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The church can seem quite irrelevant, can't it? Often, I mean, in an election week, we may think that, you know, there's all sorts of talk of issues and lots of problems and lots of the issues that christians might want to talk about don't really get much air time, do they? And even if christians did have an opinion on something often, why does it matter what. What the church thinks seems a bit irrelevant. We might think that we're quite important to ourselves, but in the wider world, doesn't it often seem that we're a bit irrelevant?

It might not be that we're heavily persecuted in this nation yet, but isn't it a problem for us to seem irrelevant? After all, we worship a man, Jesus, who rules over everything. He doesn't just rule in this building, he rules over every sphere of life. You know, we declare, he rules in school, he rules at work, he rules in the shops, he rules absolutely everywhere. So how can we deal with seeming a bit irrelevant?

What is going to become of God's kingdom?

This is really the question that Ruth answers. At least Ruth, chapter four begins to sort of grapple with this by the end. So far in Ruth, we have been looking at it through the lens, sort of an historic lens. You know, how it. What it meant at the time, as the events unfolded.

You know, what it meant to Ruth, how Naomi and Elimelech left Judah and went to moab and all this sort of thing, and what God was doing in their lives. But as we get to the end of Ruth, we realise that actually the story wasn't written down that quickly afterwards. It's not sort of like an immediate account of events. We know this for two reasons. The first one, if you have your Bible open, you'll see is in the brackets in verse seven.

It's funny, isn't it, to get brackets halfway through your chapter. But in this bit, there's a nice little explanation. They're doing a legal proceeding and this is how you transfer property. You take off your sandal and give it to someone else. It's a great way to transfer property.

There. It's simpler, isn't it, than waiting in a chain? Here's my shoe.

But here's the thing. You would have to explain that only to somebody that no longer understood it. Yes. If I said to you, oh, such and such took a selfie, I wouldn't then say, by the way, a selfie is a thing that, you know, on the camera on the front, I can't even know how to describe a selfie. But, you know, in years to come, someone might be describing what a selfie.

So this tells us the book was written quite some time later. The second thing is that in verse 17, we arrive at David. And David, of course, is great grandson of Ruth. So of course it's written at least after David. We don't know exactly when it was written.

I think it was probably written after David, after Solomon, a little bit sometime later. So you've got enough time for people not to understand about sandals being handed onto each other and sometime for David to have been in the past already.

And this isn't all just headwork, because it's quite interesting. This is important because it tells us, who was this book being written for? Because we've been thinking about all the characters in the book, but it wasn't written for them. It was written for another audience. And if it's written for an audience after David and Solomon, it's written to a nation that's divided, a nation that will go into exile, a nation that wonders what is going to come of God's promises to David.

Now, you said there's going to be a man on the throne. God, you said there was going to be a nation that rules from shore to shore. What is going to come of that then? These are the people this book was written to. And so we're going to read it today a little bit more through that lens to get a picture, really, of who the book was written to in its first readers, rather than what it meant to the people in the story in the first place.

Well, let's have a look. We do need to dig into a few details of the original setting. At the beginning of our chapter, chapter four, we're faced with the last twist, the last turn of this story. At the end of chapter three, we had found that Ruth had gone down, if you remember, to the threshing floor, and she had made Boaz know that she was up for marriage. Okay?

And so that was all good. But then Boaz said, oh, there's one nearer a nearer redeemer than me. Spanner in the works. Okay? And this is what's going to be sorted out here.

So we read, Boaz went up to the town gate. He went up to the town gate. Now, I just want to stop there and think, why would you go up to a gate? To sort out a legal practise. I thought, what a great opportunity to talk about gates in Israel.

I can hear everybody thinking, yes, please talk about gates. Can I have a picture? I know this clears out. This is a gate. This is a gate.

You may not know how this is a gate yet, but you will. This is a gate from Giza. This dates from Solomon's reign. So a little bit later than the one Boaz would have been in. But you can just about see that there are sort of six rooms on either side and there's a way through the middle.

This is where you would come into the city. And I've got a little diagram to make this really clear. So this is what it would have looked like. You come in, into the bits you're coming in to sort of do trade or whatever in the city, and you have these six chambers called a six chambered gate. It's quite easy to remember, isn't it?

A solomonic six chambered gate. And if you look at the diagram, there are benches around the side. Okay? This is where they would have sat and where they do legal practise. The reason you need this is because, you know, people, elders are coming in, people are coming in to sell their goods in the city.

They have to come in through the gate. Next picture. This is an old picture from when it was first uncovered. But the reason I think it's a good one is if you look in the foreground on the right hand side, you can just about see a slightest, slightly lower row of stones. Can you see what I'm talking about?

I need a laser pointer on the left hand side, a slightly lower row of stones in one of those rooms. Are you with me? That's a bench.

Okay? That's a bench. I mean, I think that's really cool.

If you think that's cool, we'll be friends. So anyway, this was genuinely uncovered. This is a real gate from Giza, Solomon's time. That's the gate. So this is where you picture Boaz meeting his friends.

He's gone and he's gone chilling on one of those benches. And as the people come in through the gate, he meets ten people. He's like, oh, come over here, come over here. We need to do a little bit of a legal proceeding. You can take the fine picture off now.

We're going to do the legal proceeding. This is what's happening.

And as Boaz is there, he's going to tell the guy, you are the first redeemer. Do you want to redeem Naomi and Elimelech's property now? If we just think about Boaz as a character for a second, it must have been really tempting for him not to bother doing all of this. He didn't have to go and take on these legal proceedings to try to redeem Ruth. It would have been much simpler for him just to say, I've given you loads of grain, I've done all right by you.

Must have been really tempting, mustn't it? But you see, Boaz, as he represents God's messiah, is fulfilling, fulfilling the law, he's fulfilling all righteousness. As he pursues Ruthenhenne, he's going to jump through every hoop. He's going to go do everything properly. I mean, if you think about the storyline, it's funny.

Ruth and Naomi didn't know about this nearer Redeemer. This nearer Redeemer doesn't seem to know about them. They could have just said, oh, do you know what, Ruth? Let's just get married. And the guy never needs to know.

Why do we have that detail in the story? It's because. Because he fulfils all righteousness. Because God does stuff properly. He does it legally.

He uses ordinary means, he works through normal processes, which is great for us. And it also shows us that as Boaz pursues Ruth, not allowing any obstacle to get in the way, this must have been really disheartening. No obstacle getting in the way. He would continue to pursue her.

Well, in the next section, we come to our little bracketed mint section, a bit about the shoe, because in this bit, this is where it really starts to get excited. The theology starts to get exciting, because Ruth has talked to this nearer Redeemer. And when, do you notice when Boaz says, there's a whole piece of land, would you like it? He says, oh, yes, please. Massive piece of land.

Would you like some more? Yes, I'm well up for that. Oh, and by the way, says Boaz, verse five. On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite. And she's got loads of baggage, right?

She's quite high maintenance, to be honest. Dead man's widow. In order, you know, you're buying her in order to maintain the name of the dead, you know, you're taking on the responsibility to raise up descendants for another man. That's quite a lot of baggage. Isn't that quite a big thing to take on?

And so. And so the guy says, well, actually, I can't redeem it. I can't do it because he says it's risky. It's too risky for me. It's a risk to my own inheritance, to my own property.

Now, it's easy for us to read this, as this guy is just really, really terrible. But he's not wrong. He's not wrong, because he has a child with Ruth and that descendant is carrying on the name of Ruth's first husband, right? Not his own. So this is genuine risk for him.

It's a genuine risk because he may not get his own offspring. And so he says, I don't think I can take it on. The reason we're given this is because actually, Boaz is willing to take it on. We're supposed to see this is a lot of baggage. This is a lot of high maintenance stuff to take on.

Boaz is up for it because Boaz is acting in hesed. He's doing this above and beyond relationship thing that we've seen throughout the book.

He's willing to pay the price. Verse nine. Boaz announced to the elders and all the people sitting around in one of their little gates today, your witness is that I've bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech Kilion Mahlon, and I've also acquired Ruth the Moabite. He's paid the price. He's been willing to do that.

And actually, if you look in verse nine and ten, you see that he says he's bought the property and he's acquired roof.

This is slightly making our translation a bit more palatable, because actually, both just say they bought it. Actually just says that Faraz bought Ruth. But we don't talk about buying wives because that's not really the done thing. And actually, it's not really the done thing in Israel either. And it's making a theological point.

I'm not saying the Niv's wrong, but the point is important for us to see, because Ruth was bought with a price. That's the theological point here. Boaz is willing to buy her, to redeem her. And these words, the redeeming and the buying, these are all words that you get in the exodus, how. How God bought Israel, how he redeemed Israel.

He paid the price. Of course, in the New Testament, we know that Christ paid the price to purchase us, didn't he? He bought us with his blood.

We bought for a price. And we do learn from this something really important, which is that Christ is willing to take us on, even with all of our baggage.

You know, we've probably all had the experience where you're walking down the street and, you know, you see a couple together and you say, oh, he's done well for himself. I don't know if you. I mean, I know you. We shouldn't admit this, but I think we all know what I'm talking about. You know, it happens, doesn't it?

You probably thought this when Emily and I first came to all saints. I mean, you probably still think it now. You know, he has done well. I will admit that I've done really well, you know, because you think, oh, they're not really evenly matched. I mean, this is what's going on.

Ruth has done really well for herself. Not aesthetically, granted, necessarily, we don't know that. But in terms of what she's bringing into the marriage, just imagine the scene. They're standing at the ceremony. You know, they share.

They say that they will take everything that's each other's. Ruth says, yes, boazden, I'll take your wealth. I'll take your house. I will take that child, I will take everything. And Bowers says, yes, ruth, I'll take that debt.

I'll take on your mother in law. It's not even my mother in law, you know, he's taking on all of this. What's yours is mine. Great. We know who gets the better deal.

But this is an important picture because this is what Jesus does with us. You know, we have done really well for ourselves. You know, this is not an evenly matched thing. You know, as we come to, as the New Testament talks about Christ and the church being a marriage, it's really uneven as far as the wedding goes. Yes, Jesus, I will take righteousness and eternal life and everything that is yours, Jesus, yes, I will take your sin and your shame.

That's now going to be mine. Okay, good exchange. It's a wonderful exchange for us. But seriously, there might be some of us here who are just thinking, do you know what? I've just got too much baggage to bring into a relationship with God.

Would he really want me with all of this?

Maybe you have the feeling that you're just a high maintenance person.

Maybe we will tell you that, you know, you're just a really high maintenance person.

But God's up for that. He knows that. You know, even if it's true, that's what he's taken on. Just like Boaz did with Ruth. This is what we're seeing.

You know, he is for us because actually he knows we've got more baggage than we ever knew. He knows that we're higher maintenance than we could ever imagine. And yet he still says, I'm going to take that all as mine. Well, finally, verses 13 to the end, the story really comes to a conclusion. The whole of Ruth comes to a conclusion.

This is the key to the whole, because we're leading, we're driving forwards, if you like, the book is driving forwards to David, to saying that actually in all of this uncertainty, in all of this badness, in all this difficultness, we are going to get to the king. We're going to get to the king because this book isn't really about us. The primary purpose of this book is not to read it and say, yes, I would like to be like Ruth, or yes, I should emulate Boaz. It is that Christ is our boaz. It is that.

Actually we're driving towards David and of course, beyond David to Jesus.

I was listening to a podcast, a history podcast the other day, trying to sort of upgrade my brain. It was a good podcast, it was interesting, but there was a lady being interviewed on it and she kept saying, nothing is inevitable. Nothing is inevitable in history. Nothing is inevitable. Is that, you know, is that true?

You know, are we going to go for that? Because the book of Ruth would beg to differ. Actually, it was inevitable. God was actually going to send his king. We are leading here.

History is not random. It's going somewhere and it's a messiah, right? God is going to save his people. It's not random. History is moving in a direction and it's a direction God's taking it.

So through all of these unlikely circumstances, through all of that death at the beginning, through the famine, through the turning away, through the everything in Ruth, we're leading to David. And so as this book was written down, generations later, what was it saying to them, you know, generations later that have known about David, they've known about Solomon and they're thinking, will a king sit on that throne again? You know, God did say that you'll never lack a king sitting on the throne, but where is he? This book of Ruth says, don't worry, God is at work. Do you remember?

You would never have known if you were Ruth's next door neighbourhood, you would never have known that you were next door to David's great granny. Never have known that. But of course, God was at work in that time. And so be encouraged, be encouraged, because if you're reading this during civil war and you're thinking the nation is being split apart after Solomon, what is God doing? He said he's going to build a nation and we're being separated by civil war.

God hasn't failed. When Elijah was there and it seemed like he was the only one who was worshipping the Lord, everyone else has turned away. You read Ruth and you see God hasn't failed. His king is coming. You hear in Jeremiah of how Jeremiah goes to the king and gives him God's word on a piece of paper, and the king just throws it in the fire.

Ruth teaches us, God has not failed. They go into exile, and they think there's not even a throne for the king to sit on anymore. What are you doing? You read Ruth and say, in the midst of that darkness, God has not failed. All of these times were leading through to Christmas, weren't they?

All these times were leading to Christmas. And from this side of Christmas, we can see that this book points not just to David, but to King Jesus. And then it points on beyond that, to his second coming. Because for us on this side of the cross, we know that when it was just Jesus disciples in the upper room, and they're thinking, we're just a few fishermen. What on earth are we gonna do?

God's messiah hadn't failed. We know that as the church was separated from the synagogue, when this painful division came, God had not failed. When in the second century, church leaders started to be taken and martyred, fed to the beast, God had not failed. In the third century, when that persecution spread to the whole of the Roman Empire, God had not failed. When it continued on through history, and it seemed like people couldn't even agree that Jesus was God, and that's just going to undermine the gospel.

He still hadn't failed. 100 years on when it seemed like actually it was cool to be a Christian, and no one really believes this stuff anyway. God still had not failed. You moved on into the middle ages, and it was like all of this ritual, and no one even knows who Jesus is anymore. God had not failed because he raised up the reformers to point us back to Christ, time went on.

We learned that in the 19th century, God was declared dead. What are we going to do? He still hasn't failed. In the 20th century, when we thought, what are we going to do with all these wars? Where is God?

What is he doing? He still had not failed. Today, when we wonder, God, where are you? Where is the king on your throne? We have the book of Ruth to teach us.

We can turn to it and we can say, God's messiah has not failed. God's king will sit on the throne. Jesus does rule over every sphere of life. He rules today over government, over school, even over the church of England. He rules over all things.

And God's messiah will sit on the throne. Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you that our messiah, Jesus Christ, reigns. Thank you that even in darkness, and when we can't see what's going on. You're faithful to your promises and that in Jesus Christ all your promises are yes and amen. Give us confidence this week as we go out to live in that truth. Amen.

I.