"I pray that you would show yourself strong in who you are to them and that our hope is not just in having a good life this side of heaven, but our hope is in eternal life with you. In Jesus' name, amen." [00:01:20] (20 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Ruth said to Naomi, do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God." [00:07:49] (16 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"And when they came to Bethlehem, all the city was stirred because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi? But she said to them, do not call me Naomi, call me Marah, which means bitter. For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me." [00:08:30] (19 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Maybe she understood God's heart for the poor. We read throughout the law of Moses, specifically in Leviticus 19, where God instructed the children of Israel, when you harvest your field, when you harvest your grapes, don't go all the way to the end of the harvest. Leave some for the poor." [00:10:50] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Boaz, as we're going to learn, is a kinsman of a Limelech who was Naomi's husband who had passed away. And so he shows even more favor to her. She left the home or wherever she was staying with Naomi empty-handed, but goes back full of food, full of grain, full of grapes, full of barley." [00:12:24] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"To redeem is to buy back something on behalf of somebody else so that they can have a hope and a future. The unlikely ones, us, we're the favored. We're the favored ones from God. Obviously, all of humanity is favored by God. But in the way the world views favoritism is not the way God sees it." [00:25:00] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Boaz is a picture of Christ, a type of Christ. He was a redeemer. Boaz had to be a relative. Well, God, in his plan, God the Son, the eternal word of God, in the Christmas story, in the incarnation, he becomes one of us so he can be our redeemer. And he did it in his human life." [00:25:37] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Boaz took a poor, penniless alien to be his bride. Well, Jesus has taken us, spiritually poor and broken, to be his bride. Boaz took a poor, penniless alien to be his bride. Well, Jesus has taken us, spiritually poor and broken, to be his bride. What a beautiful picture." [00:26:04] (14 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"To me, that's to be said, celebrated. And what he asks of all of us is just to agree with him. That's faith. Faith is saying, Jesus, I agree with you. You are the Savior. You are the Lord. And I agree with you. And I want to be your disciple." [00:28:12] (18 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"He doesn't just want us to pray a prayer or fill out a card or walk the aisle. He wants you to walk with him. Walk with him in every aspect of your life. And guess what? I'm fully aware of my failures every day." [00:28:52] (16 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"God, this is a building. We are your church. Wherever we're at, that's where you're at. And Lord, we pray as a church family to know you more and make you known." [00:34:27] (17 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Lord, in a world of Naomi's that are broken and bitter, help us to be an extension of you. Jesus, to this broken world, we want to be helpful, hopeful, truthful people." [00:34:44] (20 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

Father, you're the absolute best. You're a good, good Father. We trust you this morning. We place all of our hope in you. Jesus, you are the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in you, though they die, they live. We're banking on that this morning.

Lord, I pray as I teach this morning and preach that, as Isaiah the prophet said, give me the tongue of the learned that I may give a word in season to those who are weary. God, I do pray for those that are hurting right now. I pray that you would show yourself strong in who you are to them and that our hope is not just in having a good life this side of heaven, but our hope is in eternal life with you. In Jesus' name, amen.

So speaking of mother-in-laws, a man and his wife and his mother-in-law, they went to Israel to go visit the Holy Land. And while they were there, unfortunately, the mother-in-law passed away. And the funeral home director said, "Hey, we can ship her home to the United States for $5,000 or we can have her buried here in the Holy Land for $150."

The man thought about it, kind of scratched his head, and he goes, "Listen, we'll do the $5,000 and have her shipped home." And the funeral director's like kind of puzzled. He was like, "Really? $150 buried here in the Holy Land?" He said, "Listen, 2,000 years ago, a guy died, was buried, and rose again? I just can't take that chance."

I got one more. So this husband and wife, they got in a pretty bad fight. The husband said a bunch of things he shouldn't say. And so, she calls her mom and she says, "Mom, he did it again. He fought with me again. I'm coming to stay with you." And the mom said, "No, we're going to make him pay. I'm coming to stay with you."

Ironically, I'm going to be with my mother-in-law this afternoon for a Christmas party. So hopefully she's not tuned in. Just kidding.

We're in a series called "Grandmas, Grandpas, and Grace." And we're looking at the family lineage of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 1 and Luke chapter 3. And we're looking today at the famous couple, Ruth and Boaz. It says in Matthew 1:5, "Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, and Obed fathered Jesse. Jesse fathered David, the king." So important. God told David that there would always be a king on his throne. And Jesus is the ultimate prophetic answer to that. That Jesus is the true king, and the Messiah was going to come from the lineage of David.

Why mother-in-law jokes? They're funny to start with. But today we're going to look at the most famous mother-in-law, probably in the Bible, and that's Naomi. She is the mother-in-law of Ruth. She plays a big role in this story.

So background. You're on the heels of the book of Ruth. You're just on the heels of the book of Judges. The Israelites had moved into the promised land. They had divvied out the land to the 12 tribes. But it was still chaotic. One of the verses throughout Judges says, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes." They say that four or five times. In Judges, they would rebel, worship foreign gods. God would let natural consequences come from that. They would cry out to God. And as he always does, he would show them mercy. And there's this pattern that happens there.

So in Ruth chapter 1, we read that there's a famine in Israel. And there's a guy named Elimelech. And he has a wife named Naomi, two sons, Malan and Chilion. I love that name. Chilion sounds like a 70s baseball player or something, Chilion. But Elimelech, they lived in Bethlehem. And the name Bethlehem means the house of bread.

So over and over in the scriptures, we see God calling his people to trust him. So there's a famine in the land. And Elimelech takes matters in his own hands, does the first no-no that we see in this little book. And he moves his family, his Naomi and his two sons, to Moab. Moab is a nation that is just east of the Dead Sea, probably modern-day Jordan, if you were looking at a map.

Who were the Moabites? Well, the Moabites were descendants of Lot. You remember that heinous story in Genesis where, after there was judgment at Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife turned back and looked, turned into a pillar of salt, and she's gone. And now there's no son to carry on the family lineage. So Lot's daughters get him hammered. And they sleep with him, both of them, and have children from Lot. That's who the Moabite people were. So they were very looked down upon by the Israelites.

So they go to Moab. But then what happens is Elimelech, he dies. So Naomi's now a widow. Widower. And then she gets wives for her sons, Malan and Chilion, Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. And then what happens, that was a no-no because they weren't supposed to intermarry. And then what happens is the sons now die. So she is a widow, lost her sons. There's no children. There's no lineage to keep on going here.

So she tells the two daughter-in-laws, "Just go back to your family. Go back to your family, live a good life, and I'm going back to Bethlehem." Well, Orpah does that. She goes back to her family, but Ruth, she stays with Naomi. You may remember this famous little passage here. Ruth said to Naomi, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God." She shows loyalty to her.

So I want to look at the characters, how it unfolds in this story, and how it ultimately can apply to you and I. Let's look at our first character, Naomi, the bitter and broken one. Naomi, the bitter and broken one. In Ruth 1, beginning of verse 1, and 19, it says, "So they both went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, all the city was stirred because of them. And the women said, 'Is this Naomi?' But she said to them, 'Do not call me Naomi, call me Marah,' which means bitter. 'For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi? Since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me.' So Naomi returned, and with her, Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest."

I think I would feel pretty bitter and broken, too, if you were in Naomi's shoes. You've lost your husband, you've lost your sons. Key verse there, verse 21, "I went away full, and I come back poor, broke, empty-handed." She's devastated and heartbroken. I wonder this morning, can you relate? Can someone in this room or online relate to that bitter, brokenness feeling of loss?

Maybe at the beginning of 2024, you felt full. You felt full, you weren't empty-handed. But now, as we're coming to the end of this, as we're cruising into the end of the year, maybe you feel empty. Maybe it's the last several years. You used to feel full, things used to feel right, but now you're running on empty and might be feeling broken.

The second character is Ruth. Ruth the Unlikely One. Ruth the Unlikely One. Why is she the Unlikely One? Well, she's a Moabite. She is a Gentile. She's a foreigner. In chapter two, when they're in Bethlehem, Ruth does this huge step of faith, a risky step of faith. She tells Ruth, she says, "Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I might find favor." And Naomi tells her, "Go do that."

Maybe she understood God's heart for the poor. We read throughout the law of Moses, specifically in Leviticus 19, where God instructed the children of Israel, "When you harvest your field, when you harvest your grapes, don't go all the way to the end of the harvest. Leave some for the poor. And if you drop grapes or you drop grain, don't pick it up. Leave that for the poor." That's what the gleaning was all about, was going and letting the poor have food. Maybe she understood that.

But she took a risk. She took a risk to go into this field because she was going to be hated by the Jews and picked on, who knows, maybe even physically harmed. And she goes and Boaz, who owns the field, notices her. And he asks, "Who's that?" He said, "Well, it's Ruth, the Moabitess."

And when she meets Boaz, she asks him, "Can I glean from your field?" And Boaz not only says yes, but grants her incredible favor, promises her safety, promises her security, more sustenance than she could imagine. It says in Ruth 2:10, "Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, 'Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me since I'm a foreigner?'" Boaz had heard of her loyalty to Naomi.

Boaz, as we're going to learn, is a kinsman of Elimelech, who was Naomi's husband who had passed away. And so he shows even more favor to her. She left the home or wherever she was staying with Naomi empty-handed, but goes back full of food, full of grain, full of grapes, full of barley. She goes back and she says, "Naomi, whose field did you glean from?" "A man named Boaz." And Naomi says, "Ha, he is a relative. Very important. Stay close to his servants. Stay close to his maids."

Now I think a real quick application is at her, this unlikely one, taking this step of faith. Sometimes you and I, we're waiting for God to do something in our life. We're waiting for a breakthrough. We're waiting for provision. We're waiting for a sign. When maybe God is waiting on you and I to take a step of faith so he can meet us in his grace and that we participate with him and he can show himself strong to us. I think that's important.

Then there's Boaz. He's the redeeming one. Important word. This is a redeeming story. In chapter two, verse one, Naomi had told Ruth that she had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth. His name is Boaz. In Leviticus 25:25, under the law of redemption, the Lord spoke to Moses and said, "If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then the nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold." That's the whole kinsman redeemer concept in scripture.

That someone dies, the widow needs something, whatever, you can buy that property back, take care of them and make sure they have a hope and a future. How many know what Sadie Hawkins is? Right? The Sadie Hawkins dance is the time of year when the girls ask the guys. Normally prom, homecoming, guys ask girls. It's been a while since I've been in high school, but I've been in high school for a long time. I would imagine it's still kind of the same.

But at Sadie Hawkins, the girls ask the guys to the dance. Well, Naomi comes up with a Sadie Hawkins plan. She does. She is going to get Ruth to basically propose marriage to Boaz. In chapter three, Naomi tells Ruth, "Hey, go get dolled up." That's my translation. "Go get all fixed up. Put your best makeup on, your best clothes, look good. Because you're going to go and propose marriage to this kinsman redeemer, Boaz."

And in chapter three, some interesting things happen. She says, "Listen, at the end of the day, Boaz is going to come and be at his threshing floor. And he's going to eat some food. He's going to drink a little. His heart will be merry. And what I want you to do is go, like incognito, go into his room and uncover his feet and then lay at the end of his bed." And so she does that. And she said, "Do whatever he says to do."

So she goes and she uncovers his feet and lays at the end of his bed. And he wakes up. He says, "Who are you?" She says, "Well, I'm Ruth, a close relative. I'm a close relative. You're my kinsman." And he is flattered. He knows what's going on because she says, "Spread your cloak over me." That was this invitation to matrimony, this invitation. "I want to be your wife." And he says, "May you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich."

Sounds like Janelle Applegate to me. Serious. I can relate to this. He says, "Now my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you whatever you ask, for all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence. Now it is true, I am a close relative. However, there is a relative closer than I." In the pecking order of being a kinsman redeemer, the oldest relative had first shot at redeeming the property and all that comes with that. And he recognizes that. Boaz is a man of great integrity.

And he tells her, "Hey, stay the night." And then in the morning, he gave more food for her to take back to Naomi. And he says, "In the morning, I'm going to work on this. I accept your proposal, basically." So he takes in chapter four, ten of his men, and they go to the city gate, which the city gate is always where big meetings would happen in ancient Israel.

And he takes the men, he meets the closest relative. And he says, "Listen, Elimelech's died, and you're next of kin to redeem his property. Do you want to redeem it?" He says, "I do." And then Boaz throws him a curveball. And he says, "Okay, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance."

The guy says, "I cannot redeem it for myself because I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Go ahead and redeem it." Well, the story goes on. They lived happily ever after. Ruth and Boaz get married. They have a son named Obed to keep the family line going, which is the lineage that traced all the way back to Jesus. And Naomi's pumped. She's a grandma. She gets to take care of the baby boy. And they went on to have a great marriage.

But at the end of the book of Ruth, it's this chronological genealogy. "And to Solomon was born Boaz, to Boaz Obed, and to Obed was born Jesse, and to Jesse, David," which we just read right out of Matthew chapter 1, verse 5 as well.

How do we flip the script in this story to see how it applies to you and I? And more importantly, how does this apply to Jesus? Where does Jesus fit in this? Let's look at the characters again. Let's first look at the bitter and broken ones. It's you and me. We're the bitter and broken ones.

When Jesus said that he came on a rescue mission to seek and save the lost, that's me. And that's you. He came on a rescue mission to seek and save that which was lost. Throughout the gospels, it's recorded of Jesus going from village to village, town to town, healing the sick, preaching the kingdom, and encouraging broken people. Matthew records this. Jesus, seeing the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.

He wasn't mad at them. He felt compassion in their brokenness and in their bitterness. He felt compassion. He feels compassion for you. He felt so much compassion that he came to do for you and I what we could never do for ourselves. Overcome our enemies of sin, death, and the evil one. He did that for us. Life has a way of breaking us, making us bitter. This world is broken. People are broken. We're broken. Life brings bitter events, bitter things, often done at the hands of other people.

I heard a story this past week. I've been doing ministry a long time. And nothing really shocks me. This story shocked me. Nothing to do with anybody at Novation. It was removed far, far away from our community. But the story that I heard from what one spouse did to another, I can't get it out of my mind. Of the pain that one spouse caused to another spouse. I mean, it was brutal. It wasn't anything illegal, but my gosh, was it immoral. And to think, how is this spouse going to ever recover from the trauma, from the difficulties?

We can easily become Naomi. Or maybe the truth is, we feel like her today. The bitter and broken ones. Ruth was the unlikely favored one because she was a foreigner, right? She was a Gentile. How was she going to be used in this story? I was thinking about this. She found favor in the eyes of Boaz. When it comes to the gospel, when it comes to Jesus, who is the favor of God upon your life, he's the smile of God upon your life. He's the amen to you and I, and we say amen back to him because of Jesus.

When you think of the gospel and the favor of God, I know I am the unlikely one. We are the unlikely. We are the unlikely ones. That's us. We, I, did nothing to earn the grace and favor of God. Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For it is by grace you've been saved through faith. Not of anything you've done, it is the gift of God." God decided to show his love and favor to you in spite of us, in spite of me. Amen.

What Naomi said when Boaz shows her favor, she says, "Why have I found favor in your sight that you should notice me?" God, why have I found favor in your sight that you would notice me? You ever feel like that? Why would you notice me? None of us come from noble backgrounds or this or that. The world looks at favor and thinks the person who's rich, successful, powerful, that must be the favored ones. It's the complete opposite in the kingdom of Jesus. It's an upside-down kingdom.

Listen to what the apostle Paul told the Corinthians and see if you can relate to this. "God's folly is wiser than humans, you see, and God's weakness is stronger than humans. Think back to your own call, my brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise in human terms. Not many of you were powerful. Not many were nobly born. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world, the Ruths, to shame the strong. God chose the insignificant and despised things of the world, yes, even things that don't exist, to abolish the power of the things that do exist so that no creature could boast in God's presence."

Who and what you are now is a gift from God in Messiah Jesus who has become for us God's wisdom and righteousness, sanctification, and that word redemption as well so that, as the Bible puts it, anyone who boasts should boast in the Lord. To redeem is to buy back something on behalf of somebody else so that they can have a hope and a future. The unlikely ones, us, we're the favored. We're the favored ones from God. Obviously, all of humanity is favored by God. But in the way the world views favoritism is not the way God sees it.

Let's look at the most important character, the redeeming one. That's Jesus, the redeeming one, Jesus. Boaz is a picture of Christ, a type of Christ. He was a redeemer. Boaz had to be a relative. Well, God, in his plan, God the Son, the eternal word of God, in the Christmas story, in the incarnation, he becomes one of us so he can be our redeemer. And he did it in his human life.

Boaz took a poor, penniless alien to be his bride. Well, Jesus has taken us, spiritually poor and broken, to be his bride. What a beautiful picture. Boaz provided a hope and a future for Ruth and Naomi. Jesus has provided a living hope and a promise of eternal life for us.

The passage in Colossians 1 is one of the most powerful descriptions of who Jesus is. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, describes our redeemer like this: "For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself. Whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross."

That's mind-blowing. That's heart-thrilling. Who is our redeemer? It's that. It's Jesus, the creator and sustainer of all things, has come to redeem us so that we can be free and we can live in his promise. To me, that's to be said, celebrated. And what he asks of all of us is just to agree with him. That's faith. Faith is saying, "Jesus, I agree with you. You are the Savior. You are the Lord. And I agree with you. And I want to be your disciple. I want to learn how to live from you. I want to model my life after you, and how you lived and how you loved. I want to arrange my life around your priorities, your practices."

I want to be a disciple of Jesus. We believe, and then we become. And they go hand in hand. He doesn't just want us to pray a prayer or fill out a card or walk the aisle. He wants you to walk with him. Walk with him in every aspect of your life. And guess what? I'm fully aware of my failures every day. But I'm going to get back up, and I'm going to keep walking with Jesus. I'm going to let him dust me off.

And say, "Are you a good knucklehead?" Because he talks to me that way. But hey, I can be a knucklehead. And I've been around some of you. I know you're knuckleheads too, right? We all are. But we're learning. We're growing. We're being transformed little by little, day by day. He knows that we are imperfect right now, but we follow the perfect one who is going to teach us if we'll just stop and listen. And be with him. And learn from him.

Let's celebrate our redemption. In time together in this service comes to a close, I thank you that you've been with us. Your presence is with us always. God, this is a building. We are your church. Wherever we're at, that's where you're at. And Lord, we pray as a church family to know you more and make you known.

Lord, in a world of Naomi's that are broken and bitter, help us to be an extension of you, Jesus, to this broken world. We want to be helpful, hopeful, truthful people. God, I just pray your blessing over us today.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you, be gracious to you, give you his peace this day and forevermore in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Subject: Redemption and Hope: The Story of Ruth and Boaz

Dear Novation Church,

Reflecting on the story of Ruth and Boaz, I am reminded of the profound ways God works through our lives, even in times of brokenness.

This past Sunday, we journeyed through the book of Ruth, uncovering the themes of God's providence and redemption. We saw how Naomi's story of loss and bitterness mirrors our own struggles, yet God's compassion is ever-present. Ruth's courage to step out in faith and Boaz's role as a redeemer beautifully foreshadow the redemptive work of Christ. This narrative invites us to see ourselves in these characters and recognize our need for redemption, embracing the grace offered to us through Jesus.

As we continue to walk with Jesus, let us be encouraged by Ruth's faith and Boaz's integrity. May we trust in God's provision and allow His grace to transform us, even in our imperfections. Let us strive to reflect Christ's love and hope to those around us, knowing that we are favored in His eyes.

Blessings,
Novation Church Team