Under His Wings

If you would please open up your Bibles along with me to Ruth chapter 2. I'm reading from the NIV version. I'll read out loud and then pray.

I appreciate your patience while you stand for the whole chapter. Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.

Naomi said to her, go ahead my daughter. So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech. Just then, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters.

The Lord be with you. Ah, the Lord bless you, they called back. Boaz asked the foreman of the harvesters, whose young woman is that? The foreman replied, she's the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters. She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now except for a short rest in the shelter. So 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 my servant girls. Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along after the girls.

I have told the men not to touch you and whenever you are thirsty go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled. At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me a foreigner? Boaz replied, I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband.

How you left your father and mother in your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord, she said.

You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant, though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls. At meal time, Boaz said to her, come over here, have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar. When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz ordered his men, even if she gathers among the sheaves, don't embarrass her.

Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave it for her to pick up and don't rebuke her. So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered and it amounted to about an ephah, which for us is about 65 pounds. She carried it back to town and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. Her mother-in-law asked her, where did you glean today?

Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. Then Ruth told her, mother-in-law, about the one at whose place she had been working.

The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz, she said. The Lord blessed, Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. He has not stopped showing kindness to the living and to the dead. She added, that man is our close relative.

He is one of our kinsmen redeemers. Then Ruth of Moabitess said, he even said to me, stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain. Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good for you my daughter to go with his girls because in someone else's field you might be harmed.

So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls to glean until the barley and the wheat harvests were finished and she lived with her mother-in-law. You may be seated. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we're thankful for your word and how it truly does give us encouragement in this day and this age and all the troubles and the trials of life and all that we're going through here in America. Father, with not only the COVID but now with this election and post-election blues, not knowing what the future holds for us, Lord, we thank you for your word that it encourages us to look to you. I pray, Father, that even now that we would find refuge in you, that we would be able to cast our cares upon you, that you would show us through the power of your Holy Spirit, not only your love and your care for us, Father, but your blessing in Christ. We pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would work through me and be poured out through me and that, Father, we would all be filled up, that we would go forth and glorify you and be lights and salt in a dark world, offering hope to those who are despairing. And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, it's been a year. I don't know if y'all have been counting with great expectation or not, but it's been a year since I preached Ruth 1.

Actually, it's been over a year. And so I think it's only appropriate that I follow through with Ruth 2. Then on the way over here, I was thinking to myself out loud with Talia that, well, you know, you never know, God providentially could have orchestrated this COVID and this election and everything that we've been going through just so I could come and preach Ruth 2 now to the people.

They need to hear this. And God's provided these wonderful circumstances in which we're in for us to be blessed by his word. That may be true, but for what it's worth, a lot's happened in our lives. A lot's happened that we never could have predicted. For many of us, it's been a roller coaster, whether we are concerned about the COVID, whether we've had the COVID, whether we know someone who's had it and has been healed of it.

Just recently, someone within the church actually passed away, or someone who has attended the church, been involved when the church has passed away. So it's been tragic. It's been a season of isolation. We've been cooped up in our homes with our kids, and a lot of them have not been able to go to school. They've been homeschooled without being able to get out and socialize, and relationships have been hurt. Our families and our social lives have been hurt.

They've been stifled. So we might be asking ourselves questions. Why is this happening, and what is going to happen? We need to remember that when you ask questions about the future, we need to learn to leave the conclusions up to the Lord, lest we be like Doug preached Saul at Endor, who went and looked for an answer in the wrong place. We're not always going to be promised an answer, but we are promised that the Lord cares for us and is looking out for us.

So that might give us a little bit of frustration that we don't have an immediate answer. We really don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. What's going to happen on December 15th? What's going to happen next week?

Is the church going to be open? We don't know what the governor is going to do. We have so much up in the air.

So since we followed this year of pre-election rallies, and now we're waiting for a final decision, we shouldn't fret. We should look to the Lord. The Book of Ruth is an encouraging word to us. It reminds us that God is in control of all events that come to pass, events that are presently going on, and even the future.

The COVID, the election, and even our future. Everything that comes to pass is in accordance to His will, and to the praise of His glory, and to His wisdom, His power, justice, goodness, and mercy. In the Book of Ruth, we're reminded how God's desire to end is working and turning all things not only for His glory, but our good. In chapter 2, we pick up following chapter 1's tragedy, the story of Naomi, and we learn how God cares for those who put their trust in Him.

Let me state that again. If you go away from here with anything concerning Ruth chapter 2, it's God cares for those who put their trust in Him. The first point, I've got three. God is guiding our lives, God cares for our lives, and God is going to bless us. Under this first point of our text, I want you to realize that there's a basic outline in the structure of the text that I'm following, and I want you to be able to follow too. So if you've closed your Bibles, open them up and follow along with me. We have the first pericope, or the first point comes from verses 1 through 3, and that's essentially Ruth going out to work in the field. Beginning at verse 4 all the way through verse 17, we have this exchange between Boaz and Ruth. So that's our second point, and we're going to see how God cares for us through this interaction. And then third point, from verses 18 through 23, we're going to see how God blesses us, particularly in Christ. And it's this outline within and from the text that we see that not only is God providentially leading and guiding us through the events in our day-to-day lives, but He's with us, and He's going to turn everything for our good, even though the future looks grim.

Back in chapter 1, last year, I'm not going to spend too much time here, I'll try and limit myself, but last year, in chapter 1, we saw three things, essentially. We saw that there was this tragedy where Elimelech, during a famine, this all happened during the book of Judges, there was a famine in the land because the people had intermarried with the people of the land that they were supposed to conquer and destroy in holy war, but they felt sorry for them, so they intermarried with them, which was a sin, so God brought on trials and tribulations. Sometimes He brought in the Assyrians or other people to come and to harass them, so to speak, to persecute them, to hold them accountable, so that they would cry out to God for help.

And in doing that, He would send them a judge to rescue them. It was during the time of famine in Judea, in Bethlehem specifically, that this all began to occur. So, Elimelech, a man of wealth, he went down to Moab, it's like going down to South Carolina, it's only about 30 or 40 miles south and east, but he decided, well, I'm a man of means, I can probably avoid this famine, and we can go live in plenty and my family can be taken care of.

And that might for us be a good decision to make, but it's avoiding what God is trying to teach His people, that they were in sin by engaging and marrying and compromising His word with the people around them. As a result, as soon as they arrived, Elimelech dies. So begins the tragedy of Naomi's life.

And if you left chapter one, just in isolation, which it was pretty hard to preach, primarily because it was just a tragedy. It was a life of suffering for Naomi. Now she did come back with Ruth, but not only after Elimelech passes away, but her two sons pass away as well. And so as a result, her whole family, her husband and her two sons have passed away, and all she is left with is these two daughters-in-law in a foreign land. Just about that time, it turns out that the famine is over with, given 10 to 15 to 20 years later, the famine is over with and she's lost her family, so what does she decide to do? She decides to go back home. Bethlehem, where there was once no bread, that's what Bethlehem means, house of bread, is now abundant.

The harvest is ready to be picked. So she packs her bags and takes her daughters-in-law with her, and they take off to head back to Bethlehem. But on the way, she realizes that maybe this might not be a good thing for Orpah and for Ruth. So girls, she says, why don't y'all go back home because you really deserve to have husbands and to have families, and I appreciate all that you've done for me. And look in verse 8, chapter 1, verse 8, very particularly it says here, go back each of you to your mother's home.

May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to your dead and to me. She really has an intent and a desire to see the girls do well, but following her wasn't going to be most likely a good thing, because she felt like the Lord was unfortunately doing this to her and had brought these trials upon her and made her life very bitter. She said here in verse 13, no my daughters, it is more bitter for me than for you because the Lord's hand has gone out against me. So she thinks and she understands that Yahweh is the Lord God, but she doesn't understand why these things are happening, and she feels like everything that she has loved and cherished has been taken away for her. One whose name means pleasant has now been made bitter.

Her name is Mara. We can probably relate to her and having those things that we've been trusting in, possibly our physical health, our finances and things like that, being in check during this past year. We don't know what the future holds in fact for either one. We don't know what our economy is going to hold. We don't know who's going to be the president and what road of democracy we might go down.

We don't know what's going to happen for our children. So we can easily relate to her tragedy, but it doesn't stop there. When she's leaving, she compels Orpah to go back, but she gets Ruth. Ruth makes this commitment to her, and this is very important for us to see. Verse 16, chapter 1.

Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be 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, if anything but death separates you and me. What she did was call down a curse upon herself. It's called a curse of self-malediction. We think of a benediction.

The ministers pronounce a benediction as a blessing upon the people after the service of worship that you might go out and glorify Christ and trust him and walk in the spirit. This is a curse she called down upon herself. She's essentially saying, may I be cursed if I don't keep this oath to take care of Naomi and to make your God my God and your people my people.

May I be cursed, a curse of self-malediction. So that's very important to us because it doesn't mean much to her most likely at that time other than that she's going to have a companion that she's going to have to take care of. But we're going to see how God takes that oath in chapter 2 and uses it to be a blessing for not only Naomi but for us a couple thousand years later. Our text begins then, chapter 2 begins with I would say verse 22 of chapter 1.

Look at it in your Bibles. I think it's a text of transition even though it's in chapter 1. It really does help us move into chapter 2 verse 1.

So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. So she's on the road, she's left, she's arrived and now this is the context or this is the setting in which she and Ruth are arriving. Chapter 2 verse 1 begins with the word now.

Like I said earlier, if we were looking at chapter 1 as just a dark tragedy, a dark night of the soul for Naomi that caused her to question God, question his purposes in her life, question everything that's happened up to this point. The word now is a light over the horizon of the early morning dawn. The word now is like a gleaming hope of salvation. The word now is like opening the door for us to see a glimmer of light amidst our darkness or her darkness. We can see that in this word now, Naomi had a relative for us all of a sudden things are shifting, things are turning. There is hope for Naomi. Look at verse 1.

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side of the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing whose name was Boaz. I want you to see that this particular verse is like a parenthesis. You could take it out of here and it wouldn't mean much to us. You could read the rest of chapter 2 and it would flow just as well and it would make the same points. Except that chapter 2 verse 1 draws our attention, turn with me to the end of chapter 2 to verse 20. Now this is, I'll go back to this in just a minute, but it says here, The Lord blessed him, Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. He has not stopped showing kindness, that is Boaz or the Lord, to the living and the dead. She added, That man is our close relative.

He is one of our kinsmen redeemers. Right here at the very beginning, we have an insight by the author. We don't know who the author is.

It could have been Samuel, written like I say during the period of the judges. But the author here has given us a parenthesis to see, these lights are really bright, that we can see or we're given a little insight into the whole purpose of the text. Which is really encouraging for all of us because at first when you're reading the text it's really hard to follow the tragedy going down to Moab. But even now, we really don't know what's going to happen because you have this conversation and then she goes out and works in the field. What's going on here, we really don't know. But the key to unlock it all, the lights are flickering on for me, what changes everything is this helps us to see God's providence.

What's happening here is just not a sequential chronological series of events. These are all planned. We can see God's hand in the introduction of Boaz.

Look out for Boaz, see watch this. It's like what the author's trying to say to us. Watch, watch and see what is about to happen. And that's what we need to have that anticipation in our lives today when we don't know what's going to happen instead of worrying about our lives and what's going to happen tomorrow.

We should be on the edge, on the verge with great excitement looking forward to our Heavenly Father and what he's going to do. We can go back to the very beginning of time and we can say well God, even before the heavens were created in Genesis 1, God had a plan. Everything that he created was good. But then Adam and Eve sinned. Was that good?

It was. Even though it wasn't declared good, it was good because it was according to God's will and his plan. In fact, what we read, for those of you who don't have a copy of it, the Westminster Confession of Faith, or you can open up your hymnals to the very back of your hymnals to the shorter catechism. Question number, let me see here. You can turn in your hymnals to page 870.

Question number 11. What are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, powerful, preserving and governing of all of his creatures and their actions. God has a plan for all creation from the very beginning and as it happens, it's according to his will. So that we can say, if it doesn't happen, it wasn't according to his will. So even things that we don't like, whether it be our sin or something that affects us negatively or that we don't like, someone in our family passes away, we lose everything that we've been putting our trust in, we can in hindsight or from a bigger perspective say, God's in control. His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So we can trust him, but often times we get lost in the trees so that we can't see the forest.

And that's unfortunate. So it's a reminder here that when this author here is saying, watch and see what God is going to do, we have an insight that God is going to bring about his will and his plan for Naomi and for Ruth through Boaz. So this word it says here is pregnant with hope, this word now. And so even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil for you are with us, your rod and your staff, they comfort us.

So even though we are suffering or going through a tragedy like Naomi or some sort of trial, we can find hope that the Lord is with us. Ruth goes on, it says here in our text, she goes on to work out in the fields in verses one through three. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go out and work behind anyone in whose eyes I happen to find favor. The Hebrew text it says, NIV says, as it turned out, I'm not sure what the ESV says.

Anybody have it? As it turned out, she found herself working in a field. The Hebrew says, a chance to chance.

That's kind of like Joseph dreaming a dream or Daniel dreaming a dream. But Ruth happens by chance. She chance to chance, found herself working in the field of Boaz, who is a relative, which hearkens back to verse one. So all of a sudden we see she just happens to go out looking for someone nice and whose field that she can work. And lo and behold, whose field does she find herself in?

Boaz's field, like from verse one. So what happens here, it's not a stroke of luck. There's no such thing as good luck. It says in Proverbs 16, the lot is cast into the lab, but it's every decision is from the Lord. In Proverbs 21 verse one, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.

He directs it like a water course wherever he pleases. This word, chance to chance, is like a rhetorical device to say that God's in charge. Nothing happens by chance or by luck or by fate.

There's a reason why she has gone out not only to work, but to find herself in this field to provide for Naomi. God is directing all the events right down to providing for her food, her marriage, her family, her progeny. This chance by chance essentially undermines any sort of rational explanation that we would give for why things happen the way they do. Do you ever have that happen in your life? Things happen and you're like, oh man, things are just fitting together. I just can't wait to see what's going to happen next. It's almost like a deja vu and you've seen it before and you know what's going to happen next. This is the way God works in our lives and it blows the rationale out of the water that we can explain why things happen.

Some things you can explain. We don't know what is going to happen, but we do know that God is guiding and he's directing and he's in control. Even to the extent that the footsteps that Ruth takes and that we make are guided by the Lord. Nothing and no decision that we make is apart from his will. So the author is saying, see, look, here's the hand of God in the details of life.

He sent the famine, he sent the harvest, he sent Naomi and Ruth back, he sent Ruth to Boaz and now he's delivering Boaz to Ruth. We live in a time, I'm going to read this to you, this is something I wrote earlier. We live in a time when the divine government of details of our lives has been lost. We hear the terms of fate, luck, chance rather than acknowledgement of God's sovereign control over the things that happens or come to pass. For unbelievers life is limited to a mechanical action and reaction and anything beyond that is good luck or bad luck. But for Christians as we grow in our knowledge of God and our eyes are open to see his handiwork, we learn about his sovereignty, his sovereign power. And we begin to trust how he's guiding our lives and that there are no accidents or chance outcomes. In fact we see God's providence, not luck directing and controlling everything that comes to pass. So therefore we begin to trust in God's providence, in his plan, in his sovereign will for our individual lives. So going back to the fall there, God is in control even to the point that into the future he is working out and orchestrating all events.

Even as we see here in the book of Ruth at the very end, the very last chapter, he's orchestrating all events so that Ruth would marry Boaz, that they would have a child Obed who would be the grandfather of King David who would ultimately reign on the throne that Christ spiritually would sit upon for eternity. God is orchestrating everything that happens for our good. He's a loving, caring, heavenly father. He's not abandoning us so that when we look out into the world and see this craziness that's going on, he hasn't just wound it up and removed himself. He's here and he's with us and he's directing it according to his will. He has a plan.

Second of all, God provides for those who trust in him who are under his care. Beginning at verse four, we have essentially this interaction with Boaz and there's three different sections of it so I'll guide you through that. Verses four through seven is this, who is Ruth? His inquiry into who is this young maiden who's working in my fields here.

We don't really know why. Some people assume it's kind of like he notices her for whatever reason. He's eyeing her. But she's Moabitess. Maybe she's dressing differently.

Maybe she's working harder while everybody's over by the water cooler. We really don't know. Then verses eight through thirteen is this exchange between Boaz and Ruth. And that's very important because, well, we'll see here in a second. And then third of all, he sends her off. He takes care of her and gives her words of encouragement that she's going to be taken care of. And he gives her this blessing or this care of food and protection. What we need to see in the second point God provides for those who trust in him is this key word here, chesed. This word is interpreted as loving kindness, at least in NIV and maybe some other versions, his mercy. But this word is a description of Boaz towards Ruth. Ruth is already seeing God's loving kindness. Look back over at chapter one, verse eight. And chapter one, verse eight, it says here, May the Lord show kindness to you who you have shown to your dead and to me.

That is the same word there. This chesed, loving kindness. Over here, we're seeing similarly that Boaz is showing this loving kindness to Ruth. Boaz as a relative, it says in our text in chapter two, verse one, that he's a relative. But what we're going to see if you turn here to chapter two, verse 20, is that he's not only a relative, but he's a kinsman redeemer. And as a kinsman redeemer, what we are going to what we need to see here is that Jesus is our kinsman redeemer. Jesus is the one who essentially pays the price and redeems us from our sin. He pays the price for our sin himself, takes it upon himself and transfers his righteousness to us, making us sons and daughters of the living God.

That's how he shows his kindness and his grace and his mercy towards us. Here is Boaz, who is likened to a kinsman redeemer. So when we look at Boaz here in chapter two, we need to kind of see how he is loving her as Christ loves the church. So first of all, he hears about Ruth. Essentially, we can say that God knows about the details of our lives. He hears her story in chapter two, verse six, it says, the foreman replied, she's a Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi.

Now it doesn't say much right there. We don't really know much about the details of the lives. But if you go down just down to verse 11, it says a little bit more in detail, Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me. So in verse six, it's kind of like, who is that woman? She's a Moabitess, but in actuality, she's getting the scoop. She's learning about who Ruth is and she's finding out from this man that, dude, this girl has been out here since the crack of dawn and she's been working hard. Whether she's a Moabitess or an Israelite, I really don't know.

But one thing for sure, that girl's got a work ethic. She's come here, she's taken care of her mother-in-law. She's coming here and bearing that responsibility. And she has made an oath to the Lord and is honoring and glorifying her. So he hears about Ruth and he hears her story and then he begins with this conversation with her. He says to her, Ruth, now listen, my daughter, do not go and glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close. And she responds and she falls down on her face, bow into the ground and says to him, why have I found such favor in your eyes that you would take notice of me, a foreigner, a Moabitess? And this is where he says it. All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me how you left your father and mother, your native land, and came to a people that you did not know before. Does that sound familiar to anybody?

I'll give you a hint. Genesis chapter 12. Abraham went out not knowing where. In the language, in the Hebrew, it's almost parallel to this text right here. She went out, she abandoned everything. She left her family and she came to a land that she did not know and a people she did not know before. What we have here is essentially a description of her faith. She left everything behind, not only to serve Naomi, but to serve Yahweh, to serve the Lord God, the everlasting, ever-loving Heavenly Father. She has come to serve him and we can see it.

For whatever reason is her motivation, she's a hard worker. And she's being faithful to her oath, this oath of malediction that she took. May the curses be upon me if I don't fulfill my obligation. So, Boaz essentially recognizes and tells her, you've got this great reputation and work ethic, you've got great faith. And so what does he say in verse 12?

And this is pretty much the highlight of the whole text. This is why we're singing the hymn, Under His Wings. May 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 taken refuge. This is a blessing for the woman who called a curse down upon herself as an obligation, as a motivation to go out there and take care of her mother-in-law and to serve the Lord. Boaz hears about her, he recognizes her in her faith and he blesses her. He gives her a benediction. As a result of this blessing that she receives, she acknowledges in kindness even though of his kindness, but ultimately it's of God's kindness.

Why are you doing this to me? But we know it was because God had put it upon his heart for whatever reason to give favor to her. To show her favor. Now we do know that the text says that she was a relative. Now we haven't gotten to the end of the chapter where it's revealed that she's a kinsman or redeemer, but in her eyes all she knows is that she actually doesn't even know that he's a relative yet. So anyway, he blesses her that she has come under the wings of the Almighty and he himself is going to make sure that she's taken care of. Just on an aside, something you need to think about, this psalm was not written by David. It's Psalm 91 and Psalm 90 was a psalm of Moses. So the fact that the actual literal grammatical relationship between the text goes back to 90 means that they knew, whoever the author was, knew the psalms of Moses.

Which is pretty neat thought. Third of all, he blesses his beloved. God blesses his beloved. Not only does he guide us in our way, in the details of our lives, and does he care for us just as Boaz does for Ruth, providing for all of her needs even to the point of providing food and protection from the bad guys or the people who might try to take advantage of her. But he blesses him.

This is the last section here. It says, and she took it up, that is the 65 pounds of blessings that he gave to her, she took it up and went into the city and showed it to her mother-in-law what she had gleaned. And her mother-in-law, astonished, says, where have you been that you are so blessed with this bounty? Because obviously, going out and doing this hard work, I don't know for you, but it's hard for me to bend over.

It's hard for me to go out and work in the garden for any length of time bent over. This woman is out gleaning, bent over, picking up and bending over all day long and she's gained weight in her sack or whatever she was carrying. She's been carrying weight all day long, up to 65 pounds of blessings from Boaz to herself. She shows it to Naomi and Naomi is so surprised, she's like, where have you been working?

She says, I've been working in the field of some man named Boaz, you know him? And all of a sudden, for us, now that we know what chapter two is about, we can see. It's just like, oh my goodness, she can see. Naomi, who's been bitter, the light is starting to shine. There's a little bit of hope, there's a little lightness in her step. Maybe she's a little giddy because all of a sudden, not only do they have food, she had a prosperous first day.

This girl, man, this boy, she can work. But no, it's not just that. God is showing his favor. He's showing his care. She's excited. Things are starting to click. She's starting to see very clearly that the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together.

That light is starting to shine in her darkness. His name is Boaz. He's a relative, but he's not just a relative. He's a kinsman redeemer. He's the man who's caring for them. So it goes back with me now.

Let's just make the point even again. Go back to chapter two, verse one. Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

When we see, now that the authors inserted this kind of parenthetical statement, all of a sudden now, it really makes the whole event of chapter two come alive. Because God placed him there in the very beginning and gave us a clue to look out for him, and now it's come to fruition, and we can see the mighty blessings of God upon our lives. Not only through Boaz, but in the future, from this point, which would be Christ, God is blessing God's blessing for us through Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. We are no longer under the curse of the law, but through faith we've been made children of Abraham. We've been adopted and been brought into the family of God, so now that we're not cursed any longer, we've been blessed, blessed by the love of God in our hearts. God cares for us. He loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us, to take his place in heaven for us, so that we can have eternal life.

Not only in the future, but even now. Back in chapter one, I'm not sure if I made the point very clearly or you remember it, but Naomi was bitter in the end, but we should learn from her bitterness to learn to rejoice in everything. From her bitterness, she didn't have a heavenly view. She was blaming God, kind of like Job, I'd say, she didn't hold it against him ultimately because she praises God in the end, but she had lost all hope, but now she sees that God has been faithful.

Let me get back to the point here. What is a kinsman redeemer that Boaz is relating for us? He's the relative, the scriptures say, who has the obligation to pay any kind of debt. Now it says in the text that he was one of kinsmen redeemers. There's another one we'll find in chapter three. There's another guy who has the obligation before him, but he is a kinsman redeemer and he has already been brought into their lives to be working and providing for them.

God is using Boaz to be that kinsman redeemer like Christ. So for us, what do we take away from all this? First of all, that God is in control of our lives. We have every reason to rejoice and not be overwhelmed by the circumstances that we're in. We can think about this election and we can watch our shows where we're trying to get our information from. We can try and figure out what the courts are going to do, what states are going to get.

We can try and figure it out, but you know what? That's not going to give you peace in your heart. Knowing that God is in control and has made a way for us in Jesus Christ and our eyes are supposed to be fixed upon him, that he is in control of all things is what's going to give us peace.

So let me pose something to you and follow me here. What if Biden becomes president and we go down this socialistic, communist hole and the future for our families is just literally just ruined? We don't have what we've always had for the past 400 years and it looks really bleak. What if God allows that to happen to America? Without casting any blame on the church, we should have done this or that, or cast blame on the liberals, they shouldn't have done that, and there shouldn't have been all this lying and stealing of ballots or anything like that. What if we just take it for granted it happens?

How should we respond? If God uses a tragedy in Naomi's life that we can see in hindsight that God used it to bring a blessing to us, salvation ultimately, we should see that while our circumstances aren't necessarily like Naomi's and it doesn't transfer to our day-to-day lives here in the 21st century exactly, we should be able to rejoice. And what if, because of this, many people who are despairing and without hope get saved? What if God uses the downfall of America and everything that we put our trust in to build his church, to bring people to the end of themselves, kind of like the cul-de-sac that Naomi was in? She had nowhere to turn, everything that she loved and who cared for her was gone.

All she had was home, and even that was a long way away. What if everything was taken? Would you be able to rejoice in Jesus Christ your Lord? What if God uses that to work in people's heart and draw them to himself that they might be saved?

Would it not be all worth it? We've been purchased by the precious blood of the land. This world is not our home.

This stuff doesn't matter. And if that's true, then why not lose it all to gain Christ, as Paul said? To die is gain, but to live is Christ, then we should have the perspective that no matter what happens, the mission of the church right here is to go out and proclaim the gospel. Because we know what they don't know. We have the hindsight and the foresight, because we've got God's Word.

They don't. These people are at a dead end, kind of like the Israelites with the ocean and the Egyptians behind them, or the Pharaoh's troops behind them. They're at a dead end and they don't have anywhere to turn, but we got the answer. Woe unto us for not going out and sharing the gospel, and giving these people an answer for the hope that we have that they don't.

Let me drink some water here. God is in control. He turns all things for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purposes.

If we know how much he cares for us, then we're obligated to live for him, so that the sweet aroma, as we are living sacrifices, the sweet aroma of death to those people might create a need for life in their soul. Second of all, don't worry when you can't see the outcome, when you don't know the future. Don't be like Saul, as Doug said. Cast your cares upon the Lord, for he will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall. Isaiah 40 verse 1 says, comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sins have been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins. And then finally place your trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers and children, you can't find hope in Jesus Christ without being saved. Are you saved?

That's a good question. Maybe as evidenced by the way, bear with me here, you live your life. Look at Ruth's commitment. She showed it by the way she worked. She showed it in her diligence and her faith. Would your life show that fruit of the Spirit, of your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, no matter what the circumstances hold? Or are you just like the world?

That's a good determining factor. Jesus said, look at their fruit. Where are you, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, in your relationship to Jesus Christ? That's the most important thing that we as the church, before we can rise up, that we can shine as bright lights is that we have to become a light. You have to come out of the darkness into the light through Jesus.

So I want to compel you to come under his care. He who loves you so much that he gave his son for you, that you might know joy even in the midst of trial and tribulation, that you can rejoice no matter what the future is going to bring to us. You have to know Jesus Christ that you might have hope. Apart from him, you're just like, you're in despair.

You're like the rest of the world at the cul-de-sac and everybody's just, it's just, it's a mess. God has taken us out of the mess that we can go back with the good news. That's our mission no matter what happens.

We have the good news. May God bless us as we share it in the coming year. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you, Father, for the reminder of your guiding hand, your providential care, and, Father, your blessings that we possess even now in Christ. I pray, Father, in Jesus' name that you would work in our hearts, that we would examine our hearts, why we worry so and why we don't seek you the kingdom. Why, Father, we don't trust you with everything, but we want to hold it in our hands by letting go and lifting up empty hands to you. Show us, Father, why we're not trusting you, that, Father, in this coming week we can live for you and be brighter lights. Father, that people would see in us a love and a care and a concern and a compassion of a kinsman and redeemer through us. Come, Holy Spirit, and work in each one of our lives and use us as living sacrifices to glorify our Father in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.