Introduction:
The Rudeness Quiz:
The Kindness of God... (Ruth 2):
- Puts me in the Right Place at the Right Time . (Ruth 2:1-7)
- Transforms my Character . (Ruth 2:8-10)
- I should help those who cannot Repay Me . (Ruth 2:8-9)
- I should humble myself instead of Embracing Entitlement . (Ruth 2:10)
- Rewards my Faithfulness . (Ruth 2:11-23)
Psalm 23:6 - Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot
Psalm 63:3 - Because your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. Thus, I will bless you while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:55-01:02
So as you turn to Ruth chapter two, I want you to help me answer a really important question that I've been thinking about all week.
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Are you ready?
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The question is, are we becoming ruder as a society, yes or no?
01:10-01:11
Who says no?
01:13-01:16
One brave soul, Jane Auer, I'm not surprised.
01:16-01:19
All right, who besides Jay says yes?
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I heard you all say yes, but you don't wanna raise your hands for some reason.
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Well, if you raise your hand, you're in welcome company because 79% of Americans believe that rudeness is on the rise and kindness is sharply declining.
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You know what's interesting?
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If I asked you to raise your hand, if you encounter a rude person recently, every single hand would shoot up immediately.
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But if I asked, if any of you believe that you are a rude or unkind person, I doubt that anyone would raise their hands.
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Well, none of you are prepared for this, but we're gonna take a quick pop quiz this morning.
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On your bulletin, I want you to write down the rudeness quiz, and underneath that title, put the numbers one, two, three, four, five, six.
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Okay?
02:14-02:16
One, two, three, four, five, six.
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And whenever I ask if you've committed a certain rude behavior, you'll either put a check mark if you have done it, or an X if you have not done it.
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And don't look at your neighbor's paper because that's so rude and you'll automatically fail the quiz.
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Are we ready to understand the rules?
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Everyone's like, I regret coming to church this morning.
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Don't worry, we'll be okay, don't worry.
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All right, number one, coming out the gate hot.
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Number one, do you ever interrupt people as they talk?
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Put a check mark or an X next to number one.
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Do you ever interrupt people as they talk?
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Thank you, Darla, for proving my point.
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Number two, have you ever failed to return your shopping cart to the metal cart corral in the grocery store parking lot?
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This really says a lot about who you are as a person.
03:10-03:15
Have you ever not returned your shopping cart to that metal corral in the parking lot?
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Are you one of those people who's left it by your car and just slams into somebody else's car later when the wind blows?
03:21-03:23
Check mark or X, okay?
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Number three, have you tailgated someone or rode their bumper because they were going too slow?
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Everyone failed that one, I think.
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Number four, have you ever been late to an appointment or meeting?
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Have you ever been late to church?
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Number five, have you ever used the last of something but not replaced it?
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Gas in the tank, milk in the fridge, paper towels, or the biggest one, toilet paper, right?
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X or check?
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Number six, have you ever ignored someone who is talking to you by looking at your phone or texting right in front of them?
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All right, pencils down.
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How did you do?
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Well, thank you for being honest.
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Many of us did terrible, myself included.
04:22-04:26
And these are all silly examples, right, that we can laugh at.
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But we can all honestly admit that we fail to be kind on a daily basis to the people that we interact with.
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And some of you may be thinking, well, Taylor, I'm a really nice person.
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I'm kind to everyone, ask anyone.
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I would respond to that by saying, it's really easy to spot the rudeness in others, but it's really hard to spot it in ourselves.
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We are often blind to our own lack of kindness.
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We justify our unkind attitudes, words, and behaviors by slapping other ridiculous labels on them.
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It's not my fault.
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I had a bad day.
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I couldn't help it.
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That person made me so angry.
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Well, I had to focus on me today and do what's right for me.
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Well, I'm just a straight shooter.
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I just tell people the way I see it.
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I call things out.
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Or how about this one?
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I only treat people the way that they treat me.
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If you're nice to me, I will be so nice to you.
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But if you disrespect me, I'm gonna disrespect you right back.
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You know, as our Lord would say, right?
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These are all lame excuses that are truly embarrassing when you put them under the microscope and honestly look at them.
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and evaluate them.
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As followers of Christ, we should never try, we should never try to excuse the inexcusable, and according to the word of God, being unkind is inexcusable.
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Instead of making excuses, instead of trying to justify our bad behavior, let us own up to our failures in this area and choose to be better by the grace of God.
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We are towards the beginning of our study of the Book of Ruth, and this morning, we're gonna focus our attention on the second chapter.
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And the author arranged this chapter like a five-act play, and each act is a separate conversation.
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There's not a lot of action in this chapter, but there is a lot of dialogue, a lot of people just talking to each other.
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And all of these conversations center around one key theme, kindness.
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Specifically, the loving kindness of God, who often delivers his greatest blessings through the kindness of his people.
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And I'm not just talking about being polite by putting your card away at Giant Eagle, or not driving like a maniac on the road whenever someone annoys you.
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I'm talking about genuine acts of selflessness that are born out of imitating our great God and Father.
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Acts of kindness that point others to Jesus Christ.
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Acts of kindness that are done to not receive kudos or to get ahead.
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Acts of kindness that are used to genuinely help and bless others.
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It is my hope this morning that we will be blown away by the kindness of God and equipped to be his agents of kindness in an unkind world.
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So let's go to the Lord and ask that he would show us wondrous things in his word.
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Father, we come to you and we ask for your help.
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Lord, it's so easy to come to church week in and week out and tune out, not pay attention, to be distracted by all the things we have to think about.
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Lord, help us to remember that we are coming to your word, we're hearing you speak to us.
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What could be more important than this?
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Nothing.
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Lord, help us to humble ourselves, to clear our minds, and to be ready to receive your word and to submit to it.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
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So before we dig into Ruth chapter two, let's quickly cover what we studied last week in case you need a fresh reminder or you weren't here.
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View this as the previously on portion of your favorite TV show, all right?
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So previously on Ruth, a famine strikes the land of Israel needs a man named Elimelech to take his family to the pagan nation of Moab so that they can survive and have food.
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And Elimelech dies of unknown causes in Moab, and following his death, his two sons die as well.
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And they leave behind Moabite wives.
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And they leave behind their mother, Naomi, who was stranded in a foreign land with two daughters-in-law.
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Naomi learned somehow that rain has returned to Israel and the famine is finally over.
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So she chooses to turn away from her life in Moab and turn back to the grace and provision of Yahweh in Israel.
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Her one daughter-in-law Orpah chooses to go back to Moab, go back to her old life and to her old gods.
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But her other daughter-in-law Ruth decides to stick by Naomi because she has committed herself to Yahweh.
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She has been saved by faith in him.
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And Naomi returns to Bethlehem feeling very beaten up and broken down.
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She is coming back with very low expectations.
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But as you read at the end of the last chapter, the reaping of the barley harvest has come in Israel and the reaping of God's blessings is soon arriving for Ruth and Naomi as well.
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Are we all caught up?
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Are we all awake?
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If the person next to you is not awake, you have my permission to elbow them, okay?
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All right, let's move forward with the story and read verses one through seven of chapter two.
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Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
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And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor." And Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter." So Ruth set out and went and gleaned in the field "after the reapers, and she happened to come "to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, "who was of the clan of Elimelech.
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"And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, "and he said to the reapers, 'The Lord be with you!' "And they answered, 'The Lord bless you.' "Then Boaz said to his young man "who was in charge of the reapers, "'Whose young woman is this?' "And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, "'She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.
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She said, "Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers." So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.
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So our outline for this morning is all centered around the kindness of God.
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And number one, we learn that the kindness of God puts me in the right place at the right time.
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The kindness of God puts me in the right place at the right time.
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And the author of Ruth kicks things off by shining a spotlight onto a new character named Boaz.
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And we learn that Boaz is a family member of Naomi's recently deceased husband, Elimelech.
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And he is a wealthy field owner.
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And he is described as a man of valor, a worthy man, which means that he is a man of integrity.
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who wants to do the right thing and honor the Lord.
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And after this quick introduction, we see the hand of God at work in bringing Ruth across Boaz's path, in particular, his field.
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Ruth knows that she needs to take action quickly or she and her mother-in-law will starve.
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Remember, they are two widows over 3,000 years ago, which is a really tough position to be in.
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They have no husbands or sons to protect them to provide for them.
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But in his mercy, in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, God made it clear that landowners shouldn't completely pick their fields clean and just hoard everything for themselves.
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Instead, the edges, the borders of their fields should be reserved for the poor, for the widow, for the orphan, for the foreigner, so that they can survive.
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And everything that the harvesters drop on the ground should be left for the needy as well.
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"a gracious law from the Lord that allows those "who are needy to work for their food rather than beg." So in the first of the five conversations in chapter two, Ruth tells Naomi that she is gonna go to one of the edges of these field to gather barley.
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And Naomi just decides to hold down the fort and stay put.
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What's up with that?
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That seems so rude and unhelpful, doesn't it?
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Naomi kind of seems like Grandpa Joe and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
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You don't know who I'm talking about.
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We have a picture of Grandpa Joe right behind me, I think.
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There he is.
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The internet's favorite character in a movie.
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You know, Charlie's poor grandparents live in squalor with him and his parents.
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And he has four grandparents who all sleep in the same bed together.
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And Grandpa Joe has laid in bed immobile for 20 years.
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But then all of a sudden he jumps up kid's summer camp starts dancing around the house whenever he's offered a golden ticket to go on a chocolate factory tour. How convenient! Now you can suddenly move.
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What happened to the past 20 years? You're just laying there in bed doing nothing while your kids are struggling and your grandkids are struggling as well. Why is Naomi suddenly acting like Grandpa Joe? Why is she just laying around doing nothing.
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You know, many will say that Naomi is lazy, but I think the better description is depressed.
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She is paralyzed by the pain of her past.
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She feels numb.
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We all know people who've been stuck in this holding pattern of sadness, or maybe you've experienced it yourself when it's hard to even roll out of bed in the morning, it's hard to carry out the most simple of tasks, nothing seems important.
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In Naomi's mind, if Ruth is willing to go, whatever, so be it, go and do that.
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Remember Naomi's status in this first conversation, because it's gonna radically change during the final conversation of this chapter.
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And thankfully Ruth makes her way to Boaz's field to glean, which we'll talk about more in a minute.
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As she is gathering up barley, Boaz shows up on the scene.
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And he asks, "Who is this woman?" He asks about her status and her story.
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Is she a foreigner?
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Is she married?
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Is she a widow?
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And his field foreman tells him all about Ruth.
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She is the one that Boaz has been hearing rumors about in town.
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She is the one who left Moab to come to Israel with her mother-in-law.
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And on top of that, Boaz is told that Ruth is a hard worker.
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She has been diligently gleaning all morning.
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So we learned that a woman of integrity has crossed paths with a man of integrity.
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And I want to take a step back for a minute and draw our attention to verse three, because it seems kind of out of place.
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We are told that Ruth happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.
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You read this and it seems like the author is saying this all happened by random chance and by accident, right?
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But as we learned last week, this book is all about the providence of God, who purposefully directs everything.
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He directs human history, he directs our lives, He directs every single thing that he has created.
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And this major theme comes across in an unexpected way in the most literal translation of the original Hebrew, the happenstance that happened to her.
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It's like the author's going over the top with his language and winking at us as the audience and playing up the drama of the scene.
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He is putting us in Ruth's sandals to experience the story from her perspective.
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From her perspective, this all just seems like chance.
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It all seems too good to be true.
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She'll soon learn that she happened to come to the part of a community field that happened to belong to the wealthy relative of her husband who died.
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From a human perspective, this was a chance encounter that ended up in Ruth's favor.
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But from God's perspective, this was anything but random.
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I mean, do any of us really think that God saw Ruth stumble across Boaz's field and thought to himself, "Phew, really God, that one worked out "because I was not paying attention." Of course not.
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This was not coincidental.
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This was not happenstance.
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This was the providence of God.
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God is the one who orchestrated this.
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God is the one who is drawing this story to his designed conclusion.
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God is the one who put Ruth and Boaz at the right place at the right time.
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Has something too good to be true ever happened to you?
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When you thought, "Wow, I can't believe "this all worked out so well." Have you even said, "Wow, what a crazy coincidence!" Let me ask you, do we believe in coincidence as Christians?
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All right, that was pretty lame, let's try it again.
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Do we believe in coincidence as Christians?
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No!
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All right, good job, man, I appreciate that.
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We don't believe in coincidence, we believe in the divine oversight and personal involvement of a loving God who deeply cares for us.
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The same God who put Ruth and Boaz at the right place at the right time also puts you and I in the right place at the right time.
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You know, that job opportunity that seemed to come out of nowhere didn't actually come out of nowhere.
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didn't just fall into your lap.
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God is the one who gave it to you.
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That one time you were in a life-threatening accident and you were spared the last second, God is the one who saved you, not luck.
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You just happened to meet your spouse all those years ago.
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God is the one who brought you together.
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The house that you live in wasn't just brought to you by your realtor, it was given to you by the one who owns heaven and earth.
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if you learned in our study of James, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.
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Every single good thing in your life is from the hand of God.
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He shows you acts of kindness that you don't even notice.
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And we are so quick, blame God when bad things happen to us, but when good things happen to us, we find it so hard to give him the credit that he deserves.
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You know, as I meditated upon thankfulness this past week, I couldn't help but think of when my wife and I gave our son Sam a huge Batman robot that we bought off a Facebook marketplace for $10.
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Who buys stuff off a Facebook marketplace?
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It's not exactly the best of exchanges, right?
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Somebody randomly shows up at your house, you meet up in a parking lot under a light so people can find you if something happens.
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Well in this case, I went to someone's house and just awkwardly walked to their doorstep to grab a garbage bag that had a Batman robot in it.
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So extravagant, right?
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So nice.
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But when my son saw that robot, he jumped up and down like he had won the Powerball lottery.
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He kept showering us with praise.
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Oh dad, thank you for my robot, it's so big.
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Mama, thank you for my robot, it's so cool.
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I lost track of how many times he said thank you next week over a $10 garbage bag Batman robot. Harvest, let's take a page out of Sam's book and choose to give thanks continually and passionately for all that God has done for us. Instead of constantly complaining about what we do not have, let us thank the one who has given us all that we do have. Instead of They're having the eyes of negativity.
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They're constantly looking for the bad in everything.
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Let's have eyes of positivity that are looking for the kindness of God in every single situation, no matter how dark and horrible it may seem at a first glance.
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All right, secondly, the kindness of God transforms my character.
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The kindness of God transforms my character.
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So after hearing all about her from his foreman, Boaz approaches Ruth as she gleans and shows her great kindness and compassion.
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He approaches her as a daughter who's in need of protection and provision.
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And in this third conversation of the chapter, we see two specific ways that the kindness of God should transform our character.
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And letter A under number two, I should help those who cannot repay me.
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I should help those who cannot repay me.
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Let's read verses eight through nine.
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Then Boaz said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.
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Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them.
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Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?
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And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.
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Boaz shows Ruth an unbelievable amount of kindness in this passage.
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He tells her to not even think about going to another field because he can't guarantee her safety there, but he can promise her safety in his field because he has talked to all of his guy workers and said, "Don't even think about touching her "or you will have me to answer to." He said, "Don't even bring your own water bottle.
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"Use the water that I have." Boaz goes out of his way to protect this woman from a nation that Israel hates.
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Showing such extravagant kindness to a Moabite woman in ancient Israel would be somewhat similar to a modern-day Israeli showing an act of kindness to a member of Hamas.
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This simply wasn't done.
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Boaz blessed a woman who could do nothing for him in return.
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There was nothing in it for him.
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He simply blessed her because he had been blessed by God.
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The kindness of God transformed Boaz into a man of kindness.
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And this past week, I was deeply convicted by Boaz's kindness to Ruth.
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I thought to myself, do I go out of my way to bless those who cannot repay me?
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Do I help those who can do nothing for me in return?
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And I want you to wrestle with this same question as well.
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Are you often like the religious leaders in Jesus' day?
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Doing nice things so that people will praise you and think that you're great.
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Maybe dropping something nice you did casually in conversation, hoping someone will give you an attaboy and pat you on the back.
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Posting what you did on social media so you'll get attention in the form of likes and comments.
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or bringing up a praise during a prayer time, even though your intention is for people to praise you?
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Or do you not even care if another soul saw what you did and knows what you did?
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Is it not enough that God saw what you did and he was pleased?
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Do you tend to only help those who can help you?
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Do you think, oh, you know what, to help so and so because I need something from them in a few weeks.
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So I'm gonna do a favor for him, so he'll owe me a favor and I'm gonna call on that when I need it.
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Is that kindness?
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That is not kindness.
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That is a business-like approach to life.
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You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours mentality.
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In Luke 6:35, Jesus says, "Lend expecting nothing in return." Be kind even when people aren't being kind to you.
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Serve even if no other person is serving you.
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Show love to the most unlovely of people.
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We are to bless others, even when there seems to be nothing in it for us.
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And by God's grace, we will be blessed anyway.
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So how should the kindness of God transform my character?
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Letter B, I should humble myself instead of embracing entitlement.
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I should humble myself instead of embracing entitlement.
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So let's read Ruth's response to Boaz's kindness.
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Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes "that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?" I love Ruth's response to Boaz's kindness.
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She doesn't say, "Well, it's about time "someone finally noticed my hard work and gave me a break." No, she humbly falls on her face in amazement and asks, "What have I done to deserve this?" She knows that she is on the lowest rung of the ladder in Bethlehem.
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She doesn't expect anything from anyone.
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When she receives kindness, Ruth accepts it with humility.
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You know, we live in such an entitled time in society.
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So many in this country think that everything should be handed to them.
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I deserve the best of the best.
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I deserve to have all my dreams and expectations met.
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I deserve every single thing that I desire.
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Is that biblical in any way?
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We're shaking our heads, but we fall into that same attitude as well as believers.
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We can be so entitled, we can be so selfish, myself included, and fixate on what we deserve.
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Do you know what you deserve?
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Do you know what I deserve?
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We deserve to be dead and in hell right now.
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That is what we deserve for our sin and rebellion against God, that is it.
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Everything beyond that is mercy and grace.
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Be careful demanding what you deserve.
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But in his infinite grace, the Lord has not given us what we deserve.
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He instead gave his son what we deserve.
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On the cross, Jesus was treated as if he lived our sinful lives.
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We have been given his righteousness.
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He experienced hell so that we could enjoy heaven forever.
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That simple biblical fact should rob us of any sense of entitlement that we might have.
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Never forget that we were nothing and nobodies, that the greatest somebody chose to die for and make much of.
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Let us be like Ruth.
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Let us humble ourselves and fall on our faces before the loving kindness of our God, who is constantly loyal to us, despite our disloyalty to him.
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If you are entitled, you have no chance of being kind.
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You cannot be a person of kindness without also being a person of genuine humility.
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All right, finally, the kindness of God rewards my faithfulness.
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The kindness of God rewards my faithfulness.
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(sniffling)
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Let's read verses 11 through 13 together.
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But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me in how you left your father and mother, your native land, and came to a people that you did not know before.
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The Lord repay you for what you have done and for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me.
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I'm sorry, I skipped, I actually went backwards, sorry.
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The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given to you by the Lord, the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
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Boaz has blessed Ruth because he is so impressed that she has chosen to escape from her old life in Moab to commit herself to Yahweh.
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He compares her to a baby bird who has drawn near to its mother.
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She has drawn near to the Lord and find refuge and shelter in his wings.
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His divine wings flew her away from Moab and she has found a new nest in Israel.
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And on top of that, she has chosen to selflessly serve Naomi.
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She left her father and her mother, she left everything.
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And she didn't do this to be noticed, but her service has gone noticed anyway.
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God has rewarded Ruth for her faithfulness and kindness through Boaz.
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She is a living testimony of Hebrews 11, six, which says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
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But there's more.
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Boaz's kindness has not yet come to an end for Ruth.
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Let's read verses 14 through 17.
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And at mealtime, Boaz said to her, "Come here and eat some bread "and dip your morsel in the wine." So she sat beside the reapers and he passed her roasted grain.
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And she ate until she was satisfied and she had some left over.
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When she arose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men saying, "Let her glean even among the sheaves, "and do not reproach her.
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"And also pull some out from the bundles for her "and leave it for her to glean.
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"And do not rebuke her." So she gleaned in the field until evening.
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Then she beat out what she had gleaned and that was about an ephah of barley.
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So in this fourth conversation, Boaz once again speaks to his employees to remind them to respect Ruth and to help her when she is gleaning.
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And he says, "Hey, why don't you have a meal with us?" And he offers her to eat with him and his workers.
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He offers her friendship and fellowship, not just food.
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And as I was studying this scene, I just imagined Ruth just fighting back tears as she's having a normal moment, an extremely lonely period of her life.
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These people are treating her like one of their own and not a foreign widow that she feels that they feel sorry for.
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You know, none of us like feeling alone.
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None of us like feeling rejected.
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You know, all of our worst childhood memories have to do with feeling rejected in some way, right?
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Like the time my friends didn't invite me to a month's worth of sleepovers to see if I would notice, because that's so fun, right?
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That's so funny.
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And scarring at the same exact time.
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We all want to be accepted.
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We all want people to welcome us in.
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And Ruth finally gets to experience that for the very first time in Israel.
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And after this meal is over, Ruth is stuffed and she even goes home with a doggy bag full of food.
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And we learn that she is given an ifa of barley.
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Okay, judging by the blank expressions on your face, none of you use the ifa system when you cook and bake at home.
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Don't worry, I just learned what this means this past week.
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This is about 30 pounds.
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That's how much my four year old weighs.
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That is a lot of barley, right?
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Ruth left home empty handed, but she has come home fuller than she ever imagined when she stepped out the door that morning.
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This second round of provision highlights how over the top our heavenly Father is when it comes to rewarding us.
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We've already talked about his physical provision, We don't really think that much about his spiritual rewards.
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Our God is not a stingy dad who just begrudgingly hands out dollar bills every once in a while to his children on special occasions.
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He opens up the floodgates of heaven to pour out his mercy and blessings upon us.
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We could be here the rest of the day recounting all that God gives us for our faithfulness to him, but let me just share a few.
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a confident contentment that I have all that I really need in Christ, an exciting sense of purpose and fulfillment that my life actually matters, that I'm being used to advance God's kingdom, an inner peace that can withstand any storm of life, any anxiety, any problem, true joy that can never, ever be stolen away from me, an intimate closeness with our God.
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and the pleasure of engaging him and meeting him in his word.
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And the Bible also talks about future rewards in heaven for obedience now.
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Brothers and sisters, we are so unbelievably spoiled by God.
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As David says to God in his most popular Psalm, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell the Lord forever.
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So let's wrap up with our fifth and final conversation of chapter two in verses 18 through 23.
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And Ruth took it and went up into the city.
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Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned.
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She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied.
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And her mother-in-law said to her, "Where did you glean today and where have you worked?
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"Blessed be the man who took notice of you." So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, "The man's name with whom I work today is Boaz." And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "May he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness "has not forsaken the living or the dead." Naomi also said to her, "This man is a close relative of ours, "one of our redeemers." And Ruth the Moabite said, "Besides," he said to me, "you shall keep close by my young men "until they have finished all my harvest.
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"And Naomi said to her, her daughter-in-law, "it is good, my daughter, "that you go out with his young women, "lest in another field you be assaulted.
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"She kept close by the young women of Boaz, "gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvest, "and she lived with her mother-in-law." Well, we've come full circle, haven't we?
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We started this sermon with a conversation between Ruth and Naomi, And we're gonna end this sermon with a conversation between Ruth and Naomi.
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But Naomi is in a much different head space and heart space in this final conversation.
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When Ruth left to glean, Naomi was depressed.
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She was hopeless, but now she is excited and filled with hope for the first time in a long time.
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Naomi tells Ruth that Boaz is actually a relative of their deceased husbands.
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He is one of their redeemers.
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And you'll have to come back next week to learn what that means.
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But in the meantime, listen again to Naomi's response to Boaz's kindness.
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"May he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness "has not forsaken the living or the dead." This is the same woman who last week, last chapter, said that God has emptied me of every good thing.
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God's hand is against me.
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Now she's saying, "God's kindness has not forsaken me.
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"He has been with me every single step of the way." Like Naomi, never forget that your spiritual cup is overflowing with the blessings of the Lord in every single season of life.
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Yes, serving the Lord comes at a great cost, but whatever we sacrifice for Him in this life cannot compare to what we receive in return.
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Long-term, I can guarantee you that you will not miss one single thing of this world that you give up to faithfully follow Christ and obey his word.
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As the famous missionary Jim Elliot said before he was brutally martyred for his faith, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
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He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
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So as the worship team comes forward, I want us to take a moment to reflect.
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We kicked off this sermon with a silly quiz about the level of rudeness, but for the past 30 minutes or so, we have been taking a test with much more serious questions about your understanding of God's kindness.
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Do you really believe that God puts you in the right place at the right time?
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Or do you feel like life is just a random series of happenstances?
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Has the kindness of God transformed your character?
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Do you seek to bless those who cannot repay you and embrace humble service rather than selfish entitlement?
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And finally, do you live as if you serve a God who will reward you for your faithfulness to Him?
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Well, let me ask you the same exact question and I asked you after the quiz earlier, how did you do?
Small Group Discussion
Read Ruth 2:1-23
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
How has the Lord put you in the right place at the right time in the past?
Why do we often fail to thank and praise the Lord for the gifts of kindness that He has given us? Share what you are most thankful for right now.
How do you see yourself struggling with unkindness and entitlement? How can you fight against these trends in your life?
What rewards does the Lord give to His faithful and obedient servants?
Breakout
Pray for one another.