Greetings to you all. Let’s pray. Dear Father, what a wonderful time to be in your house this morning. Oh, we love you. It’s so good to feel your love upon us this morning, your grace upon us this morning. And we just pray for the Holy Spirit to come and open our ears so that we can hear you, open our hearts so that we can receive you, Father. And Lord Jesus, come and have your way with us. As the Holy Spirit takes me out of your way, in Jesus name, Amen. So today, as Pastor Todd told you, we are starting a five part series. Over the next five weeks, we are going to be looking at Ruth from grief to grace. It’s going to be an exciting time. The Holy Spirit’s going to be here to help us encounter the gospel in a story. See that’s what the book of Ruth is. It is a story that invites us to take God’s hand and go on a journey with Him as we explore His mercy and His grace lived out in the lives of real people. Real people, a Jewish family, suffering and in desperate need of food because of a famine that has come upon the Promised Land. These real people took a very literal journey leaving behind their home in the promised land. Leaving behind Bethlehem, traveling to the far off land of Moab. Then, especially in this first chapter, we have a second journey. A journey filled with grief and despair. A journey where a daughter of God’s people, her name is Naomi. She and her two Moabite daughters in law leave Moab and they journey back to Bethlehem. This morning and through the next few weeks as we take this journey through the book of Ruth, I pray that the Holy Spirit will come and help us understand and help us be aware of how God shapes our paths even in the midst of loss and grief and despair.
You see, ultimately, He leads us to His redemptive love. To His grace and to His covenant promises. You see, in God’s hands, brokenness becomes an opportunity for renewal and revival. In God’s hands, His grace will always be at work, molding our lives into vessels of His purpose. and his love. It is going to be a great time over these next five weeks. You know, one of the things especially about the book of Ruth that is unique is its intriguing background upon which it is set. You see, this story takes place in a really Dark time of instability and chaos for God’s people. If you’ve ever journeyed through the book of Judges, you know what I’m talking about. In the second chapter of the book of Judges, an angel of the Lord comes to the people of God, warning them that because of their disobedience, these things are going to happen. The people living in the land that you didn’t throw out, that you were supposed to, they are going to become thorns in your side. And their gods, their little g gods, are going to become a constant temptation to all of you. What a warning if you read the book of Judges and as we go through Ruth, you’re gonna see this played out Judges chapter 2 says after this after that whole generation now that generation that is being talked about here is the generation of Joshua and all of those Leaders who outlived him after this generation has been gathered to their ancestors another generation Grew up who neither knew the Lord Nor what he had done for Israel. Ja, uh, verse 11 tells us the result. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and they served the Baals. Into this darkness, into this chaos, comes the book of Ruth. Let’s read the first few verses of this intriguing book and see what God has in store for us. It begins in the days when the judges ruled.
There was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelech. His wife’s name, Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Malon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Malon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters in law prepared to return home from there. With their two daughters in law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. The Word of the Lord. Well here, I told you we’re gonna have an exciting time going through the gospel in a book. And we start out with devastating news. How in the world can this series be exciting with this type of tragedy and sorrow? You know, many of us wonder, how can tragedy and sorrow be part of God’s plan? It’s a good question. It’s, every generation asks it. God’s answer can only be found in the pages of Scripture. The pages of his love story that tells us that death and sorrow and grief were not his plan for us. When we were in the garden, we walked, Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the day every day with him. It was perfect until sin came, and then death, and destruction, and sorrow, and grief came. And since then, God’s creation has suffered the consequences of this world being broken. And so even though we suffer tragedy and loss. The pages of scripture tell us our God loves us so much He will not leave us without hope. That’s why from Genesis to Revelation, we find Him. In fact, Genesis 3 15, He promises to make a way to be reconciled with us again.
He said, one day I’m going to send my Son to be the Savior who will restore all things that have been broken when sin entered my creation. Over the next few weeks, as we study this powerful book, my prayer is that you and I will discover again, experience again, how far our God will go to reach us. Our faithful God finds us. He rescues us. He saves us. And when He does, He transforms us through His love and His grace. So, yes, our reading this morning begins with tragic news. However, God’s plan to redeem His people still is in place. And both Naomi and Ruth will play a big part in that plan. That’s why, in the middle of all of her despair. We hear that God sent word to Naomi. Verse six says, when she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law, prepared to return home from there. You see, God reached out into the midst of Naomi’s deep grief, and he sent word. That the Lord God of Israel had visited his people again and had given them food and the famine was over. The very problem that had driven her from the promised land had been corrected and she was to come home. So Naomi calls her daughters in law together, Pack up your bags, ladies, we’re going home. The next few verses of chapter 1 tell us how difficult this journey was. See, going back to Bethlehem includes the journey of three grieving widows. Naomi, who’s grieving her husband and the death of her two children, and then Orpah and Ruth are both widows as well. Along the way, it seems as if Naomi just ran out of steam. In her grief, she just turned around with no energy of trying to figure out how to take care of herself, let alone these two foreign Moabite daughters in law.
How in the world is she going to find husbands for them? How are they going to have a future back in Bethlehem? She tries to send them away. Naomi tells them, There’s no hope for a future if you come with me. Now, why they don’t have this discussion back at home, I don’t know. She waits until they’re on the road. Verse 4 tells us, Naomi was successful, or 14 tells us, she was successful in sending Orpah back, but not Ruth. No matter what Naomi says, Ruth will not budge. Verse 13 says that even when Naomi said, Life is too bitter for me, for the Lord’s hand has gone out against me, Ruth won’t leave. She stays. It’s when Ruth does something extraordinary. Verse 16 and 17 are amazing. Ruth says, don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you where you go. I will go where you stay. I will stay. Your people will be my people. Even if your people reject me because I’m a Moabite, I’m going with you. Your God, even if He rejects me because of my little g gods, your God will be my God. Listen to this, where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you from me. What an unthinkable act of love. Denouncing her home country of Moab, denouncing her family, denouncing her little g gods, Ruth declares, I’m I’m coming with you. I’m moving forward with you. Take me to the one true God of Israel. You’ve been telling me about him for ten years. Take me to him. I’m committed to you. I’m all
