Word of God to His people. I'm thankful for Preston and for you guys just for letting me be here today and give you the word. I'm from Conway. I know Delano and Zach, some of the guys you might know as well. And I go to Grace Bible Theological Seminary there with them. And so I know them from there. And they've been great brothers. And Delano reached out and asked if I wanted to preach at a Reformed church in Pine Bluff. And I was like, yes. That sounds like a great, great thing. So I'm here today. I'm thankful. for you guys, and I look forward to meeting and greeting you guys after the service. The book we're going through is Ruth, which is a very exciting book, full of the glories of the gospel and the riches of the loving kindness of Jesus Christ, of our Lord. And I'm honored, I'm honored, I really am, to preach it to you today, to preach it to God's flock, His fold. All right, so starting in verse one, It's the word the Lord says. Now, Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of excellence, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth, the Moabitess, said to Naomi, Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain, after one whom I may find favor in his eyes. She said to her, go my daughter. So she went. And she came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And it so happened that she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, may Yahweh be with you. And they said to him, may Yahweh bless you. Then Boaz said to his young man, who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? The young man in charge of the reapers replied, she is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the fields of Moab. And she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now. She has been sitting in the house for a little while. Then Moab said to Ruth, have you not heard, my daughter? Do not go to glean in another field. Furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my young women. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the young men not to touch you. And if you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the young men draw. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, though I am a foreigner? Boaz replied to her, All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully told to me, in how you forsook your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord repay your work, and may your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge. Then she said, may I find favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken to the heart of your servant woman, though I am not like one of your servant women. At mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. So she sat beside the reapers and he served her roasted grain. And she ate and was satisfied and had some left. Then she rose to glean, and Boaz commanded his young man, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not dishonor her. Also, you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles, and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. She took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied. Her mother-in-law then said to her, where do you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the name of the man with whom I work today is Boaz. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, May he be blessed of the Lord, who has not forsaken his lovingkindness to the living and to the dead. Then Naomi said to her, The man is our relative. He is one of our kinsmen-redeemers. Then Ruth the Moabitess said, Furthermore, he said to me, You should stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest. Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women so that others do not oppress you in another field. So she stayed close by the young women of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord God, we come before you in need of your grace, Lord. Lord, we are weak, beggarly sinners, Lord God, and we need you to come. We need your grace. We need your spirit, Lord God, and I pray in this time that you would open our ears to hear your word, Lord. I pray that we would see the glories of Christ and his person and his work, Lord. I pray that you would come to love him more, and I pray that it would lead us to seek to obey him in all that we do. Father God, as we look at this passage, I pray that whatever I say that's not of You would be left behind, but that I would preach Your Word, Lord God, and what You say, and that would remain, Lord. I pray that You would be with me as I speak Your Word. and that you would edify, you would feed your sheep, Lord God, and that you would get all the glory of the Lord. So be with us now as we look at this, at your word, Lord God, your holy word. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So I'll give you a quick lay of the land of what we're going to look at in this sermon first. First, we're going to look at just the first few verses of the chapter, just to kind of get an idea of what's the setting here, who are these characters, what's going on. Ruth is a complicated story. And so there's a lot of different things weaving in and out. And so it takes time to really dig in and what's happening here. And so after we look at some of the background, then we're going to look at our first point, which is that God has a sovereign plan for us in the midst of trial. And then the next point will be the comfort of God's loving kindness in the midst of trial. And third, we'll look at the hope and praise that we have in the midst of trial. And finally, the final point will be to stay with Christ, to remain in Him in the midst of our trials. So just a quick recap of what's been going on in Ruth. So up to this point, in the first chapter, we saw that you had a man named Elimelech, right? And he went to the land of Moab because there was a famine of land. He left Bethlehem, which is where he was at, which means house of bread. He left the house of bread to go to a pagan land, a foreign land, to try and find bread. which the land of Moab has been a hindrance for Israel ever since they came to this land. And so it didn't seem like the greatest idea. But while he's there, and he's bringing along his wife Naomi, while he's there, we see that his sons marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. Eventually, we see that Elimelech dies, as well as his two sons. They're judged by the Lord. And Naomi is left bereaved of her husband, no provider, no security there. And so it's a really tough situation. But it says in verse 6 of chapter 1 that the Lord visited His people with bread. So Naomi gets word that there's bread once again in Bethlehem, the house of bread. And so this indicates that there's been some type of change because the famine, we looked at in the past couple weeks, the famine is a sign of God's judgment. This is one of the curses of the old covenant that Deuteronomy talks about. If the people disobeyed the Lord, he would bring famine upon the land. And so what we have here is that There is a famine of bread, but what caused the famine of bread? It was a famine of the Word of God. A famine of people obeying God's Word is what caused the famine of bread in the first place. But now that's all changed. Naomi's gotten word that the Lord has visited His people and given them food. So there's a revival that's taken place in the land. Then we see that Naomi leaves and she tries to bring... She leaves, and also Orpah and Ruth are going with her. They want to come back to the land with her. She discourages them greatly. She gives them three reasons why, and she goes through. She's like, no, I'm past the age of marrying. You wouldn't wait for a son, even if I did have a son. And so she's trying to discourage them from coming to the land of promise, to the land of salvation. But Ruth clings to Naomi. Ruth adopts her God, Naomi's God, as her own God. And so she goes and devotes herself and clings to Naomi in a great expression of faith. She becomes one of the people of God. And so at the end of this chapter, leading into Chapter 2, what we have is Ruth and Naomi coming back right at the beginning of, it says here, right at the beginning of the barley harvest. We have the revival in the land. There's bread once again in the land. There's the barley harvest. And we now turn to the next main character of the book, who the Lord brings in, which in verse 1, reading verse 1 here, it says, Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of excellence, of the family of the Limelech, whose name was Boaz. So Boaz is a kinsman. He's a relative. He's a part of the family of a woman like, and by extension, Naomi. They're a part of the family. The text says that he's a mighty man of excellence or a worthy man. And this phrase that's used, it's used of warriors, such as Gideon in Judges. It's used of him as well. So it paints this picture that he is a great man in all facets of strength and might, and also, I would say, his character. He's a strong man in character. We see his name. What does the name Boaz mean? His name literally means strength. And so he's a doubly strong man. He's a man of strength and a mighty man as well, a man of excellence. And so it adds to this idea that he is this kind of man. Other translations will say he's a man of great wealth, which is also true, as we'll come to see throughout the rest of this chapter, that he owns land. He has a portion of the field here. And just to give the context, so when Ruth says, to Naomi, please let me go to the field, in verse 2, and glean among the ears of grain. She says THE field, but then later we'll see she, in verse 3, she came to the portion of the field of Boaz. So the way it worked was there, you had the towns, like Bethlehem was the town, right? That's where the people lived in, and then all around the town there was this big field. And the field was divided up amongst the family plans and their allotment. And it would be divided by stones, and there would be portions of the field. So Boaz has his own portion, which is where Ruth goes to. And another bit of background that'll help us kind of see what's going on here is that in Boaz's parents and his grandparents, that Boaz comes from the line of this guy named Salmon. Salmon is his father, or Salmon. But his father was Salmon, but his wife was Rahab, which Rahab It says this in Matthew 1.5. If you want to go look later, it says in Matthew 1.5 that Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab. So Rahab came into the biblical story back in Judges. I'm sorry, excuse me, back in Joshua, when the spies from Israel were coming into the land, which was the promised land, which at that time was all the Canaanites. So the spies came into the land, and she helped them out. She allowed them to stay, and she covered their tracks when they escaped. And so she identified with the people of God in that, and she had faith in the Lord by hiding them and keeping them from her own pagan people. And so we have a woman here, a Gentile woman, a pagan woman. who helps the people of God and comes to faith in God and is shown kindness by the people of Israel. Because if you remember, she let down the scarlet cord from her window. And when they came and destroyed the city, that signified that she would be protected, that they wouldn't destroy her house, her household. And so we have this woman who now has faith in the true God. She left her paganism and comes to the true worship of God. And so, when we see this here, there's parallels even with Ruth, who's the same way, a Gentile woman who's coming to faith in the Lord. And so, as we see the interactions of Boaz and Ruth, he will probably have this in mind that his mother, in a very similar way to Ruth, did the same thing and had faith in God. Now, back to the beginning of verse 1, when it said that Naomi had a kinsman of her husband. Like I said, it just means relative, but it's pointing to the idea of a kinsman-redeemer, which is a big theme. The kinsman-redeemer is a big theme throughout the Book of Ruth. And it's important now to define, what does kinsman-redeemer mean? What does this come from? Well, there's different duties, there's different responsibilities that the kinsmen redeemer would have. But the one that we're going to look at in this passage is the duty of being a lever, which comes from the leverite law. When I first heard that, I thought, oh, that's probably something from Levi, the tribe of Levi, or it has to do with that. But there's actually no connection to Levi. It comes from, in Latin, the word lever means the husband's brother. And so this is the law that deals with the husband's brother. It's a law that has to do with when a man dies, and him and his wife have no male child, have no male children, to pass on the inheritance, pass on the name. Then, when this husband dies, when this man dies, his brother, his younger brother, will come and marry the widow to raise up a child, a male child, to inherit his dead father's name, his dead father's inheritance, and everything that comes with that. And so this male child would then take the place of the dead brother and carry on the name. And this law is very important to the book. It's in the background of this book. And in the later chapters, it'll come up more. And so we have to understand the fact of what the Leverett Law is, which lever just means husband's brother. And so it's when the man dies. The brother will come and marry the wife so that they can have a child that will continue on the family name of the brother who died. That his name would not be blotted out. Then we come in verse 2 where Ruth asks Naomi to go to the field to glean, right? She wants to glean among the ears of grain. Now this may be a little unfamiliar to us. What is gleaning involved? What does it mean? We looked at, there's one verse in our congregational reading which talks about the harvest and gleaning and what that meant. But these gleaners, the people who would come and glean the field, were those who were poor, those who were disadvantaged, those who were afflicted, the widows or even sojourners in the land, those who were from other nations around who were living in the town, in the field. So they would come and they would glean. Now, let me read again just what Leviticus, what we read this morning. It says, now when you reap the harvest of your land in Leviticus 19, 9-10. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest, nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the afflicted and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. So as we see here, they leave the corners of the fields for the gleaners. And they also leave the gleanings, which the gleanings, which here's the picture of what would go on during the harvest. You have the young men. So Boaz has young men, these servants, who will go out. They will take the grain, right? They will take the bundles of grain, get a good-sized bundle, take the sickle, and cut off the heads from the stalks, right, to gather the heads of the grain. And what would happen after that, the young women would come behind and gather up the stalks and bind them into the sheaves. But this was a messy process. You're not going to always get every single strand, every single stalk of grain. It's a messy process. So this would allow the leaners to come, the law states that you should let those, leave them, let them fall, leave them behind, and the gleaners will come, those who are poor, those who are needy, those who need it. And the loving kindness of God, He provided this for them, that they could come and make a living for themselves. So they were not to collect the gleanings that happened. This is repeated again in Leviticus 23, 22, and then also in Deuteronomy 24, And in that passage in Deuteronomy, it's alongside the command that they were to do this, remembering that they were once slaves in the land of Egypt. They were to remember that they were once themselves afflicted in the land of Egypt. So they are to show kindness, just as God showed kindness to them when they were slaves. And this was a constant reminder. No, we need constant reminders that we were once slaves, that we were once slaves in our sin, slaves to sin, death, and the devil. But praise be to God that Christ set us free. But we can never forget that we were slaves and Christ has set us free in what he's done for us. We should be constantly reminded of that. Then in verse three of this passage, We'll come to our first point in this verse, that God has a sovereign plan. He's a purpose in the midst of our trials. So it says here that she came to the portion of the field owned by Boaz. And once again, it mentions he's from the house of the Limelech. He's related to Naomi, so it's trying to get us the idea of potentially he could be a redeemer, a hidden redeemer. But notice the language used here. It says, she happened to come into the field. Literally, in the original, it means she chanced upon, or her chance, chanced upon the field that she came in. Out of all the portions of the field that she could have come to, she came to Boaz as her relative. There's no such thing as random events. There's no such thing as flukes. There's no such thing as, well, that just, you know, that was all just happened by chance. No. The Lord, our God, is the one who has declared the end from the beginning. He is the one who works everything. after the counsel of His own will. He has a purpose, and it will all come to pass according to how He declared it. Think about what would have happened if Ruth had not entered Boaz's field first. She may have went into a different field, and she could have been hurt, taken advantage of. The house of Elimelech and Naomi, it could have ended right there. There may not have been a marriage to Boaz. The line wouldn't have been redeemed. There would have been no King David, because King David comes from this line. There would have been no David to bless Israel. And ultimately, there would have been no Christ who came through the line of Ruth and Boaz. And what's truly amazing here is that at this point, when Ruth steps foot in there, she had no clue. She was still in the midst of the uncomfortable season. She was still in the midst of this trial. But this is a great reminder, brothers and sisters, that God is always working. He's always at move in the background, even when we don't see it, even when we don't understand it, or even when we don't feel his presence. We can be confident that he is working in the midst of our trials, even when we don't see it. Ruth didn't know whose field she was stepping into. But God knew, and God had a purpose and a plan. He's the master storyteller. He's writing a story that's greater than any story that's ever been written. And we can trust Him that He has a purpose, even when we don't understand. And I think of one of the greatest verses in the Bible, I'm sure you know it well, Romans 8, 28, how we know all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. God is working all things for our good. He's working it all out to grow us, to sanctify us, to make us more like Christ, and it will result in all His glory and praise. Amen. Now in verse four, moving on, we see that Boaz comes onto the scene. It says, came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, may Yahweh be with you, the Lord be with you. And they said to him, may the Lord bless you. So he's coming and he's greeting his employees, his crew, right? Some churches and denominations, they do a similar greeting in their worship service, if you've ever heard of, or the pastor or whatever will say, the Lord be with you. And then the congregation will say back, and with your spirit. That's a greeting that comes, is derived from this type of greeting that we have here. But also we see here that Boaz is a righteous man, that he fears the Lord, at least in word, that he gives honor and praise to the Lord. And that his men also, that his crew, that they fear the Lord as well. So Ruth, in these next verses, in verse 5, Boaz comes, he says to this young man, whose young woman is this? The young woman tells him, she is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the fields of Moab. And then she told him earlier, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. And so she's been here since morning. She's been sitting in the house just for a little while. She's been taking her 15-minute water break from the field. And so she's been working hard. She's been working hard out in the field, getting the gleanings, gathering up. And the men have noticed this. And now Boaz comes and notices this. Then in verses 8 and 9, Boaz then comes to Ruth and says, have you not heard my daughter? Do not go to glean in another field. Do not go on from this one, but stay here with my young woman. Stay in my field. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap. Go after them. And indeed, I have commanded the young men not to touch you. If you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the young men draw. so he's inviting her to stay in his field, he's taking responsibility for her, his relative, and he tells the young men not to... He says not to harm her, not to touch her. And I think what would happen is you would have the gleaners oftentimes, you know, they're following behind the reapers. Sometimes they would come up too close and try to grab some of the actual harvest. And so what the reapers do, they, you know, swat them back, push them back. And so he's saying, no, Ruth can come up even right up to where y'all are working to gather up the first pickings in a sense. And he also tells her what? That she can get water. The same water that his servants drink from. So he's elevating her status. He's showing the loving kindness to her. He's showing kindness to her. And she isn't just going to be treated as this normal gleaner. No, he's showing kindness to her. And this leads us into our next point of the comfort of God's loving kindness for us. Now, before we go on to the next four verses and look, let me point out that we know the whole Bible. We know from the New Testament, Paul tells us that the whole Bible is the Word of God. that all scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching, correction, reproof, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God would be fully equipped for every good work. We know that Jesus tells us in the Gospels, like we saw in Luke, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, how he opens their eyes up to all the scriptures and says to Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, which is showing that the entire word of God He opened their eyes to it, the entire Word of God, to show that it's all about Him. It's all about Jesus. So, when we come to the book of Ruth, it's going to be no different. Ruth is going to point to Jesus. It's very, very important, especially when it comes to the seed of the woman, as we kind of mentioned earlier, the seed of the woman was going to crush the head of the serpent, the promise back in Genesis 3.15. But the seed of the woman was to crush the head of the serpent. So they're tracing the line of this Messiah, this serpent crusher down through history. And Ruth is tracking that. It gives the genealogy of that. And especially it's focused on David, that David's that type of Christ who is to come. And so Ruth is narrowing down this sea. First it narrowed down through Abraham, then through Isaac, then through Jacob, and then through Judah. And so we see this narrowing down through Judah and through the line of Ruth and Boaz now. But this isn't the only way that this book points to Christ. It also points to Christ just by the nature of the story and the characters that we have in the story. They point to Christ as well, and the loving kindness that's shown here, especially by Boaz, who is the kinsman redeemer, and his love that he shows. And he's already shown her kindness, as we've seen with the water and not allowing her to lean closer up. And so in the next couple verses, verse 10 and 12, Ruth responds, while I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, though I am a foreigner. Loa says, all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully told to me, how you forsook your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and you came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord fully repay your work. May your wages be full from the Lord. the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge." So Boaz has heard of Ruth's story. It's probably been the top of the town at this point in Bethlehem. How Naomi came back, and she's all bitter, and she wants to be called bitter now. And about Ruth, who came. And so he's heard all that's happened. He's probably, in the back of his mind too, we can kind of see with Rahab, he's probably thinking of, oh, this is a woman in like faith with my mother. A woman who has forsaken her people and come to be with the people of God. The same faith as his mother. And also he's showing kindness to her because of her faith in God, because she stuck with Naomi, she clung to Naomi. And Naomi is related to him, she's part of the house of Naomi's dead husband. So Boaz is showing that his love by taking care of her and his responsibility over her, caring for her as a part of this, as if she was in his own house. not just as a mere gleaner of grain, but also as, you know, you're part of my household. And we see this beautiful picture of the setting of the harvest, that as everybody in this chapter is gathering grain, as everybody's gathering the grain, it says here, Boaz wishes that the Lord would gather Ruth, that he would gather her as the grain is gathered, that God would gather Ruth in and give her rest, give her refuge. And in verse 13, the next verse, Ruth responds as she asks, may I find favor in your eyes, for you have comforted me, and indeed you have spoken to the heart of your servant woman. So what we have here is the favor that she wants, the grace that she wants in the eyes of Boaz. The loving kindness that he showed her has been a comfort in this hard season, has been a comfort to her in the midst of trial. Boaz, who is this mighty man of excellence, a man of valor, the eventual great-grandfather to David, he points here to Jesus Christ. He points here to our Lord Jesus Christ. We see in Boaz this picture of our Lord, who gives grace to His bride, the church, and shows abundant, loving kindness to her as it goes on. In verse 14, at mealtime, Boaz said to her, Come here that you may eat of the bread, and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar." So she sat beside the reapers, she came up and sat with the reapers, and he served her roasted grain, and she ate, and was satisfied, and had some left. Just as Boaz tells Ruth to feast, to come to the table, come up, draw near, come further up the table, just as Boaz tells her this, the Lord tells His people to come to Him, to draw near to Him, to feast with Him. just as Boaz serves her roasted grain and vinegar, which vinegar is just sour wine, just as he gives her these, Christ beckons his bride and gives her wine and bread and the Lord's Supper and the covenant meal that we come together and have communion with Jesus Christ in. So we see this picture of Boaz, this picture of Christ in Boaz. We have been joined, we have Now, Christ, He is our Redeemer. And it says that she ate, what does it say? It says she ate, and then she was satisfied, and what? She had more left over. There was an abundance left over. It's not just, here's some pieces of bread, you can have it over there, and here's a little bit of vinegar. No, it's heaping. See, he sees her plate, and he puts a big pile, you know, he gives heaps of grain, heaps of vinegar, and he says, eat, may you be merry, may you enjoy yourself. And this. This is our God. This is the wonderful love of our God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who He gives, and He gives, and He gives of Himself. He doesn't stop giving Himself. He pours out His grace. Ephesians 1-3, it says He has given us what? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places has been given to you, has been given to us. It's the abundance of Christ. Every single blessing has been given to us. We have been joined to Christ. We have been united to Christ by faith in Him, by trusting in Him. We become united with Him. We become crucified with Him. We die with Him. We're buried with Him. And then we're raised and seated in the heavenly places with Him. All that He has is now true of us as well. He invites us to come and be a part of Himself. He not only has justified us, but He has sanctified us. He has adopted us as His sons and daughters. He has forgiven our sins. He has thrown them into the depths of the sea. He remembers them no more, and He has cleansed us from all our sins. There is no blessing in heaven that has been withheld from you, Believer. There is no blessing that has been withheld from you. He doesn't stop giving. He gives us heaps, heaps up on our plates, food and nourishment. He gives us a feast at His table. As Psalm 23 says, our cup overflows. It's filled to the brim, and it's starting to pour over, but God's like, it's not done yet. Let me pour in some more. Let me keep pouring on. It's not full yet. And so, in verse 15, it keeps going on. It doesn't end like we're saying. It doesn't end. In verse 15, He commands His young men. He says, "...let her glean even among the sheaves. Do not dishonor her. Also, you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles, and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her." So He's saying, hey, you see those grains falling out? Those wheat grains and barley grains falling out? Yeah, pull some of those out so it'll be easier on Ruth. You know, you see those, we don't normally let people come up next to the sheaves, but you know, that's Ruth's spot. She gets to come up next to the sheaves and gather up some of the grain. So it's this abundant, again, abundant loving kindness that he's showing here. And then in verse 17, it says, she gleaned in the field until evening. She beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. Now, what's an IFA? How much is that? Well, it's 30 pounds. 30 pounds of barley. Imagine that. 30 pounds of barley. Sounds like a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. But get this. 30 pounds of barley would have been the pay for two weeks. For two weeks of a reaper in the field, of one of his young men, it would have been the pay for two weeks. So it would have been half a month's worth wages that Ruth got in one day, just in one day. And this is what loving kindness is. This is what hesed is. Hesed is the term used. And there's not really a good equivalent in the English language of hesed. But when we say loving kindness, we put two words together just to get to the idea of what this is. But it's the covenant love of God. It's the love he shows to those that are in his covenant, the faithfulness of God that he has. And we see this in Boaz, the picture of Christ. The love of Christ goes above and beyond. It doesn't stop giving. And it doesn't stop giving in the good times, but also in the trials. In the trials, His love is still there for us. In our weakness, in our disappointments, in our sin, look to the loving kindness of your Savior, shown here in Boaz and Ruth. Be reminded that even in the midst of trial, even when the world is changing around you, and things are shifting and changing, God hasn't changed. His hesed, His loving kindness hasn't changed. It's still the same, and He multiplies His grace to you. He multiplies it in the midst of even your pain, even your suffering. It's comforting, isn't it? The loving kindness of God is comforting. As we hear Ruth say back in verse 13, she says, your words, you have comforted me with this. You've spoken to my heart. And she's been in this extremely uncomfortable situation, widowed. And there's no hope for the house. She has to glean. She has to make this meager living. But yet, God gives her comfort. So brothers and sisters, be comforted today. Be comforted with the loving-kindness of the Lord, that He invites us to His table to come and feast. And as we partake of the Lord's Supper, we're reminded each week of the loving-kindness of God, that we are welcome at His table. Even when we don't feel worthy, even when we're in the midst of trial, loss, disappointment, the table is here. The table is here for you. Come to Jesus Christ. Come and welcome to Him. Receive His communion, His fellowship. That covenant love is there in the bread and wine. And so now, when we've been comforted by God, what do we do? God does that so we can comfort others, so we can comfort one another. It doesn't just stick with us, but it's so we can comfort the body of Christ, one another. What does it look like to comfort others? Well, it's to follow the example of Boaz here. It's to love, which love is not so much of a good feeling or an emotion, which that can be involved, but it's that decision that I am going to serve, that I'm going to give myself. for the good of another, that I'm going to give myself for their benefit, treating them as better than I am. It's giving ourselves to our brothers and sisters, our time, our talents, our skills, our service. Things we can do is we bear one another's burdens. This is how we comfort one another. We confess our sins to one another. We forgive one another. We think of how we can be a blessing to them in the week. Think, how could I be a benefit to that brother this week? If the Lord puts somebody on your mind, how can I comfort them this week? Maybe it's cooking a meal, maybe it's having them over. Maybe it's spending time with just those who maybe don't have family or friends left, and just be with them. Maybe it's giving them a word of encouragement, to give them thanks for the blessing they've been in your life. Maybe it's praising them in front of others. This is how we comfort one another in the body of Christ. We imitate. This is how we do it. We imitate the love that Boaz has shown here, which is ultimately reflecting the love that Christ shows. So now we come to the next section of the chapter, which is our third main point, where we see Naomi's eyes are open to God's comforting hand, which gives her hope and leads her to praise God in this trial. So after the day at work, we look here in this passage in verse 18, that after the day at work, she goes and heads back, heads back to Naomi's house. It says, she took it up, took her ephah barley, took it up and went into the city. And her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied. Her mother-in-law then said to her, where did you glean today, and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed. So Naomi sees how much grain she's gotten. She asks, who is this who let you get on this grain? This is two weeks worth of wages. This is 30 pounds. This is, wow. And so she notices how great kindness that she was given by whoever let her glean there. And so she asks, who was this? But she also asks, because in Deuteronomy 24, where it talks about the gleaning, it says there's going to be a blessing on those who show kindness. There's going to be a blessing for those who show obedience to the law. So this is, she's asking because of that, and also just because of the sheer amount of how much grain she's bringing back. The sheer amount of grain. And up to this point in the story, Naomi's been down on herself. When she came back, she was in hopelessness. She came back, and everybody's like, oh, it's Naomi Pleasant. She's like, don't call me Pleasant. Call me Mara. I'm bitter. The Lord has dealt bitterly with me. And so she's kind of a bit jaded. She's a bit down on herself. And he's like, you can call me Ole Miss Bitter. That's me. The Lord's against me. He's out to get me, poor pitiful me, but what we see here is that God is wooing her back. We see at this moment when Ruth tells her that it's Boaz, their kinsman, that has shown her this kindness. It's this moment that Naomi starts to understand. It's here that she starts to see the loving kindness of God. She came to this land with no hope. She was in the bonds of despair. Nothing seemed like it was going according to plan. Her husband had been judged. Her husband died, and her sons have died. There's no line. There's no future for her family. You couldn't see God's kindness, but now through Boaz, God has revealed his kindness to Naomi. Now she says here, to the living and to the dead. Her sons and her husband were dead. She regarded herself probably as who's dead, but God shows kindness to the dead. He showed kindness to us even when we were dead. Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, Christ raised us up. And so, the Lord here is wooing her back to Him. He's showing her His covenant love, that this was His plan all along. That He has been good this whole time. If you think about it, you had Ruth. who Naomi formally really tried to get her to go back to her own land. She's like, don't come with me. There's nothing for you here. Go back to your land. Go back there. She thought it was foolish of Naomi to cling to her. But it's amazing that the very thing that she thought was foolishness, which was Ruth's devotion to Naomi, that very thing was what God used to bring blessing, to bring blessing to Naomi once again. And when we are in trials, God often works in these kind of ways. He often surprises us. He often works in ways that we wouldn't have expected. There's a temptation for us when we are in trials to say, OK, yeah, I know this is a hard situation I'm in. But I know this is how God's going to get me out. This is how God has to get me out of this. And we start planning and saying, this is the way that God has to work. This is the way that he must rescue me. But, we can miss, and we can get so caught up in our planned way of how He's rescuing us, that we can miss what God's teaching us, even in the midst of that trial. And we can miss that He knows best, that He has a plan that often will surprise us of how He gets us out of the trial, and how He gets us through, and eventually out of trials. So we can be confident of two things when we're in hardship. That God will reveal His loving kindness to us. And two, that the way He brings us out of His trials will be on His terms. It'll be in ways that we might not have expected. But, as we look at, He's sovereign. He's the master storyteller. He's writing a story that's better than we could have written. He knows better than we know. He knows all things. And so, we can trust Him. We can give ourselves to Him. That He will bring us out in the way that He knows best. And it will be for our greatest good. We can leave it in His hands. Amen? And we can leave it in His hands. And one last thing before we move on to the next section of the chapter. Notice how Naomi responds. How does she respond to God's kindness to her? And this is it. She responds by what? She praises the Lord. She says, may the Lord be blessed who has shown me loving-kindness. Or may Boaz be blessed, and this is the Lord who has shown loving-kindness. Praise be to Him. So she gives the Lord praise, even When she hasn't yet been redeemed, the ending of the story has not come yet, but she is still praising the Lord, because she has hope. The Lord has given her hope that He is going to be faithful. And so even when we are in suffering, in hard times, we should look to the loving kindness of the Lord, and we should bless Him, we should praise Him, we should thank Him. for all His many gifts to us. Everything that we have is by His gift to us. Everything that we have is by grace. Even in hardship, there are so many things to be thankful for. And it's hard. It is hard to see sometimes. I mean, it's hard to see that our trial looms so large that we can neglect the good things that God has given. But even in the midst of hardship, God has shown kindness to us and gives us good things. And the praise that we have for the Lord helps lead us through, helps get us through the trials and the hardships. And so even if we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, even when we don't know when the Lord will work and deliver us, we can be confident that He is faithful and He will get us through every trial successfully and that He will bring us out So we can praise, we can thank, we can bless His name. We can cultivate this habit of praising God, even when times are hard. There's one thing only to praise God when the good times come, but in the hardship, it's a whole other thing. We really depend on God and see how much we do depend on God. We can follow in the footsteps of Job, who said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Even though he slay me, yet I will hope in him. I will trust in him. So finally, with our last point, which is staying with Christ, to remain in Christ. This will finish the rest of chapter two. So verse 21 goes on to say Ruth tells Naomi more about her day saying, he said to me, Boaz said to me, you should stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest. Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, so that others do not oppress you in another field, or others do not meet you in another field. This phrase is an interesting phrase, unless they meet you in another field. What is this all about? Some take it to mean that if Ruth goes to a different part of the field, that they'll take advantage of her and harm her. As some translations put it, lest they go and assault you or harm you. While it's possible that this is what the text is getting at, I think it's probably more likely that it's referring to if Ruth were to go to another field after Boaz had already said, I'm going to take care of you. You're a part of my house. I will give you all you need. Here's all this grain. Here's everything you need. If she were to reject his kindness, word would have gotten out. The young woman would have seen. Word would have gotten back to Boaz. And think about how he would have felt. that she would reject him in his great kindness that he showed her. So I think that's what Naomi's getting at with staying in the field of Boaz. Do not reject his great kindness that she has showed her. That's what she has showed you. Looking at this through the lens of the New Testament, this passage is showing us that we should remain, we should stay in the field of Jesus Christ. That we should stay in His loving-kindness. He is the greater Boaz. He provides salvation and loving-kindness to all those who are in Him. And there's no other field. There's no other field that can satisfy us. There's no other field. Christ is the One. He's the One who gives us our daily bread. He is the One who is the Bread of Life. All other bread is useless. There's no other bread anywhere else. It's only in Him. Life is found in Him. In Him alone, He is the way, the truth, and the life. Ruth being told here to stay in the field of Boaz, it's a warning. It's a warning for us to remain, to stay in the love of Christ. Don't forsake him. Don't go looking for love in other places. Don't go to other things when trials come or whenever hardship comes. But say with Peter, who told the Lord when all the other disciples were leaving, he said, to whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life. You have the words of eternal life. There's nowhere else to go. So when we're pressed down by our afflictions and our trials, The enemy will come and tempt us. He will question the character of our Master and Lord. He will say, no, he's not really that good, is he? He's not really that good. He can be stingy. He can withhold some love from you. He can withhold the kindness to you. How could God be kind to you? Look at you and where you're at in this situation. God did this to you. But may it never be. But how can we reject? the kindness of Christ, which He has already shown us by bringing us to faith in Him, by redeeming us and cleansing us of our sin. How could we then go looking for love in other places? How could we go to other fields? It's unthinkable. How could we leave the field of the Lord and Savior who gave Himself, who gave His life up to the point of death on a cross for you? There is no other master like Him. All other fields, all other fields will leave us empty. All other fields will leave us empty. All other masters, they can call out with sweet words, promising satisfaction, promising pleasure and delight, but in the end, if you are in Christ, they will never satisfy. They could never satisfy you. In the end, they will turn on you. That satisfaction and pleasure they promised, it will turn to bitterness. They will be the ones who give you bitterness, all the false idols and all the empty and worthless masters of this world. God gives us His own word in John 10 that Christ is the true shepherd, that He gives life to His sheep, that He takes care of His sheep and feeds His sheep. All others are robbers and thieves. They only come to steal, kill, and destroy. They only come to seek your harm. They say, your life for mine. They say, your life is in the service of mine. Give to me. Give, give. But Christ says, my life for yours. I'm going to give to you. we can look to Christ, we can go to Christ. Even in the midst of our darkest times, tragedy, sorrow, and loss and hardship, we can go to the field of the Lord Jesus Christ, who perfectly provides for all those who take refuge in Him. He shows His kindness to the dead and to the living. He comforts us and gives abundant grace. He invites us to feast with Him, as we saw, to come and have fellowship with Him. And He is sovereignly working all things out for our good, for His ultimate glory. So this is the charge, this is what I give to you. Hold fast, cling to Christ. The night will not be forever. But the day is coming, the Lord will bring the day when He will turn all our sorrow and crying into joy. He will turn all our mourning into joy. And then when we come to the end, He will guide us over death and we will be with Him forever. And so I'm confident, my brothers and sisters, I'm confident that as it says here in this last verse, that Ruth stayed in the field of Boaz, that you will stay in the field of Christ and you will Come to thank and praise Him and find joy and satisfaction in your Savior, in your Lord, for all of your days. For all of your days that you would find your satisfaction in Him and in Him alone. There's nowhere else for you. There's nowhere else for us to go. There's nowhere else. So let us pray. Oh Lord God, or be crazy that you are a sovereign God, that you are working all things out according to your will.