Well, in 1994, a man named Frank Derebont directed and released one of the greatest movies ever made called The Shawshank Redemption.
I'm sure some of you have seen that.
And in this, a man named Andy Dufrain, played by Tim Robbins, is falsely accused and sent to Shawshank prison for the double homicide of his wife and another man.
While he's at Shawshank, he meets a guy named Red, goes by the name Red, and that's uh played by Morgan Freeman.
Now, Red, throughout this movie, narrates his experience with our guy Andy, and he says he's a quiet guy, kind of keeps to himself, doesn't try to bother anybody.
We learn also that Andy's pretty passionate about making the prison a better place for everybody.
He does a lot of work to upgrade the library, making it the best prison library.
He begins helping the guards with their taxes, and he even helps an inmate named Tommy get his GED.
On the other hand, the warden of the prison, uh, played by Bob Guntin, is a mean man who also happens to be a Bible verse slinging Christian.
Or so it seems.
Later on in the movie, the warden gets upset at Andy for playing opera music over the loudspeakers, and he puts him in solitary confinement for two months, which is the longest anybody had been in it.
Then he gets out, Andy gets out, and nearing the end of the movie, he has this magic moment with him and Red.
And Andy in this moment tells Red that he dreams about living in Zawantaneo, a beautiful town on the west coast of Mexico.
And he goes on telling Red, hey, there's this little package underneath a tree in Buxton that's waiting for him, and he makes Red promise that one day when Red gets out, he'll go find this package for him.
We learn later that Andy wants Red to come to Mexico with him.
And Red, in this whole time, is like, How are you so optimistic right now?
You're in jail.
Like, how do you have this hope and dream to get out?
How can you possibly have these hopes?
Well, the next day at morning roll call, the guards find Andy's cell empty.
The prison guard notably yells about, Dufrain, you better be sick or dead, which I love.
The guards walk up.
Um, by the way, if you haven't seen this movie, I'm about to spoil it.
So if you need to leave, like I'm I'm sorry, it's 30 years old, it's 94, I wasn't even alive yet.
Um about to spoil it.
Sorry.
So the guards walk up, and Andy's cell is empty, as many of you know.
Um he's nowhere to be found.
He was at the nightly count the night before when they checked all the cells, so where could he be?
So the warden, our Bible verse slinging dude, shows up, he freaks out.
And Andy was a chiseler.
He liked to make whittle things and rocks and things like that.
And so he had all these little kind of knickknacks around his room, and so the warden would take these rocks and he just started throwing them, mad, throwing them around the room, as one does when you're angry.
Uh, and he throws one at this big poster on the side of the room of this woman, and rather than the rock bouncing off of the wall like you would expect, the rock goes right through the picture, as you all remember.
And so then he goes, looks up, and he notices there's a hole, and so he pokes his finger in the hole, and then all of a sudden his whole arm, and then he freaks out, he takes the poster, rips it off the wall, uh, and then we see this angle.
Picture kills me.
I love Morgan Freeman in that.
It kills me.
Well, as it turns out, Andy, for 19 years, had been chiseling away, creating a tunnel for him to crawl through to freedom.
We see that at the end of the movie.
No one knew this, not even his best friend Red, and so this whole time as Andy is helping the prison become a better place, helping the guards do their taxes, helping Tommy get his GED, there's Andy.
Every night, 19 years chiseling away, creating a hole for himself to crawl through.
One of my favorite little moments is when we learn Andy, uh, weren't we learn where Andy was hiding the chisel tool.
We got a picture of that as well.
I love that.
I don't know how much the director understands the ark of the Bible, but I find it amazing that it's open to Exodus.
Exodus is a book about God redeeming his people.
And I don't know if Derabont, the director, knew that as he put that picture there, but Exodus is the story about God freeing his people from their oppressors, and it's a story that the Israelites reflect upon as their salvation, and in Christ we have the new Exodus, so to say.
Now, this morning we're continuing in our series through the book of Ruth.
We're gonna be camped out like Davis read in Ruth 2, so if you want to flip there with me, um, I think there's one big point that I'm gonna try to argue today.
And so this is what I think the big point is of Ruth 2.
Just want to put it on the table and I hope you see it.
God is providentially working all things for the redemption and spiritual freedom of his people.
When I say the word providential, I'm gonna use it a lot this morning, that what I'm meaning by that is that God is over all things.
Every detail of human history is over it, he knows it, he's involved in it, and at the same time, he's intimately involved in it.
So, whenever I use that word this morning, that's kind of the idea that I'm getting at.
And in Ruth 2, what we see is God's gracious hand through his servant Boaz to a poor, widowed Moabite woman, where we see God's super abundant provision for her.
So let me pray one more time and then we'll we'll dive in.
So let's pray together.
Father, um, thank you for your word, which is without error, which is infallible and capable of being wrong, and it is authoritative.
And thank you, Father, that this word has endured thousands of years to be here before us, and thank you that by your spirit you illuminate it for us to see the beauty and person of Jesus.
And so, Father, I pray this morning that as we see Ruth chapter two, Lord, I pray that whatever burdens we're carrying, whatever sin we're wrestling with, whatever addictions feel like they have a grip on our hearts, Lord, I pray that you would meet us in this place with the cross of Christ and allow us to bring ourselves to you fully.
Lord, I pray that we don't see Boaz as somebody that we need to try to be, but I pray that we see Boaz as the one who in Jesus was for us.
We pray all that in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So let's recap together.
In chapter one, which Matt hit on last week, we saw the book of Ruth begins on a terrible note.
We meet Naomi and very quickly learn that her husband dies, as well as her two sons, and so she's left with her two daughters-in-law, and she tells them to go back to their land.
They're both Moabite women.
She says, Go back to your land, you're still young, you can get a husband at this point, because Naomi's at an age where she's not likely to get remarried.
And in this context, getting remarried at Ruth's age is almost a matter of life or death, and so getting remarried is super important for her.
And the suffering that Naomi experienced is unimaginable.
Or perhaps for some of us in this room, can feel imaginable, actually.
She's living in the dark night of the soul, where hope feels truly, completely lost.
And maybe you've been there.
Maybe you perhaps find yourself there this morning.
And as Matt hit on so beautifully last week, we can look at Naomi's prayer at the end of chapter one and be encouraged that the Bible is as real as it is.
When Naomi cries out and questions why God would deal so bitterly with her and have his hand against her, we can look at that and be encouraged.
Maybe some of us have prayed prayers like that.
And like Matt said last week, the Bible does not judge Naomi for praying those ways, and so neither should we.
So at the end of chapter one and end of chapter two, Ruth and Naomi are together and have decided to return back to Bethlehem, which is the place that they left because there was a famine at the beginning of the book.
So they're back.
And notably at harvest.
Ruth has left everything to stay with Naomi.
She's left her Moab by gods, she's left her family, her home, and she has clung to Naomi.
And that word for cling there is the same word in Genesis 2, when it says father and mother, or man and woman shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.
That's the same word used as Ruth is clinging to Naomi.
I think it's beautiful.
So now they're returning.
And one thing to note in the book of Ruth: almost every time the name Ruth is mentioned, it's attached to the other word Moabite, as if the writer is punching at us outsider, outsider, outsider.
So keep that in mind as we work through.
So let's read verses one through seven one more time.
Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favour.
And she said to her, Go, my daughter.
So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.
And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and he said to the reapers, The Lord be with you.
And they answered, The Lord bless you.
Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, Whose young woman is this?
And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.
She said, Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.
So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.
So we're introduced quickly here in chapter two to the next main character of Ruth, Boaz.
Verse 1 tells us that Boaz is a relative.
We don't know what sort of relative he is, maybe a cousin, maybe a family member of some sort, but he's in the clan of Naomi's late husband, Elimelech.
And he's described to us here as a worthy man, and that that word could be used in several different ways.
One, it could be financially strong, which clearly as a field owner, he is there in some sense.
It could also mean physically strong.
Or it could mean someone who has good integrity, good character, an honorable man in that sense.
Perhaps we'll see, maybe it's a combination.
So Ruth decides to go glean in the field in hopes that some worthy man would find her and find favor in her.
And the word for favor there could also mean grace.
So let's pause, let's reflect on Ruth's story for a moment.
She's a Moabite woman.
She's just lost her husband.
She's left her entire family, her home, her religion, all because she feels called and led to cling to Naomi, her mother-in-law.
And here she is coming to Bethlehem as an outsider.
A poor, sojourning widow outsider, a Gentile.
She's coming into Bethlehem.
We can't imagine what she's feeling as she's returning.
A new widow, an outsider.
Maybe she's nervous as she approaches this town that she's gonna be mistreated or shunned.
Perhaps like the woman at the well in John 4, maybe that's how she's expecting to be received.
A poor widow outsider is ripe for mistreatment.
Especially thinking about the context of the time of Judges.
What was going on at the time of the Judges?
It's perhaps the nation of Israel's darkest moment spiritually in all of its history.
People of Israel are spiraling in sin and rebellion, so we have to imagine that Ruth has some sort of feeling that she's going to be treated maybe like the woman in Judges 19.
So in faith, she comes to the fields to glean.
So gleaning is a practice given by God to the people of Israel all the way back in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
And the purpose of gleaning was this.
For poor, the poor sojourners, widows, and orphans, they were allowed to gather standing grain in corners or borders of fields, as well as stalks or sheaves that had been accidentally left behind by workers.
Remember that word accidentally as we go forward.
And this gleaning, it was a thing designed and commanded by God of his people so that they would leave, again, accidentally for those who were in need.
It was about caring for those who were in need, including outsiders.
But what does verse 3 tell us?
She happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.
The word in Hebrew could better be translated as accident or chance.
She chanced upon Boaz's field.
And from the human perspective, it does certainly look like that, doesn't it?
That it was an accident.
I mean, Ruth didn't know Boaz.
She didn't know which field was his, and Naomi didn't tell her either, as far as we know.
So she just comes to this field, and it happens to be Boaz's.
But here's what we know to be true.
The God of the universe, revealed to us through the Word of God, does not leave things up to chance or accident.
The God of the universe always was and is providentially, like in that word, leading all things throughout human history to the redemptive work of Christ and his ultimate return.
There is no hair that falls from your head that he does not know.
For all of human history, everything is intimately worked out and connected by the hand of God, who is providentially leading all things to Christ.
And so Ruth happens to come to Boaz's field.
She happens to come to his field on the day that he's returning from Bethlehem.
This is no chance.
This is no accident.
And God's working here, God's care of Ruth, God's providence, was hard, wasn't it?
Ruth was widowed.
She had just lost her husband.
Her mother-in-law just lost her husband and both of her sons.
There was a famine in the land.
Food was scarce.
That was the whole reason they left Bethlehem in chapter 1 in the first place.
So three deaths and famine are God's providence?
Really?
It certainly makes sense that Naomi would cry out and change her name to Bitter, isn't it?
In fact, in January of this year, the woman's ministry leader at the seminary I go to lost her 23-year-old daughter in a car crash.
I sent a text to the president of our seminary as I heard the news and just heartbroken.
And his reply was this.
He said, Yes indeed, pray for them.
And then this two-word phrase, hard providence.
That two-word phrase, hard providence, has stuck with Grace and I this year.
Because God's providence is hard, isn't it?
When things in life brutally hit us, when the pain is unimaginable, when life continues to hit us, that's hard providence.
And we have a choice in those moments to believe in one of two things.
So I'm gonna we're gonna put them up on the screen for us.
One, these are the choices we have.
We can one, believe in a God who is sort of in control, but when hard things happen, he can't really do anything about it, or he doesn't really care.
Or number two, we can believe in a God who, in every detail, for all of human history, broadly and in our own lives, is beautifully over all of it and is actively working it all out for our own spiritual good and his own glory.
Those are the two things that will probably come to mind as hard things happen.
And the book of Ruth encourages us to lean into the second one, even though it's hard.
So let's keep going.
Let's see how God's providential care over Ruth will play out with this mighty man Boaz.
So Boaz's character and integrity are seen real quick.
The first words out of his mouth is a blessing to one of his servants, the Lord be with you.
We see quickly that Boaz is actively involved in his field.
He's not some far-off domineering landlord.
He's actively stewarding the field that God had given him, so much so that he actually recognizes when there's an unfamiliar face there.
That's how involved he is with this field.
He knows when there's a stranger there.
So he says, Who is this young woman?
And they reply, She's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi.
They make note that she had asked to glean in the field and that she was working hard literally all day to glean, not just for herself, but also for her mother-in-law, who she's clinging to.
So as Boaz learns this, we see his response in verses 8 through 13.
Let's read that together.
Then Boaz said to Ruth, Now listen, my daughter.
Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?
And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.
Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?
But Boaz answered her, All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.
The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.
Boaz addresses Ruth in a precious way, my daughter.
This isn't Boaz patronizing her.
This is Boaz with incredible gentleness approaching this vulnerable, likely scared foreign woman.
Once again, showing his incredibly pastoral, caring, even fatherly heart.
And what Boaz does for her in verses eight and nine, he does two things.
First, he offers her abundant protection, safety protection.
He tells her to remain at his field, to not leave his, to stay close to the other young woman.
Not only that, he charged the young men of the field to not touch her, to keep away from her.
So now she won't be alone.
And second, she'll have care from the owner of the field.
She was the primary target for some dude to take advantage of her.
And in this time, no one would have questioned it.
Something horrible could have happened to her, and no one would have ever known.
And Boaz knew this.
So he took special care to make sure that she would be safe and not alone and taken care of.
One of the biggest critiques of Christianity in the Bible in our culture, this is what TikTok and Instagram are discipling your teenagers, is that Christianity is too traditional and doesn't seek the welfare of women.
And in my counter to that is that in true, grace-filled, biblical, loving Christianity, is that women flourish.
Jesus speaks higher of women than any piece of literature in that time.
So if you want to know what the heart of God is towards women, read Ruth.
Read John 4, where Jesus approaches the woman at the well.
So second, first he gives her abundant protection.
Second, he cares for her physical needs.
He says, When you're thirsty, go drink the water that is already drawn for you.
In this context, foreigners drew water for the Israelites.
In this context, women drew water for men.
And Boaz is saying to this Moabite woman, my Israelite men have drawn the water for you.
To counter the context.
This is extraordinary.
This is Boaz going far above anything Ruth could have imagined.
And so her response makes sense as she falls on her face, blown away by Boaz's care for her.
Both for her safety and her physical well-being.
Again, she's a woman.
She's a foreigner.
This is not how that demographic was treated in this world.
The world of the judges.
And yet here's Boaz superabundantly blessing her, caring for her.
And not only that, he sees her.
He sees how loving Ruth was to her mother-in-law.
He acknowledges that she's a new widow and that even in the midst of her likely unbearable grief, she's still caring so well for Naomi.
He acknowledges that she left her home, her family, her religion, and came to a people who definitely could have rejected her.
He pronounces a blessing over her.
It's actually in this moment, Boaz is almost saying, The Lord shalom you.
The Lord make you whole, the Lord make you at peace, the Lord make you complete.
And this is very similar to the way Jesus talks about the results of faith in the gospel, isn't it?
In Mark 5, Jesus is on the way to heal Jairus' daughter, and Jairus is one of the rulers of the synagogue, and his daughter gets sick.
And as Jesus is on his way to go heal Jairus' daughter, a woman who has had a discharge of blood for 12 years just touches the edge of Jesus' garment because she believes in her mind and in her heart that she might be healed because power would come to her.
And so she did, and she was healed.
The discharge stopped, her body was healed, and Jesus, I love this, perceiving in himself that power had gone out, I love that, asks his disciples who touched me.
And the disciples respond, like we would.
Dude, you're in a crowd of people.
There's everyone, everyone's touching you.
But this is what Jesus said in verse 33 and 34, or the word of God.
But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, knowing that she was healed, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, likely how we would, and told him the whole truth.
And he said to her, much like Boaz, daughter, your faith has made you well.
Go in peace and be healed of your disease.
This could also be translated as, your faith has made you whole or complete.
Because this is what happens to the soul that receives faith in Jesus wholeness, completeness, an inner shalom, but despite what the world brings our way.
And this is what Boaz proclaims pastorally, fatherly, over Ruth.
The Lord make you whole.
That's the least likely person we would expect salvation to come to.
A Moabite woman.
She receives grace.
Let's read on and close with verses 14 and 16 through 16.
And at mealtime Boaz said to her, Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.
So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her the roasted grain.
And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.
When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her.
Also pull out some from the bundles for her, and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.
So Boaz's superabundant care for Ruth has Gone one step further here.
Not only did he offer protection for her, care for her, he's actually invited her into his home and brought her in.
She's not being treated as a foreign woman, she's being treated as a part of his family, as a sacred guest.
And not only that, but Boaz tells his servants to intentionally drop some of the grain for her to glean.
You remember in our definition of gleaning, gleaning was to pick up the accidental droppings of wheat and barley, and so Boaz is telling his people to drop it on purpose for her.
He's actually saying to go against the law to abundantly bless her.
Drop a little extra for her.
And this is just more of his superabundant care for her.
When a woman like Ruth would glean in a field, she would be restricted to just the outskirts of the field, just the edges of it.
She wouldn't be able to walk freely throughout since she was a foreigner.
But Boaz here, when he instructs for her to glean even among the sheaves, he is telling her that whatever is his is now hers.
He's saying, This woman, a Moabite, Gentile outsider, is now because of his grace to her allowed to walk to the center of the field, not just the outskirts anymore.
The story we just read ends on a note where Naomi looks at Ruth and said, This man Boaz is, he says, is one of our redeemers.
So he's referring to a term in the earlier books of the Bible, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, about what's called a kinsman redeemer.
This is one of the most important details of the book of Ruth.
And here are a couple roles of the kinsman redeemer in the Old Testament.
And this is from a commentator named John Currid.
So number one, the Redeemer would pay off the debts of his family.
Number two, the Redeemer would buy back tribal land that a relative had sold.
And then number three, this is one of the more important ones of the book of Ruth, is called Leveret Marriage.
And this is when the Redeemer would marry a widow who had no male heirs to keep the family lineage alive.
So the entire idea of a kinsman-redeemer was that the Redeemer would deliver his kin, his family, from danger, financial land, marriage, whatever that danger might be.
Because the family, the kin, would not have the power to do this.
So the kinsman-redeemer would have to step in and intervene on behalf of his family and provide what they needed.
Naomi recognizes that Boaz fits this role.
He has offered Ruth protection.
He has brought her into his home.
But the question that we're left with in Ruth 2 is will he fulfill his role as kinsman redeemer?
We'll just have to wait and see in Ruth 3 and 4, if you will.
But I think Ruth 2 is ultimately all about God's above and beyond provision for his chosen person here, Ruth.
We saw Boaz grant protection and physical protection for her.
Going above and beyond anything she could have even asked.
He then went above even the protection and provision, inviting her into his home, treating her as a part of his family, and then beyond that, he told his servants to intentionally drop for her so that she would have way more than she could even ask or imagine.
And then, lastly, Ruth is not only just allowed to be on the outskirts of the field, she's brought right into the middle of it where the family goes.
So Ruth, too, is all about God's providing hand, how he always provides over and above what we could even ask or imagine.
Ruth, at the beginning of the chapter, comes to Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means house of bread, hoping to find some crumbs, and then at the end instead is met with a harvest of provision.
This chapter to me is one of the clearest pictures of the gospel I think I've ever read, frankly.
We too, like Ruth, were outsiders.
We were the foreigners, stuck in our pain, stuck in our sin, stuck in our addiction.
And perhaps we, in fear, like Ruth, approached to the Lord, hoping maybe he would leave some scraps for us.
But then in Christ, perhaps we've found a harvest.
We have found that God doesn't leave us at the outskirts, but has actually brought us into the family of faith.
In Christ, we are not just borderline cousins, we are sons and daughters invited to come into the center of God's field, to glean in the center for provision.
We have a kinsman redeemer that is far better than Boaz, as good as he was, who has taken our debts, our sin, our insufficiency, and has taken it upon himself gladly.
One thing that we say all the time with our students on Sundays is that Jesus knew what he was buying when he died for you.
Jesus knew what he was buying when he died for you.
So that means that your present sin, your present addiction, your present spiraling, backsliding, whatever it may be, does not come to the King of Kings by surprise.
And that's because he does not operate by chance.
He is providentially over all things in your life, in my life, in the world at whole, moving it towards the ultimate fulfillment in Christ.
Both on the cross, in his life, death, and resurrection, and then in his coming back when he will make all things new and wipe all your tears.
That same Christ knows you intimately and is working all things for his glory and your good.
Let's pray together.
Father, um, thank you for Ruth in this book where we see an outsider welcomed in, where we see someone who we would least expect to be given grace, to not just be given the crumbs in Bethlehem, but to be welcomed with a harvest.
Thank you that you are a God, not of the scraps, but of the harvest.
Thank you that as we approach you, we're not met with a condemnation, a talking to.
We're met with a my daughter, my son, an open hand of grace.
So, Father, I pray for us this morning as we perhaps come into this room with shame, with addiction, with suffering, with present sin that just has a grip on us.
With unbelief, Lord, perhaps we're doubting if you're even there and if you are there, if you're even good because this happened.
Father, I pray that we would be able to freely approach you this morning in faith.
And I pray that you would even help our unbelief.
Thank you for Boaz, and thank you for our greater Boaz, who stands in our place and who offers us grace upon grace, even in our brokenness.
Father, we love you.
Pray all this in Jesus' name.
Amen.