Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Wonderful. Thank you, Chris. I do hope you have a Bible with you open at Ruth. That'd be really good. Maybe.

It occurs to me you might be quite new to the Bible and you haven't really read much Bible before. Well, we're doing a series in Ruth, and that's a great place to start. You can read it in one sitting. You could read it once a day until we finish the series. Why not just, you know.

Know one bit of the Bible really, really well? It would be silly to be scared off the whole thing because it's a big, fat book, wouldn't it, to get to know Ruth really, really well. Let me encourage you to do that. Today. We're looking at Ruth, chapter two, as we've just had it read.

Now, yesterday I went to Hever Castle with the family. If anyone was here in the morning service, I should just say, I believe Hugh mentioned hever. This isn't actually a paid advertisement for hever. It just so happens that we did actually do that. We went to hever because they had a world war two reenactment we really wanted to see.

I say we. I really wanted to see Winston Churchill speech, but, you know, it was a really good occasion. Anyway, we went to hever and there was a great moment where they had, in a marquee dance lessons. They were playing big band stuff and was dancing. I asked my daughters if they wanted to dance.

They said no. And I cannot imagine why. It's a new phase in parenting for me. But there we are. My wife was up for it.

And so with some reluctant audience, we learned. We learned a little bit of a dance. It went really well, I thought. By the way, I did very nearly show you, which I'm not going to, but something funny happened at the end of it, because we glanced over the marquee and there was someone there. Now, you should know.

You need to know as well, that actually, my wife, Emily, was looking to meet up with a friend. She'd been trying to meet up with her for ages. And it was sort of logistical nightmare. Really, really difficult to. To get together for various reasons.

But we looked across the marquee, having finished the dance, and I was like, isn't that Debbie? And it was. It was. And they went over and had a hug and, you know, cried and sort of things that the girls do. It was.

It was a lovely moment. It was a beautiful thing. I was pleased to see her as well. But here's the thing. What are the chances of that?

I mean, you probably could work it out, couldn't you? I mean, it seems pretty random, doesn't it? Just to go somewhere for the day and to meet someone you've been trying to meet up with for ages. It's pretty lucky, isn't it? That's a pretty lucky thing to happen.

It's pretty random. Or, I mean, is it right? Is it random? You know, do these things that happen in our life really happen by accident? Do you really bump into someone you just so happen to need to see totally by accident?

Is that what happens? Is it just totally randomly? Well, the Bible tells us, no, that's not how things happen. Stuff doesn't happen totally by accident because we have an almighty God, a God who is all powerful, to do whatever he wills, one who wants what's good for us. And Romans 828 famously tells us, doesn't it?

In all things, he works for the good of those who love him. So stuff doesn't happen by accident to us. Stuff doesn't happen by accident. And Ruth too, if you like. I want us to think of it like this.

It's like an enactment of Romans 828. It's like, what would God, working in all things good for those who love him, what would that actually look like? How does that play out on the ground? If you like, this chapter tells you what that is like. Let's recap quickly.

Ruth, chapter one. You might remember that Ruth, while she wasn't there at the beginning, Naomi and her husband Elimelech had moved out of Judah. They left Bethlehem. The house had bred because of a famine. They'd gone to moab, the place of God's enemies, and they'd lived there.

And terrible things had happened because Elimelech, Naomi's husband, had died. Ruth had got married, her husband had died, her sister in law had got married, had died. Terrible things had happened. And the Lord had visited Israel. He visited Judah to bring bread back.

So they heard him. God brought them back. So when he'd taken them to a very low ebb, God said, look, now that you're at the end of yourself, I'm going to bring you back under my promises in my land, okay? And that's where we end up, at the end of Ruth, chapter one. And this chapter.

What I want us to think about today is something called Providence. Providence. You may have heard of the word providence. Providence is basically God's sustaining and his caring for creation. His sustaining and his caring for creation.

You see, God didn't sort of make the world like a, like a, sort of a meccano set, but he sort of wound up and then let it run and occasionally just goes to wind it up again, put it in a new direction. He's actually there every minute, upholding everything this sort of scriptures tell us. And this chapter is really all about this, but it's not sort of a dusty, you know, doctrine. Let's talk about Providence in this lecture today. It's not like that at all, is it?

It's doctrine in life, you know, providence in life, because it's. It's in what's happening to Naomi and Ruth. So we're going to think about this chapter. It falls into three parts, very uneven parts, I'm going to be honest. The first part is verse one, and then the second and third part are really the rest of it.

Two different characters. That should seem natural, hopefully, by the end. So we think about verse one, and then we'll think about Ruth as a character. Then we'll think about Boaz as a character. That's where we're going.

So if you feel like we've taken quite a long time in verse one, I don't want you to panic and think, goodness me, if we spent five minutes in verse one, how long is it going to take? All is fine. It's all well. Okay. It's all well.

But let's start with that verse one, annoyingly, slightly over our page in our pew Bible, which is. Is a bit frustrating. But there we are. As we start, Ruth, chapter two, we find a bit of a problem. This problem is that God seems absent.

God seems absent. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt like, if God is all powerful and if he can do all of this stuff and he'd be really careful, where is he? You know, why doesn't he just come and do something and show me he's here? What is he up to?

It's a common feeling, isn't it? One that we can sympathise with because Naomi is feeling absolutely despondent. We remember at the end of. End of chapter one, but in the beginning of chapter two, chapter two, verse one, we have these words. And we need to notice here that these words are the narrator's words.

These words are the narrator's words. They're not. They're sort of like a comment to us. They're not words going on in the story. This is like the narrator giving us an aside and saying, by the way, you should know this.

Okay, giving us a little bit of words. And this is what we're told. Now, audience, Ruth and Naomi don't know this, but you are about to know this. Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. Okay.

Then the story picks back up. Now, this is really, really significant because we know. We know that there's going to be someone in Ruth's life standing there ready to. Ready to help her. We, as the reader, know this, but Ruth did not know this.

Ruth did not know this was going on. We can tell all sorts of other stuff from this verse. We can tell that Boaz is from a Limilex clan, a Limilex clan. Now, in the. In the world of the Old Testament, there was sort of like the house, the father's house.

This was the smallest sort of family unit you would have. This would be like everybody in the house who would say dad to the dad. That's your father's house. On the other hand, you had your tribe. Okay, this was quite a big area.

I'm from Judah. In the middle stands what we've translated as clan, which is often translated family.

And what it really means is this clan. This family is what we would today call our wider family. Right? It's like you say, my family, my wider family. So there was in Ruth's wider family, this bloke called Boaz.

And what made somebody part of the family, part of the clan was that they shared flesh. That's how they would say it in Hebrew. That's how the Old Testament says it. We would say, we share the blood. We have the same blood.

You know, we've got the same blood. We've got a family. Yeah. That's how you tell your wider family. In the Old Testament, it's like we share the same flesh.

And because they share flesh, they care for one another, they look after each other. So that's important. Boaz has an obligation as a family member to look after Naomi and Ruth. And second we find out that he's a man of standing. A man of standing.

Nice phrase, isn't it? Man of standing, a man of strength. And what this really means is that he's able to help them. He's in a position to help them. So he's got an obligation and he's got the ability to do it.

We know that. Ruth doesn't know that. Did I say that? Ruth doesn't know that. Okay, so what we really see here, the narrator is giving us a little hint, is God behind the scenes.

You know, what is God doing amidst all that pain? You know, you just try to picture Ruth there with Naomi. She's come to Judah, where she. She didn't grow up. She's agreed to follow Naomi's God.

She knows there's no hope for a new husband from Naomi. There's really no avenues open to her. It appears she doesn't know any of this stuff about Boaz. What on earth is she gonna do? But the narrator tells us God was actually doing something.

He was actually there. He was getting these pieces in place. And she's gonna find out how that all ends. She won't know. I wonder whether that's an encouragement to us, isn't it?

That actually there are all sorts of decisions that we feel like are totally random. You know, what GCSE should I do? What a levels should I do? Should I do a levels? Should I go to university?

Am I going to get a job? Should I get a new job? Should I retire? What will I do with my retirement? Whatever.

Big questions. All of these things in our life, sometimes it seems like, well, how on earth am I going to answer these things? But we know that we have a God who is going before us and for whom none of this stuff is random.

Perhaps from the back of this verse, it might be interesting just to write a journal. I say journal because diary sounds a little bit like you're going to start. Dear diary, I had a nice day today. If you start a journal, you know, write some things in your life, because it's only after the fact that the narrator could find all this stuff out, isn't it? It's only afterwards, you know, you read it back maybe a couple of years later, and you'd be like, that's really funny that God was doing that.

I never, never even realised that at the time. So easy to miss, though, in the hubbub of life. Well, let's look next at Ruth. We'll think about Ruth's character. And this is interesting, because if God is in control, we're talking about God's providence.

What part do we play in that? You know, what part do we play if God's got it? Are we just like, doing nothing? Let's take the hands off the steering wheel. Go for it, God.

Ruth would show us. No, that's not how it goes. Because in this chapter, we find Ruth actually taking some initiative, right? She does some stuff. She does some stuff.

First of all, she goes in verse two to find the field. Ruth, the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour. Okay? So there seems no way forward. She's just going to do what she can.

She doesn't say, do you know what? I cannot see a way out of this. I'm going to wait and God's just going to turn up. God, go for it.

She doesn't do that. I said, you know what? We've got to do something. I'm going to go to the field. I'm going to start gleaning.

Start gleaning. That's an everyday word, isn't it? Who's ever been gleaning here? Never been. Now gleaning.

Now here's what gleaning is. If you have no food and no money for food, what are you going to do? Go to the job centre. Okay? What's Ruth gonna do?

There's no job centre in Israel, okay? There's no one to help. There's no food bank, okay? The Lord knew this, that there's always going to be a problem with poverty. And so in the law, in leviticus and deuteronomy, he gives these rules to help poor people out.

He says, actually, we've got to make sure that people can eat. Right. That would be terrible. So what we're going to do is we're going to have this thing called gleaning. And what it means is you go, you have to go to a field, and if you're a farmer, you cut down.

I'm just showing such unbelievable ignorance of farming. This is just terrible, isn't it? Pretend I did that really smoothly. The farmer comes out and chops down the things with the scythe. Yeah.

Okay. Good scythe we've got there. Cuts down the wheat, barley, whatever. Okay? Now, what the Lord says is, don't make sure you go and pick up every small bit.

Just sort of pick up the main bits, leave the other little bits. And if you leave those little bits, then the poor will have something to eat, right? So they can come into your field afterwards and come and glean all those, those little remainders. That's what gleaning is now, of course, because the lord commanded it. Everyone, I'm sure, willingly did it, don't you think?

Just like taxes. I mean, you know, they command it and we all willingly do it, don't we? Of course, that's not the case, is it? Not everybody will be best pleased that someone's coming to glean their field. You know, I'm sure there was a certain measure of get off my land coming in Israel.

But she heads out. It's a little bit dangerous. It's a little bit dangerous. She doesn't know who she's going to find. Verse two again.

She just says, I'm going to go behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour. That's an incredibly indefinite thing to do, isn't it? I'm just going to head out and hope for the best. That's all she could do, head out and hope for the best. Hope that someone's going to look after me.

Well, God is incredibly before her in my favourite phrase in this whole chapter. I don't know if it stood out to you in verse three. It's just the best, as it turned out. As it turned out. What a great thing that is.

As it turned out. It's like she went out there. She had no idea what was before her. Wink. You know Boaz is there, don't you?

I've already told you, as it turned out. Just so happened Ruth was really lucky today. She went to Boaz's field. What an amazing thing that is, isn't it? That's an amazing thing that God did.

He went there before. She had absolutely no idea, but God was going before her, as it turned out. She happened to go to the bloke that she needed to find.

And we learn from this that God oversees and overrules. But we are also responsible for our actions, you know, we are responsible to do what we can. God works through us, right? He asks for us to do stuff. Ruth doesn't just sit and do nothing, but she also doesn't try to take everything into her own hands and sort it all out either.

Right? And it's so easy, isn't it, for us to go one way or the other. So easy for us. Probably most commonly, on the one hand, to be like, I need to make this happen, I'm going to sort everything out myself. If I just boss this, it's all going to be sorted and amazing.

But actually, the proverbs say many of the plans in the mind of a man, but the Lord prospers his way. The Lord's actually got to be behind it. There's no good us just working up a sweat. But on the other hand, it would be just as silly to say, well, do you know what God does? Everything.

Let go and let God. Let's just see what he does. Let's just see what he does. That's not what we're called to do either. So there's a real God working through Ruth's activity.

We see that in a couple more places. In our chapter, Boaz comes in verse six. Boaz comes to have a chat with his overseer. And this is the head. The head.

Still really lacking farm terms here, to be honest. Head farm bloke, okay? The overseer comes to chat with. Comes to chat with him and asks about who this girl gleaning is. She's the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi.

Okay? She's the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. I mean, even there, if we remember about Moab and the whole connection with Israel from last week, you might be thinking, maybe that's the problem for Boaz. But God was before that as well. God before that as well, because Boaz's mom was Rahab, if you remember who Rahab was.

A foreigner from Canaan. So as Boaz meets this foreign woman, he's thinking, yeah, my mum was Rahab. I'm fine with that. Yeah, I understand this. Right?

I understand this. I'm there. So God was so before all of this, she's the one who's come back and been faithful to Naomi. Faithful despite death. You know, Boaz knows.

The whole town was alive with the news of Naomi and what had happened to them, all these tragedies. But she was still faithful. She was still faithful to Naomi. She showed her kindness. Hesed, I said, and she trusts the Lord in cleaning.

And she works hard. Verse seven.

Ruth said to the farmhands, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters. She came into the field, has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter. She's worked super hard. She's been working really, really hard, putting her all into this, putting her rule into this. Boaz blesses Ruth.

Verse twelve. Boaz says, may the Lord repay you for what you've done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you've come to take refuge.

This is lovely, isn't it? This is what Ruth has done. By trusting the Lord, she's come to take refuge under his wings. And we're familiar with that, aren't we, from the psalms? Under the Lord's wings we take refuge.

But the thing is, the psalms are written after this. David's probably thinking about this. Oh, yeah. My family history. I remember that time when Boaz sits in the area, said to Ruth, yeah, my great grand whatever it was my ancestor coming to take under the wings of the Lord.

Right, let's turn finally to Boaz, because the Lord works through Boaz. I mean, it's a funny thing about the Bible is that it's. It's interesting that God doesn't actually always act as much as you might might think he would. You know, if you take. I was thinking about other, other literature that was written about the same time.

I was thinking that Homer's iliad is set in about the same time, you know, the fight at Troy, that's about set at about the same time, probably written down about the same time as well as this book. Well, in that, like, there are gods everywhere. They're coming in, giving a helping hand doing this. By comparison, you know, God's not doing that much here, so is he not doing anything. He's at work through Boaz.

Remember that? Boaz is of Naomi's flesh. They share flesh. They're the same blood, they're wider family. He's got a responsibility for them and he's a man of substance.

He's got the ability to help.

And God acts through this. Happens all the time in the Bible, actually, doesn't it? Just think how you remember the story of Joseph in Egypt. You know, God decides to use Joseph to interpret Pharaoh's dream. He could have done that himself, couldn't he?

Pharaoh? This is what it means. Instead, he chooses Joseph to act through. Does this again in Daniel. Same thing with the dreams with Nebuchadnezzar.

You know, he could have just said, nebuchadnezzar, believe in me. Instead, he chooses use Daniel. And in perhaps the, you know, the greatest book about how God acts through people. Esther, right? God's name isn't even mentioned at all.

What's God doing? He's working through Esther. So God works through people. And here it's Boaz. Boaz is God's agent and he offers Ruth.

He offers her provision. Boaz said to Ruth, my daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Stay here, he says, I want you to stay here and keep gleaning on my field.

He offers her protection, verse nine. Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along after the women. I've told the men not to lay a hand on you. A slightly chilling comment, isn't it, when you think about it? You know, we sort of think of these as nice sort of children's story, but bible stories.

But if Boaz has to tell the blokes, don't lay a hand on it. That's obviously a distinct possibility, isn't it? It's dangerous. Ruth's living in danger, but Boaz offers her protection. And actually, he even goes to the extent of pulling out sheaves, if you notice that a little bit later, he tells his workers, actually, don't just leave the stuff on the ground.

Pull out massive handfuls so that she can pick that up. That's good, isn't it? He goes above and beyond. And this is the hesed we were talking about last week, the kindness, you know, the going above and beyond in the relationship for people.

And so Naomi blesses Boaz. We've come to the end now. Ruth has met Boaz, done her day's work, come back to speak to Naomi. She's explained to Naomi what happened in the day. And in verse 20, Naomi says this.

The Lord bless him. Amy said to her daughter in law, he has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead. Yeah, lovely. There's that kindness. That's the hese ed which we went last week.

Let me ask you this question. Look in that verse 20 and tell me, who is he?

Who is he that has not stopped showing kindness?

Is it Boaz?

You know, Boaz, who is of the clan, and you know, he's looked after Ruth, knowing that she's in his family. He's not stopped showing kindness because he's provided for her and thus honouring the dead as well as Naomi? Or is it the Lord? Is it the Lord who has not stopped showing kindness because the Lord has brought Naomi back? The Lord has put Boaz in the right place at the right time, put Ruth in the right place at the right time?

Who has not stopped showing kindness?

As you can imagine, ink has been spilt on this because people have to write about something. No, I'm joking. I'm being facetious. It's an important question. Ink has been spilt on this, but I think, for my money, is it Boaz or lord?

Lord, yes. I think I'm going to go for secret option number three. Yes, it is. You know, I think the author knows how to do this. You know.

Yes, it's Boaz and it's the Lord. It's ambiguous, right? The. He is Boaz and the Lord, because the Lord is acting through Boaz. When Boaz shows kindness and looks after Ruth, it is the Lord's kindness.

Right? You can't drive a wedge in between.

Yeah, it's ambiguous, but in purposefully, because Boaz's kindness is the Lord's kindness. Now, what does this teach us? It teaches us first that we might be the means of helping someone else. We might be God's means of help for someone else. Might we, you know, other times when we sort of tempted to sit there and we say, yeah, I'm going to pray for you, Lord.

I do pray that you provide some food for this person.

And we're kind of like, sitting around being like, who's he going to send? It's you, you know, probably Boaz is the means, right? And we should be prepared to be the means. It also means you should be prepared to receive the Lord's blessing at the hands of others. This can be hard for some of us, can't it?

Would be love it much more if the Lord just helped us immediately. It can be embarrassing to ask for help. Lord, I would love it if you zapped money into my bank account to sort that problem out that way. No one needs to know that's not how he worked, but he works through people. So we're to receive blessing from each other.

But more important than all of that is that actually we're not really Boaz. We're not really boas in this story, because this story isn't really just about some general account of how God just works. This story is going somewhere. This story is leading to David and David is leading to Jesus, and Boaz is showing us Christ. Boaz is Christ for us.

It's a picture filling in what Jesus is like for us. Jesus is our boaz. Boaz means in him is strength. You know, Christ our boaz, Christ our strong one, who's able and willing. Christ is the one who, like Boaz, for Naomi, was her flesh, right?

They were from the same clan. And Jesus Christ came to take our flesh, to become in our clan, to be our wider family, to have the responsibility for us, that sharing our flesh, he was for us.

He bound himself to be for us. He was willing, he obliged himself. And he's also the one who is able.

He's the one who is able to save us to the uttermost. So, as we see Boaz, we see Christ not just a general working of God, but really for us. God's providence for us is in Christ.

And so, as we go out this week, yes, there's the encouragement to not just let go and let go, but to do what we can. Yes, there's the encouragement to be God's hand to others. These things are all true. But above all those things, what we're to take is that here is a picture of who Christ is for us. This is the one we go out with.

So, as we think, how does Romans 828 work in practise tomorrow morning? God working all things together for the good of those who love him. It works together because Christ is for us who became my flesh, who became your flesh, who is able, who is willing and able and goes before you and goes before me. And he provides. He doesn't just let us glean.

He takes out handfuls of sheaves and lets us take up so that we have abundant mercies from him. More than we need. More than we need. This is what. This is what Ruth is about.

This is what Ruth is really, really driving at. And we're going to find out next week. Do come next week, Ruth. Chapter three. We're going to find all about Christ acting as the redeemer.

We haven't even mentioned that. I'm saving it for next week. The kinsman redeemer. Because our kinsman redeemer, of course, is Christmas. Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank you that you are for us. We thank you that you have given us this picture of Christ in Boaz. We pray that as we go out in his strength that we would live and work for your praise and glory. In Jesus name, amen.