You'll often hear people talk about a chance encounter or a happy coincidence. But is that really what the events of life are? Today on Truth for Life we'll see how a seemingly fortunate event in the life of Ruth Shows the presence and providential care. of Almighty God. Alastair Begg is teaching from Ruth, Chapter Two.
We're picking things up essentially in the fourth verse with the arrival of Boaz. And as I reread this passage again this week and thought about the nature of Ruth as a servant. I found my mind going to Paul's word to the Thessalonians. when in encouraging them he says to them make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. to mind your own business.
and to work with your hands So that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders. It's a very practical word from Paul to these people in Thessalonica. And sometimes I think we're tempted to feel that the way in which we will make an impact on outsiders is as a result of perhaps our talk or perhaps our desire to pressure them in some way. And certainly, there is a time to be silent, there is a time to speak. But Paul here is suggesting that that the quietness of a life the minding of your own business, which is the opposite of nosiness.
The working with your hands, which is an expression of endeavor. All in all, a daily life that causes outsiders to say, I wonder what it is about that fellow, or I wonder what it is about that girl. Those of us who've been tracking with these studies know already that Ruth was a widow by this time. She was a foreigner. This is mentioned again.
and although she had had her life transplanted from all that was familiar to her, although she was in the company of her mother-in-law, who by dint of age would perhaps be the one that she might have anticipated would be able to be providing for her, We discover that Ruth does not sit around waiting for someone to care for her or to enter into her circumstances, nor does she wait for some kind of dramatic intervention. Instead, she seizes the opportunity that is afforded her by the law. She's obviously a bright girl. She has paid attention to what's going on. She's already discovered by this time this process that takes place in the act of harvesting that is referenced in Leviticus chapter 19.
And she had requested of her mother-in-law that she might go to the fields, verse 2, and pick up the leftover grain. And she said that she hoped to be able to do this behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor. And we said last time that the point of departure for her here was: I'm going into the field to find favor. We also notice that as it turned out, and we took some time on that little phrase in verse 3, as it turned out, somebody paraphrased it, as luck would have it. The King James Version has a very interesting statement.
But from a human perspective, it appeared as though it was pure happenstance that she ended up in this particular field only to discover that God was ordering the events of her life. And she was working in a field behind those who were the servant girls of Boaz. who we already had been introduced to. In verse one. of this chapter.
And what we discover in Boaz is what we find in the Old Testament, all across the board, that there is no separation between the sacred and the secular. But rather, the Old Testament saints live the whole of their lives before the face of God. You have it in the psalmist: Oh Lord, you've searched me and you know me. You know when I sit down and when I get up, you know the words of my mouth before I even speak them. Where can I go from your presence?
If I go up into the sky, there you are. If I make my bed in the depths, you're there. There is nowhere that I can possibly go.
So this sense of the immediacy of God which was pervasive in all of the activities of their lives. Mark Boaz, as we find him here. in this encounter.
Now we're able to say that because it comes across quite clearly in this greeting and the response to the greeting that we find in verse 4. But Boaz arrives to meet those who are under his employment with a blessing on his lips. He arrived with the workers there and he greeted them, the Lord be with you. He's essentially saying, may God's presence and favor satisfy your souls. And what he requested for them, they in turn returned to him.
The Lord bless you, they called back. What a wonderful place to work. I'm not suggesting that all of you are going to be able to pull this off tomorrow, and I'm not even suggesting that a number of us ought to go in and say, the Lord bless you. Although where we can, we probably should. But what a wonderful place.
The Lord bless you. And they all called back. Blow it out of your ear. Look at us slaving away here. And you.
You came up in that big fat car of yours and you expect us to be as excited as you are. No, do you see? Where the blessing of the Lord attends a life. Whether you are the manager or whether you are the. Sweeper.
Where you have a spirit of contentedness about your lot and your position. then you will be able to return blessing with blessing.
However, No matter how established we may be in employment. If we do not understand that the blessing of the Lord, the attendant blessing of the Lord, is what gives significance to our employment and what gives benefit to all that we do, unless we understand that, then we will never be particularly useful to ourselves or to anyone else.
Now, to take the name of the Lord upon his lips was a significant thing because you remember that one of the commandments is that you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Therefore, Boaz is not showing up and simply throwing the name of the Lord around in a casual and haphazard fashion. The name of God is profaned. when it is employed without due consideration. And there is a word of warning for some of us here, even within the framework of Christendom, we're tempted to use the name of the Lord in a flippant fashion.
Boas is not doing that. He would have been, as one who said, it was said of him of old, that he never mentioned the name of God without making a visible pause in his discourse. Therefore, a fear of profaning the name of God ought to serve as a prevention to glibness and to superficiality. But at the same time It ought not to stop us from seeking God's blessing. in every circumstance of our lives.
When we lie down and when we get up and when we walk along the road. And this is the wonderful thing that comes out of this simple little statement. Just then, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters. And what did he say? You see if you'd been there and you said, Well, what is Boaz like?
What makes him tick? Is he big? Is he small? Is he fat? Is he thin?
What is he?
Well, you say the thing that struck me was he showed up and he just said, the Lord bless you. And the people all shouted back, and the Lord bless you too.
Well, unless this was contrivance on the part of Boas in order to make himself look good and there is no indication of the same, then what he's doing is he is simply bringing to the circumstances the one with whom he has been spending time. Why would you ever mention the Lord unless you know him? Why would you ever long to extend his blessing upon those who are under your care unless you know that it is the blessing of the Lord which has given significance to your rising? and to your making your journey to this place. When a genuine fear of God governs the hearts of his children.
then we will be able to acknowledge his presence At all times. and in all things.
So instead of looking at achievement and congratulating ourselves, we're able to look at it and say, this is the Lord's doing. and it is marvelous in our eyes. As a result of His goodness to us within the framework of ministry or family, we may be tempted to take to ourselves some credit, but if we understand the blessing of the Lord, then we will say, you know, unless the Lord had built the house, we would have labored in vain in our building. Cultivating the presence of God. Not seeing an encounter with God as some element in the scheme of a daytimer.
Because the danger is for some of us that we view a relationship with God in a very strange way, in a way that we would not view a relationship with others. We don't get up in the morning and say, now, here is my beloved, and I'm going to try and find 15 minutes today when I can actually communicate with her or spend time with her. The obvious desire is I'd like to have her with me all the time and in every circumstance. The way we teach people discipleship, we tend to teach them that you've got to have a time with God.
Well, of course, you do. But some of us are so perverse that as soon as we've done it, we're on. We're gone. That's over. You know, you've got a tithe.
Oh, good, fine. Is it just 10%? Good. That means I get 90%. This is a great deal.
Some of us are that's the way we work. Tell me what it is I have to do. You gotta do this, done it, let's go. No, this is Boaz. He shows up and he says, the Lord bless you.
And the Lord bless you. Why? Because he lives in the presence of God. Remember what Jesus said? If a man loves me, he will keep my commandments, and we will come to him, and we will make our home with him.
When the psalmist says he walks with me, he talks with me, he tells me I am his own. If we don't have a relationship with God in which we have this kind of encounter, And will never be able to bring others into the presence. of a God in whose presence we do not live.
So, if my approach to meeting with God is a 15-minute a day deal, Where you slip then into the secular mode, hoping, as it were, having breathed enough spiritual breaths in the 15 minutes or 10 minutes or 5 minutes or 3 minutes in which we have had this encounter to then sustain us through the rest of our waking hours, then of course we're in difficulty. As I move on, and I must move on quickly from this We've said this before, we mentioned it in our studies in the life of Joseph. Let us Be reminded here of how much is learned about a person in their hellos and in their goodbyes. You say a lot about yourself in the way in which you say hello. And the way in which you say goodbye.
Remember, there will be a last time for every goodbye. The chances are we'll never know when we're saying goodbye for the last time. Therefore, every time we say goodbye, We should really be saying, God be with you. Till we meet again. Therefore, it's worth that extra moment to stand on your doorstep and wave the person off.
Rather than for them to look in their rear-view mirror and find that you've already moved on with your life. It's worth standing for that extra moment. while they go through the Scanner in the airport. in order that you can have one more look. And one more wave.
We say a lot about ourselves. in the way in which we greet. both in The encounter. and in the departure.
Now this greeting leads to the encounter which then follows with Ruth. It would be understandable, would it not, that he would know his team. that he would take a personal interest in his workers is apparently obvious and consequently he would be aware of the arrival of a new face. And seeing this new face and perhaps a pretty face, He says to the foreman, whose young woman is that? And the foreman's reply tells us a lot about Ruth, it tells us of her humility.
Although it was her right as a foreigner and as a stranger in poverty to go in and glean among the sheaves, although it was her right, she actually came and said, Please let me glean. We learn not only of her responsibility, of her humility, but also of her responsibility. He says, when she went into the field, she has worked steadily from morning until now, except for a short rest.
So what we find is that the devotion of Ruth, which she displayed to her mother-in-law, is now following an action. Let me go into the fields and pick up the leftover grain. And having said that, she now has follow-through, she's out there and she's doing what she says.
So Boaz intervenes in her life, verse 8. He speaks to her in a paternal fashion. Listen to me, he says, I don't want you to be going into any other field now. I don't want you to leave here. I'd like you to stay with my servant girls.
And as you read this little section, you realize his concern for her, his protection, and also that he would provide for her. He essentially takes her around the office and shows her where the water cooler is, as it were. And he says to her, Now I know you're going to be a hard worker, and any time you need to get a drink of water, you just come here and get yourself a drink of water. Because he's a savvy kind of guy. There are certain people you don't want to show them where the water is.
Because they'll be there all the time, just hanging around. Oh, what are you doing here again, Bill? Oh, he told me I could come over and get a drink of water. Yes, but not every five minutes, Bill. When you're thirsty, oh, I'm a very thirsty person.
So, there are some people to whom you don't want to be showing these little things, and there are others that you can safely show them to. And Ruth was the kind of person that you already recognized on the word of your foreman: this isn't somebody that's going to be taken advantage of me, therefore, I want to do everything that I can not only to protect her, but to provide for her. There was going to be more to follow, as we will see in the story. But it's a lovely picture, isn't it? Whenever you're thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars that the men have filled.
If I was making a movie of this at this point, I'd morph both of these faces. Boaz and Ruth. It would become the face of another man and the face of another woman, and another man telling another woman about a drink of water. If you knew who it was, says the other man to the other woman, who asked you for a drink of water, you would ask him for a drink of water and you would never thirst again. You see, because already there is a foreshadowing in the activity of Boaz here of one who will fulfill all of these emblems in their totality.
He is the one who provides protection. He is the one who makes provision. And notice Ruth's response, verse 10. Of course this is nothing more than I expected, she said to Beauvas. I've always been a very good worker and I was well respected in Moab, and I'm glad that you have immediately recognized how good I am.
I wonder if I might become one of your senior girls in the process. No, there's nothing of herself in it. She bowed down with her face to the ground. She left in the morning. She said to her mother-in-law, I'm going to go into the fields and see if I can't find favor in someone's eyes.
Now she has found favor in someone's eyes. Instead of congratulating herself for her endeavors, Or suggesting that it was a stroke of genius on her part that made her work in the field belonging to Boas. She considers what she's done as nothing more than her duty. And furthermore, she says, I'm a foreigner. Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me?
A foreigner? I'm surprised you even speak to me, Bullax. This is my first day on the job. And look at you. He came.
said these gracious words to me, Remembering what she had been. She receives these ordinary favors. with a warm sense of gratitude. See, because Ruth would have been processing this in her mind, she's saying to herself, you know, as a foreigner, I worship strange gods. I would still be worshipping strange gods.
If Elimelech, on account of the famine, had not said to his wife Naomi, I think we ought to get out of Bethlehem, the house of grain, and go over to Moab. And even though that might have appeared to be the doubting of the providence of God, even though that might have been not have been from a human perspective under God, the right thing to do was the thing that He did. And it was the thing that, under God, the exercise of His own human will was being used in order, in part, to bring this girl Ruth to a knowledge of Yahweh Himself. And she says, You know, this is an amazing thing. I was a foreigner.
I am actually a foreigner. I serve foreign gods. If the people of God had not made their way to Moab and had not spoken to me of God, then I would never ever have come to know him in this way. And therefore This is incredible. Let me say to you.
Let me say to me, Humility and thankfulness sleep in the same bed. A thankless heart goes with pride. And a humble heart will always be thankful. If a person is thankful, they will be thankful. If a person is humble, they will be thankful for everything.
When a person is thankful for nothing, you may be assured that he or she is proud. A proud person, if you give them a very excellent gift, they simply say, well, this is the kind of thing that someone like myself expects. If you give them a lousy gift, they say, this is the kind of gift that is beneath me. But a humble person Can get excited about a pair of socks that both have holes in the toes. Because it is amazing to them that somebody ever remembered their birthday or cared about them at all.
and incidentally and in its fullness. The question in verse 10 is the question that ought to be on the lips of everyone who has discovered in God his provision and under whose protective custody we are living. Under the shadow of your wings, verse 12, your saints have dwelt secure, sufficient is your arm alone. and our defence is sure.
Well, Boe says, The reason I'm doing this is because I've heard about your kindness to know me. Listen, all of our works will be known on the last day, and more than we understand will be known before that day. And so he says, I pray that you might know the blessings, that you may be richly rewarded by the Lord. This is not An uncommon notion, Hebrews 6, verse 10: God is not unjust, He will not forget your work and the love you've shown Him as you've helped His people and continue to help them.
So off she goes. I'm going into the fields to find favour. Verse 10, Why have I found favor? And in verse 13 and in closing. May I continue?
to find favour. May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord. Here she is and her circumstances are uncomfortable. And she looks at him and she says, You have given me comfort. Here she is as a foreigner in the context of potential antagonism, and she says, You have given to me, or you have spoken kindly to me.
Even though I do not have the standing of one. of your servant girls.
Well again, there ought to be something there for us. I hope I'm not just spiritualizing things. I hope that there is a sense of topology in this. Look at that, though I do not have the standing. In verse 13, and this is my concluding thought.
Go back up to verse 1 with your eyes. And look at whom to whom we're introduced. There was Boaz, a man of standing. And here comes this one who does not have standing. What does she need?
Well, she needs to be put under the protective custody of someone who does. She wasn't looking for entitlement. She regarded the intervention of Boas. As an act of unmerited goodness. And so for us.
We have no standing. We have no standing. The things that we use to get us places in our earthly pilgrimage mean nothing in terms of the gates of heaven. We have no standing. Therefore, we need one.
Who has standing? And so on Christ the solid rock I stand. And all other ground is sinking sad. Do you get this progression? I'm going to go into the fields.
To find favour. Why have I found favor? Let me continue. to enjoy your favor. The favor that is ultimately expressed in the provision that God has made.
in the person of his son. Father, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts may be acceptable in your sight. I pray that there may be those who, without realizing it, have been out in search of favor, the grace which transforms life and. Human destiny. When it grips a life It doesn't make us arrogant or smug or proud or self assured, it leaves us always saying, Why is it that I should find favour?
My God, what love is this? That reaches down to me. And then as we look out on Monday, we find ourselves saying with Ruth, And if it's okay, could I please continue to live in your favour? Grant then that we might live in the favor of God. Through the hours of this night and into tomorrow and all of our tomorrows, for it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alastair Begg with a message titled Favor to the Humble. Along with teaching from the Bible on this daily program, here at Truth for Life, we carefully work to select books to recommend to you that will help you dive deeper into a particular topic. And today we're offering a brand new resource that will help you take a closer look at Ruth's story.
We're excited to make this newly released Bible study available. It's paired with video teaching from Alistair. The study is titled God of the Ordinary. This is a completely new format. It's the first of what we hope will be many small group studies going forward.
Yeah. God of the Ordinary is a six-session verse-by-verse exploration designed for a small group to dive deep into the book of Ruth. As you get together, you will watch video teaching from Alistair, then follow discussion prompts that will spark conversations about what you're learning. The Story of Ruth is a powerful story about God's faithfulness and providence. It will encourage you to look for evidence of God's hand at work in the ordinary events of your life.
Ask for your copy of the God of the Ordinary Study Guide today when you donate to support the Ministry of Truth for Life. You can give a gift through the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org/slash donate. Call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for studying God's Word with us today. I hope you can join us again tomorrow when we'll find out how an invisible God.
becomes visible. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
