Ruth 2

[0:00] Well, good morning again, church. We're looking at Ruth, chapter 2, this morning.

[0:11] Let me invite you to go ahead and turn there with me. As we've been saying, this time of year in the church calendar is traditionally called Advent.

[0:23] Advent, in addition to being a fun time to put plants that belong outside, inside our buildings, we also remember Jesus' first coming and look ahead to his second coming.

[0:37] That's what Advent's all about. The word Advent actually is just from the Latin word that means arrival or coming. And particularly the way that word sort of functions in Latin, so I'm told, is that it doesn't mean just any old thing coming or arriving, but something coming that is worthy and history shaping, even life changing.

[1:00] It's a coming pregnant with anticipation. In other words, kind of like the coming of a king. And the text we're looking at this Advent season is the Old Testament book of Ruth.

[1:13] Now, as we said last week, Ruth isn't traditionally thought of as an Advent sort of text. Some of you probably were wondering, what in the world are we doing preaching through Ruth at Christmastime?

[1:29] But actually, you know, it works quite nicely. You see, in this sort of overarching kind of narrative of the Old Testament, the book of Ruth functions sort of like a prequel to the story of King David, to Israel's greatest king.

[1:43] In other words, Ruth is sort of like the Hobbit is to the Lord of the Rings. It's kind of the shorter, much-loved prequel or prelude to the bigger epic of wars and kings and the triumph of good over evil.

[2:00] So that's why Ruth is a really great Advent book, after all. It's as we've titled this series, The Prelude to the King. Prelude to King David, yes. But you know, even more so, in the arc of the whole Bible, it serves as a prelude to King Jesus.

[2:18] So we're going to pick up this story, Ruth chapter 2. It's page 222 in the Pew Bible, if you want to turn there. Ruth chapter 2. And before I read this for us, let me pray.

[2:29] God, we're so grateful for your word. We're grateful for the ways in which you have given us not just letters and not just poems and not just collections of wisdom, but God, you have given us stories, narratives, historical accounts of the ways in which you've interacted with your people.

[2:52] Lord, and we know that you are the same yesterday, today, and forever. So when we read these narratives of your dealings with God's people in the past, we know we can look to you and know that you are faithful.

[3:05] You're the same God. So Lord, as we open up the book of Ruth again this morning, would you teach us more about yourself, about your great work of redemption through your son, and about your life-giving power among us by your spirit?

[3:21] Pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Ruth chapter 2. Now, Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

[3:38] And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers.

[3:50] And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and he said to the reapers, the Lord be with you.

[4:01] And they answered, the Lord bless you. And Boaz said to his young men who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, she's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

[4:14] She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. Then Boaz said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.

[4:33] Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

[4:54] But Boaz answered, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me. And how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.

[5:04] Therefore, the Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoke kindly to your servant.

[5:20] I'm not one of your servants. And at mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here and eat some of, uh, eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed her her roasted grain and she ate until she was satisfied and she had some leftover.

[5:35] When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her and also pull out some of the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening and she beat out what she had gleaned.

[5:49] And it was about an ephah of barley and she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied.

[6:00] And her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today? Where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz.

[6:13] And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness is not forsaken the living or the dead. Naomi also said to her, the man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.

[6:26] And Ruth the Moabite said, besides, he said to me, you shall keep close to my young men until I have finished all my harvest. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it's good, my daughter, that you go out with these young women lest in another field you be assaulted.

[6:40] So she cut close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law. Well, at the end of chapter one of the book of Ruth, Ruth has basically ventured everything on the Lord.

[7:04] You see, by committing to go with her mother-in-law, Naomi, back to Israel, by committing to take care of her no matter what, Ruth is pretty much leaving everything and entrusting herself to the God of Israel. Now, where you go, I will go, she swore to Naomi.

[7:17] Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried. Ruth is completely and utterly all in.

[7:31] As Paul Miller says in his little book, A Loving Life, she is loving without an exit strategy. She was venturing everything on the Lord, the God of Israel.

[7:43] If you were here last week, you'll remember that Ruth was from a little country called Moab, a neighboring nation to Israel. You probably caught it in our text this morning. A number of times, Ruth is called the Moabite.

[7:55] So in coming to Israel, you see, in coming to trust in Israel's God, Ruth was leaving her home, her nationality, her people, her culture, most likely leaving any good prospects of marriage and a family.

[8:10] She was leaving all that was comfortable and familiar, all that she had constructed and built her life around, and she was entrusting it wholly to this God.

[8:21] And the question, sort of lingering as chapter 2 opens, is, is she going to be okay?

[8:34] What's going to happen to her? And more directly, more particularly, is she simply going to remain empty? She's a young immigrant widow caring for her aged, widowed mother-in-law in a place where she knows no one.

[8:50] That's about as empty as you can be in the ancient Near East. Is she going to remain that way? And I think in a lot of ways, these are the questions that we ask, too.

[9:06] I think it goes something like this. If I follow God, if I leave my old life to go after him, to believe in him, to trust him, to do what his word says, if I make that step and venture my whole life on him, am I actually, at the end of the day, going to be okay?

[9:31] Or, having left everything, will I simply end up empty? Alone? Having given up everything, will I end up with nothing in return?

[9:48] Maybe you're here this morning and you've been wrestling with that for actually quite some time. You've been wrestling with all that you'll potentially need to leave behind if you become a Christian.

[9:59] Maybe you're compelled by the picture of God that Jesus Christ reveals to us. Maybe the fact that he would come and he would live and die for you is drawing your heart out to him.

[10:13] And yet, when you hear his call of discipleship, to leave everything and come follow me. To take up your cross and come follow me. Suddenly, everything that you realize you might potentially need to leave behind becomes for you the great sticking point.

[10:30] Maybe you are a Christian. And all that you potentially stand to lose by actually following what Jesus says as one of his followers is becoming very difficult.

[10:46] But here's where Ruth chapter 2 comes in. As we watch the chapter unfold, we see how God works in Ruth's life. Until by the end of the chapter, Ruth's emptiness has been met with what?

[11:03] With a surprising fullness. Even bereaved and bitter Naomi by the end of chapter 2 is beginning to hope again.

[11:15] The empty are made full. The hopeless are suddenly hopeful. The one who's ventured everything on God finds that the Lord doesn't leave her empty. How does God do it?

[11:30] Well, we see in this text that God meets Ruth and he meets us in at least three ways. First, he meets her through his law. Second, he meets her through his providence.

[11:44] And lastly, he meets her through a person. So let's just look at each one of those in turn. First, God meets Ruth in her emptiness through his law.

[11:56] Did you notice when we were reading this how many times the word glean comes up in this chapter? You think, man, these Hebrew narrators need to pull out a thesaurus from time to time.

[12:07] Come on, it's like 12 times in like 20 chapters. Well, you see the backdrop to this whole chapter, this whole scene, is this special provision in the law of Moses about gleaning, about harvesting.

[12:23] In places like Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 24, there are laws that allow for the socially and economically disadvantaged, the fatherless, the widows, the sojourners, to actually come and glean the edges of the fields and to gather what's been dropped or passed over by the reapers so that they can provide for themselves.

[12:44] In other words, landowners were commanded by God to leave parts of their fields for the use of the poor. And they were even commanded not to utterly strip bare everything from what they did harvest so that the needy could have something to gather there as well.

[13:01] And God tells his people to do this for two reasons. First, because all this is meant to be a picture of the kind of God he is.

[13:14] God's people were meant to display his generosity and his compassion and embody it even and especially in their economic practices and how they manage their fields.

[13:27] After all, there were very few sort of hobby farmers in ancient Israel, right? Like this was their livelihood. This was their base economic structure. And secondly, God tells them to do this as a reminder not just of who he is but as a reminder of who they are.

[13:47] Remember, God says in Deuteronomy 24 after giving them this command, remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, he says. Remember that you once had nothing and that you were once destitute and I rescued you.

[14:04] In other words, these laws about keeping some of your fields for the poor and the needy and disadvantaged were meant to be an overflow of God's grace, an overflowing sign of his redeeming love that they had received.

[14:16] God had rescued them from their emptiness and now they were to act towards others to make provision for them. So when Ruth in verse 2 says to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean, she's probably thinking about these kinds of provisions in Israel's law, in God's law.

[14:34] And what does that mean? Well, it means that God's word, God's law, had provided this framework, had provided this beautiful structure where Ruth's emptiness could be met.

[14:51] God had inscribed his very generosity and compassion into the very way his people dealt with their finances, with their fields. And in that God-centered structure or framework that's articulated in the law, Ruth, this empty immigrant widow, found a place of provision and protection.

[15:12] You know, sometimes we go back and we read the Old Testament law and we think this stuff is just completely and utterly bizarre. Right?

[15:25] But when you start to see how it's functioning in the context, you realize that it's a picture of God's mercy and compassion. Here is a space created by God's word, by his law, where one who had nothing could still find the means to flourish.

[15:42] Now, of course, for us today, living on this side of Jesus's death and resurrection, these particular Old Testament civil laws, in other words, these laws about Israel sort of ordered its kind of political and financial life together, they're not in effect in the same way, just like the ceremonial laws have been fulfilled through Jesus for us today.

[16:04] But the overarching point is still the same, that God's word to us today, his commands and instructions for how to order our lives together, more particularly, all those imperatives that we find in the New Testament gospels and epistles, friends, they're there for our good.

[16:24] They're there indeed for our flourishing. God still wants to display his character in the world through his people. God still wants the overflow of his redeeming grace to be exhibited in our lives.

[16:39] And how do we do that? How do we take part in that great privilege? We do it through patterning our lives in accordance with his word. After all, friends, God made us and he certainly knows how our lives work best, doesn't he?

[16:55] And moreover, this is actually one of the ways that God meets us to fill us. God's rules aren't there to kill all of our joy or to make our lives excruciatingly difficult.

[17:11] Just the opposite. My wife will often make fun of me for the fact that I took swing dance lessons in high school. I often make fun of myself for that fact.

[17:29] But I learned one thing taking swing dance lessons. You know, when you're learning a new dance step, at first it feels a bit awkward.

[17:40] It feels like something you're never going to get the hang of. And sometimes it feels so difficult and so complicated that you just want to give up. And of course, what's true of real dancers and not just amateur high schoolers trying to impress their girlfriend, what's true of real dancers is that learning the dance is not just difficult, but it's actually costly.

[18:05] It's time, it's energy, it's discipline. But friends, look at the end result. Look at a ballet dancer. How she can move with complete control and grace.

[18:19] look at a whole company of ballet dancers and see the beauty and the synchrony and the symmetry of their motion together.

[18:32] Yes, you have to change your diet, I'm sure, to be a good ballet dancer. You certainly have to change your posture, at least I would, as I hunch more and more. And you know, you'll probably get some bruises on your feet along the way.

[18:49] But the end result, on the far side of the awkwardness, the frustration, and the cost, the end result is the beauty and the deep satisfaction, the fullness of participating in that dance that God has choreographed for his glory and for our good.

[19:12] And what's more, when you become a Christian, or if you already are a Christian, God actually comes to live inside of us through his Holy Spirit. And he begins working in us this transformation, making us, making all of us together through the awkwardness and through the frustration and through the cost, making us into a thing of beauty.

[19:36] Paul says, keep in step with the Spirit. Speaking of this very thing, God's making us holy through his grace and through his word.

[19:52] So friends, God doesn't leave us empty. Like we see here in Ruth, he gives us his word, he gives us his law as the structure, as the framework of our flourishing. But next we see that it's not just God's law, but it's God's providence.

[20:09] In verses one through three, the narrator does this incredibly artful thing. Maybe you noticed it. In verse one, what does he do? He introduces a new character, Boaz.

[20:22] Ah, but Boaz hasn't entered the story just quite yet. The narrator is just making sure that we, the audience, know who he is ahead of time. In other words, he's building some dramatic irony, he's building some dramatic expectation.

[20:35] And then, with this figure of Boaz in our minds and all the anticipation of what part he might play in the story, in verse three, Ruth goes out into the fields and lo and behold, what happens?

[20:47] She happened to come to the part of the field belonging to, you guessed it, Boaz. Ruth happens in the field It's wonderfully understated.

[21:01] But at the same time, it's so clear, isn't it? That here we see God is at work. That through his providential hand, Ruth happens into just the right field at just the right time.

[21:21] And of course, notice here that Ruth is still making real choices. It's her initiative to go out into the fields.

[21:34] But friends, this is the wonder of it all. That in and through Ruth's own initiative, in and through her own agency, in and through her own responsibility, God sovereignly orchestrates his wise and good plan.

[21:46] Now, I don't know about you, friend, but I think we stand on the edge of a deep mystery here. How God's sovereignty and our human agency and responsibility are both fully and completely true is something that we can speak intelligently about.

[22:05] It's something that we can live faithfully and light of, but it's not something that our finite minds will ever fully grasp. Not in this life. And I'm wondering probably, maybe even not in the life to come.

[22:20] And yet, it's a sweet reality, isn't it? It's a reality that's actually here for our comfort. I've always loved the way the Heidelberg Catechism talks about God's providence.

[22:31] This is how it describes it. It says, God's providence is his almighty and ever-present power whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.

[23:07] Friends, make no doubt about it. In this fallen world, Christians will experience, as the old catechism says, drought and barren years, sickness and poverty.

[23:20] There are no guarantees for health or wealth in the gospel, but we are assured that even the barren years are not meaningless, that they are not the mere doings of a cold, faceless fate.

[23:40] They're not by chance. But actually, that they're wrapped up in the great story that God is weaving in our lives. Paul Miller, who wrote an excellent book on prayer, by the way, he puts it this way in his book in prayer.

[23:55] He says, if God is sovereign, then he's in control of all the details of my life. If he is loving, then he's going to be shaping the details of my life for my good. If he's all wise, then he's not going to do everything I want because I don't know what I need.

[24:12] And if he's patient, then he's going to take time to do all this. And when we put all these things together, he says, God's sovereignty, his love, his wisdom, his patience, we have a divine story.

[24:29] And if you immerse yourself in that story, friends, you begin to see that it's often a story, in fact, almost always a story, of great reversals. Blessed are those who mourn, Jesus said, for they shall be comforted.

[24:44] Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. I remember sitting with a friend not so long ago while he was reflecting on the cost of discipleship.

[25:03] He was in a particularly trying season. And as he looked out at the road before him, at the road of following Jesus and what that would mean, all he could humanly see was loneliness and unfulfilled longing.

[25:22] But friends, you know, the truth is that that would not be the only reality. Of that leg of the journey, for him or for us. God's providence, his care, his almighty and ever-present power would also be at work.

[25:42] And even the steps that may have led him through mourning or hunger or thirst or loneliness would be the very same steps that led him ultimately to glory and to joy.

[25:54] friends, Ruth has not just God's law but also God's providence meeting her in her emptiness, leading her to fullness and so do we.

[26:11] But finally, God meets her in a person. Amidst all the danger of being a single vulnerable woman in a time of political and social chaos, verse 22 alludes to the threat of living in the time of the judges as the narrator says in chapter 1.

[26:31] Amidst all that, Ruth finds a person who will actually extend her favor. Enter Boaz, the one described in verse 1 as a worthy man.

[26:47] Strong, wealthy, honorable, the word can mean all of the above. It's funny, when Beth and I were thinking of names for our sons, it struck us that Boaz is one of the few characters in the Bible about whom nothing bad is ever really said.

[27:10] You know, you sort of rifle through the list of names. Abraham, well, there was that whole thing with passing off Sarah. Jacob, well, okay, he had his issues.

[27:22] And you just keep going down the list. And then you meet Boaz. So there it was, if we were going to go with a biblical name, Boaz Lauer. We went in a different direction.

[27:37] Okay. But it's still a great name, isn't it? Go ahead. It's all yours. Take it. But you see, friends, in many ways, Boaz represents and he embodies here what Israel was all along supposed to be.

[27:55] God honoring, generous, strong, compassionate to the weak and lowly. This is all that God's people were meant to be and he's living it out.

[28:08] And as a result of Boaz showing favor to her and ordering his men to do the same, hey, by the way, when you're gleaning, don't just leave some on the ground but actually pull some out and leave it on the ground for her. That's what he says to his men.

[28:21] As a result of Boaz showing all that favor to her, Ruth ends up going home in one day with almost two weeks worth of grain for her and Naomi. That's what one ephah would have amounted to.

[28:34] That's a pretty good yield. One day, two weeks pay for two people. She goes home incredibly full, overflowing.

[28:46] You can see in verse 19 that Naomi is just shocked by the amount. Who put his eyes on you? Golly! And Boaz, in fact, allows Ruth to come back day after day for the rest of the harvest as the chapter ends.

[29:01] come back. Stay with my women. Drink from my well. Eat with my men. And take all you need. And friends, on the one hand, we see here how God works through his people, don't we?

[29:21] If Boaz is an example of a, is a representation of what the Old Testament church was supposed to be, he still functions that way for the New Testament church today. that we too ought to meet the sojourner, the widow, the fatherless, the weak, the empty, with compassion, with generosity, with friendship.

[29:46] Did you notice here that Boaz goes simply over and above what the law prescribes? He doesn't just allow Ruth to glean the edges of his field or follow the reapers.

[29:58] Take even more, Boaz says. He even shares his own meal with her and she can eat and drink until she's satisfied. And friends, just like in Ruth's day, there are those among us who are especially vulnerable today.

[30:13] and the church ought to be like a harbor. It ought to be like a safe field during the harvest where those people can come and be shown favor and be allowed to flourish.

[30:28] and like Boaz, that's going to mean perhaps making a financial investment. One wonders how many landowners in Bethlehem in the time of the judges actually followed the Mosaic law with respect to these gleaning laws.

[30:47] Did they actually bear the cost of leaving their field a little under harvested just for the sake of the sojourner or the widow? Were they willing to lose some of those profits just to care for the needy around them?

[31:00] Friends, that's the opportunity that's before us as a church. To leave some margin in our budgets. To maybe forgo some of our expenses so that we can be generous to those in need.

[31:18] To make some costly moves so that we can be the place where the empty or filled. But of course our time, right, is probably more precious than our money.

[31:34] And the emptiness that so many people around us face isn't necessarily financial, is it, but it's relational. There's a deep need for friendship.

[31:49] Friends, when I look out at the world, I think it's one of the greatest needs that I see. people hungering and longing for friendship.

[32:01] There's a deep need in our world for the costly work of knowing one another and being known. And as we find when Boaz approaches Ruth, what does she find?

[32:16] Ruth finds that he actually knows her, that he knows her story. He knows what she had given up to come to Bethlehem with Naomi. He actually knew her and he viewed her with favor.

[32:30] Again and again in this chapter, there's that motif, that theme of being seen with favor at almost every move in the narrative. It's mentioned. Ruth sets out and says, I hope I find someone in whose eyes I can find favor.

[32:44] And when she meets Boaz, she says, what have I done to find favor in your eyes? And at last, Naomi kind of gets the last word and says, someone must have seen you and shown you favor.

[32:57] Friends, what if someone knew that they could walk into a church and be seen with that kind of gracious favor? That they could be valued as a person made in the image of God regardless of their background.

[33:12] And that they could be accepted as someone for whom Christ died regardless of their personality quirks. that they could be seen as someone headed towards unimaginable glory when Christ returns.

[33:31] Not a place where sin is excused. No, but a place where we stick with one another through the hard work of change. church. In other words, a place where we love each other.

[33:47] A place where we take friendship building as a serious calling. After all, it would seem that that's something of what's forming here between Ruth and Boaz, isn't it?

[34:02] And how unlikely a friendship it is. She's a Moabite after all. the people of Israel and the people of Moab didn't necessarily like each other a whole lot.

[34:17] But isn't that how it is in the church? Don Carson puts it this way. I like this. He says, the church itself is not made up of natural friends.

[34:29] It's made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that short.

[34:42] I might add common marital status, common family sizes. Christians come together, he says, not because they form a natural collocation, but because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance.

[34:57] In the light of this common allegiance, in the light of the fact that they have all been loved by Jesus himself, they commit themselves to doing what he says, and he commands them to love one another. In this light, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus' sake.

[35:18] Why does Boaz love Ruth? Because they both know the same Lord, under whose wings you've come for refuge. So friends, on the one hand, we see in Boaz how God works through his people to meet us in our emptiness.

[35:38] And let me just say, if you're feeling empty this morning, are you a part of his church? Are you pushing into the fellowship? It's part of the means that God's given to meet you.

[35:51] But you know, on a much deeper level, Boaz, as a representative Israelite, as a truly worthy man, does he not prefigure the one who would come and truly be and do all that Israel was meant to be and do?

[36:12] You see, friends, Boaz, in obedience to God's law, was willing to sacrifice a little so that the needy and weak could be fed. But the one who would come after him, Jesus Christ, sacrificed everything in obedience to his father so that you and I could be satisfied eternally.

[36:35] The apostle Paul puts it this way, he says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

[36:50] And isn't that what Christmas is all about, after all? That he was willing to leave everything behind, he was willing to lose everything for us, so that now when we come to him, what we lose is nothing compared to what we'll gain.

[37:10] Friends, you see the blessings and the fullness of coming to know Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins, to at long last have a conscience utterly at peace, knowing that God is now reconciled to you.

[37:29] To have membership in God's own family, knowing that the almighty God loves us and cares for us as his own daughters and sons. It's increasing holiness by the presence of his spirit, sanctification, finding more and more of the very purpose for which we were created to reflect his beauty in the world.

[37:46] God's God's glory. It is the participation in God's own glory that one day we will be radiant, glorified when he comes to make all things new.

[38:04] All of this we have in Christ. On more than one occasion during his earthly ministry, Jesus fed hungry crowds of people from just a few loaves of bread.

[38:15] In the gospel of Mark, both times he tells about those events, says, and they all ate and were satisfied. And they all ate and were satisfied.

[38:30] Ruth meets Boaz and her emptiness is filled. Friends, it's the same way with everyone who meets the Lord Jesus Christ. He will fill your emptiness. You will eat and you will be satisfied.

[38:44] in just a second we're going to go to the table. We're going to go to the Lord's Supper. And friends, this is the place for believers to take that truth and press it down into your heart.

[38:57] That his broken body and his shed blood were for you. So that you could be filled. So when we come to the table, we get to come and we get to bask in the beauty of what he's done.

[39:11] So bask in the beauty of what he's done for you. And remember the cost of what he's done for you here. And do all that so that you can be renewed and so you can be filled again.

[39:24] And Jesus gave us this great act to do together as his church. And we do it together. God and we go out and we reflect it in the world.

[39:36] Let's pray. Lord Jesus, would you fill the hungry? Would you give hope to the hopeless? And Lord, as we come around your table, pray that those who are anxious to come after you would see that there is great gain in following you, our Savior.

[40:02] Jesus, we remember the words that you said that whoever has left father or mother, relatives, or houses, or lands, whoever has left all that for your sake and for the gospel, will receive a hundredfold in this life, and in the age to come eternal life.

[40:24] Lord, help us to embrace that truth and to follow you, we pray. Amen. Well, friends, we come to the Lord's Supper, as we said.

[40:40] I wonder if those who are helping to serve would come forward.