Good morning, everybody.
It's good to see you.
Summer inexplicably is coming to an end, or at least if you have school-aged kids, the heat will last for much longer.
But uh as we reach the end of July, we are continuing in our summer series or our July series in the book of Ruth.
Also, let me introduce myself.
My name is Matt Armstrong.
I'm an associate pastor here.
Our senior pastor Russ and his family take every July for a time of rest and refreshment.
So they are away, and we look forward to their return in August.
But we, as I said, we're continuing through this book, this Old Testament, this little beautiful kind of gem in the Old Testament called the Book of Ruth.
It's a story of loss and faithfulness and a beautiful redemption.
And today we come to the final chapter.
We've broken it into two parts, so we'll finish next week.
Brian Robinson will preach, and I'm looking forward to that.
So where are we in this story?
Let me give you a brief recap because I know a lot of us travel during the summer.
So where have we gone so far?
At the beginning of the book, uh we meet a woman named Naomi, and she lives in Bethlehem, a small village in the nation of Israel.
And there's a famine in the land, a famine so great that her family has to pick up and move out of Israel to the land of Moab, where food is more plentiful.
But while they are there in a foreign land, her husband dies and her two sons die.
So she has gone from being culturally wealthy to being culturally bereft.
This is a highly patriarchal society, and she has very few resources.
Her two sons had married in that time, and so one decides to return home to her family in Moab, but her second daughter-in-law, Ruth, who the book is named for, returns with her to Bethlehem now that the famine is over.
When they return to Bethlehem, they're forced to kind of fend for themselves, to figure out how they're going to survive in a place where they have no, very few legal rights.
They begin to live off the generosity of others.
Ruth goes out into the fields.
This is harvest time, and she's gleaning what the harvesters have left behind.
This is what Naomi and Ruth have been left to in their state.
In that process, they attract the attention of a wealthy landowner named Boaz, and Boaz, we'll come to find out, is one of Naomi's distant relatives, related to her dead husband Elimelech.
Boaz notices Ruth and he inquires about her, and he realizes that this is a foreigner, this is a Moabite who has remained faithful to her mother-in-law Naomi, whom he's related to.
And so he shows them unusual kindness.
He speaks to Ruth and says, Hey, you have free access to my lands to glean from it.
My workers will watch over you and protect you.
This was a huge stroke of luck for these two widows.
That's when Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law, concocts a dangerous plan that we looked at last week.
She sends Ruth in the middle of night under the cloak of darkness to the threshing floor where Boaz is alone and sleeping.
And in the middle of the night, Ruth surprises him and proposes to him.
Again, in this society, this was highly unusual, a deeply risky move.
We don't know what is going to happen, but it goes beautifully.
Boaz has already taken a liking to Ruth.
He's noticed her deep faithfulness, love for Naomi, the fact that she is willing to work and to provide for her loved ones.
And so he tells her that he will do all that she asks.
And this is this is kind of the climax of the book, of the story.
But there's one hindrance.
Legally, there is one other family member that is closer in bloodline to Naomi.
And I'll try not to get too bogged down in these details, but they're important.
That's how the story unfolds.
So he tells Ruth, I'm gonna take care of it.
Go back to your mother-in-law and wait.
And so that's where we leave Ruth and Naomi.
They're waiting to see what Boaz and what the Lord will be able to do.
And that's where Katie read from this morning.
Boaz goes to the city gate of Bethlehem, and this is where community business was done, and this was community business.
He gathers together the elders or some of the elders of Bethlehem, and he sees, because this is a small town, that closer relative to Naomi just walked by and he says, Hey, come over here and have a seat.
We need to have a meeting.
And he sets the matter before them.
Naomi wants, she's requesting that her relative would redeem the land, which means that he would take responsibility for her deceased husband's land so that it would come back into the family, begin to produce food and livelihood for her family, and that she would be and Ruth would be taken care of.
And so he presents this to this Redeemer, kinsman Redeemer, is kind of the what it's called in the Old Testament.
And the elders are there to witness this kind of contract, negotiation, and discussion.
And at the end of verse 4, the kindred Redeemer says, I will redeem it.
Now, if you're following the story, if you've been walking with Naomi and Ruth, this is horrible news.
But we're not going to talk about that yet.
But that's where we're kind of leaving off.
But before we go there, this is the first point of the sermon today.
That God works in and through the small and the mundane details of life.
This is a point I've been wanting to make for three sermons, and this is my last one, so I'm going to make it today.
Because here's the question: why is this book here?
Some of us grew up with the Bible and we get used to the things that are there, but what is this story about?
This story is fundamentally about a widow from a small backwater village named Bethlehem.
And it's named after her Moabite daughter-in-law, who's also a widow, who find themselves poor and destitute.
How is this a book in the Bible, in the Word of God?
And as we read this, especially this section in chapter 4, we get an education in ancient contract negotiation and discussion.
We haven't read the whole passage, but they go back and forth, uh, Boaz and this other uh kinsman, and we never get his name.
And when they finally work things out, the guy takes his sandal off and he hands it to Boaz, and that seals the deal.
And we're like, oh, that's cool.
Uh I don't know why you do that.
And even the author of the book of Ruth says, this is what they did in the old days.
So even when this book was written, that practice was long gone.
And so we just have to ask the question, why?
Why is this book here?
Well, one reason that we'll see next week is that this book actually bridges the story of the judges, the story of Israel, to the story of King David.
Uh, spoiler alert, Boaz will become King David's great-grandfather.
This is the line of King David.
And that that is important for the history and lineage of Israel.
But the theme that fills this book and actually fills the Old Testament and then spills over into the New Testament is that God cares and God is deeply involved in the lives of the small and the mundane.
A widow, a poor, a destitute, her Moabite, daughter-in-law, these people do not register on the important list.
Nobody cares about these people.
That's why Boaz stands out.
He cares.
But he's the exception that proves the rule.
And yet they get a book.
So who do they care to?
Who cares about them?
God cares about them.
God cares about the poor, God cares about the destitute.
God works through the mundane details of life.
And so this book was given to God's people.
It was given to us so that those who find themselves in the small, in the out of way, the people on the margins, the people who are suffering.
It's meant to answer the question: does God care?
Is God involved?
You know, I've been a pastor for many years.
I spent time as a missionary.
I've talked to a lot of people about the gospel, a lot of non-Christians, and I've heard more times than I can count people say, well, God doesn't care about me.
God cares about, you know, kings and nations and things going around the world.
My little problems don't matter to God.
But the book of Ruth says, no.
That's not the case at all.
And we see this in the life and ministry of Jesus, don't we?
This is why he was so confusing to his people in his day.
He's the Messiah.
Everything he's doing is proving and showing that he is the anointed one, the son of David, the one who is to come to save their people.
And yet he was spending time with the poor, the lame, the untouchables, foreigners.
Everybody's like, he seems like the one, but he's not doing anything like we would expect.
Jesus embodies the heart of God.
The heart of God for the poor, the hurting, the marginalized.
This also connects with one of the things we talked about last week.
If you were here, we talked about kind of the tension and the difficulty of understanding divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
And we said that they actually more overlap more than, you know, fight for dominance.
And what we see in this passage is the character, the ingenuity, the wisdom, the wealth of Boaz on display here.
He shows a shrewdness that we're going to see in a minute.
And we are to see that and to emulate that.
We're to praise Boaz and to see him loving and caring for these two widowed women.
At the same time, we see God's plan unfolding before our eyes.
And so which is it?
Is this Boaz being praised, or is this God's sovereign plan working out in front of us?
And the answer is yes.
The answer is that God is at work in all the details and all the mundane things of our lives, even seemingly trivial contract, disputes, and negotiation.
So as you go about your day, does God care about your choices?
Does God want you to live with high character and faithfulness and a willingness to sacrifice out of love for others?
Yes, he does.
But does God's sovereign plan depend on you coming through and you doing everything right?
No, not at all.
This is the beauty and the complexity of these two things.
That God desires for his people to be holy and to be faithful and to fight against sin and to fight against evil in the world.
And he is glorified and honored by that.
And at the same time, his plans don't rely or depend upon us, and so it gives us great relief.
And in fact, throughout the scriptures, we see God's people trying to be faithful and often failing terribly.
And yet God's sovereign plan comes through perfectly in the end.
It reminds me of that famous line that Joseph speaks to his brothers at the end of the book of Genesis.
He said, What you intended for evil, God intended for good.
And so God is always able to bring about his good and perfect plan through our faithfulness and through our failing and even through evil.
Alright, that's enough for that.
Let's get back to our story.
Our second point is that redemption takes love and sacrifice.
Again, when we left Boaz here at this, at the city gates, he's got the other kinsman redeemer, would-be kinsman redeemer there, the elders, and he's presented uh the situation.
And he says, Naomi would like her land to be redeemed.
He says, Oh, yes, I'll redeem that.
I'll take this free land and and um you know sow it and reap from it.
Um and again, this is terrible.
We don't know this guy.
He has he has shown no love or or desire to help Naomi and Ruth, and he has no obligation to do so, even though he has the legal right to redeem this land.
So, what's going to happen?
Well, Boaz isn't done yet.
Let's let's pick up in verse five.
Boaz said to him, The day that you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also uh acquire Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.
Then the Redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance.
Take my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it.
Whoa! What just happened?
Huge twist all of a sudden.
Well, Boaz has reminded this would-be redeemer of the cost of redemption.
This isn't just an opportunity for you to acquire new land from your deceased relative, there is there's actually cost involved.
Tied together with this Old Testament law of keeping land within the family is something called leverett marriage.
And again, I'll try not to get too deep into the details, but what it said is if uh a man dies and he leaves a widow and no children or no male children, then his closest male relative was to provide him with an heir through his widow.
Yes.
That's just what it sounds like.
And that sounds so weird to us.
It sounds super weird to me.
But we live in a very different culture with very different values.
And as I said, children and progeny and inheritance was everything.
And in fact, not just among the Jewish people, but among most ancient cultures in the world.
The worst thing in the world that could happen to you, especially as a man, you know, nobody cared that much about women except the women, uh, unfortunately, um, or they didn't write down what they cared about.
No man wanted to die without an heir.
It was as if you were erased from the annals of history.
It was through the names of your descendants.
Why do you think the Old Testament is so full of genealogies?
List after list, the Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy.
Why?
Because it matters where the bloodline comes from.
And so the worst thing in the world for Naomi, Naomi longs to have an heir for her deceased husband and for herself.
And so that this is enshrined in Old Testament law.
And Boaz reminds this would-be redeemer hey, you want the land, you take the wife.
Well, this is incredibly costly because sure he can acquire the land, but if he produces an heir through Ruth, what happens?
All of that land that he pays for, that he cares for, that he tills, goes to this other heir, and it becomes a limelex family line.
And so it would cost him deeply, and from his perspective, it would gain him nothing.
And so he says, This is not a hard decision.
I'm out.
And so, yes, Boaz swoops in, and through his cunning, through his ingenuity, right, he he was intentional the way he laid this plan out in front of this would-be redeemer.
And so he has come through in the end for Naomi and for Ruth.
But this raises the question for us: why was Boaz willing to go through so much to go through with this cost?
And as we said last week, the answer is love.
Boaz has come to love Ruth.
And he has developed a great love for Naomi, this distant relative.
He's seen Ruth's faithfulness to her mother-in-law.
He's seen her character and her willingness to work hard in the field, and he's seen Ruth's deep love for her mother-in-law that we saw last week, that she was willing to go again in the middle of the night to risk her safety and her future by boldly proposing to Boaz.
This woman has blown him away.
And she's a Moabite.
Again, these details are so important.
The Moabites were enemies of the Jews.
This was, you know, you only married within the Jewish family, first of all, but a Moabite?
Right?
That's why you'll notice when Boaz presents this to the kinsman Redeemer, he emphasizes, you must marry Ruth the Moabite.
It's like her full name.
Like Jesus of Nazareth, Ruth the Moabite.
And he's like, ooh, no.
But Boaz has fallen in love with her.
So much so that he's willing to give this great cost, to take her as his wife, to love her, to provide for Naomi and heir at great cost to himself.
And this raises something else about Boaz that makes him unique.
Not anyone could redeem Naomi and Ruth.
They had to have the standing, the cultural standing, the wealth that Boaz had.
He was the perfect kinsman, redeemer for these women.
And so Boaz wins the day out of love and becomes Naomi and Ruth's kinsman redeemer.
And the people celebrate.
This is how our passage closes.
He calls, Boaz celebrates.
He calls the elders and the witnesses there to witness what has happened to kind of ratify what's gone on.
And this is what they say.
We are witnesses.
May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.
May you act worthily in Ephratha and be renowned in Bethlehem.
And may your house be like that of Peres, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.
They celebrate, what do they celebrate?
The potential of children and a future.
And they call back these names.
If you're familiar with the Old Testament, who were Rachel and Leah?
The two wives of Jacob, who produced, along with a couple other women, the twelve tribes of Israel.
Right?
Like we're gonna we're gonna put down those little details.
Let's remember.
Through these two women, the nation of Israel was born.
And Tamar and Judah, you want to read a messed up story?
Go read Tamar and Judah.
Man, Judah, lion from the tribe of Judah.
Isn't Judah great?
Terrible person.
No.
But that story involves a leverate marriage and birthing of Perez.
Anyway, lots of family, lots of skeletons in this family closet.
But they're celebrating.
Naomi, here's the point of the story.
Naomi went away full, returned empty.
She thought her life was over.
And here, through the gift of Boaz, she is being filled up again.
And it is a beautiful story to behold.
Well, and that brings us to our final point here as we close.
Running out of time.
Boaz points us to our greater kinsman redeemer.
As Christians, we can't help it, right?
Kinsman Redeemer.
Ooh, that sounds like Jesus.
And guess what?
You're right.
It totally is a connection with Jesus.
Just like Abraham and Moses and Boaz's future grandson, King David, these all point us to Jesus.
Jesus is the greater kinsman redeemer.
Who out of love and a cost that we can't even fully imagine, he was willing to come and redeem us from our poverty and certain death, dead and our trespasses and sins.
We were his enemies.
We, most of us in this room, were foreigners outside the household of Israel.
We were not worthy of his love and sacrifice, and yet he came.
Not only did he save us, but he makes us his bride.
We talk about that.
Not only does he save us from our sins, but he is betrothed to us and he brings us into his family.
We become, we go from being destitute and dead in our sins to be part of the royal family and heirs to the kingdom of God.
In this little story, in this backwater town, we see a seed of the story that would blossom into the very gospel itself that gathers us together as brides, the bride of Christ, the church.
And as costly as this was to Boaz, it pales in comparison to the cost Jesus was willing to pay.
The Son of God who took on flesh and became one of us willingly went to the cross and paid the bride price, paid the say that five times fast, paid the bride price for us with his own blood.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus is the better Boaz.
You see, Ruth's story becomes for us like a parable.
That though we have trouble in this life, we can rest in the truth that our kinsman Redeemer has overcome the world.
Some of us in this room, we are with Naomi in chapter one.
We are in despair.
Some of us are living in chapter two or chapter three.
Some of us are in chapter four.
Wherever we are, the scriptures testify to us of the faithfulness of God, the love of God, the willingness to pay whatever price because he loves you.
Because he sees in you what he placed there, infinite value and worth.
And so it calls us to worship, to give thanks, and to rest in the very love of God.
And if you're here this morning and you're you don't know Jesus, you wouldn't consider yourself a Christian.
Do you hear yourself in the story?
Do you long to be loved with an eternal love, a sacrificial love?
This invitation is open to all.
And we would ask that you would receive it even this morning.
Let's pray.
Our Father and our God, Lord, you do amazing things.
And often in the mundane ness of life, Lord, we forget.
We forget what we've been given.
We forget what you have given.
We forget who we are, the beloved bride of Christ, the heirs with Christ, the children of God, the beloved for who we are, never needing to do anything to earn it.
Let us rejoice in that truth this morning.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.