10/26/25 Pastor Harlow, Ruth 2: 1-13

" But Boaz answered her, "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the day death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land, and came to a people that you did not know that you did not know before, excuse me. The Lord repay you for what you have done. And a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." Then she said,"I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants." Let's pray. So Lord, we do thank you for this time that we get to have together. We thank you for your word. Speak to us through it, Father. And pray that you would help me to rightly divide the word of truth for this congregation here. Give us spiritual understanding and help us to rightly apply your word. Father, right now our thoughts and our prayers are just centered on Denny. We just pray for our sister in Christ. We pray that you would please let treatment go well and that you would give her time with her family according to your will. Lord, if it be your will, we pray for healing. We pray that you would extend mercy to her according to your grace, God. It's so abundant. Father, we pray that you would be with Vern as he walks with his wife through this season. Help them to fix their eyes on you and to glorify you through this. Lord, we pray that you would minister to our flock. Help us, Lord, to unite under your word, to look for you

At work in our in our church. Thank you for how you're moving. We just ask that you would continue to work within us and through us, Lord. Father, just selfishly also want to pray for our nation. Pray that the Senate would be able to vote and get those SNAP benefits out there because we got a lot of folks that's going to hurt in our community. Just give our leaders wisdom. Help them make good choices because that just benefits us all. We love you in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Our passage begins by introducing a new character. His name is Boaz. He's introduced to us as a worthy man or quite literally a man of standing. This is a man who is physically strong, morally strong, a man of character, a man with a backbone. He is wealthy. He is honorable. He comes from most importantly the clan of IMC. You might remember IMC was Naomi's husband in chapter 1. His name meant God is my king. And he lived as though God was not his king. He left the promised land to go to Moab. And that's where he took his family and he still died taking his own destiny into his own hands. But while Immac's choices denied that confession, Boaz's life embodies that confession. Now, this is an important point because God has made it clear that all things belong to him. In Leviticus 25:23, it says, "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine." Whose land is Israel? It's God's. It's God's land. So the family name, the land is part of what we would call a covenantal inheritance. It's all gods and each house was entrusted with parts of the land. And if a family's name or property was at risk of being lost, then it's directly tied to that family almost losing God, part of God's covenantal promise. And so God, he created laws for redeemers

To come up that they might be able to continue that family line all the way through. They were called in Hebrew goels. And so what did goss do? Well, they redeemed people's property as we see here. Here's what it says in the rest of Leviticus here. It says, "If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest Redeemer goel shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it and then return to his property. But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer till the year of Jubilee and the Jubilee shall be released and he shall return to his property. So you have family owning the land directly tied to God's covenant promise. That land was supposed to be sold to others within the family so that it didn't get shifted around and all sorts of confusing. If it did, then a Redeemer would purchase that land back legally. He had the right. He had the duty, the obligation in order to do this. In Ruth's case, IMC's land had been lost by the family during his time in Moab. Boaz as a close relative, he had the right and the duty to buy it back and to redeem the land. They also were called to redeem relatives from slavery. Okay? If a stranger or sojourer with you becomes rich and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourer with you or to a member of the stranger's clan. Let me clarify this. Slavery like this is not the same as the cattle slavery that our nation was familiar with. Everyone's like the Bible's pro-slavery. It's not the kind of slavery that we were talking about with our nation's history. Okay. It's yes man owning

Having rights but you know they consider you a slave a dulos a servant things like that. 48 then after he is sold he may be redeemed. Pretty pretty easy way out. One of his brothers may redeem him or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him or close relative from his clan may redeem him or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. So there you have the same principle being applied not to property but to people and they are also called these goels called to redeem childless widows. In Deuteronomy 25 it says if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go into her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And the man does not wish, and if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, "My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel. He will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me. And then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he persists, saying, I do not wish to take her, then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, put a and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. All right, the ancient laws, man, they're they're crazy. And she shall answer and say, "Show shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house, and the name of his house shall be called in Israel, the house of him who had his sandal pulled off." Okay. Malon was Ruth's husband, and he didn't have a surviving brother. The nearest male relative had the right. He had the

Duty to marry the widow and it moved down to the next eligible kinsman. Boaz being from Imc's clan was a blood relative, the one who could lawfully continue the family name and the inheritance. He was the only well he was the one that would be the goel. And so we meet Boaz who is introduced as the one who could redeem the whole situation. And the topic shifts back to reality because Ruth the Moabitete, this lady from a pagan inbred culture was starving with Naomi. Ruth, she asks her mother-in-law to let me go into the field and glean among the ears of grain. This is what Ruth is asking to do. To go out into the field and to just pick up bits piece by piece, wheat head by wheat head. Just go and pick up all the little remnants that are left behind so that she might be able to take it, thresh it, and get enough grain that she might be able to make a loaf of bread for her and for Naomi. That's what she's asking to do. And they would what they would do is during the harvest, you had these reapers that would go, they would collect. We know that's during the barley season, but they would take barley or wheat and they would take these sickles. They would cut the barley, bind them together into bundles like this. You guys have probably seen these. It's fall. That's kind of a decoration for us now. Kind of strange how the world changes. Bind them together into sheav. All right, this is what a sheave is. And all over the place there would be these little bits of barley at the poor. They would go, they would bake flour to make their bread. Now, this is the equivalent of today of maybe the poor going and collecting aluminum cans or glass bottles to take to a recycling center to get cash for food. It's respectable. They're not looking for handouts. They're looking for hand ups. But who on earth is going to let a foreign stranger

Who is a widow come into their field and do this? She doesn't know it what God is going to do, but she is trusting the Lord. And you see Ruth, she is a woman of sincere faith. She is trusting the God of Israel to meet her needs as she walks by faith. She may or may not. We don't know. But the law of God says this. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to the edge. In other words, you're leaving a boundary there. Neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You're supposed to leave them, right? You shall not strip your vineyard bare. Neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourer. I am the Lord your God. So, we see God's plan for compassion for the poor is not handouts. It's by the poor working with dignity. And Naomi, she responds to Ruth in two words here. Go, my daughter. Right? In English, it's three, but in Hebrew it's two. It's very brief. Why is it? Why? Why doesn't she explain any of this? Because she's still filled with bitterness. She's still angry at God. And Ruth, she went, she gleaned. We have this unique phrase in the Bible. We're going to camp here for a little bit that she happened to come. This is presented very tongue and cheek in the Hebrew because the author is not ascribing the story to a chance encounter but is rather highlighting God's providence. That literal translation of she happened to come is her chance chanced upon the field. It's like when Tolken writes about Bilbo finding the one ring in Gollum's cave, right? It's not a it's not one of my sermons unless I'm talking about the Lord of the Rings somewhere in there. But later on, Gandalf says there was something else at work beyond any design of the ring maker. In other words, like

It wasn't chance, right? And in the same way, the author of Ruth is not saying that there's actual chance. Ruth, coincidentally, with a big old wink, because we know how all this is going to work out, entered the field of Boaz, Ruth's Redeemer, the best possible match for this woman, through whom the line leads to Jesus Christ, our true and better Boaz, in whose fields we find grace. And then we meet Boaz. And the first words that we see from Boaz is a blessing on his workers, which tells us a lot about Boaz's character, doesn't it? I doubt that many of us have a boss that starts our day, that starts off the day with a blessing from the Lord. But we learn a lot about Boaz here. This man and his workers, they respond as well. If you want to know the worthiness of a man, don't look at the time that he spends in church. Don't look at his reputation among the people that he spends maybe an hour or two with. Look at his reputation among his co-workers and his family. What kind of man are you with people that know you best? That's where faithfulness is truly determined. And Boaz, he knows his workers and the small community there is in Bethlehem. And immediately he notices Ruth. Whose young woman is this? He asks. In other words, who does she belong to? And the foreman of the reapers, he speaks up and he fills Boaz in on everything that Ruth has done. Now Boaz, he would have known IMC. He would have known Naomi being from the same area, being from the same tribe or likely cousins or relatives of some sort, the same tribe and Boaz, he's roughly 10 years older at this point, of course, and he endured through the famine that was in Israel. And it's clear that the Lord, he keeps a remnant of faithful people even when the culture may be against the Lord. But let's look at Ruth

Because she's a hardworking, she's a humble, faithfilled woman and she's gleaning among the sheav which was typically forbidden. Typically it was because she could go out into the field, she could gather all the other stuff, but not among the sheav. Why is that? Because you know they're desperate people. Desperate people do desperate things like stealing the harvest. And yet she asks, "Can you give me this grace of just picking up around here?" That tells us a lot about Bo Ruth's character that she was trustworthy. She was trustworthy and she is hoping that God will continue to provide favor. Look at what it said. Then Boaz said to Ruth, "Now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping." and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what this what the young men have drawn. Here we're seeing a lot about protection. We see God proving himself through the ministry of his people. Often we pray for blessings for others by the hand of God. And yet you, brother and sister, are called to be the hands and feet of Christ. When you pray for your family member or for your church member or your neighbor or your stranger, God is calling you to figure out ways that you might be called to meet those things that you're praying for. Did you know that? Like when you pray for a lost friend, you pray for God to open their hearts, but simultaneously he is calling you to be faithful in sharing the Gospel with them. Amen. When you pray for a church member that's in a difficult place and they need encouragement, God is pro calling you to provide some of that encouragement by

Sending a text or sending a card or something like that by being a blessing to them. God, he uses his people as agents of his protection and his grace. Can you imagine what Ruth's reaction was when she first meets Boaz? She's used to a Moabitete culture which even from its origin was just morally bankrupt. Here's here's the origin story. Now Lot I had to do it this week. I can't do it next week. It's kids Sunday in here. So now Lot went up to out of Zor and lived in the hills with his two daughters. For he was afraid to live in Zoir. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father." And we all gave a collective "Oo.", so they made their father drink wine that night. Skipping ahead to verse 36. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father, the firstborn. Yeah, I heard that gasp over there. I know it's gross. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and father of the Ammonites. In Numbers, we learn that the Moabitete king Bailac hired Balum to curse Israel as the nation of Israel was coming out of Egypt. In the wilderness, the Moabitete women, they were seducing the men of Israel to commit idolatry. In Numbers 25, Moab was condemned by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel for arrogance and for idolatry and for cruelty. Moab was one of the nations that God used to oppress Israel in the book of Judges for 18 years. In fact, here's what God says in Deuteronomy 23. No Ammonite or Moabitete may enter the

Assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation. None of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever. Because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, because they hired against you Balam the son of Bor from Pthor of Mesopotamia to curse you. You shall not seek their peace. You see during this all this history the Moabites they worshiped this false God Kimosh. He was a God of war and a God of death. His name means destroyer or subduer. He was a violent God a pagan God. The priests of Kimosh would make human sacrifices as recorded in 2 kings chapter 3. When the king of Moab and the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. And then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. These are not good people. These are wicked, wicked people. They were sexually immoral. They had prostitutes in their own temples to Kimosh. They hosted drunken feasts. While Israel lived in Shadum, the people came to with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yolked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And so why was Ruth allowed to partake among the people of God in the city of the house of bread? Why was she allowed to become the great great grandmother of David? One of the people that would contribute to the line of Christ. Why? It's because none of us are born into God's family naturally. She turned away from her false gods, her sinful way of life and she trusted in the God of Israel alone that your God will be my God and she accept and she was accepted because God he loves turning curses into blessings just as he

Did with Balum. You remember his name that came up there? But the Lord your God would not listen to Balum. Instead, the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loved you. You see, here's what God's law says. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Or do you do you not be deceived? Neither the sexually immoral, that's you and me, nor idolattors, that's you and me, nor adulterers, that's you and me, nor men who practice homosexuality, not me, but you know, maybe some of you, nor thieves, that's you and me, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. But such were some of you. You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. Amen. >> The law brings curse, but the Gospel brings freedom and acceptance. Ephesians 2, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And so Ruth, she didn't just cross a border. She crossed from darkness to light, from kimosh to Christ. And so for you, it doesn't matter what your background is. It doesn't matter what your heritage or your past or even your present is. What matters is this. Will you turn from your sin and your Moab and will you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? That's what matters. Amen. And Ruth, she hears Boaz's words of acceptance and community and love and she's just it's just overwhelming. Think of all the terrible things that she's gone through.

She's lost her father-in-law, her husband, her brother-in-law, her sister-in-law has walked away from the family. Her mother-in-law is full of bitterness and resentment. They've traveled a long way to come to this place. They faced hunger. They faced thirst. She struggled with loneliness. And yet, Boaz makes sure that she has food, that she has water, that she has protection, that she has community. And it's so overwhelming to her heart that she falls down on her face and she bows down low because there's just such overwhelming grace. She's she's wondering, "Why are you being so nice to me? I'm a foreigner." So, she doesn't look at all this grace and think, "I deserve this." That grace, it humbles her and it leaves her in awe face down in the dirt. And here we see God's provision. Boaz tells her, "It's because of her faith. You left your father and your mother and your people to be with God's people, and you have come and you have taken refuge in the Lord." He says it this way, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. He's not saying that God has wings. It. He's communicating the idea that it's like a baby chick finding shelter under the wings of its mother. Right? In Psalm 91, he God will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. In this case, Boaz, he becomes those visible wings of God to Ruth. Ruth, she lowers herself down and she says,"I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants." And she calls herself a servant here, but there's different words and that communicate status in the Hebrew. And here Ruth, she uses the word cifa, which means a servant girl of the lowest status. She knows that this grace is totally

Undeserved. And that's true of everyone. You cannot gain greater favor with God because Jesus Christ is our righteousness. We don't earn grace. We receive it as a gift from God because our righteousness is of no good. It's of no use. And this is like a beggar that has been starving on the streets being invited to come in and dine and live with the king. It's just grace upon grace upon grace. And for you and I, these these three points of God's providence and his protection and his provision, they all converge at the cross of Christ. God, he ordained his son to be crucified according to the definite plan and fornowledge of God. The worst day in all of human history was the centerpiece of God's eternal plan. But Christ was not abandoned at his death. He was vindicated through his resurrection. For you will not abandon my soul to shield or let your holy one see corruption. And through that act, God, he provided the redemption that we could never earn. Abraham back on that mountain, he called it the Lord will provide. And the Lord ultimately provided the perfect sacrifice of his son at Calvary. Boaz, he redeemed a field and he gained a bride. In Christ, he redeemed the world and he gained his church. Which teaches us that God, he leads, he guards, and he supplies all of our needs until his purpose is complete in our lives. God. He leads you. He guards you. He supplies until his purpose is complete. And he didn't even spare his own son for you, but rather he gave them up for your soul. Won't he also give you all things that you need to finish the journey that he has planned for you? Amen. Chapter one, it ended in emptiness, but chapter two begins with abundance. It's

Amazing when we start to see and notice the hidden hand of God. See, for the Christian, we know that God has a good plan, and it's filled with his with his providence, with his protection, and with his provision. And we can trust that he has our best interest in mind. Head, heart, hand, head. God, he wants you to know that he directs the steps of his people. Those who take refuge in Christ the Redeemer can trust his providence, his protection, and his provision. If you're a child of his, you can trust him 100%. And if you don't know him, you can know him and you can have that gift of knowing him and experiencing his abundant grace heart. God wants you to believe that he works all things for good through Christ our Redeemer. Every single thing for his people because of his abundant love and his grace. And hand God, he wants you to trust him by walking faithfully and obediently even when you can't see his plan. He doesn't show us the whole path. We would be overwhelmed by the with fear if he showed us every single step along the way. Amen. But he shows us the next step for you. It might be taking that step of just trusting his provision, his protection, his providence. It might be it might be actually trusting in him today. And if you have questions about what it means to be a Christian, just come up, talk to me after service after we sing our response song. Say, "Cody, I just need to know. I need to need to talk to someone about that." You can know the Lord God today. And so God, we do thank you so much for this day that you've given to us. And I ask that you would give us comfort. Lord, you have provided all things for us through your son, Jesus Christ. All of our needs. You have promised to give us according to the riches

That are that are in Christ. And I just pray that we would know that and that we would believe that and that we would understand that you are working all things out for our good and for your glory. We thank you for the love that you have displayed to us at the cross. Thank you for the example of Ruth. Thank you for the example of Boaz. And I just pray that we would be found faithful. All the way to the end. Help us to walk step by step with you. We love you so much and we thank you for your mercy in Jesus precious name. Amen. Let's stand together and let's respond in worship. [Music] Oh Lord my God, when I in awome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great thou are. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great thou are. And when I think that God is son not sparing sent him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing. He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, how great thou are. How great thou are. And sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great the world. [Music]

How great the Lord. And Christ shall come with shout of acclamation and take me home. What joy shall fill my heart. Then I shall bow in humble adoration and their proclaim. My God, how great thou are. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great thou are. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great thou are. [Music] How great thou are. How great the world. >> And Lord, we do profess that you are great and you are wonderful and you are good. And we just thank you so much for the blood of your son Jesus Christ. We ask that you would go with us as we u leave here as your ambassadors. Help us, Lord, to look for opportunities to minister and to meet needs in our community. Lord, we know that you've called us to be rooted in you and reproducing disciples and renewing lives for your glory. And I just pray that would be the heart of every person that's here, Lord, to know you more, to help others know you. We ask that you would go with us now as we leave this place. We love you in Jesus name. Amen. Go in peace. Thank you. It was amazing. So, thank you