FLAWED HEROES | Week 4 | Full Service

on flawed heroes, on this book of Judges. But here's the deal, the last one, we're not gonna be in the book of Judges. We're gonna be in a book that the story involves gleaning, that the person gleans in it. And

they do that in which it seems like a demeaning thing when you have to do it. But they chose to go away that didn't seem This person chose to take a direction in their life that didn't seem like the best way in most people's eyes, but it ended up being the most blessed way.

And that's the book of Ruth, the story of Ruth. We wanna look at that. And what we're gonna see is the big idea today is simply this. Don't look for what's best in your eyes. Look for what's blessed in God's eyes.

Don't just in your life, don't just look for what's best in your eyes. And what do I mean by that? You've seen. We've talked to the book of Judges. If you're reading through the Bible with us on the plan, you should be in the book of Judges right now. And and if if you're not, get there. And as if you read it all, we've been talking just taking a few little stories out of there, but there's a pattern of the book of Judges. Has about seven of these cycles where the people of Israel, they say they believe in God, but they don't really go all in. They don't trust him. Then God allows, they get overrun by somebody, they're oppressed, and then they cry out and God raises up this judge, a military kind of a hero.

And and and he rescues them. There's a time of peace, and then it happens all over again. It just keeps happening. Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. The second verse. And and and then the thing is it gets worse and worse as it goes if you read the book. It's like the second verse, same as the first, a little bit longer, a little bit worse.

And if you look at the end of Judges, when that happens, it gets even worse. If you get to the end of the story, it gets really dark. There is all kinds of crazy stuff. It ends in a civil war where the Israelites basically wipe out one of the tribes.

And this is them just trying to do what they thought was right in their own eyes. Matter of fact, before we jump into Ruth, I wanna read the very last verse of the book of Judges.

And that's right here. Judges twenty one twenty five says, in those days, Israel had no king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. This summarizes

the entire period of the judges. This is really the summary of the whole book. If you get nothing else out of what it's trying to say is they didn't trust the king, the Lord. They had no king. They had no leader. So everybody just did what seemed right in their own eyes.

And and and and and what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the story of Ruth. In the middle of all this darkness, Ruth actually takes place during this last period of the judges. In the middle of this darkest time when everyone's just doing what seems right in their own eyes,

there's this beautiful redemptive love story that happens. And what it shows is what's God up to in all these times? When us as people are just doing what seems right in our eyes, God is moving the plan forward to make us right in his eyes.

And we'll see that as we look at this story. But one thing I wanna say, and I'm gonna pray really quick. I said I was gonna do that last service and I didn't. I just realized I never prayed. They probably left and said, that guy's a liar.

I hadn't preached in seven weeks. I'm surprised I can put two sentences together. But when you look at this and you read these stories, you think I don't relate to them because these people are just they're evil. They're just doing whatever they want to do. They're rebellious. But do you realize it says

they did whatever seemed right in their eyes? Do you know in the book of Proverbs, it's repeated six times? It says there's a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death.

What that's saying is there are ways that we go live that it's like we're not trying to do the wrong thing. We're not trying to whatever, but it just it seems like a better path. And what we're really doing is we're not truly trusting God. We don't do exactly what he wants, but we aren't really we don't think of ourselves of trying to openly rebel. We're doing what we think seems right. We're like, hey, I don't honor God with my money because I'm just trying to make ends meet. I can't honor him with my time because here's how this life is going. I can't do this because of that. And you're not You know in your heart you wanna do the right thing, but you just feel like you can't and you feel So I just wanna know that here's the biggest trap of listening to this and what I want us to make sure we don't miss in this last talk in

this series.

Is that many of us sitting in this room, we are. I believe we're in a time period that is the time of the book of Judges, especially in the church. I think a lot of us as Christians, are doing what seems right in our own eyes. And we're not trusting God and doing what's blessed in his eyes.

But we're not doing it like shaking our fists. And that's the trap. In other words, I think a lot of us in this room that are doing this right now, you don't think I'm talking about you right now. That's the trick. And what I mean, like, example, if you go read that last section, there's a guy that meets a Levite.

And he tries to worship God, but he also throws in some of the pagan worship and all that. So he's blended his worship. He's like takes a little bit of this, a little bit of that. He does his own thing. He meets this guy as a Levite. Well, in the Old Testament, the tribe of Levi was the priestly tribe. So this guy wasn't a priest. They didn't even have the the the the temple. They didn't have the stuff set up because I want you to be my own personal priest.

And the guy says, yeah. And the guy says, I'm gonna be blessed of all God. And he's showing off. He's bright. Like, he he actually acts like, look at how much more blessed I am. I have my own priest. And then what that priest gonna do, he continues to read lead rituals that are a blend of actual,

you know, Judaism and trusting God with all this pagan stuff. He's blending his ideas. He's doing what he thinks seems right. And the Levites aren't even supposed to do that. They're not allowed to be a priest for one person. They're supposed to be for the people. So they are actually

he thinks he's being more godly by getting a Levite to be a priest while absolutely ignoring all of how God wants it to work.

I wanna pray right now because I think some of us in this room, you're already feeling convicted because that describes your relationship with God right now. You listen to some of it, the parts that are uncomfortable, that don't seem best in your eyes.

The part that seems hard, the part that seems like, well, that doesn't make sense to me. That'd be like I was with the service projects in Israel. And you're like, I'm going to ignore that, but I'm gonna do this. And the truth is when you do that, you miss out on what's blessed in God's eyes.

So Father God, just pray right now as we look at this story, this beautiful love story, this redemption story, this story that you used Ruth and Boaz and Naomi in this story thousands of years ago to really be a foreshadowing of the greatest story ever.

So Lord, I pray that you speak to all of us in this room and anyone watching online that speak to our hearts about what this means to us personally.

Give us clarity and give us the courage to respond. I pray it in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

So the story of Ruth, what I'm gonna do is there's four chapters. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. I'm gonna kinda summarize some parts and read certain passages in each chapter. But here's the deal, I got this big idea. I don't have a lot of sub points because I think I just wanna show you how this big idea plays out in this story.

That it just shows that you don't if you just look for what's best in your eyes, you're gonna miss out on what's blessed in God's eyes. And you're gonna see by the end of the story, the biggest things that we are blessed by, the biggest blessings we get,

many of them we will never know what they were on this side of heaven. You will not know until we go into eternity. At the end of the story, what this story meant and and how God used Ruth and a guy named Boaz in this story, how he used them,

they get to be a part of the redemptive plan. They had no idea they were a part of it. But they both chose to not do what seemed like the best in their eyes. Because sometimes what's best in your eyes is not necessarily wrong. It's just not the best. You're gonna miss a blessing if you don't go that way. And so

what's happening in the book of Ruth? Well, in this last period of Judges, there was a famine in the land and a guy named Elimelech. He lived he was a man from Bethlehem. Keep that in mind. Put that in your brain. It's gonna come back at the end. But a guy from from Bethlehem, he decides to leave his family's land

and and head to Moab where he thinks he can get food for his family. It must have been a bad, bad, bad kind of a famine because they didn't like the Moabites. So to go to Moab would have been crazy.

So he goes there, his wife Naomi goes and they take two sons. And while they're there, the two sons marry two Moabite women. And in the process, Elimelech dies. And then ten years later, the two sons die. So now stuck off in Moab is Naomi who's from Bethlehem. She's an Israelite. She's a widow who's to pass the age

the age to get remarried and have kids, so she can't produce an heir. So her land is gonna like, who you gonna pass it on to? Because then it went through the male line. And and and so she's kinda gonna be destitute. It's hard to be a widow in any generation, but back then it was really difficult. And now it's just her and her two Moabite daughter in laws, they're all widows.

So she hears that things are going okay in Israel again. There's no more famine. So she goes, you know what, I might as well go home. And so she goes, I'm gonna go home. And the two daughter in law say, we wanna go with you. And that's where we pick up the story. So starting in chapter one verse eight,

it says, but on the way, Naomi said to her two daughter in laws, go back to your mother's homes and may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage. Then she kissed them goodbye and they all broke down and wept.

No, they said, we wanna go with you to your people. So whatever Naomi did in their lives, these two months, they want to stay with her. They wanna go be with the people of Israel, which would not be in your eyes what's probably best.

Because like I said, the Israelites didn't like Moabites. It was hard to be a widow anyways. Are you gonna be a Moabite widow in the land of Israel? And there's not much of a future for them from our point of view.

So Naomi replied in verse 11, why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? Meaning the only way you had a future is if I had another son because back then when you became a widow,

if your husband, like if they had brothers or if there was someone else or another son, they would step in and take the role. I'm married.

She goes, I'm not gonna produce any kids. No, my daughters returned to your parents home for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? Plus that would be creepy.

No, of course not my daughters. Things are far now. Here's where you get to see Naomi's been faithful. She believes in God, but she's starting to struggle because things aren't going well. Husband dies, her kids, sons die. She's kind of in a bad situation.

She goes, things are far more bitter for me than for you. You have an opportunity, you could stay here is what she's about to say. Because of the Lord himself has raised his fist against me. She'll go on in this passage when she goes home to tell people, don't call me Naomi, which ironically meant pleasant.

She says, call me Mara, which means bitter. And she is struggling with a little bit of bitterness and confusion because it's like, I try to trust the Lord, but it just seems like it's not going well. Maybe that's you, maybe you're Naomi right now.

Maybe you're like, but I do come, I try to be faithful to God, but it just seems like it's one thing and then the next thing and then the next thing.

What happens if we choose to not look for what's best in our eyes, but to look for what's blessed in God's eyes? So she says, don't do it. She's not telling him to do something wrong. She's saying, do something that seems the best plan for you. The most likelihood of you having a future would be to go home.

And again, they wept together and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye. So one of the daughters said, you know what, you're right. I'm gonna go home. Did she do something wrong? No. But we're gonna see by the rest of the story, she missed an opportunity. And so she goes, but Ruth clung tightly to Naomi.

Look, Naomi said to her, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same. So she went back to her gods. She's like, alright, I'm not gonna follow this guy. I'm gonna stay.

You should do the same. But Ruth replied, don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us.

So she says, I know this is gonna be a tough road ahead, but I love you and I love your God, and and I'm not gonna leave you abandoned. I'm gonna choose the harder way. I'm gonna choose this I'm gonna choose the way that actually does not look like it's in my best interest,

But it's the way that God would like. I'm gonna love God and I'm gonna love you. So I'm going with you. And she said it so boldly that verse 18 says, when Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. She's like, don't bring it up again. So she makes this choice and she goes.

And they leave, they go back. Like I said, she's like, call me bitter. Then Ruth has to make a choice because when they get back, she would go back and they would have their family land. See, when the Israelites took the land, it was divided up to all the tribes. And then each family within the tribes got a chunk of land.

And then it was yours. It was supposed to stay yours. And with them being God's people and guys, was supposed to stay in that family forever.

But something happens. You get destitute, you have this, you don't have the mailer, something happens. You can get so poor, you end up selling yourself as a servant and you're a slave. So now you're enslaved and you don't have the land anymore. Someone else buys it so you can live and that happened.

Well, they had a couple ways to get out of that. One, in the scriptures, you probably already read it if you stayed with us. They had this thing called the year of Jubilee every fifty years. And what was supposed to happen, God commanded his people to go in that year, every slave gets freed and everybody's family gets their land back. It's like we hit the reset button. Guess how many times in the history of Israel they honored the year of Jubilee?

Zero. Nobody wanted to give up their land that they had acquired in their wealth. The other way was we'll see in a minute. There was a kinsman redeemer, a family redeemer. We'll see about that in a minute. So she goes back and they have their land. It's sitting there.

The problem is it's not been worked, so there's no way they're gonna get any food. So even if they work hard, the three of them, which would be hard, and figure out how to get it, it's gonna be a whole season before they're producing any fruit, any food, and have any money or food to feed themselves. So they're kind of in a in a pinch.

And they get there right around the harvest season anyways. So they need to eat. And Ruth does the sacrificial thing. She chooses to go glean, which was very demeaning. And she's a foreigner, which and they didn't like Moabites. So there's a good chance she's gonna get heckled and bothered. But she loves her mother-in-law,

so she doesn't put that beneath her. She goes, hey, I just gotta do what I gotta do. So she goes out to glean and here's what happens. We're gonna be in a jump here to chapter two verses two and three. It says, one day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go out in the harvest fields to pick up the stocks of grain

left behind by anyone who was kind enough to let me do it. Naomi replied, alright, my daughter, go ahead. So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. I love this phrase, if you have a Bible underlay it. And as it happened

That's a powerful It's like it's such an understatement in scripture. When you say as a it's like saying, and it just so happened. Like almost implying, but it's not It just so happens, meaning it was good. It's being kinda sarcastic like a wink wink. It's saying, oh, and as it just happened. Yeah. It just happened.

The field she goes to, as it just happened, She found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father-in-law, Elimelech. It's a relative.

And if you read the rest of this chapter, it goes on Boaz Caesar says, who's that? His work says, oh, that's Ruth. And he had heard about her like, wow, she's out here supporting. She moved back from We don't like She should have known she's coming to a hostile place, but yet she loves her. And now she's coming out here to glean to feed

them. So he tells his guys, tell everyone to not harass her. The reason he had to say that is because she's a mobite. Like, don't give her a hard time. And then he actually says and cheat a little. Cut extra stocks that you purposely throw down for.

And then at the end of day, when he goes up and talks, he goes here, take some extra grain and just hands her a bunch of grain. And then says, come back to my field every day. Don't go anywhere else. Just stay here. And then invites her over in the shade, the water feeds her and all this. Super nice to her.

So then she goes home and her mother-in-law says, so what field did you glean in? And if you look in verse nineteen twenty, she tells her, she goes, where'd you go? And so Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man in whose field she had worked. She said, the man I worked with today is named Boaz.

And she exclaims has the exclamation point there. May the Lord bless him, Naomi told her daughter-in-law. He is showing his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband. That man is one of our closest relatives, one of our family redeemers. What's a family redeemer? Why is she so excited?

And why is it just say, oh, as it just happened, as if God wasn't doing something? Well, a family redeemer, I got the definition here. It literally the word that means avenger, but a hero avenger like, you know, like Captain America. Like, it's an avenger like says an avenger who would protect impoverished families

by repurchasing lost property so it can stay in the family, and a widow wouldn't go off into poverty.

Redeeming relatives sold as slaves, so you get them back, you redeem them. And providing an heir so they can keep the land and the family and you don't go off into poverty. It's this plan. It's called this family redeemer. They come in and they redeem it. But in order to do it, you had to have two things. You had to be able and you had to be willing. What does that mean? To be able means you had to be a relative,

You had to be a free person. You couldn't be a slave yourself because how could a slave go free somebody who's a slave? So you had to be a free person and more important, you had to able to pay the price. I mean, you had to have the money, you had to have the resource that you could actually pay for it.

And then not only did you have to be able, you also had to be willing. You could say no. And to be willing, what do you have to do? You had be willing to pay whatever the price was. And the second part, which sometimes was harder is you had to be willing to marry the widow. That's key.

So that's a family. Now remember this because at the end, you're gonna see that there's someone else in the Bible that's a little bit more central that does all these things for us. Can you figure out who it is? Some of you know where this story is going, And so

that's why she's excited. So she goes on and goes, here's what you're gonna do. And she tells her, and this is where people get confused about it because you think that she's trying to set up some seduction thing. She's like, get yourself cleaned up, you go, they're gonna be threshing the wheat now at the threshing floor. Go there, wait, don't let them see you. And then when he goes to sleep, go up near him, lay down next to him take

uncover his feet and lay by his feet. And what's that? Is that some kind of weird fetish? No. It's it's it's it's he's setting up a story that what's gonna happen is very cultural, what they're supposed to do. Taking uncover his feet is so he'll wake up.

It's like, I'm gonna make sure he wakes up in the night and notices me. So she does that and and lays down and that's where a servant or someone who needs help, they would often sit next to the owner of the land and then they could actually share a blanket and stuff like that. And that's what's about to happen. So tells her to do all that.

And so then if we jump into chapter three starting in verse eight, it says, around midnight, Boaz suddenly woke up and turned over. He was surprised to find a woman lying at his feet. Who are you? He's probably dark. He probably didn't recognize her from the day.

And I am your servant Ruth, she replied. And she says these words, spread the corner of your covering over me for you are my family redeemer. That wasn't like a come on. Spread the corner of your That's not He's not like, bow chicka wow wow. That's not what's happening. That's not what's happening.

But you know what she was saying? Marry me. She proposed to him. To put your covering over was to like, I need to be under your protection. I would need to You are the family redeemer, marry me. Now I've heard some people preach that like, Oh, they try to show Ruth as a heroic to being so countercultural.

She's many things, but that wasn't countercultural. You see, the Redeemer, the family Redeemer needed to be able and willing. But the one that was to be redeemed had to ask. She wasn't doing something. She was doing Naomi was coaching her through. This is the process. You have to go invite him to rescue you.

If he's willing and able, you just gotta ask. He's the one that can do it. He's the only one with the resource. He's only one who can make this happen. But he's not gonna do it unless you ask.

Remember that. And so then he does. He says, sure. I'll do it. I'll do it. He was a good guy, man. He was willing to totally do this. He's like, I'm gonna do it. I'm to do it. And it was awesome. Even

theologians said, it was really cool. Boaz was a good man. And they're like, and most theologians say this, they go, it's good that he does end up marrying her because if he had not married her, they said it would have drastically changed his personality because he would be ruthless.

Set you up for a dad joke there, it's been a while. He would have been ruthless though. No, he says yes. He says yes, but he says there's a problem. There is one family member that's next in line before me. So he has to be given the opportunity to do it. He goes, I'm gonna go talk to him.

If he will do it, then you're gonna need to marry him and he'll be your redeemer. But if he says, no, I wanna do it. And he goes, don't worry, I'll do it. So he sends her home, gives her a bunch of food again. And Naomi, you knew Boaz was a good guy because he had a good reputation because Naomi says, this

will be done quickly. He will not rest till he settled this. Meaning he was known as a man of his word. And so it says he goes out the next day, they go into City Gate that's where everyone gathered. He grabbed some guys to be witnesses. And what he's about to do is an actual, just like her asking

was the formal way of doing it.

What he does now is the formal way of you do the transaction. I have to go ask the actual family redeemer, do you want to redeem this? Do you wanna get the land? But it's interesting what he does because you could tell he really did want to marry Boaz. He wanted this guy to say no. Because if you notice he goes out and finds it and if you go into chapter three starting in verse eight.

No, no further down. I'm into chapter four verse three. It says, and Boaz said to the family redeemer. So he found him and he talks to him. He goes, you know Naomi who came back from Moab. She's selling the land that belonged to our relative Elimelech.

I thought I should speak to you about it so that you can redeem it if you wish. If you want the land, then buy it here in the presence of these witnesses. But if you don't want it, let me know right away because I'm the next in line to redeem it after you. The man replied, all right, I'll buy it. He's thinking

like what's best for him. He's like, I can get another piece of land. It hasn't been farmed. Take a look, I'll pay the price. But once I get it up and going, it's gonna make me money. It'll increase my inheritance to my family. So he thinks I'll do it. But then Boaz replied, he says, told him, of course,

your purchase of the land from Naomi also requires that you marry Ruth, the Moabite widow. That way she can have children who will carry on her husband's name and keep the land in the family. Meaning you're not gonna get the land.

You're gonna have to marry this woman and provide for her and raise the family to redeem her so her family can stay. So really, you're just gonna sacrifice if you do this. And then he says, I can't redeem it. He says, no. He says, no. He says, because this might endanger my own estate.

See another moment of did he do something evil? But he did what seemed right in his own eyes. And it's funny how often what we do that seems right in our own eyes is the thing that benefits us the most or costs us the least.

And even if it's not necessarily wrong, he goes, I cannot do it. And I love this. It's interesting because now in those days, it was a custom of Israel for anyone transferring a right of purchase to remove his sandal and hand it to the other party. This publicly validated the transaction.

So the other family member redeemer drew off his sandal as he said to Boaz, you buy the land. That's weird. This is how my brain works. You ever wonder like, how did that even get started? You know what we ought to do in front of everybody to make sure that this isn't official? Give me your flip flop.

And how does that work? Do they shake with it? When he took it off and presented it, does does Boaz grab the other end?

And and and just as I hope I don't get the toe jam end of this thing, and then and then shake it, and then he puts it back on? Or is he get to keep it? Is it like it's now yours? So did this guy that would be really weird. Can you imagine he handed him his sandal and then walked away?

I digress. It's just I often wonder how these things get started. Like how did people start eating certain foods? Someone had to go first. Someone looked at a chicken and said, we should Kentucky Fried that thing. And they didn't know how to describe it when someone said, what does it taste like?

Sorry, I digress here. Back to the story. So he says no, Boaz goes back, they get married, beautiful love story. They have a child. And if you look down at verse sixteen and seventeen right near the end of this book, it says, they had this baby and says, Naomi took the baby and cuddled him. Cuddled him to her breast.

And she cared for him as if he were her own. The neighbor women said, now at last Naomi has a son again. It's funny how they're talking about Naomi. Even though Ruth got the blessing, she was a part of it. But it actually is a blessing for Naomi too. That she

her She had done something. She had shared the Lord with her daughter-in-law that she loved her so much that she came with her. Even though she was bitter, she brought her back from that. And now she has this future. It says, and they named him Obed.

And then it's interesting, it says, and he became the father of a guy named Jesse. And Jesse became the father of a guy named David. That's interesting. So this story took place in Bethlehem, right? I have a picture of when we were in Bethlehem.

That's the shepherds fields. Bethlehem was a big, they would have been farming up here. The sheep would have been all there. There's still bunch of sheep down there too. And they're all over here. And so what it's saying is they were in Bethlehem

and they get married, they had this kid and then their kid had a kid and then another kid. So the great grandson is a guy named David. Well, if you keep reading your Bible or if you've already know your Bible, you go read a little bit, get this for one Samuel. In one Samuel 16,

God tells And that's actually our next series, by the way, after Easter, we're gonna compare the first two Kings of I almost said England, like why would we do that? The first two of Israel.

A guy named Saul, got into rejecting a guy named David who was considered the greatest king. He's considered a Christ type and his name was David. And he says, go anoint this shepherd boy named David in the town of Bethlehem. So

they didn't even know that the biggest blessing was God used them to be a part of raising up. It says in the time they didn't have a king, their greatest king, a king that was called a man after God's own heart. But what's crazy is about that thing being in there is where that story goes.

That story goes was if you go about another 25 begats, about 25 more generations, kids down in their family line, their family tree, you go about a thousand years, you end up in the first part of Matthew where it lists all these names. It goes through Ruth and Boaz and all these names. And it ends with another poor girl

that God used to give birth to a baby that was named Jesus. And in these same hills, right, when he was born, somewhere here, there, somewhere right here, the same view is the night when he was born, a big choir of angels burst forth and declared to these freaked out shepherds. For today, who?

The Christ, the Messiah has been born. You know what it means to be the Messiah?

The family Redeemer.

The story of Ruth and Boaz is a foreshadowing of Jesus.

And their biggest blessing was they're in the family line of Jesus because they both chose to do what will be blessed, not just what was best.

Boaz was willing to say, I'll do the sacrifice. I don't care about them. I'm gonna make sure that you get your family's land. Ruth was willing to stay with Naomi and go back and make her people and her God. And both of that looked like they're going backwards.

Their story still ended up great. They got blessed in this life, but their greatest blessing was they were in the line. And in the old testament, ended this later on. They probably didn't live to see David, but at least whoever wrote this, they knew that they saw David.

They knew that David was coming, but we know that it goes way past David. It goes all the way to Jesus.

And I wonder, you know why Boaz was probably willing to marry a Moabite woman? Another cool as it just happened. You know who Boaz's mother was? Rahab. Rahab was a woman who lived in Jericho

before the Israel when they came into land, they're going to destroy it. She helped these spies. She hid them. She believed in their God. And she goes, I trust your God. Everyone's afraid. I helped him out. And this is just one thing. Don't kill me and my family.

I said, all right, come up here and do this whole story they lived. Said where they hung their thing up there and they said they didn't destroy them, which is kind of ironic. Been to Jericho, this little side note, if you just don't believe the Bible is it just so happened.

When they found the ancient city of Jericho, when cities collapsed and the walls collapsed, they fall a little this way, little this way and dissolve down. It says in the Bible that when they marched around the city and blew the trumpets, the walls fell down all at once outwards.

Guess what the archeological record shows that happened to the walls at Jericho. They're all falling down outwards and the way they fell is that this happened at the exact same time. This wasn't deterioration. If you knock walls down in a siege, you knock them in, not out. It makes no sense.

Also describes that the one home where Rahab and her family stayed says they wouldn't be killed, they sent them in to get them. There was only one piece around this wall where they lived in the walls sometimes. There was only one teeny section they found not collapsed. Almost as if the Bible's telling the truth.

So his mom wasn't even

from Israel. And he probably got a hard time about it when they married in and they're like, Oh, you're not really full blood. You're kinda But God used that past to set up where he was going. How about you? When you're looking at life, are you being Naomi? Because they say theologically, this is the gospel

and it says Boaz is Jesus. Naomi is Israel, the way Israel is supposed to be. They were supposed to be a light to the world. They're supposed to reach out. She brings Ruth in, not just act like we're better than everyone else. And then Ruth represents the church.

How people of all tongues and all tribes will come to know the Lord.

Why we are so busy looking out what's best in our eyes. God just keeps moving forward with a redemptive plan to make us right in his eyes.

Do you trust that plan? Or are you falling for the lie of you're just doing what seems right in your eyes? And like I said, it's a trick that seems right. It's not like you're absolutely shaking your fist. It's the I can't trust him with this because it would be better. It's those subtle things

that'll get you. You're going to miss the blessing. You're going to miss the that guy that walked away, we don't even know his name. If he said yes, his name would be listed in Jesus' genealogy.

What are you going to miss by doing just what seems right? Instead of surrendering to the Lord's path even if it seems hard.

And here's how it gets us. Like I said, the reason this is hard and the reason now some of you probably don't even think I'm talking to you

is because you really do believe you're right. And we try to be, I can do, I'm fine. I can get by this way. I'm strong enough. I don't need that. I can judge which part of what God says I can listen to and which part I don't. I'm okay. My life's working fine.

And you know what? I learned this lesson. My wife told me just the other day, my grandson Phoenix, he's three years old now. And he's at that age where they were going out in the parking lot here.

And he ran out in the parking lot with cars coming and cars she had to run and grab him and says, Phoenix, you can't do this. That's why I'd be like, you're little and the cars don't see you and a car is gonna hit you. And you know what? He looked right at her, looked right at his grandma and he says, I will stop it.

And he did the Iron Man thing. And he's like, what? He goes, I will stop it. I'm strong. And she goes, alright. You're strong. You are a strong little kid, Phoenix. But you're not strong enough to stop a car. He goes, I'll stop it. I'm strong. Look at how I can jump.

Little kids think they jump so high they barely get off the ground. I can relate now because that's as high as I can jump anymore too. And here's what Carrie told me. She goes, it was weird. She hadn't thought about it. But the way he said it, it finally dawned on her.

She goes, he's not being rebellious. He's not bragging. He's not lying. He's not being defensive. He's not making up a story because he's embarrassed. At his age, he literally believes that. He wasn't trying to be bad.

He was doing what seemed right in his own eyes. I can go out here because I am strong enough to stop the car. Here's the problem.

What the people, the judges were doing was that in their lives. We don't need to trust God fully. We can stop the car. And a lot of us do the same thing. I don't have to listen to God. I don't have to go all in. I'm gonna do what seems right in my eyes because I am strong enough. The problem is there's a car called sin that has run over every one of us. And just like the kinsman redeemer, the family redeemer had to be a free person. They can't be a slave. The Bible says every single one of us is born into us as a slave to rebellion, as a slave to sin. We cannot

be strong enough to free ourselves. We can't make it work. And even though your life feels great now, the beginning of Judges, they thought, it's okay. As long as I do what's right in my eyes and I don't hurt anyone, it'll be fine. By the end, they pretty much wiped out an entire tribe of their own people.

It always ends poorly. When you go down the path that seems right to man, it always leads to death. And maybe you don't see death or destruction on you, but you know what will definitely die? That opportunity to be a part of what God was doing. The blessing of what he was gonna do with your life. That dies instantly.

So ask yourself like I prayed in the beginning. When you look at how you're living your life right now, are you praying to God and looking for strength to go, I am going to do what's blessed in God's eyes.

Not just what seems best in my own.

Because we celebrate next week, the end game of the story. Jesus showed up and stopped the car. Jesus became the Redeemer when he went to the cross. That's what he was born for. He came to be the family Redeemer.

He came to be the one that did what we couldn't do. He's the free one. He was free from sin. He was perfect. He's God.

And he climbed up and he paid the price. He took the cross. He took the price for it and he died. But he's God. He beat death and rose again. So now we can be made right in God's eyes. See, if we just keep doing what seems best or right in our own eyes, we are never going to realize that we can be made right in God's eyes.

And that's what we should be walking in. And as we remember that going into this week, into this Holy Week, into this next week, what we need to think about is right before he went to the cross, he had a dinner with his disciples.

And he took bread and took wine. He broke the bread and said, this is my body broken for you. He's saying, this is the price I'm paying. He then took the wine and said, this is my blood spilt for you. For a new covenant, a new relationship, you will be redeemed. I am the Redeemer. But just like Ruth had to ask,

you have to ask for Jesus to be your redeemer. And how you ask is you have to admit you need him. That's confession. You have to admit I am a slave to sin. I do tend to do things that I think are best for me and I ignore God's love. And I do my own thing.

And I will never stop the car of sin. I will die every time when I do that. You have to ask, you have to confess and then you have to profess that he is the redeemer. He is Lord. He's the one that covers you with his blanket. He is the one that covers your sin

and you have to turn from your sin and turn to him. That's what it means to be a Christian. And that's why I think he asked us to do this moment, to take this moment and reflect repeatedly.

Because I don't think it's something we do once and then we I'm done, I did that, I trusted God. I think we constantly struggle with buying into the lies again of going back to doing what seems right in our own eyes. And that's exactly Israel's story instead of just walking in the things that are blessed in God's eyes.

So he says, do this as you gather. It's a moment for two people to make a decision. Some of you in this room are Naomi's, you know the Lord. But you've probably been doing things your own way because you're a little bit bitter about how hard life is. Or you've just wandered off. Start talking to God right now.

It's a moment to reflect and return. Confess to God. And then whatever it is that you just keep fighting at, you just won't go the way he's called you to go. Surrender to it. Surrender to it.

But I wanna pray before we take this and we'll be done. Because I think there's some of us in this room and online that you need to be Ruth. You've never proposed to Jesus. You've never actually

confessed that you're a sinner and professed him as Lord. You've never invited him to be your Redeemer. You might have been coming to church. You might've said, I think Jesus is a cool guy. You might think I like Christianity. I think the concepts are good. I'm pretty sure Jesus is a way.

Just like with He's not a way, He's the way. And you need to surrender to Him. I want to pray with you and then you can take communion for real where it means something. It's not just some thing you did. It's a symbolic remembrance of our family Redeemer and the victory we have through him. So let's pray.

That's you and you've never invited Jesus into your life. You've never turned and asked him to be your Redeemer. You can do that with me. Just pray with me, make it your own words between you and God. Just pray something like this. Dear Jesus, thank you. Thank you that even though I think I'm strong, I can stop the cars.

I know that's not true.

And Lord, right now I confess that I am a sinner, enslaved to sin, enslaved to trying to do what's best and seems right in my eyes only to lead to a dead end. So right now, in the best way I even know how or understand, I turn from that and I turn to you and I profess you as Lord of all.

I profess that you did die for me. You paid the price. You were willing and you were able. And you rose from the dead, defeating death. And I put my faith in that. And I thank you for doing that. Thank you for redeeming me. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for saving me. Help me to go from this moment

and each and every day aspire to get up and walk with you and walk with you in a way where I'm looking at what's blessed in your eyes, Not just what seems best in mind.

Pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen. Well, if you just prayed with me, welcome to the family. Welcome to a part of the story that started thousands of years ago and is continuing on until Jesus comes back. And I hope you understand that all of eternity just changed for you.

I hope that you would let us know, you'd put it on the card, you would go to the prayer room after and have somebody pray for you and pray with you. Because that's when this becomes real. This doesn't do anything other than takes us who believe in Jesus and gives us a moment to remember and reflect

on the greatest moment. He wanted us to remember this because this was the moment we were redeemed. And that's why Jesus took the bread and he broke it.

And I ate half of it. He said take and eat.

He then took the cups, this is my blood, it's built for forgiveness of sins, redemption to give us to be in the family, to be his child. Take and drink.

I'd like us to close to all of us say just amen. You know how you say amen at the end of prayers, you know what it means? It simply it just means I believe. So I would like us to group just say amen on three. How's that sound? Good way to close out tonight? Alright. One, two, three. Amen.

Amen. Hey, I love you guys. It's good to be back. Missed you. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.