Ruth Chapter 2:1-9

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. God blesses the small things we do for him in big ways. Today, Pastor David discusses how God multiplies our efforts to produce extraordinary results as he continues in the book of Ruth Chapter 2.

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 McGee'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 McGee with his teaching, The Lord Will Repay. We're continuing our verse by verse study through the book of Ruth, so let's jump in. Ruth Chapter 2 verse 1 says, There was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech.

His name was Boaz. Now just as a reminder, refresher from Chapter 1 if you will, Naomi and her family went to the land of Moab because there was a famine in the land of Israel. And while they were there, not only Naomi's husband, but Orpah's husband and the Ruth's husband all died. So then they decided to come back to Israel. Well, Naomi decided to come back to Israel.

Orpah decided not to come back. And Ruth said to Naomi, if we remember those words of, you know, your God is now my God, your people are my people, and where you go, I'll go. So really beautiful, beautiful verses.

And so now they are back in Israel. Now this name Boaz, and we'll probably talk about it a little bit more, meant a man of great strength. And it says a man of great wealth, but really it's more than that in the original Hebrew.

It's a man of great power, of wealth, of giftings if you will. Verse 2, so Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him and whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. Now, I want you to notice that Ruth was active. Now, they find themselves in somewhat of a predicament. Naomi and Ruth are back in the land of Israel.

It's mainly a society built around males and males in the marketplace. So two widows are now, they're somewhat disabled from really earning a living, but there are things that they can do. And I so appreciate the fact that Ruth was doing them. Ruth didn't sit there and say, well, somebody needs to help me. Somebody needs to do something.

I'm going to go ask somebody to help me, or I'm going to go do this, or I can't believe somebody's not just bringing me something. No, Ruth was proactive. And there's a great lesson in that. You see, and one of the things, we have a benevolence ministry. What that means is every year there's a certain amount of funding that's set aside to people who find themselves in need. And they come in and they say, look, this is what is going on. Now, we do it different than a lot of churches. We don't just say, oh, if you need something, here's a check.

Go, you know, God bless you. We want to minister to the people. So first of all, we make sure that they know the Lord and that they're walking with the Lord, and we help them. We don't just say, well, here's something here.

Go hurt yourself with it. It's more than that. And we help them, okay, well, let's see how we can not find yourselves in this position again. Same with the clothing ministry, the food ministry.

And I think that's very important for us to do, not just to hand people money, but to help them and minister to them through this process. Because, see, the Bible is very clear, and the government has, and I'm not going to go off on a government tangent, but the government has a system of, we call it, welfare. Well, the Bible has a system of workfare, okay?

And here's how it's laid out, 2 Thessalonians 3, and we'll take about three verses here. It says, even while we were with you, we gave you this rule. Whoever does not work should not eat. Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and wasting time, meddling in other people's business. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we appeal to such people.

No, we command them, settle down and get to work. Earn your own living. And I say to the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good. It's always amazing to me when somebody makes the statement, well, you know, the Bible is such an old book, and it's really not relevant for today. And when somebody says that, you know what I automatically know? They've never really picked up the Bible. Because the Bible is filled with practical living tips on how you can improve your life and how you can live your life, and this is one of those places. The Bible says, you know what, if you're not working, don't eat.

I know a lot of people that don't work, but I'm pretty sure they're eating. So, you know, I mean, we need to take the scriptural adage here and say, okay, well, you know, make sure you're being diligent. Now, notice she says, in whose sight I may find favor. She's not sure what's gonna happen. But she takes that step out. She takes that step out in the faith.

I'm not sure what's gonna happen, but I'm gonna do this. And I'm gonna, if you will, trust God in this. And I think she went knowing, believing that God was gonna do something, but also knowing that she needed to do something. James 2 2, and I use the New Living translation because it's really strong. It says, fool, when will you ever learn that faith that does not result in good deeds is useless?

Well, it's strong, isn't it? But we need to understand that if we believe in God, if we're following Jesus Christ, then we should leave this trail of good works and fruitfulness. And again, somehow we've gotten to the place where we think it's the exception to the rule that a few of us serve the Lord. But we're supposed to all be serving the Lord. And as we join together and serve the Lord, we'll be amazed at what the Lord does through us. Verse 3, then she left, and she went and gleaned in the field after the reapers.

And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. Ruth was not stealing, she was gleaning. So let's make sure we understand this concept. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 10 says, And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God. And Deuteronomy chapter 24, 21 says, When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterwards.

It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. So the deal was that when you harvested your field, you didn't go through and harvest every little bit. Now there's machines nowadays that are so technologically advanced that they do exactly that. They harvest every little bit. But while they were doing it by hand, there were beat portions that they would actually miss. And God says, Leave it.

As a matter of fact, in another place, he says, Round the corners that there might be things left. Why did they do that? So that those who were poor and oppressed, the widow, the stranger, could then go into the field and go through the field and pick what was left over.

It's a wonderful system. So if you had lack, if you had no land, if you had lots of debt and you had no food, you knew at the time of harvest that you could go out and there would be something for you. But again, you had to be proactive. You couldn't just say, Well, you know, somebody go out and glean something and give it to me.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You went out and you gleaned from the field and you were provided for. And God says, You know what? This is a good thing. And look who he points out.

He says, Look, the fatherless, the stranger, and the widow and the poor. This is an awesome way. I mean, if you really think about it, I can think of no better system. And certainly we've tried, but I can think of no better system to minister to people than the one that God originally came up with. I wish that we still did it, I guess, you know, because we're not as agricultural as a society, that perhaps it's not as practical as it might have been in that day.

But I just like the fact that there was something that needed to be done. And look how Ruth meets these categories. She's a stranger. She's from Moab. She's a Moabite. She's a widow.

She's fatherless because her father-in-law and when you got married, you became part of the groom's family, lost her father, which was Naomi's husband. And she was a stranger. It's interesting because it says that she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.

I like that. She happened on it. God was leading her.

As we get more into this study, you're going to see how God is setting this whole thing up. Ruth, in fact, did happen on that field. I don't think that Ruth was walking down the road and, you know, all of a sudden she stopped.

Her eyes got big and she started shaking and she saw a vision. I don't think that happened. Oh, wait a minute. I'm getting the word.

I don't think that happened. Now, does God speak to people? You betcha. Does God give people words?

You betcha. It happens every time I sit up here. Every time I sit up here, I start down one path and God's like, no, no, don't do that. Don't say that. But I want you to say this.

I mean, it happens every time. But I don't get into this, oh, wait a minute. You know why?

Other than the fact that it's weird. Because the moment I do that, let me ask you a question. Where are your eyes? You're looking at me. Oh, look, he's getting something. You can tell his hand's shaking.

His voice is quivering. And so your eyes are no longer on the Lord, but your eyes are on me going, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. So often, God is working in the very quiet ways, in a very powerful, supernatural way.

And there's such solace in this. There's such comfort in this because as you wander through your life and nine times out of ten, you might not know what you're doing. God is leading you.

He's leading you with an incredible destiny, with an incredible power. And if somebody says, well, how'd you end up here? I don't know.

I don't know. God brought you here. Even tonight, you might have really natural explanations of how you came to be in this place tonight, but you're here because God wants to speak to you. And you may have come here.

You may have just, you know, we've had people come here and say, you know, I just took a wrong turn. And I came down this road and found this church and thought, well, okay, I'll go in and see what's going on. And then, you know, they love it and God speaks to them. That's the way the Lord leads us. And then much of our lives might seem like happenstance, but they're not. Every detail, God is using us. God is using those small details of our lives. 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. I got a dog in Nashville when I was living and playing there and one of the sweetest dogs. I've loved this dog as much as I've ever loved any dog. Her name was Brown because she had brown hair and a brown nose and brown eyes and brown toes.

So we used to sing this little song about the brown dog. We had her for about nine years and she just, me and her had this thing, made Nora jealous sometimes. But I mean if I was in the bathroom, she was waiting outside the door. And, you know, Nora could get her freaked out just by going, where's father?

And she would, you know, wear a hood. So while we were traveling, we were in LA and Brown got away from us and ran out in the traffic, was hit and killed. And I was devastated and, you know, I loved Brown. We were in California. I was trying to figure out how, you know, how we were going to get Brown back here after she had died.

And so I started calling airlines and then, you know, I'd had to go through the story and, you know, wouldn't make it. And then I, you know, I'd composed myself and I'd call the next one and finally we had her cremated. And she was just a really sweet dog. And that Sunday in another place outside of LA, I was doing music and the teaching. And there was this one song called Love Letter that I was sharing. And then this song at the end of it says, you know, I give to you my children. I give you my wife. I give you my music.

I give you my life. And so I was sitting there sharing that song and it occurred to me that I had given him my dog. And as I was sitting there, I thought, you know, my eyes started to water and I thought, man, if I can just get to the end of this song, you know. And it just, I couldn't and I fell apart. So instead of just, you know, sitting there blubber and looking at everybody, I thought, well, I'll just turn around until I can compose myself, which is something you never want to do when you're teaching or leading or doing music is turn around and put your back towards everybody. So, you know, then I composed myself and I thought, well, I need to explain to everybody, you know, because they're probably sitting there going, what, so you never make it through this song or, you know, what?

I mean, you know, so I felt like I needed to explain to them what had happened and I lost my dear friend Brown earlier this week. So, you know, I shared that. And then that was towards the end of the service and then, you know, I talked about the Lord and him dying for our sins and several people got saved that morning. And, you know, I noticed one older gentleman because the older we get, the harder our hearts get. And so it's the exception to the rule that somebody older gets saved.

I mean older than 65 or 70. So after we got finished, we were packing up, we were getting ready to leave and the pastor comes to me and we were probably about five or ten minutes from being down the road to our next thing that evening. And he said, man, I got to share this with you.

I said, what's going on? He goes, well, we've had a lady in our fellowship. She's been here since the doors opened.

She's been here for 10, 12, 14 years or something. And her husband's not a believer and, you know, once or twice a year she gets him to show up and that's about it. And so she told him something special was going on this morning and she got him to come.

Dear older sister, this morning her husband invited Jesus to be his Savior. And part of what happened is they lost two dogs in a house fire earlier this week. And when you were up there crying and hurting over the pain of the loss of your pet, there was a connection made with this guy that had never been made before. And because of that connection, he asked the Lord to forgive him of his sins. Five or ten minutes later, I could have been out of there.

I had never known. But God in His mercy and His kindness said, hey, hey, I'll share with you why it happened. I'll share some of the fruit of something painful in your life.

But see, you know what, a lot of times we don't get that last ten minutes. We won't know until we get there. And God goes, oh, oh, oh, you thought it was happenstance. It wasn't happenstance. You thought it was something painful for no reason, but look at the fruit that it produced in your life and in the lives of others. And when we get to that place, we're going to look by and go, wow, look what you did with my life.

I thought I was just happenstancing and circumstances and stumbling my way through. But you had a plan, God, that was being laid out, even while I was clueless. Be encouraged by that, guys, because even while we're clueless, God's never clueless. Verse 4. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered him, the Lord bless you. Now, look at the way they're greeting each other. Isn't that cool? Isn't that cool? The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you. Man, we need to greet each other like that more, don't we?

You know, some of our greetings leave a little bit to be desired. A couple that we, you know, I used to say something to the kids when they would come in and leave the door open. You've probably said it right. What, you're raised in a barn? You're born in a barn?

I said that one day and it was like the Holy Spirit said, the Son of God was born in a stable. I said, man, I'll never use that one again. You know another one that's weird if you think about it? Whenever you're parting, sometimes you say, hey, take care of yourself. You ever thought about that? Take care of yourself? Why? Because God's not going to take care of you. How about God take care of you or God bless you or God keep you?

Take care of yourself because nobody else will. Look out for number one there, buddy. Man, we ought to use these other greetings. God bless you. The Lord be with you.

Let's use those. Amen. Verse 5, then Boaz said to a servant who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this?

That's an interesting question. Please note, he did not say who is this young woman. He said, whose young woman is this?

I think Boaz is perhaps captivated by this young lady. Verse 6, so the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered and said, it is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. And she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house. So the overseer, if you will, who's in charge of the reapers, is explaining to Boaz.

It sounds like he thinks he might be in trouble and he's kind of going, well, you know, this is what happened. But notice, says she came out in the morning and she's been diligent. She's been working hard. Again, speaks of Ruth's character. And notice that this whole thing opens up, again, because of the diligence of Ruth.

The saying is, when opportunity knocks, you've got to get up and answer the door. I think that's important to realize, and it's something we need to realize here. God's doing incredible work here. You need to understand too that there has been a whole lot of very diligent people working a lot of hours here.

The staff itself is filled with hardworking people. These people pour themselves out on behalf of God for your sakes. And the leadership pour themselves out.

And team leaders give themselves away. And God takes those efforts and He multiplies them and He blesses them. That's important for us to understand because I want to be in a place of balance. There are some people who overemphasize our responsibility, and they write such silly books as if it's going to be, it's up to me, which is total nonsense. And then the other side is people just sit back and they go, well, if God wants it to happen, He'll just make it happen. Well, wait a minute, maybe God wants you to do something.

We want to make sure that we don't just sit around asking God to bless stuff and we want to understand that it's not all up to us and have that balance of saying, well, God wants to bless us and God blesses diligence, so let's pour ourselves out on behalf of God. Amen? Verse 8, Then Boaz said to Ruth, You will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close by my young women. And let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? Never thirst to go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn.

This is awesome. Boaz is offering his protection to Ruth. He's promising to take care of her and to meet her needs.

And I'm not sure, and we don't know at this point if he's totally captivated, if he's interested in a relationship, but he's just trying to love on somebody that's in a very vulnerable position. I mean, here she is from, she's a Moabitess. You know, the Moabitess, you remember, Balaam, the Moibites had wanted Balaam to curse the people of Israel. He said, I can't curse them. He ends up blessing them. But then he sits down and goes, okay, but if you really want to captivate them, what you want to do is send your young women in there and do your acts of worship and captivate the men, so the Moabitess didn't, they weren't of a good reputation. They were of a foreign land, and she's in this place, and she's in a very vulnerable place, and she's really probably expecting to be looked down upon and looked askance at, and yet God takes one of the most powerful men in the area and grants her favor with him.

This is really cool. It's a great, great story, and I think God sometimes tests us by seeing how we treat those who are vulnerable. 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.