of the scriptures, please turn with me this morning to Ruth chapter 3. Last week, Ruth went out to glean. We talked about gleaning and this practice that God had commanded in His law. And gleaning was where, when you harvested your fields, you had to leave some behind. And the poor were able to go into the fields then and take what had been left behind so that they would have a way of providing for themselves. They would have a way of being fed even if they were unable to otherwise feed themselves. And as Ruth went out to glean, as she went out to gather this extra barley, she encountered a man named Boaz. And Boaz noticed her, and he protected her, and he welcomed her, and then he was profoundly generous with her. If you remember, she went home with like 50 pounds of barley on one day's work. That was weeks and weeks worth of food. Boaz was profoundly generous. And as the passage ended, he told Ruth to stay in his fields through the end of the barley harvest, but also the end of the wheat harvest. And that's where chapter two ended, and it's where chapter three picks up. So this is God's word for us this morning. Ruth chapter three. Then Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law, said to her, My daughter, should I not seek rest for you that it may be well with you? Is not Boaz our relative, with whose young women you were? See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Wash, therefore, and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do. And Ruth replied, all that you say, I will do. So Ruth went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight, the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet. He said, who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer. And Boaz said, may you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first, and that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. And now it is true that I am a Redeemer, yet there is a Redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good, let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning. So she lay at his feet until the morning, but arose before one could recognize another. And Boaz said, let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. And he said, bring the garment you are wearing and hold it out. So she held it, and he measured out six measures of barley and put it on her. Then she went into the city, and when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, how did you fare, my daughter? Then she told her all that the man had done for her, saying, these six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said to me, you must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law. Naomi replied, wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest, but will settle the matter today. This is God's word for us this morning. Let's pray and ask for his help to understand it. Our great God, we thank you again that you haven't left us to figure out what we should believe or how we should live or even what story we are a part of, but you've given us your word. And Lord, we pray now that you would send your spirit to us. We pray that you would open our eyes and our ears and our hearts and our minds. We pray that you would teach us, that you would correct us where there is sin in our hearts, that you would point us to righteousness, that you would change our hearts and make us desire what is true and what is good and what is beautiful. Above all, Lord, we pray that you would show us Christ. And we pray these things in His name. Amen. Verse one tells us that we are at the end of the barley harvest and Naomi gets an idea. And the idea is she wants to find a husband for Ruth. That's what she means when she says to Ruth, you know, that you should have rest. She means that you would be provided for, that you would be cared for, that you would have a husband. And before we even go much further, I just want to think for a moment about Naomi's progression through the book of Ruth. If you remember at the end of chapter one, Naomi said, Naomi was in the depths of despair, of grief, and of depression, she had lost so, so much. And yet, at the end of chapter two, she had been reminded of God's goodness, of God's provision, and she was marveling at those things. Now, Naomi is thinking about other people. It's amazing to see her suddenly turned outward in concern and care for Ruth. Naomi's progression is encouraging. She is growing. She is healing throughout the book of Ruth. And so in verses two to five, Naomi lays out her plan. And it goes like this. She says to Ruth, hey, Boaz is going to be at the threshing floor tonight. He's going to be winnowing out the grain. And winnowing was the process of separating the usable grain from the rest of the plant matter. So it was sort of something you would do at the end of the harvest. And it was a time of kind of celebration. So you would get together. You would celebrate God's provision again and again. And Boaz is going to be there along with the men who work for him. They're going to be winnowing out all of the grain. And so Naomi says to Ruth, I want you to take a bath. Ruth's been working hard. I want you to take a bath. I want you to get dressed. I want you to put on some perfume. And I want you to wait. And I want you to wait until Boaz is done eating and drinking, and he will sleep there at the threshing floor, and they would sleep there to guard the big pile of grain that they had just widowed. They are guarding this provision from God. And when he lays down to go to sleep, I want you to go, I want you to uncover his feet, and I want you to lie down next to him, and he will tell you what to do. And Ruth says, okay. It's unclear what Naomi is suggesting here. In fact, even in the Hebrew, it is unclear what Naomi is proposing that Ruth do. And honestly, you're supposed to cringe. You're supposed to read this and kind of say like, Naomi, I don't know if this story should be in the Bible. Naomi, I don't know if this is a good idea. Maybe this is not the best plan for securing a husband for Ruth. And again, maybe it's just helpful for us here to stop and pause and reflect for just a second. We are never invited as God's people to try to force or to engineer God's providence. We are never invited to sort of use sinful or unwise means to try to secure what God has otherwise promised to us as blessing. And Naomi's kind of maybe trying to do that here, and we're not supposed to do that. We're not called to do that as God's people. So, let's see how the story unfolds. In verse six, Ruth goes and it says she follows Naomi's plan. We get to verse seven, it says she waits and she watches until Boaz has eaten and drunk and goes to lie down. And verse seven says his heart was merry. Again, let's pause for just a second. When we say Boaz's heart was merry, the Bible is not saying that Boaz was drunk. It is not saying that. What it is saying instead is that Boaz has been making a proper use of God's good gift of alcohol. And the good gift of alcohol is meant to be used to celebrate God's goodness and God's provision. Psalm 104 says this explicitly, that God gave wine to gladden the hearts of men. Boaz has been winnowing out his grain. He has been seeing again that God has provided for him and provided for him richly. And Boaz is celebrating along with those who helped him throughout the harvest. He is making a proper use of God's good gift of alcohol. His heart is merry and he goes to sleep to guard the provision that God has given. Well, verse seven says that Ruth follows the plan. She goes, she uncovers Boaz's feet, and she lays down next to him, and Boaz, verse eight tells us, wakes up at midnight, in the middle of the night, it's dark, and he's startled because suddenly there is a woman lying at his feet. We had a kid, one of our kids, that was known for sort of creeping through the house, and you would wake up in the middle of the night to find her like, Right here. Her name is Audrey, if you've ever met her. This is kind of the thing, it's like, whoa! Boaz is startled. Who are you? Verse nine says. Ruth answers, Ruth. I'm Ruth. And here is where Ruth deviates from Naomi's plan. Ruth deviates from Naomi's plan because she says to Boaz, I want you to spread your wings over me because you are a redeemer. And what Ruth is saying there, Ruth is making it clear that she is there to propose marriage to Boaz. Not to do anything untoward or anything that would be inappropriate. And in the ancient world, it was not super normal for women to propose to men. But that's what Ruth does here. She lays down there and then basically as Boaz is startled and wakes up, she says, hey, will you marry me? Last week we were introduced to the concept that Boaz is a redeemer. We didn't talk about what that means, so today we're gonna talk about that briefly. He is a redeemer, or maybe another translation of that word in the Hebrew is he is a kinsman redeemer. And in God's law, these redeemers had a few different jobs that they were called upon to perform for members of their family. Here's one, for instance, in Leviticus 25, a redeemer was called upon to buy a family member back if that family member sold themselves into slavery. in the ancient world and ancient Israel, if you had debts you couldn't pay, one of the things you could do was sell yourself into slavery. And what you would do is you would go to the person that you owed money to, and you would say, basically, I will come and work for you exclusively, and that person would then be required to provide food, and clothing and shelter for you until you had worked off all of the debt. It was a way for people to be in poverty, but also to be provided for. So when you hear slavery, don't think they were kidnapped and forced to work for nothing. They were paying off debts that had been incurred. This was a way for the poor to be cared for, even on the margins of society. But even in the midst of that, if there was a redeemer in that person's family, the redeemer was required to go to the person who now held their family member as a debt slave and to buy them back. They were called to go and pay off the debt and buy that family member out of slavery. And listen, there was no central pot of money for this. They were called to go and spend their own money to pay off their family member's debt to rescue them, to redeem them out of slavery. In Deuteronomy 25, another responsibility of a redeemer was to marry his brother's widow. So if his brother died before he had any children, the redeemer was called to marry the brother's widow and to bear children with her and then to raise up those children to have his brother's inheritance so that his brother's property would continue in the family name. And again, all of this at his own expense. He would have to pay to raise children that would not receive his inheritance but would receive the inheritance of his brother. Another thing that redeemers were called to do in Numbers 35 is they were called to seek justice for their family members if their family members were the victims of crime and especially if their family members were murdered. They were called to go and seek justice and not rest until justice had been met for their family members. If y'all have ever read the book or seen the movie True Grit, little Maddie Ross is acting as a redeemer as she pursues the man that killed her father into the wilderness. That's the idea here. Again, at their own expense, they are called to go as long as it takes and pursue justice for their family members. All of this at their own cost. Being a redeemer was a costly endeavor, a costly responsibility. And here's what's amazing about the book of Ruth. None of these things, apply to Boaz. None of them apply to Boaz. Boaz has no particular obligation to Ruth. He might have a general family obligation to Naomi, but he owes Ruth nothing. And so when Ruth goes to the threshing floor, when she lies at his feet and when she says, would you redeem me? She is asking Boaz to act according to the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. One commentator puts it this way. He says, there were plenty of loopholes. Boaz could have slipped through and absolved himself of any legal responsibility had he so wished. But Boaz was not concerned simply with the obligations of God's law. He had a heart that had been touched by God's covenant faithfulness and it overflowed in covenant faithfulness to those around him. Boaz had a heart that had been shaped by God's faithfulness. And it overflowed in faithfulness and generosity and hospitality and care and concern for those who are around him. And I think it's helpful here to just pause for a moment and reflect briefly on the nature of God's law. Because sometimes I think we read like the 10 Commandments, and we think that they sort of provide a line over which we can't step. And like as long as you stay on like the right side of the line, you're really okay. So like you get to the sixth commandment, and it's like you shall not murder, and it's like, well, I haven't murdered anyone today, good to go. Now to be sure, if you haven't murdered anyone today, keep it up. You're doing great. Let's keep that going. But the law is not meant to sort of give like this minimum threshold. It's meant almost like a floor. And by that I mean it gives us a place to start to understand God's heart and what God would have us do and how God would have us live in the world. So the Sixth Commandment is not just about avoiding like actual premeditated homicide. The Sixth Commandment tells us as God's people that we are called to be those who protect and preserve and promote and seek the flourishing of life from womb to tomb. We are meant to care about life. We are meant to be people that are concerned for life. We are concerned for the well-being of the unborn, just like we are concerned for the well-being of those in our communities. We are concerned for the well-being of the elderly. We are concerned for the well-being of felons. We are concerned for the well-being of all human life. That's what the sixth commandment is getting at. It's not a minimum threshold. It is saying, be for life. Boaz is here treating the law like that. He's not saying, I'm sorry, you don't check three of the four criteria for me to redeem you, therefore I'm gonna get to save some money and I have no obligations towards you. Boaz is saying, yes. My heart has been touched by the faithfulness of my God and it will overflow in faithfulness for you, Ruth, and for your mother-in-law, Naomi. And so in verses 10 to 13, Boaz agrees to redeem Ruth. But he notes, there is another Redeemer who is closer. And what that means is there is a relative who is closer to them than he is. And so what Boaz says, I'm sorry, what this other Redeemer then would have a right to redeem Ruth if he wanted to. So he had the first sort of right of refusal to redeem Ruth. And what Boaz says, is if this guy will redeem you, that's great. That means you will be provided for, you will be cared for. But if he won't do it, then I will. And Boaz says, hey, it's midnight. We're not gonna be settling any contracts here tonight. We will take care of this in the morning. And Boaz here shows himself to be righteous. In this matter, Boaz shows himself to be wise. Because what Boaz does not do at the threshing room floor with a vulnerable woman and a heart that is merry from wine, is take advantage of a vulnerable woman in a vulnerable situation. Boaz does not do that. He is righteous. He is wise. One of my seminary professors used to describe wisdom as skill in the art of godly living. And I always loved that. Skill in the art of godly living. Boaz models that here. Wisdom is when you have been so affected by God's love and God's faithfulness that righteousness flows out of you by reflex. That's what wisdom is. It is skill in the art of godly living. And wisdom never mistakes temptation for opportunity. Again, Boaz models here skill in the art of godly living. A few years ago, I remember reading an article there was about the moral downfall of celebrity pastors. Notable public figures have sort of pastoral or ministry roles. And this guy was talking about like, how is it that these figures who oftentimes start really well, how do they end up just failing spectacularly? And his point was, and his argument, I think it's true, was that it's not like they're righteous on Tuesday and Wednesday decide to do something wicked and evil. But rather, what is often more true is that people become apathetic about holiness and righteousness in the small things And so when they get to the big things, they then have no resources to stand against temptation, no resources to stand against wickedness. They are unable to cope with big temptations. They have lost skill in the art of godly living. What the Bible is calling us to, what Boaz is illustrating for us, is that we have to care about holiness and we have to care about righteousness in the smallest things in our lives, not just the big things. The gospel is shaping us in everything that we do. It should shape the way you merge onto the interstate. Everything we do is shaped. by God's goodness, God's holiness, God's righteousness, and God's faithfulness. We see Boaz here model that. We get a sense of his heart, don't we? That Boaz loves what is good. He loves God, he loves his holiness and his righteousness, and here he doesn't fall to temptation, even though it seems like that's what Naomi was sending Ruth to do. Boaz models skill in the art of godly living. Verse 14 says the night kind of draws to a close and Boaz sends Ruth away in the early, early morning. So what he did, the reason he had her stay at the threshing floor is it was still unsafe for Ruth to be wandering through the town in the middle of the night. So again, by having her stay there at the threshing floor, Boaz is protecting her. He is keeping her safe from being assaulted or harmed, from being a vulnerable woman out in the middle of the night. But he doesn't keep her there all morning. You'll notice he gets her up while it's still dark outside and sends her away before her reputation could be tarnished. He doesn't want people to think that something untoward or inappropriate has happened. Verse 15 says though, before she leaves, Boaz gives her some more barley. And this time it says he gives her six measures of barley. Last time she got an ephah, which is about 50 pounds. Measures here, it's unclear, but the typical measure for barley in the ancient world was a siah of barley, which means Boaz here gives Ruth six siahs of barley, which is about 80 pounds worth of barley. 80 pounds worth of barley. This is more than she gleaned on that first day. And we get a sense that this is a heavy load because if you see what it says there in verse 14, it says, he measured out six measures of barley and put it on her. So 80 pounds of barley on Ruth. Again, she's not putting this in the back of her Prius and driving home from Costco. Like she is walking probably a fair distance to get to where she and Naomi are staying and she is carrying 80 pounds of barley. So she returns home. And again, Ruth encounters Boaz and leaves with a comically large amount of grain. But what Boaz is doing here, when he says he doesn't want to send her home empty handed, is this is a down payment on Boaz's intention to care for her, to marry her, and to take her and Naomi into his household. This is a down payment on his future goodness, a down payment on his promise of provision. And so Ruth gets home staggering, you can only imagine, under the weight of 80 pounds of barley, and Naomi is standing at the door. How'd it go? What happened last night? Verses 16 and 17. And Ruth tells the story. And then she says, and Boaz gave me all of this grain so that I wouldn't come back empty-handed. And what we don't see here, but you could see it in the Hebrew, is that this word empty-handed is the same word Naomi used at the end of chapter one. When she said, I left Bethlehem full and returned empty. Ruth here says, Boaz gave me all this grain so that I wouldn't return empty. Again, Ruth leaves empty and returns full. In verse 18, Naomi basically says, all we can do now is wait. All we can do is wait to see how things turn out. We live in a culture that is bad at waiting. I don't know if you all have noticed this. We are bad at waiting. And just to be real clear, sometimes I'm like, we live in a culture that like, this is me. Like, I am bad at waiting. I hate waiting. I will take longer routes driving because I don't want to sit in traffic and feel like I have to wait. Like, I will drive longer to be moving so that I don't have to wait. Buy it now on Amazon, right? It's never buy it two days from now. Not good, not good at waiting. We are not good as a people at waiting. However, so much of our lives is waiting, isn't it? Like so much of our life is like waiting to see what's going to happen. We're waiting for test results from the doctor. We are waiting to see what's gonna happen in the war in Ukraine. Like we're waiting to see what is happening. And I think part of what we have to learn as God's people is that waiting is not doing nothing. Waiting is not passive for God's people. Waiting is instead how we trust in God's goodness and how we trust in God's provision. It is acknowledging that we are not in control. And waiting is where we leave Ruth and Naomi here at the end of chapter three. Honestly, the book of Ruth is kind of a strange love story. It's kind of a strange love story. Boaz, I think it's pretty clear from Ruth 3, is kind of an old guy. I don't know if you caught that. He says, this last kindness is greater than the first because you didn't go after a young guy, whether he was rich or poor, but you came to talk to me. So Boaz is an older guy. Ruth, whatever you think of her, is the kind of woman who can carry 80 pounds of barley miles. So you've got an old guy and you've got a stout Ruth. This is not two beautiful young people meeting in soft focus with lens flares and music. This is an odd couple. It's an odd couple. It's a strange love story. But I think this story helps us understand the strange love story between God and his people. Because Ruth 3 is all about the gospel. You see, we too are rescued by a redeemer at great cost to himself. Jesus doesn't redeem us with his financial resources, but with the cost of his very self. He goes to the cross and his body is broken and his blood is shed, that we would be reconciled, that we would be redeemed, bought back from sin and death. And Jesus, just like Boaz, has given us a down payment on our inheritance. He has given us a down payment on the fullness of our rescue and redemption. And the New Testament is super clear about this because multiple times it tells us that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. It is the down payment on the goodness to come for eternity. It says that in 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 5, Ephesians 1, the Holy Spirit is the down payment on our inheritance. And the Holy Spirit is even now shaping wisdom in us. It is teaching us skill in the art of godly living. Everything we have comes from God. And for now, We wait. We wait. And it's hard to wait. There is brokenness in the waiting. There is sin and death and evil in the waiting. There are tears in the waiting. But the Bible is also really clear on what it is we are waiting on. And it tells us that in 2 Peter 3, verse 13. It says, according to God's promise, we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. We are waiting on the world made new. A world without pain or sin or death or tears. A world in which righteousness dwells. There is no sin, no evil, no wickedness, no cause for grief. We are waiting on everything sad to come untrue. And friends, that waiting is really the heart of the Advent season. That's really the whole point of Advent, is we are waiting on all of this goodness to come. We are waiting on the finality of our redemption. Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have redeemed us in Christ at great cost to himself. And Lord, we thank you that you've given us the down payment on our future inheritance, eternal life in a world made new. We thank you for the Holy Spirit. And Lord, we pray that the Spirit would be at work in us, teaching us to turn away from sin and to turn towards Christ again and again in faith and repentance and obedience. Father, we pray even now that the Spirit would empower us to wait, that the Spirit would teach us to trust in your provision and your goodness, even when it's hard, even when the brokenness seems like it's too much to bear. Lord, be with us in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. And Father, even now as we come to your table, We pray that you would be at work in us, that you would be at work in this meal that you have set for us. We pray that you would take this ordinary bread and this ordinary cup and use them for an extraordinary purpose, to teach us, to shape us, to strengthen us, to give us patience and endurance as we wait. And we pray these things in Christ's name, amen.