Practical Living

Dale O’Shields: Thank you for joining us for today’s Practical Living broadcast, and I pray that through this message that you will learn how to apply God’s word and truths to any situation in your life. Stay with us as we discover God’s truths that will transform us.

I want to continue to talk about life quakes today. I’m talking about recovering from losses in your life. How do you recover from the losses of life? We talked a bit about this last weekend. We’re continuing that theme together, and the overarching theme is the idea, the concept of life quakes.

What is a life quake? A life quake is anything that shakes up your life. It’s a shattering moment, a shaking moment. Sometimes these life quakes are temporary simple things that we can easily get over, transitional points. They shake us up for a little bit of time, but they don’t really damage us in any way. There are other times that we have these major blows in life, and they really knock us off our equilibrium. They seem to be very shaky things that happen. Life quakes come to everyone.

Jesus talked about this in Matthew chapter seven, beginning in verse 24, where he described two men building houses. One man built his house on rock, and another man built his house on sand. The storms of life came to both. The rain, the winds blew on the house on the rock and the house on sand, and the house on the sand was collapsed by the pressures.

Jesus is giving us a warning there and reminding us that we need to build our house on solid rock, the rock of his word, obedience to his word, relationship with God. There’s a way to build a house that even in the midst of the quakings of life, we can still stand if we have the right kind of foundation.

One of those shocking, shaking moments in life comes in the form of the losses of life. When you and I experience some kind of loss in our life, we tend to be, particularly if it’s a significant loss, we tend to be shaken and sort of knocked off kilter by it. So we’re talking today, as we did last weekend, about this idea of how do you deal with losses.

How do you make sure the losses that come your way do not crumble your house? The focus of our study is a little book in the Old Testament called the book of Ruth, a very short little book, four chapters. In fact, I would suggest to you that if you have not read the book of Ruth recently, or if you’ve never read it at all, it’s a great read to go back and just take some time. You can read the four chapters very quickly, but you’ll get the entire story of the book of Ruth and what we’re talking about in this particular message together.

To understand the book of Ruth, I do want to give you a little bit of a perspective on the characters in the story and the geography of where it takes place. There are seven main characters in the story in the book of Ruth, and you need to know these folks because they’re important to the story and what we’re looking at in the concept, the idea of dealing with grief.

There’s a man by the name of Elimelech, and Elimelech was from Bethlehem in Judah. He’s an Israelite. He was married to a lady by the name of Naomi. So Elimelech and Naomi is the primary couple we see in the first part of this book. Elimelech and Naomi had two sons. One son’s name was Mahlon, and the other was Kilion. Very unusual names, but they too are Israelites, as were his parents, Elimelech and Naomi, living in a place called Bethlehem, of which we are all familiar, the birthplace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So you have Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon, and Kilion. But something happened in Bethlehem in Judah. There’s a famine that transpires while this family is living there. Elimelech, the head of the household, says, “We’re going to go to a place where we can survive.” He takes all of his family to a new territory, another territory called Moab. I’ll put this on the screen in just a moment so you’ll see exactly the connection between these two areas.

They go from Bethlehem to Moab, and there Mahlon and Kilion meet two Moabite women and marry the Moabite women Orpah and Ruth, the one that is the namesake of this book of the Bible. So we have Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon, Kilion, Orpah, and Ruth. There’s one more character to make up the seven in the story, a vital character, and he stands on his own, and his name is Boaz. It’s vital to understand he’s going to be central to the whole story of the book of Ruth.

As I mentioned, you’ll see on the screen here a little map so you’ll have a perspective of where this transpires. They’re living in, Mahlon, Kilion, Naomi, and her husband Elimelech are originally living in Bethlehem just south of Jerusalem. There’s a famine there, so they travel to the east toward Moab, and they live there.

Moab, the history of Moab goes all the way back to the time of Lot and an incestuous relationship that Lot had with one of his daughters. You see that there’s a formation of an idolatrous territory. So they’re leaving the land of the worship of Yahweh God to a land of idolatry. Whether that was wise or not is still to be debated, but nevertheless, this is what Elimelech did.

When they arrived there in Moab, Elimelech very soon dies. That leaves Naomi as a widow. Her sons marry Orpah and Ruth, and after 10 years of time, these two sons of Naomi die as well. So now you have three ladies who are widows: Naomi, who’s lost her husband, Orpah and Ruth, who’ve also lost their husbands.

They’re now three widows that are somehow seeking survival because back in those days, there was no financial safety net at all. Widows of this nature had nothing to provide for them. There’s obviously nothing like our social security system or welfare, things of this nature. So they have to make it on their own. They’re now in the throes of poverty. They’ve had losses in their life. They’ve lost their husbands, and now they’re living in a loss kind of an environment trying to figure out what their days are going to be in the future.

Now, the truth for all of us today is that all of us as well have losses in our lives. Maybe you’re going through a loss right now. What kind of losses? We talked about them last weekend. There are relationship losses. You have a friendship that you thought this person’s going to be my friend for the rest of my life, and then something happens and the relationship’s broken, and they’re no longer there in your life.

You can lose a loved one, someone you had a strong relationship with and by reason of death, they’re gone from your life, and you’re left with trying to deal with life without that person that you really did love, that you really leaned on, that were a key part of your life.

We can have material losses. Maybe a business fails. Maybe a bad investment. Maybe you find yourself in financial crisis. You’ve lost something that you were depending upon for your future. You can have a physical loss. Many people lose their health and they have to deal with the loss of not having the same kind of vitality they once had.

You can lose trust in someone because of betrayal. You can lose confidence because of a failure in your own life or some kind of thing that you go through in life. Losses are a part of life. Any significant loss in your life always produces an emotion. In fact, multiple emotions, but a primary category of emotions, that’s the emotion called grief.

Anytime you lose anything significant, you’re going to experience grief. Grief is normal. It’s a part of the human existence. It’s important for us to acknowledge our moments of grief, to deal with grief appropriately because there are good, healthy ways to deal with grief. However, if we don’t deal with grief the right way, grief will eventually rob us of something that’s vital to your life, and that is hope.

You’ll find yourself in despair. There are far too many people who are living in a grief that has caused them now to get to a place where they feel hopeless about their life, despairing about their future. So I’m talking to us about how do you handle losses. How do you handle grief in a way that does not rob you of your hope? Today I want to share with you three more lessons along these lines that will help us to do this very thing.

The next thing I want to share with you, and the first thing today, is to understand that when you go through a loss, it’s going to actually test some relationships in your life. This is why it’s vital to recognize what losses do to you and what grief does to you. It will test relationships in your life.

Losses will always, when you go through a significant loss in your life, it’s going to test the shallowness or the depth of your friendships. In fact, when you go through any kind of trouble in life, you’re going to find out who your true friends are and who your true friends are not. It’s interesting to see that when you’re going through a trouble time, a grief-stricken time, a time that you’ve lost something, that you’re going to find out where people around you really are. Are they still with you or are they no longer interested in the relationship with you?

This is exactly what’s going on with Naomi because Naomi has lost her husband and, of course, Orpah and Ruth have lost their husbands as well. So you have these three widows together, and Naomi being the primary leader of the group now because she’s the older mother-in-law. Now she’s having to determine what she will do with her future and what Orpah and Ruth will do.

It’s going to test the relationship between Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth because all the men are gone. So these ladies are going to find out who are friends with who. During this time now after these losses have transpired, Naomi makes the decision, “I’m going to leave Moab, and I’m going to go back to Bethlehem.” So she has a conversation with Orpah and with Ruth about her desire to go back to Bethlehem. Let’s take a look at this in Ruth chapter one beginning in verse number seven.

With her two daughters-in-law, she set out, this is Naomi, set out from the place where she’d been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. But on the way, they’re on the way back to Bethlehem from Moab. On the way Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ 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. So they’re on the way back to Bethlehem, and they stop the journey, and Naomi looks at Orpah and Ruth and says, “You guys need to just go back to Moab. Go back and marry somebody else. Perhaps you’ll have the opportunity of having children in the days to come. But go back home. Go to your mother. Go back to your homeland. I’m going to my homeland. You go back to your homeland.”

It’s there in this part of the story that there’s an incredibly ugly turn as well as a beautiful turn. Let’s take a look at what happens in verse 14. And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. “Look,” Naomi said to her, that’s to Ruth, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods,” a very important statement there, “she’s gone back to her idolatry. You should do the same.”

But Ruth replied, and perhaps you’ve heard this before or familiar with the words of Ruth, she replies and says, “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. I’m leaving all the gods of the Moabites behind, and your one true God will now 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.” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.

The relationship between Naomi and Orpah and Ruth now is tested. Naomi says to the two of them, “Go back home.” Orpah said, “Goodbye.” When Orpah said, “Goodbye,” Ruth said, “Hello.” She said, “Naomi, wherever you go, I go. Wherever you live, I’m going to live. Your God is now my God. Your people are my people. My relationship with you is based in commitment and dedication and loyalty. I will not let you out of my sight.”

What you see there in the story is that immediately Orpah walks off the pages of the Bible. Nothing else recorded about her. She walks off the pages of the Bible back to her idolatrous worship. While she walks off the pages of the Bible, Ruth walks onto the pages of the Bible, and an entire book of the Bible is named after Ruth.

Dear ones, understand something. These two women responded very differently, and Naomi’s loss was tested by relationships. The same will be true for you and me that when you’re going through the tough times of life, especially the losses of life, some people are going to say goodbye and some people are going to say hello. What I’m here to tell you is that not everyone that says hello is still going to stick with you.

Because it’s easy to say, “I’m with you through trouble.” It’s a different thing to actually be with someone through trouble. As Proverbs chapter 20 verse six says, “Many will say they are loyal friends, but who can find one who is truly reliable?”

Even your best friends will never be able to meet the full needs that you will experience in life as you go through a loss. Your best friends, your most loyal people will not be everything you need to get through the most significant losses in your life. Even if they leave you, here’s my announcement to you today: there is one who will never leave you, who will always be in relationship with you, who will walk with you through anything you go through in life, and his name is Jesus.

We’re promised the presence of God. He is a friend that will never leave you. The Orpahs of your life can walk away from you, but Jesus will never, ever leave you. The psalmist David says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley,” the old translation says, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, as I go through the deepest losses of life, I will fear no evil.” Why? “For you are with me. You’re with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

The psalmist says in Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is close to,” he’s close to who? He’s close to the brokenhearted. Are you brokenhearted today about something in your life? Has something been shattered in your life? Is there some loss that you’re going through that’s broken you on the inside? The Bible says the Lord is close to people like that.

He’s close to you today if your heart has been broken. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, he rescues those whose spirits are crushed, crushed by the weight of grief, crushed by the weight of pressures and stress and trials and tribulations. The Lord rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Proverbs 18:24 says, “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” And that friend’s name is Jesus. He sticks closer than even your closest relatives. As the hymn writer wrote, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” What a friend we have in Jesus. He is your friend.

When others walk out, he walks into your life. As Jesus was with his disciples about to go back to heaven, ascending back to the Father after his resurrection, he says to his disciples, he gives them what we know to be the great commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel.

Then he says this in verse 20 of Matthew 28, last verse of the Gospel of Matthew, “Teach these new disciples to obey all these commands I have given you, and be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Dear one, today can I remind you that if you’re going through a loss in your life, please remember it’s going to test relationships, and some people may walk out of your life. Some people may say they’re going to stay with you through it and not end up fulfilling their promise. But there is one that will always be with you, and his name is Jesus. He is a friend to you in the darkest moments and the darkest seasons of life. What a friend we have in Jesus.

The second thing I want to talk about today is that not only do our losses test our relationships, but our losses can rob us of our initiative. I’m giving this to you kind of as a warning today. I hope you’ll hear it as a warning, and I wrote two words down on my notes as I was preparing yesterday again, and I wrote these two phrases: be aware and beware.

Losses can rob you of your initiative. Let me see if I can explain this to you. When you’re going through grief, if you’re not careful when grief gets ahold of you out of a significant loss in your life, it can just completely put you down and take you out.

If you’ve ever gone through grief, you know what grief feels like. It just can be overwhelming at times. It’s like waves of the sea that can come and just knock you over. Ever been at the ocean and a big wave hits you and you don’t have ability to maintain your equilibrium because of the pressure of that wave? Well, grief is often like that. Many times when grief knocks you over, the wave of grief knocks you over, many people stay down. They never get back up again. They’re just knocked over by grief, and what happens is it robs them of any initiative for their life. In some sense, they stop living.

Because they’ve lost something. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. In fact, I could name people today that I’ve watched in their lives, and they went through grief and they were knocked down by the pain of grief, and it is so real and so very intense, but they stayed down. They never got back up again, and they never recovered from it or sought to recover from it. That happens many, many times in life.

What I want to tell you today is that don’t let your losses keep you from living. Sometimes it’s vital to not only look at what we’ve lost, but look at what we have left. Because even in the midst of what we’ve lost, there are some things that are left, and we’ll look at this today in the story.

I want you to see Naomi because she is a great picture of this. Did Naomi have grief in her life? She was grieving. I mean, she says, “I’m bitter in grief. The Lord has made my life bitter.” But she does something that’s quite interesting. She takes the initiative to get up out of Moab and to make the journey as a widow back to Bethlehem. That’s called initiative. She’s doing something. She doesn’t stay in Moab in this place of idolatry. She says, “I’m going to get up and go back to the place where I can worship my God and a place where I can find some support from relatives. I’m going to get up and do something.”

Once they arrived back in Bethlehem, Ruth is now going with her. Once they get back there, Ruth then makes the decision to say, “I’m not going to sit in this tent all day. I’m going to work.” Did Naomi have grief? Did Ruth have grief? They both are grieving widows. Naomi initiated a journey, and Ruth initiated a commitment to go to work. Here’s what Ruth did. Ruth said one day to Naomi, we’ll read about it here in just a moment, she says to Naomi, “Naomi, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to get up and I’m going to go out in the fields, because we need some food.”

Back in those days, it may still be a practice today in some parts of the world, I don’t know, but when harvesters would go out in the field to harvest their grain, they would leave a little bit of grain to the side so that poor people could come through the fields and take a little bit for themselves. It’s called gleaning. That’s what it means, to glean some of the harvest, get a little bit of what’s left over.

So Ruth says, “It’s the barley season and the barley is coming in. I’m going to go out in a field somewhere, I’m going to collect what’s left behind by the harvesters, I’ll glean a little bit of that and at least we can survive.” She’s saying, “I’m going to do something. I’m not going to sit here in my tent in a pity party with my life. I know I’m feeling grief, but I’m still going to get up and I’m going to do something. I’m going to get up and I’m going to take some action. I’m not going to live in this. I’m not going to let my loss keep me from living.” Are you hearing me today? Look with me if you will at Ruth chapter two verses one and two.

Now, there was a wealthy and influential man in Bethlehem, so we’re back into Bethlehem now, named Boaz. Now Boaz comes into this story, seventh character in the story, who was, interestingly enough, a relative of Naomi’s husband Elimelech. Now by the way, Naomi and Ruth did not know this.

One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” Naomi replied, “All right, my daughter, go ahead.” So she goes out into the field. Now she goes to a particular field not really knowing whose field it was. She’s not inquiring who owns this field.

She sees harvesters there and she goes into the field to pick up the extra that’s left over by the harvesters, not knowing that this is the field of a man by the name of Boaz who was one of the relatives of Elimelech, who was Naomi’s husband who had passed away. This becomes very significant in the story. So Boaz sees Ruth collecting grain there and he notices something about her. Let’s read now in chapter two verses five through seven.

Then Boaz asked his foreman, “Who is that young woman over there? Who does she belong to?” And the foreman replied, “She is the young woman from Moab who came back with Naomi. She asked me this morning if she could gather grain behind the harvesters.” She has been, notice this phrase, what has she been? Hard at work. It doesn’t say she’s been hardly working. It says she’s been hard at work ever since except for a few minutes’ rest in the shelter.

Do you see the initiative? Even in grief, Naomi took initiative to get back to Bethlehem. Even in grief, Ruth took the initiative to go out and work, and she worked hard. Vital to this story is that this initiative that they took turns the entire story around. If she had not taken initiative in this moment, the story would not have unfolded as it does.

One of the most dangerous potential impacts of losses and grief in your life is self-pity and inactivity. When you’re hit by grief and you’re hit by some loss, it will knock you down. The question is: are you going to stay down or will you get back up? Are you going to let grief bowl you over to the degree that you just say, “Life’s not worth living. I’m just going to sort of exist in my life in some measure, but I’m just giving up on life.”

You can still live and still give up on life. You can be a walking dead person. Dead on the inside, fulfilling all your commitments externally, but you’re not living your life any longer.

I will say this as I digress for a moment. When you go through a time of grief in your life, you’ve lost something, you do need some time and space to deal with it. You can’t hop up the next morning. If you hop up the next morning all cheery after a loss, chances are that loss wasn’t very significant to you.

So you’re going to need some time to process things, and it’s appropriate to have a little bit of time or some amount of time to process the grief in your life. But at some point in time, if you’re not careful, processing your grief can lead to succumbing to your grief and falling into self-pity and hopelessness.

There’s this downward pull that causes you to withdraw from life and to stop engaging with the world around you. The vital thing to remember is that when you’re going through grief, yes, take your time that you need, but don’t take too long. Don’t take more time than you need. Make sure that you get busy again. Vital lesson because your losses can rob you of initiative.

Here’s my third point, and I always want to bring us around to a truth of hope for us. So my third point today is what I will often refer to as my hallelujah point. It’s the point in the service where you are very welcome to say hallelujah.

Here’s the point: losses can be redeemed. Losses can be redeemed. That’s the one truth that will carry you through any loss in your life, to remember that my losses can be redeemed. Because in the midst of your loss moment, your grief, who’s with you? God is with you.

Then on the other side of your grief, who’s with you? God is with you. He is the alpha and the omega. He’s the beginning and he is the end. There is never a time that God is not with you. He’s cared for you in the past. He’s with you in your present. He’s already gone before you into your future.

So we have to recognize that God is there with us in the midst of all of this and through his grace and his mercy and his favor, he can help us actually recover from and to actually see a redemption of the things that we’ve lost in our lives.

It’ll look different in different situations, but God is the God of recovery. God is the God of redemption. Let me walk you through this story once again because I want you to know the story of Ruth well. Naomi and Ruth head back to Bethlehem. They’re two childless widows. They’re very, very poor. They’re beggars, if you will.

They arrive in Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest. They actually go out in the field. Ruth goes out in the field to get some food from one of the fields there. She goes into a particular field not knowing whose field it was, but it was owned by a man named Boaz. Boaz, as it so happened, was a relative of Elimelech. Again, Ruth and Naomi did not know this, but this is vital to the story because as a relative, a particular relative of Elimelech, the husband of Naomi who’s passed away, Boaz carries the title of a very significant role called the kinsman redeemer.

Let me see if I can explain it to you so you understand what a kinsman redeemer is. There are lots of things we could say about a kinsman redeemer. Let me make it really simple for you. A kinsman redeemer during that time in Israel’s history was someone who had the legal rights to obtain the property of a dead relative. They could purchase the property. They could acquire it by inheritance, but they had the right to the property of a dead relative.

So the closest dead relative to that person who died had access to this. They can go through the legal right of obtaining that property, and they also have the calling or the responsibility to do something to carry on the legacy of that dead person. Get the property, anything that person had, they can make claim to it, but also to carry on the legacy.

What that would mean oftentimes is they would marry the widow of that particular dead person so that there could be children born in the line, the family line could continue. Boaz, without Ruth knowing it, without Naomi knowing it, when she goes out to a field, she actually ends up in the field of the one person in Bethlehem at that point in time who was could be and interested in being the kinsman redeemer. There’s one other person in the story who declines their rights to the situation, but Boaz now says, “No, I want to step in and do something here.”

God got Ruth exactly where she needed to be. Why? Because she took initiative in her life. Some people are saying, “Why is God not working in my life?” And God says, “I’ll work as soon as you get moving. As soon as you start doing something then I’ll work.”

I’ve watched it here in the church. People will say, “Why isn’t God working in my life?” And then they start taking a class and God starts working in their life. They start signing up for a ministry and serving somewhere and they start, “My goodness, I never knew this could happen in my life.”

They take a seminar on marriage or finances or something of this nature, they learn something and now God begins to work in their life. But God’s sometimes waiting for you to take the step. So we see that Ruth took a step. She said, “I’m going to work somewhere.” “Where should I go?” “I don’t know, that field looks good.”

God says, “Yes, I set you up for that. Because God will set you up in ways you never dream he could set you.” Can you look at your life and look back and say God got you places you didn’t know you were getting there, but he got you there? This is the story of Ruth. “Oh, that’s just a coincidence, Pastor.” Not a coincidence, it’s God. Over time and through a sequence of events that transpire here, I don’t have time, you go read the book of Ruth. I can’t tell you the whole story. I’ve got another service coming up.

You need to do something yourself, right? But over sequence of time and events, Boaz redeems Ruth and the family. He marries her. He brings Naomi into the household as well, and the story ends in such a beautiful fashion. Look with me if you will at the fourth chapter of the book of Ruth beginning in verse 13.

So Boaz took Ruth into his home. Remember he’s the kinsman redeemer. She became his wife. When he slept with her, the Lord enabled her to become pregnant and she gave birth to a son. Then the women of the town Bethlehem said to Naomi, “Praise the Lord who has now provided a redeemer for your family. May this child be famous in Israel.” And by the way, he’s going to be famous in Israel.

“May he restore your youth and care for you in your old age for he is the son of your daughter-in-law who loves you and has been better to you than seven sons.” Naomi took the baby and 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,” and they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and Jesse, the grandfather of David. Anybody recognize that name?

This little baby is born out of tragedy, out of loss, but God steps in and says, “Don’t forget I’m a redeemer. Don’t forget I’m a restorer. Don’t forget I’m the God of recovery for your life.” Naomi, Ruth, I still have a plan for you.

Let me ask you a question this morning. What would have happened if Ruth had given up and Naomi had given up in chapter one? I watch far too many people give up in chapter one. Tragedies have occurred, difficult things have happened in their life, they say, “I’m just going to give up now.”

But thanks be to God that Naomi and Ruth didn’t give up in chapter one. They realized that they continued to walk with God. They may not have understood it all at the time, but as they walked with God, eventually a chapter four came around. In the chapter four, there was a little baby boy born and they said, “What are we going to name him?”

They said, “Let’s call him Obed.” Obed grows up and gets married and has a child and say, “What are we going to name him? Let’s name him Jesse.” Jesse grows up and has eight sons and one of his sons is, “What are we going to name? Let’s name him David.” Obed, Jesse, David.

One day after King Saul, the first king of Israel, had messed up big time and God said, “I’m removing my anointing from you, but I’ve picked a man after my own heart. Go to the house of Jesse because in the house of Jesse is my next king of Israel.”

Samuel goes to Jesse’s house, and God identifies David as being the man after his own heart, and David becomes the second king of Israel. Not only is he the second king of Israel, but he’s included in the lineage, the human lineage of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In Matthew chapter one, there’s a genealogy, the human genealogy of Jesus, because Jesus was both fully God and fully man.

So there’s a human genealogy of Jesus as well as the fact that he’s conceived by the Holy Spirit. So you see both of these dimensions. Not just a man, not just God, but God-man, fully God and fully man is who Jesus was, the word incarnate. The Bible says in John chapter one, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So we have the human heritage or the human lineage of Jesus, and it’s interesting to see that Matthew chapter one verses five and six reads almost like Ruth chapter four. And the lineage of Jesus, it says Boaz, the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed, the father of Jesse, and Jesse, the father of King David down to verse 16. Mary was the mother of Jesus, who is called the Messiah.

This whole story that you see in the book of Ruth leads us to the first chapter of the book of Matthew, the story of Jesus Christ himself. How God is able to take what seems like a horrible set of circumstances and some terrible losses and redeem it, and the savior, the Messiah comes out of it.

Dear ones, today hear me. With this we’re going to conclude. Maybe you’re in chapter one right now. Maybe that’s where you are. You’ve looked around recently and it seems like this loss is happening, that loss is happening, this is the trial of my life that’s so tough right now. I’m not sure can God do anything with this? If you can do anything today, can I just encourage you to do this: don’t lose your hope.

Even when people around you seem to be a little shaky and the people you thought you could count on, they’re not there for you like you wanted them to be, remember that Jesus is still with you. As you’re walking through your grief, don’t give up your initiative. Don’t let it take life from you. Keep moving, keep believing, keep trusting, keep knowing that I’m in chapter one now, but my chapter four is coming.

I’m in chapter one now, and I’m not sure what two and three are going to look like, but I know that two and three are going to get me to four. I’m in one in a tough place right now, but this is not the end of my story. It’s not the end of my story because God is the redeemer. God is the restorer, and God is the God of my recovery.

Would you say it together with me today? God is the God of my recovery. Come on, let’s say it together. God is the God of my recovery. Lift your hands to the Lord today and say God is the God of my recovery. Come on, say it like you mean it. God is the God of my recovery. Do you believe that today? Do you believe that he can do that in your life? He’s the God of your recovery. He’s the God of my recovery. Bow your heads with me as we pray.

Lord, thank you today for the wonderful story of Ruth. We’re so grateful that you left in the word of God a picture of people who went through stuff like we go through, terrible losses. But somehow with Ruth and Naomi, there’s this picture as well of redemption, restoration, recovery. You put it in your word so that we could be encouraged by it.

Lord, everything that’s written in your word is for our encouragement, our admonition, our growth, our instruction. So Lord, we take from the story of Ruth and Naomi today and the story of Boaz as the kinsman redeemer, we take hope for our lives. I pray for anyone this morning who’s going through chapter one right now.

I pray that you would help them to persist through chapter one and two and three to get to chapter four and to see the end of a story that only you can write. We trust you for that in Jesus’ wonderful and precious and holy name.

I would like to close today by giving you an opportunity to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. Would you pray with me right now? Right where you are, just simply bow your head with me and I’m going to give you a prayer to pray and you can simply speak this prayer out, whisper this prayer out and from the sincerity of your heart, call upon God and I promise you that he will hear and answer you.

So let’s pray together. Start by simply whispering the name Jesus. Let there come from your heart just the declaration of his name. Say, “Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, that I have fallen short with you. I’m sorry for all of my sins. Jesus, I believe in you. I believe that you are God’s son.

I believe that you are the savior of the world. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins, and I believe that you rose from the grave, that you are alive today. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, come into my life, forgive me of my sins, give me a new start in you. I commit my life to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Now, if you prayed that prayer with me, I want to encourage you with a promise from God’s word that says that when we call upon God’s name, call upon the son of God, there is salvation that comes to our lives. He changes us from the inside out and you become a new creation. Old things pass away, all things become new, and that’s exactly what’s happened to you today.

Your next step really is to make sure that you get into a good Bible-believing church. You begin to study God’s word. Get God’s word in you and make sure that you get a copy of the Bible if you don’t have one and begin to read it. Spend some time every day in prayer.

I would encourage you also to check out the resources on our website that will help you to get going in your relationship with Jesus. You can find them at church-redeemer.org. Get those into your hands. Get started in your new life with Jesus Christ. Thanks again for joining us today. May God bless you and we look forward to seeing you next time.