The Results of God’s Redemption

Alright, we’ve made it to the end of of Ruth. Over these 7 weeks, we’ve seen Naomi go from fleeing the Lord to trusting the Lord; we’ve seen Ruth go from a Moabite woman raised worshiping false gods to resting in the God of Israel; and we’ve seen Boaz be used by God to provide redemption for these women in the midst of their tragic stories as they lost their husbands and came to Bethlehem with little opportunity to care for themselves or provide a future.

Redemption has been the primary theme throughout the book of Ruth, both on a personal level and a societal level. Remember, the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz took place during the period of Judges, a time that Judges 21:25 describes as “there [being] no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” As God’s people went through this repeated cycle of rebellion, discipline, and repentance toward God over and over again, they wondered whether God was ever going to make good on his promises of providing a king to rule over them and blessing the world through their offspring.

In the middle of that doubt, God was lovingly providing for his people as he brought Ruth and Boaz together, and as we see in our final passage this week, their son Obed would be the grandfather of King David (and we know that family would eventually lead to the birth of Jesus).

Last week we looked at the process of redemption and the way Boaz pursued the opportunity to be Ruth’s kinsman redeemer (Which, if you’re new or don’t remember what a kinsman redeemer is, it was based on a law in the Old Testament. If a widow had no children, a brother or close relative of the deceased husband would be obligated to marry the woman and provide a child who would be the legal descendant of the man who had passed and continue their household name with all the inheritance. God had written this provision for widows into the law so they wouldn’t be alone and forgotten or uncared for.).

Last week we looked at how Boaz’s process of redeeming Ruth is a shadow pointing us forward to the ultimate process for how Christ redeems us as his people. In that sense, Jesus is the true and better Boaz. This week is essentially part 2 that conversation. Last week was the process of redemption. This week is the results of redemption.

ILLUSTRATION: Last night, Macie and I got back from  our first ever family vacation. We stayed at a cabin in the Gatlinburg area, and let me tell you, there are two different stories of this trip: there’s the process of getting there and starting our vacation, and then there’s the results of that vacation.

The process might have been a little rocky, from turning around 10 minutes in to head back home for something we forgot, to 12 hours each way in a car with a 3 year old and 10 month old, to a rough first night of sleep because our beautiful log cabin had stairs with falling hazards for children literally everywhere..

But then, slowly but surely, it felt like we were actually on vacation together. Our son would not stop talking about “mountains”, and I think he had the assumption the whole time that “going to the mountains” meant we’d be going either on the top of one or inside of one. But he had a blast. We made memories we’ll never forget. And even though we got back home late last night, I am relaxed and thankful.

Both the process and the results matter. By God’s grace, a rough starting process still resulted in a wonderful vacation. But like we saw last week, God’s process of redeeming us isn’t haphazard on his part; it’s perfect: it’s intentional, relational, legal, and beneficial. But what does God’s work for us accomplish in us? That’s what we’re looking at this morning.

As we close out Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz’s story, we see that once again the way God has acted in these people’s lives in history points us forward to what he accomplishes in our own lives when he redeems us for himself: through Jesus, God changes our identity, he gives us a new purpose, and he uses us for his plan. Let’s start off re-reading verse 13 and looking at how God’s redemption changes our identity.

Ruth 4:13 ESV

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.

The author writes this so matter of factly. After all the buildup, in the span of one verse, we learn that Ruth and Boaz got married and had a son together. But there’s so much more to it than that. Ruth has experienced a massive change in her life (and we’re going to see a change for Naomi and even all of Israel as we get later into our passage). But who Ruth is and how she’s known is different now.

Throughout the book, Ruth’s been repeatedly called “the Moabite.” Moab was a foreign country across the Jordan River from Israel. Those two nations had plenty of battles in the Old Testament, and the people of Moab worshipped false gods and not Yahweh. Even Ruth referred to herself as “the foreigner” in chapter 2 and described herself as being lower than a servant.

But now, she’s no longer called the Moabite; she’s the wife of Boaz. She’s no longer viewed as barren; she’s viewed as a mother. God worked through Boaz to redeem Ruth, and it has fundamentally re-oriented her identity—both her sense of who she is and why she’s valuable has changed.

And this isn’t to say that Ruth didn’t matter before she got married. If she didn’t matter, then God would neither have pursued her nor used her for his plan. But getting married and having kids does change you. It rocks the way you think about yourself as well as what you consider “rest” or a “hobby”, for example.

ILLUSTRATION: I used to have friends over for board game nights all the time. Now, we have friends over for an early dinner before the kids go to bed. We used to like to go to the movies; now I think we’ve been 2 or 3 times in the past 3 years, and I’ll hear about friends going to the movies and say, “Why didn’t you invite us?” And they’ll say, “We didn’t think you could with the kids!” Which is true, but still, it’s nice to get invited and to be able to say “no.”

This one verse marks an entire new direction in Ruth’s life. And that’s what happens when God redeems us as well. It’s not that you find aspects of your life less valuable than you used to; it’s that you’ve found this new thing, Jesus, as supremely valuable, and now you see the value in all these other things in your life through how they relate to him.

Redemption is a strong word, but that’s the word the Bible uses to describe what Jesus accomplished for you when he died in your place for your sin and then defeated sin and death when he rose from the dead. So, if having a kid in your home or getting that promotion at work is shaping more how you think about yourself or how you function in the world than your faith in Jesus, then you might not understand much of what it means to be redeemed by him. It’s meant to be all-encompassing.

Here’s some other imagery the New Testament uses to describe our redemption: going from death to life, from blindness to sight, from an enemy to a friend, from hostile to God to a child of God. God’s redemption of Ruth changed her life, both how she was known and how she was going to live. If God has redeemed you through your faith in Christ, then how are you seeing him change your life?

It’s easy to think of Jesus like a great bonus. You know, like we’re going to do the best we can with our life on our own, but it’s nice to have Jesus to fall back on when times are hard. It’s nice to have him to thank when times are good. But the effort? It’s easy to think that that’s all on me.

Remember, even though the author of Ruth put a bow on the story with her redemption in a single verse, he used the previous 3 chapters to nail down the fact that Ruth could not redeem herself. Even when she was bold in approaching Boaz that night at the threshing floor, she couldn’t control her own future. She needed someone to do for her what she couldn’t do herself.

We’re the same way. The Bible doesn’t describe us as hurting in our sin and trespasses. No, it says we were dead in our sin and trespasses. We don’t just need to do a good job recovering from an injury with some PT. No, we need a miracle worker that can spiritually raise the dead. So, of course, if that’s what God accomplishes for us through the person and work of Jesus, it fundamentally reshapes the way we think about our identity.

We never have to question our value because God the Father put a price on redeeming us, and it was his very Son. We never have to stress about what we should do with our lives because in whatever we eat or drink or in everything we do, as redeemed people we want to glorify God with our lives. And, finally, we never have to bear the burden of earning our position in life because we’ve been given the position of Jesus, the one who gave us new life.

Only twice in the entire book of Ruth is God’s involvement in the story explicitly mentioned: once in chapter 1 when God ended the famine in Israel and here again now with him providing Ruth with a son. Whether it be our daily food or our family’s future, we can trust God to lovingly provide. He’s worth building your identity around.

But not just because he helps you understand who you are in him. When God redeems us, he also gives us a new purpose. Let’s keep reading now with verses 14 through the first half of verse 17.

Ruth 4:14–17 ESV

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.

The author mentions this group, known only as “the women”, speaking twice in the book of Ruth. Back in chapter one, they commented on how Naomi had changed since she left Bethlehem for Moab during the famine 10 years ago. Of course she lost he husband and her sons during that time, so she responds telling them not to call her Naomi anymore. She wanted to be known as “Mara”, which literally means bitter.

But that’s no longer the case when the women speak about Naomi again here in the final verses of the book. Just like before, they notice that Naomi’s changed. But she’s no longer bitter. Now, they comment on her being blessed. What’s the difference? She has been redeemed. They tell her, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer.”

Before, it seemed like Naomi had little future and little purpose in her life. Losing her husband and her two sons left her in an incredibly vulnerable place in the ancient world with no means of protecting or providing for herself. She needed someone to step into the gap for her. And here in these verses, “the women” point to two people who did exactly that.

One of them was Ruth, her daughter-in-law. Starting in the middle of verse 13, we read that Ruth loved Naomi, she provided a grandchild to Naomi, and they even use seven as a number that represented completion to emphasize that Ruth was greater to her than seven sons would have been. The point is that God gave Naomi so much more than she had or ever asked for.

But then there’s that second person that God used to provide for Naomi. The women call him her “redeemer.” But if you look at these verses, they’re not talking about Boaz. No, they’re talking about Ruth and Boaz’s son. Naomi’s grandson. Boaz redeemed Ruth by marrying her, providing a son for her, and caring for her. But how did a little baby redeem Naomi? Look again at verse 15:

Ruth 4:15 ESV

¹⁵ He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age,

Nothing creates a sense of hope and new purpose like a new baby. Back in chapter 1, Naomi felt her life was over. She tried to convince Ruth to leave her because she didn’t have a future and had nothing to offer. But now, look at what Naomi’s able to offer in verses 16 and 17.

Ruth 4:16–17 ESV

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.”

Verse 14 said that the baby was Naomi’s redeemer from the Lord, and it leads to her finding a new purpose in life here in verse 16. When God redeems us, he’s not just saving us from something; he’s also saving us to something. If the purpose of our salvation was just to forgive us of our sins, that would be a great accomplishment, and being forgiven can even be a great motivator, but to what end? Getting a fresh start is great, but what do you do with it?

Illustration: There was an arcade game at our cabin this week with 100s of classic games on it, and Oliver didn’t get how to play with a joystick and buttons, but man did he love it. And because we didn’t have to put quarters in to play, anytime we died in the game, we’d just hit the restart and pick right back up where we left off.

Please don’t think of Christianity that way. You are missing out on the life God has for you if you think Jesus died simply to give you a restart, so you could pick back up where you left off and continue trying your best. We’re more like Ollie in that regard, honestly, because no matter how many times I restarted him on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he didn’t know how to move forward and hit the punch and kick buttons at the same time, so he was doomed to lose all over again.

Illustration: The beauty of playing that game with Ollie wasn’t that he got unlimited restarts. He wasn’t even trying to win. He just wanted to have fun with his dad (and his dad was the one that would win).

Our salvation in Christ requires us to acknowledge that we can’t win. We can’t be good enough, we can’t earn enough, we can’t try hard enough. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Except for the Son of God, Jesus. When we trust in Christ’s victory for us rather than trying to earn it on our own, we find that we’re freed up from the burden of having to win God’s acceptance, and we instead get to enjoy a new purpose: living for him.

That’s what we see Naomi doing. God provided what she couldn’t, and now her little grandchild-redeemer has given her this new purpose of caring for him as he grows. The purpose God has for your life isn’t bound by your age or life stage. If you’re older here this morning: he’s not done using you. If you’re young: you don’t have to wait.

And that’s because God’s purpose for your life is something we can think of in two parts. We can call them a primary purpose and a secondary purpose. Too often, we want to make the secondary purposes into primary ones—what you do for a living, whether or not you get married, and to who, how you raise your kids? These are great questions, great callings and purposes in life—but they’re not ultimate. They’re secondary, and by that I mean they’re best experienced when they serve our primary purpose. Again, 1 Corinthians 10:31:

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

³¹ … whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

When you make your job your primary purpose, then when you lose it, or when it’s stressful or disappointing, it destabilizes you because it’s foundational to how you see your value in the world. But if your primary purpose is to glorify God in everything you do—well, that can happen in both your successes and in your failures. It can happen when things go your way and when things don’t.

The pastor, John Piper, put it this way: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Don’t settle for orienting your life around secondary things when they can be so much sweeter and more fulfilling when they’re serving the primary thing.

ILLUSTRATION: I’m a Tony Chachurie’s guy, and Macie’s from Kentucky, so it weirded her out when we first started dating and she would see me putting Tony’s on all kinds of things. But you know what I’ve never done? I’ve never eaten Tony’s by itself. It wasn’t meant to be used that way. It’s a seasoning, and the best tasting version of Tony’s is when it’s helping me make the most of the main dish.

The same’s true of all these great things that make up your life: your job, your family, your hobbies. They weren’t meant to be experienced in isolation. The best version of them is found in seeing them connect to how your life rests in, enjoys, and glorifies God. Seek to be satisfied in our Savior and then let your desire for him guide you as you navigate all these secondary purposes in life.

Naomi couldn’t see this new purpose for her life until God intervened and brought his redemption, and you’ll likewise not understand the joy of living for Jesus as your purpose until you’ve embraced his redemption by repenting of your sin against God and placing your faith in him.

God’s purpose for Ruth, and Boaz, and Naomi was personal to them, but it was also so much bigger than just them. In these last few verses, we see how God’s redemption doesn’t just change our identity and give us a new purpose; he also uses us for his plan. Let’s look at our passage one more time, starting again in verse 17.

Ruth 4:17–22 ESV

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.

We’ve been mentioning this every week during our study of Ruth, but here the connection’s made clear: Ruth and Boaz had a son named Obed, who would later have a son named Jesse who ended up being the father of King David. God fulfilled a promise to his people while lovingly providing for individual people. That’s significant because it tells us a few things.

First of all, your story matters to God. It’s part of his overarching plan for all creation. You might not know how he’s using you, but you don’t ever have to wonder if he’s passed over you. That’s why God gave us a book like Ruth. We don’t just jump from “the people needed a king” at the end of the book of Judges to “God provided them with a king”. No, we get to see God’s plan unfold in the lives of these unlikely characters: a Jewish widow who fled from God, a Moabite widow who grew up worshiping different gods, and a man from Bethlehem who wasn’t even supposed to be the original kinsman redeemer for the family.

It’s just like us seeing Ruth get pregnant back in verse 13 after at least 10 years of infertility. God repeatedly uses people in the Bible whose history or circumstances would make them unlikely candidates for carrying out his mission. But that’s exactly why he does it! It makes it that much more obvious that we need God, and we can’t take the credit. It’s why the Apostle Paul talks about our salvation in Ephesians 2:9, saying “it’s not a result of [our] works, so that no one may boast.”

Your life is meant to glorify the God of the universe and reflect his goodness and his sufficiency to the rest of his creation in all you think, feel, and do. And he’s shown in stories like the life of Ruth that he can do that through you no matter who you are or what you’ve done. Your story matters to him, and it’s part of his plan.

But your story also impacts those around you. God’s plan isn’t just that you would be a reflector of his grace; it’s that you would be an instrument of his grace. Naomi was reminded of the loving provision of God during an incredibly difficult season of life through the faithfulness and generosity of Boaz, and the people in our lives should understand more about the character of our Savior because of how we relate to and serve them as well.

If you’ve been attending our church for a while, then you’ve probably heard me talk about “bending out” the love of Jesus. The point of that statement is that we need more than just our own good intentions and effort to love people well (we need a love that’s greater than us). But we also need to receive that love ourselves if we are going to express it to others. Resting in God’s love for us, and demonstrating God’s love toward others. That’s the life of a Christian.

And that’s why the fulfillment of that life is found in your redeemer. For Ruth, God provided a husband who gave her a son. For Naomi, God provided a grandson who gave her a new purpose. And for all of Israel God used this story to pave the way for providing a king.

One more thought as we close: the first time I read through this passage as I started to prepare for this sermon, I wondered why the author gives us essentially the same genealogy twice in a row. In verse 17, we get the simple version: Obed to Jesse to David. But then in verses 18-22, the author backs up all the way to Perez, the son of the immoral relationship between Judah and Tamar, giving us some of the earlier descendants until we once again get to Obed, Jesse, and David. That seemed redundant to me.

But for the original audience reading the story of Ruth, this would have provided the extra emphasis needed to hit home as the main point of the book. Clearly, David had either finished his reign as king already or was in the middle of his reign by the time this was written. Ending the book of Ruth with this kind of emphasis on his genealogy connected the dots for the reader: During the period of judges when there was no king, this story shows that God was still sovereignly working to send a man to redeem someone born far from God in order to provide the people of God with a king.

And 1,100 years after Ruth, God would send another man to redeem those born far from God. But this man wouldn’t pave the way for a king. As both fully God and fully man, Jesus is our perfect redeemer and our king—our Savior and our Lord. We cannot understand the full scope of these Old Testament stories like the life of Ruth without seeing how her story is fulfilled in Christ, and we cannot understand the full scope of who we are and what has happened in our own lives without seeing how our story is also fulfilled in Christ.

The person and work of Jesus simultaneously shows us that we fall short of God’s glory because of our sin but also that we can reflect God’s glory because we’ve been given the righteousness of Christ when we trust in him.

You don’t earn it. You repent of your sin and then rest in our perfect redeemer. Let’s pray.