Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally Proclaimed: 12/02/18

Intro:

• At this time of year we have all sorts of songs, movies, stories and poems that describe in detail an intruder who figures out a way into our homes only to leave us gifts and then leave having perhaps nibbled on some cookies and drank a good bit of milk.
• Far from being upset about this intruder we encourage him into our lives at this point of the year.
  • We take our children to visit him and sit on his lap.
  • We sing the songs, watch the movies, tell the stories of his adventures.
  • We even prepare the house on December 24 for his intrusion.
• Now I am sure that you all know who I am talking about, so let me ask you, do you welcome this intruder into your Christmas celebration?
• For most of us it is hard not to smile and be encouraged when we watch a movie like Miracle on 34th Street or sing a song about Jolly Old St. Nicolas.

Hook:

• The reason I ask that question comes down to the fact that there are other welcome intruders into our lives.
• Even in our darkest moments and most difficult seasons these intruders poke their way into our lives and find a way of encouraging us in spite of our hurt and heartache.
• So today, I want to share with you three of these intruders that we can easily see in Ruth 02:14-23.

Message Points:

• First let’s remember the desperate situation of our women.
  • They had lost everything as life had painfully interrupted their circumstances.
  • They no longer have husbands. They have no children.
  • They have come back to a town that Naomi left years ago and that Ruth had never seen.
  • They have no home. Perhaps they came back to a cottage on Elimelek’s land, but they also could have taken shelter in one of the many caves that dotted the landscape of Bethlehem.
  • They had no source of food.
  • Most concerning, Naomi seems to have even lost faith that the Lord was a merciful, loving, and grace filled God.
  • The last time we were together in God’s Word we saw that Ruth asked to go gleaning and went to the field of Boaz. Boaz had already showed Ruth great kindness and encouraged her.
• Now as we pick up the story we find that Boaz, that man whose name means strength will strengthen his display of kindness to Ruth.
  • In verse 14, Boaz invites Ruth to share a meal with him and his harvesters.
    • The New American Commentary says, “In the ancient Near East people did not eat only to satisfy hungry stomachs; eating together also had great symbolic significance.”
      • And take note Boaz as a landowner and man of significance chooses to eat with his harvesters.
      • Then he also invites Ruth, a Moabitess to eat with him.
      • We know from Boaz’s words “Come over here” that Ruth must have been deliberately keeping her distance because she was a stranger and a foreigner.
    • Boaz offers her the bread prepared for him and wine vinegar to dip the morsel into.
      • This scene of fellowship is reminiscent of the same meal that our Lord celebrated with His disciples and told them to remember Him as they ate of it.
      • The wine vinegar was a way to soften the dry bread and give it flavor and was a common pleasantry of families who had means. So again we see the kindness of Boaz.
    • And we also see by the words “he offered” that Boaz serves Ruth some of the roasted gran that would have been eaten like popcorn. And we see that he was not stingy with the roasted grain by the fact that she had some left over.
    • By his example Boaz demonstrates compassion, generosity, and acceptance towards Ruth. His willingness to offer genuine fellowship is a foreshadowing of the genuine fellowship Jesus offers to us.
  • We also see that Boaz gives orders to his harvesters about Ruth twice in verses 15-16.
    • Each order has a positive command and a negative prohibition.
    • First lets deal with both positive commands as they build upon one another.
      • As Ruth gets up, Boaz tells the harvesters up to let her glean among the sheaves.
      • Then in the second command he goes the extra mile to tell them they must pull from the sheaves.
        • This word pull comes from a root that is translated in other places to draw or pull a sword.
        • So as the harvesters are cutting the standing barley with the sickle they were to intentionally pull and drop a few stalks for Ruth.
        • This ensured successful gleaning for Ruth so that both her and Naomi would have grain. Again Boaz shows his gentleness and kindness.
      • Then he tells them not to reprimand her and secondly not to rebuke her.
        • As if Boaz has not already displayed his gentleness and kindness, he makes sure that Ruth will be protected not only her physical body, but also mentally and emotionally.
        • His first prohibition, “don’t reprimand” is a Hebrew word that could just as easily be translated as humiliate, shamed or disgraced. I prefer the translation “don’t humiliate her” to the NIV’s translation.
        • The second word clearly is a prohibition against the harvesters insulting or speaking harshly to Ruth.
• Boaz’s incredible kindness leads us to consider our first welcome intruder: Gentleness seeks to use strength to help others instead of take advantage of others (2:14-16).
  • David in 2 Samuel 22:36 and in Psalm 18:35 says that God’s “gentleness made me great.”
    • God’s greatness and strength translates not to force our obedience or rushing to judgement.
    • Like in the case of David our God seeks to be gentle towards us that we might turn to Him and trust Him willingly. Then we can experience His love instead of His wrath.
  • Christians are commanded to have a spirit of gentleness in Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and 1st Peter.
    • Because of our salvation, which creates a close relationship with the Lord of all the universe, we have a spiritual strength of position that others do not have.
    • Paul alludes to this in 1 Corinthians 4:21, in speaking to a church about their sin asks if he should come with a rod or with love in a spirit of gentleness.
  • Boaz had physical strength as a man who worked the fields. He had strength of position as a man of standing. But most importantly to us, as we saw last week, Boaz had the same spiritual strength as all who believe have by his relationship with the Lord. Notice again Boaz’s actions that display his gentleness.
    • Primarily, he invited others into fellowship.
      • Friends, do you make it a habit to invite others to spend time with you and welcome them into your home and into your church?
      • I can promise if you are not inviting people into fellowship very few of them will seek fellowship on their own.
      • But just imagine if you began to have lunch regularly with someone for whom you are praying.
        • That act of fellowship and acceptance may interrupt their lives so that they see you are someone they can trust.
        • Even with someone where a relationship has been broken and distant the act of sharing a meal may be that vital first step to healing old hurts.
        • Especially if you want to make disciples of others, invite them to breakfast or to lunch and just naturally and gently share your life of faith with them.
      • And friends how often do you invite people to join you at church or in your Sunday School class?
        • In order to be a welcoming, friendly and loving church, we have to first genuinely desire to invite people into the same fellowship with the Lord that we enjoy.
        • Far more than screens, music, or programs it is the inviting nature of God’s people that draw people into a church.
        • And we have the fellowship time in-between service and Sunday School not just as a bathroom break and caffeine fill up.
          • We have that time so that you might invite someone who comes to service to join you in Sunday School.
          • We also have that time so that you might invite other generations of people, not in your Sunday School, into your live as you share a cup of coffee.
      • Once we invite people into Second he positively sought to help others.
    • But Boaz’s motive for fellowship was to show his gentleness by helping others and preventing hurt.
      • Friends true biblical fellowship is more than just sharing a meal or being nice to people.
      • Biblical fellowship gently seeks God’s best for others.
      • After all we cannot force someone to seek God, but we can help them have a positive impression of Him and be careful to keep them from experiencing hurt.
        • We can pray for them and with them.
        • We can love them when they are unlovable.
        • We can help them when a crisis comes.
        • And we can have a relationship with someone that naturally leads us to have conversations about the gospel.
    • But let me warn you friends even if you seek to be gentle and invite others into your life – at times you will feel like you are intruding.
      • Do not be discouraged when you feel that way.
      • Jesus told his disciples when he sent them out two by two in Luke 10:6 that if we approach a person and they promote peace that we should stay with them.
      • While this command applies directly to their mission, we can apply the principle to our situation.
        • When we care about someone and want to gently encourage them to seek God, we should not cease reaching out until they refuse our kindness to them.
        • And if they reject our kindness, then we should move on until another opportunity presents itself.
• Much more could be said about gently and winsomely having a relationship with someone else, but let’s turn our attention back to our text.
  • We see that Ruth works hard until the evening. Boaz had ensured her success, but far from welfare, Ruth had to work.
  • We read in verse 2:17 that she was granted the ability to thresh her barley at the threshing floor alongside of the other harvesters.
  • Then we read that she gathered about an ephah.
    • The NAC says an ephah (a measurement of weight) according Ezekiel 45:11 is equivalent to a bath (a measurement for liquids).
    • Containers from excavations of Lachish average 22 liters though Josephus mentions that the measurement is 36 liters.
    • That means Ruth would have carried home around thirty to fifty pounds of barley.
    • Imagine this woman who came destitute carrying a bag of barley home the size of a medium to large bag of dog food.
  • Boaz’ incredible generosity is on display. And do not forget the note in verse 2:18 that Ruth also gave Naomi the rest of her uneaten roasted grain from lunch.
  • Naomi says it all when she asks where did you glean, where did you work.
• In these verses we see our next welcome intruder: Generosity seeks to use our wealth to give others a dignity they did not have (2:17-19a).
  • In the Bible generosity certainly involves a transfer of goods and money, but the Bible agrees with the phrase, “we want to give them a hand up, not a hand out”.
  • Boaz gave Ruth the opportunity to trust him and to receive a tremendous blessing.
  • For instance, have you ever read 1 Timothy 5:9-16 which talks about the church’s care of widows?
    • There it says that only widows who are well known for their devotion to good deeds, helping people should be enrolled to receive the church’s generosity.
    • The church’s generosity is not intended according to this passage to rob a widow of her dignity and promote idleness.
    • The Bible is full of such commands.
  • Just a few days ago at Dickens of a Christmas as we left a man approached me asking if I had any money I could give him for food.
    • I gave him enough money for a meal, which started a conversation in our car on the way home.
    • I shared with our children that my normal practice when someone asks for help is not to give them the money, but to go with them and buy their meal and try to have a conversation with the person. I wanted to treat that person like a person worthy of a conversation.
    • Since I was with our family on this occasion and there were no close by restaurants I gave cash, but as I have reflected on that I think it would have been much better to have taken the time and the effort to at least have a conversation with that man.
  • You see friends, I pray for God to put people in my path that I can lead to Christ, and I hope you do as well.
    • But what does it say when we are not willing to even stop long enough to tell someone why we are giving to them?
    • I am so thankful for ministries like Mobile Meals, Habitat for Humanity, and Miracle Hill and many others that take the time to not only to give goods and services but to are generous with people.
      • They offer others the dignity of a conversation, an opportunity and receive an overwhelming blessing for their efforts.
      • Isn’t that exactly what Boaz was doing? And isn’t that what Christ did with us as well?
      • Christ makes a simple offer to us to turn away from selfish sin to trust Him.
        • When we turn to Christ, Christians call that salvation.
          • The moment we turn to Christ we receive the payment for our sin from Christ’s work on the cross so that instead of eternal death we can have eternal life.
          • We receive a new freedom and ability to not sin.
          • We receive a new relationship with God in Christ as well as the indwelling presence and help of the Holy Spirit, just to name a few things.
        • For our small effort, really just the change of attitude towards Christ in turning to Him, we are overwhelming blessed for our efforts.
        • Do not misunderstand, I am not saying that we must work to earn our salvation.
        • I am reminding you that Christ makes salvation available to all people, but we must be willing to receive it.
        • Christians are not universalists believing that Christ gives everyone salvation regardless of their desire to receive it or not.
        • Christ gives us the dignity of deciding to receive His free gift of salvation.
        • And friend Christ makes that offer to you this morning.
• Christ’s generous offer brings up our third welcome intruder: Grace seeks to provide us what we could never provide for ourselves, a relationship with God (2:19b-23).
  • These final verses begin a curious interchange between Ruth and Naomi where for the first time, Naomi begins to see God’s providential work on her behalf again.
  • Naomi begins in 19b blessing the unnamed man who gave Ruth a place to work.
  • But then when Ruth tells her it was Boaz, Naomi says “the Lord bless him” in verse 20 of the NIV. But the Hebrew may also be translated, “Bless Him, the Lord who…”
    • This translation makes sense of the continuing dialogue in the verse which says that “has not stopped showing kindness to the living and to the dead.”
    • Boaz has not been continually showing kindness to the dead family of Ruth and Naomi.
    • But God has been kind to them all living and dead from the beginning until now.
    • It also explains why Naomi at the end of the verse clarifies her statement to Ruth about Boaz by saying, “that man is our close relative, one of our guardian-redeemers.”
  • We will come back at a later time to talk about the kinsman redeemer, but I want you to notice how this simple grace shown by God has changed Naomi’s attitude completely.
  • Even as we read the final verses we see that Ruth tells Naomi she has been invited to only harvest at Boaz’ field and the women accept the offer.
    • Ruth now has been provided by grace a means to support this family.
    • Naomi’s description of Boaz as a close relative foreshadows much more including the way Ruth “stays close to Boaz’s harvesters”.
    • And notice in verse 23 that it tells us that Ruth stayed through both the barley and the wheat harvest which would have lasted for six to seven weeks or from April to June.
  • This brings us back to the reason for Boaz’s gentleness, and for his generosity.
  • Boaz was an agent of God’s grace providing for others a relationship with God they would never have had on their own.

Conclusion:

• You see friends as we consider Christmas and our lives we must consider the reality of another welcome intruder in our life who comes with gentleness, generosity, and grace.
• The Lord Jesus came to us as a baby in a manger, God in the flesh so that we might be able to have through him a relationship with God in the flesh.
• And today you can have that relationship.