The sermon uses the story of Ruth to explore the art of encouragement, emphasizing that it's an essential skill for Christian women. Encouragement is defined as boosting confidence, urging action, and fostering growth. The speaker outlines three main points: encouraging oneself, fellow women, and men. Encouraging oneself involves talking to oneself with scripture and self-training, rather than relying on external influences like social media. Encouraging fellow women includes speaking faith and loyalty as Ruth did with Naomi and listening to advice from older, wiser women. Encouraging men involves affirming positive masculinity, choosing partners wisely, and extending respect and gratitude for their masculine efforts. Ruth's story is not just a love story but an example of godly behavior, showing how women can actively participate in God's kingdom work, regardless of marital status.

Well, today I want to walk through the story of Ruth, which as everyone knows is an inspirational story about how sometimes you have to just manifest your girl boss energy and go take what you want. You know how it is guys, Sometimes you just have to go find a kinsman redeemer, uncover his feet, ask him to spread his wings over you, fill your shawl with 60 pounds of barley, and leave under cover of darkness at dawn. Am I right, ladies? We've all been there. Hashtag relatable.

I'm kidding, obviously. Obviously, that is not what we're supposed to take away as we look at the book of Ruth. I actually want to use the story of Ruth to talk today about the art of encouragement. This is an art that really I think every woman should learn. But if a single woman learns this skill, I think that it can really shape the course of the rest of your life.

So that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's pray and then we'll jump right in. Father we praise your name this morning. You are our Redeemer. You have been so good to us.

You have rescued us from the jaws of death and placed our feet on a rock and now we ask for your wisdom And I pray that you would show us new things today about what it means to be a Christian woman. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Alright, so let's start by defining our terms here a little bit. What do I mean by the word encourage?

Here are a few ways to think about this word. To boost confidence or cheer. So hearten, reassure, embolden, buoy up, galvanize, animate, lift spirits. To urge or stimulate action. Spur, prod, provoke, prompt, incite, urge on, to support or foster growth, cultivate, nurture, advocate, aid, advance.

So I love this word. This is such a full and well rounded word, encourage. Femininity in its best forms is capable of lending courage, encouraging other people. When Peter tells a wife to adorn herself with a gentle and quiet spirit in 1 Peter 3, he also adds, and do not fear anything that is frightening. A godly woman turns away from fear of loss, of pain, of unexpected outcomes, and chooses to obey but in a distinctly feminine way in defiance of fear.

To encourage means that we use the wide range of feminine strengths. Empathetic communication and relationship building, environmental and physical nurturing, imagination and multitasking, all of those things that we are so uniquely gifted in as women, and we bend all of those things towards the goal of communicating hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ and encouraging other people. So this is the art of encouragement. I'm going to break this down into three main points this morning. Number one, the art of encouraging yourself.

Number two, the art of encouraging fellow women. And number three, the art of encouraging men. And there will be little baby points under each of these three points. So, number one, the art of encouraging yourself. In order to do this for others, we must do this for ourselves first.

And the first way we do this is by talking to ourselves instead of listening to ourselves. We are to obey the call in 2 Corinthians 10 5 which says, We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. And sometimes, I know you all have experienced this, sometimes the arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God are yours, right? Sometimes it's just your own nonsense. Nonsense flowing from maybe sinful desire, nonsense flowing from hormones, nonsense flowing from some foothold that Satan might have in your life or just a difficult day.

Sometimes the nonsense is your nonsense and we're responsible to take every thought captive and submit it to Scripture. So this means learning that you don't always have to act how you feel. You must talk to yourself instead of just listening to yourself. We see the psalmist doing this in Psalm 42, 5 where he says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. You say things like this to yourself. Even in moments of overwhelm or loneliness or rejection or boredom or even sin, You are not the kind of woman who allows every idea to have access to your heart Or even who just waits for the truth to come and bowl you over You actively seek out what is true and good and beautiful. You pursue scripture writing it on the tablets of your heart and speaking it to yourself. You learn to beat down the door of God's door in prayer.

And I also need to say this because I know what the numbers like and I know what this life is like today. It probably means recapturing some of the time and attention that is flowing towards an app like Instagram. Instagram is not in charge of your spiritual growth. Instagram will probably take more than it gives to you. Instagram cannot feed you what your soul craves.

So part of this may be turning off the tap that's just freely flowing in your mind of something like Instagram and instead being in charge, taking charge of the food that you feed your mind and your heart. Learning to talk to yourself instead of just listening to yourself. Another way that you encourage yourself is by learning self training. So I'm going to assume because of this event and because of the fact that you all came to this singles conference, I'm assuming that 90 to 100 percent of you want to be married. Maybe, maybe less, but I'm assuming it's a pretty high number of you in here.

I think this is a good desire. I will tell you unequivocally now something I think married women should really feel free to say, I like my life better now that I'm married. I really do. I'm glad to be married. Marriage has helped to mature me.

It has given me the opportunity to be a wife and a mother, which was a job that I wanted. It has been truly helpful, a guard against sexual sin in my life which I needed. So I'm glad to be married. Marriage has been hard. I think most women have had moments where they wondered, Did I marry the right guy?

And you may too if the Lord intends marriage for you. But I want you to know that your desire for marriage is such a good desire and that you don't need to pretend it isn't there. Being satisfied in Christ is not the magic pre-wreck for God giving you a husband. That's just a weird thing that people tell singles sometimes. Bring your longings to God and bang on his door about a husband.

All you want to do, you are not breaking the single and satisfied rule if you do that. But do not waste this time that you have. I want you to hear this. Every bit of effort that you spend now growing in maturity, obeying God's word and serving his people, every skill that you develop now, bookkeeping, teaching, cleaning, organizing, studying, playing music, marketing, writing, cooking, Training young children, working out your body, learning to make healthy food. Nothing that you learn now in this season will be wasted.

Gather as many skills as you possibly can now and exercise them right now in serving your church family or your family family and use them all up. Do not wait for marriage to start caring about your quality as a woman. Choose your models well and choose them carefully from real life, from scripture stories like Ruth or the Proverbs 31 woman and learn right now how to manage your time, steward your own body with rest and work and play, learn now how to speak the truth and love. Learn now how to care for people's bodies and souls. The woman in problems 31 has an amazing variety of skills that are displayed.

Cleaning and cooking, directing, organizing her time, buying and selling real estate, making clothing and other household goods, serving the poor, counseling wisely, producing and selling things outside of her home. She does not eat the bread of idleness. And I don't know what all of your interests are, but I know many of you have skills that I've never even heard of probably, I don't even know about. And I'm here to say that every single one of those skills will be used in the growing of a family if the Lord puts you on that path. And I'm also here to say that every single one of those skills will be used in serving the people of God even if the Lord has you single.

Be a woman who is interested and you'll become a woman who is interesting. I will say many of my friends, I have several very dear friends in their mid-30s, didn't expect to be single for this long. They didn't think that this would be what this season looked like for them. And yet they have not wasted that time. They have been in ministry.

They have been learning and serving. They've been a huge blessing to those around them. Even in the sweat of longing to be married and praying to be married and waiting, If they had been sitting on their hands, they would now have a crop of no fruit for all those years. And instead they have a glorious abundance of fruit. They have many spiritual sons and daughters in the church.

So to return to Ruth, it is clear that Ruth in this story, I wish we could read the entire four chapters, but it's too long. So read it in one sitting if you haven't done that. But Ruth was not a victim of her own impulses. It's clear from this story. She was quiet in spirit, but she was not helpless.

And I think we also have a hint here that her character had been developed for years beforehand. We have this little word I've never noticed until the last few weeks that her mother-in-law says, may the Lord show you kindness as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. In other words, she was a good wife before her husband died. And even her mother-in-law saw that. So it's not like we meet her as she's trying to land a Boaz in the middle of this story and suddenly her virtues begin to show.

She has been developing virtue this whole time with great strength of mind. She left her own godless people to pursue life among those who knew God. And in following Naomi there was no immediate social or financial advantage. Right? Naomi says, I don't have any sons left.

So if you know, you're not you're not following Naomi, because she's got the hots for her son. There is no son. But Ruth chooses to make this move with Naomi, and she does it actively. And even when they show up and they have not a lot of resources, she comes up with a plan. So she uses sort of a creative, at least some thought, to say, what are we going to do right now?

Okay, I'm going to go clean in the field. And she's, she's not passive, and she's not pushy, but she's active. She always In the whole story, she behaves with dignity and grace and in defiance of fear, because there's a lot for her to be fearful and worried about throughout the story. She's clearly a woman who's learned to talk to herself and not just listen to herself, a woman who knows the art of self-encouragement. So that's big point number one.

Number two, the art of encouraging other women. Ruth also, she also demonstrates the lifelong value of being a woman who loves and cares well for other women. And she does this in a couple ways. The first way is that she encourages Naomi by speaking and demonstrating faith in the one true God when Naomi seems like she's wavering a little bit. So there's a moment where Naomi is sort of despairing a little bit.

She's telling her neighbors, I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? So Naomi is at least very discouraged in the story. Very natural, not particularly faithful maybe, but a very natural way that Naomi is thinking and speaking here. And yet in that very same season it is Ruth, the Moabitess, the pagan woman, and she's the one telling Naomi, I have faith in your God.

This God that you think has dealt harshly with you I am willing to follow his people to go join up with his people strangers to me because I trust in his goodness And she showed immense loyalty to Naomi. There's this beautiful, these lines that are still spoken at weddings that come out of Ruth's mouth. But the loyalty that she speaks here grows out of her faith in Naomi's God. And you can hear it in these lines in Ruth 1, 16 and 17. She says, Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you.

Where you go, I will go. And where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me be it ever so severely if even death separates you and me." So Ruth is speaking faith to Naomi as well as loyalty and She's demonstrating it as well by her faithful behavior to Naomi throughout this story so that's Encouraging by speaking and demonstrating faith.

She also encouraged Naomi by heeding her advice. So later in Ruth's story here, after she's gone and done the gleaning and heard kind words from Boaz and reported them back, and we'll talk about that more in a second, but she gets advice from Naomi in this story that is pretty unconventional, right? In Ruth 3, 1 to 5, Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? Is not Boaz our relative with those with whose young women you were? See he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.

Wash therefore and anoint yourself and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies, then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do." And she replied, all that you say, I will do. So this is an older woman advising Ruth to go and issue this very strange sort of invitation to an older man and instead of balking or I guess being proud or fearful, Ruth humbles herself and listens to this advice. Naomi seems to have some kind of an instinct here about what is going to happen and what would be a good move. And the story bears that out, but Ruth has to listen to the advice of an older woman in order to make this next move.

So I think my takeaway here is just One way that we encourage other women is very simple. Listen when they give good advice. Even seek their advice. It seems clear that Ruth was that kind of woman. And Boaz seemed to have noticed this humility and this relationship between Ruth and her mother-in-law because he speaks about it to Ruth earlier in the story.

He says, I've heard about you. It's been reported all over town how you came here with your mother-in-law. So her reputation had preceded her. Relationships like this, they don't take place just in a vacuum. Your reputation goes before you and the way that you relate with other women is a big part of your reputation.

It says something about what kind of woman you are. Other women are the kind who can really see and assess where you're actually at. So if you're the kind of girl who's always saying like I just don't get along with other women, you know I get along with guy friends, I would say take care and humble yourself because when you seek godly women as your companions and advisors, it may hurt because it may make you feel your own immaturity. That was certainly the experience that I had as a single. But spend time with them, even though it hurts.

And it's not as easy, maybe, as hanging out with being one of the guys. You will benefit so much more by doing that than continuing to hang out with people who are easy to be around, other immature women or young men. So listen, encourage other women by listening to their good advice. A third way that you encourage other women is by opening your own mouth in wisdom. So to return to the Proverbs 31 woman, you will be known by the kind of words that you offer to others, even right now.

Being single is so far from disqualifying you for speaking words of wisdom. Some of the best counselors that I know are single friends. Proverbs 31, 26 says, she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Are you known as a woman who's careful with her words, but also willing to take initiative and offer words where you see that they're needed. Are you ready to speak the truth?

Are you ready to point out good things that you see in other women? Do your words direct other women to to put their trust in God? Are you willing even to gently rebuke another woman or to resist joining in with them and foolish talk? You don't have to be talking all the time. You don't have to be going around telling everybody your truth all the time.

It is okay to sometimes just be quiet, but when you do open your mouth let your words bring courage and clarity to the other girls and women that you're with. So that's big point number two, the art of encouraging other women. Big point number three, the art of encouraging men. So, if you have been claimed by Christ, You now have a new and perfect brother. You have one perfect brother.

And then you have a lot of other brothers who are not perfect. All of the men that you know are men in process. Your father, your brothers, your friends, your pastors, and if this person exists, your future husband. As men, they've been called to specifically masculine forms of initiative, protection, construction. And when all systems are working well, men are born craving a challenge.

And they see hard work and skill as a path to respect, which is something they desperately crave, respect. But of course, not all men are good men. Right? The good masculine desires to pursue initiative, protection and construction can go south. Initiative can can turn to lascivious grasping.

Strength can be used for brutality instead of protection. Construction can get flipped to a permanent off position, leaving passivity, foolishness, and lazy self-indulgence. Not all men are good men. The fact that so many men fail to live up to their masculine potential makes me even more grateful, especially as I get older, for godly masculinity. I'm so grateful for it where I see it.

I'm so encouraged when I see it. And I'm also, every year, more aware of the power that women have to encourage and affirm the masculine. And here's how we do that. Here's a couple ways that we do that. We encourage men by affirming positive masculinity with our words.

A woman's unique ability to call out the masculine overlaps with this command in Philippians 4.8 And this command applies to all believers, not just women. It says, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. So this means that we are supposed to be connoisseurs. We're bright and optimistic and we are looking for good things to think about in God's world, in his creation, but also in other people that we know. And we train our minds this way.

The more that we notice and speak about the good things that we see in other people, the more we'll see. It's like that thing where you don't know the name of a wildflower. If you all ever had this happen, you don't know the name of a flower, but someone teaches you the name of a flower, and then all of a sudden, everywhere that you go, you see that same flower everywhere. And I think that's exactly the way it is when you begin training yourself to be a detective looking for good things in other people and to notice and commend these things. A boy leading his sister across the street, a man holding open the door for you, your pastor preaching an excellent sermon.

By thinking about these things you train your eyes to spot more of the excellent and other people but beyond just spotting the things we also have very good reason to speak of them. Colossians 3 5 says let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. And it's talking about kind of evangelism in that verse. But I would say if we're to speak graciously to an unbeliever who we're trying to win to the gospel, how much more then should we speak with salt and with seasoning to the to the Christians that we know, to the family of God, because we also have Galatians 6 10 saying, so then as we have opportunity let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are in the household of faith. So we're to do good in our words with the household of faith, speaking courage to others.

We should be the kind of women who see and praise all kinds of people, young and old, men and women, And this includes developing that special gift of the feminine to encourage the masculine. There are a lot of ways to be a warm sounding board to each man and process that we meet. And of course, this responsibility looks very different depending on the man, right? My responsibility to my husband is very different than the responsibility that I have to any other man. My responsibility to the men in my church who I actually know very different from that of my Uber driver.

So there's like a circle, kind of a circle of influence that you have and a circle of responsibility and you're not called to submit to every man that you meet. But you have a responsibility to your father that you don't have to others. You will have a responsibility to your husband that you don't have to others. So it's going to look very different. But we are to love every man that we meet on some level and to encourage them on their way and to direct their gaze to Christ whenever possible and also to the calling that they have as sons of Adam.

We know that love is patient and kind. It does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful.

And also it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. So we rejoice when we see a good man being a good man, or even just an OK man learning to be a good man. Love hopes all things, bears all bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. So there is so much wisdom I would say in the season that you're at if you have a father that's in your life it is such a good exercise for you to practice telling them, you know, this is what I think or this is what I would like to see, but whatever you decide, I'm good with that. If you're under his roof, you're under his, and believe me, learning to heed his advice and his input and any household rules that are in place with a goodwill.

This will help you so much as you learn later to submit to and lead alongside your husband. So, and also just learning to praise and thank your dad for things that he's been doing that you take for granted. He paid for your life for a while. There are all kinds of things I'm sure that he did poorly, but I'm sure that there are things that he did well. And this is going to be a choice that you have to think about those things now that you'll have again when you have a husband, when and if you have a husband.

You'll have to make that same decision every day to think about what he does well. So I even do this with my son who I'm technically I'm in authority over him but I speak to him with respect when I can. I try to leave small spaces for the kind of training wheels version of initiative that he's learning. I ask him to open a door for me or to pick up something that I could say is heavy. He'll be like, Mom, this isn't even that heavy.

Ask him to pray over a meal. These are not acts of submission to my son, any more than when you thank a man for opening the door for you, it's an act of submission to him. It's not. But these are acts of mimed respect to tease out and encourage my son's young and fragile sense of masculinity that he's developing. So you can do exactly the same thing with your brothers and with other men who are in your life.

Ask for help when appropriate and accept help. I was trying to bring boxes of books in yesterday, And I could have carried them both myself. I could have gone two times to go bring the books. But there were some random dudes walking around. And I thought, they're going the same way I'm going.

Ask them to carry this box of books. And what man have you ever met who is not happy to carry something? I don't know what it is. They love carrying stuff. Ask for advice or information that they are in a position to offer you.

Sure, you can Google it. You can ask Google anything. But they have some area of expertise, and men love to be asked for information that they possess. They love that stuff. So sometimes I'll ask my husband, what is a tariff again?

And I don't know what a tariff is. I could Google what is a tariff. But if he's able to tell me that, why not let him? So the feminine does not know any age and is not dependent on attractiveness of a certain kind to do its work. The most feminine woman I know is my grandmother on my dad's side.

Men just, she just encourages and invites masculine help wherever she goes. She's also one of the hardest workers in the world so she's not just laying there letting people do stuff for her but her sons, her grandsons, men at church, they just fall over themselves to do things for my grandmother. This is femininity. It's not flirtation, it's femininity. First Peter 3, 4, it's the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit and Regardless of the fruit it produces in the men around you in God's sight.

It's very precious Either way so pray for the men in your life praise the excellent in them Let the teaching of kindness rest on your tongue at all times and through your feminine efforts, you create the atmosphere that makes the masculine effort worthwhile in this world. Anywhere you find men, you find men who will be encouraged by a word of thanks and a polite smile. So Ruth offered encouragement to Boaz, mainly in the form of gratefully acknowledging and receiving his masculine help in this story. Right? She knew that there were bad men out there as well as good men, and she recognized a good man doing the masculine thing, preserving, protecting, providing.

She saw him doing that and she, because remember he told the young men to leave her alone. He had them drop extra food for her so she had the dignity of picking it up herself, but he was still kind of providing extra for her. And she actually bowed to the ground and thanked him in the story. She's, and I think that was an indication of her need. Her need was very great and so her gratitude was very great.

But she still had dignity in thanking him. So we can be humble enough to see masculine help, to welcome it where it's appropriate, and to be grateful for it. It's an invitation to the masculine, not a seduction of the masculine, but an invitation. There is a certain element here of godly, maidenly invitation in Ruth's story, so we've got to address this because it's such a crazy scene, Such a bizarro scene. The climax of the story is the scene on the threshing floor that many of us kind of scratch our heads because because just the whole environment here is so foreign to us.

But in Ruth three, six to 13. She went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of a heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight, the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman laid his feet.

He said, who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer. And he said, May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first and that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich.

And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask for. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. And now it is true that I am a Redeemer, yet there is a Redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good, let him do it.

But if he is not willing to redeem you, then as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until morning." This is a bold move here. It's hard to imagine what this felt like. But it is not a seduction. That is not what's happening.

Ruth could have echoed the faithless behavior of her ancestors, Lot's daughters, who got their father drunk in order to continue their line. That is the origin story of the Moabites, her people. So Ruth is a Moabitess. But here she's walking by faith and with restraint. She does not go in and seduce Boaz.

She issues an invitation that says I am available for pursuit here and it's an unconventional invitation But she does not force his hand and neither does he. He does not take advantage either. He's a godly man and he's moved to action, godly action by her invitation but nothing further. So obviously you're not issuing an invitation to every man that says I'm available for pursuit. In fact don't do that.

But you are issuing an invitation to every man that says, I appreciate masculine energy being spent in a godly way to bring order out of chaos and to protect the innocent. I invite you as a man to be that way. I am glad and grateful to God every time I see a man behaving that way. But at the same time, I am not up for anything. I have my own space.

I have my own dignity as a woman emotionally, physically, and I have dignity in protecting that emotional and physical space as a single woman until it is time to begin giving up that emotional and physical space to a person who's going to enter it. So This is exactly how Ruth comported herself. Ryan Curry, I recently read an article, wrote, Boaz and Ruth's actions at the threshing floor are full of covenant love and faithfulness. Every action stands in stark contrast to the Moabite history. Boaz and Ruth trade promiscuity for restraint, in hospitality for generosity, and seductive idolatry for covenant faithfulness.

So all of this can be done in modesty and maiden dignity and proper care for the men that are in your life. Even as a single, you are in a position to pour fuel into the tanks of the people around you while also preserving your maiden dignity. So final sub-point here, Encourage men by being picky in the right way about who you marry and not picky in the wrong way. So I almost hesitated about using Ruth as as our sort of story for today because I it is kind of a kind of a love story It's a kind of success story even because she does end up married at the end of this story to a good man, a successful man. But I want to look at her life and see something behind that, behind just the idea of here's a worthy young woman, she's virtuous, God rewards her by giving her a husband.

I don't think that that is the main thing that we're seeing here. As Boaz points out, actually, in the piece that we just read, she could have gone after a younger man. I guess she was an attractive young woman. And she could have gone after someone else who was rich or poor, but younger. And so the implication here is Boaz is not young.

I don't know if he's middle-aged or I don't know if he's a widower, I don't know what his situation was. But he is not Mr. Darcy and Jim from the office all rolled into one. He's a faithful, steady man, clearly with character. Does seem like he's well off.

But he's not like Mr. Dreamy. And he's kind of acknowledging that in the story. You could have gone after someone else and this was a kindness that you that you invited me. So many, Many people I know have a very long list of qualifications for the person that they're going to marry.

Many young women that I know. And some of those qualifications, I'm just going to say it, some of them are silly. You know, we all know. Someone's got some things on our list that are kind of silly. Like he has to be taller than me.

He has to be older than me by this many years. He has to make me laugh every day of my life. He has to share my hobbies, every single hobby. There are a lot of things that we can put on that list. But I am a big proponent of the good guy at church, who's your steady, normal guy, not the flashiest person in the singles group.

It doesn't make your heart go flutter every time you look at him. Every time he looks at you from beneath hunky eyebrows. Maybe he has a little early onset balding. I don't know. I'm just saying I see this kind of person as the person that more girls in church should be stampeding.

And sometimes that's not the case. And I just think there is an element of making a decision about who to marry where you have to settle on some of the silly things. And it's not settling if you marry a good, steady man who is serious about the church and is serious about the family and maybe takes a little more time to get to that point of nervous energy between you. Older people in the church are really great advisors here because they look at someone, I think they just have a much better instinct for This is the quality you want in a man who you're going to bring a child to the hospital with. Like this is the kind of quality you want in a man who you're going to bury your parents with.

This is the kind of man that you want to be leading the theological tone of your home for years. Like they see, I think they can see a little further down the road and see this is looking good. You know, not every, I mean men that you marry are not patriarchs yet. Any more than you're a matriarch right now. So mostly they're potential patriarchs or they're patriarchs in process, but it takes them a long time to become patriarchs.

So some of you need to be more picky. I know some of you need to be less picky and some of you probably just picky in a different way. But this is something I see here for Ruth. She seems to have been led by her mother-in-law's advice to be open to this relationship with a middle-aged man who is a godly good man. All right, so to close, this is not this is not meant to just be this success story.

This is a wild story. And I think that it's about the ways that God works as he moves history exactly where he wants it to go. You know the punchline of this story, if you read it to the end, is that Ruth, the Moabitess, ends up being the great grandmother of King David. Right? So she ends up in the line that leads directly to Jesus.

And Ruth does boldly go to Boaz for protection in this story. She says spread your wings over your servant, your Redeemer. But what we're seeing in the entire story is that what she's really saying, she's actually going to God for protection. She has thrown in her lot with the one true God and she has boldly invited God's protection and provision. Please do the same.

Hide yourself but boldly under the shadow of the Lord's wings. Ruth was just a handmaiden among many handmaidens and so are you and so am I. We're handmaidens among many. We're not special. But God has called us by name and covered our shame in himself.

He has set our feet on a rock. He has covered us with his wings. He has sprung us from jail at the final hour and placed us in the family of God and he's done all those things already for you. So he invites you right now as a single woman to participate fully in the kingdom that he's building. You have so many good works for your hands to do.

So much joy available to you in the doing of those works and you only have one life to live. Getting married is not when the clock starts on your life. Right? The clock started when you took your first breath. Your life is started and you are now a soul that goes on forever.

So in a very real sense your life is not going to end, But your works here on earth are for a limited time. So don't waste that time. Don't waste this Tuesday afternoon. Don't waste this year waiting for your life to begin. Pursue Christ.

Pursue obedience. And training for the good works He's ordained for you to do and grow in the art of encouragement. Don't hesitate to offer courage to yourself and to those around you straight out of the Word of God. So let's close prayer. Father, I pray that we would be hand-ladens who are humble but not fearful.

I pray that you would strengthen us for the job that you've given us to do. I pray that the word of kindness would be on our tongues and that we would grow in the art of encouragement. You have given us all things in Christ. Make us to feel our fullness even in even in seasons of lack or feeling of lack. I pray all these things in Jesus name.

Amen.