Gods Redemptive Masterpiece Revealed

God’s Redemptive Masterpiece Revealed

This morning we’ll be finishing up the book of Ruth so let’s turn to chapter 4 together. We’ll also have the passage on the screen if you want to follow along that way.

I want to begin by showing you a 2 minute video of an artist named Corinne Sutter who is a contestant on Switzerland’s Got Talent. You won’t understand what they say, but just know if they hit the button, it means they are giving her a thumbs down. If all four judges hit the buzzer, they are voting her off the show. Watch what happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OetrSxmFZSI

The judges thought they saw what she was doing, not knowing that her true artistic talent wouldn’t be revealed until the very end. They hit the buzzer too soon. There are times in our lives when we look at what God is doing in our lives, or what God is allowing into our lives, and we don’t like it. We at times will be tempted to judge God to be unloving or unfaithful, and we feel like hitting buzzer and telling God, “I trusted in You and You failed me. I followed You and You allowed this pain and heartache into my life. I prayed for that job, or that healing, or that miracle in my marriage, and it didn’t happen.” At points we think we see what God is up to – maybe God paints a section our lives with bright colors and we are confident that from here on out everything’s going to go well and then God adds some dark shades in ways that don’t make sense to us. We question God’s wisdom. We think His promises must not be true. We judge God as unfair, unloving, and unfaithful and we hit the buzzer and tell God, “You’re done, get off the stage. As far as my life goes, I’ll take it from here.”

If there’s a lesson in the book of Ruth, it’s that we can’t assess what God is about until the end when He turns the picture over, blows His grace over it all, and reveals that the bright splashes and the dark sections, and all the shades in between, blend together to create a masterpiece of redemptive grace to His glory and our eternal joy. That’s the big message as we come to the last chapter of the book of Ruth. 

When we left off at the end of chapter 3, Ruth the Moabite had discreetly asked Boaz to marry her, to spread his covering over her life by redeeming her as a kinsman redeemer. Boaz is touched by Ruth’s request and vulnerability, and he’d marry her on the spot, but he knows there is a kinsman who is closer to Naomi than he is, and that man has the right to redeem Naomi’s property and marry Ruth. Read vv. 4:1-4

With the city elders as witnesses, Boaz first offers this closer kinsman Naomi’s husband Elimelech’s property. When Elimelech moved his family to Moab, he sold his property in Bethlehem, but Jewish law allowed for a kinsman to redeem that property in order to keep it in the family. It’s a great opportunity to buy some prime real estate so the man jumps at it, saying in verse 4, “I will redeem it”. OK, Boaz says, but there’s a catch. Read vv. 5-12

When Ruth is mentioned, this kinsman gets cold feet. After all, he’d be risking his reputation. Ruth is, as Boaz points out, a Moabite and Moabites were despised by the Jews and cursed by God. He would also be putting his inheritance at risk. Whatever property he redeemed from Elimelech would be inherited by any son he and Ruth had. Rather than increasing his own children’s inheritance, he’d be diminishing it for the sake of his dead relative’s heirs. He is not willing to take that risk so he tells Boaz to go ahead and redeem the land and marry Ruth, and he makes it official by taking off his sandal and handing it to Boaz. Read vv. 13-16

So Boaz marries Ruth the Moabite and the book of Ruth has a happy ending. Ruth the outsider is welcomed into the community of faith; she and Boaz have a son named Obed. And Naomi, who in chapter one is empty and hopeless, finds her life full of joy and full of hope as she helps to raise little Obed. The end. And it’s a happy ending. 

Except it’s not the ending. God hasn’t flipped the picture yet to reveal the masterpiece of His redemptive work yet. That happens in the last six verses: vv. 17-22

God’s redemptive plan for their lives – Ruth’s life, Naomi’s life, Boaz’ life – is far greater than anything they could have imagined! And God’s redemptive plan for our lives, if we will but trust Him, is also far greater than anything we can imagine! 

As God was painting Naomi’s story, He added some very dark brush strokes: she is tragically bereaved of her entire family and of all hope for the future. In the Jewish culture, nothing is more important than having heirs to carry on the family name. She had none. She looks at what God is painting and is left hopeless and thinking God is against her.

As God paints Ruth’s story, Ruth is the consummate outsider, born to a people who were cursed by God and despised by Israel. She wanted Naomi’s people to be her people, and Naomi’s God to be her God, but could she ever hope to be accepted by either of them? 

As God paints Boaz’ story, he was a wealthy and well-respected man in the community, but he put it all at risk by marrying Ruth the Moabite. Boaz was risking his good name, his reputation, and his inheritance by marrying a Moabite woman.

Then God flips the picture to reveal the redemptive masterpiece He has been creating: Naomi’s family lineage will not only go on, but her line will be credited with producing Israel’s most famous king, David. Ruth will not only be accepted by God and Israel, God is going to weave her into the most important family line ever, not just in Israel’s history, but in the world’s history, as she will not only be great grandmother to King David, she will be great great great great grandmother to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of kings, the Savior of the world. If God had simply painted Ruth in the fringe edge of His work it would have been an honor, but He paints her into the center of His plan of salvation.

And as for Boaz who risked his good name and reputation. Could you do me a favor and find the name of the kinsman who refused to redeem Ruth for the sake of his name and inheritance? It’s not there. In fact, the story goes to great lengths not to give his name. In verse one, Boaz calls him over and the ESV translates it “Turn aside, friend…” but in the Hebrew Boaz uses the phrase “peloni almoni”, which is a rhyming, meaningless title that is roughly equivalent to when we say “Mr. So and So.” In essence Boaz is saying, “can you come over here for a minute, Mr. So and So.”

Iain Duguid makes this observation: The irony is that by seeking to protect his future legacy in this way, Mr. So-and-So ended up leaving himself nameless, missing out on having a share in the biggest legacy of all: a place in God's plan of salvation. Boaz took a different and more sacrificial approach, embracing

 the opportunity to leave a legacy for someone else.

And by doing so, when God flips the masterpiece, Boaz has preserved his name and his legacy forever. The lesson for us as God’s children, as believers in Jesus Christ is, don’t hit the buzzer too soon. Wait until God’s redemptive masterpiece is revealed. Here are some ways that Ruth’s story is our story:

1. Christ is our kinsman redeemer

Boaz is a picture of Christ, who loved us so much he didn’t risk his inheritance for us, he left it for us. Jesus left heaven, setting aside his estate as God the Son to become a man, and not just a man but a servant whose good name would be reviled and hated and scorned and mocked. He would die the death of a criminal on a cross – a cursed death for Deut. 21:23 says cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 

Boaz risked his name and inheritance and his name is remembered through the ages and his inheritance is as one whose line is part of God’s plan of salvation. Jesus let his name suffer for a time and left his inheritance for the sake of us, that we might have an eternal inheritance and a new name given us by God, and because Jesus did that, Phil. 2 says that God has given him a name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is our kinsman redeemer who redeemed our lives from the pit. Praise his name!

2. Don’t judge God’s redemptive work by looking at the different paint swirls in your life.  

The book of Ruth has some genuinely dark shades in it. There is very real grief and pain and loss and hardship. We’ve talked a lot about Naomi’s hopelessness and bitterness in the first couple chapters, but we need to acknowledge that she was like a female Job who saw everything she loved taken from her. 

The Bible never trivializes our pain and suffering. God sometimes allows dark shades of grief and disappointment and hurt into our lives. And there are other times when He paints with bright colors and all seems well. God doesn’t promise an easy life, or that we’ll get everything we want, or that we’ll understand everything and be able to make sense of it. It’s hard for us to accept this, but we can’t really hit the buzzer on our lives and judge what God’s doing until the very end. Like Ruth, we may find when the painting is flipped, that God used the dark shades as a vital part of the glorious masterpiece God has made of our lives. 

On that day, there will be those, like Mr. So and So, who pass on the darker shades and live no-risk, lives of selfishness, only to find when the painting is flipped that their lives lack the depth and richness God intended for them. They passed on the opportunity to leave a legacy, to make a difference, to be a meaningful part of God’s glorious work. On that day, they will look back and wish they had embraced some of those darker colors. Lets resist Mr. So and So’s temptation to pass on opportunities to serve Jesus because we think if we give sacrificially to others we will end up with less ourselves. The truth is the opposite: Mr. So and So hoarded what little was his and it remained little. Boaz lived sacrificially for the good of others, putting his own interests second, and it rebounded back to him exponentially. 

And tragically, there are many who reject Jesus entirely and decide the best way to live is to live for the moment, to do what they want, to hit the buzzer, tell God to get off the stage, and run their own lives. And it may seem like everything is super great for a while. But in the end, it’s not. And listen, I believe in heaven and in hell, but I’m not just talking about where we go after we die. I’m talking about what we’re left with at the end when the painting is flipped.

I was reading the other day how they found an old recording of Mick Jagger (lead singer of the Rolling Stones) and Carly Simon sitting at a piano and singing a duet called Fragile in 1972. At the end of the song, Carly gasps, “good song.” And my mind went to a weird place. That recording captured them in 1972. Jagger was 29 years old. Carly Simon was 27 years old. They were young, already very famous, very wealthy, very successful, could pack arenas, part of the tippy top musical elite. What more could life offer, how much better could life get? But now, they’re both in their mid-70’s. Still quite rich, still quite famous, but most of their life is in the rear view mirror now. Most of what they lived for – drugs, sex, fame, money – can’t do much for them anymore. If that’s all they lived for – and this goes for anyone – it will be incredibly empty and sad for them the nearer they get to the end of their lives. 

Because what will be important on that day will not be how much or little dark shades fill the picture, or how much or little light shades fill the picture, but how much the red shade of God’s redemptive work fills the picture. When God flips the masterpiece, how much of the image of Christ is seen in our lives. That will be what determines the value of the work in the end – not what we’ve done, but what Christ has done in us.

Jesus came to redeem us back to God, and that includes redeeming our heartache and pain and sorrow and loss and disappointments and failures, and somehow he, in his great love, can make a beautiful portrait out of the mess we give him. The lesson of Ruth is, trust God’s faithfulness and love and don’t hit the buzzer until God flips the masterpiece. 

3. God’s redemptive plan for those who live for Christ is better than good – it’s beyond anything we could ever imagine

Look at the amazingly awesome plan God had for these three, Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz. They would be in the line that produced King David – the most beloved and famous king of Israel. Their story would lead to his story! They would be in the line that produced Jesus – their story would lead to his story! How awesome is that? Thousands of years later, people would still be preaching about them. That is way more than anything they could ever imagine.

Your lineage (and mine) won’t produce the Savior of the world. Our names will probably not be recorded in the annals of history and, unless we do something incredibly stupid, people will probably not be talking about you or me thousands of years from now. But God has something in mind for you and me that is beyond better than anything we could imagine. We see it in Eph. 2:4-7

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

For all eternity we will be trophies of God’s grace put on display to show the kindness and mercy of God. The awesome, eternal, glorious future God has in store for all those who trust in Christ won’t display our hard work, or deserving character. It will display God’s grace. People will see you and say, “wow, you’re here? What a display of grace!” And you will see people and say, “wow, you’re here? Talk about a display of grace!”

On that day, when God flips the masterpiece, it will be better and more amazing than anything we expect, and it will all abound to the praise of His glorious grace. Don’t hit the buzzer, trust God and wait.

4. We may not even see all the redemptive good God has planned for in our lifetime 

There is no way around it, the Bible says that the most important part of life is what comes after this brief life on earth. I mean, it makes sense. If we really believe as the Bible says, that this life is 70-80 odd years and eternity is forever, than what happens in eternity is far more important than what happens in this brief life.

I shudder when I think about those who destroy lives for their own pleasure. I shudder when I think about those who think it’s not enough for them to reject Christ, they make it their mission to convince others to reject Christ as well. Because they will live with the eternal horror and the eternal effects of their actions.

As we live to honor Christ and tell others of our Savior – even if we don’t think we’re very good at it – God might use our lives to make a difference that reaches far beyond our lives. And we may never see it this side of eternity. Ruth would die not knowing that one day her lineage would give birth to the Savior of the world. We may not see all the redemptive good that God plans to do through our lives.

Done and Don’t

Any sermon needs to answer the question, what do I do with what I’ve just heard? How do I apply this to my life? Two points: done…and don’t. Let me explain. The point of this message isn’t to go and do, it’s to rest in what God has done. He’s the One who has redeemed your life, not by anything you’ve done, but by what His Son has done by dying on the cross for your sins, to redeem you, purchase you back to God. He’s the One who is painting the masterpiece of your life, using the rich red shades of His redemptive love to paint the image of Christ in you. So just do this: if you are a believer in Christ, rest. Rest in what he’s done for you. Trust in his good work being completed in you. Meditate and marinate in what God has done for you. That will have more power to change you from within than anything you can do for God. It’s not what you do, it’s what God has done.

And don’t. Don’t hit the buzzer. Don’t judge God’s faithfulness or lose hope in His love. Trust and wait. One day, He will flip the painting and His redemptive masterpiece will be revealed. What a day that will be! 

 ⁶ And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Phil 1:6