Please join me in your Bibles in the book of Ruth. In the second chapter, as we continue our study of this wonderful book that comes right after Joshua and Judges. Book of Ruth. I'd like to read the second chapter in preparation for the sermon. Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. Ruth, a Moabitess, said to Naomi, Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter. So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come upon the portion of the field belonging to Boaz. who was in the family of Elimelech. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, may the Lord be with you. And they said to him, may the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? The servant in charge of the reapers replied, she is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. And she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.' Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now and has been sitting in the house for a little while." Then Boaz said to Ruth, "'Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field. Furthermore, do not go from this one, but stay here with my maids. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw." Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, "'Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?' And Boaz replied to her, All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother in the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord reward your work and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge." Then she said, "'I have found favor in your sight, my Lord, For you have comforted me, and indeed you have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants." At mealtime, Boaz said to her, "'Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.' So she sat beside the reapers, and he served her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left. Then she rose to glean, and Boaz commanded his servants, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her. Also, you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles, and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her." So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephod of barley. And she took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, She also took it out and gave Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, then, name of the man with whom I work today is Boaz. And Naomi said to her mother-in-law, may he be blessed of the Lord who has not withheld his kindness to the living and to the dead." Again, Naomi said to her, the man is her relative, and he is one of our closest relatives or redeemers. And Ruth, the Moabite said, furthermore, he said to me, you should stay close to my servants until you have finished all my harvest. Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you should go out with his maids so that others do not fall upon you in another field. So she stayed close to the maids of Boaz in order to gleam until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we ask that You would bless the reading of Your Word. And what a wonderful and extraordinary privilege it is to hear from You. And Lord, it was great confidence in Your loving kindness and in your favor and your covenantal fidelity that we will hear from you this morning. Speak to our minds and hearts as Boaz spoke to the heart of Ruth. So, Father, we ask that you would speak kindly to us and show us something of your great faithfulness and loving kindness that our hope and confidence would always reside in you. In Christ we pray. Amen. We've been considering the book of Ruth for the last few weeks, and just for the sake of those who are visiting with us this morning, just a real quick review. It says in chapter 1, verse 1, that it came about in the days when the judges governed that there was a famine in the land. We suggested that that is not an accident that we're told these things. that in the days of the judges, the last verse of the previous book says that in those days that everybody was doing what is right in their own eye. These people of Israel, the covenant people of Israel, were not living under the authority of the Lord. They were not being covenantally faithful. And as a result of that, God, in His covenantal faithfulness, brought a famine as He promised He would do in Deuteronomy 28 and 29. And so when we're told right out of the book, right out of the gates, that it was the time of the judges, we know that the people are not covenantally faithful and God has brought a famine. But then we're told that this famine is in Bethlehem, which is the house of bread. Where there should be abundance of food, there was no food. And a certain man, we're told in verse 2, Elimelech and his wife Naomi and two sons choose in covenantal unfaithfulness to leave the place of blessing to go to the land of Moab, which is to the east, to find the blessing of the Lord. They leave where God has covenantally promised to be present and to bless and to protect. And they choose to leave His presence. They choose to leave His land of promise. They choose to leave that which is where the covenant blessings would be manifested, to go live with the pagans, to go live with the pagans and with the unrighteous and those who are covenantally not connected to God. And so we're introduced to Elimelech and Naomi and their two sons as covenant breakers, as unfaithful people. who are trying to solve life's daily problems through human wisdom, human strength, and human effort. Rather than by faith resting in God's covenantal faithfulness, they're choosing to try to get God's blessing outside of His promise, outside of His presence, outside of His church. And as you all know, Naomi's husband and two boys die, but the boys die not before they can be married to two Moabite women. And these two daughters get up with Ruth to return to the land because it says that in verse six of chapter one, she rose with her daughters-in-law that she might return to the land of Moab. for she had heard in the land of Moab that the Lord had visited His people in giving them food." So they're going to return and try to get the blessing of the Lord. But before they do, Naomi encourages the two daughters to return to their own pagan households, to their own pagan gods, and one does. But before she does, Naomi makes this prayer in v. 9-10 of chapter 1. May the Lord grant that you find rest each in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them and they lifted their voices and wept. And they said to her, no, we shall not surely return with you to your people. Naomi is praying for them that God would grant them rest and that God would bless them. But Naomi will not go. Naomi will not return. She says, I will stay with you. And she says, where you go, I will go and your people will be My people and your God shall be My God. Down in v. 15-16. And so Naomi has prayed for her daughters for God's blessings. V. 8, May the Lord deal kindly with you. That word kindly is the key word in the book of Ruth. It has to do with God's covenantal faithfulness. In Exodus 33 and 34 that we just read, it was translated compassion. It's about God's covenantal faithfulness. It's about God. The book of Ruth is ultimately about God. It's about who He is and how He acts in our lives. And so this morning, I want to talk a little bit about that covenantal love as it's expressed in the person of Ruth And next week we're going to talk some more about the covenant of love as it's expressed in the life of Boaz. But as we've said from the beginning, if all we glean from the book of Ruth is this wonderful love story between Ruth and Boaz, we've missed the point. That what we see in this book is the difference between poor choices and poor human-centered problem solving versus God's faithfulness. We're going to learn something about what it means to love, what it means to be faithful, what it means to trust and to live by faith, what it means to be kind, what it means to be in covenant, whether it be in covenant with God or covenant with one another. And ultimately, we are going to learn and see in picture form, in living picture form in terms of these two people, Ruth and Boaz, what God is like. The book is first and foremost a revelation of God and His character. And God is speaking to us in these lives. And so let me just again define this word kindness or this word loving kindness or compassion. The Hebrew word has said. Sinclair Ferguson put it this way in one of his books. It means God's deep goodness expressed in His covenant commitment His absolute loyalty, his obligating of himself to bring to fruition the blessings that he promised, whatever it may cost him personally to do that. Let me read that again. Covenantal love or has said loving kindness, faithfulness. It means God's deep goodness expressed in his covenantal commitment. His absolute loyalty. is obligating of himself to bring to fruition the blessings that he has promised, whatever it may cost him personally to do that. We've been stressing over the last few years the need to read the Bible covenantally. God made a covenant with Adam in the garden. God made a covenant with Noah after the flood. God entered into covenant with Abraham. And we learn from Galatians 3 that the promises of that covenant to Abraham are realized and fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who in the night in which He is betrayed takes bread and offers a cup, and He says of the cup, this is My blood of the covenant which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins." We cannot understand the Bible rightly if we do not understand covenant. And here the book of Ruth is going to show us what covenantal love, covenantal faithfulness looks like in ordinary daily living experiences so that we can look to God and say, God, we know that You are like this in very existential, practical, experiential terms so that we can put our hope and faith in Him. God in His covenant. What is a covenant? It's a promise. It's a swearing. And there's a lot of different types of covenants. But when a person enters into a covenant, they are making a promise. This is what I will do. And you'll remember back in Genesis 15 when God enters into this covenant with Abraham and He says, I'm going to bless you and I'm going to make your children be more numerous than the stars of the sky. And Abraham believes God and is counted to him as righteousness. And then the very first thing out of Abraham's mouth after he is declared righteous by faith How will I know that this is certain? And so God enters into this covenant by cutting this animal in half, and God walks between the two parts of the animal, and in so doing, God is promising, God is swearing, God is entering into covenant saying that if I do not fulfill and bring to fruition all of the blessings that I have promised, may it be done unto me as it was done unto this animal. That type of faithfulness, that type of covenantal faithfulness, that kind of loving kindness, that kind of love is expressed here in the book of Ruth. And we are to walk away from this book understanding something about the God that we can trust in. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 6 that God who cannot lie has has sworn and His Word cannot fail, and the God who cannot lie, and the God who has sworn and His Word cannot fail, that God, when He speaks, that speaking, that promising, that covenanting, that swearing, the writer of Hebrews says, becomes the anchor to your soul. It becomes the anchor to your soul to give you hope in the midst of life. I'm not a fisherman. I've only fished a handful of times. I think I've got fingers left over from the number on one hand, the number of times I've been fishing. But one of the great privileges of fishing that I had was on the Monterey Bay in California. And I am this wizard of a fisherman, an artisan, a man whose craft was fishing. He and I went out on the boat. We were out there from about 5 in the morning till about 5 at night. And it was amazing to watch him fish. But one of the things, and I won't tell you about that, I'll save that for another story about how gifted he was, how absolutely he knew how to work the Monterey Bay, and how he got fish when everybody else wasn't getting anything. But that's not what I want to tell you about. What I want to tell you about briefly is this, about the anchor to the soul. We're out on this boat, and this boat's getting tossed to and fro. The Monterey Bay is right there, part of the Pacific Ocean, and you get all the ocean waves and everything. And he had these two metal things. I'm not even sure what you call them, but he threw one over each side, these big, huge metal plates. And he threw one over one side of the boat. And he threw one over the other side of the boat. And they'd go down, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 feet. And these things are probably, each one is probably about the size of the front of this podium. And they'd go off the side. And once he threw those off the side, the boat stopped rocking. Even though there were still waves, they became an anchor or a ballast. So as we would go through the bay, we were not being tossed and driven. But the bullet actually seemed to find some stability. And I was very thankful for that, not having been out on the bay like that and not having my so-called sea legs. That was a great comfort to me. When we come to grasp something of the covenantal faithfulness of God, which the writer of Hebrews says is an anchor to our soul, that becomes the ballast. That becomes the anchor. That becomes the weight. That becomes the stability that keeps us being tossed and driven and pushed and shoved by every possible wind of life. And so the writer of of the book of Ruth wants us not just to see a fascinating love story between a man and a woman. He wants us to see the contrast between covenantal infidelity and covenantal fidelity in living examples that we might come all the more to put our hope and confidence in the God who is sufficient to be the anchor to your soul. And so this morning, I just want to take some time and look for four ways in which in the life of Ruth we see this kind of covenantal love, this deep goodness of covenantal commitment of God and how He will swear and fulfill all that He's promised, whatever it may cost Him. So my first example is how this is seen in the Lord. in the meek and quiet spirit of Ruth. As an embodiment of covenantal love, we see covenantal love, chesed love, covenantal faithfulness in Ruth's gentle and quiet spirit. Look at chapter 2 with me in verse 10 and 11. After Boaz has blessed her, It says in verse 10 that she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? And Boaz replied to her, all that you have done to your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not know previously. Ruth has a gentle and quiet, or meek, spirit. Peter will talk about this in 1 Peter 3-4, that this is a distinguishing mark of godly women. Women who are driven by covenantal faithfulness are quiet and gentle and meek. And godly women, though they will differ widely in range of personality and common common behavior patterns have this one common attribute about their lives. There's a gentleness and a quiet peace and poise of spirit in the midst of life's circumstances. Covenantal faithfulness produces a quietness and a peace. In Ruth's case, these qualities became evident in the way in which she responds to some rather difficult and harsh circumstances. In God's providence, she's married and lost her husband even before she had children. In God's providence, she is married into a family of a mother who has expressed covenantal unfaithfulness and foolishness of decision making, seeking to find blessings of God apart from God and apart from the presence of God. I mean, it would have been very easy for a cynical Ruth to say, you know, I married your son in good faith, and now I come to find out that you fled from the presence of God, and you have broken your covenantal faithfulness, and God has brought the death of your husband and the death of my brother-in-law and the death of my husband upon us because of your unfaithfulness. And it would have been very easy for her to begin to point the fingers at Naomi. But meekness is submission to God's providence. Meekness is a willing and quiet submission to God's providence and a willingness to listen to His voice, even when His providence cuts across our native desires. A young woman's desire is not to be a widow at a young age. A woman's desire is not only not to be a widow at a young age, but a widow in an agrarian, male-dominated culture. And in God's providence, she is willing not only to accept what God has, but go back to the promised land. A land, as Boaz says here in verse 11, all that you've done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me and how you left your father and your mother in the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not previously know. The safe thing would have been what Ruth's sister-in-law did. Go back to her father's household. Go back to the Moabites. Go back where the presence of God is not promised. But you will have a chance to remarry. You will have a chance to first of all be in your father's house and maybe once again get remarried. But a Moabite girl going to Israel, widowed, probably doesn't have much of a chance of ever being married, doesn't have much of an opportunity of ever having a house and shelter and a place of protection from culture and weather and circumstances of life, probably is going back to a land where, humanly speaking, she will be forever a pauper, forever living with a woman who's already demonstrated covenantal unfaithfulness and being driven by her whims, and probably will be forever a widowed woman never knowing a husband, never knowing children, and never knowing the security of a home. And she doesn't point fingers. She doesn't blame. She is not embittered. She does not become angry. Rather, she leaves the security of human wisdom and chooses to clean to cling to her mother-in-law. It says in the first chapter that she, in verse 14, and after they lifted their voices and wept again, Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And I suggested to you last week that that word clung is exactly the same word found in Genesis chapter 2. when Adam for the very first time sees his wife, and it says that the husband shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. Ruth cleaved to her mother-in-law in that love and that fidelity, willing to walk away from human security to walk into a land that is not her own, to a people that are not her own, where she would be a Moabite. The Moabites were a direct descendants of Lot and the incestuous relationship that his daughters contrive upon him. And so to come into this land, she's not coming with a reputation. And as I pointed out last time, half the times the name Ruth is mentioned in this book, we're reminded that she's a Moabitess. And so we see in Ruth's life this covenantal faithfulness in her gentle and quiet spirit. One writer put it this way, the world around us cringes at this kind of speech, because it has resisted the grace of God that would humble our pride and make its spirit meek and profoundly grateful for every blessing that the Lord extends. Here, Ruth goes out in the fields. doesn't know a soul, and is treated kindly by Boaz. And her response in verse 10 is, why have I found favor? The Hebrew word is grace. There's a gentle and a quiet, gracious spirit about her. We live in times that must rank, at least in Western history, as some of the most ungrateful And isn't it interesting that while we live in a very ungrateful age, we also live in an age that has also abandoned the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in an age of grumbling. What a contrast to the gentle and meek appreciation of Ruth for all the providence that touches her life, even the dark and bitter providences. Secondly, This covenantal love and covenantal faithfulness in Ruth is expressed in what I'm going to call the grace of the law. Again, look at verse 10. Then she fell on her face and bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found grace or favor in your sight? That you should have taken notice of me since I am a foreigner. Ruth may or may not have known of the laws that were in the Scriptures, like in Exodus 20, where the landowners were required to not glean to the farthest corners of their land. They were to leave a certain amount. The welfare program of Israel was one which would probably be good for America to adopt. There was graciously provided food for you, but you had to go work for it. And the work that you had to do was a hard work, out in the sun, out where you dehydrate. But it was abundantly provided. But when Boaz provides this for her, there's not this spirit of Ruth that says, yeah, Boaz did what was right. He kept the law. I deserve this food. That's not a response, is it? Ruth seems to think that of the rights that she has under the law of God, rather as privileges given to her by the grace of God. Why have you found grace? Why have I found grace in your sight? Why have I found favor? Not only is she grateful, she's humble. And she sees in the law of God a graciousness. She sees in the law of God a blessing. It had been fair. It had been just. for the farmer to be told by God, whatever you plant, you harvest. You did the work, you get the harvest. That would be fair, wouldn't it? But in the law of God, there's a graciousness. And we in our generation have been unable to make that connection. That love and law and grace and law are not mutually exclusive ideas. The law of God is a gracious thing. Think of the law in the Old Testament, the law of lex teleonis, the eye for the eye and the tooth for the tooth. That in itself was gracious. Do you know what would have happened before the time of Israel in that part of the world if you killed somebody's cow? Well, the owner of that cow would come and kill your cow and the rest of your cows. and you possibly take your wife as a slave, take your children as slaves, and slaughter your cousins and nephews and aunts and uncles. When the law comes in and says, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, it's a cow died, then you replace the cow. But you can't touch the life. There's graciousness in the law. There's blessing in the law. And the law of God was given in the context of grace. Now that God had redeemed Israel out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out of the house of slavery, He says, now that you are in My household, this is the way I want you to act. He doesn't say, if you want to get in, this is how you act. But now that I have poured out My covenantal love upon you and made you My children, this is how I want you to live. And the way of the law was the way of blessing. And if they would remain faithful to the law, God would bring more blessings. And if they would be stiff-necked and resistant as Elimelech was, He would bring trials and sufferings. In the parenting class, we were talking about dwelling in that circle of blessing. God says if you obey Me, there will be blessings beyond your wildest... of imagination so I can do more than you could ever ask or think. And here, Ruth, as a woman in covenantal faithfulness, recognizes God's law as a source of grace. God's law is rooted in grace. And God says that those who will keep My commandments, I will be gracious to them through the thousand generations. But also we see in Ruth, a covenantal faithfulness embodied in holy consistency. Look at v. 6. Boaz shows up on the scene. He asks his servant about who this woman is. And in v. 6, the servant in charge of the reapers replied, she is the young Moabite woman who has returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. And she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. Thus she came and has remained in the morning until now, and she has been sitting in the house for a while." There's a little bit of a translation ambiguity here. The traditional sense, and I think the best sense is that she's been working out in the field all day long. She came, she asked, and she has been relentless in her work, and she's only taken the very shortest of breaks. She's a hard worker. She's a faithful worker. She's a consistent worker. and that she is not fickled about the blessing. Another way to possibly read verse 6 and 7 is this, that she shows up and asks for a chance to work, and she's not given the opportunity to work. And she stays, and she asks, and she asks, and she asks, and she asks, and she will not give up. until she's finally given the opportunity to work. It's like Jesus says, keep on knocking, keep on asking, keep on seeking, and it will be granted. It could be translated that way. But whether it's to be read that way or more of the traditional way that she's been out in the field working, working, working, it's her persistence. It's her consistency. It's her unwillingness to give up. And the foreman notices it. He doesn't simply say, this is a mole bite woman. I'm not sure where she came from. Whatever her work, whether it's the persistent in asking or the persistent in working, the foreman describes her activity. As one commentator put it, the narrator means us to see her spiritual quality. One of the expressions of God's grace in her life is the way that she goes about the duties God has given her to do with a holy consistency. We live in a very fickle age. We live in an age in which we want instant health, instant weight loss, instant food, instant success, instant wealth. Look at the number of people who spend money on the lottery, hoping that they will win instantly. I was listening recently to R.C. Sproul on the importance of investment, and he was getting his hair cut, and the lady was cutting his hair, asked him if he played the lottery, and he said, no. And then he says, I can't afford it. And she laughed, and she says, well, it's only a couple bucks every ticket. And so he asked her how long she'd been playing and did the quick math while she was cutting his hair and he said to her on the completion of his haircut, you realize that if you'd taken that money and just put it in the bank over the same amount of time that you would have had $60,000? We'd rather give up the 60 and the chance of maybe winning a million. We want quick success. We want quick wealth, quick health, quick everything. We've got to get there faster. The computer's got to be faster. I remember the first computer I ever had regular use of. I could put in one of those little floppy disks you had to put in. I could put in the floppy disk, hit the boot command, and I could literally walk all the way across the other side of the building, use the bathroom, and come back. And that's when the computer would fully be booted. I don't know what the RAM memory in it at that time was, but it's probably about 12 megabytes of RAM at best. Now, if we don't have... I was reading a review of a particular computer that said that it booted in 10 seconds from the pressing of the button to the full screen. We got to have faster, faster cars, faster results, faster computers, faster everything. And when we don't get it, we find that that speed, we become fickle and give up and walk away. But not someone who is committed to a covenantal love and a covenantal lifestyle. And here she is an embodiment of that persistence and consistency. Thirdly, there's a grace produced character. Notice what it says in verse 12. Well, actually, you start in verse 11. Again, the verse, Boaz replied, all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me. And how you left your husband and your mother and the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord reward your work and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge. What attracts Boaz to Ruth is not her appearance. She may have been a lovely woman, and he may become physically attracted to her. And we get into some of that in the third chapter. But that which was striking, that which was impressive, in which he had heard prior before he had ever seen, was something of her grace-produced character. That's what he was attracted to. His immediate response to want to bless her isn't because she's the coolest catch in town. She's the knockout. But she's got the kind of godly character that a covenantal man would desire to have. And he sees the covenantal faithfulness in her. He lives in a covenantal community. He understands that God rewards covenantal faithfulness. He sees covenantal faithfulness. He's attracted to that covenantal faithfulness. And he begins to bless it. Where did Ruth get that character as a Moabite? But by the work of grace in God. Are we surprised, perhaps, even incredulous, that Boaz comes to the field and sees Ruth gleaming there? He immediately recognizes that there is something different about her. We have lost, or certainly almost lost, the conviction that the grace of God produces such quality of character in the lives of people that simply their presence and demeanor expresses their experience of God's grace. Haven't we lost that? Shouldn't we anticipate that those who have experienced the grace of God, that their life would be significantly different? Shouldn't we anticipate that as God's covenantal faithfulness in our lives works, that people would look at our lives and say, you know, I'm not sure what it is about your life, but what you have, I would like to have. Sinclair Ferguson cites a story which I had read first in the shorter writings of B.B. Warfield. Warfield has this article about what is the value of catechizing. And he tells the story about this war on the continent. In the midst of the war, one of the soldiers in this particular army was walking through the camp, and he stopped and he looked at a man And just out of the blue, he didn't know the man. He just stopped him and said, what's the chief end of man? And the person, the soldier that was asked the question said, to glorify God and enjoy Him all the days of your life. And the man said, I knew the moment I saw you that you were a Westminster man. There was something about your face and something about the way you carry yourself that let me know that you're not like everyone else. There's something about the doctrines of grace and the fidelity of God working in all that He's promised that ought to change our attitude, our demeanor, our lifestyle, our non-verbals, the way we sit and the way that we walk, the way that we respond to life. We ought to anticipate a different kind of character in a person who is, in fact, in covenantal faithfulness with God. Boaz puts his finger on it, the new source of Ruth's life, when he says, the Lord repay you for all that you have done and a full reward will be given to you by the Lord. the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have taken refuge. And those words, under wings have taken refuge, are going to come back and play a very important and significant role in the next chapter. But what Boaz recognizes in this woman is not merely a hard worker, but a woman who in covenantal faithfulness with God has had a transformed life. She's not any ordinary Moabite woman, is she? So we see in the lives of Ruth a gentleness, We see in her the quality of the meek and gentle spirit. A woman who understands even in the midst of law there is grace. We see in her character a willingness to be constant and consistent in all of her actions. And we see in her a character that is transformed. So what do we learn? What do we learn about God in the midst of this? First of all, we learn something of the very character of God. Number one, remember what Jesus says in the King James Version, Matthew 11.29, Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Ruth is showing us something of the character of God Christ Himself comes not to be served, but to serve and to give His life. Jesus comes to serve and to give His life because, as we defined earlier, the definition of covenant love is that relentless commitment of God to fulfill and bring to fruition all that He's promised no matter what it cost Him. Also, we see that in And we learn in Jehovah that the Lawgiver is able to give grace in the law. While the laws of men are usually harsh and unyielding and unbending, God gives what James will call the law of liberty. Jesus says, if My Word abides in you and you abide in My Word, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Jesus says, if you love Me, keep My commandments. John will later write that this is love when we love God and keep His commandments. By this we know that we are loving our brother when we keep God's commandments. There's no distinction between love and command, grace and command. And so often, as I've told you in previous sermons, this is one of the greatest distinctions that can be made between a truly converted person and someone who is not saved. A truly converted person looks upon the law of God as the source of life and wisdom and blessing. They hear the commands of God and say, yes, that's what I want. The non-Christian hears the law of God and says, that is so restrictive. And you've heard it said when you've tried to witness to people, well, I don't want to be a Christian because it's a list of do's and don'ts. You can't get to do what you want to do. The non-Christian sees the law of God as a burden. The Christian sees the law of God as life and liberty. And His burden is not the law. His burden is the sin that indwells him, that keeps him from doing the law. You want a definitive distinction between the saved and the non-saved? Start talking about the law of God, the will of God, the duty of God. And the person of God will say, that's what I want. And the non-Christian will say, that's so narrow and restrictive. Oh, that's legalistic. Oh, standard. Don't like that. But we learn in Ruth that the truly converted not only see the law as grace, we see the God who stands behind her as the one who is able to bring law and grace and law and love together in one experience. Thirdly, we learn that Covenantal love, covenantal faithfulness consist in the never fail, never lie, always accomplish its holy will. One of the things that we need to learn about God is that no matter what transpires, no matter what takes place, we know that God will not fail. God is never going to say, surprise, I fooled you. Or I really wanted to, but I just couldn't make it happen. As we said earlier, the anchor to our soul. When everything else falls away, like the great hymn of the faith, Solid Rock. When darkness hides Thy lovely face, I trust in Thy unchanging grace. When all around me is falling away, You know, it's you are then all my hope and my stay. And God cannot and will not allow His love ever to be compromised. He will not and cannot ever allow His love to fail. He cannot and will not ever allow a single one of His promises that He has covenantally promised to keep to ever lapse. And I've told you before in this wonderful little book I read to my kids, about the French Huguenots in the midst of their suffering, and they were persecuted mercilessly in France. And when this Huguenot father used to take his children down to the seashore in France, and he would say to his children as they look up to the stars in the sky and the sand of the sea and say, one day, All of the true believers in Christ will outnumber the stars of the sky. And then He'd pull up some sand and will outnumber the sands of the sea because God is so promised. And in the midst of the persecution, the Huguenots lost everything. And this particular Huguenot family lost loved ones, lost their home, lost their business, and had to flee France and went to live in England. And the very first thing they did as they got off the boat in England, is the father took his children back down to the beach in England and said, remember what was true in France, that one day that all those true believers in Christ will outnumber the sands of the sea. And he once again picks up the sand. God cannot fail. It doesn't matter whether you're in France, or in England, or America, or here in Jira, or Papua New Guinea, or anywhere you are in the world. There will be a day when all the true believers of the Lord Jesus Christ will outnumber the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea, and there is not one thing that the kings of the earth can do about it. And finally, we find the source of resting character. Remember I said earlier, in Matthew 11, 29, the King James, Jesus says, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you shall find rest for your souls." Where does Ruth find rest but underneath the wings of God? Some of you this morning, your souls are not at rest. Your minds are weary with worry. Your hearts are full of concern and doubts of what tomorrow will bring. And what if, and what if, and what if, And you're paralyzed. You're afraid to step out by faith. You're afraid to work. You're afraid to whatever. And you're controlled by your fear. You're controlled by the what could happen. You're controlled by the darkness of tomorrow. And there is no rest. But Jesus is the source of all rest and grace. And His covenantal faithfulness produces in us a rest for our souls. And just as Ruth could come in covenantal faithfulness and find rest under the wings of God because He will not fail, so we come under the wings of the Lord Jesus Christ who is also meek and lowly and find rest from Him. Jesus Christ will not fail. Jesus Christ will protect us in the midst of the storm. Oh, the wings of Christ do not necessarily keep you out of the storm. Remember Noah? He went right through the storm, didn't he? God did not deliver him from the storm. He delivered him in the midst of the storm. He had to ride it out in the ark. But the ark, which is a picture of the love and the covenantal faithfulness of God, Noah was protected from all of the danger of the storm. While the storm destroyed all the other life upon the face of the earth, in the womb of God, in the shelter of God, in the ark of God, under the wings of God, Noah found great rest and hope and deliverance for his family. And so we see in Ruth, one who is able to see that God is the One who gives rest and has come to rest under those wings. What does covenant love mean? Covenant love means that God and his deep goodness expressed in his covenant commitment, his absolute loyalty, his obligating of himself to bring to fruition the blessings that he has promised, whatever it may cost him personally to do that. Is that the God under whose wings you have come this morning? I hope that it is. Because outside the protection of those wings, there is only death. But underneath those wings, there is life and hope and peace. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that great is your faithfulness. As we sung early, Earlier, there is no shadow of turning with you. You change not. Your compassion or covenantal love failed. And now and as thou has been. Forever, you will be. And everything that we've ever needed. Your hand is provided. Grant to us, Father, the same kind of covenantal love for you and covenantal faithfulness for you. that we see in the life of Ruth, knowing that she is a picture of the church responding to you, trusting in you, and revealing in her life experiences something of what you are like. Grant us these things that our hope would always rest, our faith would always be, not in ourselves and not in our circumstances, but in you alone. In Christ we pray. Amen.