Living Hope

Pastor Philip Miller: Not only does Boaz do what the law requires here and leave the edges of the fields unharvested, leaving the stuff that falls on the ground and treating Ruth as an image bearer of God even though she's not an Israelite, she's from Moab. He shows particular concern. He takes it further. He shows particular concern for Ruth, doesn't he?

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're so glad you've joined us for this series on the book of Ruth. Now, Pastor Philip, why is it so surprising that Boaz is showing what you call a particular concern for Ruth?

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, she she's an unlikely character, right? She's she's this she's a widow, she's a Moabitess, she's she's she's a woman in these fields. You know, normally this is other people going out there. She's vulnerable. If anyone could be ignored or pushed aside or brushed aside, you know, it would be her. She she doesn't have any social standing or credentials. So the fact that Boaz goes out of his way to to look after her, to protect her, to supply her needs, and do beyond what the Mosaic law required with providing food for the poor, but to to invite her to have, you know, to glean in in amongst the field, to give her food and provide her lunch and water and all these things, he's really going above and beyond and he's demonstrating what real righteousness and justice looks like when it comes to how the Bible defines these things.

And and it's and it's a taste, isn't it? It's a taste of God's covenant love for Naomi and Ruth, the way he's providing through his people for them. And so it's a it's a it's it's hope that's coming toward them. They're beginning they're God's providing so much for them. And it's all through these means. And so this is really a beautiful picture and this is where the story starts to turn. There's there's hope on the horizon.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: A taste, you say. All right. Well, stay tuned after the message because Pastor Philip and I we're going to discuss a biblical definition of justice. But now, let's go to the pulpit of the Moody Church for part two of the sermon, Merciful Justice.

Pastor Philip Miller: The second power here is the power of providence. The power of providence. Did did you notice how the narrator seems to enjoy highlighting all the coincidences in this passage, how everything is starting to unfold? It just so happens that Ruth ends up in one of Boaz's fields. Boaz just happens to show up at that particular moment in that particular field to check on how things are going. He just happens to notice her. He happens to inquire after her. He happens to offer protection to her. He happens to invite her to lunch. He happens to welcome her into his community here.

He just happens to be a close relative of Elimelech, which will be more important as the story unfolds because he might actually be someone who can act redemptively on behalf of this family. He he just happens to be a a real catch. He happens to be single. Whoa, what are the odds? What of the all these coincidences? Have Ruth's lucky stars aligned or what? Well, what are the odds? But of course, that's the point, isn't it? That's the point. This is not coincidental at all. That's something more than happenstances at work here. Somebody is writing a redemptive plot line.

Someone is working in all of these things for Ruth and Naomi and Boaz is good and for his glory. Who could that be? That Ruth has taken herself now under the shelter of the wings of God, this beautiful image of like a mother bird sheltering the young, that that that Ruth has has come under the protection of God and he's already on the move. And the narrator wants us to see all of these coincidences and he's winking at us, reminding us that we are never ever alone. That we live in the care of our Father, not the chaos of chance.

That we live in the care of our Father, not the chaos of chance. Friends, the Bible tells us that our times are held not in the capricious whims of chance, nor in the bondage of deterministic fate, but in the loving care of our heavenly Father who watches over our days. God has given each and every one of us responsibility for our self direction for the choices we make in life. And yet, in all things God is sovereignly presiding, working always for our good and for his glory. And so here what we have is the hand of God behind the scenes presiding over all of these events, working in the shadows, if you will.

And so it is in our lives. The takeaway for each and every one of us is that we need to learn to trust the unseen hand of God, to trust the unseen hand of God. I'm reminded of Genesis 50 uh verse 20. It's a famous line from Joseph whose life fell apart in many ways and then had this great reversal and he got elevated and God used him in powerful ways. And at one point he was speaking to his brothers who had really done him him wrong in life, actually sold him into slavery. And he he looked at his brothers and he said, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good.

What you did was hurtful, it was wrong, it wasn't pleasant. But through it, God was working a greater purpose, a greater plan. The New Testament has the equivalent verse in Romans chapter 8 verse 28 which says that we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose, which it goes on to explain is to conform us to the very image of Christ. And so friends, at every moment in time God is doing thousands of things that we cannot even see. And so we learn, Ruth is learning and we learn to trust the unseen hand of God who is always providentially working in our lives.

This is what Ruth is experiencing. It is a powerful truth and reality. It's the power of providence. Finally, the third power we see here is the power of justice. The power of justice. One of the most striking features of this narrative is how Boaz treats Ruth. She's a foreigner, remember. She has very limited rights, very limited legal protection. She's alone. She's vulnerable, she's at risk, and she's kind of in the way. I mean, she's in there. They're trying to get the harvesting quickly. Time is of the essence. You don't know what weather will move in and wreck everything.

And so she's kind of in the way. She starting in and out, trying to gather stuff while they're trying to do their work. And we can imagine a very different kind of interaction here, can we? Can you you can imagine Boaz, maybe if he is a very different kind of man saying, who is that insert racial slur here? What is she doing in my field? You know, this is a man's place. She should go home. Get her out of here. She's eating up all the profit margins. We can even imagine some uncouth locker room talk amongst the workers or someone mistreating or taking advantage of Ruth.

All of those would would be things that probably would happen in other places and other moments. But not here, not now, not with Boaz. He is a He is a man of honor, nobility, righteousness. And not only does Boaz do what the law requires here and leave the edges of the fields unharvested, leaving the stuff that falls on the ground and treating Ruth as an image bearer of God even though she's not an Israelite, she's from Moab. He shows particular concern. He takes it further. He shows particular concern for Ruth, doesn't he? This would be like, you know, some very rich person, say Bill Gates, just sidling up to a homeless person and seeing how they feel.

I mean, we we would almost never happen, right? It's totally unexpected and he comes and he says, my daughter, which is a protective term, a family term. What he's doing is he's bringing her into his sphere of protection as a as a father would. And he would have said this loudly enough that his other workers would have heard the term and said, okay, we're not messing with her. She's under the protection of Boaz. He looks out for her. Stay here in my fields. I don't know how you'll be treated other places, but I know you'll be safe here.

Keep close with my young women. There's community there. You'll be protected when in numbers. Don't stray off on your own. I've told my young men not to touch you. If they mess with you, they mess with me, right? And when you're thirsty, they'll get the water for you. You don't have to go to the well and haul it up. They will take care of that for you. And then he blesses her. And he asks us asks that the Lord would show her kindness just as she's shown kindness to Naomi, that God now would repay her with kindness.

This is that concept of hesed again. And then he invites her to lunch. Don't you love this? Remember high school, your first day of high school and how awkward it was. You walked into the lunch room and you didn't know where to sit and it's like, right? And then the captain of the football team, Boaz, says, hey, we've got an empty seat. Come sit with us, right? Come sit with us. He invites her into community. He gives her a place at the table, warm roasted grain to satisfy her stomach. She even has leftovers. She eats a doggy bag out of it, right?

And then Boaz goes even further. He says to his his young men, let let Ruth come in into the rest of the field and gather among you, with the rest of you. That's his crop. That's not the margin he's required to give. He's inviting her to take from his portion of the field now. And don't let her, you know, wait for the leftovers. Let her cut the stocks herself. And even And guys, even when the bundles are all put together, drop some extra stuff on purpose. Just take some out and throw it on the ground.

Do you see what he's doing? He is sharing his wealth with her. It's his rightful property. This is his rightful income. And remember, they've had famine for years. So he's got debts to pay. He's got You know, this is not This is his first good crop in years. And yet he is lavishly sharing his wealth with Ruth at personal cost to himself. And friends, this this is what biblical justice looks like. This is what righteousness, honor, nobility, this is what looks like. This is biblical justice. There's actually three elements. If you study the Old Testament, three elements that make up the biblical concept of justice.

The first one is this, that there is equal treatment under the law. The The Bible is very clear. You're not to have one law for yourselves and a different law for the foreigners, right? Equal treatment under the law. Secondly, um there's a special concern for the vulnerable. So you'll find throughout all of the Old Testament that God's heart beats for the poor, the widows, the orphans, the sojourners, the the foreigners, that those who are disadvantaged and don't have people to advocate for them in life, those are the people whose God who who God's heart reaches out for.

And God's people were always called to act with justice and mercy toward those who are vulnerable. The third thing you'll see is that um biblical justice is a is a willingness to disadvantage yourself for the sake of others. A willingness to disadvantage yourself for the sake of others. It's what Boaz is doing right here. He is sharing his own wealth, disadvantaging his economic position in order to raise up Ruth and Naomi, right? That's what he is doing.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I 'm Pastor Larry McCarthy and Living Hope comes to you because listeners choose to give so that others can keep on listening. Won't you partner with us? And as a thank you for your gift today, we have a resource we'd love to share with you. Go to livinghopeoffer.com or call us 1-800-215-5001. We're so glad you joined us today as we explored the meaning of biblical justice. Pastor Philip, I don't know. If we ask people what is justice, we're going to hear about uh restoration and retribution and fairness.

Let's clear up the clutter. What's biblical justice?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. Well, this is like one of those words that is a biblical word, but then gets co-opted by culture and misused and abused and redefined and but we keep using the word and and but we it's definitions get cloudy. And so it's really important for us to understand what biblical justice is. It's not what everyone in culture says justice is. Biblical justice, when you when you look at the scriptures, um there's really three core ideas to it. It's first of all equal treatment under the law. Uh laws don't get applied and defined differently for different groups of people.

Just because you're the king doesn't mean you get to different set of laws from the commoners or the other folks. There's equal treatment under the law. Everyone is treated the same because all are image bearers of God, right? So that's so that's the first first core idea. The second one is there's a particular concern for the vulnerable. And you see this all throughout um the the Bible that God's heart is always beating for the widows and the orphans and the poor and the oppressed and the the prisoner and the sojourner and the like the people who fall through the cracks of society who are constantly being mistreated because they don't have leverage in society and so they tend to get abused.

And God is constantly calling his people to not be like the other nations that trample on these folks and marginalize them and and push them aside, but to honor the image of God in every human being, especially those who tend to be uh disenfranchised. And so there's a particular concern in the scriptures that says justice pursues the interests of making sure people get their fair due as image bearers of God. So that's the second core idea. Particular concern for the marginalized. And then the third one is this uh this notion of a willingness to disadvantage yourself for the sake of others, for the sake of the community.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Oh, wait a minute. I was with you right up until till that point.

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. Well, you you see this and you see it in Boaz. He's incarnating it really well in this in this tale. He He says, okay, God has blessed me. I'm a landowner. I've got crops. The crops are coming in. I have an abundant harvest even though I've had years of famine. God is blessing me and that blessing You know, the scriptures are really clear. We don't own anything. Everything we have belongs to God, which means we're stewards, not owners. We're managers. So if I'm an investment banker and somebody gives me money to manage, that's not my money.

My job is to manage that money according to the directives of the owner. And if God owns everything, but he's entrusted it to my management, then he gets to tell me what to do with it. And one of the things God tells me to do with it, with the resources I've been giving, is to steward them according to what he wants. And that means I've got to be willing to share his heart and care for what he cares about even if it costs me. Even if to disadvantage myself for the sake of others. So Boaz looks at Ruth and he realizes part of my responsibility before God is to care for this disenfranchised lady that has no other options.

It's my responsibility before the Lord to disadvantage myself. I can't make as much profit this year because this woman is in my life and under my care and it's my job to take care of her. And so he disenfranchise disadvantages himself for the sake of the disenfranchised, right? And And we see this all the time in the scriptures that that's what justice looks like. And there's a beautiful connection here. Um the the root for justice is in the same word as righteousness. And so the idea of righteousness and justice are intertwined theologically. So righteousness we think of being right before God vertically.

Justice is about being right with other human beings.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Yes.

Pastor Philip Miller: And those are actually one cloth. They're one thing. To be right with God is to live rightly with others. We must love God and love people. Those are an integrated holistic thing. That's what Jesus says. It's just the one commandment, right? This is the commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and strength. Love your neighbor as your self. These are one cloth, one call. Righteousness works itself out in justice. And this is a high and holy standard. This is how God views the world.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. You're joining us in our discussion regarding a biblical definition of justice. Thank you for those three pointers. But I know so of our listeners are asking, okay, so righteous, act justly to the vulnerable. I need some meat on that bone. Who's vulnerable in my society, in my city, in my neighborhood? Who's vulnerable?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. I mean, that's the the questions, who am I obligated to do justice toward, right? Or to paraphrase it and put it in the New Testament context, who's my neighbor?

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Uh-oh.

Pastor Philip Miller: Right? Who's my neighbor? Who Who am I obligated

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Got quiet.

Pastor Philip Miller: to love my as myself, right? Who am I responsible to act justly toward? And Jesus tells the story of the Samaritan, right? You know, the good Samaritan. And all the people who passed by this guy on the road, but the the Samaritan is the one who stopped and cared for the man. And he says, so who treated who was a neighbor to the man?

Pastor Larry McCarthy: All right.

Pastor Philip Miller: Right? And of course, the social is construct in in the New Testament time is the Samaritan is the ones everyone thinks are the problem. And here they hear they hear he is demonstrating what real justice looks like, right? So here's the point.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Okay.

Pastor Philip Miller: We are obligated before God under his rule and reign to act justly to whoever is right there in front of us. Whoever it is on the road who needs our care. That is who we are to act justly toward. And so like stop trying to solve it on a societal huge political scale. As a follower of Jesus Christ, the need in front of me

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Mm.

Pastor Philip Miller: is the need that I am responsible to respond to. And those image bearers that touch my life, where I see those needs and I see people falling through the cracks and I see vulnerability and I see the injustice of a broken world cuz it's everywhere, isn't it?

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Yes.

Pastor Philip Miller: But it's where those needs touch my life. Those are my neighbors and that is where my responsibility lies. And so I think I think it's really important for us as Christians to realize leave all the political big picture stuff, vote, do all that stuff, but leave that in the hands of of people who ever trying to solve that on big scale.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Mm.

Pastor Philip Miller: But as a follower of Jesus Christ, my job is to walk through my life, look at my sphere of influence and the people that my life is touching and where I see people hurting, falling through the cracks, being ignored, that's where I'm supposed to reach out and not harden my heart to that, but recognize that God has blessed me and has given me If we have If we have any more than we need that has been given to us as a stewardship to manage before the Lord and it is We are responsible for each other.

Love God, love people. Righteousness, justice. This is what we're called to.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Ooh we wow, that's practical, isn't it, beloved? You deal with what's right in front of you because Pastor Philip, you're right. Otherwise it just seems overwhelming. There's too many people that are quote vulnerable, too many. I can't solve it, but I can help one.

Pastor Philip Miller: That's right.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: I can help the person in front of us. I want to pivot real quickly though and ask you though. So all right, I've been treated unfairly and I've been harmed and I don't see any justice coming my way. How am I supposed to act? Then I don't have a happy ending to my story.

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah. So briefly I I think first we've got to recognize, yes, we do get hurt. Yes, we do get mistreated. That's wrong. It's part of the sin cursed broken world we live in. We can call a spade a spade. This is out of line. It's wrong. We should pursue justice through whatever legal means are available to us at the same time recognizing that justice belongs to the Lord. Vengeance is the Lord's. He will repay. And here's the reality. At the end of the day, every injustice is either going to be settled on the cross by Jesus who dies for the sins of those who are forgiven by faith, trusting in him, or in hell when justice is done.

Every every injustice will be settled in the end. We may not see it this side of eternity, but we can trust God. And that allows us to move forward and not get stuck. Amen. Beloved, if you've been hurt and experienced that hurt of injustice, know that God sees, God knows, and God will judge. And God will make all things right. You know, Ruth came to know the God of Israel through the people who showed her his kindness. Children learn the same way long before they can follow any argument, which is exactly why we're glad to offer one, two, three, Jesus Loves Me for little ones.

This 8 by 8 hard copy pairs the numbers 1 through 10 with short stories from Jesus's life. So counting practice and gospel story time happen together in the same sitting. It's an easy gift to request today for the little ones in your life or maybe someone else that you know to request your copy of 1, 2, 3, Jesus Loves Me for little ones, simply go to livinghopeoffer.com or call us at 1-800-215-5001 or write to us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60614. God sees every injustice and he'll make all things right.

Next time we'll talk about proactive dependence on God. Thanks for joining us for Living Hope where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.