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October 13, 2020
Dear Friends and Family,
This morning during a men’s group, we shared how God leads different people into our personal lives to connect us to our faith in Christ. In the New Testament, Matthew 1 starts with a list of ordinary families God used to become part of the lineage of Jesus Christ. God presented his Son, Jesus, to the world through normal, but problematic, human families whose lives were messy and challenging, but whose roots of faith were in God and his promises.
We too have people in our lives God uses to guide our lives to the faith we have today. He doesn’t have to speak majestically from heaven but often speaks through ordinary people living with us here on earth. Perhaps he will use friends or a family member, or a neighbor, or even a stranger – but God works in ways known only to himself to accomplish his purposes in the lives of his children.
We pray you will be blessed by this study and pray it will be both an encouragement and a blessing in your lives today as you also remember your roots of faith from the past.
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The Gospel According to Ruth
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God Uses Ordinary People
By: Ron Wells, Centrepoint Ministries
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Max Lucado: “God used (and uses!) people to change the world. People! Not saints or superhumans or geniuses, but people. Crooks, creeps, lovers, and liars – he uses them all. And what they may lack in perfection, God makes up for in love” (No Wonder They Call Him The Savior, p 119).
In Matthew 1, the New Testament begins with the genealogy of Jesus Christ. How God engineered the coming of his Son, Christ through ordinary people.
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Ruth’s story begins with her marriage to a man from Judah. Her husband’s Jewish family came to Moab because of a great famine in Israel. After Ruth’s father-in-law, her husband and his brother also die, her mother-in-law, Naomi, decides to return to Israel to live in Bethlehem near her Jewish family. Ruth faces a real dilemma, “What should she do?” Ruth makes a choice securing her position in the lineage of Christ through her own personal life dilemma.
God uses the dilemmas in life – a famine in Israel, the deaths of Naomi’s husband and two sons, and Naomi’s loneliness for her own people to draw Naomi and Ruth back to Israel. Paul writes in Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” including famine, death and even tragic personal loss. God promises his children that he will work through everything if we will trust him.
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When facing this dilemma, Ruth makes a life-changing decision – choosing to follow Naomi back to Judah to serve the God Naomi served instead of staying in her hometown where she is known and has family. She goes with Naomi to Bethlehem of Judah as a Gentile, a stranger and a Moabite. Ruth’s decision to follow Naomi and live a life in Bethlehem begins many significant life challenges for her as a foreigner and an outsider in the Jewish community of Bethlehem.
Our deciding to live a new way of life when following Christ is part of our walk of faith in Christ and is the message of the gospel. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus (John 3), he explained to this Jewish leader that Nicodemus must also make a life decision, like Ruth, to let go of all the things he knew and understood before meeting Jesus. He had to decide to choose a new way of life if he were to follow Christ.
In Joshua 24:14-15, Joshua told the Jewish men of Israel to make a decision. “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We each must decide to live God’s way of life – it’s part of the Gospel.
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Though Naomi is deeply discouraged and depressed returning to Bethlehem, Ruth determines to do the “next right thing.” She begins fieldwork with other poor citizens of Bethlehem to provide for Naomi and herself by gathering leftover grain in the fields so they would not starve. Working hard, Ruth took no thought of her status or place in Jewish society. She determines to take care of Naomi without complaint, in spite of Naomi’s despair, bitterness and grief. Both women had lost their husbands and are living with sorrow, but Ruth is determined not to give up. She humbly works quietly gathering grain to feed Naomi and herself.
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It is not a chance happening or blind circumstance that brings Ruth to work in the fields of a Jewish man named Boaz – a distant kinsman of Naomi’s. God leads Ruth to this field, opening doors for her as she works hard taking care of her family. Never hiding from her past, Ruth chooses to move one step at a time by trusting Naomi and her God. Honoring her obedience and faith, God opens the way for Ruth into the heart and life of Boaz.
Jeramiah 29:11-12 13: “ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” God will move through our determined choices to obey him alone.
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God gives Ruth a new husband and soon, a baby son, Obed, who becomes the father of Jesse, who becomes the father of King David in the lineage of Christ. When we obey God in trust and faithfulness, we will be used by God and placed under His protection. In Ruth 2:12, Boaz spoke of this truth to Ruth saying, “ May the Lord reward your work, and may you be paid in full by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge!”
King David later wrote of our Almighty God as our protector when we come under the shadow of his wings (Psalm 91). Warren W. Wiersbe writes, “This image refers to the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, where the wings of the cherubim overshadowed the mercy seat. . . . To be under His wings means to be in the place of security and fellowship with God . . .” (With the Word, p156).
Boaz became Ruth’s kinsman redeemer representing the beautiful picture of Christ coming hundreds of years later to redeem those who would follow him. (Ruth 4: 13-23): “Then the women said to Naomi: Blessed is the Lord, who has not left you without a redeemer today. May his name be proclaimed in Israel! He will restore your life.”
God uses the dilemmas in life – a famine in Israel, the deaths of Naomi’s husband and two sons, and Naomi’s loneliness for her own people – to draw Naomi and Ruth back to Israel. Paul writes in Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” including famine, death and even tragic personal loss. God promises his children that he will work through everything if we will trust him.
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God engineered the coming of his Son, Jesus Christ, through a Moabite woman and her Jewish husband. God continues to engineer in the lives of his own faithful children through these five D’s: Dilemma, Decision, Determination, Divine Intervention and Destiny. Jesus Christ is our only Protector and Redeemer and will never leave us alone or helpless; he is our Lord and Savior.
May God bless you. Please continue to pray for our country and our leaders and the witness of each one of us as God’s children as he places us in others’ lives for his service.
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May His Blessings be with you,
Ron and Beth Wells
Centrepoint Ministries
Website: www.centrepoint.cc
Email: ronwells@centrepoint.cc
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