I have a question for you. In whom does your hope for the future reside when you've reached the end of yourself? If you've never felt hopeless, it can be a really hard thing to imagine. It can be especially hard to imagine when we live in a place where we're so blessed with so many resources, so much opportunity, and social safety nets in place to help support those who are struggling. How can a person feel truly hopeless in a time and place like this one might ask? Well, depends on who you ask. Ask that question to a person who has suffered.
Ask that question to a person who's lost someone that they depended on. Ask that question to someone facing abject poverty who sees no possibility of a future ahead of them and does not have the will or the strength to look beyond their current circumstances. Ask someone wearing those shoes. Put those shoes on for a little while and walk around a bit. And you may begin to understand how a person, no matter where they live, no matter who they are, can find themselves feeling hopeless.
Our circumstances at particular times in our life can take the floor out from under us and leave us reeling with very few options. And our circumstances can leave us feeling lost, afraid, and bitter, no matter how good we've had it before. When we're in this place, we begin to notice that people can tend to drift farther and farther away. The longer we stay stuck in this place, it seems the fewer people want to be around us. The more we dwell in sadness and despair, the less support we seem to have. But sometimes there's someone that defies the tendency to move away from suffering. Sometimes we're blessed with someone who is loyal, no matter how bad things get.
Sometimes there's someone who's willing to put you before themselves, to sacrifice their own comfort to look after you, and is willing to rise up and face great risk to stand by your side. Sometimes there's someone like Ruth. Welcome to Mountain View Church. My name's Aaron, and we're so glad you could join us for the continuation of our preaching series called By God. We'd love to connect with you, so if you're watching online and you'd like to reach out with any thoughts or questions or prayer requests, click on the Connect tab at our website, mountainview.church, or text connect to the number on your screen. For those of you listening on the radio or the podcast, that number is 867-322-8001.
On Sunday mornings in-house, we have a full base camp program for the kids. But if you're watching online and you want to access the teaching materials and activities at home, again, go to our website, mountainview.church slash children, and you can find them all there or text children to the number 867-322-8001. Last but not least, we also have a youth program running for students every Sunday from 6 to 8, and we alternate between junior and senior youth. So to find out which group it is this day or this week, as it were, go again to our website, mountainview.church slash youth or text youth to the number 867-322-8001. Today, we are continuing on our preaching series called by God. We've been looking at people from ancient history that have been called by God in some way and exploring their responses to that calling. Before we get into Ruth's story, it's time for this week's scripture reading. Hi, my name is Elena, and I'm reading from Ruth chapter 1, verses 1 to 8. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem and Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Malon and Kilian.
They were Ephratites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other, Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Melon and Kilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab. For she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. As we continue our series, things will look a little bit different this time for a couple reasons. For one, the previous sermons have all been about men, and today we focus on women.
Secondly, the previous people were all connected by birth to the family of Abraham and the nation of his descendants that became Israel. But today we focus on a foreigner. Third, God's purpose for the people up until now was a bit easier to discern during their own lifetime. He either spoke to them or gave them leadership roles that were fairly obvious, used them in obvious significant ways during their lifetimes to accomplish his purpose. But Ruth is different. She never heard from God directly or interacted with him in any way that we have recorded. She wasn't given a high profile leadership role among God's people. In fact, she didn't have much attention drawn to her during her life at all.
Nor, at the time, was it plainly obvious the way that God was using her to accomplish his purposes. And yet, it turns out looking back, we can see that God's purpose for Ruth was one of the most significant of all. Spoiler alert, she would be the great-grandmother of King David, and more. But let's go back to the start, to the beginning. Let's find out who Ruth is and try to imagine what it must have been like to walk in her shoes, or sandals, as it were.
So the book of Ruth is a four chapter book. It's really short and it's kind of plopped right in the middle of the time in history where Israel was going through what was the period of the judges. So God was putting a leader in place in Israel and things would go really well for a while as long as the judge was following God. And then the judge would pass away and Israel would drift and things would get really bad and then God would place another judge in charge and this kind of cycle was going on. So the story of Ruth takes place during that period, the ups and downs. And the story actually begins with a character named Naomi. Now Naomi lives in Israel. She's an Israelite and she's married.
But things are really tough in Israel at this particular time in her life. So her and her husband move to Moab with their two boys. Moab is a neighboring country that doesn't really get along too well with Israel. So it's a big deal to move from Israel where they're at home to a foreign land, but they move there because Moab has food. While they're in Moab, Naomi's husband dies, but her two sons get married. One of her sons marries a girl named Orpha and the other marries a girl named Ruth. Now it seems like the character focus is going to be Naomi.
And she is a very important part of the story. But we need to remember that this story, like all stories in the Bible, is primarily God's story. We should focus on what God is doing and how he's using the people we're reading about. And though he works through Naomi, Ruth turns out to be the main character. It is through Naomi that God calls Ruth to himself for his purposes. So we go back to Moab. Things are pretty good for Ruth as we meet her.
She's at home. She's in her home country. They have food. She's married. They don't have any kids yet, but she's a part of a family. She's got a family unit around her. She has her husband and her mother-in-law, Naomi, and her sister and brother-in-law. Her sister-in-law would be Orpha. So things are looking pretty good for Ruth at the beginning of the story. However, things turn pretty quickly. We're not told how, but at some point in the 10 years that they were in Moab, Orpha and Ruth's husbands both pass away.
Now, Naomi has lost everything. She has lost her own husband and her two sons. She must just be devastated. She's facing this very bleak, bleak life ahead of her in a foreign land. So she goes to this place where she decides to move back to Israel. She wants to head back home. At least there's familiarity there. At least there's people she knows. And initially, both her daughters-in-law go to leave with her. But Naomi's looking out for them, and she does her best to convince them that they're actually better off without her and staying in their homeland. It's fairly sacrificial of Naomi to act like that and to speak like that. But she implores them to stay where they are, and Orpha ends up staying in Moab.
Ruth must be torn. On the one hand, she has better prospects in Moab. She's from there. She's a citizen there. She's still young. She could potentially have another family. She could have a whole new life. And it would be in a place that she's familiar. But she knows that Naomi is completely broken and has lost her husband and now her children. And Ruth sees that she's all that Naomi has left. Now, at the beginning, when I was talking about someone feeling hopeless, I was thinking about what it must have been like to be Naomi at this point in her life.
And in the book of Ruth, Ruth chapter one, verse 15, we read, and she, Naomi, said, see, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. See, Naomi's trying to convince Ruth, you're better off in Moab. You're better off where you are. Leave me, go back there and have a life. Ruth faces a hard decision. Does she stay or does she go with Naomi to Israel? See, she is a widow. And at that point in time, in that area of the world, that is not a great situation to be in.
A widow coming into Israel would not be very in high demand from an immigration standpoint. So she wouldn't be welcomed with open arms necessarily as a good addition to the nation. She's a foreigner. Also, she's a Moabite. So it's not like she's just somebody from another country, but she's somebody from a country that has a lot of animosity with Israel. So she's not facing any real family support prospects in Israel if she goes with Naomi. Naomi seems to have people there, but Ruth would kind of be on her own. She would essentially be a widow dependent on a widow, which again, at that point in time in that part of the world, doesn't leave you a lot of options. It doesn't give you a lot of hope.
So Ruth can either leave everything that she's familiar with and everything that she knows, or she can stay in Moab and at least try and make a go of it in her homeland. And perhaps the most significant thing that's going to have to change if Ruth goes to Israel is Israel worships Yahweh. Israel worships the true living God, as we know. In Moab, they worship a false god or a series of false gods. Ruth is going to have to make that change. So how does Ruth respond?
Does she rise up? Well, we read in Ruth 1, 16 through 17. It says, but Ruth said, remember this is in response to Naomi importing her to stay. Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go, I will go. And where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried. And may the Lord, Yahweh, do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you. Ruth has made her decision.
Ruth leaves everything she knows and everything she has become up until this point is now behind her. She has nothing left. She has reached the end of herself. And now she must depend entirely on the God of Israel, Yahweh. So I ask you the question that I asked you at the beginning again. In whom does your hope for the future reside when you reach the end of yourself? Ruth puts her faith in Yahweh and even swears an oath by him. And if you read the rest of the book, you will see that God does bless her. She ends up married with children, very successful family, and she's an accepted member of God's people.
Things worked out for her, but everything had to change to get her there. She had to let go of her past and rise up to what would have been a terrifying, uncertain future. Her future is secured only when she is willing to let go of everything in her past, move into the unknown, putting her trust in the one true God, the same God that we worship. In Ruth, we see her love and loyalty to another. She sacrificed who she was for that love. God blessed her, but she didn't do it for God's rewards. She was not promised an easy life. She did this out of a selfless sort of love, and God loves that.
Imagine for a minute what it would have been like for her to cross that border from Moab into Israel. Now, because of the false gods that she would have worshipped in Moab, that she would have been familiar with, it was probably somewhat like stepping into enemy territory. It was probably really scary. This was Yahweh's turf. She may have felt like a bit of an imposter who didn't belong at first. This, by the way, this imposter feeling, is often how a new person feels nowadays when they first step into a church for the first time. Like perhaps they don't belong. However, when they encounter Jesus and the love of the people there and understand the gospel and understand that it is because of Jesus that they do belong,
It's beautiful. Changing for Jesus and because of him gets rid of that imposter feeling over time. Trying to change for the wrong reasons often results in that feeling never really going away. The reason for a new identity matters. Let me use myself as a bit of an example for the wrong reason to change.
I had a point in my life where I was very successful in business, and I decided to kind of build and mold myself into what I thought a successful man should be like. And so I had all the toys, I went on the fancy trips, I did all the things that I thought were a successful person's story. And I remember finding myself in an art museum in Europe, staring at this painting, and I was so very aware that I was an imposter. See, I thought that I should play this, if I was going to be this successful man, I should play the part of a connoisseur of fine things. And so an art museum is where people like that hang out. So I remember being in this art museum and staring at this giant painting called The Night Watch. It's by Rembrandt. It's a very famous painting. I wanted to appear in that room like all the other people that seemed to be there because they truly appreciated this art. I wanted to appear like it fit in. And I remember staring at this painting for, I don't know, it seemed like a long time, maybe.
five or 10 minutes. I remember looking around the room and noticing that these people really, really were invested in this. This was meaningful to them. This spoke to them. They belonged there. This was like their thing. And I remember looking around and just wanting myself to be that kind of person, wanting to be the person that looked at the painting and appreciated it for what it was and truly loved art and truly loved becoming a connoisseur of fine things, like I said. But I just wasn't. I was an imposter and I knew it. All I saw was a bunch of guys on a canvas, a bunch of them looked like they were arguing, some were pointing at things. I didn't get it. I didn't belong and I couldn't make myself belong.
I had an imposter feeling for a reason. I was trying to change superficially out of arrogance and for myself, for my own purposes, which were really meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I was trying to become more cultured and deep in order to appear more awesome to myself and hopefully those around me. Ruth, however, submitted to a new culture despite how others would view her and was completely out of her depth, primarily to remain loyal and out of love for another. We as people may seek change, but it is often for selfish or superficial reasons. I think our motivation for change matters to God and he is truly concerned with our heart condition.
My heart condition was not correct when I was the imposter. Now, Ruth may have felt like an imposter. She may have had a, I don't belong here moment or several of them, perhaps many moments. But the difference is for her, this was God's plan. God was behind her change, giving her the opportunity to become a part of his people. And it led to her being a part of his plan for redemption for all of us. Ruth became the great grandparent of King David and the line of David led straight to Jesus.
Ruth rose up to embrace the living God and his people in plan and purpose, and she fulfilled her part in God's great plan. Now, as with any sermon in this series, we don't have time to read the whole book of Ruth and go through all the things that happened in your life. It is on you to actually read the book to get the whole story. But where I want this to bring us is to you and I and the Christian journey. So, are you only willing to change partially or superficially to become more of what you think people might want you to be or what a church person might be like? Or are you willing to change anything? Are you willing to change everything to become who God wants you to be?
The good news is if you are willing to change, he will do that for you, in you. He will use those who submit to him and who are willing to die to themselves. And this is a concept that floats around throughout Christianity, dying to themselves and being changed. He used Ruth for great things and he will use those who leave behind what they've always known in order to rise up and step into what only God knows, the future he has written for us. But I want to make one thing very clear. It is not easy.
There is no prosperity gospel being preached here today. Dying to ourselves is perhaps the hardest thing that we can do because it means submission and letting go of our earthly priorities and the control that we may think we have over our own future. Being a follower of Jesus is not easy from a human comfort point of view because you will be changed. In Mark 8, 34 through 36, we see Jesus kind of explaining this. It says, and calling the crowd to him and with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? This verse used to puzzle me because Jesus said this to his disciples long before he was crucified. I used to wonder both what he meant and how they would have understood what he meant. But this is where reading scripture in context comes into play. If we understand what's happening in that part of the world at that time, a lot of more things make sense to us. So he didn't have to be crucified for them to know what he was saying when he referred to carrying a cross. He wasn't talking about some annoying ongoing burden in our lives that honestly, this verse gets misused a lot to represent some annoying thing that we just have to deal with in our Christian life. That's not what it's about. It's not about a temporary ongoing burden. It's not about the annoying thing you're just going to have to deal with if you're going to be a Christian.
It's not about trying to make Jesus fit into your existing life. See, crucifixion was common in the Roman Empire at this time. And when a person was sentenced to crucifixion, they were made to carry the instrument of their own death to the site at which they would die. They were made to carry their own cross. Every one of the disciples would have understood the reference that when a person is seen carrying their cross, it was a one-way trip. That person was not coming back and they would not be seen again. The life they knew was over. The crucified person was done. The person crucified in and with Jesus, however, has just begun.
This is what we are called to as disciples of Jesus. We're called to say goodbye to our old selves, give up our own control of our lives or the illusion of it, and submit to crucifixion of our old selves with Jesus. The disciple of Christ is not planning on returning to their old lives. The old self must die and the new self is born. We are born again and one with Christ and we can live forever as one in and with Christ. In the book of Romans 6 verses 6 through 8, Paul kind of builds on this. He says, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.
so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also live with him. See, God knew that stuck in our past, we are chained by our own sin to death and we were hopeless. So he did something about it. He did what only God could do. He made a way for us to be free.
He sent his own son to die on the cross, bearing our sin and fully paying for it. This was done for us on our behalf. But in God's eyes, it is as if the one who follows Jesus died that day on the cross with Jesus. Jesus was buried and on the third day was raised from the dead that we too might be raised with him. He then ascended to heaven to prepare a place for us. And once we believe the truth of this and really grasp it and are willing to die to ourselves, new life in him is ours as a gift. We don't earn this. He earned it for us. Now, dying to oneself is hard and living for Jesus can be harder still. And there's no promise of earthly riches offered at the cross.
Your life may be full of trials, you may suffer loss, and your circumstances may be difficult to bear, but hear this. Your circumstances and what's left of this life are not to be seen as a measure of God's love for you. His sacrifice on the cross and what that means for us is the measure. Through Jesus and what he has done, we are able to step out of our old shell of a self and rise up to meet his destiny for us. Ruth's journey was like a pointer to us that giving up our old selves and submitting everything to God was the right path and led to a blessed existence in his care. We may not be blessed in this life like Ruth was with a family or children or wealth or anything else that we might hope for.
But we know we have an eternal blessing in the salvation through Jesus Christ and eternal life with him. So I ask you again, in whom does your hope for the future reside when you reach the end of yourself? Ruth found her hope, security, and future in God. And so should we. God's plans for you are for the you he will make and mold from the ashes of who you once were. That brings us to communion. And I think it's a fitting way to end today's message. Before we get to communion, if you want to pause the video now, if you're watching at home and go and get the elements yourself, some juice or maybe a small glass of wine and some bread, feel free to do that and then come back and join us.
Communion is our reminder that we are no longer our own. And we are no longer simply ourselves, but we are one with Christ. We are participants in his death and resurrection. And it is through the sacrifice of his body and the spilling of his blood that we have hope, security, and a future. It is through these that we have life. We will read our communion passage from the book of Mark. But first, let me pray for the bread and for the cup. And then we'll take communion together and I'll close in prayer. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for our access to it.
Thank you for showing us through your word to us that you are invested in us and that we matter to you. Thank you for stories like the story of Ruth that show us what it means to let go and to step forward into an uncertain future. And thank you for helping us know that our future is certain and secure because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Thank you, Jesus, for laying down your body to be broken on our behalf. Thank you, Jesus, for spilling your blood on our behalf that we might be made into something new, forgiven and complete and eternal with you.
Thank you so much for giving us all of these gifts that we can never earn for ourselves and that frankly we don't deserve. Thank you, Jesus. In Mark 14, 22, it's the Last Supper and Jesus is with his disciples. Mark 14, 22 records, and as they were eating, he took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to them and said, take, this is my body. Let me eat the bread. Mark 14, 23, or 23 through 25 says, and he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and they drank of it. And he said to them, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
Truly I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. You may drink the cup. Thank you, Father, for the time we're able to spend together. Thank you for the technology that we have that makes us able to share this with whoever, anywhere in the world. Thank you, Lord, for bringing all sorts of people together into your family through, again, the sacrifice of Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, for being a willing sacrifice, willing to go to the cross on behalf of people who don't deserve it. But we are truly grateful for your generosity and your mercy. I pray that you would be with us all this week and keep everyone safe. In Jesus' name, amen.
Now, as we do, to close, we'd like to give you a discussion question to discuss amongst yourselves. So this week, Ruth had to leave everything behind on her journey. What might you be called to leave behind on yours? And as a prayer focus for all of us, I would ask that we would pray that each of us would understand what it means to die to ourself and follow Jesus. And if we have not yet picked up our cross, that we would have the courage to do so. Thank you for tuning in and God bless you.
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