Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally Proclaimed: 01/13/19

Intro:

• Yesterday, I heard from a friend who lives in Erie, PA and was a part of the church plant we partnered with during the time I served in Enoree, SC.
• He wanted to connect to talk about what had happed to the church since our last visit together about two years ago.
• He told me about the difficult journey of how things had fallen apart so that today the church is closed. He called yesterday because he had secured permission to go and retrieve the Ebenezer stone the church had placed as a lasting testament to God’s faithfulness, and wanted someone to help him see God’s love for him and that congregation in the midst of this turn of events.
• Friends, I cannot tell you that I had perfect words for him, or that my heart did not break as I thought of the relationships and effort we built serving alongside of that congregation. But I could see how my friend had grown close to the Lord, and more courageous to please Him.
• But I can tell you this, as we talked, and grieved; we also talked about how in the midst of all the interruptions of life, God’s invasive love could be seen in my friend’s life, and for His people.

Hook:

• Can you think of situations like that one, where events turned in a difficult and painful direction, but in the end you could see God’s hand of love guiding towards a new blessing?
• It is those time of life’s difficult and painful interruptions that force us to our knees in prayer and drive us to seek out where God might be working.
• It is also in those times that God works sometimes in plain overt ways, but more than not in quiet but profoundly personal ways.
• Today, to close our series I want to help you see three sure signs of God’s invasive love for us.

Message Points:

• As we close this series considering how life at times interrupts us, we come full circle.
  • In our first message, the death of a husband and sons had left Naomi thinking she had nowhere to turn. Though she had Ruth her daughter-in law faithfully standing by her, Naomi’s bitterness betrayed her so that she looked in all the wrong places to find hope.
  • Once they had settled in Bethlehem, their hunger and perhaps desperation interrupted Ruth’s life so that she embarked upon the risky business of gleaning for their food. But into that situation entered Boaz who brought with him the welcome intruder of kindness and generosity.
  • It was at this point that Naomi interrupted both their lives resolving to secure Boaz’ hand in marriage for Ruth. Though Naomi’s plan seemed SMART, she soon found that Boaz was a man committed to God’s law and would not stray from it. Boaz’s commitment to God drove him to ask the nearer redeemer to claim his right or give it to him. Once the nearer redeemer relented Boaz interrupted his life to publicly commit to marry Ruth.
  • Now, Ruth’s future is secure and everything is in place for God to do a mighty work.
• While we often think of miracles as the way God works, and would not be wrong to assume that God does at times offer miracles. But far more often God works in our lives in a providential way.
  • Our God is not a deistic God who creates and then abandons the world; nor is he a pan-in-theistic God that is so connected to creation that he must constantly intervene like the false gods of mythology. He will not leave us to random chance nor will he consign us to deterministic fatalism.
  • Our God is a God of providence.
  • Wayne Grudem defines God’s providence as God’s continual “involvement with all created things in such a way that he 1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; 2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and 3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.” (Systematic Theology, 315-316)
  • I like to think of God’s providence as His ordinary, quiet, but personal way of guiding His people towards choices for our good and his glory.
• Certainly as we consider Ruth, we do not see God intervene in miraculous ways, but in small, ordinary, providential actions by which his loving guidance invasively impacts Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.
• We see this all over the book of Ruth, but never more plain than in this final passage. Look with me at verse 13.
  • Here we see the span of at least nine months in one verse.
  • As Boaz takes Ruth for his wife; in the natural course of a married couple’s intimacy we find the Lord at work.
  • Remember Ruth was married to Mahlon. While we do not have an exact time frame for their marriage, commentators assume they could have been married for around ten years. (NAC, Judges and Ruth, 726)
  • Even if it were only for a few years, these two young, presumably healthy people, without modern ways to prevent pregnancy, did not have a child.
  • The pain and shame of infertility was a harsh interruption of life for Ruth and Naomi as it is for so many who still experience it today.
  • But now as we look at verse thirteen we see God’s invasive love for Boaz and for Ruth as he opens her womb, enabling her to conceive and give birth to a healthy son.
• So, I think we can say the 1st Sign of God’s invasive love for us shows up when God does something extraordinary with ordinary means.
  • Don’t mistake friends that verse 4:13 occurred after the prayers of the elders in 4:11 and much prayer for years from Naomi and Ruth.
  • Also don’t mistake the way that God allowed other ordinary processes to become effective for Ruth and Naomi in this book.
    • In chapter 1, the farmers of Bethlehem had planted just as they had every year, but it tells us that the Lord had aided his people and brought a harvest.
    • In chapter 2, into the ordinary events of a harvest and of gleaning, God intervenes and has Boaz notice Ruth so that he can make sure that she is blessed.
    • In chapter 3, Naomi advised Ruth to utilize the ordinary means to entice a man, but God’s invasive love control’s Boaz’s response.
    • And already in chapter 4, the nearer redeemer who ordinarily retained the right to redeem by God’s influence chose to give the right to Boaz.
    • God’s invasive love has also brought a wife to Boaz, the bachelor; and a husband, home, and future to Ruth.
  • And friend do not think that God cannot work in those same ways in your life!
    • Since our God is always at work, he watches over his people and hears our every prayer.
    • But do not expect to always see God’s hand at work in the moment.
    • Often we can much more easily see where and how God was at work in our lives as we look back, just as the narrator had done in Ruth.
    • In fact, if we are struggling because we cannot see God at work in our life right now, it is wise for us to look back and consider how God did something extraordinary for us with ordinary means.
      • Maybe it’s that conversation with the person sitting beside you as you travel and it becomes clear that the person is receptive to Christ and prayer.
      • Maybe it’s having that right doctor who notices something strange in a test result and continues to investigate and then aggressive treatment.
      • Maybe it’s being a part of that layoff a year or two ahead of the company’s collapse so that you already have a new job.
      • Maybe it’s that person that you have been friends with for years and upon something as ordinary as an invitation to come to church their life is radically changed.
    • God has all kinds of extraordinary things he can accomplish with ordinary means.
• Now since we really just considered verse 13 in the first point, let me ask you to change your notes in the worship guide so that we will have the second point consider verses 14-17.
• As we continue we see the women of Bethlehem enter into this scene. It would not be uncommon for the women to gather around for support at such an important time as a birth.
  • But notice that these women do not focus on how God’s invasive love has touched Boaz and Ruth, but how it has touched Naomi. They utilize three specific statements.
  • Their first statement is the one that is most curious. It occurs on the occasion of the birth of Naomi’s grandson. But the way it is phrased should make us take note because these women say that this child has a providential purpose.
    • Verse 4:14 says, “Praise be to the Lord who this day has not left you without a kinsman redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel.”
    • Boaz is not Naomi’s kinsman redeemer.
    • And while this child’s birth certainly provides the occasions for such rejoicing, as the NAC says, “the birth of the child is not viewed as a solution to a longstanding legal problem, but from a practical woman’s perspective as the solution to Naomi’s insecurity.” (727)
    • It is the Lord who provides a kinsman redeemer for Naomi in the person of this child; and it is the Lord who provides for us the kinsman redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ.
    • Do not mistake it friends, the birth of our God into the flesh, into our condition makes him the kinsman redeemer for all of humanity.
      • Because Jesus Christ is our close relative, having taken on humanity and descended from this very family in Ruth Jesus has the right to redeem each of us.
      • And since He is both God and Man Christ can pay the supernatural price for our redemption.
  • Also consider their second statement, “He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.”
    • This statement is certainly about the child born to Ruth and Boaz, but remember these women tell Naomi that God has a providential purpose for her.
    • Just as with most people, the birth of a baby invigorates us and as we often say, keeps us young.
    • Friends, in a real way that is why it is so important as a church for each of us to find a way to be involved in the ministry to children, youth, and new believers.
    • We can hire a family and children’s pastor, but if we do not have the heart like Naomi in verse 16 and willingly take the babes in Christ and nurture and care for them we will not see renewal and life.
  • Finally consider their final statement, “For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons has given him birth.”
    • This statement shows forth God’s providential purpose in Naomi’s life for Ruth.
    • Notice that it says that Ruth is better than seven sons.
      • With sons being the desire of every Hebrew bride and seven being the number of completion in the Bible, these women have made a tremendous statement.
      • They have basically said that God has provided from the most unlikely circumstance and situation.
      • Out of the unlikely love of Ruth had for her mother-in-law Naomi, God has accomplished this unlikely redemption.
        • Ruth’s love was not like our modern love based on emotions or some sort of lust.
        • No it was her commitment to do what was best for Naomi and Boaz above what was best for herself.
      • Even as we read the name of this child, Obed we should see that the same unlikely love of Ruth has been passed down to her son.
        • Obed is a shortened form of Obadiah which means “servant of the Lord.”
        • This shortened form means servant, a servant of the Lord and to others.
• Thus, we see the second sign of God’s invasive love when he uses unlikely circumstances to help us believe.
  • What unlikely circumstances do we have in our lives right now?
  • Most certainly the most unlikely of circumstances would be the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb. Who would have thought that out of these things God would bring about our salvation?
  • Matthew McCullough in his book Remember Death says, “if [Christ] is reduced to a set of teaching to understand or an example to follow, our faith in him is vain. He is no deliverer. We are left to face death on our own. We’re left to medicate our hearts, chasing the next pleasure. We’ll keep trying to fill our lives with stuff, not recognizing that the more we pour in, the more drains out through a hole in the bottom of the glass. Every glass ends up empty. And we’ll keep working to justify our lives with some monument others will envy and, maybe, even remember for a while after we’re gone. But experience shows us that death crushes every defense we may raise.” He then continues to say “but what if Christ has already defeated our enemy for us? What if death is not our enemy to fight? What if the purpose of our lives is no longer aimed at overcoming the grave?”
  • That is the work God has done in Naomi’s life and the work he can do in our lives. He through the unlikely, painful, and interrupting circumstances of life help us to come to the realization that it is only through turning to him and believing in Him that our lives can have eternal significance.
• Friends that is why as we read that genealogy in the final verses of this chapter our eyes should not glaze over.
  • Into this genealogy we must remember that Perez was born in an ordinary way to the unlikely Canaanite Tamar. In this God showed that he can do extraordinary things to welcome a person into his family.
  • Salmon the father of Boaz pursued an ordinary marriage to the unlikely prostitute Rahab. Again God showed that He can bring to anyone an extraordinary salvation.
  • Boaz the son of that couple, through ordinary faithfulness married and had a son with the unlikely Moabitess Ruth. Again God showed that he can extraordinarily deliver anyone from their distress.
  • And finally we see David, who God brought from the ordinary sheepfolds through a series of unlikely events to be the greatest king of Israel. So we must conclude that God uses his extraordinary power to bless people after his own heart.
• That is the final way that we see God’s invasive love. When God encourages and enables lives to be changed we see his invasive love.

Conclusion:

• Friends, do you really believe in a God who is always at work for His people? Do you really believer in a God who can take ordinary and unlikely circumstances to accomplish his purposes? Do you really believe in a God who can change lives?
• Then why friends when life interrupts us, do we not run to the Lord, unashamedly and beg for His guidance, support, and transforming power?
• If we really believe in a God who can change lives, then this altar should be full every week with those of us who seek His help and those who we have brought to Him.
• So today if you need help and hope, please come to the Lord.