And as you're doing so, let me invite you to turn with me to Ruth chapter 4. We're actually finishing our study this morning. We've been working our way through this wonderful yet small book, and we end it today in Ruth chapter 4. While you're turning there, let me just simply remind you of what What we learned last week, because it is contingent upon how we move now in our final chapter, you'll remember last week we began by saying God has a perfect plan, and many times in our own life we feel like He's not moving near fast enough or the way we want, and so we devise our own plot to help Him in His plan. And we find the same thing in Ruth chapter 3, don't we? Naomi comes up with this plan or this plot to send her daughter-in-law to the threshing floor, and we're left saying, what? What is she thinking? Boaz wakes up in the middle of one night and he finds startled to find a young woman at his feet who actually asks him to marry her. Take the corner of your garment and cover me, she says, asking him to cover her as her kinsman, redeemer. And Boaz responds, everything that you ask I will give to you, but I'm not gonna do it this way. I'm gonna do it God's way. I'm gonna do God's plan, not Naomi's plot. So we would think then, wouldn't we, that we would open up chapter 4 and there would be a wonderful wedding that's taking place now. No, not so fast. There are still things that need to be done in God's plan, according to God's way and God's timing, to accomplish all that He desires to accomplish. So let's find out what that is as we give our attention now to the reading and the preaching of God's word, Ruth chapter 4. Hear now the word of God. But Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the Redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, Turn aside, friend, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, Sit down here. So they sat down. Then he said to the Redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling a parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. So I thought I would tell you of it and say, buy it in the presence of those that are sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me that I may know for there is no one besides you to redeem it and I come after you. And he said, I will redeem it. Then Boaz said, The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance. Then the Redeemer said, well, I cannot redeem it, for lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging. To confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and he gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. So when the Redeemer said to Boaz, buy it for yourself, he drew off his sandal. Then Boaz said to the elders and all of the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech. and all that belong to Shileon and Malon, all that Ruth the Moabite and the widow of Malon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are my witnesses this day. Then all of the people who were at the gate of the elders said, we are witnesses. May the Lord make this woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem. And may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman. So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went into her and the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord, who has not let you this day without a redeemer. And may his name be renowned in all of Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher in your old age. For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him. Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, A son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed. And he was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Perez. Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amimadab, Amimadab fathered Nashon, Nashon fathered Solomon, Solomon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David. Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. O Father in heaven, We could scarcely make this up. You have worked a wonderful plan, and you are opening our eyes to see this plan even today, your plan, good, pleasing, and perfect according to your will and your timing. So seal that same truth to us today, Father, as we finish our study of this beautiful book and are reminded of the greater Kinsman Redeemer that is ours, who blesses us, who pours out his kindness on us and his favor on us. Do that, please, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Oh, friends, God's plan does not always mean that it's a straight line from A to Z. Last week, you remember, we started my call to ministry that I forced because God had a plan, but I devised a plot because it wasn't going fast enough. And so I stepped in and I helped him. I wasn't trying to usurp his plan. I'm just trying to help him along in his plan so that he could get done what I knew that he wanted to get done. He had called me to gospel ministry, but it wasn't working fast enough. So I stepped in and I helped him. I told you the whole story of how that cratered, it came crashing down for me. I finally realized my wife had never been even asked if she felt like we were called, how I had pushed this thing because I saw the liturgy being played out every Sunday and fell in love with that liturgy. I told you that story last week, but here is the rest of the story, like Paul Harvey said. The rest of the story is that God's plan is not always a straight line from A to Z to move us to the place where He has called us. I came to realize, see, that as I got my job back at the fire station and I moved back to Louisville, and Jennifer and I began to discern this plan, this call that God had on our lives, we thought, okay, he's calling us out of one denomination into another one. That's what I told you last week, I'm not wanting to deify a denomination. But coming into the Presbyterian churches where my wife would say that she was truly converted, and I certainly grew in my growth in grace as well. And the Hound of Heaven simply wouldn't let us go. He continued to speak of that call. And so Jennifer and I decided that we were going to take a trip up to St. Louis, Missouri to attend Covenant Theological Seminary. We didn't want to go through what we had gone through before. We didn't want to go to a seminary that we didn't have knowledge that absolute truth would be given according to God's Word and His gospel. And so we wanted to go to the denominational seminary. And so we thought, here's in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, it's working. Yeah, now it's working. I thought it was gonna do a couple of years ago, but okay, I acquiesced. I confessed that I had a plot and God had a plan. And now I thought, okay, now it's gonna be just this straight line. Now he's gonna move me straight off to St. Louis, Missouri. I'm gonna get my degree. I'm gonna be the pastor of this large church. All of those things that you play out in your mind. No, not so fast. I romanticized this whole thing this weekend. I thought, I'm going to make some reservations at a bed and breakfast long before Airbnbs. And I found this historic old home built in the late 1800s in Lafayette Square just outside of downtown St. Louis. And I made reservations. And I thought, OK, I'm going to do that. Then we'll go visit the seminary. We'll have dinner at this really nice restaurant. We pull up to the bed and breakfast, and literally the yard is about as tall as me, almost. The Johnson weeds and weeds and grass and wildflowers and everything else. And this house looks like it hadn't seen any kind of attention since the late 1800s when it was built. And so we make our way up the front step in the little vestibule, open the main door, and two cats run across. Now, if you're a cat person, God bless you. I love you. I'm not a cat person. And there are two cats running right there, right across this dark green, avocado green shag carpet. We ascended the stairs following our host to the third floor to our little suite, which had our bedroom and then our daughter's bedroom, a little bedroom off the side. We opened the door and this fat cat that was about this big is laying right in the center of the bed. So I said, okay, honey, that's all right. We'll shoo this cat out. It'll be okay. Let's go to the seminary. So we go to the seminary, and it's kind of misting outside. We come down this road like this, and we're about to make a turn, and I realize that there is a car dead right in my lane, and I hit my brakes, and I started hydroplaning, and I'm sliding sideways like this, and I smash this curb that's about this tall up on the curb. I broke my tie rod end. I flattened my tire. And I got out, and here it's Memorial Day weekend. They're towing off my car, and not only are they not gonna work on it tomorrow, they're gonna be closed on Monday. I'm supposed to be back at the fire station on Monday. Now I gotta call and let them know that I can't be there, and they gotta let them know that I'm actually off looking at another seminary, because I'm thinking about quitting again. You see, God's plan is not always as straight from A to Z. Here I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is just, this is awful. We get to the seminary, we're walking around, yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you like to see the library? No, I've seen books before. We don't need to see the library. Let's just go. We'll get off to the restaurant. We get to the restaurant. I'm coming to an end, I promise. Open the menu. I'm a fireman, I make $32,000 a year. And I'm looking at the hamburger, which is $19.95, and we're talking about $19.94 the year, and it's $19.95. And Jennifer and I say, let's each get a side salad. We'll order Melissa a hamburger, and we'll cut it up. And so we order that, and the server's like, dead beat. Yeah, off they go. She comes back finally with the hamburger, and opened the bun, and there's a big hair going right across the cheese and top. I said to Jennifer, Jennifer, I will never go back to St. Louis ever again, ever. We got our car back finally. We started our way back to Louisville. Done with this. I'm never going back to St. Louis. And in God's good providence, two years later, we drove our U-Haul truck up there, unpacked it, and we began seminary. God's plan is not always a straight line from A to Z, because there are many things, friends, listen, there are many things that the Lord desires to teach us, much sanctification that He desires to lead us in, instruction, more dependence upon Him, that He satisfies our every longing. He has much to teach us, and so instead of taking us from here to here, Sometimes it's all around to bring us to that place where He desires us to be. When we don't think that it's going this way and it's moving like this, aren't we very quick then to think that God doesn't care about our good? That He's not good to us anymore? If God really called me to ministry, if God really did this, if God really intended that, wouldn't it just be that He would do it? Why is it that it's all off to this way and now off to that way? He's not being good to me anymore. And he promises that he would be good, and we fail to see, we fail to see that he blesses us, that he pours out his kindness upon us, and he grants us his favor. That's what we find in Ruth chapter 4, friends. That's exactly what we find in Ruth chapter four. And I have to tell you, I gleaned so much this, gleaned, pun intended. I gleaned so much this week from Sinclair's Ferguson study of this text. Ferguson says, he takes a look at the entire book and he says, the last chapter is a reversal. From what we find in chapters one, two and three, we get to chapter four and now there is this reversal. to show the absolute renewal of individuals that they are now in the very place where God had ordained, planned, that they would be. The book opens chapter 1 with Naomi, and then it moves to Ruth, and then chapter 2 to Boaz. But now in chapter 4, we find the reversal. It's Boaz, then it's Ruth, and then it's Naomi. all for the purpose of reversing the order of everything that has taken place to the picture that we have at the beginning of the book about each of them, and now the picture at the end of the book that God is continuing to pour out blessing, kindness, and favor on His individuals. That His plan is not A to Z, straight line, but that His plan is all for our good, for our growth in grace, for our mortification of our sin, for our sanctification, for all of the things that He lavishes His kindness and goodness upon us. So the question then is, as it was to these three individuals, to Boaz and to Ruth and to Naomi, is this what your life bears witness to? Is your life bearing witness to the fact that you are a renewed creature in Christ, completely, completely dependent upon Him, grabbing hold of the blessings that He gives to us through His gospel, the loving kindness that He gives to us in this great salvation, even as Bill prayed this morning, that is ours, even if absent from material things? and this favor that is ours in ultimately not Boaz the Kinsman Redeemer, but a greater Kinsman Redeemer that this book ends by introducing us to. Let's look at this very briefly then. The first person that we have as we're unpacking now, as we're reversing the order here, the first renewal is for Boaz. Now, Boaz has not had much attention in this book at all. Matter of fact, he's only had a few verses that have dealt with him, but now he takes three quarters of this last chapter. Why do you suppose that there is this extended now picture of Boaz, where in the past it's been very, very small, but now the author of the book concentrates fully or most fully, almost fully on Boaz by giving him three quarters of the attention to the book? It's for this very reason, to show to us, the reader, that Boaz continues in his faithful obedience to God and His law, to Yahweh and His law. Boaz, we remember, found a woman sleeping at his feet on the threshing floor. And instead of, like his great-grandson would later do, violating that individual. He said, everything that you ask will be done. I will marry you, but there is another Redeemer that's higher than I, and so we're going to do this the right way. Boaz chose to be obedient to Yahweh instead of taking matters into his own hands and doing what he himself wanted to do. there was another Redeemer that had to be passed so that Boaz could take Ruth to be his wife. And so, out of obedience to the Lord, he says, nope, I'm not gonna do it this way, I'm gonna do it my way. Now, can't you almost hear his friends saying, oh, Boaz, dude, no, don't do that. Don't go seeking after some other guy, because if you do that, there's the possibility that you could lose her, Just do it. Nobody's gonna find out. Just take her, make her yours. And then when he does it, because he desires to be obedient to Yahweh, and they get to the gate with the elders and the people there, and they hear, yes, there is another Redeemer, and I will redeem her. Can you hear the gasp? I told you so, Boaz, I told you, you fool. Why didn't you just do it? And so Boaz then unpacks the whole thing. All right, the day that you do, the day that you take her by this plot of land is the day that you get another mother-in-law, a day that you get another wife, a day that you get more property. Oh, no, no, no. That'll mess up my inheritance. And then there's the passing of the sandal. all for the purpose of this continued obedience that Boaz would say, I am not going to create a plot against God's plan. I am going to follow this wherever it goes in continued obedience, just like we read in 1 John chapter 5. Verses 1 through 5, those who love the Savior obey His commands and His commands are not burdensome. Even when we feel like they are, even when we feel like we're way over here or way over there, when God could just easily do it like this and be done with it, continued obedience even in difficult times. Boaz is blessed. Isn't that what we find at the beginning of the book? Look what we see in chapter two, when he approaches his gleaners, his workers, in verse four of chapter two. Boaz came to Bethlehem, to the reapers, and he said, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Boaz was blessed here, even at the beginning of his life, a land owner, but didn't have a wife, didn't have children. And now at the end of the book, now in his continued obedience, what is the reversal? What is the renewal that we find now? Now Boaz has a mother-in-law, he has a wife, he has land, and now even has a son. Do you see the blessing, the renewal of blessings upon Boaz? He was already blessed at the beginning, as said by his reapers, but now even the abundance of the renewal of more blessings that God would give to him by his faithful obedience, his obedience to his command. I don't know if you're like me. I'm guessing that you are, since we are all products of the fall. But I am so prone to my own agenda. When God isn't doing it this way, when it could be so quickly and so easily done in our minds, we come up with another agenda, and oftentimes that agenda is our own agenda, isn't it? Especially when there's pain and suffering, when God is diverting us this way, we lose one pastor, and then another pastor, and then another pastor. And we're thinking, oh my gosh, what is going on? It would just be so easy. We've got our own agenda. It would be easy if you would just do it my way. But not for the growth of the saints of Christ's church. Sanctification, redemption, instruction, mortification, reuniting, reconciliation, all of those that the Lord would divert us around to renew the blessings that he has to redeem her prayers today. What a gospel. And that's just the first one. Okay, the next one then is Ruth. She only gets one verse, but now we go from Boaz to Ruth, only one verse in verse 13. And now we find that she is the wife of Boaz. She becomes pregnant and she bears a son. You'll remember Ruth back in chapter one, Remember Ruth had given up everything, hadn't she? She was in Moab with her husband and her mother-in-law and her father-in-law. And her father-in-law dies, her husband dies, her brother-in-law dies. And so her mother-in-law says, okay, we're going to go back to the house of bread, back to Bethlehem. Because I had heard that God had blessed Bethlehem. So Naomi was returning back to the place she had never should have left. And then she tells Orpah, one daughter-in-law, just go back. I'm not going to have any more children. You know the story. We've read it. But Naomi says, don't force me to do this anymore. Your God is my God. Your people are my people. Where you go, I will go. Where you die, I will die. She left her house. She had lost her husband. She left her house. She left her friends. She left her country. She left her family to move all the way in to Bethlehem. She had given it all, chapter one, now chapter four, the reversal. She got it all. Everything that she had lost, now she has a husband. Now she has provision. Now she has protection. Now she has food. Now she has a son. But friends, listen, don't make this mistake. Many times what we think is the kindness of God is shown to us in the material things that we are able to acquire. Look at Ruth like Job. Job that suffered lost 10 sons through the entirety of the book. Even if Job had not been given more children at the end, he was still receiving the kindness of Yahweh. And so is Ruth. She is receiving the kindness of her kinsman-redeemer, even apart from all of these things that she got. How? By this. Friends, listen. because she had left a land apart from Yahweh, apart from saving grace, to come to the house of bread to feed on the one eventually who is the bread of life. Apart from every good thing that is from the kind hand of God, the genuine kindness, the ultimate kindness of God himself, the Kinsman Redeemer, is the salvation that he gives to us in Jesus Christ. They cannot take away your resurrection, the hope of your resurrection to be eternally with your Savior. That's the glory, that's the beauty of the kindness that has been given to Ruth. Now friends, the question then is, does that satisfy? Does Jesus satisfy, even if you don't get all of the riches that you desire, the house that you desire, the clothes, the car, the person, whatever, whatever, if you don't have any of those things, or even if you do have some of those things, does Jesus Christ, the ultimate kinsman redeemer, satisfy your heart? The last person then is Naomi, oh sweet Naomi, the one that I've become so fond of because I'm so much like Naomi, coming up with my own plan and plot and coming up with foolish ideas and trying to get the Lord to do what I want Him to do. Verses 14 through 17, now we see the renewal of the fullness that comes to Naomi. Remember how it began, chapter 1? She said she left when she got back into Bethlehem. She said she had left full, but she had to come back empty. And then in chapter three, verse 17, on the threshing floor, when Boaz says, don't go back to your mother-in-law, empty-handed. She kept saying, she was, call me bitter, don't call me pleasant, call me bitter, because my life is empty. That was her beginning. She lost her husband, she lost her sons. I'm empty. But now look at her in verse 14. She's got this little bitty baby. She's got this baby that she's being the nurse to on her lap. The women are giving him a name, Obed, which means servant of the Lord. But friends, look at, please take careful notice of verse 14. 15, look at 14. Then the women, the women said to Naomi, bless me the Lord who has not left you, Naomi, who has not left you, Naomi, this day without a Redeemer. And may his name, the Redeemer's name, be renowned in all Israel. He, the Redeemer, shall be a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age. For your daughter-in-law who loves you more than seven sons has given birth, wouldn't you expect to read, has given you this man in marriage? That's not what we read. This restorer of life and nourisher in your old age is given to you in the birth Do you see what's happening? What's happening is the author is showing us that this kinsman-redeemer was an earthly kinsman-redeemer for Ruth and for Naomi. But there was a greater kinsman-redeemer to come, the ultimate kinsman-redeemer. And that's why we have the genealogical account. We had already read it in verse 17. The women of the neighborhood sang, a son has been born to Naomi, and they named him Obed, who was the father of Jesse and the father of David. The author could have stopped there, right? But he didn't. Now, these are the generations of Perez. Why would he start with Perez? You know who Perez is? That's the product of the relationship between Tamar and Judah in Genesis chapter 38, when we're happy going about reading about Joseph and all these wonderful things about Joseph, but the line isn't straight. Over here we've got chapter 38, that a father-in-law would impregnate a daughter-in-law. to continue a line, not through Joseph, that we've been reading all about, but through Judah. Because the ultimate kinsman redeemer would come through this line. And so we go back to Perez, who fathered Hezron, who fathered Ram, and Mimadab, and so forth, to get all the way to Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and then David. The covenantal promise of 2 Samuel chapter 7, David, one of your descendants, will always be on the throne. And the fulfillment of that promise in the opening of the New Testament accounts when we read that Jesus comes from the house in the line of David. There is a greater kinsman redeemer, dear friends. And so he is saying to you today, he has not left you this day without a kinsman redeemer, one who would be the restorer of your life. Friends, I've been doing weddings for 30 years as an ordained pastor, 30 years that I have stood right here at this place. And I've looked back in wedding services where the doors open. One particular rehearsal, the young man was standing here with me on the chancel and I said, okay, the doors are gonna open and then the bride is gonna make her way and we'll have everyone stand as she enters into the sanctuary. And he said, hey, Pastor McGee, do I look at you or do I look back at her when she comes down the aisle? I said, dude, you don't get it, do you? You don't get it. When the doors open up, buddy, there is your bride. There's your bride. I look there. Don't look at me. Look right there. So the doors open up. 30 years I've been doing this. 30 years the doors opening up and just visualizing the beauty of the bride coming down the center. And then? As I told you in week two, one of those rich rewards, remember that I got to officiate the wedding of both of my daughters. The very first time the doors opened up, I was back there. I wasn't up here. It was this reversal that hit me. with all reality that I was thinking of Ephesians chapter five when Jesus is saying, husbands and wives, but what I'm really saying is Christ, me and the church. And for years I've been saying, look at the bride, the bride is about to enter. But now I'm standing back there and I'm seeing the groom, the groom in all of his beauty, all of his splendor, a whole new perspective because of this reversal of things to where now I am making my procession all the way into the loving arms of a Kinsman Redeemer, the restorer of life, the giver of every blessing, kindness, and fullness. Friends of Christ Church, This is you. This is you. A reversal. You've been all over the map. But today, a renewal, a day, a new day dawning, a new day of leaning into and loving these blessings and kindnesses and fullnesses that God promises to give to you in the true Kinsman Redeemer, the Restorer of life. Will your life bear witness to that? Father in heaven, what a joy it is to read your gospel even in the Old Testament and be reminded that you have this deep love for us and affection for us that we could never even fathom. You, we couldn't come up with this, even if we did have a good plot. But help us to rest in the fullness of your plan, Lord. Help us to marvel there as you renew us as your people, as you feed us and teach us, as you winnow us many times, as you refine us. Lord, just keep our eyes fixed on you, our our kinsman Redeemer, the one who is the restorer of life and giver of every gift. Thank you, Lord, that you have done it for your own glory's sake through Christ our Lord. Amen.