The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 2: The Sovereignty of God in Our Perseverance

Episode Date: July 16, 2017

We work FROM favor, not FOR favor.

Well, good morning, church. How's everybody doing? Good. All right. In my role, I'm the pastor of church planning, and that puts me on an airplane quite a bit all over the place. And about two months ago, I was coming back on an airplane overnight, and I was coming back from Brazil.

And so I get on the plane, and I put on the little eye covers, right? And I crank my seat back, and I put earplugs in. I put my noise-canceling headphones on. I turn them on. I plug them into my phone. I turn the white noise on. Because I really love to talk to people on an airplane. And so I turn all that on.

I put my neck pillow on. I bundle up. I cocoon all up. There's a guy sitting right next to me. And we had had this whole conversation about how he never sleeps on an airplane. And I was like, listen, I'm out. I'm gone. See you later.

And he's like, all right, I'll stand guard. I said, okay. So I cocoon all up and I am out. I'm gone. I'm asleep. It's probably about 10.30 at night. And I don't know. It's 2.30, maybe 3 in the morning.

I don't exactly know because I was so far asleep. But I wake up to this guy's hands on my throat and he is like attacking me. Right? I mean, this is, so it's terrifying because I'm headphones on, earplugs in, white noise on. I can't see anything. I'm cocooned up. I'm bundled up. I can't move. I have no idea what is going on. And he, so finally I get all undone. I try to push him off. He won't quit. I grab him. I slam him up against the side of the airplane. And he kind of wakes like, oh, sorry. And goes right back to sleep. I'm now the one that can't sleep the rest of the flight. The next morning, I'm eating breakfast and I look at it.

I'm like, do you want to talk about what happened between us last night? He had no idea. But in the middle of it, like, it's really funny now, but in the middle of it, I'm sitting there thinking, does anybody see what is going on? Like, is anybody going to come over here? Is anybody going to help me? I mean, I was just kind of heading along in this direction, and then all of a sudden, it all let loose.

Does anybody care? Does anybody see? Is anybody taking notice? What in the world is going on in my life? And as funny as that is, haven't you been there in your life? Haven't you had those moments in your life where everything seems to be going great? And then all of a sudden you look around and you go, what just happened? Like, does anybody see, God, do you see what's going on here?

God, do you care what's going on here? God, are you going to help me in all of this? And if you can fog a mirror and you're alive, you've been there. Or if you haven't there, the tough news is you'll get there. And if you're there or you've been there, then this book of Ruth, this little 3,000-year-old four-page love story that takes place on the backside of the middle of nowhere in the Middle East is your story. I mean, this little story, this little love story is so timely. It is so relevant.

And it reveals some of the most deep truths about God that you could ever imagine, especially when it comes to the pain of our lives. And so last week, Pastor Jobi kicked off a series on the story of Ruth. And we're talking about God's sovereignty. And the big idea last week was God's sovereignty in our life. pain. And this week we're going to talk about God's sovereignty and our perseverance. But the story of Ruth starts, not with Ruth, but it starts with Naomi and her husband name a Limelech. And they live, they're Jewish people. They live among the Jewish people in Judah

in a little town called Bethlehem. That should sound familiar to you. And there is, they, they live in this time of the judges. Now, if you have your Bible and you turn one page back from the book of Ruth and look at the very last line in the book of judges. It is one of the most indicting lines. It says there was no king in Israel and everybody did what was right in their own eyes. Sound familiar? And there is a famine in the land. And so they decide, Alimilik has this bright idea, hey, you know what? I heard there's food over Moab. I heard there is comfort over Moab. I heard there's some relief over Moab. So why don't we go over? to Moab. Now the problem with going to Moab was that God said don't go there because they did

things like sacrifice children in worship. They had cultic prostitution in their worship. They were total idol worshippers. And so God said, don't go over and get mixed up in that kind of stuff. Don't do that. But a Limelech thinks, you know what? Short-term comfort is easy. easier than long-term faithfulness. And so he opts for short-term comfort and short-term game. And he, Naomi, leave, and they go off to the land of Moab. And they have two sons. Their name is Malon and Killian, right?

Just really good Klingon names, you know? Their names mean sick and dying. Well, while they're over in Moab, sick and dying, marry two girls, Orpa and Ruth. And then things go, even worse, because now a Limelech dies, and then sick and dying go from sick and dying to dead and deader. And now all of a sudden, Naomi is there with her two daughter-in-laws, Orpah and Ruth. And then she hears, oh, the famine's over back in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means house of bread. There's bread back in the house of bread. Let's go back there. And then she turns to her daughter-in-law.

And she says, listen, I think you ought to stay here. You're young. You can still get married. The chances of me getting married and having sons that would grow up and be married. It's just, it's going to take way too long. Why don't you stay here? And Orpah takes her up on the offer and stays in Moab. But Ruth, somewhere, somehow in God's providence, along the way, comes to faith in the God of all gods, the one and only God.

And then she says to Naomi, your people are going to be my people. And your God is going to be my God. And wherever you go, I'm going to go with you. And she declares her faith. And so they set off and they go back to Bethlehem. And that's where we're going to pick the story up in Ruth chapter 1, verse 19. So the two of them, Ruth and Naomi, went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town.

was stirred. Literally, the whole town breaks loose because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi? She said to them, do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara. Now, Naomi means sweet. Mara means bitter. For the Lord, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. Now this is a remarkable place to be because when you can, Naomi says, listen, my life, honestly, my life is just bitter. I've lost sons, I've lost husbands, I've gone through seasons of unfaithfulness to the Lord, I've opted for short-term gain. My life has just been bitter. But through it all, the Lord has been faithful.

Now, when you can get to the place in your life where you can say, in all honesty, things are really, really hard. but God has never failed me. You have you have plumbed the depths of some seriously mature faith. And that's where she finds herself. And then verse 21 it says, I went away full. Naomi says, I went away full. And the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me

and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? She says, I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. I went away full of my plans. I went away full of my pride. I went away full of my vision for my future and my comfort and my gain. And I was just full of myself. And she says, I was so full of myself. And then the Lord brought me back.

empty. Have you ever been there? Have you been to the place where you felt like, I got this, I'm going to, I can handle all of this, I'm so full of myself, and then the Lord just brings you to the end of yourself. It's hard. It's bitter, but it's really good. As hard as it is to come to the end of ourselves, it is really good and it is really gracious of God to bring us there. Because if there is anything, anything in our lives that would stand between us being full of God, it is so good of God to remove that from us and empty that from our lives. It's like a knife, right? A knife in a criminal's hand cuts and it's meant to hurt.

But the knife in a surgeon's hand still cuts, but the whole goal of it is to heal you. And when God removes anything in our lives that would make us full of ourselves and empty on him, he's not punishing us. He really isn't. He's pruning those things away. He's not just taking things away from us. He's clearing out the way so that he can. can come in. And so Naomi, verse 22, Naomi returned. I love this word. This word literally means to turn around

and to go back in the opposite direction. It is the Old Testament word for repent. So here, Naomi, so Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem, the house of bread, at the beginning of the barley harvest. Here she is. She goes away full on herself. God empties her of herself. She repents, she returns, and she comes back into the harvest. She goes away full on herself and empty on God, and God returns her empty on herself and full on God. And that is so hard. You and I have a choice in our life.

You can either run or you can return. And both of them are tough. Both of them are tough. And God in his sovereignty is calling us not to run, but to return to him. To be emptied of ourselves, to repent, of our fullness of ourselves and to return back full of God. So in chapter 2, verse 1, now Naomi had a relative of her husbands, a worthy man, a worthy man of the clan of a Limelech.

Now that's, remember that's Naomi's husband, a Limelech, her late husband, whose name was Boaz. Now this is the writer like firing all. flares and waving flags. He's going, watch this guy. Pay attention to Boaz. You're going to want to remember him. He's a long-lost relative. They thought there was no hope. They thought there was nobody else. Keep an eye on this guy. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor. Favors the Old Testament word for grace.

What she wants to do, what Ruth wants to do is glean. And gleaning was an Old Testament law. And what God said was, if you had a field, if you had a farm, you were to leave the edges of your farm unharvested so that people that had nothing could be provided for. This was the law of grace for God. This was God saying, hey, leave the margins for the marginalized. Don't think everything you have. Now, how timely is this?

Don't think everything you have is just for your consumption. That God might just be using you to provide for somebody else that can't provide for themselves. The reason you may have margin in your life may just be because there's somebody marginalized in your life. And God wants to use you to provide for them. And so she's just doing. what a woman years, a thousand years later, will do, shows up to Jesus. And there is this woman and she says, Jesus, listen, heal my daughter. Please heal my daughter.

And Jesus looks at her. And then she kind of sees like, is he going to do it? Is Jesus not going to heal my daughter? And she says, even the dogs get the scraps under the table. This is what Ruth is saying. All I want is just some of the leftovers on the edges. if I could just get just a little bit to make it through. So she set out and she went and gleaned in the fields after the reapers,

and she happened to come. Now, here's literally, here's what this means. If you translate it from the Hebrew into English, it literally is in the happenstance that happened to happen to her. The happenstance that happened to happen to her is that she happened to come to this place. I mean, the author is, if he were telling you the story, he'd have a big grin on his face right now.

And he'd be wink, wink, and he'd use big giant air quotes, and he'd go, she just randomly showed up. It was just chance. It was just luck. I mean, he's, you see what he's doing, right? I mean, he's unloading one of the deepest truths we could ever know, which is there is nothing in our life that just happens to happen. us. Nothing in our life has happenstance. It's not chance. It's not random. There is a sovereign

God that rules and reigns over everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, the hard, the wonderful, the tough. It's not random and it's not chance. And for all the things in our life that look unpredictable, they have already been predicted by God. all the things that look uncertain in our time, they are absolutely certain to the God of the universe. This is what it said in Psalm 139. I love this. Verse 16. God, you saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there were none of them. God, you saw every single one of my days before I even existed. Or Jesus would go on and he'd say, hey, aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? And not even one of them falls to the ground

apart from my Heavenly Father. Two little half-cent birds can't even fall unless God is in charge of that. Paul in Romans 828, he says, all things, all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purposes. There is nothing that just happens to happen to us. It's not just happenstance. And so she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz. Oh yeah, who was of the clan of Olimlech? Second time. Second time he mentions that this is a member of Ruth's family. Now, I'm going to give you a little spoiler alert, and I need you to remember this for about the next 30 minutes and then forget it for the next two weeks. Okay? Deal? All right. In a couple, if you turn the page in your Bible and look later in the story of Ruth, Boaz is called a Redeemer. and Boaz is actually the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather of Jesus.

If you go read the lineage of Jesus in the New Testament, if you go back far enough, you find Boaz. And so Boaz is literally the physical forerunner of Jesus, but he also is this human embodiment of everything God is doing. He is the physical representation. So when Boaz acts, it's really God acting. So when you see Boaz and you see him speak and you see him act and you see him work and you see him love and you see him move, you have to think, okay, this is really God working through Boas. Verse four, and behold, ta-da, finally, Boaz. Boaz came from Bethlehem and he said to the reapers,

the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Boas shows up at his company a Monday morning and he goes, The Lord be with you. And everybody that was a part of a really stupid liturgical church would respond and also with you. And he would go, we lift up our hearts. And they'd go, we lift them up to the Lord.

I mean, they'd have, they're having church. They're showing up. He's going, hey, I own this company. I have workers that work for me. And the first thing he wants to do is he wants to point them to God. Now, this isn't the point of the story, but let's just take a tangent for a second. If you own a company, it's not that you just happened to start that company. You're there for a reason.

And the reason is to point people to Jesus. And if you don't own a company but maybe you have a team that you work with or you oversee, you don't just randomly have a collection of people. You know that, don't you? God sovereignly set those people in your midst. Because your job isn't just a job. It's a mission field. And if you're in charge.

of nothing but the tasks that you get handed? Man, you do those tasks to the glory of God. Paul will later say, he'll say whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it as if you're doing it for the Lord. If you've got a teenager, parents, make that your life verse for them, right? Make your bed as if for the Lord. Cut the yard as if for the Lord. Go to your job, do your tasks as if for the Lord. And you'll do them in a way and people will go, now, why do you work like that? And you'll get to say, because the Lord is with me. You may just be the closest thing anybody ever gets to hearing and seeing and experiencing the gospel. And you are where you are, whether that is a carpool line or an office or a classroom or the beach or the grocery store,

you are where you are because God has placed you there to be salt and light in that place. You didn't just happen to show up in there. Every job, every position in life is a mission field. I'm doing this. I am where I am in my faith because when I was 21 years old, I showed up at work one day. Some of you all heard me tell the story. and somebody in the elevator invited me to church. They leveraged their job

to invite me to see that the Lord was good in my life. And it radically changed the whole trajectory of my world. So verse 5, then Boaz said to his young man who is in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? And the servant who is in charge of the reapers answered, she's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

She said this, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came and she's continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. And then Boaz said to Ruth, now listen. Now at this point it goes either really well for Ruth or it goes really, really bad for Ruth. Boaz looks at her And he's just heard the reports Of a Moabite woman Who's shown up

Is not a part, not on the clock, not on the job And he looks at her and he says, Now listen My daughter Boas doesn't call her What everybody else calls her You Moabite He doesn't look at her and say

All right, you girl with a godless, Sorted, seedy paint. pagan past. All right, now listen, you homeless, broke, widowed, worthless outsider. Now listen, you girl whose family sold out God, long-term faithfulness to God for short-term gain. Boaz looks at her, the human embodiment of God in this story. Boaz looks at her and calls her my daughter that God through Boaz is giving Ruth a whole new identity. He gives her this transformed new value and worth and dignity. He's doing just what Jesus would do later.

And John, Jesus looks at this group of people and he says, no longer do I call you servants, but I call you friends. Paul would write in 2 Corinthians, he would say, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. You get a new identity. And Ruth gets this brand new identity. Now listen, my daughter.

Do not go to glean in the field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Don't hang out on the edges. Get in the middle. Don't go to the beggar section of the field. Get in the family part of the field. That God, through Boaz, is giving Ruth a brand new community. That he's looking at her and he's saying,

you can have your life being transformed, can have a whole new family. You can have a whole new support system. You do realize that one of the great ways that God works is through the people of God. that our faith is deeply, deeply personal, but it's never private. You are never meant to do life alone. You were never meant to walk in faith alone.

That one of the greatest gifts of God is that he would put some people around you. And if you're standing on the edges of the field today and you're hurting and you're in trouble and you're in need, then get in the middle of the pack where it's safe and where you can be loved on and encouraged and cared for. That's what this place is. And not just a room like this. Don't just sit in the middle of a room somewhere. Get in a group where people will know you and love you, care for you. And then he says, let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping.

and go after them. You see, Ruth goes from starving to gleaning, which is sort of this law-driven stopgap, to now Boas says, I want you to reap. I want you to have a position, a job, a future. That when what God wants to do through Boaz for Ruth and for you and for me is to give us a whole new future, to take us from just starving on our own,

to just scraping by on our own, to relishing and living and reaping all that God would have for us. And he gives her this brand new future. And then he says, have I not charged the young men not to touch you? This is like Jesus, when the Pharisees caught this woman in adultery,

they just happened. To find a woman in an adultery? How'd that happen? You take a guess. And they bring her before Jesus, and Jesus steps up in front of her and protects her. Boaz is being really tender with her and really tough for her. He looks at the men. Remember, Ruth is a Moabite. She comes from a country where men just used women and abused women. And Boas steps in and he says, don't touch her. And God through Boaz is giving Ruth a newfound freedom.

A whole, not only is it a future, but it's a future that is filled with all kinds of freedom. About a week ago, I was over in Wales in the United Kingdom. And we were meeting with some church planners over there and I had the opportunity to preach over there. It was an incredible trip. We were in this town called Cardiff. And in Cardiff, there's a church planner there, and his name is Die. And he has started this church, and they literally go out into the streets of Cardiff. And they find men and women who have been enslaved.

They've been trapped in human trafficking and sex trafficking. And they rescue them right then and they are off the streets. And they've started this coffee roasting company called ManuMet Coffee. It literally means to break them. the chains of slavery. And he took us there. You drive back through this big industrial park. There's barbed wire everywhere. There's electronic gates. You go back in. He shows up at this kind of looks like a storage unit. He unlocks it. There's no writing over it. There's just a number on the door. And I said, why don't you have a sign or a name? And he said, no, no, no, no. We need to protect

these people. And when we rescue them, we want to bring them away and we want to protect them. And then they teach them how to roast coffee and they teach them how to get their international barista certification so that they can move somewhere else throughout Europe and have a whole new future, a whole new free future out of slavery. And that's what God does. God frees Ruth to give her a new future that is totally and utterly free. And then he says, when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. You do realize he's not just offering her water, right? It's like Jesus with the woman at the well.

He goes, hey, listen, you can come back here, but I've got something more. You've got a thirst inside of you. You have a thirst inside of you that only Christ can quench. And so, God, through Boaz, is just giving Ruth total satisfaction, soul deep satisfaction, that her soul thirsts for something. And God through Boaz literally is going to offer it to her. And that Jesus on the cross, you have to know this,

Jesus on the cross is the only one that can satisfy the really deep thirst and longing of our souls. And then she fell on her face. Just picture. Boas just says, I want you to have a new identity and a new community and a new future and a new freedom. And I want to satisfy everything at the deepest points of your soul. God is going to satisfy you. And hearing that, she falls down on her face, bowing to the ground and she said to him, now circle this. This is it. Why have I found favor? Favor is the new. the Old Testament word for grace, when they took favor, the Hebrew word for favor and translated it into Greek, they translated the whole Testament into Greek at one point. They just grabbed the New Testament word for grace and used it right here.

So what she says is, why have I found grace in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I'm a foreigner? I have no rights. I'm a total outsider. My whole family has sold out God for short-term gain. Why should I have found favor? Why do I get to have a new community? Why do I get to have a new identity? Why do I get to have a new future?

Why do I get to have new freedom? Why do I get to have my soul's deepest thirst and longing satisfied in Christ? Why, when I'm a nobody, that's the question, isn't it? Last week, the question that we raised was really, why? I do bad, hard, bitter, painful things happen to me. And we said, you know what? Sometimes they happen because we just flat out sin. We just do.

And sometimes it's just because we're foolish and we're stupid and we're unwise. Sometimes it's the attack of an enemy, the enemy. Sometimes we're just collateral damage for somebody else's sin and somebody else's stupidity and somebody else's foolishness. And sometimes we just live in a broken world. We live in a world where we're feeling the ripple effects of sin throughout every part of creation. But we landed on the fact that no matter how painful, no matter how bitter, no matter how hard it is, God is still sovereign in all of it. That when it is painful and hard in our lives, God is not surprised.

God has not moved off his throne. God isn't going, whoa, I didn't see that one coming. And God is still there with us in the middle of every single bit of it, in the hard times of life. Why the hard times of life, there's all kinds of reasons. But no matter what happens, God is still sovereign, even in the pain of our lives. but the question that we need to wrestle with today is not just why, why those bad, hard, bitter things, but why grace? What causes grace?

It's really important for us. It's just as important for us to understand why the good things and not just the bad things. Right? We'll ask the question, why do bad things happen to good people? And we said the answer to that is, well, it's a flawed question from the very beginning because there is no such thing as a good person. There was Jesus. He was the only good person and something really bad happened to him that those of us who are bad might have something really wonderful happen to us. The question is not why do bad things happen to good people. The question

is why does anything good happen to scoundrels like you and me? Why do you and I find grace? Why do you and I find favor. And so she asked this question, and then verse 11, but Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your family, for your mother-in-law, since the death of your husband has been fully told to me. Now, to be fully known and fully loved is really scary and really profound. And how you left your father and mother and your native land. and came to people that you did not know before,

the Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given to you. So why grace? Well, when Boaz answers her, it looks like karma, doesn't it? Look what he said. He says, all that you've done, look at this, you did this for your mother-in-law, you had chances to go back, you left everything,

you came here, all these things. You be repaid for all the things you've done. You get what you give. You throw the boomerang of it. goodness out there and you just hope it comes back this is the way our world works this is the way isn't it this is how daily life seems to operate in our worlds if i do good then i get good back but if you've been around here for a split second this ought to sound like nothing you've ever heard before why do i get grace because of all the good stuff i've done

what? Like, is God different in the Old Testament than he is in the New Testament? Is God a God of works in the Old Testament? And then God a God of freebie hippie love in the New Testament? Are there multiple ways to God? Can I work my way and earn my way to God over here? And some people do really good in their life and do more good than bad in their life and get to God.

and then some people, God does it for him? Is God changing his mind? Is God a different God at different points in time? Is that? But look what he says. The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given to you by the Lord, the God of Israel.

The first thing he wants to say is, why grace, Ruth? grace is solely, squarely, firmly rooted in the sovereignty of God. The pain, God is still sovereign. The grace, God is still sovereign. For all the good, God is sovereign over every single bit of it. Grace is totally, completely, utterly, solely belonging to and coming from God. And then he says, the Lord repay you for what you've done.

A full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel. And here it is, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. He says, you want to know where grace comes from? Grace comes under the covering of Christ. Grace comes when we get up under the wings of God and we take refuge up under God in Christ. That's where grace comes. Grace is found when you and I take refuge in Christ alone. In Psalm, I love this in Psalm 17, verse 7, wondrously show your steadfast love, of Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.

Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me in the shadow. of your wings. Psalm 36, verse 7, how precious is your steadfast love, oh God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Or Psalm 61, let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings. Or Jesus, Jesus would look out and he would say, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. them. Oh, you that stone the prophets. Oh, that I would take you like a hen and gather you up under my wings. That you and I find grace. You and I find grace under the covering of Christ alone. You and I get a new identity

because Jesus would give up his identity as the perfect son of God and take on the sin of the world that you and I might be called righteous before God. Jesus on the cross bound himself up in sin that you and I might be set free. Jesus Christ ended what looked like his future on the cross that you and I might have an everlasting future. Jesus on the cross is totally and utterly abandoned. He cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So that you and I might be counted as a part of the family of God. And Jesus Christ drinks dry the cup of wrath of God that you and I might be satisfied at the deepest levels of our soul's thirst. How do you and I find grace? It comes solely through the covering of Christ.

Grace always flows down. So get low and get under Christ. And the question for you and I today is, have you come under the covering of Christ? Have you run up under Jesus and just said, God, the work that you did and the life and the day, death and the resurrection of Jesus. As Jesus stretched out his arms on the cross, can I come up under that and let that count for me? Can I take refuge from my past and my old identity and all of my

old longings and all of the dead end roads in my life? Can I have all of those come up under Christ? And will you cover me, God? Have you done that? Because you see, when Boas says, Ruth, all that you did for your mother-in-law. She didn't do that in order to earn the favor of God. She did that because she found the favor of God already up under the covering of God. And the bottom line is really, you and I don't work from favor. You and I work for favor. That you and I, in the sovereignty, God is sovereign over our pain.

God is sovereign over the grace that saves us and God is sovereign over the perseverance in our life. The reason that you and I do good works that we pour our lives out for others is not in order to earn the grace of God. You can't earn the grace of God. It only comes under the covering of Christ. But you and I can live out of the grace of God.

It's why Paul would say, work out your salvation. God freely in Jesus Christ gives His grace and faith puts us under the covering of Christ and then it is that same grace that causes us to live out our faith and persevere every day of our lives and then while she's on her face while she is bowed down on her face

then she said, I have found favor. I have found grace in your eyes, my Lord. For you have comforted me. That when you find grace, when you come under the covering of Christ, it is the deepest comfort you and I could ever find. Because the anxiety and the stress and the worry, and the doubt and the fear that comes with trying to create our own identities is staggering. And trying to create our own futures is knee-buckling. In trying to satisfy our own souls, it's terrifying. But when we come under the covering of Christ and His grace, it comforts us in every area of our life. For you have comforted me and spoke kindly to your service.

though I am not one of your servants. And at meal time, Boaz said to her, come here. And remember, they're in Bethlehem, the house of bread, says, come here and eat some bread, rip a piece of bread, and dip your morsel in the wine. Have you, does that sound familiar? Jesus, at the end of his life, would sit with his friends at a meal, and he would, He would say, take some bread and he would break it. He would say, this is my body that is broken for you.

And then he would take wine and he would pour it out and he would say, this is like my blood that is going to be shed on the cross for the new covenant for you and for your comfort and for your satisfaction. And so she sat beside the reapers and he passed to her the roasted grapers. and he passed to her the roasted grain, and she ate until she was satisfied that when God, through Jesus Christ, gives his life, his life is broken for you and me on the cross,

and his blood is poured out for you and me. It comforts our deepest needs, and it satisfies our soul longings. And then I love this. And she had some leftovers. over. Like just when you think God has poured out his grace, he just pours out grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, lavishly and abundantly. And so the question for us this morning is, have you come under the covering of Christ? Will you and I fall down on our faces and just exclaim, oh God, I have nothing to bring to this table.

But I want, I need to come under your covering. I need a new identity. God, why would you give grace? And when we come this morning to just declare that it is Christ alone, that everything we have, our identity, our future, our freedom, our soul satisfaction, comes under the covering of Christ alone. And maybe you've never done that before. Maybe you have never put yourself up under the covering of Christ.

And maybe for some of you, for the first time this morning, you can raise your hands and say, I want to be under the covering of Christ. I place my faith, my trust in Christ alone. And whether it's good or whether it's bad, you will be able to say it is well with your soul. Not because your circumstances determine your future, but because Christ determined it when he died and rose again from the dead. So would you pray with me? And if you have never come under the covering of Christ and you want to place your faith and your trust,

if you want for the first time a new identity, not based on what you can do, but what on God can do. If you need a new future, if you need newfound freedom and forgiveness from your past, if you need soul satisfaction, would you raise your hand right now? Yeah, would you raise your hand and say, God, I just want to come under the covering of Christ.

Heavenly Father, We thank you that we can take refuge under you. We thank you that you would give your son Jesus Christ for us. And so we fall down before you in awe and wonder and joy and hope because of what you and you alone have done for us. God, we come down in this time of response and poor. our hearts out before you and lavish in your grace, stand in awe of your beauty. God, may the affections of our heart be stirred for you alone. God, for those of us that are in bitter

places this morning, God, may we come to you and say, even though it's like my name is bitter, you are still sovereign. And Lord, may we declare that everything that we have is not for us alone, but it is for those whom you love and Hugh want to provide for. And so as we bring our gifts and offerings, God, we do it because you have so abundantly provided for us in your grace. And we joyfully want to be conduits of your grace and provision in others' lives. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.