Oct 30, 2017 |Thread

Redeemer

10.30.17 | Thread

Redeemer

Noel Heikkinen

Ruth

Many themes can be found in the book of Ruth. Ranging from God’s faithfulness to how we should treat foreigners. Pastor Noel Jesse Heikkinen elaborates how God’s faithfulness is expressed through the care and nurture of Ruth, who was a foreigner amongst the Israelites. Through God’s faithfulness, Ruth is taken care of and later gives birth to Obed, who begins the lineage where Jesus would come out of to save the world.

Ruth

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In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him.

Judges 21:25 CSB

 

But Ruth replied: “Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped talking to her.

Ruth 1:16-18 CSB

 

“Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,” she answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has opposed me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

Ruth 1:20-21 CSB

 

Later, when Boaz arrived from Bethlehem, he said to the harvesters, “The Lord be with you.” “The Lord bless you,” they replied.

Ruth 2:4 CSB

 

Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter.Don’t go and gather grain in another field, and don’t leave this one, but stay here close to my female servants. See which field they are harvesting, and follow them. Haven’t I ordered the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, go and drink from the jars the young men have filled.”

Ruth 2:8-9 CSB

 

She fell facedown, bowed to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor with you, so that you notice me, although I am a foreigner?” Boaz answered her, “Everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband’s death has been fully reported to me: how you left your father and mother and your native land, and how you came to a people you didn’t previously know. May the Lord reward you for what you have done, and may you receive a full reward from the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.”

Ruth 2:10-12 CSB

 

Ruth is very different from most people today. We expect kindness and are astonished and resentful if we don’t get our rights. But she expresses her sense of unworthiness by falling on her face and bowing to the ground. Proud people don’t say thanks. Humble people are made even more humble by being treated graciously. Grace is not intended to life us out of lowliness. It’s intended to make us happy in God.

John Piper

 

Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May the Lord bless him because he has not abandoned his kindness to the living or the dead.” Naomi continued, “The man is a close relative. He is one of our family redeemers.” Ruth the Moabitess said, “He also told me, ‘Stay with my young men until they have finished all of my harvest.’” So Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “My daughter, it is good for you to work with his female servants, so that nothing will happen to you in another field.”

Ruth 2:20-22 CSB

 

She went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had charged her to do. After Boaz ate, drank, and was in good spirits, he went to lie down at the end of the pile of barley, and she came secretly, uncovered his feet, and lay down. At midnight, Boaz was startled, turned over, and there lying at his feet was a woman! So he asked, “Who are you?” “I am Ruth, your servant,” she replied. “Take me under your wing, for you are a family redeemer.”

Ruth 3:6-9 CSB

 

Then he said, “May the Lord bless you, my daughter. You have shown more kindness now than before, because you have not pursued younger men, whether rich or poor. Now don’t be afraid, my daughter. I will do for you whatever you say, since all the people in my town know that you are a woman of noble character. Yes, it is true that I am a family redeemer, but there is a redeemer closer than I am. Stay here tonight, and in the morning, if he wants to redeem you, that’s good. Let him redeem you. But if he doesn’t want to redeem you, as the Lord lives, I will. Now lie down until morning.”

Ruth 3:10-13 CSB

 

He said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who has returned from the territory of Moab, is selling the portion of the field that belonged to our brother Elimelech. I thought I should inform you: Buy it back in the presence of those seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you want to redeem it, do it. But if you do not want to redeem it, tell me so that I will know, because there isn’t anyone other than you to redeem it, and I am next after you.” “I want to redeem it,” he answered.

Ruth 4:3-4 CSB

Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the field from Naomi, you will acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the deceased man, to perpetuate the man’s name on his property.” The redeemer replied, “I can’t redeem it myself, or I will ruin my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption, because I can’t redeem it.”

Ruth 4:5-6 CSB

 

Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. He slept with her, and the Lord granted conception to her, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a family redeemer today. May his name become well known in Israel. He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. Indeed, your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became his nanny. The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Ruth 4:13-17 CSB

 

Ruth’s story is an Old Testament foreshadowing of the greater story of Ruth’s greatest descendant, Jesus. Ruth leaves her home and lives as a foreigner, impoverished and rejected, yet binding herself in love and faithfulness to a people she chooses. Ruth works tirelessly for her family’s salvation, when her family cannot save themselves. It is Ruth who is seen by one who speaks as a Father of her worthiness, to whom she appeals as she lays down at his feet in the dark, and with whom she rises up in the morning with her family’s future secured. It is Ruth who gives Naomi a son, who becomes the symbol of Naomi’s hope, and salvation, just as her greater son, Jesus, is given to us as our certain salvation as well.

Rachael Stark

Youth