Now I just turned my mic on so the people on the live stream can hear things. So beginning in verse number four here. Then it shall be when he lies down that you shall not notice the place where he lies. And you shall go in and uncover his feet and lie down. And he will tell you what you should do. And she said to her, all that you say to me, I will do. So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law instructed her. And after Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was cheerful, he went to lie down at the end of a heap of grain. And she came softly, uncovered his feet and lay down. Now it happened at midnight that the man was startled and turned himself, and there a woman was lying at his feet. And he said, Who are you? So she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative. Then he said, Blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter, for you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, and that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. Now, it is true that I'm a close relative. However, there is a relative closer than I. Stay this night, and in the morning it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a close relative for you, good, let him do it. But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you as the Lord lives. Lie down until the morning. So she laid his feet until morning and she rose before one could recognize another. Then he said, do not let it be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. Also, he said, bring the shawl that is on you and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six ephahs of barley. I'm told that's between 60 and 90 pounds of grain and laid it on her. Then she went out into the city. When she came to her mother-in-law, she said, Is that you, my daughter? Then she told her all that the man had done for her. And she said, These six ephahs of barley he gave me, for he said to me, Do not go empty-handed to your mother-in-law. Then she said, Sit still, my daughter, until you know the matter, how the matter will turn out. For the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Father, we are grateful today to be able to gather in your name and to open up your word together, to sing praises together and to enjoy each other's company and fellowship. And Lord, we do pray that you might bless as we worship you today. as we participate in what we were made for to worship you with all of our lives and what a joy it is to gather together with other of your people and do it together. So God we thank you for this opportunity. We thank you for giving us your word and we pray you'd teach us from it today. This seems like such an unusual story, and yet it's so clear that you are pouring out your grace on humble and needy people. And for that, God, we thank you. We can identify with that. We come to you as humble and needy, Lord, seeking your grace, trusting your promise that though you resist the proud, you give grace to the humble. And so, Lord, we pray that you might teach us and help us from your word today. And we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. And the title of the message today is asking for grace. Asking for grace. This might be called one night in Bethlehem because everything that happens in this chapter is one evening in Bethlehem. If you were looking for ideas on how to propose to a spouse, I would encourage you not to go to Ruth chapter three. And this is an unusual, unusual marriage proposal. I actually Googled crazy wedding proposals, or marriage proposals, because I wanted to see what kind of crazy things are out there. And I could have spent probably the rest of my life reading stories online of crazy wedding proposals. But I found one that was really shocking to me. And I have this really crazy picture to show you of it. Here is a guy, Alexei Bikov, who is a Russian. And who would have thought that the best way to convince your girlfriend to marry you was to convince her that you died in a horrific and bloody car crash as she watched. But this guy thought of that, and he hired a film director and a stuntman to help him. And amazingly, she said yes. So I don't know why she would say yes, but that definitely ranks up there as one of the craziest and strangest ways It's a good way to know you're about to marry a psychopath, I guess, if that's what he's going to do. I didn't pretend to die to ask Lindsay to marry me. It was a little calmer. We were up. Her family lived in New Hampshire at the time, and we went over to the coast of Maine, a place called Nubble Light. If you've seen pictures of lighthouses from Maine, you've probably seen this one. It's the most photographed. lighthouse, they say, on the East Coast. And I got down on one knee on the rocks with the lighthouse out there and the cold wind blowing on us and asked her if she'd marry me. I actually have no idea what I said other than, will you marry me? And I have no idea what she said other than yes, and it was really great. But that brings us back to this story of Ruth and Boaz. Nothing about their meeting and nothing about this marriage proposal seems normal, at least by modern standards. Ruth did an unusual thing. And truthfully, she didn't have a lot of good options. If she would have placed a classified ad, which I guess we don't even do that anymore, now we would have a eHarmony profile or something like that, some online dating site. She might have said, widowed woman from Moab seeks godly Israelite man of character for long walks in barley fields and quiet evenings by the fire, must like children. I don't know what kind of options she had, but a good man is hard to find. And what Naomi and Ruth needed was they needed a good man to step into their story and do something for them they couldn't do for themselves. But a good woman is also hard to find. And so in Ruth 3, we've got a story of a good man and a good woman, how they found each other and ended up getting married. It's proof positive that God works in and with and through our choices to accomplish his will. This story is so unlikely, it kind of has to be true, right? This chapter divides into three scenes, and each one of them teaches us about how God pours out his grace. He does it certainly in some measure on all people, but he does it especially on those that humbly seek it. So let's look in the story at the first scene. first example of God's grace and it is in verses 1 through 5, the plan for Naomi. They are in a desperate time and they come up with a desperate plan. In the first few verses, well, you may remember chapter two was all one day. Ruth got up in the morning, she went out and worked in a field and came back with tons of grain and a story about how this guy that owned the field was so kind to her and protected her and gave her abundantly. And she came and told Naomi all about that. And you may remember crucially at the end of chapter two, Naomi changes her tune. She had been constantly talking about her bitterness and her misery. And you might even give her a pass on that because she had some pretty bitter pills to swallow in chapter one. But when she arrived in Bethlehem, she didn't want to be called Naomi. She wanted to be called Mara, which means bitter. But by the end of chapter two, after seeing what God was doing, it begins the dawn on Naomi. God truly is gracious to us and he hasn't forgotten us. She says in verse 20 of chapter 2, blessed be he of the Lord who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and the dead. So now it's harvest time. Now Ruth is bringing in grain for Naomi. All those years of being desolate, those years of famine, those years of being in a foreign land, they're all coming to an end and things are looking really good. And Naomi realizes, you know what, if God is this good, I bet he's even gooder, right? That's great English, right? I bet that God is better than even what we've seen. I bet that the goodness of God has greater bounds. There's more out there. You can always think that way with God's goodness. It's amazing. You can't do that with anything else because everything else is limited in some way or another, but not God. He's not limited at all. There's no limits to his grace and his goodness and his mercy. When you see him give you some, you can confidently seek more because he's got plenty. He's not going to run out. We have a song that we've sung a little bit recently that's called His Mercy is More. And one line in it says, my sins, they are many, but his mercy is more. I just love that because God always has more grace and mercy. And so Naomi has this plan. Let's get some more, not more grain, but more blessings from God. So this harvest time has come and Ruth is is getting ready, I guess, the next morning to go out. And Naomi says during chapter three, verse one, my daughter, shall I not seek security for you that it may be well with you? She realizes, hey, it's great to go out in the field and get grain every day, but you need security, rest, peace. You need to be taken care of. And then the key to understanding everything else that happens in this chapter is verse 2, where she says, Boaz, is he not our relative? Remember the whole thing about in the ancient times here in Israel, when a spouse would die, it would be the duty of the family to kind of raise up seed for them. And so she says, look, this guy is a close relative. Now we're never told what kind of relative he is. Is he an uncle? Is he a cousin? Is he, you know, further away? We're not sure, but he's related to them. And so Naomi sees wedding bells. She sees a possibility for something far better than a farmer who's nice to you. She sees potentially a husband who would care and provide for Ruth. So she comes up with this plan. Now, this is a very joyous time, obviously, for Naomi and Ruth, because they were desolate and now things are going good. But it's also a joyous time for everyone in Bethlehem. Because when the harvest comes in and the grain is brought in and it's taken to the threshing floor and it's separated, it is a time of great joy because all their work for all the year is paying off. And it'd be like working for six months and finally getting your paycheck. It would be a time of great joy. So typically they'd bring the grain in and they'd go to the threshing floor and don't think of some building that has a threshing floor. Instead, think of a flat spot somewhere high where the wind would blow across. Because on the threshing floor, they would beat out the stalks of grain, separate the good stuff from the stuff they didn't want. And so they work hard at that during the day. And then they would feast when they could no longer work. Because this was a time of great work, it was a time of great celebration. because all their efforts were paying off. And so Naomi knew exactly what was going to happen that day. She knew precisely where Boaz was going to be to come up with this crazy plan. And so she wants to send Ruth to go and do something very unusual. In fact, if you look at verse number four and you read this, she's supposed to go up at night to find Boaz. And then it says in verse 4, Say, what in the world is she telling her to do? It seems very ambiguous. There's a lot you could maybe read into it. In fact, in Hebrew, it's even more ambiguous than it is in English, where basically every word in verse four, you could take multiple different ways. So it's kind of like on purpose. God is giving us really a great story in this passage. Because he's setting Ruth up to do something. We're not quite sure what it is. It sounds really weird. And we're not sure what's going to happen. And so our interest is picked here. What's going on? What's about to happen? And what's most amazing to me is that Naomi just responds by saying, all that you say to me, I will do. And that's pretty amazing. It again shows that Ruth is completely devoted to Naomi and she's willing to follow her. She's willing to follow her advice, even on a very strange story. Ruth needed a kinsman redeemer, a relative that would raise up her family. And Naomi's plan was to get it. This is a risky thing. It'd be dangerous for a young woman, a foreigner, to go to a threshing floor where a bunch of men had been working hard and feasting hard all night. There are many things you could think of as possibly being negative here. But the scripture so far in Ruth has really gone out of its way to convince us that Ruth is a good woman. She's a faithful woman. She's a dedicated woman. And it's also gone out of its way to convince us that Boaz is a faithful, dedicated man. And even we'll see how he responds to her here. There's no hint of anything going wrong or being sideways here. I don't see any reason, in other words, for Naomi or Ruth to have bad motives. Like Ruth's not being sent in to seduce him. She is being sent in to make it very clear that she needs a redeemer and she wants him to be it. She's asking for him to marry her. So I don't know if Boaz had thought about this already because as soon as Ruth showed up he asked who she was and then he began to inquire about her. He observed her work. He helped her. I don't know. It seems from the story that Boaz is older and Ruth is younger but what can Boaz do about this? I mean, you don't exactly go propose to a Moabite stranger who shows up begging for food, right? That's just not usually how relationships come together like that. And especially in their culture, it would be very strange. And yet what's Ruth supposed to do? What's she supposed to do? How is she supposed to propose to Boaz? You know, there's really just no great way for this to work. So Naomi comes up with a plan, and it's risky, but that's what they go for. Naomi had a plan that would require Ruth to take some risk. But we know what's behind it all, don't we? Behind it all, we know that God is working to bless this little family from Bethlehem. He's working to pour out his mercy on them and not leave them desolate. And we see it all through the story. But it's actually coming into place by people looking at their situation, trusting in God, and trying to do the best that they can. You know, whatever the plan is, however well thought out it may be or not, she's just trying to do something that she thinks will lead to God's bigger blessings on their family. And that, that's why, that's why this is a great example for us. Ruth's step of faith is a great example for you and I, if we want to see God's blessings. What do we need to do? We need to step out in faith, trusting in God. God is pouring out His grace on the humble, so we need to humbly come and seek it. Our part is to take the first step, and God is going to work out His plan. Now, this compels us to ask a question. Here's the question. What am I willing to risk, and for what? People are willing to risk all sorts of things, all kinds of perils in life and seeking after adventure for the sake of having fun or accomplishing some great feat. They'll risk all sorts of things. I saw a video online this week of a lady who was on a hand gliding parasail thing way up in the mountains and she's holding out her iPhone out on a selfie stick as she's flying out and she turns and then you see her selfie stick begin to fall and the phone begin to flip and there's no more video from that trip available. But they're in seek of adventure. They're risking things. It's exciting. So what would we be willing to risk for? for the sake of the gospel? What would we be willing to risk for God's sake? For most of us, the true answer might be maybe not quite so much. See, when we have the opportunity to speak up for God and we don't because we're not willing to risk that, We're saying we're not really willing to risk that much for the sake of the gospel. Sharing our faith might cost us our reputation. People might look at us differently. They might act differently around us. But shouldn't we really take that risk? Isn't the gospel great enough that we should share it with others? Shouldn't we be willing to step out by faith even if we don't know exactly that we're going to say just the perfect thing? Naomi certainly have didn't have the most perfect plan. And yet and yet God used it because the goal was right. The aim was right. If you wait until you've got the perfect opportunity to talk about Christ with someone, you may never talk about Christ to them. You've just got to step out. You've just got to open your mouth. You've just got to be bold to do it. You've got to be willing to trust in the Lord and do what you can and trust that God will do far more. And he will. What's amazing is he uses us, even with our efforts, whether they're great or whether they're kind of crazy, he uses them to accomplish his will. So scene one here ends with Ruth stepping out into the evening darkness wondering what is about to happen. How is Boaz going to respond? So in verses 6 through 9 we see this proposal of Ruth. Ruth agreed to her mother-in-law's plan and put it into effect. up to a point. Later that night, she finds herself alone with Boaz on the threshing floor. And in verse 7, it says, after Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was cheerful, he went to lie down at the end of a heap of grain. So Ruth apparently sneaks up to the after work party, keeps an eye on where things are going, sees where Boaz goes off to, watches that, and then later when he's asleep, sneaks in, uncovers his feet, and just stands there. I mean, this is just awkward. It's awkward all the way around. After a long day at work and a great day of bringing in the harvest. And remember, this grain harvest is on the heels of a famine that had been going on. So this is a super exciting time. And Boaz had to be feeling happy and full, and he laid down on his grain. Now, why didn't he go home? Well, this is the way they did it. If you can't trust that your property will be there when you leave it and go somewhere else, then what do you do? You have to stay with your property. Remember, we're still in the judge's time. Every man does what's right in his own eyes, which is usually not so right in God's eyes. So Boaz is there. with his grain, with his harvest. He's staying with it that night. No doubt the work was still ongoing. So it wasn't where they could just pack it all up and put it away somewhere. And so he falls asleep. And Ruth comes in in verse number nine, or I'm sorry, verse number eight. It says it happened at midnight that the man was startled. How much time went by between Ruth showing up and covering his feet to midnight? We have no idea. But apparently Ruth uncovers his feet and then just kind of hangs out in the shadows. lurking kind of creepy like really if you think about it waiting to see what's going to happen. And Boaz in the middle of the night he startled maybe maybe his feet were cold. I don't know. And he turned around and there is a woman right there. And his first words are who are you. Who are you. What's going on. I don't know about you, but when you wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes you say and do crazy things. You just don't know what's going on. And so Boaz's first reaction is, this woman was not here before, and now she's here. What's going on? Who are you? And now this is where Ruth goes beyond what her mother-in-law told her. It's interesting when you read stories in the Bible, sometimes you see things repeated and you're like, why are they repeating stuff? Well, it's always important why they're repeating it. They're not repeating it necessarily just to reemphasize what was said. But anywhere you're reading in the Bible and there's a story repeated, you can look for what's different about what happens. Because sometimes things will be repeated just to highlight something that went a little bit different. So Naomi's plan was for Ruth to just go in. If you look at verse number four, go in, uncover his feet, lie down on the floor and wait and just let him talk. But Ruth, as soon as he says, who are you? Ruth just blurts out a whole bunch of stuff. Naomi's plan was to kind of just sit back and let things happen, see what's gonna happen, see what he says. Maybe he would propose to her. Who knows what Naomi thought would happen, but she just thought, let's see what happens. And Ruth, Ruth just blurts out. He asks, who are you? And she says who she is and her whole plan. Just everything. I would imagine she's kind of nervous about this. I remember when I asked Lindsay to marry me, I was kind of nervous. So here's Ruth asking this guy she just met apparently this week to marry her in the middle of the night in a green field or in a threshing floor. And so she blurts out her whole plan. I'm Ruth, your maid servant. Take your maid servant under your wing for you are a close relative. Now it says wing there. If you're using the KJV, it doesn't say wing. It says like spread the covering of your garment. It's actually the same word in Hebrew. And I like how it says wing because it draws our attention as English speakers back to chapter 2 and verse number 12 where Boaz said this blessing to Ruth. He said the Lord repay your work and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come. for refuge. The word would be used of a bird's wings or it would be used of the border of something like a garment that spread over. So she has lifted up the border of his garment off his feet and now she's asking him to put his wings over her to cover her. She's asking him to marry her. That's what she's doing. She's saying I want to find shelter and protection and safety in your embrace. I want you to take care of me. She's proposing marriage. Now this might seem like Hollywood love story here but but just just think about it a little differently here. Boaz is an older guy who is apparently not married or he's widowed. He is working in the field. Ruth is this moabite girl. She's the foreigner come into town. She apparently is quite a strapping lady because at the end of the story he gives her like 80 pounds of grain on her back and she carries it home. So she's not some frail, wispy kind of girl here. She's been working in the field. She's been working hard and she's the foreigner. She has nothing to offer Boaz. But she's saying, would you take care of me? Would you marry me? She was asking Boaz to do something that was beyond even what the law required Boaz to do. Because the whole kinsman redeemer thing, it doesn't apply to like very distant relatives. It doesn't apply except for directly to the brothers of the one who passed away. And there's no indication Elimelech's brother was Boaz. So Boaz is not obligated to do by God what Ruth's asking him to do. So what Ruth is saying is, Boaz, would you, would you out of great kindness and mercy, would you show great kindness and mercy to me? It was legal for him to do what she's asking him to do, but it wasn't required. Her request is very bold. I mean, it's very bold in any day, but especially very counter-cultural for her, a woman, to propose to a man in ancient times. Or a younger person to propose to an older person. Certainly not a field worker to propose to the field owner to marry them. So Naomi's plan had just called for her to run in and kind of see what was going to happen. But Ruth was bold and she just went for it. She just went ahead and asked. And this is how we ought to respond as well to our God of grace. If our God is able to pour out help and blessing, then we ought to run in and ask for it. You know, if we're struggling with our marriage, then we ought to be running to God to ask for grace. If our kids are going a direction we don't want them to go, we ought to run to God to seek His grace. We ought to do it desperately and confidently and pleading with Him. Our family that has not turned to God and we fear they'll be lost forever, then we ought to be praying. We ought to be crying out to God. We ought to be eager to run to Him, boldly. That's the kind of confidence we have because of Jesus. Ruth was just hoping in mercy. But as believers, we don't have to hope maybe God will bless us. He's promised to. He's promised to, that's why we can come boldly before his throne and seek mercy and seek grace to help in time of need. Naomi has this crazy plan and Ruth follows through on it more than maybe she would imagine. And God is working through it all to accomplish his plans. God accomplishes his work in our families and in our church, in our country, through the bold faith of believers that come to him needy, come to him seeking his grace, come to him seeking his favor. And that's what Ruth is a tremendous example for us. So God is going to accomplish his plans sometimes in spite of us. He pours out his grace on the humble, not the perfect. I'm so glad of that because sometimes we think, well, I don't know what to pray or I don't know what to say or I don't know what to do here. Well, none of us have the perfect answers. We're not God. We don't know everything perfectly. We need to come with a humble heart of faith, trusting God and seeking his help and trying to do what we think he wants us to do. And trust that God is able to overrule our bad decisions and work through our good decisions for his glory. And in this story, this crazy plan of Naomi leads to Boaz making a promise, but there's a little hiccup as well. The promise of Boaz is given in verse number 10. Right away he says blessed are you of the Lord my daughter. And just to convince you that nothing shady is going on here. The first things out of Boaz's mouth are to give thanks to God and then his actions demonstrate just how faithful and how good his character is. First, he prays that God will bless her. Because this kindness, he says, is greater than her earlier kindness. Because, he says, you didn't go after younger men. He says, you could have chased after someone for passion. But she didn't. That wasn't your pursuit. And second, he agrees to do whatever she asks because he knows her character. In verse 11, he says, Do not fear. He says, Now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you request for all the people of my town. Know that you are a virtuous It's the same word used in Proverbs 31 10 where it says who can find a virtuous woman and then it gives the characteristics of an excellent wife there. Boaz says I know the kind of character you have. I know who you are and I will do what you want. Here though there's a quick detour in the story because he says I will but we've got a small issue. The issue is, I am a close relative, verse 12, but there is a relative closer than I. After all of this, Ruth gets up the courage to go in and do it, and he agrees, and then something's left hanging, preventing it from happening. Obviously, they weren't gonna get married that night anyways, but the whole idea of having this be settled and resolved, it wasn't there yet. But Boaz promises, he promises to care for her, and he promises to do it even if he can't do it himself. Because he says, if the closer relative who has the first right to, if he does, good. It'll be good. You'll be taken care of. You'll be provided for. This is not a marriage that's really arranged by passion here. Because Boaz is clearly saying, I will do it. You are a wonderful woman. But if someone else is going to do it, then I'm going to let them do it. He's saying, I'm respecting you, I'm honoring you. And that's the kind of guy I want my daughters to find. It's wanting to honor above other things. So Boaz cares so much for her that he's willing to see the other man redeem her. But Boaz also protects her reputation in verse 14. Well he said at the end of this verse 13 for her to stay there and we're going to find out tomorrow what's going to happen. Lie down till the morning. And then early in the morning before the sun is up because it says before one could recognize another he gets Ruth. And he tries to protect her reputation, protect his reputation. Apparently he tells some other person that was there not to tell anyone about the woman being there. And then he gives her this huge pile of grain and sends her home with it. What in the world is the point of giving her this huge pile of grain? Six of these measures of barley would be 60 to 90 pounds. What Boaz is intending, I think, to convey to Ruth and to Naomi when Ruth finally gets home under the weight of that grain is he's gonna take care of her. The grace that they're seeking. It's out there. It's abundant. And if he is going to provide it great or somebody else is going to provide it. But either way you're going home with a great big sack of grain. God's got grace for you. It's available. Don't worry. Now back home with Naomi. they have a conversation. In verse number 16 she comes to her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law says, is that you my daughter? Now all night long Naomi's been wondering, right? Can you imagine that? You're the parent figure and you sent your kid off to do some crazy plan and you're wondering. She couldn't text Ruth in the middle of the night and get an update. It wasn't live streamed on the internet, the proposal. So she's wondered, worried. And apparently she's ready first thing in the morning when Ruth shows up still in the shadows. And she says, is that you, my daughter? Now, literally in Hebrew, it says the same thing that Boaz said to Ruth when he woke and found her. Who are you? And so translators and Bible interpreters have problems with how do you have Naomi just have Ruth walk in and say, who are you? Like she didn't know who she was. Now she's asking how she is. That is her intent. But she uses the exact same words that Boaz did. That's not because she knew Boaz said it. But God who wrote the scripture for us is tying these two things together and showing us that there is a little mystery here to Naomi and Ruth. When Naomi told Ruth to go home back in Moab, she had no idea who Ruth was. Because Ruth was not going to go home, was she? She was convinced, I'm sticking with you. I'm devoted to you. I'm not leaving. Your God's my God. I'm going to be with you till death and I'm going to be buried where you're buried. Naomi couldn't even say anything to her then. And she came and they got to Bethlehem and Naomi didn't say, oh, this is my lovely daughter-in-law who's here to help me. No, she just said, oh, I'm bitter, life stinks. And then Ruth goes out and gets grain and she comes home and Naomi says, wow, look at what God is doing. Who is this Moabite girl? Who are you? And now Ruth comes back after this crazy proposal, not looking like she just had a wild night of passion. No, she's looking like she worked in a field all day and she's bringing back a huge amount of grain. She's like, who are you? What is this? What's going on? And so Ruth spills out the good news to her and her mother-in-law has some good advice. Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out. She says, for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day. She's like, you don't need to worry about how this is going to work out. Just wait. He's going to take care of it. He's going to be on it. Just continue to rest, continue to trust. And that is a hard thing to do, isn't it? especially when you desperately need something and you get little glimpses of God's work, but you're still left waiting for the whole thing to come in. You know, you can look around and you can always see glimpses of God's goodness, but when you really need to answer, what do we need to do? Well, I think we ought to take Naomi's advice. We ought to sit still. We ought to know that God's going to take care of it. Just sit down, just relax. God is not forgotten. God is not gonna go out and say, now what was that they asked me to do? I'll have to find out tomorrow. No, he never does that. He doesn't rest in accomplishing his will and his way. And so we can sit still and we can wait and we can trust. You know, the story of Boaz and Ruth is not really a love story at all. It's a story about boy meets girl, but not where boy meets girl and they get googly eyes at each other and just instantly fall in love and run away together. And the rest is just a bunch of kisses and romantic life. That's not what's happening here. We know that Boaz was relatively old. He said that himself in verse 10 of our text today. Ruth could work all day in the hot sun, just take a couple little breaks with the men in the shelter and carry home 80 grains, 80 pounds of grain. So it'd be hard to find Hollywood actors and actresses to kind of play them in some love story. The book of Ruth is a different kind of story. It's a story about God's working. Now here in this passage, the character of Ruth and Boaz are so commendable. It's a much better foundation for a lasting relationship than physical attraction. Physical attraction is wonderful. I'm very attracted to my wife, but there's attraction that's deeper than just a physical attraction. It's a commitment to knowing what kind of person this is, what kind of person it is. And Boaz and Ruth had the opportunity, and their marriage was not necessarily a love match, though I'm sure they were very happy together. It was a character match. There's a virtuous woman and a virtuous man committed to honoring God, committed to one another, and it's a pretty amazing story. But the real love story in this book isn't about Boaz and Ruth. It's about God's love for his wayward and wandering people. That story is all through the Bible, from the beginning. Adam and Eve sinned, and what does God do? He seeks them out. He goes calling for them. God doesn't abandon his people. He runs after his straying sheep. He's the shepherd that leaves the ninety and nine in pursuit of the one who has wandered. It's God's love that chose and called Abraham and promised to make a great nation of him and bore with his wayward descendants and made further promises to Moses and to David and to his people all throughout the Old Testament. His love shows when he gives kindness to people that are very ungodly. Jesus, in fact, said that God makes the sun to shine and the rains to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. God pours out grace everywhere, but it takes its clearest picture comes in Christ and what Jesus came to do. His love took him much further than going to a grain pile for us at midnight. He didn't just risk his life for us, he gave his life for us. It led him, this commitment to pursue after his wayward sheep led him to be born in Bethlehem, right where all these events are taking place. And like Ruth, there was no place of rest for her in Bethlehem until the Redeemer, Boaz, came. Jesus came with nowhere to lay his head. No room in the end. His bed was a manger. And instead of even being able to settle in and have a home there, they were driven out by the news that Herod was coming to slaughter the babies. Jesus found no rest on earth and he had no place to lay his head and rest because he didn't come to rest. He came to give himself for us in sacrificial love. in great mercy and kindness. He was not required to do what he did. God did not have to provide salvation for us. We went our own way, we deserve God's judgment. And yet God goes above and beyond of what was required and he extends mercy. He extends grace. The love of God took Jesus all the way to the cross. To a darkness that was greater than the darkness at midnight on the threshing floor. As Jesus bore our sins. As literally the lights went out while he hung and suffered and died in our place. It's because God loved the world so much. that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Do you know this love of God? Do you know this kind of commitment that he has made to you? Have you responded by giving your heart to him? No matter how broken and how desperate we may be, that makes us the perfect candidates to come to God for his grace and mercy. Remember, he gives grace to the humble, not to the perfect. He gives grace to the sinners. Jesus said he didn't come to save the righteous. He came to save sinners. Not that there were righteous people who didn't need to be saved, but the fact was he came to rescue those who knew they needed it and wanted it. So this gift of love that God has shown through Christ is the reason why those of us who know Christ ought to be willing to risk everything to make this gospel message known. And if Ruth would risk her reputation perhaps to find help and to get help from Boaz, how much more should we risk our reputation to give help to people who desperately need the gospel, to speak about Christ? May God give us the boldness to share this great love with others. I mean, who doesn't want to be loved just because? You know, not love because you're so beautiful, love because you're so perfect, or because you have the greatest personality or some performance, but just love in spite of all your faults, in spite of who you are. That's a wonderful, wonderful feeling. That's the love that God has extended to us. And that's the love that's so great. We should be just bubbling over with being willing to tell it to somebody else, to share with them the good news of a God who loves his wayward people and pursues them, pours out grace on those who humbly seek him. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. As for God's grace, even now in our lives. Before I lead us in prayer, I'm just going to keep our heads bowed and eyes closed for a moment and let you talk to the Lord yourself. Do you need his grace? Call out to him. He's got more than enough. There's more than enough grain to be passed around. Jared's gonna play on the piano and just give me a moment to pray on your own. I'll be quiet and then I'll close us out in prayer. So, Lord, we are grateful for your amazing grace and love that you have poured out to us. From the beginning of creation till now, Lord, we can see evidences of your mighty love and your passionate pursuit of us. And Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for a love that is willing to risk, a love that's willing to sacrifice, or that you gave yourself, gave your son for us, that we might be forgiven and rescued from our sins. Oh God, we thank you for your great grace that's poured out on us. Thank you for the story of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz that is for us a vivid illustration of your love and your mercy that's seen over and over again. God, we pray you'd help us to see it in our own lives as well, to see your grace and to hope for more, to cry out for more. Lord, we pray for your grace and mercy on our lives, that we might grow to be better Christians and more faithful reflection of Jesus to those around us, that we'd be filled up with your amazing love, that we couldn't help but bubble over and talking about it with others, that we'd be willing to risk all to make known the glory of the gospel, that God loves and saves sinners by his great grace. And Lord, we pray for your grace in our families, our children, grandchildren, with our church, or we pray for your grace in our community and state as we battle against this virus and wonder how things can, how we can get through this and get things back to the way they were before. And so God, we ask for your grace and your help, or we need you. Oh Lord, we thank you. for encouraging our faith with the grace you poured out on Ruth and Naomi as they sought. You poured out more and more and and it just keeps getting better and better. And Lord I pray that you might use this this story in our hearts to strengthen our faith and and to strengthen our love and joy of you. We prayed in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.