. The chances of them coming out with a full head of set of teeth, not very good, right? I mean, they wouldn't, they would eat sugar nonstop, candy nonstop, never brush their teeth. Why? Because that's not fun. But yet, one of the things that we know is that we have to guide them in that. The idea of us as humanity doing what's right in our own eyes, and it ever coming out well, is about nil. Now that sets the stage because this story of Ruth happens during the time of the judges. We don't know exactly where, but it's somewhere between 1200 and 1,000 B.C. So it's quite a while ago, uh, but it's during the time of the Judges. And so let's just start in verse 1 where it says, During the time of the Judges, there was a famine in the land. A man left Bethlehem and Judah with his wife and two sons to stay in the territory of Moab for a while. The man's name was Imelech, and his wife's name was Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Maulon and Killian. They were uh Epaphorites from the uh from Bethlehem and Judah. They entered the fields of Moab and settled there. Naomi's husband, Elimelech, died, and she was left with her two sons. Her sons took Moabite women as their wives, one was named Orpah, and the second was named Ruth. After they lived in Moab about ten years, but Malon and Killian also died, and the woman was left without her two sons, and or two children, and without her husband. And so during this time, we don't know exactly what caused the famine. I mean, it could have just been events that happened because of what's going on in the book of Judges. It could have been a moment of God's judgment upon them for their rebellion to where there's no food or crops. But nonetheless, uh, what was not uncommon in that day is a famine enters the land. And they're from Bethlehem, the city of David, we later find out. But what's happened is they realize we can't make it here. There's no food, there's not anything for us to do. So we're going to have to travel, go to another country, and find a place where we can be able to live and to make it. So they find themselves in the land of the Moabites. Now, the land of the Moabites is a pagan area where there's the worship of many deities and little gods, and one of those is uh the god of uh Kemosh, which was where they would offer uh child sacrifices to, and not the best of place, but they're there because they feel like this is where they have to be. Now, while they're there, Orpas, or excuse me, Naomi's two sons find wives. And this is not uncommon, even though God has instructed them to not take for themselves women of another place. Unfortunately, we find in the life of Israel that it was not uncommon for their men to do that. And what happens, though, while they're there, is Naomi experiences great hardship. First of all, her husband dies. And what we know in in any situation, but specifically in that day and time, to be a widow is to be in serious trouble. Women were not allowed to operate in the same way that men were. They weren't allowed to go to court in the same way. They weren't allowed to strike business deals the same way. They were easily exploited and taken advantage of. But a woman's hope would be if she had sons. And so when she had sons, now what would happen is there was someone who would stand in the gap for her husband, someone who would stand in the gap and protect her and take care of her. And, you know, I didn't really even understand this, and we clearly live in a different day and culture than this, but until my dad passed away, and you see the responsibility that a son now has for a mother who's a widow. There are things that she physically can't do that a husband used to do. There are things that she needs that can't take place. And so you step in and fill that role, and it's a blessing, but it's also a great responsibility you have to stand in and take care of. In this culture, there it really fell upon the firstborn son, and there was a reason that he got a double portion of the birthright. It wasn't just because he got more money because he was special, he had a greater responsibility. He was responsible to kind of preserve wealth and to take care of, sometimes his mom, but also to take care of the family and the family name. And so he got a double portion because he had the responsibility to make sure everyone in the family, including future generations, were going to be taken care of. And so fortunately, at first, as hard as it is to lose a husband, Naomi has two sons, and so things seem to be okay. But while they're there, both of her sons pass away. And now all of a sudden, she finds herself in a very difficult predicament. If you remember when Jesus rose a son from the dead, because it and it tells us that there was a woman and there was a funeral procession that was going on. And when he shows up, he finds out that a widow had lost her only son. And Jesus is troubled by this. He's compassionate for it. You want to know why? Because he knows now this woman is in a situation that is so hard for her that he's just moved with compassion. So he goes and he raises that son up from the dead as a sign of compassion for her because he wants her to be cared for, provided for, taken care of. And so what she finds herself in now, think about this, in a foreign land of foreign gods, with no husband, with no sons, and now two daughter-in-laws from other places. And so you can imagine the heartbreak. And one of the things that's beautiful about this story, and just a lot of biblical narrative in general, is it always paints for us life as it is. Life is hard. And the Bible doesn't sugarcoat things, it, you know, it never speaks to some of this silly stuff that people want to preach and talk about. Like you just follow Jesus and your life automatically gets easier. Like I dunno, I've heard that kind of preaching before, and I just want to look at whoever preaches that and said, Have you read the rest of the Bible? Like, there's no story with anybody in the Bible where everything just goes well. Not one. I mean, even Jesus, the perfect Son of God, was lied about and hated and demised and experienced the most atrocious things that life could offer. I mean, for us, and he and he says, guess what? Just like they hated me, they're gonna hate you. And anybody who always wants to try to take preaching and twist it around as if, like, you know, there's always just it's always gonna go better, well, not ultimately, yes. In the meantime, no. I mean, I've known some Christian people who have had difficult lives. I mean, just sh atrocity after atrocity and and hardship after hardship, and sometimes you just look at them and you're like, ha, how how are you gonna make it? But but they they do it through faith in the Lord. So we see this picture of a woman who's going through some difficult, hard days and suffering, and she knows it. And what we're gonna find is that she just she's looking at life through very dismal lens, and you want to know something? That happens sometimes. As we look through these, and I always want to be clear, especially as we're looking through the Old Testament, but uh when we're studying Old Testament passages, I think there's a couple of things that we should always be looking for, just like we should in New Testament passages. These stories are not written just to give us stories of people, they're God working through stories of people, but God is the focus. Jesus is the hero, the focus of everything in the Bible, including Old Testament. And so what we see is that in the Old Testament, there are New Testament parallels to help us understand more deeply Jesus. And so the most important thing that you can do when you read through the Bible is not say, oh, how am I learning to be more like the people in the Bible? It's how am I learning to be more like God. Because he's the primary focus. And so sometimes I think we've made mistakes in the past of where we want to make David the hero of stories. David's never the hero in the Bible. Christ, God is the hero of the Bible, he's working in and through the story of David. And here's how I know this every character in the Bible outside of Jesus is deeply flawed. Deeply flawed. Now, there's a little bit of comfort in that. You want to know why? We're deeply flawed. If someone took your life and wrote out the story, there would be parts of it you don't want aired out. I mean, there's going to be parts of your story, inevitably, but here's the good news for Christians. The story's not about you really, anyway. The story's about God. And so, for instance, I'll just give you one of the classics. When we're taking a look at the story of David and Goliath, the story is not about how you can be like David and defeat your enemies. The story is about how you can understand that Jesus has defeated your enemies for you. You're Israel in the story. You're sitting back with your knees knocking together, knowing that there's an obstacle in your way that you can't overcome, and none of us are brave enough to get out there and go fight it on our own. And then here comes Jesus, the greater David, who conquers the giant for us and gives us freedom and gives us victory. Now, that does not mean, however, that there aren't things that we can't learn about how God is working in and through the people in the story. And so when we see a person repent, guess what? That's a great picture for us of how we need to repent. If we see a person exercise great faith, guess what? It's a reminder for us that we too can exercise faith in the Lord. And so I think it's important for us not to throw the baby out with the bathwater sometime and say, well, there's nothing that I can learn outside of what God's doing. The chief story is what God is doing, but underneath that, we're gonna identify some with Naomi in this passage. Because she's gonna go through hardship, and you're gonna say, you know what? I've been through hardship too. And you're gonna see how she has a moment where she's just kind of feeling sorry for herself, and I'm not judging her for it, but like, you know what? Sometimes we feel sorry for ourselves too. We're gonna see in this that she loses sight of what God really has done for her. And you know what? Sometimes I lose sight of what God's done for me too. And then it ends with her being reminded of the faithfulness of God and how God is proving himself faithful to her. And so some of you can identify right now with Naomi. Lost a spouse, maybe unfortunately lost children, that feeling of being alone, that feeling of who's gonna help take care of me. And what she has is two daughter-in-laws who now are all that she has left. Verse 6 She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people's need by providing them food. What a great picture here. Even in seasons of famine, God's faithful to bring seasons of harvest, right? We're in a season of drought. It's not unheard of. We've all lived in this room long enough to have been through seasons of drought before. I was talking to my father-in-law last week. We went back down to Carnegie, and he's been farming, ranching out there for over 40 years. And for the first time ever, though, he's had no wheat crop. He actually said, for the first time ever, I had to call insurance on my wheat because when we've had rain in the last year, they've not had any. Ponds are dry. He's got four ponds that are being cleaned out right now because there's no water. He's like, I might as well have the guy with the bulldozer come clean him out until it rains again. And man, I drove by there and it was the first time I can remember driving and just seeing hardly any wheat. I mean, it's it's just it's just terrible out there right now. And even in that, though, guess what? There's been seasons of drought, and you know what? They've been followed by seasons of plenty. And if you live long enough, what you know is there's seasons of hardship, but God is faithful also to bring seasons of harvest. And I think there's spiritual principle in this. Sometimes we go through seasons of spiritual dryness. And we can't explain it. Sometimes it's our own fault. And other times you're just like, I don't understand. Like, like things just don't seem to be clicking and working, and all of those things that I know I should be doing, and you just keep persevering, and you pick up your Bible and you read it, and you're like, I don't feel like I hear anything. I don't feel like I feel anything. And I think God's working even in that. And yet at the same time, if you've lived long enough, here's what you know that those seasons of dryness don't always end. Those seasons of famine don't always end, that God is faithful. And so she's heard that even though Bethlehem at it one time was in uh a season of famine, I love how the Bible words this the Lord had paid attention to his people's need by providing them food. We get so short-sighted in how we view life that we forget that God is the one who's working in all things. And God is the one who provides what we need when we provide it. And here's just this picture of provision. So she left the place she had been living, accompanied by her two daughters-in-laws, and travelled along the uh road leading back to the land of Judah. Naomi said to them, Each of you, go back to your mother's home. May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to the dead and to me. May the glory may the Lord grant each of you rest in the house of a new husband. She kissed them and they wept loudly. They said to her, We insist on returning with you to your people. But Naomi replied, Return home, my daughters, why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have more sons who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters, go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord's hand has turned against me. Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. Naomi said, Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to the people and to her gods. Follow your sister-in-law. Now let's stop there for a moment. Naomi is really being merciful in this moment. She is not being harsh and being like, Well, I don't have sons, so I don't need you. Clearly, there is a connection here, and clearly these two young women have seen something in Naomi's life that they value and respect because when she tells them to go home, they resist at first. She's given them freedom. She says, You don't have to be yoked to me any longer. I mean, my sons are gone. That was the connection that we had, and the reality is I'm too old to remarry. I mean, she's being very logical here. Now, in that day and time, it was not uncommon to keep the family name and possessions in the family that another son would step in and marry the other one. And we see that picture throughout the Bible. We're going to see a picture of that in Boaz, who, although not being a son, is a family member that steps in to be this kinsman redeemer in her life. But Naomi's being very logical. She's like, I'm too old to have any more kids. I don't have a desire to get married again. And even if I did and could and started tonight having children, are you really going to wait long enough for them to grow up, to be mature enough, to be your husband, and to not get remarried? I mean, she's being very logical. Now, the daughters again, daughter-in-laws, look at her and they're like, you know what? We're not leaving you. And this is a testimony to their character as well. I mean, they see something in Naomi, they love her, they truly have become family, and they're like, we're going to go with you. But she pushes back again and says, no, go. You need to go. Now, I want to be clear here, Orpah is not a worse person than Ruth because she left. Orpah looks and says, okay, Naomi, I'm going to honor your wishes, and you're right. You know, I am going to go back to my family. And so she follows the wishes of Naomi, even though she wanted to cling to her and stay with her. I mean, she's made a reasonable choice here. And so I think sometimes we can look and say, well, Ruth is just a whole lot better person than Orpa is. I don't think so. I think God was doing something different in her life. But on the other hand, Naomi has a moment where she is, life is too bitter for you to share because the Lord's hand has turned against me. And so for whatever reason, she's seeing the plight in her life as I've done something wrong and God's punishing me for it. He's raising his hand up against me. Now, this was common Jewish thought. In their mind, they thought, if you got blessing, that's because you did something right. And if you didn't get blessing, it's because you did something wrong. Remember when in the time of Jesus, they they brought a guy and said, Whose sin caused this? Was it his sin or was his parents' sin? Because in their mind, if something was bad, you were born blind, you had an ailment, you couldn't walk, something fell on you, well, you must have deserved it. Well, there's a problem with that line of thinking, and we and Jesus exposed it. He said, Well, it's it's nobody's sin. Nobody's fault. It was because God had a bigger plan of what he was doing and what he was going to accomplish it, that the power of God might be displayed in this situation. But she has a moment where she says, The Lord's hand has turned against me. Well, look at what Ruth says. But Ruth replied, Don't plead with me to abandon you or return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. Now what we see in this beautiful picture here, and I think this is one of the things that is for sure that God has done in Ruth's life, in marrying Naomi's sons, Ruth truly has abandoned the gods that she was raised with, and now by faith taken hold of the one true God. And what she knows is if I go back to the other place, there's nothing for me there. While I might have family there, I believe in the one true God now. And I think this is a beautiful picture of what God has done in her salvation, and I think about the sovereignty of God at work in her salvation in this matter, that she's saved because God sent two Jewish young men into a Moabite place in a time of famine, and she gets to hear about the one true God and becomes a believer and trusts in him. Shared with you before about the story of my grandmother, and I can't help but see this picture in there, right? Through a foreigner being in a foreign land and marrying someone and her being able to come back to a land where she gets to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ and be saved. What a testimony, what a story. I mean, his God became her God, and we see that how God works mysteriously. And so the sovereign work of God in Ruth's life to bring her into a counter to a true believer, and her heart's changed, and she says, This is where I want to stay. I'm gonna stay with you. Why? Not just because you matter to me, but because your God is my God. He's gonna be my God. I'm gonna follow him. And I think what a beautiful picture that we see there. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped talking to her. All right, she's like, okay, I've met my man. She's just as stubborn as I am. The two of them traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was excited about their arrival. And the local women explained, can exclaimed, can this be Naomi? So clearly it seems that Elimelech and Naomi had some respect. Like they were well-known people in this small region because when they're coming back, the other people are excited. Well, Naomi has returned. They're exclaiming, they're excited about her coming back. But when she shows back up, listen to what she says. Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara. Now here's what's interesting: the word Naomi means pleasant or delightful. And again, in Jewish culture, we've talked about this before, but names meant a lot. They were descriptions and they hold a lot of weight and value. There wasn't just like a baby book of names, you just picked out the one that you thought sounded right. I mean, there was meaning behind it, and her name means pleasant, it means delightful, but now she wants her name changed to be Mara, which means bitter. Now you're having a rough day when you want your name to be changed, right? I mean, it's a pretty rough day when you're like, hey, don't call me happy. You call me sad and angry. And what she's saying here is from hey, call me bitter. And so the woman that comes back is not the woman in their mind that left. And their mind, this woman of faith, this pleasant, this delightful woman who trusts God, who follows her husband, who went with two sons, and now they hear of her return, and they're like, oh great. Naomi's come back. And it's ten years later, and she's tattered, and she's beaten, and she's worn, and so much to the point that she looks and says, Hey, don't even call me Naomi anymore, because that's not true. That's not who I am. You can call me Mara because I'm bitter. And here's what she says: For the Almighty has made me very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi? Since the Lord has opposed me, the Almighty has afflicted me. So Naomi came back from the territory of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth, the Moabitus. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Couple things on the way this ends. One is when things are tough, we get very short-sighted. And Naomi's lost a lot. She hasn't lost everything. She's got a daughter-in-law who has pledged enough to her to say, you know what, I'm not going to let you go and be alone. She could have come back completely alone, but she's not alone. And sometimes I think about in stories like this, how did Ruth feel hearing her say that? I mean, here she is telling her, you know what, I'm going to be faithful to you. Your people are going to be my people. Your God's going to be my God. And so she shows up after this moment of loyalty and love and faithfulness, only here to Naomi say, hey, don't call me by my name anymore. I'm empty. I've got nothing. And I think Ruth had to have been thinking, what about me? I mean, I know you've lost a lot, but you're not empty. Empty means you've got nothing. The other thing we know about this is there's still some land there. And we're going to see this in the story. Like her husband didn't leave her completely empty. Like there's still some value there, but here's one of the things that I know can be true. When things look dark, sometimes we can't see light because things look so dark. Sometimes darkness won't lift in our life. And I think this is just a little picture of sometimes when depression sets in. And I always want to be careful when we talk about depression, because not all depression is simply spiritual depression. There's medical, clinical depression, and I'm not the pastor that's going to sit there and tell you, well, if you if you're ever depressed, it's because you don't believe enough. That's not true. And I wish people would quit talking like that because unless you've ever experienced it and gone through true hardship, you have no idea what it feels like. And so don't you ever sit there and tell somebody who's going through severe depression and hardship, you know, well, you're crazy if you take medicine. I just believe in Jesus. That's all I need. That's foolish talk, and don't listen to people like that and be careful what you say. But also there is spiritual depression that I think we always start with dealing with it spiritually first. That sometimes darkness just doesn't want to lift. And this is where she's at. I mean, and you know, this is where I think we do have to fight, and we do have to sit there and say, Lord, help me to see things clearly, because man, there's been times in my life where all I see is the dark, all I hear is the negative, all I feel is the weight, and stop to say, look at all the other things that God is doing around me. One of the things I tried to discipline myself on is on that Sunday when someone comes and says something or things end and I leave and it hasn't been as good as maybe I wanted, and I want to feel sorry for myself or I want to be down, as I stop and think, no, wait, what were the good conversations I had today? What were the good things I saw God do? You know, let's just not focus on the guy that I sat out there and saw sleeping. Let's think about the people I saw with their Bibles open and a pen in their hand, writing things down, right? Let's not just think about the grumpy person that I interacted with. What about all the smiling people that came up and said pleasant things? And you got to reshape your mind. Sometimes what happens, you just got to dig in and say, Lord, I'm not feeling it today, but I know you're working even when I can't see it and even when I don't feel it. And so she's having this moment where she's just she's empty. She's depressed. The darkness doesn't want to seem to lift. And here's the good news I want to end you on. And I love how chapter one ends. As dark as it ends, and remember, it ended, it began dark. They left because there was no food. Look at how it ends. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. After seasons of emptiness, God gives seasons of plenty. And that's how we're going to leave today. That just kind of gives me chills to think about. You know, in those moments in life, and we go through seasons of famine, but God doesn't leave us in seasons of famine. There's a harvest that's to come. And there's an ultimate harvest that's to come for us, right? There's an ultimate harvest that when Christ returns, there's going to be a harvest, a beautiful world, earth that we're going to live on with the presence of the Lord. We've been reading through the book of Revelation. We just finished it up as a staff, and so we just tried to read through the scriptures together once a week when we meet. And I'll tell you the two chapters we don't spend enough time on in the book of Revelation. It's the last two. Because you read the last two, and in spite of all the confusion you might experience and all of the terrible things that seem to go on in that book, it ends on two really good chapters. And if you're going to read two chapters in Revelation and only two, go read the last two. You want to know why? Because it tells us, as confusing as the rest are, God is going to win and what a beautiful thing He has in store for those of us who know Him and love Him. Father, we love you. We thank you. Lord, we know what it feels like to be Naomi. Maybe not to the fullest extent. Maybe not through all the hardship, but Lord, we've been through hardship. Father, we know that there are moments where darkness is real and darkness is heavy and we feel bitter and we feel empty. Father, I'm not even going to sit here and say that it's wrong to feel that way sometimes because life is hard and heavy. But would you remind us that even in those moments of famine and dryness and hardship and loss and pain, Father, there's a harvest that's right around the corner. And we might get to see it in this life. We might only see it in the next. But God, we're going to see it. And would you encourage us with that truth today? We love you and we thank you for Jesus who makes all of this possible. It's in his name we pray. Amen.