Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Romans 8:28 says, and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
[00:00:13] If you know God, if you love God, he is working everything together for your good.
[00:00:19] Is there a greater comfort than that?
[00:00:23] Like when you hear that, you know it's true for you, that God is working everything together for your good, do you release your grip a little bit?
[00:00:31] Do you feel your blood pressure retreat?
[00:00:34] Because we know, we know that God is working everything together for our good. We believe the Bible says this, we know it, but do we believe it?
[00:00:51] Like when your child moves out of the house, do you believe God's going to work everything together for their good?
[00:01:00] When you read another headline that says, AI is coming for your job, when your spouse seems all of a sudden distant, kind of secretive, when the doctor calls and said, hey, that unlikely scenario, the worst case, I'm sorry to tell you, that's the one you got.
[00:01:20] How is God going to work that together for good, right? If life is spinning out of control, does it fall out of God's hands? Does it slip out of his grip? Or when life just looks bad, how can God even see good?
[00:01:38] Well, as we read in Proverbs before, the Bible does not promise an absence of trouble, doesn't promise an easy life, right? Jesus said, I've overcome this world. But he said, but in your time here, buckle up, it's going to be rough.
[00:01:55] He promised this life would be filled with trouble. The psalmist states a fact, and I'm starting really uplifting, just trying to encourage you. So the psalmist states a fact. In Psalm 34, he says, the righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.
[00:02:14] The first time I read this, I thought, man, my Bible's got a misprint.
[00:02:18] It should be, bad people face much trouble, righteous people should have an easy life.
[00:02:25] Isn't that what it should say?
[00:02:27] No. It says, righteous person faces many troubles. But more importantly, the Lord comes to the rescue each time. And the psalmist has the attitude of a well trained prize fighter. In Psalm 46, he says, God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So let the oceans roar, let them foam, let the mountains tremble as the water surge. Let it happen right? The nations are in chaos, their kingdoms crumble. But the Lord of heaven's armies is here among us. The God of Israel is our fortress.
[00:02:59] It is possible to rest in chaos.
[00:03:05] We can lie down in peace when the world around us rages in anxiety.
[00:03:11] There is a confidence that can conquer fear. Our tragedies and our sufferings can be worked together for good when our trust and our faith is in God.
[00:03:24] And there's a sweet story tucked away in a little book of the Bible that shows how God uses people and situations and even our trouble to work everything together for the good of those who love him. It's called the Book of Ruth.
[00:03:39] We're in a three week series on the Book of Ruth and we're going to see today how in our trouble that God provides for us, he protects us, he even proves his faithfulness in our trouble. And ultimately we'll see that a peaceful life is not void of trouble.
[00:03:55] It's actually filled with faith.
[00:03:59] Life is not just peaceful because there's no struggle, there's no challenge. Life is only peaceful when we have faith.
[00:04:06] The true God.
[00:04:07] So let's pray. God, may your word increase our faith in you today.
[00:04:13] And may we just be fully present in the reality of your death and your resurrection. May we be fully present in the power of who you are and what you've done through your son, Jesus and spirit. Would you just move here among us today? We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:31] Okay, so today we're in chapter two and three of the Book of Ruth. So to start, let's just catch up. Let's. We'll review where we are so far in the story. The whole story begins like this in the day, in the days when the Judges ruled in Israel. So we're in a time where Israel is ruled by Judges. Here's what we know about that time. The Book of Judges says in those days Israel had no king because they had judges.
[00:04:57] And all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
[00:05:03] I think we can relate to that, right?
[00:05:07] That's the world we live in. Hey you, do you whatever you want. You go after that fin for number one, do what's right in your eyes. Like that's, that's the world around us. So we can relate to that. But I want to help us see this story and like imagine ourselves in it.
[00:05:23] Because the story that the Book of Ruth tells, it happened. They were real people just like us. It was a long time ago, it was far away, but they were real people just like us. So I want to help us see ourselves in the story. I think we can so far living in a time where people just do whatever they want to do for themselves, whatever they think is right.
[00:05:44] So in the days when the Judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him.
[00:06:00] So the idea of a famine might be foreign to us, but we can relate to the idea of losing a job that was providing for our family.
[00:06:08] Like maybe there was some type of plant or industry in this area that supported a lot of families. And all the land was sold to make room for a data center.
[00:06:18] Everybody's out of jobs, so now you move to where the work is. Right? That's a scenario that's happening in our world today. So something like this could happen.
[00:06:28] So this man, his name was Elimelech, he moved his wife named Naomi and their two boys from Bethlehem to Moab. They just went around the north side of the sea there, beautiful new seaside home ship. Shortly after they planted roots, the dad, Elimelech, dies.
[00:06:49] So he left Naomi and their two boys.
[00:06:51] They stayed in Moab, and the two boys married girls from Moab.
[00:06:57] Then about 10 years after that, both sons die.
[00:07:02] So Naomi is left with the two daughters in law.
[00:07:05] Their names were Orpah, not Opah, Orpah, Ruth.
[00:07:10] And about this time, Naomi heard the famine in Bethlehem had ended. So she told the girls, hey, I'm going to go back home to Bethlehem. You are young and beautiful. You can find a new husband. Just stay here.
[00:07:25] Your time with me is over. I've lost everything and I'm just going to go back.
[00:07:29] So Orpah took her up on this. But Ruth stayed with Naomi and told her, don't ask me to leave you and turn back.
[00:07:36] Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and most importantly, your God will be my God.
[00:07:47] So this story is going to unfold and show us that because of faith is how God works things together for good, how he gives us a peaceful life. Because after 10 years of hunger and loss and death, Naomi had faith. She said, my God is still good.
[00:08:05] My life has been hard, but God is still good. And I'm going to go back home and I believe he will provide for me.
[00:08:13] And at a time when everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes, Ruth said, well, I'm going to stay with you because I have faith that your God is the true God. And I believe he will care for widows in their distress.
[00:08:24] So a peaceful life is not void of trouble, but it is filled with faith.
[00:08:31] Then chapter one ends like this. So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by her daughter in law, Ruth. They arrived late in Bethlehem in Late spring at the beginning of the barley harvest.
[00:08:43] So this story that begins with famine is now producing a harvest.
[00:08:49] Okay, so that's where we are. We're going to jump in now. Chapter two.
[00:08:54] Naomi and Ruth back in Bethlehem.
[00:08:58] And now there's a wealthy and influential man in Bethlehem named Boaz who was a relative of Naomi's husband, Elimelech.
[00:09:05] And one day, Ruth said to Naomi, let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who's kind enough to let me do it.
[00:09:14] Naomi replied, all right, my daughter, go ahead.
[00:09:17] So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters.
[00:09:20] And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father in law. Elimelech, you tracking this?
[00:09:30] So Naomi's husband, who had died, Elimelech, they move back home, and one of his relatives owns this field that Ruth works in.
[00:09:39] So this man, Boaz, he welcomes Ruth. He tells the workers to help her. He gives her a meal.
[00:09:44] And then Ruth went home, excited to tell Naomi about this.
[00:09:49] And Naomi said, where did you gather all this grain today? Where did you work?
[00:09:53] May the Lord bless the one who has helped you.
[00:09:56] So Ruth told her mother in law about the man in whose field she had worked. She said, the man I work with today is named Boaz. May the Lord bless him.
[00:10:06] And Naomi told her daughter in law, he is showing his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband.
[00:10:12] That man is one of our closest relatives, one of our family redeemers.
[00:10:17] So what that means is Boaz was a close family member who, Naomi said, we can trust him.
[00:10:24] You can trust him to help you. So Naomi said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to the threshing floor because they're harvesting grain. So once they got all the good stuff off the grain, it was very, very valuable.
[00:10:38] So where they did all this work, they would pile it up, and then the leader would sleep there to protect it. So Naomi told Ruth, I know he's there. So go talk to him.
[00:10:49] Tell him your story. Tell him who you are.
[00:10:52] So Ruth went, she told Boaz, here's who I am. Here's my family. Here's what the last 10 years have looked like. Here's our story. And when Boaz could have taken advantage of her in such a vulnerable state, he respected her. And he said, it's my duty to protect you and to help you, and I will do it.
[00:11:14] But he's an honest man. He has character. So he Said, there's a family member closer than I am, so his responsibility would be to help you. But here's how he replied. If he's willing to redeem you, very well, let him marry you. But if he is not willing, then surely, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you myself.
[00:11:38] So this story that began with famine now promises redemption.
[00:11:45] Boaz was a faithful guy who lived during a time that people were just doing what was right in their own eyes. Right? When the strong survived, when the bloodthirsty were victorious, when fighting for number one, fighting for yourself was normal. Boaz said, I'm going to be faithful to what God has called me to do. Because he knew that situations don't dictate life, but God does.
[00:12:10] Right? Ruth could have gone back to her home. She could have gone back to her people and their false God. But she said, no, your God is the true God.
[00:12:19] She was desperate and she was vulnerable. But she says, I trust God.
[00:12:25] So he rewarded her faith and showed her that situations don't dictate your life, but God does.
[00:12:32] And God gives us these stories so that you can see that for yourself, right? That you may have given in to temptation, you may have gone so deep into an addiction that you've lost years of your life. But that situation does not have to dictate your life because God does.
[00:12:53] Right you.
[00:12:54] There may have been a job or an opportunity that you wanted so bad, and the answer was no.
[00:13:04] That situation does not dictate your life because God does. You could have been in a relationship that was broken and you feel like, well, that destroys God's plan for my life.
[00:13:15] That situation does not have authority over your life because God does.
[00:13:21] The situation you find yourself in does not have to dictate the future.
[00:13:25] It doesn't have to be a repeat of your past, because situations don't dictate life, but God does. God can overcome your past.
[00:13:34] He can overcome your feelings. He can overcome the stress in your marriage. He can overcome the anxiety that you'll never find the right person to marry. He can overcome the challenge of raising kids in the world that we live in.
[00:13:47] Because the situation you're in does not dictate your life, but God does.
[00:13:56] Okay, we're getting close to noon. Is anybody hungry?
[00:14:01] Does this help?
[00:14:05] Now, that's some mighty fine bbq. But what is it missing?
[00:14:19] So those are good, what I hear.
[00:14:25] So we're getting close. You gotta. I'm looking more specific, right? There are ribs, there's chicken, there's pork, there's even lamb. But what's missing, Jason? Come on, bud.
[00:14:40] So it's missing brisket.
[00:14:44] Texas barbecue without brisket.
[00:14:47] I mean, we are in the Lord's house, and I don't think we should speak like that.
[00:14:52] So this is not from my favorite barbecue place, this local. This is from Space Cat Barbecue in Austin. And I read an interview with the owner, Jack Zizzo, because. Because he was talking about all the trouble his restaurant had endured. It just kept closing because of things out of his control. Most recently, it closed because of a fire.
[00:15:12] And in the interview, he said, if there is a higher power, if there is a higher power, it's literally telling me not to do this with my life.
[00:15:22] He said, if there's a higher power, it's just raining trouble on me.
[00:15:28] And I read that, and I thought, man, that is such the opposite of Ruth, right? Because all that she knew was loss and trouble and heartache.
[00:15:40] But she said, but I believe that God is the highest power and that he's good.
[00:15:47] So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters, and as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz.
[00:15:55] These, I think, are three of the most beautiful words in this whole story. And as it happened, there's no higher power raining down trouble. Discouraging, no. The one true God is causing everything to work together for the good of Ruth who loves him.
[00:16:14] So if you just skim the story, what appears as a coincidence just as it happened is evidence of God working everything together for the good of this woman who loves him.
[00:16:26] So let's. We're going to look a little closer at how this happens. So the story of Ruth, first, it shows us that God provides in trouble.
[00:16:34] God provides in trouble. When Ruth went to gather grains behind the harvesters, she was actually engaging in a process that God had set up hundreds of years earlier.
[00:16:47] If you go back to the start of the Old Testament, this was a practice God had set up as a law. He said, when you collect your grains, leave some on the ground, because that's how I want to provide for people in their trouble.
[00:17:01] Right? Today we're efficient, right? We've got machinery that pulls every grain off every stalk. But back then, God said, when you're harvesting by hand, leave some on the ground. So the workers allowed Ruth to take the grain because they knew this is how God provides for people in trouble.
[00:17:20] So this didn't just happen.
[00:17:22] It wasn't coincidence. It was part of God's plan from hundreds of years before to work everything together for the good of those who love him.
[00:17:33] So not coincidence. It was God's plan.
[00:17:36] So Boaz told his harvesters, he said, pull out some heads of barley from the bundles and drop them on purpose for her. Let her pick them up and don't give her a hard time.
[00:17:48] Sounds like he knew his workers. Don't mess with her, right? It shows that God provides, but it also shows that God protects in trouble.
[00:17:56] Boaz said, take it easy on her.
[00:17:59] She's obviously having a hard time.
[00:18:02] Let's not make it worse.
[00:18:04] This wasn't Naomi's first rodeo. She knew how things work. She told Ruth, you might be harassed in other fields, but you are safe with Boaz.
[00:18:14] She knew that Boaz, this faithful man of God, would protect Ruth in her trouble.
[00:18:20] And years ago, I had a really wealthy friend who he a friend of. He was humble, would never talk about it, but another friend told me, he said, you know, like 10 years ago, he met this young widow at his church and he could tell that her and her kids really needed some help.
[00:18:38] So he went to the pastor, gave him some money and said, would you give this to her? Don't. Just don't tell her who it was from. And then that grew into a really big ministry that cared for widows in their distress. He was like a modern day Boaz.
[00:18:53] So God provides in trouble, he protects in trouble. And finally we see that God proves His faithfulness even in trouble.
[00:19:02] Even when we go through what is painful and hard, God can prove his faithfulness, right. When Ruth, who had lost her husband, went to Naomi, who had lost her husband and her two sons, and told her about working in Boaz's field, Naomi said this talking about God. She said, God is showing his kindness to us after losing everything she had. She said, this is the faithful God being kind to us. When they had every reason to just hang their head in sadness, God gave them reason to lift their eyes and see his kindness. Because even in our trouble, God is faithful.
[00:19:42] So we come back around Romans 8:28. We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
[00:19:52] We believe this, we know it. But how can we truly trust it?
[00:20:00] Because you may say, man, the trouble in my life is measured by the ton. The pain keeps getting delivered by the truckload.
[00:20:08] My heart's broken, you may say, when I look at my child and see the tears in their eyes, how can that be worked for good?
[00:20:20] When you say, I am lonely, how can that be worked for good?
[00:20:28] It's because of what God has already Done the story he has already written that Jesus already came here and defeated death and made a way to an abundant life through faith in him. Because he already came into our trouble.
[00:20:46] He already entered this world, entered the pain of this world, so that in our trouble, he could provide for us, he could protect us, he could prove his faithfulness right in the middle of the pain of real life.
[00:21:01] So during his last days on earth here Jesus was with his close followers and he was telling them about the future.
[00:21:08] You know, he told him. He said this. This is going to be rough while you're still here. But he said, in the future, all your sorrow will be turned to joy.
[00:21:18] He kind of. He often spoke in metaphors and pictures. And he said, think about this view, this life on this earth. Kind of like the pains of childbirth.
[00:21:29] It is painful, but then when the baby comes, that pain turns to joy, that agony is made sweet because Mama brought a new life into this world.
[00:21:43] So Jesus paints this incredible picture. And then he says, I've told you all this so you may have peace in me here on earth. You're gonna have trials and sorrows, but take heart, because I have overcome the world.
[00:22:00] So when we put faith in Jesus, we trust in a Savior. We rest in a Savior who has already overcome the trouble of this world.
[00:22:09] So God gave us the story of Ruth so we could see ourselves in it, so we could see that God uses the people in our lives and the situations in our lives and even the trouble in our lives to work everything together for good.
[00:22:28] So if you know Jesus is your savior, every single thing you experience, the good, the bad, the hard, the painful, God promises, he says, I will use that for your good.
[00:22:41] If you don't know Jesus as your Savior, he has already overcome your trouble and says, it doesn't matter what you've done or haven't done. Come to me.
[00:22:51] You are welcome.
[00:22:54] In God's grace and his love, he invites you to him.
[00:23:02] So everything we walk through with faith in Jesus, God promises to use to work together for good. Because a peaceful life is not void of trouble, but it is filled with faith in Jesus.
[00:23:15] God, we thank you for your gift of grace, for your love, for your forgiveness, for the story of Ruth, that it shows us redemption when it seems like home heartache is imminent for the rest of our days.
[00:23:31] God, it promises peace when we trust in you, God, it's your character, an abundance when we knew famine and redemption, when maybe we felt hopeless.
[00:23:46] So thank you, God. Thank you for your kindness, for your grace, for your mercy. May we Know it. May we live in it.
[00:23:54] In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:23:57] So at the 9:30 service after the sermon, we saw the picture of what happens when we put our faith in Jesus. There's not this Easter, but last Easter, like 14 months ago or whatever that was, there was this sweet family who came.
[00:24:16] I met them for the first time and I thought, man, there's just. There's something special about this young, sweet family.
[00:24:24] And then we got to know them.
[00:24:27] And then over the last year, I mean, we have seen radical transformation in this family.
[00:24:35] Like wild death to life.
[00:24:40] And so what happened? They're a young couple. And so the husband, I got to know him. I was like, hey, one of our elders, Mark, I think you two would be buddies. So I just said, you need to spend some time together. That's code for you're going to be discipled by an elder of our church.
[00:24:56] So what happened at 9:30 is one of our elders baptized this young man.
[00:25:05] Then he got out of the water and dried off, and he then baptized his wife.
[00:25:10] And this wave of allergies came through the room and everybody's.
[00:25:17] But when. When they talked about getting baptized, they said, is it okay if we do it like that? And I said, no, that's not okay. That's what we're supposed to do.
[00:25:28] That's the whole goal.
[00:25:31] And their life has not been easy.
[00:25:33] Like, I got to know them because life's hard.
[00:25:39] And I got to tell them, hey, man, a good, peaceful life is not one that's easy. It's one that's going to continue to trust Jesus to be faithful through it.
[00:25:48] And so what we saw this morning was the evidence of literally being buried in death with Christ.
[00:25:54] And then two people who were raised to walk in the newness of life with him. And he invites all of us into that.
[00:26:02] So, God, we thank you that you are the giver of life and even the very breath we have. So we stand now and thank you for it.
