More to You Than Seven Sons, Ruth 4:1-21 (September 11, 2016)

More to You Than Seven Sons, Ruth 4:1-21 (September 11, 2016) Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, Turn aside, friend; sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. 2 And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, Sit down here. So they sat down. 3 Then he said to the redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. 4 So I thought I would tell you of it and say, Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you. And he said, I will redeem it. 5 Then Boaz said, The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance. 6 Then the redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. 7 Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. 8 So when the redeemer said to Boaz, Buy it for yourself, he drew off his sandal. 9 Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. 10 Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day. 11 Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, 12 and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the LORD will give you by this young woman. 13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him. 16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. 17 And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, A son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. 18 Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, 19 Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, 20 Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21 Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, 22 Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David. PRAY 2016 J.D. Shaw 1

Today we finish our four week series on the book of Ruth. A little background by way of reminder: in chapter one, and we saw how an Israelite man named Elimelech moved his wife, Naomi, and their two sons to Moab, which traditionally was an enemy of Israel. Once in Moab, the two sons marry Moabite women, but then Elimelech and his two sons die. The three women are now widows. Naomi, a woman who deeply trusts the God of Israel to love and provide for her, resolves to go back to Israel and reestablish her life there. One of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, is determined to go to Israel with Naomi, because Ruth has been converted she now also trusts in the God of Israel to love her and provide for her. Together, the two women return to Israel, but they are poor and still widows. And then Ruth meets Boaz. Boaz is a godly man, and Naomi knows Boaz would make a good husband, and Ruth needs a husband because back then women needed to protection and provision of men, so Naomi comes up with this really risky, wild plan to get Boaz alone at night so he could propose marriage to Ruth, and it works! Boaz wants to marry Ruth. And that gets us to chapter four. We have talked a couple of different themes over the past weeks we ve looked at faith, we ve looked at providence. But the main thing we need to take away from the book of Ruth is what love looks like. In Ruth, love is on display like just about nowhere else in the Bible. For Christians, there is nothing more important than love. I love how Paul puts it in Galatians 5:6b (NIV 1984): The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Nothing else really matters for Christians except our faith in God manifested in the world around us by our love. If our religion isn t making us more loving, then it s a waste of time. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV 1984). Love is not only what we should be doing, it is the only thing worth doing, for it is the only thing that will survive earth and pass into heaven. And in chapter four of Ruth we get a wonderful lesson in what true love looks like and how to do it. First, love takes wisdom. Second, love does not seek its own. Third, love never fails. First, love takes wisdom. It s clear from chapter three than Boaz wants to marry Ruth. He s observed her character over the several weeks of the barley harvest. He s heard everyone in the community talking about her, saying, Did you see how early Ruth gets up in the morning? I still can t believe she left Moab to take care of Naomi. She s young and needs a husband, but she s not flirting with any of the young men she s something else. Everyone in the community is impressed with Ruth, and so is Boaz. Godly people who love the Lord want to marry godly people who love the Lord, and so Boaz wants to marry Ruth. Ruth may or may not have been beautiful (the Bible doesn t say), she may or not have been unusually intelligent, but she certainly was a woman of character and integrity. 2016 J.D. Shaw 2

But there is an obstacle! Ruth 3:12: 12 And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. Boaz, you see, was a redeemer, which translates the Hebrew word goel. We talked about this last week in detail. A goel in ancient Israel was a distant male relative, a cousin, whose job it was to take care of a family who had fallen into poverty and lost their land by buying the land back. In extreme cases, when all the men in a family were dead, a goel would take the widow into his family, have a child by her, and that child would be legally be the son of the dead husband. That way the family name would not be extinguished but continue on in Israel. But there was a redeemer nearer to Naomi and Ruth than Boaz. Maybe Boaz is a second cousin twice removed from Naomi, but he knows of a second cousin once removed, and that guy has the first right of refusal on being the goel. So Boaz, if he wants to get Ruth, if he wants to be able to love Ruth for the rest of his life, must act very wisely. He can t just rush in a marry her the law prohibits that. This other redeemer has dibs. And if he runs up to the other redeemer and says, Hey man, I really want to marry Ruth. You re the goel, but I really wish you d pass on her and let me marry her. If he says that, what might this other guy say? He might say, Well, maybe I want to marry her. This is a common phenomenon in male-female relationships a boy never notices a certain girl, until some other boy comes up and shows an interest in her. Then, all of the sudden, he says, Maybe I m missing out on something here. Maybe there s something I haven t considered. But Boaz is wise, so he knows he can t do that. So watch how carefully, thoughtfully, and wisely Boaz acts to make sure he gets Ruth. Boaz is always thinking. We have to walk in a detailed manner through these verses to see just how thoughtful Boaz is. First, of course, he takes initiative. Boaz doesn t wait on the other redeemer or the village elders to resolve the matter of the Moabite widow. He does it himself. Boaz wants all the elders there at the meeting to serve as witnesses and, as we ll see, to provide some pressure. Ruth 4:1: Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, Turn aside, friend [by the way, the Hebrew word there does not mean friend ; the most literal translation would be turn aside, Mr. So-and-so ], sit down here. And then Boaz begins the meeting by mentioning only that Naomi, an old widow, is selling some land. That s literally what the Hebrew says, but it s a little more complicated than that. Remember, in ancient Israel no one owned their land outright, like we do today. God owned all the land, and it was assigned to individual families in Israel, who owned the right to work it. Those rights were sold years ago when Elimelech liquidated everything he owned and took off for Moab. But under the Law of Moses Naomi still has the right at any time to buy the land back. The problem, of course, is she s poor she has no money. That s where the goel steps in. He redeems the land so that the widow can live off of it. 2016 J.D. Shaw 3

So, Mr. So-and-So hears that Noami has some land to sell. So he thinks, OK, if I do this, I m going to be out some money in the short term, because Naomi will get to use this land for the rest of her life. But I ll look good in the community, because I m taking care of an old widow. And since Naomi is old, she won t have any more children. When she dies, I ll get the land (because Elimelech s family line will be extinguished), and it will become a part of my family s property. Mr. So-and-So thinks it over, and he and Boaz agree to a price that s clear because he says, I will redeem it. You can t agree unless you know a price. And he obviously thinks he has a good deal. But Boaz has him right where he wants him. Boaz says in verse 5, The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance. Mr. So-and-So hadn t considered that. Now, he s out the money for the land and he must have a child with Ruth. She s still young enough to bear children, unlike Naomi. And if that child turns out to be a boy, it will be Elimelech s, not his. And if that s the only boy So-and-So has, then his inheritance will go over to Elimelech s family. It s too risky for So-and So. Then the redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Ruth 4:6. Do you see what Boaz did? He s so wise and careful. He wants Ruth, but he didn t just rush in to So-and-So and say, I want her. So-and-so may have replied, No, I want her she s pretty. If Boaz had offered Ruth and the land at the same time, So-and-So might still have taken Ruth, and just offered a lower price for the land. But Boaz locks him by getting him to agree to a price in front of the elders, and therefore So-and-So can t back down. It took careful planning, but now Boaz is in position to love Ruth as his wife. To the extent people think about what love is in our culture, we think of it as pretty thoughtless. In fact, if you think too much about it, it s probably not love. Real love is all about emotion, and you rush in do what youre heart tells you without any thought. But the Bible says if you re really going to love people well, it takes wisdom, thought, planning, careful observation and attention to detail. So, for example, many husbands think they are loving their wives well because they work very hard to make all the money they can so their wives can have nice things. They just assume, without thinking, that money will fix everything, because our culture says it will fix everything. But the wives are miserable, and if the husband would ever ask the wife would say, I don t want your money, I don t want what you can buy me I want you! I want to know you love me, I want you to talk to me, I want to spend time with you. They don t have the wisdom they need to figure out how to love their wives well. Same with children how many parents are providing their kids with every possible material possession they can, giving them every experience they can, but what their kids need is not their parents stuff, but them! They need to know they are loved, they need to 2016 J.D. Shaw 4

talk things out with their parents, they need to learn from their parents, they need to see that their parents genuinely enjoy them and aren t just buying them off. And those are the easy scenarios. It doesn t take a lot of wisdom to figure out that s what a spouse or a child needs under normal circumstances. But what if you re trying to love someone who is running their life in the ground? That s harder. Many of you I m sure know the parable of the prodigal son, from Luke 15. There were read about a father who had two sons, one the hard working older brother, the other a younger brother who, it was obvious to everyone, was not on the right path. Something s wrong, and then he comes to the father and asks the unthinkable: give me my share of your estate. In that culture and in this one, that s tantamount to saying, I wish you were dead. I don t love you, I just want your money. What does the father do? He gives his son the money. Why? Because the father wanted the son to hit bottom while he will still alive, so that when the son did come to his senses, the father could be there to love him. Right now, there s nothing the father can do. But then, after the son is brought to the end of himself, the dad can pick up the pieces and the relationship can be restored. And that s exactly what happened. I m not saying that this is what all fathers should do in that situation, but that s the point: love takes tremendous wisdom, to know the person you re trying to love well, to know their needs well, to know how to talk to them in a way that the message gets through. You must think and plan carefully if you really want to love. Second, love does not seek its own. So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him. 16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. 17 And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, A son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed. Ruth 4:13-17. Everything that Ruth does in this book from the first time we read about her in chapter one all the way through is building toward this moment: when Naomi has a child again. Naomi getting Obed basically means that Naomi gets her life back. Obed is her restorer of life. And Ruth sacrificed everything she possibly could in order to make this happen. She left her home, she left her family, she left her god, and she bound herself to Naomi and moved to Israel. She did so even thought she could have had no expectation of anything other than a life of extreme poverty, living hand to mouth, and a lot of mistreatment, since she was a foreign woman living in a strange land. Why would she do that? Because Ruth loved Naomi. It s the only explanation. One commentator put it like this: More than anyone else in the history of Israel, Ruth 2016 J.D. Shaw 5

embodies the fundamental principle of the nation s ethic: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, (Deut. 6:5) and your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18) Ironically, it was a stranger from Moab who showed the Israelites what this means. Many commentators have said that the book of Ruth is really about Naomi, it s a story about her trials and tribulations, how the Lord ultimately was faithful to her, but Ruth is the hero. Boaz is not the one celebrated; Ruth is. In fact, the women of the village come around Naomi and say that Ruth is better to her than seven sons would be. Sons meant everything in that culture, and seven is the number of fullness. But these women say a daughter-in-law is better than even seven sons would be, and there is no higher praise given to anyone else in the history of Israel, because almost no one else loved like Ruth in the history of Israel. Ruth, in other words, did not seek her own. That s from the NASB version of 1 Corinthians 13:4-5: Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own If you want to really love, the way Christians are called to love, the way Ruth loved, you cannot seek your own. You must live for others. That s what it means to be a Christian. We are here, brothers and sisters, to love. That's really our only job. Does that kind of seeking-not-your-own love mark your life? That s the biggest question any of us face. We re called to love like that in every area of our lives, but I ll just point out one spot in particular. Husbands and wives all too easily get into really hard places in the marriage. They get into situations where they think, This is the other persons fault. If he would just change, everything would be fine. If she would just change, everything would be fine. And we dig our heels in. I m not changing, it s her fault. It s his fault. And so you get a man and woman in this covenant relationship and they are so mad at each other because each one is screaming at the other, When are you going to start loving me? I want you to love me! What s going on? They are seeking their own. We all do it. We all know that s not the way to make things better. But if just one of the spouses will say, I will not do that I will not seek my own. I will love instead, more times than not the ice melts, the frustrations and the anger subside, and things get better. If just one spouse is willing to do that, you can have a good marriage. If both do it, you can have an exceptional marriage. But it s extremely hard not to seek your own, because we are hard-wired to do so. And that s just one relationship in our lives. We are supposed to love like that with coworkers, and parents, and friends. How? Third, love never fails. I ll read the genealogy now at the end of the book: Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, 19 Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, 20 Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21 Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, 22 Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David. Ruth 4:18-22. 2016 J.D. Shaw 6

What s the point? The author wants us to know how God used Ruth s love in redemptive history. Ruth s love brought about Obed for Naomi, but it didn t stop there. Obed led to Jesse, and then Jesse led to this little shepherd boy, David, who would become the greatest King of Israel. But it didn t even stop there. In both the accounts of the birth of Jesus, Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2, over and over again we are reminded that Jesus of Nazareth is a son of David. He s even born in Bethlehem, which is the city of David. Jesus Christ, David s greater son, is the ultimate result of Ruth s love, and of course he is the ultimate goel, the ultimate Redeemer, with a capital R the Lord Jesus Christ. We were all in a far worse place than Naomi. We are made as human beings in the image of God, and that means we owe God our lives. We are supposed love him with all our hearts, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves, and we haven t done it. Naomi was physically poor, but we are suffering under a crushing spiritual debt: we owe our lives to God, but we ve used them on ourselves. And you can t pay that debt back, because you only get one life. Once you ve used it for yourself, it s gone. But rather than send us into eternal bankruptcy, into hell, for living for ourselves, God sent a redeemer, his Son Jesus Christ. And on the cross Jesus paid the debt we owe he gave his life for us in our place. And to all who trust in Christ to make the payment, they are counted as righteous. They are treated as if they d lived the perfect life, even though Jesus did all the work. He is the great Redeemer. That s love. And, friends, it s not just that Jesus died on the cross for us two thousand years ago and then we ll see him in heaven. No, he is at work right now in our lives. He loves us right now. And he loves us wisely. Perhaps my favorite title for Jesus is Wonderful Counselor. Hebrews 12 tells us that God brings just enough discipline into our lives to train us, to shape us, and it will produce in us a harvest of righteousness and peace. Jesus is working and loving in your life right now to make you more like him. And does Jesus ever seek his own? Of course not. Ruth gave up her life in Moab to love Naomi, but Jesus gave up the throne of heaven to come to earth and love us. Love never fails. For Ruth, that means that her love would result in the Savior coming into the world. It won t mean that for us. But it will mean this: first, your love will never fail in that every act of love you commit on earth will be remembered in heaven. You will love certain people, and it will for all the world look to you like a complete waste of time. They didn t get anything out of it, no change was brought about, it did no one any good. Don't believe it, because love never fails. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward. Matthew 10:42. Love never fails in a second way. You simply can t beat love. You can t out-humble it. You can t suppress it, because you are always free to love no matter how someone treats 2016 J.D. Shaw 7

you. If others are putting nails through your hands, you can forgive them. If someone is shouting curses at you, you can silently receive them. Love is irrepressible. Faith and hope will one day pass away, but not love. Love is forever. Paul Miller, A Loving Life. Love is the one thing you can always do that no one can stop, and there will always be people around you to love. Just open your eyes who is in front of you? That s the person you can love. Paul says in Galatians 5: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Let s pray for the grace to believe it. PRAY 2016 J.D. Shaw 8