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 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.” And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. –Ruth 2:8-14
A couple of summers ago my wife and I were boarding a plane in Houston. As I watched people find their places, I noticed a Muslim lady in the row in front of us. When I leaned forward I could hear her softly reading her prayers to Allah. I peaked over her shoulder at the prayer sheet. It said, “Supplication for mounting an animal or any means of transport.” We found that interesting, but only for a moment because next onto the scene entered a man that took our breath away. He wore a large brimmed black hat. The tassels of his prayer shawl dangled beneath his untucked shirt. Undeniably an Orthodox Jew. I watched him making his way down the aisle, checking his ticket, and comparing the numbers above the seats. I felt my pulse quicken as I noticed the empty seat by the Muslim lady. I whispered to Kristen, “Oh, it can’t be.” He drew closer and closer. In slow motion.
I saw him spot the Muslim lady, he looked up at the seat number, he glanced back at his ticket. To his horror, he’d found his seat.
The lady, feeling someone near, looked up, glanced at him, smiled humbly, and resumed her prayers. The young man turned a shade of green, then flushed white. His eyes darted around like a cornered animal. “There has to be another seat. This has to be a mistake.”
With a great effort to not run, he hustled back up the aisle and found the flight attendant. I could hear the panic in his voice. I also heard bits of the attendant’s reply; words like “full flight” and “no more seats”.
The young Jew found his buddy, also in a big black hat, up at the front of the plane. I could see him waving his arms as he explained this tragedy. The friend’s face registered the serious nature of this turn of events. But the inevitable happened, the flight attendant came and told him to take his seat. He came back down the aisle, his face set like I imagine Abraham’s was as he led Isaac up the mountain. He busied himself with putting his big hat in a box in the overhead compartment, he smoothed his long shirt, and gingerly sat down, leaning as far out into the aisle as he could. He rode that way the whole flight to Los Angeles, and when the flight attendant came by with a tray of water, Coke, and OJ, he rudely demanded to know whether or not the OJ was kosher.
As you can imagine, I observed this scene playing out with rapt attention. To me it was a perfect portrayal of a Christ-less religion. Shaking my head, I said to Kristen, “Here’s a lady praying to a dead man and a man carrying on the traditions of dead ancestors.” I wished I had been assigned his seat. I would have loved to tell her the good news that my God is alive. Jesus was dead, but He lives. What are you going to do with that?
And then next to her was this young man, so full of what the Apostle Paul called the “law and the promises.” But he had no good news. He had nothing to offer this enemy of old but disgust and repulsion.
The gospel makes all the difference, and that’s what we see in the book of Ruth. God has given us a Redeemer, a keeper of covenant, who gives water to undeserving people and provides more bread than we need. He protects, shows grace, and gives the peace that passes understanding with eternal comfort by the kindness of his word. He’s the one that shows us grace in our humility, who, when we most realize we are not even worthy to be his servants, invites us over to receive bread and wine from his very hand and cup. I think you’ll agree that knowing this living Redeemer can transform not only your seating assignment next to an ancient enemy but your whole life (just like He did for Ruth and Naomi.)
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
Like a River Glorious
How Firm a Foundation
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Joshua) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” –Ruth 2:8,9
Boaz is generous; he secures provision for her so she doesn’t have to go to another field then or the next day, and then he elevates her. She can now glean with his girls. The young men cut and the young women gathered the sheaves. Before she was in the periphery, but now she’s right there in community.
Not only does he secure provision for her, but he secures protection for her. He tells the young men not to touch her. This sounds like some kind of sexual protection on the surface, but these are the same guys who called back, “And the Lord bless you!” to Boaz just a few verses before. They aren’t a gang of hoodlums. Carrying water into the fields was a big job and they had every right to keep people out of it who didn’t belong—especially a Moabite. But they are told to let her drink.
Don’t you think of Jesus and the Samaritan woman here?
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. –John 4:7-14
Just as Boaz shared water with a woman undeserving racially, socially, and spiritually of his water, so Jesus shared water with a woman undeserving racially, socially, and spiritually of his water.
Back to Ruth 2:10, Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
She falls on her face in this ancient Near Eastern custom to show ultimate gratitude. She is not proud; she is humble. Proud people demand even what they are given. She says, “Why have I found favor/grace, since I am a foreigner?” There’s a pun in Hebrew here because the same root word for foreigner is also used for notice. It’s as though she’s asking, “Why do you notice me, the unnoticeable?” She came there according to law, but what she received was grace.
Here is a trustworthy statement deserving of full acceptance: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. In that salvation he secures undeserved provision and protection for the sinners and puts them securely into a community from which they had previously been foreigners, the chosen people of God.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Come, Christians, Join to Sing
Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart!
My Hope is Built on Nothing Less
COMMUNITY LUNCH
This Sunday following the worship service will be our first Community Lunch of the year. To request more information, click here. All are welcome!
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 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.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The LORD be with you!” And they answered, “The LORD bless you.” Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” –Ruth 2:1-7
What a great passage with the author’s tongue planted firmly in cheek! It’s as though he says, “Now it just so happened that Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, coincidentally from the clan of Elimelech, and as good fortune would have it, a worthy man, or a man of standing”. Yeah, right! And “she just happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.”
Let’s not forget that Ruth hasn’t met Boaz yet at this point in the story. He’s not even there at the field. She has no idea whose field this is. The point is, of course, that we see God’s work here, not Ruth’s; it’s about God’s faithfulness, not Ruth’s faithfulness. She just went looking for some food, not Boaz. But God’s plan was not that she merely find bread, but that she find the bread of life. It was God’s plan that it just so happened, coincidentally, as good fortune would have it, not just that she be delivered from affliction (her hunger and loneliness), but what we see later: that she be redeemed from sin.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners
MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
Men’s Prayer Breakfast is this Saturday, February 5 at 8:30 at the church. Don’t miss it!
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 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?” –Ruth 1:19-21
Naomi gives her testimony and she’s wrong. Somehow many people today have adopted the value of their personal testimony (the preaching of our experience) over preaching (the exposition of the historic word and work of God). If you want assurance of salvation, don’t look in; look up. And if you want to tell someone the gospel, don’t talk so much about something that happened 20 years ago for you; talk about something that happened for you 2,000 years ago just outside Jerusalem.
Your experience with the gospel, no matter how good it may be, is not the gospel. The gospel is completely outside of us and happened before we were born. God begat a son called Jesus, promised from eternity. Jesus was crucified, died, buried, and risen on the third day for our justification. That is God’s testimony of who he is, and it changes everything. Whether you believe it or not doesn’t change reality, and no matter what you experience, it’s still true. As the late J. Gresham Machen said, “Don’t bring me the contagion of your religious experience. If there’s any good news, by all means, tell me what has happened.”
Naomi says three things in her testimony: (1) the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me; (2) the Lord has brought me back empty, and (3) the Lord has testified again me bringing calamity. She completely missed it because the truth is that the Lord brought her back with the great grandmother of the great King David leading to the Son of David, the great King of all Creation, Jesus Christ, the Messiah!
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O Father, You are Sovereign
It is Well with My Soul
Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 And Naomi said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. –Ruth 1:15-18
This is probably the most famous section of the book. Orpah turns away from Naomi (and Yahweh), but Ruth is a friend to her and clings to her. Why? Because she was converted by the power of God. There is no other explanation. Life would have been easier for her back with her parents in Moab, and not only that, but for all she knew the residents of Judah might kill her. Moabites are enemies of Israel. Even if they didn’t kill her, she certainly couldn’t expect that anyone would care for her in her great weakness and poverty. But she’s not going to let go; she can’t.
It makes no sense outside the sovereignty of God that she would stick with Naomi. Precisely when Naomi has nothing and can produce nothing, when she’s reminding Ruth that she can’t possibly produce another husband—just at that moment of utter emptiness, Ruth commits herself to Naomi, and to Israel (God’s people, the church). Naomi says, “God has dealt harshly with me. He’s emptied me of everything.” And Ruth says essentially, “Yes, and I want your God to be my God.”
God is the active agent in salvation. It is not as though God hopes and we decide. Miraculously, Ruth finds something in a woman who has nothing. Somehow she knows the God of empty Naomi is the God of salvation. We hope, and God decides. And salvation belongs not to us, but salvation belongs to the Lord!
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Though Troubles Assail Us
Great is Thy Faithfulness
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 And Naomi said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. –Ruth 1:15-18
The message of the book is not, be loyal like Ruth and kind like Boaz, and God will reward you. In God’s placid providence, he is not reciprocal. Someone said to me once, “I’ve heard you say that God didn’t pick Noah because of Noah’s righteousness, but God picked Noah because of God’s grace and promise to the covenant. I’ve been in church all my life and nobody ever said that to me before. I always heard that the message of Noah and the ark is, ‘Be good like Noah, so God will pick you.’ And now you’re teaching that the message of the book of Ruth is not, ‘Be loyal like Ruth and kind like Boaz so you can be God’s people.”
Yes, that’s right; that’s what I’m saying, because that’s gospel and what you’ve heard is law. The Bible is not a book about being good or bad; it is about being dead or alive. It is not about moralism; it is about redemption. It is not about good fruit that brings salvation; it is about salvation that brings good fruit. It is about Christ and him crucified, not man and him improved.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Psalm 146 (Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul
Be Thou My Vision
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. –Ruth 1:6-13
We tend to believe that if God is in control and he loves us, then things shouldn’t go all that wrong. Naomi’s husband and children shouldn’t have died, there shouldn’t be a famine, and so on. We experience the same feelings when we read about Job’s experience, but that’s because we frequently stop believing the gospel.
Sometimes it feels like if we recognize that God is in control, then we should not be subject to the effects of the fall, right? And there is a lot out there that calls itself Christianity that teaches that same thing. The book of Ruth proves them wrong. Even in your sickness, sorrow, and want (all the effects of the fall from our sin in this present life), God is peacefully, placidly ruling from heaven for our good because of Christ’s finished work on the cross. And while that doesn’t have a lot of commercial value for consumers of religious goods and services, it actually brings you a deep and abiding comfort. This is the inscrutable will of God.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
There is a Fountain Filled with Blood
Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in 1 Peter) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. –Matthew 2:7-11
Herod is taking a risk even talking with the Magi because they were Parthians. Rome had driven the Parthians out of Jerusalem just a few years before and then he was put in charge of it. That means he really wanted to find the baby King Jesus. He felt threatened and Herod never responds well to threats to his power, even killing some of his own sons for fear they would topple his reign. And he thinks he’s being sneaky pretending that he wants to go worship Jesus.
But these guys aren’t called wise men without good reason; they see right through Herod’s motives. Imagine the contrast: the Herod the Great with the power to take the life of anyone he pleases and a 1-2 year old in Podunk Bethlehem. The “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” at finding the way to Jesus. Their response is providentially driven: they give him gifts, which Joseph and Mary are about to need in the worst way as they escape to Egypt. More importantly they fell down and worshiped him. They rejected Herod and fell down before the child Jesus. While Herod had the power to take life, Jesus has the power to give it and his is everlasting.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
As with Gladness, Men of Old
Angels from the Realms of Glory
Good Christian Men, Rejoice
MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
Because the first Saturday of January falls on New Year’s Day, we won’t have Men’s Prayer Breakfast this month. Please plan on attending the next one: Saturday, February 5.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Exodus) and adults (in Luke) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” –Matthew 1:18-21
When Matthew says in verse 19 that Joseph was a “just” man, it’s the exact same word Paul uses in the famous Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by faith.” Joseph was justified by God; he wasn’t righteous because of his own doing, but he was righteous because he knew God as his justifier. He had the legal right to treat Mary very badly for ending up pregnant during the betrothal. But somehow he knew he had been forgiven much, and people who are forgiven much never want to put anyone else to shame. There’s something foul in us that believes shame is appropriate penance that a sinner needs to pay. Not righteous Joseph though; God’s word says that he was unwilling to put her to shame.
And in the latter part of the passage there is a very important name. Here we see God in the hands of angry sinners, to take away their sin. In this season as we feel thankful for the Father sending the Son, Immanuel, to get down in the waters of baptism with us, let me remind you not to be so thankful that he made a way for you to wash away your sins. But be thankful that he actually washed away your sins. The name Jesus was a common name in his day, and he’s become a common teacher or historical figure in our day, but don’t forget, he is precisely the one that has saved his people from their sins, and like Joseph to Mary, God will never put you to shame.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are (Christmas Eve):
Angels We Have Heard on High
What Child is This
The First Nowell
Away in a Manger
Silent Night, Holy Night
The related hymns we’ll sing are (1st Sunday after Christmas Day):
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Angles We Have Heard on High
Infant Holy, Infant, Lowly
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
CHRISTMAS EVE WORSHIP SERVICE (with communion)
The Christmas Eve service is Friday evening, December 24, at 6:00. Nursery will be provided.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Luke) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. –Isaiah 9:6, 7
This passage, made famous by Handel’s Messiah chorus, “For Unto Us a Child is Born,” is all about a warrior who brings peace. This Wonderful Counselor doesn’t have a Ph.D. in psychology or clinical practice. In the ancient Near East, his counseling skills are for strategy in battle. This Mighty God is the one who executes that strategy, and the Everlasting Father is the one who is always faithful and loyal in the battle.
The term “Lord of hosts,” while curiously not exactly the same person as spoken of above in a strict Trinitarian sense, is still a term of war. So why then is this child to be born called “Prince of Peace”? Most of this passage is about war, yet the pinnacle of the name of this child is one of peace.
The answer is found in Ephesians 2:13-16, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Ah, there it is! Our redemption, our deliverance from exile, is not one of God deciding to let bygones be bygones. Our salvation is that Christ Jesus, the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, and Everlasting Father has warred against the “diving wall of hostility,” abolished “the law of commandments and ordinances,” and “killed the hostility,” thus making and becoming our peace. That’s the Prince of Peace.
And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Joy to the World! The Lord is Come
CHRISTMAS EVE WORSHIP SERVICE
The Christmas Eve service is Friday evening, December 24, at 6:00. Nursery will be provided.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Luke) continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.
Visitors are always welcome!
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