Summer Remix Part 3: Ruth

Join us at Salt and Light Church as James remixes a previous sermon on Ruth. James speaks about each of our responsibilities as members of the church body.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Are kind of like at opposite ends. Moabites are the descendants of Lot, and his ancestral relationship with his daughter is where these family where this family came from. This group of people came from. So they have been like trampled on, they are like the low of the low. They don't serve a God. They have their own wishes, their own wealth, their own judgment of what's right and wrong. This is the rift between Israel and Moabite. Well, it is not appropriate for the Israelites to marry Moabite women. To let you know. It's not. It's like oh man, I don't want to do this one. It's like slavery in the early 1900s, and your master married one of his slave women or something. It's that kind of like feel, right? Or it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, praise God that we've like evolved from there. But it's the same type of feel. Then Alim Alech's sons both die, and his wife is left with two daughter-in-laws. It's just the three, but all the men have died, right? Elimelech, so I looked at this, and this is really interesting. Alima Leck's name, so uh I'll put this in context. Um my Korean name has a meaning. Most of your names also have a meaning. Yeah. So my first name is hu, H-Y-O. Okay. Hyo in the Korean language is short for hyoja. Yeah. Hyoja means helper of parents. Right? There's a meaning to my name. It is the helper of parents. This is my name that my parents have given me. It's a girl's name, mind you. But if you look me up, you'll see a bunch of girls on Google. You will not find me, right? The guy, the one guy. Um, and then my middle name is Sue, S-O-O. SOO is a generational marker. So every one of my cousins, we all have the same middle name. My dad, his generational marker is whole. So Shinkan Ho. Ho is all of his brothers all have the same middle name. Elijah, one of his middle names, is he. He is the generational marker of his generation. Every cousin that he's gonna meet in Korea has the middle name he. The name has meaning. Right? Your name has meaning. It's interesting how life somehow aligns with that. Elimelech's name means my God is king. Awesome name. Melon, his son, means sickness, weakness, and frailty. Yes. That's his name. Bro didn't make it. He died. Surprise. Chilean's name means wasting destruction or coming to an end. These are his two sons that they took to Moabite and they married Moabite women. These two guys. So part of me is like, how frail did he look? You know? Like, how destructive was he? Does his temper, like, did his temper like bring him to his final end? Like, did he get into a bar fight or something? I don't know. I don't even know if they had bars back then. Right? Or how frail was he that they had to move and he didn't make the like journey? Like, I don't know why he died, right? The Bible is not very conclusive about what that what happened there. But we we we find out that they've been living there for 10 years and they die. Naomi, her name means pleasant, sweet, lovely, delightful. That's the name Naomi, right? And now she has two daughters. She has Ruth, which means friend or companion, and Orpa, which means one who turns back. Interesting. Interesting. So after ten years in Moab, Naomi's like, hey, like Bethlehem is coming back. Like they're getting their stuff together, the resources are coming, the bread is flowing. It is almost time for wheat season. They're gonna, it's almost time to harvest some of the grains. Let's go back. It's been 10 years, we're out here. Naomi doesn't have claim to anything in Moab. She doesn't. Like, it's not a thing, right? She does, however, have property back in Israel, back in Bethlehem. She has like, I want to say like countenance. Like I always mess up on words. She's got a good rep there. She's got family there, she has history there, she has an inheritance there. She has everything in Bethlehem. She did not sell it, because later on you'll see. So after 10 years, she comes back and she's like, hey, um, the Israelites do not treat Moabite women well. Like you are gonna be treated like garbage in Israel. Like there is not a future, there's not a known path for you to be good and well off in Israel. Because you are Moabite women and you don't fit here. Like for your security, I want you to go back and stay in Moab. Because you have the ratio and the statistics say that you have a better chance of living a good life there than you will in Israel. Where you don't have an inheritance, where you don't have history, where you don't have family, go back home. Like, do your thing where you were before you got married. And so Ruth tries to send them back. And Orfa, the smart ones, I mean I'm guessing she's the right-brained logical one and analyzes the situation, and she's like, hey, like, yeah, let's go back. You know, I could get my stuff together. I have a chance to make and I have some friends here. I grew up here, right? Maybe her high school friends or middle school friends. I don't know if they had those back then either. But she knew people there. So go back to Moabite. Hey, we're gonna make this happen. Awesome. Then Naomi's like, hey, Ruth, like you should go back. Because this is good for you as well, as a Moabite woman. And I love this. And this is the part that most of us have heard. So Ruth 1, 16 through 17 reads like this. Ruth 1, 16, 17. We're working on it. Got it. All right. I'll read it really quite uh really nicely. Uh but Ruth replied, Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, even if death separates you and me. When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the two women went until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived at Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the woman exclaimed, Can this be Naomi? So I was always under the impression that Boaz had no idea who Ruth was. Because what happens is they don't have provisions. So Naomi, I'm guessing, is going back to the property that she owns or that she had that Lima Lek owned. Mind you, women couldn't own property back then. It goes down from the males, like the men have all the authority. Women don't. Korean culture, interestingly enough, has a similar thing. So my family, um man, you guys are learning a lot about me today. It's good, it's good. Uh, my family actually created the Korean alphabet. So during the Seijong Dewang days, um China and essentially all of Asia had a common written language. That language still exists today. Um, however, how you speak those languages are different. So if you go to Hong Kong, they are like Cantonese. So all the Kung Fu movies that I watched growing up were all Cantonese. So I was like watching Kung Fu movies when my work was gonna send me to China. I was like, I'm gonna know how to say teacher, I'm gonna know how to say all these cool things. I go to China, they only speak Mandarin in Shanghai. It's actually Shanghainese, it's different. What I didn't know is those two groups of people can't talk to each other. They could write to each other, but they can't talk to each other because the language had evolved. The written language was the same. So they if you wrote a letter, they both understand it in their own way. They can't talk to each other. Korea has different languages, written languages. They have Hanmun, which is an old Korean, which is essentially a version of Chinese. So a lot of Korean people can also read Chinese, at least the older generations, right? I can't, right? I didn't do it either. So what Korea did back in the 1400s is they made it a phonetic alphabet, which means the sound of the word is built into the letter. So America has that app like A, B, C, D, E, F, G. There is a sound associated with that character, right? Old Chinese doesn't have that. It's a picture, essentially, and the picture is a word. There's no lettering, there's no pronunciation, there's nothing. So my family uh decided, Shin Suchu decided he was gonna make the Korean alphabet, which also is gonna have phonetic words. And so the Korean language stopped evolving. And so now the Korean we speak now is probably the Chinese that they spoke in the 1400s, right? Most likely. Most likely. There's no studies on this. And I tell you that story because I have a historical book that has my name and every single person in my lineage from that guy, from Shin Sucju all the way down, we have a list of every guy. Every male. I can track my lineage and know the names of every person back to that guy. But no women. Side story. This is now. The funny thing is, my uncle has two daughters, and my dad had two sons. They won't they won't admit to this, but we had a conversation about this, and I remember it. So as much as they deny it, I know they had this conversation. What it was is they were gonna put my name under my uncle so that his lineage carries on. That was the thing. That's my story, right? That's me. So they're like, hey, your uncle has two daughters, I have two sons, we want his lineage to continue, so we are gonna move you over to this other family so that the lineage will continue on, right? And then my brother died with no kids. So then I moved back with my dad. You know what I'm saying? And so and so this is the same thing. Naomi loses her husband Elimelec, and now she's kind of wandering and has no like lineage thing. She's not connected to the tree of the family. She's not, she's left out, she's out. And so, you know, I kind of felt that, right? I felt that. So she comes back, she comes back to all of her friends and all the people. Obviously, the town knew about her because they made a big deal about when they came back, right? And then now Naomi's like, hey, they're like, hey, Naomi, like, it's so awesome you're back and it's cool, and you're yeah, you can, and they're like, oh, Naomi, the first thing that comes out of her mouth, she says this, and this is 19. I didn't ask them to do this, they won't be up there. So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the woman exclaimed, Can this be Naomi? Naomi replies, Don't call me Naomi. She told them, Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? Which remember means pleasant, sweet, lovely, and delightful. She's like, call me Mara, which means bitter, bitterness, resentful, right? She has lost so much, and she is so frustrated and angry. And she's like dealing with, okay, so I have this property, but I don't have this property. I have this place, but I don't have this place. I don't have rights to this thing, right? Because her husband died and doesn't go, it doesn't pass on to women. It stays with guys. And she's like, call me bitter because I've literally lost everything. She's literally given up. She's like, I can't have any kids. I'm too old. What am I gonna do? That was one of her things, one of her alibis telling like Orpah and Ruth to go home. Like, hey, I'm too old, I'm not gonna have kids, there's nothing there. I don't have an inheritance for you. Because I can't get remarried and have kids. There's no one else. We're done. My lineage is done. In my Korean book of names, mine's gonna be the last one for me. That's the mindset that she has. I had all of this and now I have nothing. I had three had a had a husband and two boys. Either one of them, the chances are one of them will survive and they'll keep the thing, right? Nothing. Nothing. She comes back to zero. Sad. Sad. So how does this work? Now where we're at. Now we're at Ruth. She's coming back home. She doesn't have property. She doesn't have whatever. And now she has also the burden of a daughter-in-law, from Moab. Naomi doesn't have plans for Ruth. She doesn't have a future laid out for Ruth. She doesn't. She's like, you also don't get anything out here. Not only that, you'd be despised. So now we're in an interesting predicament. So if I were Naomi, like if you were Naomi, like what would you do? You just came back, you just lost everything. You can live there for now, but like it's gonna be gone. You can't pass it down to anyone. Right? You can't like move out and just do whatever, right? What do you do? So I think at this point, Naomi was like, I'm done. Call me bitter. I will go back into my hole and live there. I think at this point, she's like, alright, whatever. We're done. And this is where Ruth comes in. Ruth is like, hey, it's harvesting time here. Let me go and find a place just to go find a job. Right? Let me go work at McDonald's, right? Let me let me go work at the grocery outlet. Let me go work wherever I can find a job. You know what I'm saying? Let me go find some food. We're gonna afford some stuff, whatever. And so she goes to a random field, my guess is. They're like, make your best, and Naomi has the best word. She has the best line. She's like, um, I don't know, make your best judgment and go find a place and bring back food, maybe? Go just just go out there and see what you can do. Naomi has no plans. She's done. She's cooked, as Elijah would say. She's cooked. Cooked. Yeah. So Ruth goes out. She somehow miraculously lands on the right place to harvest. She comes back with a ton of like food. And they're like, where did you go? So now Naomi's like, where did you go to get all this food? Like, what is this? And she's like, Oh, like, I was walking around, whatever, talking to like, oh, I went to this field, and this guy, Boaz, was there, and I was just like, like, getting food and stuff like that. And then uh then he came and talked to me, and Boaz was like, hey, like, um it's kind of dangerous for you everywhere. So we're kind of safe. So why don't you just keep harvesting in our field? And then we'll we'll like make sure you don't get hurt or kidnapped or whatever, right? Because women didn't have priority in these days. Interesting enough, Boaz is one of the kinsmen redeemers. Which means, because this is not the first time that men have died and the wives were still alive, not the first time, that Israel has a process, a process of keeping the assets of the women within the family. That process is you have multiple one or two people or whoever that are deemed kinsmen redeemers, which is a family restoration of assets, whether it's house, whether it's money, whether it's whatever. The crazy thing is, the women are also included in this contract. So not only do you get the property, you get the women who come with it. Interesting, right? Like property. That's crazy.

unknown 20:44

Not great.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Not great. Today's times it would not fly. Just let you know. Today's times it would not fly. However, that serves them really well. Because what happens, and make a long story short, ooh, sorry. Um, Ruth then harvests a lot. Boaz realizes, hey, like this girl is here and she's working her butt off. And not only that, her language and the way she speaks is of noble character. Is of noble character. So Boaz looks at Ruth. Like, we always, I always thought Ruth was so pretty that he was like, who's that? You know, like that's kind of like my my mindset, like, who's that pretty girl back there, like harvesting the thing, right? Like, in my mind, that's what's going on, right? Yeah, that's what we that's what I thought too. And it might be the case. It might be the case. However, later on, a little bit later on, uh we'll see some interesting things. So, yeah, so I always thought, oh, she's so pretty that she's back there, she's working. Whatever. But Boaz never says, wow, she's so pretty. Like it's not, it's not recorded here, right? He doesn't like, oh, she's so cute and pretty and whatever. She he says she's of noble character and she's working hard. Regardless of her status. He also knows she's a Moabite. Right? She's got multiple things against her. For you and me, we also have multiple things against us. Whether it's your culture, whether it's your race, whether it's your parents, whether it's your finances. Right? You have so many things against you. Especially young people. You have so much against you. You have older people against you. You have people that are 40 years old that wants to take your job. They want to take your medals. They want to take your opportunities. They exist. They're out there. Not all of us are that way, but some of us are. How unfair is that? It's super unfair. But you can see through Ruth that regardless of her background, regardless that she's from Moabite, she doesn't have a lineage. We don't know where she's from, like in terms of family tree. We don't know where dad is, we don't know her brother. Like, we have no idea. But yet, she's blessed through what? Hard work noble character. Visible. That people can see. Are you living life that way? Or people see you and they're like, wow. I don't know what his story or her story is, but that person has noble character. That person's not like us. You kind of see that, right? If LeBron James were to go to a high school and play basketball, the kids would be like, he's not like us. You know what I'm saying? Like, we have these once-a-generational sport athletes. These guys are not like us. And I feel like I feel Ruth here establishes something that I think we overlook a lot of the times, where she doesn't have credibility, she doesn't have like credit. She doesn't have you know a nice house, a nice car. Like she literally has nothing. But she's still willing and able to be of noble character, regardless of her circumstance, knowing she doesn't have a future in this society, knowing that it's dangerous for her to go walk out anywhere. But some of you women still deal with it today, right? There's a lot of stuff there. But yet she still has noble character. She's not down in the dirt saying, Oh, I'm here. I'm just gonna get wheat, whatever, just get some food. I just need enough food for today, whatever. Like, no, she's like working, and you see that she harvests more than she can eat, right? Shares it with her family, and then word gets out. Hey, Ruth is awesome, you guys. She's harvesting, she's working harder than most of the dudes. Like, she's working, working. Like she knows. And so I, you know, I challenge you with that. Yeah, sure. Maybe you don't have the best family. Sure. Maybe you do come from a broken home. Sure. Maybe you did come out of prison or whatever. Whatever that low is, God doesn't care. Do you still have noble character? Are you still operating in what he gave you? Right? That's I think the the deep part of Ruth. And there's there's some more here too. So then stuff. Awesome. Don't worry about it. So then Boaz is like, alright, we are going to redeem your family. So now Boaz is like, I like her for her character and work ethic and her nobility as a person, even knowing she's a Moabite and doesn't have any of this, and she would be making fun of her all the time, but you know what we're gonna do? We are gonna restore this whole process. So Boaz said, let's do it. Well, turns out there is another kinsman redeemer who is closer in relationship with Naomi than Boaz is. There's someone else in line who gets the ability to buy the property and make it theirs. Right? And now I'll read this. And this is Ruth 4, 3 through 6. Then he said to the guardian redeemer, this is the other person who is before Boaz in line, Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know, for no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line. So, in response, the other closer kinsman redeemer says this I will redeem it. Yes, I will redeem it. And then Boaz says this. Then Boaz said, On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you will also acquire Ruth. The Moabite, the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property. So you have this guy who's next in line above Boaz, and he's like, Yeah, dude, I'll buy this property. Like, do I get a discount? Whatever, you know? Like, I'll take the property. I'm next in line, I can do it. But then Boaz is like, oh, but you also get Ruth the Moabite. And then the guardian redeemers say, then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it for yourself. I cannot do it. Ruth was literally the breaking point of getting the property back to Boaz. There was someone in line, and that guy said yes. And he said, this girl comes with it, and then he said no. That tells you a lot. That tells you a lot. Here's this property that is yours, that could be yours, available to you. You have the funds to do it. He's like, 100%. Why not? Why wouldn't I do it? And he's like, oh, but you get this mobile. And he's like, nope. I'm out. I'm out. I always missed this part. I missed this part when I read it a couple times. I missed it. I always thought he just said no. I didn't realize he said yes. And then he said no. So then Ruth marries Boaz. They have kids. Turns out Boaz and Ruth have a kid named Obed. Obed has a kid named Jesse. Jesse has a kid named David. This is part of Jesus' story. The Moabite, the one of noble character who didn't have an inheritance, is in the lineage. Who is this? Great grandmother of King David? Great-great-grandmother, King David. Did the Lord bless her or what? And now I want to kind of, for closing, I want to talk to two groups of people here. Okay? So you older people, I'm going to talk to you first. You can determine what age that is. If this is you, that means it's you, all right? Regardless of age. Naomi had an inheritance, had property, had prestige, goes through a hard time, and essentially loses all hope. Loses all hope of redeeming it. Some of you, mind you, I'm only talking to old people right now. Young people have some for you later. Some of you have given up on your inheritance. Some of you have seen and felt the grace of God and lost it. And you are in a place of remorse. You are in a place of bitterness. You are in a place where you're like, there is no way out of this. Here I am. Whether it's finances, whether it's family, whether it's culture, whatever that is, you have lost it and now you are bitter. And your bitterness doesn't just live on you. It comes out of your mouth. It comes out of your actions, and we can feel it. Yeah? Some old people? Yeah? Maybe? Me too. Me too. I'm kind of in the middle, but I do kind of feel like an old person sometimes. I feel like some of these dreams and these blessings that God given me, I've given up on them. It's too hard. I don't have the resources. As a small example, I'm a songwriter, but I don't have a studio. I don't know how to run a microphone. I don't know how to record anything, but I'm a songwriter. But, you know, I'm old now. It's over. God called me the ministry when I was a kid. I wanted to be a pastor. But it's too late now. I've made my choices. I made some bad things. I'm no longer qualified. Some of you are counting yourselves out. You're out of the game right now. And I listen to these camp stories. I'm like, we have been praying for revival for decades. Decades. It's been a very long time since I was little. The words in my head, I hear boom it, boom it, which means like revival, revival. Like, you know, like these are words that always come in my head like revival, revival. We need to pray for revival. Like the generation needs. We need to pray. It's happening. It is going on. But you are too bitter to see it. You've disqualified yourself from being a part of the revival that is happening right now. We'll come back to that. Young people. Yeah. Yeah, you guys are not safe from this either. Ruth, when Naomi said, you guys go home, because that is the best choice for you. Logic, being smart, will tell you, go back to Moab. Go back to where you came from. You can make a living. What does Ruth do? Over my dead body. I am following you. Wherever you go, I go. If you die, I will. Like, it's insane. God judge me for this stubbornness. So the question I have for you, who are you following? Who are you following? Because if you're not, go back to Moab. I think there's something beautiful about how Naomi treated her daughter-in-laws. I think there's a relationship there that I don't quite understand. But the fact that somehow Ruth has this like ravenous heart to follow Naomi wherever she goes, I believe there was some kindness in there. I believe there was some mentorship. I think there was some love there. Where Ruth is like, hey, where you go, I go. Who do you have in your life where you're saying, man, like God is calling me to help you, or God is calling me to follow you. Whether that's the Bible, which it should be, the Lord's word, but there should also be people in your life that you can trust, whether it's within your family or within your church, right? But there's a dual relationship there. There is an interdependency with Ruth and Naomi. Through Ruth, Naomi gets her name back. She gets restored. After she gave up. After she was bitter. After she came home. She was cooked. She was done. Naomi needed Ruth. Naomi needed Ruth so that she can be redeemed. Think about this. And for you kids, Ruth needed Naomi. Without Naomi, Ruth has nothing. There's no property to inherit because Naomi had it. That was entitled to her before her husband died. She needed Naomi. There's an interdependency. And I think that, you know, that was on my heart when I was prepping this sermon was this culmination. And I think maybe Camp got to my head because I was there for way too long. Maybe, you know. And what I saw was a bunch of young people taking the mantle of what normally would be an adult's job. Who is praying for the kids? Oh, the kids are. When you have a 10-year-old kid come up to you and say, Hey, can I pray for you? That's crazy. That feels weird. But that is also awesome at the same time. And I think a lot of times we miss the mark in terms of we're bitter, we're done, our way didn't work, we don't have an inheritance, God has nothing for me. Like I'm not making a change in, like I'm not making a difference in this generation, I'm not making a difference in my own life. I'm not helping anyone else's life. I'm just like living my own life, just in a state of being. But I think God wants to break that. And I'm going to challenge you to unofficially adopt someone younger than you. And I'm going to challenge you kids to unofficially adopt an old person. Because there is an interdependency that has to happen for the kingdom to be redeemed. To be restored. Your bitter and sourness disappears when you're investing in the next generation and you see progress. Come on. I wasn't ready for middle school. I was not. I was part of tech. I was like, I'm gonna make these videos. And middle school for me was the worst. I was video editing until like three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning. And had to wake up at seven every day. I was literally sleeping three hours a day. All through middle school. So part of it's like hallucinating, part of it is like, I need to get stuff done. You know what I'm saying? And me, I'm like, oh. So I'm in, I'm running sound because I'm the tech guy and I'm running mixing boards and stuff like that. And I'm like, this is an awesome worship moment. Um, let's get some really cool footage. I'm like, where are the camera guys? Where's where's my son? Like, where is he at? He's in the corner. He's at the corner like this. Just getting prayed for. I'm like, well, I can't be angry at that, right? Like, we need footage, but he's like, ah, and I didn't, you know, I'm sorry for making that a can uh like a contest in terms of you had this uh job that you had to do, like always, always, always trump the job with the Holy Spirit. Always, always. So if that ever happens again, forget the job. And so I was like, oh man, like you know, I'm not getting footage. And then the next night, I'm like, dude, someone, I'm I'm I'm like, you know, worship team's playing and everyone's praying for each other, and like I'm like mixing stuff, and then someone taps me on the shoulder and I'm like, what? Like what? Like we're we're making this, like, making it nice, you know, making it sound good, making sure the volume isn't too loud. You could actually hear your voices while you're praying. So like look over there. I look over, it's my son getting prayed for in the middle of the room, and there's like 20 kids around him, like just arms, and I see a head. It's just arms and praying, like a whole lot. I go over there, you know. I'm like bawling. Just I mean a lot of crying. I was I was tired too, but the Holy Spirit was thick. Sometimes you can feel it, right? Like you're like cutting through, like you're like, oh, I need to get over there, and there's like this like Holy Spirit. Um and so I was like, so I went over and like I was in tears, and all I could think, all I could think of, and I I I hope that one day you get to feel this. I ran up there like a fool, took a couple pictures because my wife wasn't there, and I want her to also experience it, and I went in there and I hugged my son. He's yelling in my ear, Lord, I give my heart to you, and just I'm just out of it, tears, just in this moment for me, it's kind of a life-defining moment, and I'm gonna try to um create like environments and situations where people can experience what that was. That's how meaningful it was to me to watch my own kid continue the legacy that I have been working on my entire life. I'm a pastor's kid. I grew up in the church. I walked away for a while during college, and the Lord called me back in a very strong way. At that moment, I sold my life to the Lord, whatever he does. I'm running. When they asked me to do camps, I was like, I am gonna run and I'm gonna follow the Holy Spirit. Wherever the Spirit goes, that's where I go. That is the Ruth mentality. I want you to put that in your head. That is the Ruth mentality. She said, over my dead body, am I ever gonna leave you? You should have the same feeling with the Holy Spirit. Wherever the Holy Spirit goes, over my dead body, I'm gonna run and I'm gonna follow it. Camp is one of those places. Kids, middle school, high school, that's tough. I wouldn't recommend it to everybody. It's difficult, but it's also the most impactful in joy. Like, there's so much joy and so much laughter and so much Holy Spirit moving, and you see the next generation, you feel like you're a part of the change that's happening in our dark world that's being held hostage by people who are greedy, by people who have their own agenda and not God's heart. And we need to stop that. And so, Ruth, I felt like for us young people, yeah, we need to have that mindset. We need to be of noble character, we need to follow the Holy Spirit like mad. Say, I'm not gonna settle for anything else. And whatever the Spirit calls you to, go do it. And for your old people, you're not done yet. You're still breathing. If God wanted you to come home, you would not be here. You're here because you have a job. You still have purpose, you still have a calling, and you still have a runway to make a difference in this generation. Amen. I think that's all I got. Like I said, um I was reading Ruth and I was like, man, this is so crazy that this happens after camp. Like, because I wasn't expecting that, right? So um I felt as a I felt in my heart that we need to be more intertwined, more connected. We need to stop isolating ourselves from the kids. We need to stop isolating ourselves from the old people. Um, we really need to open our heart and be a family again. Yeah? So let's pray. Um Lord, I just thank you for your grace and all that you're doing. Um, I thank you for this generation. I thank you for camp and all the lives that were changed because of camp and all the things that you've done and the Holy Spirit to come down. I just pray, Lord God, that you would stir in our hearts, that Lord, that we would not be complacent, that we would not be bitter, that we would not be, that was me, whatever, X amount of years ago. But Lord God, that you have called us here and now to make a difference here and now. I just pray that you change our hearts, that Lord God, that you would help mold us together as a family, where we're interdependent of each other, just like Ruth and Naomi, how Naomi needed Ruth and how Ruth needed Naomi, and how in the end, Lord, that you've redeemed all things. So I pray you redeem those things in our hearts that we have let go of, that maybe were from you, but we our own self has like isolated us from it. I pray you plant those seeds back in our heart that we could grow them again. So I just thank you, Lord. Be with us. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Are you closing? I can do the blessing. All right. If you guys want to stand with me, uh leave you with this blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you, be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you his children. Amen.