Ruth Chapter 1:1-15

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Jesus modeled an others-centered life for us, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can also live to serve. Today, Pastor David challenges us to live outside of ourselves, as he continues in the book of Ruth chapter 1.

But before we begin today's teaching, many people think Christianity is a list of do's and don'ts, an impossible standard that beats you down and robs you of joy. But the truth is, God's Word is a lifeline of hope and troubled times. We want to help you rise above the difficulties of life by sending you a copy of Pastor David Magee's four-part teaching series, Living Life by the Book. This empowering resource shows you how to walk with God through everyday life and learn to experience joy, even in hard times. Living Life by the Book is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people hear God's truth on this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life. Please visit crossthebridge.com today to give and get your copy of Living Life by the Book.

Now here's David Magee with part two of his teaching, Running. Turn with me to the book of Ruth. We're actually beginning a new book, and the author's not named.

Ruth did not write this. We believe that probably Samuel actually wrote this. It's really an incredible book. You're going to see some very interesting things, especially in the second, third, and fourth chapter.

Hopefully, you'll see some interesting things tonight there. And it's one of two books, of course, Ruth and the other book being Esther, that speaks of completely revolves around the life of a woman and her story of following the Lord. So let's jump on in here, Ruth, chapter one, verse one.

Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Limilech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Malon and Chilean, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah, and they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Limilech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left and her two sons. Verse four, now when they took wives of the women of Moab, the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other, Ruth, and they dwelt there about 10 years.

Then both Malon and Chilean also died, so the woman survived her two sons and her husband. Then arose with her daughter-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people by giving them bread. And therefore, she went out from the place where she was and her two daughter-in-laws with her, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go return each to her mother's house.

The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband. So she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept. Verse 10, and they said to her, surely we will return with you to your people. So there's a recognition with them that they were now part of Naomi's family and would go with Naomi back to her people. Verse 11, but Naomi said, turn back my daughters, why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb that they may be your husbands?

Now she wasn't being hard, she wasn't being callous. There was what was called a levirate marriage. And what that was is that any male children that Naomi would have would care for these widows, actually marry these widows and have children with them. Deuteronomy 25 five says, if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. Her husband's brother shall go into her, take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. So what Naomi is saying, you know, I don't have any other sons.

I don't have any other sons that they could fulfill this obligation. And she continues, verse 12, turn back my daughters, go for I am too old to have a husband. And if I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons, would you wait for them till they were grown?

Would you restrain yourselves from having husbands? No my daughters, for it grieves me very much for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Well this is the first thing that Naomi has said that we have to kind of take her to task for.

Because she says, it grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Now, the saying is hindsight's 20-20. It's a very accurate saying. What that means is once you get past the situation and you're looking back on it, you can often see it more clearly.

And certainly we can look at this situation probably more clearly than Naomi was at that point. But, you know, I look at this situation and go, you know what? Why did you leave? I mean, being hungry is not good. I don't know how many of us have actually been hungry in here.

I've been hungry and it's not a good thing. But dying's worse. And so they should have never left. But they did leave. And in part because they did leave, these things occurred. Now God is going to turn the whole thing around in an incredible way.

We're going to see that over the next few weeks. But to say that the Lord has now against her, well, why is she saying that? She's saying that because she's going through some trials. She's saying that because she emotionally has been hurt. Is she right or is she wrong? Oh, loved when she couldn't be further from the truth. And at this moment, God is executing a plan that is going to bless her beyond her wildest imagination.

And yet what is she saying? Well, the Lord's against me. The Lord's against me. How many of us might feel like that tonight? How many of us might be sitting in here tonight and thinking, you know, God's against me.

I did that one thing or I did those couple of things and, you know, He used to love me, but He had to quit loving me because I did those things. That's a lie. That is a lie. See, the love of God never ceases. The love of God is one of the most powerful things that we know of in this universe. Romans chapter eight talks about that, that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not life, not death, not angels, not demons. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Is that the picture of God that you have? Forever and a day I had a relationship with the Lord that was, well, it was a performance oriented relationship with the Lord. What I mean by that is if I was doing good, I felt like the Lord loved me. But if I was doing bad, I felt like the Lord was mad at me and no longer wanted to spend time with me and those sorts of things. And that's no way to live, see, because we're all going to mess up. And then when you get in that situation where you think, well, God's mad at me now, are you going to run to your daddy?

No, you're going to hide from your daddy. And that's why this is so important to understand how much God loves you. God doesn't love you conditionally.

If you've done well today and you've, whatever, you've prayed, you've read your Bible, maybe you've even witnessed to a couple of people today and you've done well and you're sitting here going, praise God, that's awesome. God loves you. But if you had a horrible day today, maybe did some things that you're ashamed of, embarrassed of or whatever, and you're sitting here and you're going, God doesn't love me anymore.

That's a lie. Daddy still loves you. As a matter of fact, it's that love that reaches out to you and says, hey, you know what, man, this is in the way. Let it go tonight. Ask forgiveness for this tonight.

Then be restored. See, in my life, it got to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore, to be honest. I had people that, they stirred me on into this performance-oriented Christianity. They reinforced the fact that, you know, if I messed up, God's mad, what are you doing here at church? You're messing up.

I said, well, I can't do this. You mix that with a little bit of Calvinism, well, a lot of Calvinism, which says, you know, some are predestined to go to hell, some are predestined to go to heaven. Predestination is a biblical concept, but if you think that you can pick and choose who those people are, man, now your name starts with a big G and ends with OD and that's not your name. I thought, well, maybe I'm just not called. Maybe I'm just not predestined to go to heaven. Maybe that's why I'm struggling in this area, and I walked away, and it was an amazing thing what God used to pull me back in.

I used a bunch of stuff actually. A lot of things went bad in my life after the, you know, I was, and some of you've heard this story, you know, I was weeping in a hotel room and, you know, Lord, what's miserable? I have all these things, the things of the world and working with these famous people and I'm not happy. Lord said, well, you don't have joy and peace and love and forgiveness.

If you want those things, come to me, I'll give you those things. But I continued on, but it was interesting, it was during this time, I play guitars that are custom crafted, meaning you talk to the guy and he builds them to order and he's a believer. And I was going by one time to have some work done on one of my guitars and I was dreading it, you see, because I was working in the secular music industry, this guy knew what I was doing, he knew kind of what went along with that and I thought, man, I'm gonna go in here and this guy's just gonna be all over me.

He's gonna be all in my face, he's gonna be yelling at me, he's gonna be pointing at me, he's gonna be doing all these things, you know. I was dreading it, but I had to go, you see, God had me in that place because I needed some work done on the guitars. So I go in and he starts working on the guitars and everything's cool, we're all fine, there's not even the tenseness that I was thinking was gonna be there. And he finished up, put the last guitar in the case and said, okay, well, I'll do it.

I'm still waiting for the hammer to drop. And he looked at me and he said, you know what, I miss you and I love you. And his tears began to well up in my eyes, I knew I had to get out of there before I lost it in front of him. See, I'd been expecting him to beat me up. I wasn't prepared for him as my friend to say, you know what, I miss you and I love you. And as I started to the car and I started weeping, I realized that that was the heart of Jesus towards me. He missed me and he loved me. And here I'd been thinking that he was waiting with some big cosmic spiritual paddle to beat me and he was gonna get great joy in doing that.

It was gonna be the first order of business when I came back to him. I'd been believing the lie. I'd been running from the big stick God that didn't exist. When God's heart towards me was, I miss you and I love you.

And that began to soften my heart. See, because often we run from God. When we need to run to God, that whole bailing, I'm out of here, you know, I'm running. When the Lord is saying, you know what, I just wanna bless you.

And so when she says the hand of the Lord has gone out against me, nothing could be further from the truth. And if you're here tonight and you're thinking, well, God's just, he's still mad about that thing I did 12 years ago, God doesn't even remember that. He doesn't even remember that. And if you're struggling with something from your past, remember it's in your past.

See, we often remember things that we should forget and we forget things that we should remember. You're listening to Pastor David McKee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more in just a moment. But first, there's so much waiting for you at crossthebridge.com. If you haven't visited crossthebridge.com yet, come by today and check it out. While you're there, you can sign up for Pastor David's free daily devotional. Listen to more teachings from Pastor David and read about what God's doing through your support to proclaim his word through radio, internet, and mobile technologies. Also, you can give online to help encourage more people in their faith on this radio station and beyond. And when you do, please request your copy of Pastor David's four-part teaching series, Living Life by the Book, as our thanks for your generosity.

Visit crossthebridge.com today. Now back to today's teaching. You realize everybody in here has done something in their past that they're ashamed of?

Well, maybe if you're young enough, you haven't done it yet, but you will. Every one of us, and God still loves us. God never called us to the front of the classroom, put a big X on our forehead and said, you're done. Counting you out. Don't believe that.

If you're believing that tonight, you're believing a lie. As a matter of fact, when Jesus, when the Lord looks at you, he doesn't, if you've asked him to forgive you of these things, he no longer sees those things. If you try to discuss these things with him, he'll go, what are you talking about? What about that thing I did? I don't see that anymore. Only thing I see there is the blood of my son. And I struggled with some of this. When at a point in my life, I was asking the Lord over and over and over and over and over to forgive me of something, and it was a pretty horrible thing.

I'm not going to share what it is, but it was a pretty horrible thing. And I kept saying, Lord, please forgive me. And finally the Lord said, you know what?

Was it not enough? And I said, what are you talking about? And the Lord in that still small voice said, was it not enough that I gave my son to bleed and to die that you could be forgiven of that thing, but you still want to carry it around? Because when you do that, really what you're saying to me is it was not enough that my son dying for you and bleeding for you on that cross was not enough for you to let go of this thing. I never asked forgiveness for that again.

Our God is a blessing God. Verse 14, then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law a little bit, Ruth clung to her. So guys, you're going to have to use your imaginations a little bit here. They're obviously having like this big hanky moment.

They're all crying. And so that's what ladies do sometimes. And it's a good thing. And sometimes I wish, you know, as a man, I wish we could do that more. Amen?

Or oh me. Because we're told this, you know, big boys don't cry. That's baloney.

That's baloney. We should show our emotions. Matter of fact, most of us struggle to show our emotions because we grew up under that kind of nonsense. And now, you know, you can watch a movie and, you know, every guy in here has done this. You probably won't admit it, but you know, you watch a movie and it's a sad movie.

You know, I watched White Fang last night. You know, it's a sad movie. And then you start to tear up and then what do you do? What's wrong? Nothing. Nothing.

Got something in my eye. You crying? No.

No. Crying. You shouldn't be like that. We should be more transparent.

But we have this big boys don't cry nonsense going on. So they're obviously having a big hanky party. So in this, Naomi is doing something. She is what? She's not thinking of herself. When she tells these girls to go back to Moab, she's thinking of them. And while she stumbles with this statement, the hand of the Lord has gone out against me, I have to see that that's a very unselfish thing that she's doing.

I mean, it would be within the realm of possibilities for her to say, well, yeah, you know, since you were married to my sons, you really need to go help me and you need to go with me and we're going to get a place and we'll fix it up and whatever. But she doesn't do any of that. She's being unselfish. Philippians chapter two, verse three and four. Don't be selfish. Don't live to make a good impression on others. Be humble thinking of others as better than yourself. Don't think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others too and what they are doing. See, this should describe the body of Christ, that we take an interest in other people, not just in what is going on in our life and not just about us, but about other people. And this will show.

And this is something that the world will recognize. The life lesson here is we naturally think of ourselves. We supernaturally think of others. We naturally think of ourselves. We supernaturally think of others. What I mean by that is you think about yourself. That's just what you do. But when you begin to think about other people, see, that's showing that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, is at work in your life.

Why? Because you don't naturally do that. We all naturally think of ourselves. And the case in point, and I've used it before, is the photograph phenomenon. You know, somebody hands you a photograph and you're in it, who's the first person you look at?

Everybody got real quiet now, didn't they? Who is the first person you look at if you look at you? And then you decide whether that's a good photo or a bad photo by how you look.

Isn't that right? Well, that's a good photo. That's a nice photo.

Can I get some copies of that, you know? Or everybody else can look glorious. They can look great. And you've got a little eye thing going on or something. You go, that's a horrible photo. Can I get the negatives, you know? Why?

Because that's our natural inclination. You know, when you woke up this morning, you thought, well, what am I going to eat, right? You probably didn't think, what's somebody else going to eat? What's Pastor David going to eat?

You probably didn't think about that. You probably thought, well, what am I going to eat? You know, when you got up this morning to get dressed, you thought, what am I going to wear, right? That's natural. You probably didn't think, I wonder what Pastor David's going to wear, you know?

Well, maybe some of you did, I don't know. But not in a healthy way. That's natural. What's supernatural is when you begin to think, you know, I wonder how so-and-so's doing. They seem like they've been having a hard time.

You know what? I'm going to pray for them. That's God at work in your life. That's the supernatural going on. Or I'm concerned about this one person.

They don't have enough to eat, or they're out of work, or this is going on. That's God's supernatural Holy Spirit manifesting itself in you to care for others. That is supernatural. And that's what we see going on in the life of Naomi. Now, she has no idea at this point that God is going to be using this tragedy in her life for her greater good.

But that's what's going to happen. In verse 15, and she said, look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods return after your sister-in-law. Now, this is the second little verbal thing we got a problem with Naomi because Naomi says to her, go back to Moab and follow those gods, little G. See, this is revealing that Naomi's heart has gotten kind of hard towards the Lord, see, because rather than encouraging her in following the Lord, she's encouraging her to go back to this idol worship. And I think in this, we can see that Naomi's heart has strayed from the Lord.

I don't know. We don't know when it happened. Maybe when they were struggling in the famine, maybe. Or maybe she didn't want to go to Moab, but she went anyway. And her heart, while it got hard towards her husband, also got hard towards the Lord. We don't know. Maybe it got hard when her husband died. Maybe it got hard when her sons died.

We don't know. But she's being challenged to live outside of herself. And in one way, she's succeeding marvelously.

And then in another way, boy, she's failing miserably. Because here's the thing, if Ruth had listened to her, then this book would not be the glorious book that it ends up to be. Here's the thing, guys, and this is the next life lesson. The Bible challenges us to live outside of ourselves. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to live outside of ourselves. Jesus models how we are to live outside of ourselves, and God tells us to live outside of ourselves.

This is what's supposed to be going on. This is supposed to be the natural byproduct, if you will, of a relationship with Jesus Christ. This is supposed to be the fruit that comes into our lives because of a relationship with Jesus. Not, again, as we mentioned Sunday, not that it's a select few that are really supposed to pour their lives out. Just a select few that should begin to serve the Lord. But this is something that we're all supposed to be doing. And the Lord challenges us to do these things. And when you do that, let me assure you, when you begin to serve the Lord, when you step outside of yourself, difficulties will arise. But you know, these things, again, they're not things to run from. Why?

Because God will use them to grow us. And Orpah had a decision in front of her. Ruth had a decision in front of her.

Naomi had a decision in front of her. And every one of us has a decision in front of them. See, and oftentimes we think it's the huge, big decisions, spiritually, that either make us or break us. You know, it's not true. Oh, they can affect us, but here's the thing.

And I like what C.S. Lewis says, he says, our Christian life kind of is made or broken in the seemingly insignificant details. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him, and He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Do you ever feel beaten down or even crushed by the difficulties of life? We all do sometimes, but Jesus offers a life of hope, and we want to help you embrace it. Discover how Christ empowers you to rise above life circumstances with Pastor David's four-part teaching series, Living Life by the Book. This uplifting resource takes you through the Book of Ruth to reveal how the simplicity of living for Jesus can bring you joy even in the darkest times. Living Life by the Book is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people hear God's truth on this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life. Please visit crossthebridge.com today to give and get your copy of Living Life by the Book. You know each day comes with its share of stresses, so what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McKee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes a scripture and a message from the heart of David McKee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening. Join us next time as we continue in the Book of Ruth.