A reading this evening is taken from the Old Testament.
We're in the book of Ruth, Ruth chapter 4.
! We're going to read the whole of that chapter.
I think on the larger pew Bibles, it's page 224.
Someone pointed out to me some of the new Bibles we have.
It's not page 224, but I'm sure you'll be able to find it.
Well, hopefully.
Ruth chapter 4, reading from verse 1,
and we read to the end of the chapter at verse 22.
Let's hear and read together in God's Word.
Now, Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there.
And behold, the Redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by.
So Boaz said, Turn aside, friend. Sit down here.
And he turned aside and sat down.
And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said,
Sit down here. So they sat down.
Then he said to the Redeemer,
Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab,
is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative, Elimelech.
So I thought I would tell you of it and say,
Buy it in the presence of those sitting here
and in the presence of the elders of my people.
If you will redeem it, redeem it.
But if you will not, tell me that I may know.
For there is no one besides you to redeem it,
and I come after you.
And he said, I will redeem it.
Then Boaz said,
The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi,
you also acquire Ruth, the Moabite,
the widow of the dead,
in order to perpetuate the name of the dead
in his inheritance.
Then the Redeemer said,
I cannot redeem it for myself,
lest I impair my own inheritance.
Take my right of redemption yourself,
for I cannot redeem it.
Now this was the custom in former times in Israel
concerning redeeming and exchanging.
To confirm a transaction,
the one drew off his sandal
and gave it to the other.
And this was the manner of attesting in Israel.
So when the Redeemer said to Boaz,
Buy it for yourself,
he drew off his sandal.
Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people,
You are witnesses this day
that I have bought from the hand of Naomi
all that belong to Elimelech
and all that belong to Kilion and to Malon.
Also Ruth, the Moabite,
the widow of Malon,
I have bought to be my wife,
to perpetuate the name of the dead
in his inheritance,
that the name of the dead may not be cut off
from among his brothers
and from the gate of his native place.
You are witnesses this day.
Then all the people who were at the gate
and the elders said,
We are witnesses.
May the Lord make the woman
who is coming into your house,
like Rachel and Leah,
who together built up the house of Israel.
May you act worthily,
worthily in Ephrathah
and be renowned in Bethlehem.
And may your house be like the house of Perez,
whom Tamar bore to Judah
because of the offspring
that the Lord will give you
by this young woman.
So Boaz took Ruth
and she became his wife.
And he went into her
and the Lord gave her conception
and she bore a son.
Then the woman said to Naomi,
Blessed be the Lord,
who has not left you this day
without a redeemer.
And may his name be renowned in Israel.
He shall be to you a restorer of life
and a nourisher of your old age.
For your daughter-in-law,
who loves you,
who is more to you than seven sons,
has given birth to him.
Then Naomi took the child
and laid him on her lap
and became his nurse.
And the women of the neighborhood
gave him a name saying,
A son has been born to Naomi.
They named him Obed.
He was the father of Jesse,
the father of David.
Now these are the generations of Perez.
Perez fathered Hezron,
Hezron fathered Ram,
Ram fathered Aminadab,
Aminadab fathered Nashon,
Nashon fathered Salmon,
Salmon fathered Boaz,
Boaz fathered Obed,
Obed fathered Jesse,
and Jesse fathered David.
This is the word of God.
Well, I'm Chris,
and we are in the last of our short series
on the book of Ruth.
And you'll remember,
we have covered Naomi,
the story of Naomi,
where she left the land
that God had promised to his people
with her husband and her two sons.
And they traveled east,
away from Bethlehem.
And they traveled into the land of Moab.
And they were there for 10 years.
And in that time,
both Naomi's husband and her sons died.
And she was left destitute
in a strange land among a strange people.
And this becomes then the tension
for the book of Ruth.
It's called Ruth.
But really we're focused on Naomi.
What's going to happen to Naomi?
And you remember over the last few weeks,
despite her loving daughter-in-law,
Ruth,
coming back with her,
leaving everything that she knew,
her land,
her people,
her family,
her gods,
to come back with Naomi.
When Naomi arrived back in Bethlehem,
she said,
I'm bitter and I'm empty.
But as we went through the book,
we saw that by using Boaz
and by using Ruth,
God starts to fill up empty Naomi.
She first of all receives food.
There was a famine in Bethlehem.
That's why we had to leave.
And she now has grain.
She's got provision day to day.
And as we left chapter three,
we saw that she was moving towards
another kind of seed,
an offspring.
But tonight,
what we're going to see,
that while Naomi's emptiness
is being reversed,
God will continue to fulfill Naomi
through Ruth and Boaz.
But amazingly,
by blessing this poor widow
in Bethlehem,
God is working his plan
to redeem the whole world.
We're going to see how God cares
so deeply for his people
in spite of their lostness,
their loneliness,
their suffering,
their poverty.
No matter how rudderless
your life feels right now,
no matter how heavy the weight feels
that you've carried into church
with you tonight,
no matter how random
or inconsequential you feel
like your life is
compared to other people around you,
know that the God of Naomi,
the God of Boaz and Ruth,
is the God who takes every strand
of every story of his people
and he weaves them
all together for good.
Ruth feels like a book.
When you read it at first,
it feels like a book
about ordinary people
doing ordinary things.
So we've got a widow
who kind of travels home
looking for food and security.
We've got a young girl
who moves to a new town
and meets this older guy.
We've got love
and we've got marriage.
But when you slow down
and when we consider
that God's hand is at work
in every turn,
every moment,
every step of this journey,
we realize that Ruth
is actually the extraordinary story
of God at work in the ordinary.
So we've got three sections tonight
in our quite long chapter
that we're going to work through together.
All which might seem ordinary
at first glance,
but when we look at them carefully,
we see that they're all anything but.
So three parts
and the first part
is no ordinary land deal.
So the end of chapter three,
where we left off last week,
we were left on a bit of a cliffhanger.
Now Ruth had gone into the threshing floor
and she'd met with Boaz
and she had,
in a very unorthodox manner,
proposed to him.
And Boaz has said,
yes, I'll marry you.
I'll be your redeemer.
The Hebrew word goel.
I'll be your kinsman redeemer.
I'll be the one
who will look after you
and not just you,
but also your mother-in-law,
Naomi, as well.
But.
And these are the words
that no one ever wants to hear.
There's someone else.
There's a closer relative
and he has the legal right
to redeem Naomi's land
before I do.
It's not a romantic scene
in that sense,
but it's a custom of the time.
Leviticus 25 tells us
about this situation
there's a,
it speaks about a kinsman redeemer,
a goel in Hebrew.
And if an Israelite
becomes so destitute
that they have to sell their land
or they have to sell themselves
into slavery
to work off their debt,
it falls on a close relative
to,
they're obligated
to pay to redeem them
if they can.
So this is what's happening here.
And at the end of chapter three,
Naomi says to Ruth,
listen,
Boaz will do exactly
what he says he will do.
This is a guy
who gets things done.
He's going to do it
the same day,
in fact,
is what she said.
And so when we join chapter four,
the first verses of chapter four,
this is the same day
and Boaz has gone
to the city gate.
And the city gate
is the place
where everyone would pass by.
Everyone would be traveling
in and out this one gate.
And so it became the place
where meetings took place
and decisions
for the community
were made.
And Boaz is looking
for someone.
He's looking for this
closer relative.
And wouldn't you know it,
he just happens
to walk by.
In our Bibles,
it says that Boaz
calls him friend.
He says,
hey friend,
but that's not really
what he calls him
at all.
The Hebrew is
peloni almoni,
which I think sounds funny
in my Inverness accent,
which means something
like someone, someone.
Maybe we should read it
as so-and-so
or such-and-such.
In our house,
we used to read
the Enid Blyton book series,
The Far Away Tree.
And there's a character
in that called
Mr. What's-His-Name.
So in my mind,
Boaz is saying,
what's your name?
Come here,
sit down.
I need to talk to you
about something.
And he does.
And Boaz also calls
10 of the elders
of the city together.
And he makes them sit down.
He asks them to sit down,
giving us a glimpse,
I think,
of Boaz's stature
in the community.
People listen
when Boaz speaks.
And Boaz
is bringing these guys together.
But what's he really doing?
What's Boaz doing here?
So he's kind of,
he's called
a defendant
and then he's got himself
a panel of witnesses.
He's creating
a court case
for us to follow.
Leviticus tells us
that there was strict laws
about land ownership
because the land
ultimately belongs
to God.
And Boaz says
to what's his name,
you have got first right
to buy this.
The land's yours
if you want it.
But if you don't want it,
let me know
and I'll redeem it.
And of course,
the man jumps
at the chance
to have more land.
He says,
yes, absolutely.
I'll redeem the land.
That's fine.
No problem at all.
He thinks to himself,
I would imagine,
well,
I'll redeem the land.
I'll have to pay for that.
But when I redeem the land,
I'll get Naomi as well.
But once I've cared
for Naomi
and once Naomi dies,
the land's going
to become my inheritance.
The land's going
to benefit my family.
My sons are going
to get this land.
I don't know
if you've ever
bought a new build house.
Maybe sometimes
you go and look
at the show home
and they say,
and by the way,
we'll throw in
free flooring
or we'll give you
turf for your garden
too as a little bonus.
Well,
Boaz hits Mr.
What's His Name
not so much
with a bonus
but with a catch.
And he says,
if you buy the field,
you get Ruth as well.
Now,
this is a reference
to leverage marriage,
another provision
that God has built
in to Israelite society
to protect land
and to protect people.
In Deuteronomy chapter 25,
it says,
if a man dies
without any children,
his brother
is to marry his widow
and the firstborn child
will be raised
as if it is the son
of the man who's died.
And that's a way
of preserving the name,
preserving the land
through family lines.
When Mr.
What's His Name
hears about Ruth,
he loses his appetite
for the deal completely.
It's true that Ruth
was a Moabite.
She's an outsider.
And she's from a land
that are Israel's enemies.
And Boaz kind of
makes that clear.
He says,
Ruth the Moabite.
But it seems like
the man's more concerned
about paying for something
that he's not going
to fully benefit from.
Perhaps he thought that,
well,
Naomi will come with the land,
but she's an old lady.
She's not going to have
another son.
The land's eventually
going to be mine.
But Ruth,
well,
she's young.
She might have a child
and then the land
will go to that man,
not to me,
not to my offspring.
There's something
at stake for me here.
And what we see
with Mr.
What's His Name
is a complete contrast
to what we see
from Boaz.
Mr.
What's His Name,
the other redeemer,
he's got the money
to redeem
Naomi and Ruth.
He's already said
that he would purchase
the land.
But he's not wanting
to fulfill
the duty
of a kinsman redeemer.
He doesn't want
to give a son
who is then going
to take that inheritance
away from him.
Ruth would be
the heir of her husband.
Ruth's son would be
the heir of her husband.
And Mr.
What's His Name
is happy to help
to a point.
He's happy to help
right up until the point
where it's going
to cost him something.
Just a few verses
down in the story,
we see reference
to Judah and Tamar.
And this is another episode
that happened previously
involving Leveret marriage
or what was supposed
to be Leveret marriage.
But it's one of the most
scandalous
and cruel episodes
in the whole
of the Old Testament.
And both these episodes,
Mr.
What's His Name
and Judah
and Tamar,
they make Boaz's
sacrificial,
redeemer,
redeemership,
shine even brighter
in the darkness.
Boaz willingly
bore the cost
of redeeming
Naomi and Ruth.
He was happy
to sacrifice
his own position.
Boaz doesn't act
out of ambition
in any way,
but out of
chesed love,
that faithful,
steadfast love
that we've spoken
about throughout
the series
that people show
towards one another
in this book,
often called kindness
in the ESV
and which God shows
towards His people.
In the book of Ruth,
we've mentioned this
before as well,
people's names
are significant.
I think it's
therefore significant
that Mr.
So-and-so,
Mr.
What's His Name
isn't given a name.
His self-serving
behavior means
he's not going
to be remembered
as opposed to Boaz
because his name
is going to be remembered
as part of the most
important family
that there's ever been.
But as well
as not leaving a name,
Mr.
What's His Name,
I think,
stands as a warning
to us.
He clings
to what he has,
his material possessions.
They're more important
to him
than serving other people,
than caring
for the poor,
or the afflicted,
the dying cast,
even though these people
are members
of his own family.
What's your version,
I wonder,
of the Kingsman
Redeemer's refusal
tonight?
Where are you willing
to show generosity
up to a point?
Show generosity
right up until
it costs you
something.
Are you willing
to care
and serve
and even love
other people
as long as it
doesn't impinge
on your own comfort
or your time
or your convenience?
Or like Boaz,
do you go looking
for ways
to bless other people
even when you
already know
it's going to cost you?
Because the gospel,
the good news
that Jesus came
is the announcement
that in Jesus
someone's stepped
forward for you
when nobody else
could or would.
Boaz's commitment
is a picture
of Jesus'
commitment
to his own people.
So Mr.
What's-His-Name,
he takes off his sandal,
which is the custom,
and he says to Boaz,
the land and the Moabite,
they're all yours,
you can have them.
And Boaz calls
the elders
and all the people
who are there
and he says,
you're my witnesses.
And not just of the deal,
not just that this
is an agreement,
but also to the purpose
of the agreement.
He says,
to redeem the land
and to continue
the name of the men
who had died.
And then the witnesses
pray a blessing
on the now
formally engaged
couple,
Ruth and Boaz.
They say,
may the Lord
make the woman
come into your house
like Rachel and Leah.
And we see
two things here,
I think,
with Rachel and Leah.
So Ruth the Moabite
is coming into
Boaz's house.
This is an outsider,
somebody from
a strange land,
but who's shown
faithfulness to Israel's God,
the true God.
And now she's becoming
a member
of the covenant family.
She's entering
Boaz's household.
But secondly,
the people pray
that she'd be blessed
like Rachel
and Leah
because these
are the women
who are responsible
for giving Jacob
his 12 sons.
Jacob,
who was later
called Israel,
his 12 sons,
the 12 tribes
of Israel.
And the story
of these two women
all revolves
around fertility,
about having children,
providing children.
And they do that
in different ways
if you've read the story.
And then we understand
that this prayer
is needed
because Ruth
was married
back in Moab.
We're not sure
how long she was married
for,
but we know
that she was married
and they lived
in Moab
for 10 years.
Women,
children
are incredibly important
in this society,
having children.
A husband and wife
are likely to start
having children
as quickly as possible.
But Ruth
and Malon,
her husband,
they had no children.
So prayer
is really needed here
because the suspense
is even higher
than at the threshing floor
in the night
when Ruth came
and proposed to Boaz.
It's even higher
the suspense now
than when the Redeemer,
Boaz asked the Redeemer,
will you redeem
the land in Naomi?
Is there going to be
a child?
There's an air of suspense.
So we see that
this is no ordinary
land transaction.
And now we're going to see
that there is a child,
but this child
is no ordinary child.
We see this
in verses 13 to 17.
From the end
of chapter 3
until over halfway
through chapter 4
is one day of time.
But now,
the timeline,
it speeds up
really significantly.
So in verse 13,
we experience
what must be
the best part
of at least a year
from Boaz and Ruth
getting married
until a baby arriving
in one verse.
So there's all this tension
when the people prayed
that Ruth
would get pregnant.
And then we get
an idea of the significance
of the fact
that Ruth is pregnant,
I think,
from the language
that's used
in verse 13.
Because it says,
the Lord gave her conception.
And of course,
the Lord gives
every conception.
He is the one
who makes all things
work together.
But this is only
the second time
in the whole
of the book of Ruth
that God
has been
implicated directly
in the action
as the subject
of the verb.
This is a God-given
child.
And then I think
it's really interesting
that Ruth
and Naomi
have just been married,
they've just had a child,
and the focus
immediately pivots
away from them
and back to Naomi.
In verse 14,
the women say,
blessed be the Lord
who's not left you
without a goel,
without a redeemer.
But who is the redeemer?
Because it's not
talking about Boaz anymore.
It's talking about
the baby
that's on her lap.
He's the one
who's going to provide
for Naomi
in her old age.
He's the one
who's going to continue
the family line.
The neighborhood women
say in verse 17,
a son has been born
to Naomi.
Well, he's been born
to Ruth,
but this is Naomi's son.
And they say
in verse 15,
he'll be a restorer
of life to you.
You see,
in having a son,
Boaz and Ruth
haven't so much
started a family,
they've rescued one.
The child is Ruth's,
but he's the heir
to the Elimelech family
inheritance.
And he's the one
who's going to carry forward
this family name.
It looked like this family
was about to die.
We were at the end
of the line.
But through this child,
the family line's
been resuscitated.
Naomi,
the one who wandered
away from the Lord,
from the land
that God promised
to his people,
and came back
claiming to be empty,
now has her hands full.
And she's got
the two kinds of seeds
that are so important
in the Old Testament.
She's got grain,
which meant food,
but she's also got offspring.
And now,
through Boaz
and Ruth,
God has filled Naomi up.
And notice as well,
that it's not Ruth
and Boaz,
the parents,
who name the child.
It's not even his grandmother
who gives him a name.
It's the women
of the neighborhood.
And they call him Obed,
which means servant.
He's going to be the one
who serves Naomi
in her old age.
But he's also
going to play
another role,
an even more
significant role.
You see,
in Ruth's story,
Ruth's story
is Naomi's redemption.
God answered
Naomi's prayer
in grief
with much more
than she asked for.
She wanted to go
back to Bethlehem,
back to her hometown.
She just wanted to be
among the people
that she knew.
But she received
a grandson.
Maybe there's
some of us here
who feel like Naomi
in chapter one.
We feel like
we've been traveling
for a long time.
We feel like
we have lost
everything that we had.
We feel empty
and lonely and afraid.
But this story
reminds us
that God is at work
constantly
in people's lives,
even in the pain,
in the suffering,
in the loneliness.
The things that we
sometimes have to go through
that we wish
that we didn't.
One of the dangers
when we look at
Ruth like this,
for us,
is that we look at
the way that Naomi
has been restored
materially,
and we think,
if we keep our faith
in God,
then everything
I've ever lost,
I'm going to get
that back.
Whether that's
your home,
or your job,
or your fortune,
or even a person.
But that's not
what the book of Ruth
is about.
God's not a repairman.
He's a creator
and a restorer
and an artist.
One of the
persistent patterns
in Scripture
is that God
answers prayer
at a register
that's much higher
than the prayer
itself.
Naomi prayed
that Ruth would
find rest,
and what she ended
up getting
was a covenant line
that would lead
to Israel's king.
This book
is about God's
covenant love,
and how it's shown
to people
that extends
beyond individuals,
to the whole
of Israel,
and to the whole
world.
So we're going
to live by faith.
We live by faith
in the God
who keeps his promise,
and who ultimately
is going to bring
restoration that
far exceeds
anything that we
could have asked
for.
Okay.
Thirdly,
briefly,
no ordinary
ending.
So I read
as I was
looking at this
passage that
some people
used to argue
that this
genealogy that
stuck on the
end of Ruth
was a later
addition,
and it's kind
of to strengthen
the link between
the story of Ruth
and the coming
King David,
but I mean,
I don't think so.
Notice that at
the beginning
and the end
of Ruth,
there's a
parallel,
the first
five verses
and the last
five verses,
they parallel
each other.
So we begin
with 10 years
in exile,
and then we
end with 10
generations of
the tribe of
Judah that
culminate in
David.
At the start
of this
preaching series,
I said that
the book of
Ruth is named
after Ruth,
but it's actually
about Naomi,
Naomi being
emptied and Naomi
being filled up.
But this genealogy,
it reminds us that
whoever the main
human character
is in this
story,
whoever the
name,
the book is
named after,
the story is
about God.
It's about his
steadfast love,
this never-ending,
pursuing love that
God shows towards
his people.
But it also shows
us something else.
this genealogy,
which features
Perez, who was
born to Tamar,
the Canaanite,
Salmon, who was,
that's Boaz's dad,
who's born to
Rahab, who was a
Canaanite prostitute,
and Obed, who's
born to the
Moabite Ruth.
It reminds us that
God's steadfast love
isn't just for his
people Israel, it
extends to
outsiders, and
reminds us that it
extends across the
whole world.
So this genealogy is
not a tag-on at the
end of a story, this
is a covenant
record.
It shows us God's
guiding hand at
work across all
people, all times,
for all of history,
even when we can't
see it.
And it shows us that
God is desperately
committed to his
people across
geography, across
race, across time.
The story of God's
redemption in Ruth
has always been much
wider than Naomi, or
Ruth, or Boaz, or
we thought.
Whenever, whatever
your background, however
many times you've been
to church, however well
you know your Bible,
wherever you come from
in the world, these are
not restrictions on
receiving God's
blessing.
all we have to do is
come to him.
Tonight we read about
Elamela's ancestors,
Jacob and Rachel and
Leah.
But the real story, the
story that Ruth is a
part of, started way
before them.
God called Jacob's
grandfather, Abraham,
and he said to him,
leave your land, leave
your family, leave your
people, leave the
gods, and go to a
place that you don't
know, just like Ruth
did.
And God told Abraham he
was going to make him
the father of many
nations.
He was going to bless
him greatly with land
and with offspring.
And like Ruth in
chapter one, Abraham
believed God and he
went.
But even before Abraham,
at the very beginning,
when Adam and Eve, they
disobeyed God in the
garden and they fell
and sin came into the
world, but God made
them a promise.
And he said, there's
going to be a seed, a
son who's going to
redeem you from the
curse.
You see, the book of
Ruth is a story about
individuals being blessed
by God.
But that story is part
of a much bigger,
broader family story
through which God
blesses the whole
world.
That's why it was so
precarious when Elamela's
family line was nearly
extinct.
This is God's chosen
line of salvation.
But then through Naomi,
through Ruth, through
Boaz, through Obed, God
saved that family.
And now we see that this
redemption runs all the
way to the royal house of
David and beyond David.
Because we know that just
like Ruth ends with the
genealogy, the New
Testament begins with
one.
Jesus Christ, the son of
David, the son of
Abraham.
Jesus is the redeemer who
stepped forward at the
city gate when there was
no one else to defend you.
He's the one who pursued
his bride, the church,
even before we knew what
to ask him.
Jesus is the one born of a
woman so that he could be
born under the law so that
he could redeem those who
are under the law.
Jesus is the son of David
who arrived as an Obed,
as a servant.
He gave himself for his
people.
But he's also the true and
the final king who defeated
his people's greatest enemy
to set them free from the
bondage of sin.
And who's returning to
gather his people to
himself and to provide a
blessing that far exceeds
anything that we could have
asked for.
So this is it.
That's the book of Ruth.
The book of Ruth is a book
of God's steadfast love to
his people.
A love that remains faithful
across generations, across
people groups, across
blessings and tragedies, but
which is fulfilled in a
person, a redeemer, God's
son, King Jesus.
King Jesus.
Let's pray.
Lord God, we praise you.
We thank you for the book of
Ruth and the reminder it is
to us that your hand is at
work in all things.
You could providentially control
things, but you're sovereign
power.
And Lord, because of your
chesed love, your faithful,
steadfast love towards your
people, you sent your son,
Jesus, who came willingly
into the world, who lived
as a servant, who died for
his people, but who rose
again in triumph and who is
coming again, Lord, to judge
the world and to take his
people to himself.
Lord, help us as we think
about going back to the world
tomorrow and to work,
continue our holidays, going to
school, wherever we're going.
Help us, Lord, to have our
eyes fixed on Jesus.
And we pray these things in
his name.
Amen.