Embracing God's Love Through Ruth's Story

"When we come together and we publicly confess our sins each week I invite you to respond this morning to our reading of confession Have mercy on me, oh God According to your unfailing love. Create in me a clean heart. Restore in me the joy of your salvation Dear God Almighty We thank you and we praise you so much For your great love for us For your great mercy that you have For your kindness You extend to us." [00:19:38]

"Every week there's lots of symbols. As we come into the church. And we try to be a little bit more liturgical. But I love the Advent candles. And this will be the last week that we have all four candles. Where it's the last week of what is known in the church calendar as Epiphany. Kind of that season of Christmas still. And leading up into Christmas, as we light the candles, it's the anticipation that Jesus is coming, that Jesus is born." [00:31:09]

"And so there's little symbols like that. The altars, the cross that we have, the candles, there's significance in candles and the communion, the sacrament of communion that we take every week. The sacrament of baptism when we do that also. There's these symbols, these reminders that are, they are symbols, but there's something even more than that too. That I think God's presence is actually here and is dwelling amongst us. And they are designed to guide us, to point us towards God and can be a significant tool in that." [00:32:37]

"God's story, God's story is a story about a people, the nation of Israel. And throughout the Old Testament, we have like the calling of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. And from that, God builds this nation of people, the Israel. And even still today, we're like all throughout, you know, like, oh, we've got to stand with Israel. Israel is God's chosen people. Well, as we look at the whole story and the greater story of Scripture and of the Bible, we see that God's chosen people becomes more expansive." [00:33:34]

"In the book of Galatians, I love this book, but the Apostle Paul talks about the fact that through Christ, us Gentiles, most of us in the room today, are grafted into that family. And so that nation of Israel is no longer exclusive. It never really was, but it's expansive. And God's hope, God's plan, we see that the overarching story of Scripture is that God continues to add people to His people, to His chosen people, to His chosen nation." [00:34:02]

"Ruth is not an Israelite. Ruth was an outsider. She was outside of God's chosen people. But how God made allowances and how even still in the Old Testament, how you have the nation of Israel, but there's still people on the outskirts. There's still foreigners that we can learn from and that God significantly used to help bring about His kingdom." [00:34:45]

"Maybe we'll have a greater appreciation and love for those who do not look like us, talk like us, act like us. And to be able to acknowledge that God is at work, that God loves the foreigner. And whatever I get, national policies and all that, like that exists and that's for another day. But in here, we have to acknowledge God's great love for all of humanity and all of people. And so as we journey into this story, I hope, I hope that we can, it may just prick us a little bit." [00:36:31]

"Ruth's commitment to Naomi is maybe one of the greatest things in Scripture, one of the strongest affections, marks of loyalty that we see. But in verse 16, we read that Ruth's commitment to Naomi, it transcends even the bonds of racial origin, national religion. Naomi's people and Naomi's God will henceforth be hers. And then only death will break that. Ruth said, Naomi, stop it. Don't urge me anymore to leave. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. For where you go, I will go." [00:50:18]

"Ruth aligns herself with Naomi and says, I ain't going anywhere. Your people will be my people. This is a foreigner. Ruth is an outsider aligning herself with Naomi. Now Phyllis Tribble, she's a biblical scholar of the 20th century. She observed that in the entire epic of Israel, only Abraham's himself marked such a radical commitment. But, he had a call from God and was a man in a man's world with a wife and a family for support." [00:52:32]

"Ruth stands alone. She possesses nothing. No God has called her. No deity has promised her blessing. No human being has come to her aid. She lives and she chooses without a support group. And she knows that the fruit of her decision may well be the emptiness of rejection, indeed of death. Consequently, consequently, not even Abraham's leap of faith surpasses this decision of Ruth's. And there is more." [00:52:52]

"Ruth confessed her undying love and her loyalty to Naomi, to her mother, her mother -in -law. She had this affection of a mother too. And as the story unfolds, we will see that that heart of bitterness begins to change. And how these two women in this man's world, how God honors that, and how God uses them in and through that." [00:56:32]

"It's a story that starts with tragedy, that offers a glimmer of hope, full of romance, and kissing. But more than that, above all of that, it's a story of kindness. It's a story of, as said, of God's loving kindness, of God's mercy, of God's faithfulness, and who God chooses to show that kindness through." [00:57:58]