Steadfast Love Follows Through

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0:01The Word of God is so good, so good, and it's such a privilege and honor to bring you the Word of God most Sundays, and sometimes really remarkable things and people are found in the most ordinary places, and that's what's going on here today. Okay, so one of the best Italian restaurants in the area, I think, is near VCU, but if I gave you the address, you wouldn't even find it probably. If I told you about the food, I would tell you that it's outstanding, it's authentic, it's homemade, it tastes like it just came straight out of someone's mind. They didn't even have to look at a recipe. It is delicious, it's fantastic, but again, if I gave you the address, you would probably drive past it several times before you even found it, because that's what I did when I was looking for it the first time. It's located above a fast food place, so you just don't even, you're not even looking at it, it's up on the second floor.

1:12The signs are really small, the entrance is really hard to find. Once you find it, you are looking up a narrow staircase, and as I was going up the first time, I was like, am I about to walk in someone's apartment? That's really what it felt like. I actually turned around, I was like, this can't be it. I turned around and walked back outside, and I looked around again, and I was like, no, I guess this is it. Once you get up that narrow staircase, you walk in, and it's just a plain room, it's very small, hardly any place to sit, but once you finally get that food, you realize what all the fuss is about, but there is nothing about the exterior that seems like this is one of the best Italian places in the city. Nothing about it. It's very plain, it's very ordinary. Today's passage from Ruth 2 is like that, and my job today, which is a lot of fun for me, and I love it, is to open that, is to help you find that door, to help you locate it, to open that door for you, to lead you up the staircase, to say, no, it really is this way, come with me.

2:24It's up here. To find a place, a table for you, and to go get the food and serve it to you, so that you can taste and experience how good it is, because if I told you, hey, there is one of the most shining examples of steadfast love in all of the Old Testament, in these seven verses, and just sent you home, you might, just like the restaurant, drive past it over and over. I can't find it. What is so special here? Well, that's what we're going to see. That's where we're going today, because it might look plain. It might look ordinary, but it is remarkable. So let's go to Ruth 2, verses 1 through 7. This is God's holy inspired word. It's not my word, and thank the Lord it's not. It's God's word.

3:19It's reliable. It's trustworthy. It's infallible. You can build your life on it, and you should build your life on it. Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain, after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you.

4:21Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, she is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came. And she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. Pray with me. Lord, your word is living and active. And you've promised, you've promised us for our good that when it goes forth, it will not return empty.

5:12But it will accomplish the purpose for which you have. Lord, we ask you for that purpose to be, to change us, to renew our hope, to steady our feet as they rest upon the rock of our salvation, Jesus. Do good work in us today. Remind us how faithful you are. Help us to walk the path of steadfast love. We pray this, Jesus, in your name. Amen. So this sermon series in Ruth is called The Shape of Steadfast Love. The Shape of Steadfast Love. And today we learn this, Steadfast Love Follows Through. It's as simple as that. Four words. Steadfast Love Follows Through.

6:05My hope for this book and our study on it is for it to point us to God's steadfast love for us, shown to us most of all through Christ, and also to teach us to love likewise. So to point us to God's love and to teach us how we can love like that. So if you're just catching up on our sermon series today, Ruth and Naomi have just arrived back in Bethlehem, Naomi's hometown. As soon as they get there, Ruth gets to work. Now let's remember the situation that Ruth is in. She is a foreigner in the Promised Land. Bethlehem was a small town, very small. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody knew Ruth was not from around these parts. She's Ruth the Moabite. Three times in this passage, it points out that she is from Moab. It's the land of Israel's enemies. She is of the people that has enslaved Israel not long earlier. In the time of the judges, Moab had enslaved Israel. Now there's a Moabite there. She's living there in Bethlehem in the Promised Land. People are likely to scorn her, to mistreat her, to look sideways at her, to cross the street, to avoid crossing paths with her.

7:36So this is more than just being lonely and friendless in a new place. Many of you have probably been in some place new where you didn't know anyone. Maybe you had to be there for a while. Maybe it was for a trip. Maybe it was a new school. On top of the loneliness, there was the adversity. People looking at you suspiciously. She's one of those. What's she doing here? And she's vulnerable. She's an unmarried woman. At this day and age, that would leave her vulnerable. She has no protector.

8:16Every day she goes out and she's vulnerable. Just being there puts her at risk. This is the time of the judges. It was not a safe time in Israel. There were all kinds of crazy and ungodly things happening. But when she comes to her home, wherever she and Naomi are living, the only person she knows, the person that she arrived with, doesn't even seem too happy that she's there. Because that's Naomi right now. Ruth has committed herself to Naomi. She used beautiful, poetic, heartfelt, sincere language to commit herself to Naomi. She poured her heart out. She clung to her infidelity. And how did Naomi respond? Silence. When they entered Bethlehem together, Naomi told the people, I went away full, but the Lord brought me back empty. And who's standing right there with her? Ruth, you came back empty, Naomi. Naomi? What about me? Naomi is in such deep grief that she doesn't even see Ruth. And remember, Ruth is going through her own hardship, her own suffering. She's a widow too, remember? She's lost her husband. She's moved away from home. She's left her entire family behind. Her whole future is up in the air. Now, what would you do in that situation if you were Ruth? You were in a foreign place where people didn't like you? The only person you were with was indifferent towards you, and you had been through hardship of your own. I don't know about you, but I'd probably be in bed. I'm not getting up today. Look, I made it back here. I'm out for a while. I've done my part. Maybe I'll wait until

10:36Naomi changes her tune, and then maybe I'll do something. But what does Ruth do? Ruth the Moabite, she says to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean. Let me go to the field and glean. In the face of all these challenging situations, the circumstances that she's in, she asks her withdrawn, cold mother-in-law permission to go out and find food for them. Gleaning is going out into the field and picking up the leftovers, picking up the things that had fallen to the ground.

11:16God commanded the landowners to do this, to leave behind, to not go back and pick up the things that you drop. In Leviticus, God says this, when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge. Neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. This was like Social Security in the ancient Near East. This was the closest thing they had. But unlike Social Security now, this is not just like getting a check in the mail. You had to work to get it. It was hard work. Here's a painting from the 19th century that shows the practice. It gives you a little bit of a picture. It was tiring work. It was back-stressing work. You didn't have a machine. You had your back and your legs and your arms. That was it. To bend down over and over and over and pick up the gleanings. You'd be out in the sun if it was hot.

12:29You'd be out in the rain if it was raining. It was hard work to get this little bit of food that people were commanded to leave you. And you wouldn't get much. Paid reapers that came into the field before you that you were following after, they were paid to do a good job. So they didn't drop much. One scholar compared gleaning, trying to make a living to get food based on gleaning. It's kind of like collecting cans. Back when cans, you could actually turn them in for five cents. You remember that? They don't do that anymore, do they? But it used to be, I remember doing that a couple times as a kid. I collected a trash bag or two of cans and I was like, that's all I get? A dollar or two?

13:18This was like that. It was hard work and you did not get much. And gleaning was usually done in Paris or groups for safety. Who knows what would happen to you out in that field? Remember, it was still a dangerous time in Israel, but what does Ruth do? Does she ask Naomi to come? Does she demand her to come? Look, can you just come and just stand there and watch so I don't get hurt? She doesn't. She goes out all by herself. Ruth the Moabite asks permission to go out to a new place, by herself, search for a favorable field, and then pick up little leftover stalks of barley.

14:03This is humble and this is bold for her to do this. But then in verse three, she actually does it. Look at that. She set out and went and gleaned in the field. Ruth has integrity. She does what she said she would do. When I was a teenager, I was hard to get out of bed. Any teenagers? Is it ever hard to get out of bed? Yeah? My mom had to crack the whip to get me out of bed, especially during school when I had to actually get up early. And I could tell by the tone of her voice calling from downstairs when it was about to turn. Kids, you know what I'm talking about. So when I could detect that tone in her voice, I'd say, okay, okay, I'm getting in the shower. And I would go in the bathroom and I would turn on the shower and then I would wait until she wasn't listening and I would go back and get in bed. Get another 15 minutes of sleep or so while she thought that I was in the shower.

15:10I said I was going to get in the shower, but then I didn't. That's not integrity. Ruth said, let me go out and glean. And then she gets out of the house. Does she just find a shady spot to just sit all day? Let me just get away from it all and just sit here in the shade. I'll tell her that I couldn't find anything today when I go home. No, she goes out and she does it. She follows through on her word, her promise to her ungrateful mother-in-law. And she did it all day, all day.

15:42When the foreman in charge of the reapers gave a report about her, he didn't even know her name. It's just the Moabite, the young Moabite woman. He didn't know her name, but he saw her character.

15:59She had the courage to ask strangers, please let me glean and gather from among the sheaves after the reapers. She had the work ethic to go out there and do it all by herself and to keep doing it all day. She has continued from early morning until now, the foreman says, except for a short rest, singular, a short rest. And the foreman knew who she was doing it for. She's the one who comes back with Naomi, he says. He knows all that about her, but not even her name. In this field, among these reapers and this foreman, Ruth's character and her reputation have become known, even though her name isn't. How amazing. They can see that she has a servant's heart, that she is putting in hard work to help someone else. So now we're getting to the point where we can start saying statements about what we're seeing here. And the first one is this, without follow-through, there is no steadfast love. Without follow-through, there is no steadfast love. I love weddings.

17:22I'm always enthralled to witness two people commit to each other in love. Most people are, right? A good wedding, even a wedding where things go wrong, it's just everybody looks past the things that don't go wrong. We're all happy to be there. We're amazed to see two people commit to each other. When I'm officiating, I get a close-up view of what's happening. It's pretty cool. I get to stand about this close to the couple. I get to see the expressions on their faces. I get to see the emotion and hear the emotion in their voices, to see the corners of their mouths quiver as they're saying their vows. I have to try hard to keep myself composed because I can't fall apart. Other people can, but I can't. I got a lot of talking to do. I got to keep things moving. I got a job to do, but it's hard. It's a lot of emotions happening. But do you want to know what I love to see even more than a wedding? When one spouse shows gentleness and patience towards another spouse. When one serves the other willingly and with joy. When one takes delight in the other person's well-being more than in their own well-being. To me, these things are even sweeter than the wedding. And why is that? Because it's their vows being put into practice. It's the living out of their vows right in front of me. Commitment is beautiful, but the follow-through is glorious. It's glorious.

19:17That's where it's at. That's where steadfast love actually happens. Friends, words are cheap, but action, follow-through, that's where it's at. Ruth gave a stirring and poetic statement of commitment to Naomi. And then she followed through. She went back to Bethlehem. She went out into that field and she gleaned and gathered all day. All day she followed through. Now here's the other thing that we learn. And this is just as important. The follow-through is very routine. It's not spectacular looking. Very often, steadfast love is just ordinary service. Steadfast love is ordinary service. What Ruth did, it was not flashy. It was not dramatic. There were no fireworks. There were no miracles. The heavens didn't break open and light just beamed down on her and angels appear singing.

20:30Most people didn't even notice what she was doing. It was just a simple act of sacrificial love. She went out to get them food. That's it. Listen, friends, don't read the book of Ruth and think, wow, I could never do anything like Ruth. Don't do that. Resist that urge. I want you instead to read the book of Ruth and think, oh, that's what steadfast love looks like. I could do that. I have done that. I'm trying to do that. That's what you need to think about. Because the truth is, we all have many opportunities to practice steadfast love every day. Every day. Anytime you move towards a need. Anytime you willingly serve someone without demanding anything in return, you are practicing steadfast love. When you clean up someone's mess at home, someone else's mess that you didn't make for the hundredth time. When you come home from a long day of work and you choose, instead of sitting down to rest to empty the dishwasher and load it again. When you patiently endure your siblings' bad attitude and you speak a kind word in response. When you open up the pantry and turn on the stove and make your family yet another meal, even though you're tired and you want to rest. When you bring your neighbor a meal during his wife's chemotherapy, this is steadfast love, friends. When you serve at church week in and week out and you wonder if anyone ever notices. When you get up at four in the morning, night after night after night, to feed your baby or to tend to your sick child or to soothe your spouse

22:48who's having a hard time with something. When you endure persistent unkindness from someone with forgiveness and graciousness in your heart. When you ask someone how you can pray for them and you actually follow up and you pray for them and then you ask how it's going. When you see someone at school, kids, or you see someone at youth group and you see someone who's left out, who's not participating, who seems to be on the sidelines, and you leave your group of friends and you go over to them and you say, hey, how are you? How are you doing today? These are all tangible, sacrificial, and one-sided acts of steadfast love. They're real. Don't believe the lies that the evil ones want to tell you that those things don't count. That is steadfast love. It matters and it does something.

23:54It is never wasted in the kingdom of God. They might seem small, but they are significant, and as you do them, you are built up. You are made ready for the even greater needs that may come in your life. For the child who's born with a disability. For the parents who can't live independently anymore and who need tangible help. For the spouse whose medical problems are mounting. For the children in your community who are facing crisis situations, you get made ready for those bigger needs. You get made ready to walk the path of steadfast love in ways that you didn't think were possible. The small things matter and they add up to prepare you for the even bigger things that you may face. As life goes on, there are going to be countless opportunities for you to show sacrificial and one-sided love. That is why God gave us the book of Ruth. To show you what it looks like and to help you walk that direction. But there is another reason why God gave us this book. And it's this, to see, to see, to show us that God is at work.

25:21God is at work. Look at this. Most people want to love, but it's the follow-through where you falter. I'm speaking of myself right now. I don't know about you. The desire to love is there, but sometimes the follow-through, we falter, we fail. It doesn't come out the way we want it to. We hit the costs of it. We find the cost to be strange. We think this isn't the way it should be. Love is supposed to be happy all the time. And so we stop. We get worn out. We give up. But God never gives up. God never gives up. He never gets worn out. He never sees the cost and then lays down on the couch. He always follows through. And we see this even in this passage. His work appears like breadcrumbs scattered throughout this passage, leading Ruth forward, leading her towards hope. Look back at verse 1. It mentions someone who lives in Bethlehem, a man by the name of Boaz. The author calls him a worthy man. This is a combination of two Hebrew words. The first one means great. It indicates that he's important in Bethlehem. But the second one means excellent. It means that he's righteous. He's important and he's righteous. And we're left to wonder, what's going to happen with this man? Especially when we see he belongs to the clan of Elimelech. He's a relative of Naomi's. What's going to happen? What is this man going to do? What role is he going to play in the story? And then in verse 3, when Ruth goes out to glean, she happened to come.

27:12She happened to come to the field belonging to Boaz. This is the author saying, wouldn't you know it? How about that? She comes to the field belonging to Boaz. Did I mention that he's from the clan of Elimelech? Let me mention it again, the author says. The author's pointing, saying, do you see? God is doing something. He's up to something. He's unfolding the rescue plan. And then in verse 4, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. Wouldn't you know it? Right when Ruth is out there gleaning, Boaz comes to his field to see how things are going. He notices her. He asks about her. He hears from the foreman about her diligence, her service, her faithfulness. God is at work. Something is happening. We're going to have to wait for the rest of the story to see what is going to happen next.

28:18But we know that God is at work. Church, God made a commitment to his people. And God is not just a big talker. Right? He is not a big talker. He is a follow-through God. Every day, every month, every year, he is a follow-through God. He makes promises. He made them. Promises to gather in people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to him. He made promises to overcome the sinful rebellion that they were in. He made promises to defeat evil and sin and death, to open the eyes of the blind and to free the captives. And then our God goes out into the field and does the work. He follows through.

29:10Jesus came to fulfill the rescue plan of God. Like he told us, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, to go out into the field, to glean, to give his life as a ransom for many. He died on the cross to fulfill the promises that he made, to give eternal life to all who repent and believe. And my friends, he promised to return, to finish what he started. And he's going to keep that promise too. As sure as I stand here today, he will fulfill that promise to you.

29:56To come and to take you to where he is. To wipe away every tear from your eye. To heal every infirmity. To cleanse you from sin completely. To unite you to him forever. Our God is a follow-through God. Friends, this is the person to worship. This is the person to trust. This is the person to keep going after. Because he keeps his word, he follows through. Let's pray. Lord, we praise you because you kept your word. Lord, Ruth was walking the path and trusting you. And so are we. We are trying to follow you and practice steadfast love. Would you please remind us of your faithfulness? The hands holding on to us so that we can practice likewise what you have shown to us. Thank you for Jesus, who died in our place to bring us to you.

31:12Lord, without him we are hopeless and helpless, but in him we have hope and we have help every day. God, we praise you for this divine, historic story from Ruth that points us to our Savior and fills us with hope and strength to continue following you. Jesus, work in us. Make us more like your Savior. Make us more like you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.