The sermon 'Covenant Faith & Faithfulness' by Paul Carrington explores the story of Ruth chapter 3, focusing on themes of covenant faith and faithfulness. It describes Naomi's plan for Ruth to seek redemption and security through Boaz, highlighting the significance of rest as redemption. The sermon emphasizes the concept of a kinsman-redeemer and how Boaz embodies covenant faithfulness, drawing parallels to Christ's redemptive work. Carrington warns against reading the actions of Naomi and Ruth as prescriptive, instead seeing them as a demonstration of faith in God's promises. The narrative is a depiction of God's provision for the vulnerable and a reflection of the deeper spiritual redemption available through Christ. The sermon encourages believers to claim God's promises with boldness and faith, emphasizing that true rest and security come from trusting in God's covenant faithfulness.

Hear the word of the Lord. Ruth chapter 3. Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you? Now Boaz, whose young women you were with, is he not our relative? In fact, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.

Therefore, wash yourself and anoint yourself. Put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor. But do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking Then it shall be when he lies down that you shall notice the place where he lies and you shall go in uncover his feet and lie down and he will tell you what you should do and She said to her all that you say to me. I will do So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law instructed her. And after Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was cheerful, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain.

And she came softly, uncovered his feet, and lay down. Now it happened at midnight that the man was startled and turned himself, and there a woman was lying at his feet. And he said, who are you? So she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative.

Then he said, blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter, for you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, and that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. Now it is true that I am a close relative. However, there is a relative closer than I.

Stay the night, and in the morning, it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a close relative for you, good, let him do it. But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you as the Lord lives. Lie down until morning." So she lay at his feet until morning, and she arose before one could recognize another. Then he said, Do not let it be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. Also he said, Bring the shawl that is on you and hold it.

And when she held it, he measured six ifas of barley and laid it on her. Then she went into the city. When she came to her mother-in-law, she said, Is that you, my daughter? Then she told her all that the man had done for her, and she said, These six ifas of barley he gave me, for he said to me, do not go empty-handed to your mother-in-law then she said sit still my daughter until you know how the matter will turn out for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day let's pray oh lord we we come before you here this morning. Lord, these that have gathered are the sheep of your pastor.

They have come to be fed by you, O Lord, to hear your word, to be instructed and helped, encouraged and guided. Lord, we pray this morning that you would do that for all of us, O God. And for those that Do not know and do not name the name of Christ yet father We pray that you would use this time now to draw that you would do mighty acts as you are able Oh, holy spirit that you would come and Minister to one and all here now as we look at your word together Lord as we examine what you have said help us to see it as it is in truth your word oh God and be be helped by it in Christ's name we pray amen amen well you can be seated well this morning we we are in as you can see Ruth the third chapter and I just want to for those of us that are maybe new to the book of Ruth, we've been going through it in a series. This is now, I think, the fourth sermon that we've looked at the book of Ruth on. And when we go back to the first, the very beginnings of the book of Ruth, we realize that it was in a time, during the time of the judges.

And the final verse of the book of judges ends with those famous words that everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It was a time that was every man doing what he thought was right. He would serve God on his own terms. And as a result of man's rebellion during the time of the judges what happened here in the book of Ruth is that We find ourselves at the beginning Due to that rebellion in a time of famine when the people sinned God would bring famine and other types of plagues whether it was foreign armies or whatnot, to come and basically persecute the people that they might turn back to him. Well, Naomi and her family, Elimelech her husband, they had decided that they're gonna leave the house of bread.

That's what Bethlehem means. And they're going to move about 50 miles to a nation that was called Moab for a better life. And a decade passed between the time that they left the house of bread to the time that they came back to Bethlehem in chapter 1 and and death had swallowed up all the dreams that Naomi had had you know she had lost her husband she had lost her two sons and everything that she she valued it was now gone and it's a picture right that that Moab it never quite delivers does it It never quite gives you what it advertises in the brochure. It's a type of the world that the world gives you all sorts of promises but never ever comes through. And so the theme of chapter one was the theme of returning.

She came back home and we see this wonderful declaration even though she was totally broken. On the way home We get to witness and experience the salvation, the conversion of her daughter-in-law Ruth. And we read it earlier in the service, but she makes this beautiful declaration that your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God. These two women, they arrive back in Bethlehem totally empty, but there's a one bright spot, and it's the last verse of chapter one, where it says that it was the beginning of the barley harvest. And we got into chapter two, and before Ruth ventures out to begin providing for herself and for Naomi, we're introduced right from the very first verse to a man by the name of Boaz.

And he's introduced as a worthy man. He's really the hero of this Old Testament account here And the Lord orchestrates this meeting between Ruth and Boaz in one of Boaz's fields. And he had known all about her, of course. He inquired to his foreman, who is this woman, and when the foreman told him who it was we get a sense that he already knew that Ruth's reputation was spreading around the town in a positive way because he says of her that she had come under who to the Lord under whose wings you had come for refuge. He had known about her testimony.

And so through Boaz we're introduced to the concept of kinsman-redeemer. And if you remember the last time we spoke about chapter 2, there were really three requirements for a man to be qualified as a kinsman-redeemer. The first one was that he was a near relative. He had to be a near relative. The second one was that he had to be able.

Financially, he had to have the ability to sustain and to uphold and to take care of this woman that he was now going to take under his wing. And the third thing was that he would be willing. And that's really what all chapter 3 hinges about. It's all about willingness. And so several weeks have passed between chapters 2 and chapters 3 after years of famine you could imagine the scene and in this part of the world This this probably this jubilance the fact that after all this time now we're getting our first harvest.

The wheat and the barley had all been cut and gathered. And we're now at the final stage of the harvest, where at the threshing floor you see the separation of the chaff from the wheat. This is really kind of the final step before the food would be taken to the market payday, if you will, after a long season, that now they're going to be able to reap the rewards of all of their labor. And so Ruth is a beautiful book on the human or on the individual level. Ruth, the book itself, it causes us and it calls us to to cast all of our burdens upon the Lord, to take our our sins from the past and all of our hopes, even our fears of the future, and to place them upon the Lord.

Because of what Peter says, if you look in 1st Peter, it says, casting all our cares upon him. Why? For he cares for you. What a beautiful thing just to ponder that for a moment that God cares for us If you're stalked by depression or if you're overwhelmed by the waves, if God is your God, it's not over with you yet, is it? You know yesterday we were at the abortion clinic, a few of us, and I was speaking to Catholics ago as well to try and minister in their own way and you know they don't really bring any true gospel they don't have the gospel and I was talking to one of the men that was there and he was explaining to me how in his belief that at any moment you can fall from grace.

Yes, you could be justified, but at any moment you could fall and no longer do you have any of God's blessings in favor on your life. And I was asking him about that turmoil of soul where It's constantly in flux because you are going to sin. You are going to disappoint. You are going to fail. But to know that we have a God that is constant because of covenant is really where our confidence lies, not in ourselves and our own abilities.

And you could say, but the enemy's foot is on my neck. It's that bad, but it doesn't matter. The one who does not forsake his saints is with you still. This is the story of the book of Ruth that even when we can't see God's face, that God is there. But even on a on a grander level than just the human and individual scene, what we find is that this book is about something even more than the comforts we can get in this life.

It's really a book that's about redemption. It's about a covenant making and a covenant keeping God. It's how the Lord will not only preserve Israel during the darkest period, think about it, it's the time of the judges, the absolute worst time in Israel's history, but if that wasn't grand enough that he will preserve his people, he's also going to make a down payment on the pagan world of the Gentiles by saving a woman from Moab named Ruth. It's you and I that he's demonstrating his ability to save. And so through the coming one, this is what this book is all about, through the coming one, the great-great-great-grandson of Boaz, who then has a son named Obed, who then has a son named Jesse, who then has a son named David.

We can read in the ninth chapter of Isaiah, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father prince of peace of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end and so Ruth Ruth is about redemption It's not only about redemption from poverty and widowhood, is it? But it's about redemption from more than that. It's about redemption from sin, from death, and from hell. And so we come to chapter 3, and I think it's important. What do we have before us here?

Well, It's easy to focus all of our time on on qualification. This is by far the most controversial Chapter in the book of of Ruth and upfront. There's some very questionable advice That's been given to Ruth by Naomi and it's important for us to understand that these aren't instructions for us and I'm going to talk a little about that in a few minutes but you'll notice that the sermon title is not how to catch a man or how to find Mr. Right. Follow these steps and all will be well.

That's not what we're going to be talking about today and oftentimes what we do we come to this chapter and we look at it with a very kind of like a cocked eye it does kind of raise some eyebrows but oftentimes when we spend a lot of time and our energy in disputing what's actually taking place we can we risk kind of missing what God is, I think, trying to teach us. And what is that? I think there are two things that kind of come to the fore that we're going to be talking about this morning. The first one is covenant faith. Covenant faith on Ruth's part.

And I want to draw our attention as we go through this to what it actually looks like to lay hold on The promises of God that are embedded in his word That's the first thing almost like a this this violent Lord You said in your word and then you hold to that as a promise. That's really the first thing I want to say and we'll get into the second one as well which is the covenant faithfulness which is exhibited by Boaz. The sort of love that binds us and saves us. It's a picture of the covenant, the new covenant that is in the blood of our Savior. And when we trace the kindness of Boaz right through this chapter, we see a wonderful view of Christ, don't we?

It's a wonderful thing. The word that is used is the Hebrew word hesed, and it's a word that means covenant faithfulness. It's a word much much deeper than when we say the word love and we'll talk about that as well. And so this chapter with all of its controversy is really the hinge point of the entire book of Ruth and we're gonna look at it in three sections. We're going to look at it in verses one to five, which is Naomi's plan, verses six to 13, which is Ruth's proposal, and then finally Boaz's pledge in verses 14 to 18.

And so I want to start off in verse number one. It says, then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, my daughter, shall I not seek rest? That's really the word, not security. Shall I not seek rest for you that it may be well with you we're chapter 2 it focused on the the empty pantry chapter 3 is focused on something much deeper than that. She wants Ruth to be able to enjoy the care of a good husband.

She calls it rest and it's not just general, just get married. That's not what she's after, but something much more specific. Not just any man will do according to Naomi, But if Ruth can be redeemed by Boaz, then not only will Ruth be secure, but also Naomi will be secure as well as the name of Elimelech, Naomi's husband, as well as her son Malon. See, she's aiming at something much broader than let's just get married and get a white picket fence and all will be well. It's much more than that.

She wants children that will be able to carry on the family name. And so in verse 2, now Boaz, whose young women you are with, is he not our relative? In fact, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor." Well, this was very customary. You could imagine after a long season of planting and all the things that can happen, fire and all the other things, the dangers, that you've now come literally to the 99th percent of the harvest. This is the final day or days whereby you're gonna now hopefully reap all the rewards of a long season.

So it was very customary at those times that not just men, but the master of the land would sleep out and make sure that there was nothing that would come and interrupt or destroy, whether it was animals or whether it was thieves or something like that that would come and interrupt what he was hoping for the next day and and what would happen a Threshing floor was usually kind of on a hilltop on one of the hills in Israel And it would be on a hilltop for the reason that you could get good stiff breezes coming across in the evening that would be able to help you as you separate the wheat or the the grain the edible part of the seed from the chaff. Chaff is indigestible. You can't digest it as a human being and so it was a very important time and it was really high stakes and so you find Boaz out here making sure that this final part of the process goes on without a hitch. Well with no male caregiver you've got Ruth or Naomi trying to find out well What can I do to secure the future of my daughter-in-law?

She wants Ruth, and by extension herself, to experience this redemption. So right from the beginning you see redemption and rest really kind of tied together. There's no distinguishing between the two. Redemption equals rest. Rest equals redemption.

And you think about this for a moment that the greatest longing of the human soul isn't at rest. It's to find some sort of peace. You know, I was yesterday I was at Home Depot just going to pick up something and as I was leaving I saw on the floor just run over it looks like a few times an awake magazine from the Jehovah's Witnesses the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses and and the cover of it was will we ever feel safe and secure? They're trying to cater to the greatest need that they know men have. But even when you go and you look around in our world, the most prescribed drugs, even in our country today, you know, Vicodin is a drug, It's an opioid that promises feelings of euphoria and peace, at least for just a smidgen of time.

And people all across the country, rich and poor, are addicted to this. They're from one end of religious, trying to find religious rest in something less false as the Jehovah's Witnesses Span the spectrum to people that are addicted just looking for some Thing to take the edge off to give them a sense of peace and rest Man is desperate even in the most prosperous nation that has ever been on the face of the earth. Well so far we're okay. But then in verse 3 it seems like things kind of veer off the rails with Naomi's advice. She says therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself.

Put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor. But do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. You could ask yourself, well What in the world is happening here? Is this an attempt to get dressed to kill, to go down, and an attempt to seduce Boaz? Well, that's probably not it at all.

What would be more likely is that in the Eastern cultures, and even today if you go to some parts of the Middle East or even in Eastern Europe when a husband dies a woman will wear what they call mourning clothes. It might be black or something else and she'll wear that for anywhere from a year to sometimes four years. Sometimes a woman might decide to wear that for life. And I think what's happening here is she's directing Ruth to signify, to signal to Boaz that you're no longer in mourning after the death of your husband. And We can look at something like 2 Samuel 12, verse 20, when David and Bathsheba, do you remember their first son died after a prolonged illness?

And it says, so David arose from the ground after he died, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes, and he went into the house of the Lord and Worshipped I think it could be as simple as that show that you're no longer in a state of mourning now very much ill-advised Much ill-advised, but it's not an attempt to seduce by any means it's rather I'm leaving my widowhood behind and then you get to verses four and five and it says then it shall be when he lies down that you shall notice the place where he lies and you shall go in uncover his feet and lie down and he will tell you what you should do. And she said to her, all that you say to me I will do." And so Ruth is instructed to take this posture, this position of humility, almost as though saying, I am in your hands. This is the posture that she's approaching Boaz with. What if the text just means what it says? That there's no scandal?

This is exactly what happened, that we don't have to read into it all kinds of other things that our minds would like to run off with. Again, well-intentioned, terribly unwise, fraught with danger, fraught with danger not only for Ruth, but also for Boaz, the temptations and all of these things. But Boaz is a man who is a man of great character and strong character. So again, with all of this happening, I want to make very, very clear that this is descriptive. This is not prescriptive.

This is a description of what took place, not instruction and prescription on what we should do as saints, of course. And so we get to this idea of Ruth's proposal. And this is where both covenant faith as well as covenant faithfulness really shine through in verses 6 to 18. And so we get this idea. Here she is at his feet, or she gets these instructions to go and lay down at his feet.

And of course, we see that take place. And after, in verse 7, Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was cheerful. He went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain, and she came softly, uncovered his feet, and lay down. Now, it happened at midnight that the man was startled and turned himself, and there a woman was lying at his feet. Well, in chapter 2, we'll remember that we saw something beautiful that here was a woman who heard about the law of God specific to the law of gleaning and she took God's word His law and then she went out and she by believing in it went and gleaned in the field and she was able to feed Herself as well as her mother-in-law.

Well here we see somewhat the same thing where Ruth is casting herself Upon the goodness of God, but in this case It's not the law of gleaning but it's the law of what we call lever it marriage or marriage to the brother that the Old Testament makes provision for. It's no longer in effect, it's no longer in force today, but it does give you a sense of the goodness of God revealed in the law of God. And the idea was that again a near relative could redeem a destitute widow after her husband had died. I mean think about the goodness of God to care for the widow. No other culture in the world takes such provision and care as The word of God as our God does Well, it says in verse 7 that he had drunk.

It doesn't say that he was drunk There's no indication at all that Boaz was drunk. This is more so a spirit he's content. He's at rest. Again, at the end of a long season, he's now able to rest. It had been famine for years and now he's there looking at the fruit of all of his labor.

You men will know a sense of that after you finish a project or do something that's substantial, that you have a sense of accomplishment. I think that's kind of more what's happened because tomorrow his crops are going to be transported over to the market. But Then at verse 8, things take a very much unexpected turn. In the middle of the night, he reaches down and he feels and there's a woman lying at his feet. In verse 9, this is really the key verse, or one of the key verses.

And we're going to spend a little bit of time here. And he said, who are you? So she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative. Here is the picture of this woman going to Boaz and she's saying to him, please exercise your right as kinsman-redeemer.

Cover me. See that word close relative, That's what that word means in the Hebrew is is Redeemer and she's saying cover me be my rest This is what she's saying to Boaz and again look at this through the eyes of the new covenant Through Jesus Christ see she had already drawn a part of his mantle over her, but what's happening now is that she's asking him to do it himself, to take this act upon himself that it might become his own. That's really what's happening here. And so what we see is that Ruth is laying hold of the promises of God that are provided for in the law of God. Just like gleaning, same thing, the leverant marriage that she might be redeemed according to God's word.

It's the language of covenant. God uses the same language of spreading his wings over his people. If you look at Ezekiel chapter 16 and in other places. And what it's really saying to us is that we need to have faith in God. Trust in God.

You know one of the most beautiful prayers that a man or a woman can ever pray is, Father, you said in your word, I will never leave you or forsake you. I feel broken or I feel terrified but you claim and you latch on to the promises of God that are provided for you already In his word. This is something that's so beautiful Why would you go beyond the bounds of God's Word when so many promises are laid out for us there? And so what we need to do and take away from this is that she had looked at God's Word to discern God's will. And that's something that we should all be considering when we when we look to navigate this life well how can we know what to do and where to go oftentimes it's the Word of God that gives us the simple counsel that if we would obey then we would see the benefits of this She knows the kind of God that God is and she lays hold of His word accordingly.

It's a beautiful thing that takes place here. Now all she can do, remember, is she can just trust in God But what she's also probably believing is that the same God she's trusting is the same God that will move Upon Boaz's heart and so I don't want you to leave this verse here this morning without grasping The idea of covenant faith what covenant faith is and and just think about it how that covenant faith can impact your personal life in terms of your own prayers, the way that you pray, the way that you come before the Lord with the boldness because you're claiming the things he's already said. You know, Charles Spurgeon, he said this about prayer and about faith. He says, it is the habit of faith when she is praying to use please. Mere prayer-sayers who do not pray at all forget to argue with God but those who prevail bring forth their reasons and their strong arguments this is this is a picture of the violent or the This is the the ones that Jesus speaks about in Matthew the the desperate that take the kingdom of God by violence It's this idea of desperation that if God doesn't show up if God doesn't do something My destitution is assured and this is what Ruth understands the stakes are that high for her.

Sometimes we're so casual in the way that we approach God. If he shows up, wonderful, but if he doesn't, we've got plan B and C waiting for us because of the culture that we live in. It's so easy to be in such a mindset such as this. But covenant faith is based on the promise, on the premise that God has said. It's not based on dreams, it's not based on feelings, but it's based on what God has said in His Word.

And I don't know about you, but I I feel myself much in much need of being acquainted With the promises of God, you know when you when you think about the fact when you're when you're in the darkness of This life and it's if you have an experience that it's gonna come When you're kind of feeling your way along the wall, kind of groping in the dark, when you're incapable of tracing God's design through sickness or calamity or unemployment, you name it, anything can come upon us in this life. What's the only thing that can help us that's an anchor for our soul? It's the promises that God has made in His Word. And so we need to lay hold of these. The Psalms are absolutely full of promises.

The whole Old Testament from Eve, the very first promise made in Genesis 3, that the seed will crush the head of the serpent. All the way through the Old Testament, you get to Abraham, You get all the way down the line promise after promise after promise until we come To the new covenant which is a promise as well It's the gospel that you trust in is really a promise isn't it that the one? Who keeps his word will come through? That we have hope not because we can see it but because He has promised. That's the whole basis of our faith.

And so lay hold of this one single thought that with covenant faith, with understanding the promises of God as they were laid out for us, you can lay hold of God and have that peace that passes understanding. And in this case here, what she's laying hold of is that Boaz will be able to raise up seed for Alimilech's perished line and be able to carry on the name in Israel. It's not all that romantic, really, is it? But there's something deeper than romance, and that's covenant love that's something so much deeper here we got a widowed destitute foreign Moabitess a Gleaner proposing marriage to a wealthy older land-owning richly heritage man of Israel. Could you come up with a broader gap than that?

There's one, And that's the gap between you and the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of heaven, the one who comes in despite the vast chasm between who he is and who you are. He's willing to redeem. When we plead the promises of God stored up in his word, Lord you said, you said, you're going through difficulty but Lord you said I will never leave you or forsake you. There's so many of these promises that we can lay hold of and and be strengthened by rather than sinking under the weight of it. Well if we see covenant faith in Ruth, We see covenant faithfulness in Boaz and his response is really broken into into three parts in verse 10 we see a blessing in verse 11 we see a promise and then in verses 12 and 13 we see a plan These are all laid out for us right here.

And it says in verse 10, this blessing, then he says, blessed are you of the Lord my daughter, for you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, and that you did not go after young men, whether rich or poor. He knows exactly what she's doing. He knows that the consideration of her family, not herself, but her family line, is the thing that is highest on her priority list. She's seeking to be obedient to God and as a result of that he says blessed are you. He rejoices in the kind of woman that is before him right now And so this action that she's displaying now, she's laying at his feet, he says goes beyond her first action.

Do you remember her first action? Her former, what I said earlier, has said this covenant love and faithfulness that she put forward. You remember that she abandoned everything that was familiar. She left the land of Moab. She left the land of her father.

She left the land of her mother. The language that she was accustomed to. All of these things, the gods of Moab, she left those and she adopted or was adopted by the God of Israel. Yahweh became her God and it didn't just stop there that was radical But then in chapter 2 we we saw her just laboring quietly and steadily unnoticed so she thought in the fields This this desire for the welfare of Naomi was what was preeminent in her mind in chapter 2, but this, he says, far exceeds what you have done so far. Going so far as to pursue Boaz as a redeemer so that Malon's name, her former husband who died, would be able to be sustained.

This is unbelievable that a woman would do this. It would have been so easy for her to justify following her own heart. After all that I've done, now's my time to follow what I want. But she doesn't do this. She puts everyone else first rather than her own interests.

And I mentioned that word kindness. It's a word that's used a few times in the book of Ruth. Again, hesed or covenant love. It's so much deeper than when we say, I love you, or I love this, or so on. It's so hard in many ways for us to grasp what's being conveyed right here.

Because oftentimes love is all about romance. It's all about feeling. In our modern day, it's all about candlelight and sunsets. And I'm not saying that those things are unimportant, but when that's the meat and substance of love, that's why we get the culture that we have before us right now. There's nothing wrong with emotion, but if that's all there is, then we're in big, big trouble.

See, in our modern day, love is what Hollywood tells us it is, or what those Mennonite romances tell us that love is. But that's not it at all. You need to look very closely, look closely, look closely to many Christians even in the language that they use. It's oftentimes when they're speaking about God and love or you look at modern-day Christian music it's much heavier on the romance side and the emotion side than when you look back to the older hymns and and some of the things that we see in the book of Psalms there's almost a night and day difference because even in our modern day we're swimming in that water that Hollywood has put forward for us and we get so affected but this kind of love is not just a feeling but it's love that's rooted in something deep that takes action And so it's not so much about the thrill of romance. This is not the newlywed passion, but that calm commitment to travel through all of life's circumstances, irregardless.

It's like the vows you made on your wedding day, except in reality, not just in word. It's the kind of love that remains faithful to God and to God's people sometimes so easily to overlook that in an individualistic society you know This kind of love it looks to the church not as a provider of religious services. What can I get? This is a church that meets my needs It's not that kind of love, but it's a love that Sees the church as the Lord's body as his people. How can I serve?

How can I pour myself out for the advancing of God's kingdom in the lives of those that he's given to me? It's the kind of love that if you think about this picture of a mom who day after thankless day spoon feeds and wipes and bathes a disabled son or daughter. It's that kind of love that's being displayed here. And so Boaz commends and he blesses her for this outstanding act of covenant love. This is far greater than all that we've seen in chapter one and two.

It's the kind of love that causes the women in chapter four, we haven't got there yet but we'll get there next time, to burst out to Naomi that Ruth has been better to you than seven sons because of the kind of love that she's displayed. It's the kind of love, it's the kind of spirit that we see when Jesus gave that graphic illustration and the Sermon on the Mount. He says, therefore do not worry saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear?

For all these things the Gentiles seek, those that don't know God. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you." That's the kind of faith that is being displayed here. And so notice what happens when you put God first in action, not just in word. Well, He's never outdone, is He? We're going to see by the end of the book that the great benefactor of all of this is Ruth and Boaz because of the love.

But in verse 11, we see this promise. So we saw a blessing in his response and now a promise and it says and now my daughter do not fear I will do for you all that you request for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. Notice those words, my daughter, do not fear. There's a distance and a gap in age. He's much much older, but also I think he's letting her know, I'm not gonna take advantage, there's nothing in me that wants to take advantage of your desperation or this vulnerable moment at night on the threshing floor.

He builds in that barrier, my daughter, do not fear, rest. And then it says, all the people of my town. Another way of rendering that is, all the gates of my people. This is speaking about her reputation, her caliber. It had reached the ears of the elders.

The men who sit at the gate knew what kind of woman they had on their hands. This squashes any sense of immorality that a lot of people who just kind of glance at this chapter look at and say, oh this there's something going on here that the author is not telling us. This squashes all of that. He knows her to be a virtuous woman. And not only him, but everyone in the town, all the elders the reputation far exceeds everything else and this phrase by the way that he's using virtuous women it only appears two other times in the Old Testament This idea of a woman of worth or a woman of strength.

And one of the verses is in Proverbs chapter 12. In fact, both are in Proverbs. But it says that an excellent wife, the same phrase, excellent wife, is the crown of her husband. And of course, one of the well-known verses in Proverbs chapter 31, verses 10 to the end of the chapter, there's about 22 verses here where you get Lemuel's mother, this king, his mother is kind of giving him a list of things to look for in a wife. It's a description of a capable virtuous woman and it begins with the question who can find a virtuous woman?

For her worth is far above rubies. It's a beautiful thing and it goes on to say so many different things. And this can't be the fact that Boaz is saying this to her, can't be because of her social status. She's a Moabitess, she's a foreigner, she's widowed, she's poor, and she's childless. But it's because of the character that God had worked in her by spending time and sitting at his feet.

We don't know everything that happened, But here's a woman who had been changed by the Word of God and so it ends by the way chapter 31 verse 31 Ends with what Boaz actually says and let her own works praise her in the gates just like she's known to all the elders of the city and the gates. That's how Proverbs 31 actually ends. And so what's happening here is he pays her the highest compliment that is afforded to a woman in the entire Old Testament, this widow lying at his feet. Well, we come to the point here where there's a plan enacted in verse 12 and 13. Now, it is true that I am a close relative.

However, there is a relative closer than I. Stay this night, and in the morning it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a close relative for you good let him do it but if he does not want to perform the duty for you then I will perform the duty for you as the Lord lives lie down until morning This is a superior plan to the one that Naomi put forward in verses one to five. In these two verses compressed into these two verses you see the word redeemer five times. That word duty is actually the same word for redeemer. I will redeem you.

I will redeem you. That's basically what he's saying. And I just want to take a few moments just to think about what life is like outside and aside from the light of God's Word. Because sometimes we're so much put on on the defensive, you know, those that cleave to the Bible are oftentimes seen as backward or somehow unenlightened, to put it nicely, is the way that we're so often described. But you go throughout the whole world and you can see the goodness of God embedded in His Word in contrast to the darkness of a world that does not know God.

And you can think about life here on this fallen planet it's hard isn't it but it's especially cruel to women all through history you can look across even in our modern day absent Christianity the plight of women is is absolutely horrendous you could scour the earth go anywhere you know I was just picking different countries to look at and I looked at India as an example where they have this practice called Sati. I don't know if you've ever heard of this, it's no longer in place, But this was back in the days, hundreds and hundreds of years, where if a man died, they would take his body and put it on a raft and then light it on fire and push it out into the river to cremate his body. Well, okay, that's just a pagan ritual. Well, what makes it so evil is sati was the practice of the wife either voluntarily, but most often not voluntarily, being taken and put onto the wrath to die and be burned to death. And you know what that word sati means?

It means worthy wife or chaste wife. That's the height of what this pagan culture could come up with to define what a pager, what a chaste woman is. And you could say, well, hey, you know, that was outlined in 1829. Do you know how it was outlawed by the influence of men like William Carey, who brought the gospel to bear? And even today you go to some places, even in northern India, just as an example, you can say, well we've changed and so on.

Well do you know that in July that a report came out that in northern India during a three-month span that 216 babies were born in three months in about 132 villages. Well, that's wonderful, except not a single baby girl was born. Well, how is that? Because of either sex selective abortion or the baby's born, it's a girl, just leave her and let her die. Don't register the child at all.

You could go anywhere. By the way, China has a worse record than India. You could go anywhere though, not just these two countries, go down throughout history. You can go down and the famed Greek philosopher that everyone applauds and thinks is so great, Aristotle, he put women somewhere between a free man and a slave in terms of their value. They're just not all that valuable.

You could go and look at Islam, which has been a terrible, maybe even the most terrible scourge on women. It's still, the jury is still out as to whether or not the founder of Islam, Mohammed, had 10 or was it 11 wives. They can't quite figure it out. There's dispute and debate. By the way, the youngest wife that he took was six years old when they married.

Can you imagine? When John G. Paton, he first arrived on the New Hebrides, and you read his autobiography, it would bring tears to your eyes to think of how women were treated it is on it's almost unspeakable you get polygamy you get everything else going on in the world And you could say well thankfully today whoo we're so much more sophisticated Well I have a question for you is there a worldview more destructive to women than feminism something that degrades women more than feminism This attempt to somehow elevate women by actually destroying the reason and the cause that God has created them for, to sign women up for this life of servitude, to exchange a life of meaning and saying, you know, you know what? A superior life would be a life in a cubicle. Freeze your eggs until you're older, or if you do get pregnant, abort your child.

You are the one that must have meaning. You're autonomous. You are God is basically the mantra of the feminist movement. It cannot even tolerate the suggestion that men and women have different roles. Christianity says men and women are equal in substance.

We're the same. There's no value. There's neither, Paul talks about that, there's neither male nor female in terms of value. No other worldview upholds that at all. And So everywhere, this is the beautiful thing about the gospel, that God has made provision for this woman here.

He's built it into His law, and it tells you a lot about the God that we serve. You'll look in vain to find another religion or worldview that even comes close You really even you look at the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. What is it about? It's about a marriage Really at the end of the day that elevates a wife that's totally broken and destitute to make her a bride fit for the bridegroom Jesus Christ. This is the beauty of it.

You can look at the career of our Savior, the way that he treated women, and even on the last moments when he was hanging on the cross he looks to John and he tells John take care of my mother. This is the God that we serve. I just wanted to take that time to contrast what life is like without God and what life is like in the kingdom of God, especially to those that might even look at God's law in a negative light because sometimes we we forget really how dark it is out there in the world and so what happens well it's true Ruth she had come from a line that had been started by a drunken father and an immoral faithless daughter. That's true. And it's true also that these two nations have been at each other's necks for long periods of time.

You can remember even Jesus speaks about the doctrine of Balaam. Well that happened to be woven in with the Moabites tempting and destroying Israel. They were at war even in the time of the book of Judges. This was all happening but even so Boaz looks at this regenerated woman Ruth. She's no longer a Moabite is she?

At heart. She's a Jew, inwardly, as Paul the Apostle would say it. And this is really the third aspect of the Redeemer that I was talking about. The idea that he's in near relation, that he has the ability. And then we see, of course, here with Boaz, the willingness.

But there is a complication. And it says, however, there is a relative closer than I. There seems to be a wall, but it's not really a wall. What Boaz wants to do is also honor the law of God. You see Hebrew law dictated almost like a cascading order.

So if a man died, a near relation would be able to take that wife. And if not, then someone else and someone else in this order all the way down progressing from the closest to the furthest and so the question in Boaz's mind is well what is proper according to the word of God and he's leaning on the sovereignty of God right here It's as much as he'd like to wed her, as much as he's now willing, there's another that has the first right of refusal, so to speak. And what is his main concern? Not for his own happiness, but for her best interest. The main concern he has is that she would have a redeemer even if it's not him.

There's a selflessness also that is in Boaz and I love this phrase he says as the Lord lives it will happen. I am promising God helping me that I will bring this to pass. Here's a man who's committed to waiting on God, to not running ahead of God like Naomi was so willing to in the first few verses, but he will rest and wait. And so what do we see? Well we see this woman exercising covenant faith on the one side taking action, laying hold of what God has said and on the other side we see a man exercising covenant faithfulness.

This making the promise to care for her, that she will not be destitute anymore. This is what we're seeing right here and really the entire basis, the backbone of the Christian religion is really relying on this covenant faithfulness of our Redeemer. It's all hinging on the covenant faithfulness. It's not based on emotion. No.

Emotion can be good. I'm not saying it's bad, but that's not the foundation. It's not even rooted in the strength of your faith, is it? But it's in the strength of the covenant. The one who upholds, the one who enacts the covenant is the one that will see it through.

This is the beautiful thing. How contrary this is to the the Catholic man I was speaking to yesterday. No, you can lose it in any moment. You can fall from grace or his exact words at any time. What a way to live.

Well, in the final verses we see Boaz's pledge in verses 14 to 18, so she lay at his feet until morning and she arose before one could recognize another then he said do not let it be known that the woman came to the threshing floor and he also he said bring the shawl that is on you and hold it and when she held it he measured six ifas of barley and lay it on her then she went into the city he doesn't want her to go back in the dead of night that could be dangerous of course and maybe the the doors or the gates of the city would be locked there would be all sorts of questions and so on about this virtuous woman being out in the dead of night He's protecting her is what's happening right here. And you find her again in this state of submission at his feet, lying there like Mary when you go to the New Testament, always sitting at the feet of Jesus. And she receives this pledge of six scoops or six measures of barley. Some suggest that six is really very much symbolic, right? The number seven is the perfect number.

Six almost is pointing to there's something yet to come. Redemption is to be fully applied and we'll see that in the next chapter but it's it's really kind of pointing to that full redemption. And then in verses 16 to 18 when she came to her mother-in-law she said, is that you my daughter? She comes back home and she begins to tell Naomi everything that had happened and then finally we get to the last verse. Then she said, sit still my daughter until you know how the matter will turn out for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day." For the first time in this chapter, Naomi gives some sound counsel.

In contrast to her counsel at the beginning, she tells her daughter-in-law to sit still to rest. She's now come face to face through what Boaz has said with covenant faithfulness. This is what's happening here. Sit still my daughter. And it's really the same advice that's offered to us that our redemption will be accomplished for us, not by us.

That you can rest, Ruth, or you can rest, brother, so-and-so, or sister, so-and-so. Why? Because He will not rest. This is the beauty of it. Rest easy.

There's no need to to pace back and forth, to be biting your nails, to be wondering what will happen. No, trust in the providence of God. He has said it and he will accomplish it because the one who has promised is faithful. It's been made not just as promises but embedded and sealed. Think about that in a covenant.

But not just it's sealed in a covenant but a covenant that is in his blood how much more could you ask for to Understand the veracity and the weight and the strength of this of this covenant and so the new covenant There's many covenants in the Old Testament But the new covenant by which we are made partakers of is really the climax isn't it of all of God's saving work among his people and and when I was looking at this I I was looking at all of the promises or not all of them I can't find all of them but going through the the Bible and and you begin to look at the promises of God and in Isaiah he says he will bring forth justice for truth. In 1st Corinthians this mortal shall put on immortality. None shall stay his hand. What he purposes he will do. The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, surely as I have thought so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed so it shall stand.

Jesus says in John 5, my father has been working until now and I have been working. Being confident of this very thing, Philippians, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the very day of Jesus Christ. And then that my favorite one of all, it is finished. Those three words uttered on the cross as Jesus gave up the ghost. I would run out of time before I run out of promises.

There's so many in the Word of God, but that's the message here. Wait. Sit still. The King is coming. He will come.

It's hard to wait, isn't it? It's hard to wait. How are you at waiting? I know I'm not very good at waiting. It's probably the hardest thing to do.

And you might be in fear that the Lord has passed you by or some other fear racking your mind, but it's not so. He's in no danger of forgetting his children. The question is, are you waiting well as you wait for God? And that's what faith involves. It involves waiting and resting on Him.

And so I want to just wrap us up here with three concluding thoughts and send us into the rest of the day, but I want to take us back, if you will, to the threshing floor. Make a trip back there with me as I look at these three things. I want to ask you, you know, how does it stand with you? And what I mean by that is in our age of elevating romance over covenant faithfulness has has this filtered and impacted and influenced and maybe taken away the beauty of covenant faithfulness and you've exchanged it for a view of romantic love even in your relationship with God or your view of the church or your view of your husband or your view of your family the question that you ask is how am I being fulfilled if that's a question in your mind then maybe you've been slain by the spirit of our age in this regard. Is the D word divorce, even in your vocabulary?

Or is it, as you said on that day, till death do us part? That's covenant faithfulness. Most of all, it causes us to worship God when we understand the beauty of what's been promised, that I'm secure, that nothing can take me out of His hand. That causes me to want to worship him all the more. So I just want to say cast off the world's views of love, all these things that that come in and influences in that area and embrace what God has said.

It's less romantic but boy it's rooted and grounded in something so substantial. The other thing I want to say to us as believers is I want to say look at the disposition of Ruth. Here she is on the one side at Boaz's feet so there's humility but on the other side she's making a request. Take your maid servant. There's humble boldness, married together in one.

And this is what covenant faith is. It's appealing to God based on his word, Father, you have said. And I just wanna say, as you pray your prayers individually, even when we gather as a group To pray with such earnestness because we understand that the stakes are really that high see that million mile separation between the chaff of just prayer saying, to use the analogy of the threshing floor, and the wheat of those who are the violent that take the kingdom by force. It's a night and day million mile separation. And so Even when I'm looking at Ruth 3, I'm learning how to pray.

The final thing I would say is to the unbeliever Speaking of chaff and wheat at the threshing floor I want you to consider for a moment the seriousness when John the Baptist was describing Jesus Christ in the New Testament. He says it like this. He says, his winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Think about that for a moment. See what this new believer, Ruth, does. See what she does.

She rests her weight entirely on what God has said on God's Word. He has said is what she takes as her own and I want to just say to you today like can you not say Lord I've heard, people have told me, I've read what you said, that the one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out. Lord, I come to you and see if God will cast you out. See if you would come to a covenant keeping God. What kind of response and result that you will get if you appeal not to emotion but to the promises of God?

You see Ruth was willing to lose absolutely everything. She left Moab but even in this chapter we see her willing to forsake her future and marrying young men and enjoying the rest of her days to fulfill something so much deeper. Her life was dictated and dedicated to God and guess what she wins absolutely everything. This is the beauty of it And so I just want to say to you, come to Christ. Quit every other hope and false source of rest and trust in the living God.

He is worthy. He is able. Let's pray together. Oh, Father, we come to you. Lord, we thank you for your covenant faithfulness, Lord, and that you've given us the gift of faith just to believe, oh Lord, and we thank you that even when our faith fails, when we're weak and impoverished, oh Lord, that you still stand and uphold us like you did for Peter, oh Lord, like you did for millions of your saints down through the ages.

Thank you for this beautiful picture that we have here of redemption being accomplished. And in the next chapter, applied, oh Lord, we give you thanks for your great grace and your loving kindness towards your saints save mightily in our midst oh god in Jesus name we pray amen