Sermon Tone Analysis

It’s on thing to have a theology of who God is and how he works to have a mental understanding.

It’s another thing to have a heart understanding of who he is and how he works.

(use Jesus’ coming into the temple illustration)

These two things can seem the same but then when the pressure comes we begin to understand that our lives are lived out of the heart theology not out of our head theology.

*And the things we know internally; the things that we’ve experienced down deep within tend to give direction and comfort or discomfort to us in times of stretching in times when our faith is being pressed and tried.*

And we come to a place of wrestling with who God is, in the times when the things that we know about him don’t seem to be happening in the reality of our experience.

And God allows strategic delays from time to time in order for us to come aware of what our hearts believe.

He wants to draw us upward to a greater place of intimacy and understanding not so much for the purpose of what he does but of who he is.

We need to find our rest and confidence in who he is and not so much in what he does.

It is so vital that we find our confidence and rest in who he is not what he does!

It’s in the pressing we come to realize what our hearts really believes.

the main question we should ask is, What is the lesson of this book?

What one main thing can you take away from reading this story?

*The Lesson of the Book of Ruth *

/The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there/.

The life of the godly is not an Interstate through Nebraska, but a  road through the rocky Mountains.

There are rock slides and precipices and dark mists and bears and slippery curves and hairpin turns that make you go backwards in order to go forwards.

But all along this hazardous, twisted road that doesn’t let you see very far ahead there are frequent signs that say, “The best is yet to come.”

And at the bottom right corner of these signs is written with an unmistakable hand are the words, “As I live, says the Lord!”

The book of Ruth is one of those signs for you to read.

It was written and it has been preached to give you encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in your life lately are not dead-end streets.

In all the setbacks of your life as a believer God has purposed for your joy.

*Setbacks, Hope, and Strategies of Righteousness *

The story of Ruth is a series of setbacks.

In chapter 1 Naomi and her husband and two sons were forced to leave their homeland in Judah on account of famine.

Then Naomi’s husband dies.

Her sons marry Moabite women and for ten years the women prove to be barren.

And then her sons die leaving two widows in the house of Naomi.

(plight of a widow in that day)

Even though Ruth chooses to stay with Naomi, chapter 1 ends with Naomi’s bitter complaint: “I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty … The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”

In chapter 2 Naomi is filled with new hope because Boaz appears on the scene as a possible husband for Ruth (A kinsmen redeemer.).

But he doesn’t propose to Ruth.

He doesn’t make any moves.

At least that’s the way it seems at first.

So the chapter closes brimming with excited hope, but also with great suspense and uncertainty about how all this might work out.

*.*

*In chapter 3* Naomi and Ruth make a risky move in the middle of the night.

Ruth goes to Boaz on the threshing floor and says in effect, Ruth posture herself at the feet of Boaz and wraps herself with his garment which was a cultural statement to Boaz I want to be yours I want to embrace your protection and your love over me..

* *

and Boaz realizing what’s happing in 3:12,13 turns to her and say s “you’ve done me a great kindness  because you chose me over those other men.

(another words over the voices of the other lovers)  “you’ve done me a great kindness”.

Boaz chooses her not for duty but because of love the once caretaker desires to be a husband.

But right when the tragedy of Ruth’s widowhood seems to be resolved into a beautiful love story, a big boulder rolls out onto the road of Ruth’s life.

There is another man who according to Hebrew custom has prior claim to marry Ruth.

The impeccably honest Boaz will not proceed without giving this man his lawful opportunity.

So chapter 3 ends again in the suspense of another setback.

(Chapter 4)

*More Setbacks on the Way to Glory*

So after the midnight rendezvous in chapter 3, Boaz in chapter 4 goes to the city gate where the official business was done.

The nearer kinsman comes by, and Boaz lays the situation before him.

Naomi is giving up what little property she has, and the duty of the nearer kinsman is to buy it so that the inheritance stays in the family.

Look at verse 3 and 4 3 Then he said to the next of kin, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land which belonged to our kinsman Elimelech.

4So I thought I would tell you of it, and say, Buy it in the presence of those sitting here, and in the presence of the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, redeem it; but if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.”

And he said, “I will redeem it.”

So to our dismay the kinsman says at the end of verse 4, “I will redeem it.”

We don’t want him to redeem it.

We want Boaz to do it.

So again there seems to be a setback.

And the irony of this setback is that it is being caused by righteousness.

The fellow is only doing his duty.

Sometimes the mountain ascent is all clogged up, not with boulders or bears, but with good workmen only doing their duty.

Our frustrations are not only caused by sin but also by what seems to us as ill-timed righteousness.

Just when we are about to say, “O no! Stop the story!

Don’t let this other guy take Ruth!” Boaz says to the nearer kinsman, “You know, don’t you, that Naomi has a daughter-in-law.

So when you do the part of the kinsman redeemer, you must also take her as your wife and raise up offspring in the name of her husband Mahlon?”

Look at verse 6 Then the next of kin said, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance.

Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”

So to our great relief, the kinsman says in verse 6 he can’t do it.

Perhaps he is married already.

Whatever the reason, we are cheering in the background as Boaz gets through the obstacles along the road way to secure for himself a Bride suitable to his nature.

(Look at verse 5 for a moment)

 

5Then Boaz said, “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you are also buying Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of the dead, in order to restore the name of the dead to his inheritance.”

It’s how they both were looking at the situation Boaz saw the treasure not the field to were the other guy saw the field and no value to what to him would be coal not a diamond.

(This is Matt 13:44)

 

So Boaz wins the hand of Ruth But */there is/* a cloud overhead.

Ruth is barren.

Or at least she seems to be.

Back in 1:4 we were told that she had been married ten years to (/Machlown /Mahlon ) and there were no children.

So even now the suspense is not over.

Can you see why I said that the lesson of the book of Ruth is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory?

Life is one curve after another.

And we never know what’s coming.

But the point of the story is that the best is yet to come.

No matter where you are, if you love God, the best is yet to come.

As it was with Boaz and Ruth look at verse 13 of chapter 4.

“So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.”

Now, I want us to see something else, look at verses 14-17 14Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next of kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel!

15He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.”

16Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.

17And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.”

They named him Obed; he was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Notice how the focus in verses 14–17 is not on Ruth at all, nor on Boaz.

The focus is on Naomi and the child.

Why?

Well Naomi’s name at the beginning of this book could of easily have been called /rough times Naomi/.

That’s the way we meet her in the beginning of this book.

Again the point of the book is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there.

He that begain the work will complete it!

The story began with Naomi’s loss.

It ends with Naomi’s gain.

It began with death and ends with birth.