 Ruth chapter 2, we're going to be looking at this entire chapter, and there's some really cool things in this chapter that I want to really bring out as we go through this. Let me go ahead and read the whole chapter, just for us to have that as we go through this. Chapter 2 verse 1, there was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, his name was Boaz. The Ruth, the Mobidus, said to Naomi, Please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter. Then she left 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 family of Elimelech. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, Whose young woman is this? So the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered and said, It is the young woman or the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. And she said, Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house. Verse 8, Then Boaz said to Ruth, You will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn. So she fell on her face, bowed down 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? And Boaz answered and said to her, It has been fully reported to me that all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people whom you did not know before. 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. Then she said, Let me find favor in your sight, my Lord, for you have comforted me and have spoken kindly to your maid servant, though I am not like one of your maid servants. Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, Come here and eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed parched grain to her. And she ate and was satisfied and kept some back. And when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young man saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her. Also, let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her. Leave it that she may glean and do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening and beat out what she had gleaned and it was about an ephah of barley. Then she took it up and went into the city and her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, so she brought out and gave to her what she had kept back after she had been satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, Where have you gleaned today? Where did you work? Blessed be the one who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law whom she had worked and said the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz. Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, Bless be the Lord who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and the dead. And Naomi said to her, This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives. Ruth the Moabitis said, He also said to me, You shall stay close by my young men until they had finished all my harvest. And Naomi said to Ruth, Her daughter-in-law, It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women. And that people do not meet you in any other field. So she stayed close by the young women of Boaz to glean until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law. I heard a story of a cowboy who applied for health insurance. And as he went to this agent, the agent was making his way through this huge list of questions that he was asking the cowboy about insurance, life insurance. And the agent said to the cowboy, Have you had any accidents? And of course, the cowboy looked at the agent and says, No, none at all. And then he goes on and he says, I was bitten last year by a rattlesnake and a horse kicked me in the ribs. And he says, That did lay me up for a while. Well, the agent responded with this really baffled look. He said, Wouldn't you call those accidents? So the cowboy then looked at him and he says, No, they both did it on purpose. When we come to the book of Ruth in chapter two, Ruth is a story that teaches us that there are no accidents with God. There are no accidents with God. Everything has a purpose. Everything has a reason. Apparent accidents are the Almighty's appointments. And we look at these things and we see that at this time in the life of Naomi and Ruth, Naomi was going through a very hard time in life. She just lost her husband. She lost her children. So she was not in a very good place. And here she is with her mother or her daughter-in-law. Here she's with Ruth and she is in this hard spot. And basically she cannot see past her circumstances. And isn't that the way life is sometimes? When we go through a hard time in life, sometimes we can't see past her circumstances. It's very, very hard. And what I call that spiritual myopia. You can't see beyond that. You're stuck looking at that situation. Well, that's where Naomi was at. And yet we see here that Naomi is going to be basically learn a huge lesson about God's timing. You see the Bible says in Isaiah 46-10, God says, I make known the end from the beginning from ancient times what is still to come. I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. What does that mean? This is what it means. God sees the big picture. That's what it means. God sees the big picture. Now listen, there is a comfort in knowing that. There's a comfort in knowing that what God is doing in my life right now is part of the big picture whether I see it or not. Whatever God is doing in your life right now, the things that you're going through right now, even if you're having a mountaintop experience, I would say enjoy it because you will come down. But whatever God is doing in your life and whatever God is doing in my life, listen, God sees the big picture, you and I don't. And it doesn't mean because we don't see the big picture that God isn't doing something right. And this is what we see with Naomi. Naomi's here and here she sees tragedy. And Ruth chapter two, what we're going to do tonight is play the spectator's part because obviously we already know what's going on. We get to sit in the driver's seat if you will. And what we're going to do is we're going to see what's ahead in Naomi's life. It's kind of cool to think that God does the same thing with our lives. He sees what's ahead already. God already sees the big picture. And to even think about that, that just blows my mind away. I don't know about you. The God looks at my life and he says, I see the beginning to the end. I know what's going on here. I know what's going to happen here. And I know what's going to happen over there where you and I can't not see that unless God reveals it to you. So we see here very clearly that God has a great plan for Ruth. God has a great plan for Naomi. And this involved her entering in a field that belonged to a total stranger. So let's look at this. Verses one, two, and three is the behind the scenes. What God is doing behind the scenes. Notice what it says here. It says it very clearly. It says in verse one, there was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz. God was already ahead of them. Isn't that great? Listen guys, God is already ahead of you right now. He's already ahead of you, already preparing like Ephesians chapter two says that you are an eye or a workmanship created in Christ Jesus for works that he prepared what? Beforehand. God has already gone ahead of you. He's already prepared those steps that you're going to step into. And this is what we see here right away is that we see that God was already ahead of them. He was already working out his will in their lives even in this crazy tragedy. So what happens there? It says that we see in verse one what this writer tells us that we immediately begin to see God's invisible hand working behind the scenes. We read that Naomi had a relative. Remember Naomi lost everyone. So she is in this gloom right now not knowing where her life is going to go, how God is going to pull her out of this tragedy. But here we're reading that, hey Naomi, chill. You're going to see something really cool here. So we see here that we see that God is working behind the scenes. Naomi and Ruth have returned to Bethlehem as widows without a penny. They had no money. So their situation was not good at all. So what happens? Notice it says that she had a relative and his name was Boaz. The name Boaz means hunk, joking. It doesn't. It means, yeah, cause a lot of ladies like I want a Boaz, right? A lot of single ladies like I want to find a Boaz. Well, that's not what the name means. It means in his strength, that's what it means. In his strength, which is really cool to see that. He was a man, notice what it says. A man of great wealth. Great wealth, what does that mean? Well, it means obviously that speaks of a man with social standing. A man who had a good reputation. An honorable man of character and means. Yes, ladies, you want somebody like that. A man of character. Man who's noble. And notice where he's from. From the family of a Lemelec. Naomi didn't know what God was doing. You see, Boaz, as we're presented to Boaz, we're introduced to Boaz, Boaz had the right stuff. He had the right stuff relationally, morally, financially to solve Naomi's and Ruth's problem. Now, here's something very interesting. The setting of this book, the setting of the book of Ruth was in the time of the judges. Now, if you were an Old Testament Bible student, you know what that means, right? Over and over, you see the phrase in the book of judges and they did what was right in their own eyes. It was the dark ages of the nation of Israel. It was a very dark time. People did what they wanted to do. Whatever their eyes saw was fit for them, they did it. And here we see that it was during those dark times that there was someone who cared what the Lord said. And that's Boaz. That not only that, but in the day of rebellion and idol worship, there was a man by the name of Boaz who was obedient to the Lord. Boaz shined in those days of rebellion and of sin. Isn't that crazy? Because we read the book of judges and you're like, this is a crazy time. And yet God still has faithful people even in dark times. I mean, if you think about it, we're living in some dark times today, aren't we? I mean, our world today, our culture, I mean, the world is twisted morally and spiritually. And it's sad because it's very, very dark. And as Christians sometimes we're pushed against the wall. We're the aliens. We're the ones that they don't understand about life. But when you look at our lives today and our world today, we see that the world is very twisted morally, spiritually, and the world refuses to recognize God and to submit to his authority. And it's the world that we're living in today. You know, men and women today will evade the truth to follow their own darkened reason. And so here we are as Christians and it's into this kind of situation or into this world that God tells us to be the light and to be the salt of the earth. See, the Lord doesn't tell us to go hide in a room and close your door. It doesn't matter how dark this world gets. Listen, stay faithful to Christ because God can use you even in the darkest times. That's exactly what happened with Boaz. Boaz was a rare person. I mean, you didn't find people like that. But here we're told that he was there and we get a sense of this as we see the respect Boaz's workers had for him. He was a well-respected man. You see, it's one thing to be a Christian while we're with other Christians. Isn't it easy to be a Christian when we're around other Christians, right? You're not gonna do anything weird, right? Because they're gonna judge you. You think they're gonna judge me, right? I remember one time I was working with this guy who said he was a Christian and I had a Bible study with my coworker. This is years ago. And this guy, a coworker, was hired and all and we tried to witness to him and all. He goes, oh, I'm a Christian and this and that. I said, oh, cool. And he went to Calvary Chapel. So anyway, so we just assumed he's a Christian. I'm not gonna judge him. Okay, you say it. Okay, I believe it. And then little by little I start seeing some questionable things in his life like hitting on the receptionists and just talking really trash about his wife and things and it was just kind of concerning. But when he was around us, he was a Christian. It's like he turned himself on. Click, okay, I'm a Christian now. But then when we walked away, he wasn't a Christian. It was just weird. And then I remember one Sunday morning, sitting in here, I see him come up to dedicate his baby with his wife. I said to my wife, that's the guy. She goes, what do you mean? I work with that guy. He's a phony, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, yeah, we go to church, we can be Christians. That's not a big, that's easy. How are you doing, brother? God bless you, amen. But it's another thing when we see that you are a Christian in the workplace and you stay consistent with that. There's a big difference. And there's a, obviously, I mean, I could be a Christian around you guys, but if I'm going to work and I'm somebody else, Boaz was not that way. He was consistent all the way across. He was a man of faith before his peers, his men, and also before his workers. And this is the story we see here. This is what we get into. This is a picture we get from Boaz. So verse two, notice what it says. So Ruth the Mobidus said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, go girl. No, she said, go my daughter. I mean, this is so cool. I mean, here's, here's Ruth. Ruth could have just sat on her hands and she could have just said, oh, well, we're poor. Oh, well, let's just wait on the Lord. She's asking her mom, her mother-in-law, can I go and glean, you know, a stranger's field, basically. I mean, these guys came to Bethlehem, which the word Bethlehem means house of bread. And we see that it's right there where the grain is being harvested. You know, so here they are poor and they're gonna go to a field to harvest things. Now, God established a welfare program in the Old Testament. I don't know if you're aware of that. Listen to his welfare program. Leviticus 19 verses nine and 10. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleaning of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God. Isn't that cool? In other words, listen, there are poor people and they need food. Don't go to the edges and don't even go back and forth twice to your field. Whatever's left, let the poor and the foreigners come. Notice that the poor still have to work. Do you see that? The poor still have to work. I mean, God says, I am putting this together but I want them to do the work. Go there and pick the things and harvest those things and all the leftovers. That's how God provided for them. Ruth didn't just sit around waiting for some food to fall from heaven. And she wasn't looking at her mom and her mother and be like, okay, well, whatever, I'll just wait and we'll pray about this. I've talked to Christians in the past who will come to me and say, hey, brother Rob, I need a job. Can you pray for me? I said, absolutely, yeah. After I'm done praying for them, I say, so where have you applied? Oh, I haven't. What do you mean? How are you gonna get a job? Well, I trust the Lord. Yeah, you do trust the Lord. I do too. But I mean, when I drive, I don't close my eyes and say, I'm trusting the Lord to get me home. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes we overspiritualize certain things. And listen, being a person of action, it doesn't mean you're in sin. I mean, you could pray and ask God to provide a job for you, but we're supposed to take those steps to go and apply, try to find a job, be open to what the Lord has for you. And Ruth didn't do that. Ruth says, I need to work. Mom, can I go? Go for it. And she goes. And she ends up finding a place and notice in verse three, then she left and when she, I'm sorry, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boas. She happened to come, right? I love that because obviously the author is not really looking at it that way. Now, the writer doesn't tell us why she happened to come there. Perhaps the field was the closest to her home. Perhaps it has more grain than the other fields. Or who knows why from a human standpoint, she was there, but God had everything planned out in advance. See, what was natural to them was supernatural to God. And that's usually the way God works in our lives. You know that? God's supernatural hand will be seen in our lives in natural ways. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we all wanna see, you know, manna coming from heaven, right? We wanna see something miraculous, but the hand of God working in your life is still miraculous, but it comes to you in a natural way. And this is exactly what we see here. We see it very, very clearly that his plan was working perfectly. From God's vantage point, she didn't just happen to go to Boas' field. There was nothing like that. That is exactly how God works. That's how he works in our lives. Listen to what it says in Proverbs 16, 9. In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Did you see that? See, we can plan out stuff. God wants us to be planners. Don't get me wrong here. But you gotta give room. You gotta allow God to determine those final steps. And it's the cool thing to see that because you see, you're not gonna find the word luck in the Bible. You're not gonna find the word coincidence in the Bible. I know we use those terms sometimes. It's kind of weird sometimes, honestly, when I have a Christian say to me, hey, good luck. I'm like, sure, okay. All right. Or when they say, I am praying really hard. What do you mean you're praying really? Well, what's this? Cross my, I hope it doesn't happen. I'll say, oh, that's metal. That's not, I usually mess around. Oh, that's not wood. I know it's part of the society or culture that we kind of get stuck with those things, you know? But I'm not trying to like look down at you like, oh, you know, you're not a Christian. If you walk around with your fingers crossed, I just laugh, you know, inside. I'm like, cross your fingers and you're praying. Which one are you doing, right? Tell me which one works, you know? And guys, listen, there's no luck. There's such a thing as luck. Actually, I have a friend who is a Christian who will fight me to the end. He believes there's luck. I said, dude, there's no luck. And really, biblically speaking, when you just look at the Bible and you see the way God lays out human history, I don't think there's anything that happens by chance. And what we see here, it's very, very interesting because Boaz will notice Ruth's diligence. And this is what we see here, verses four through seven. Boaz will notice Ruth. And Ruth didn't even know she was being watched. Kind of creepy, huh, women? Like, what is he looking at me for? Well, notice what happens in verse four. Now, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his servants, who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? Boaz begins to notice Ruth's diligence, her hard-working heart. But I love the relationship he had with his employer or employees. The relationship of employer and employee, I mean, it shows that Boaz was a great man to work for. He was a godly man and his employees were just as blessed working with a man like that. I mean, wouldn't it be great if tomorrow you walk in your job, your office, and your boss says, the Lord be with you. Well, really, thank you. You know, wouldn't that shock you? To work for a boss that can thank God and just be God-conscious? That's the kind of man Boaz was. I would love to work for this guy. This would have been great to work with somebody like this. And yet, notice, he was a man of good reputation versus five through seven. We see very clearly, this is what we see here in verse five. He basically, or actually, actually verse seven. She said, when he noticed her, he said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came and has continued from mourning until now, though she rested a little in the house. So what was really attracting to Boaz was the good reputation of Ruth. We see here that she was here and she wasn't trying to impress anyone. She wasn't doing any of that stuff and she was a hard-working person. Her actions spoke louder than words. Boaz was really drawn to that. She wasn't causing any commotion or anything. And then what happens next is very cool because then Boaz rewards her with protection. Notice what it says in verse eight. Then Boaz said to Ruth, you will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close by my young women. When he says in verse nine, younger, or actually in verse nine, he says basically that the young men will not touch her. It says very clearly, have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? Remember that this was the time of the judges. It was a very dark time. A lot of rebellion and simple people actually lived during this time. And here he is, he's making it very, very clear here. He's telling them to basically say, don't touch her, leave her alone. And we see here that this was a very dangerous time that she was living in. So here we see a man who's protecting her, which is really cool. That's what a man is to do. I've talked to single ladies that want a guy. They want him to get married. There's nothing wrong with that. But I always question when the guy is not protecting them, taking them to places that are questionable, or perhaps they're bringing them over to their house and spending the night or whatever. I look at that, it's like that guy's not protecting you. I mean, he knows you're a Christian. He's giving Jesus a black eye by what he's doing and he should be protecting you, not making you look like something else. What we see Bo has is protecting her. He's keeping her safe. And Ruth was a beautiful single woman, but what made her more attractive was the beauty that was inside of her, what she was displaying from inside. Our culture doesn't do that, does it? Our culture is obsessed with looks, right? It really is. I mean, if you don't believe me, just go to social media, right? Facebook, Instagram, what do you see most of the time? Selfies. It's all about looks, you know what I'm saying? I've never seen a selfie from a female that just wakes up in the morning and goes click, click, try that tomorrow, ladies, see what happens? It's all about looks. I mean, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook and all of that. I've done selfies, don't get me wrong. I'm not seeing it like I'm above here, you know, but I'm just saying we get caught up with our culture because our culture is obsessed with looks. That's what it's all about. It's all about how you look. It doesn't matter what's inside. You know, I've known guys that go after girls that are really, really good looking, but inside they stink. But they're like, but they're so gorgeous or beautiful. Yeah, but inside this girl's corrupt. Now that's one thing that back in my single days that I was totally turned off is when a girl was like, okay, she was pretty on the outside and all, but then when you got to know her and her reputation and her talk and all that, when it was really corrupt and weird, it was like, ah, I don't care what you look like, you stink. And then we see that Boaz was attracted not just to her physical attraction. I'm sure she was really good looking, but it was more of her inside. Just what was coming in here, what was showing from the outside. Listen, God is in concern about the outward appearance. You know that. He's concerned about what's going on in your heart. He's concerned about your inner qualities. Listen to what Peter said in 1 Peter 3, verses three and four. Your beauty should not come from outward adorments, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. Let me say this. The Bible here is not saying ladies, if you have braided hair right now, you're in sin. It's not saying that if you're wearing jewelry, because I hear it right now, clink, clink, clink. It's not saying that if you're doing that, that's wrong. This is what it's saying, is that God is not looking at that. Doesn't matter how big your ring is, how much jewelry you wear. It doesn't matter how you do your hair. God is not looking at that. He's not saying, oh, wow, they look so nice in it. This is great. No, they're looking at the heart. Where is her heart? Where are you inside? He's not looking at the outer appearance, the outward appearance. He's not looking at that stuff. It's important, ladies continue to put on makeup. There's nothing wrong with that, right? My wife does it, you know? She asked me the other day, she's like, do you like me without makeup or with makeup? Like really, you're gonna ask me that question. But honestly, listen, hold on. I honestly said to her, I like you without makeup, you're fine there. I did, I really said that. I wasn't just joking with her. Like, come on, when you say that, I mean, you're like, whoa, depends on what you're gonna do to me, what I answer, right? But Ruth here responds with a genuine display of humility in verse 10. She was just beside her, so she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I'm a foreigner? Listen, she was a Moabite. They were despised, they were hated. They were like at the bottom here. And here's Boaz from a really good lineage. And she's like, why are you showing me so much favor? You should be like stomping on me. But yet you're showing all this favor, you're showing us, you're showing me all this kindness. She's like, I'm a nobody. Well, what is she experiencing? She's experiencing the goodness of God. That's what she's experiencing. The goodness of God, the loving kindness of the Lord. Psalm 149 verse four says, for the Lord takes delight in his people. He crowns the humble with salvation. Isn't that cool? Humility is so important. Sometimes people get so full of pride that they shut the door on God. They just, it just happens. She wasn't like that. She was a woman of humility. She wasn't trying to play hard to get. She just said, I can't believe you're showing me this kindness. And the Lord is the same way with us. God honored her decision to follow the God of Israel and now he's blessing her for her commitment. She's just being blown away by the Lord. She was a woman of integrity. And she had a powerful testimony in verse 11, to give up everything to follow Naomi and to embrace the God of Israel. God really liked that. That's something that was in the heart. You see, Ruth wasn't a person pleaser, a people pleaser. She was a hard worker, but not for recognition. It wasn't about her. It wasn't about Ruth. Ruth was just being diligent to get food for her mother-in-law and to just move on in life, trying to do something about it. You know, the Bible teaches us in Proverbs 3.34, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And it says in James chapter four, verse 10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. He will lift you up. Humility is an important part of the Christian life. It really is. When you're humbling yourself at work and not trying to seek for that high position, not trying to push somebody down for it or anything like that to elevate yourself, that is not biblical. It's the other way around. You let the Lord exalt you. You let the Lord bring you up and not allow yourself to try to fight for position. Ruth wasn't doing any of that stuff and it wasn't even about her. She was just thankful that she was getting something and all of a sudden God is blessing her. All of a sudden God is showing his kindness and so what happens, notice, Boaz invites her to dinner, verse 14. He says this in chapter two. Boaz said to her at mealtime, come here and eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. So she sat beside the reefers and he passed parts grain to her and she ate and was satisfied and kept some back. Boaz blesses her with a good meal, a great dinner. God goes beyond the limits and just blesses Ruth because notice what it says there that this was among the sheaves, an area that was normally off limits. Ruth gave up living in Moab to follow God. She gave up living with her people to follow God. I think that's pretty honorable, don't you think? She could have had a better life. She would have had her family, her relatives and whatnot. She chose a different road, a road that was really a mysterious road, a road that had no end. She didn't know what was gonna go on when she lost her husband and obviously, Naomi lost her husband as well. But notice in verse 16, I love this part. It says there, also let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her. Leave it that she may glean and do not rebuke her. Wow. How would you feel ladies? You're like, marry me. I mean, this guy is just so cool. And listen, there's no weird intentions here. It's not like he's lusting after her. But there's something really neat that's happening here because notice that he actually wanted to make sure that she didn't go anywhere else to glean probably. She wanted to keep her here. There's something interesting and special about her. You know, that's the way the Lord works in our lives. He works this way because he operates on our behalf. And as we see here, he's also good to his children, that's us, that no one in their spiritual mind would ever consider gleaning anywhere else. Kind of reminds me of what Jesus said to the disciples in John chapter six, when a lot of the disciples left him. Remember that? And then he turned to his disciples, he says, do you guys wanna go too? And what did Peter say? Lord, to whom shall we go to? You have the words of eternal life. There's nowhere else I can turn to, Lord. And God has a way to bless us and to show us how good he is. So you can actually think, hmm, I could go back to the world, but you know what, why would I go back to the world? I got God, it's so good being in Christ, isn't it? I mean, if you think about it, if you had a choice to your old life and to your new life, I would hope most of you would be like, I want this new life because the old life was horrible. You know, to be honest with you, I've had more joy and excitement being a Christian than when I was in a Christian. There's more, my journey in life has become more exciting being a Christian than when I was in a Christian. When I was a Christian, I was like, I didn't know where I was gonna go. You know, I mean, I wasn't good in school and high school, college. I mean, I thought I was gonna do the film industry, so I started going in that direction. Then I started, I would say God, but things were opening up in that area, working with Paramount Pictures, I did some things with MTV. I was doing all these different things and I'm like, I'm getting up, I'm getting, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna run into the right person in this industry and he's gonna take me and that's it. Never, it's gonna sit me on TV. Instead, they sit me on a pulpit now. But that wasn't what God wanted in my life. I thought it was fun. I thought it was gonna be this wonderful thing, but now being a Christian, when I think back at those days, I'm like, no way. I would never trade my relationship with Jesus Christ. It's so worth it. Doesn't matter. And we see here that this is something that happened with her is that she chose to follow Naomi and embrace the God of Israel and God is blessing her for that. And God blesses us when we honor him. When we put him first, he blesses us. He encourages us, he shows us how good he is so that we're not tempted to follow somebody else or to go somewhere else. That's why it's hard when I think about Christians, people that I know that they got saved or whatever and all of a sudden they're out there partying and doing stupid things. I'm like, why would you guys go back to that? It's just, it's so horrible. There's just nothing that they can say to me that I've never experienced. I mean, I've done a lot of that stuff and it's like, there's nothing fun about it. And so we see here that Naomi or Ruth is actually in a good spot. God is revealing himself in a very powerful way. So what happens? Notice, Naomi begins to see the goodness of God's hand. In verse 17, she gleaned in the field until evening and beat out what she had gleaned and it was about an ephoph of barley. Then she took it up and went into the city and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned so she brought out and gave to her what she had kept back after she had been satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, where have you gleaned today? And where did you work? Blessed be the one who took notice of you. She's like, woo-hoo, this is awesome. Where'd you go? So she comes to her mother-in-law and Naomi begins to see the good hand of God and notice she comes back with an ephoph. That's about a filling of six gallon jugs of barley. I mean, she was like, man, she had it there. You know what I'm saying? It's like 60 pounds. And she's bringing, I mean, her mom, probably Naomi thought she was gonna bring in like a little paper bag, right here honey, here mommy, let's go eat, you know? She was like, mom, can you help me? There's a bunch of stuff out there. And she's like blown away, who took notice of you? Who gave you this stuff? Well, it's God's nature to bless us over and beyond. Did you know that? You know, God isn't stingy like some of us are. He really isn't. I mean, really, I mean, he blesses us over and over and beyond. And he is a wonderful God who loves to bless his children. When the disciples, when Jesus fed the multitudes, there's a section that I really like. And it says this, after he fed him in Luke chapter nine, verse 17, it says that they all ate and were satisfied. That's great. He satisfied the people. And the disciples picked up 12 baskets, 12 basket fulls of broken pieces that were leftover. Leftovers are cool. It's really neat to see that. You know, one of the things that we do on Sunday nights, I call it agape feast. If you've never been to an agape feast, when you see it on the bulletin and all that, you better go to one of those. You're like, what is it? Well, it's a place or at the time where we gather together and the body on Sunday nights, they will actually bring food. They contribute food. And we'll do themes, Mexican food. We'll do Asian food. Last time we did pizza. And one of the times when we did pizza, I say, hey guys, just bring pizza. Just bring a variety of pizzas. And it's a really, it's a step of faith because if only five people decided to bring pizza, and now you got to feed about almost 200 people, we're in trouble, right? How can you cut those into little pieces to feed almost 200 people? That's always a concern. That's why I'm always pushing it, bring pizza. Don't think that person next year is gonna bring it. You bring it, okay? Cause everybody's thinking that, right? Oh, they're gonna bring some. They're gonna bring some. So we had pizza one time and we had over 75 pizzas that came in. I mean, there was like boxes full of pizzas. I was like, man, I'm in heaven. This is awesome. Cause I love pizza. I can eat pizza all day. And at the end of the night, we had like 20 some pizzas left, still in their boxes. We start passing them out. Anybody want a pizza? Anyone want a pizza? You know, it's so cool to see how God just blesses us over and beyond. He's not stingy. And he still blesses his disciples by giving them even more at the end of a huge feeding. And so we see this is happening in the life of Naomi and Ruth. And in verse 20, notice what it says in verse 20. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, blessed be the Lord who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and to the dead. Very different from chapter one, isn't it? When Naomi came back home, they said, Naomi, is that you? She said, oh, don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara. Because the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. Remember that? A totally different person, a totally different state of mind. Here, all of a sudden, there's a breakthrough spiritually. Now she says here, blessed be the Lord. She wasn't saying that in chapter one. Why? Because she's now beginning to see that God had a plan for them. This is awesome. God is good. She's seen the goodness of God. And she's excited that she has woken up from the spiritual myopia. And now she's seen beyond her circumstances. God is coming through. This was God's perfect timing. God's perfect timing. Naomi realized how awesome God is in bringing his plan at the right time. God is good, isn't he? God is loving. No matter what happens in our lives, God is always good and he loves us. I read a story about a farmer who actually was, he printed the words, God is love on his weather vane. And so when people saw that, someone asked him if he meant to imply that God's love is as fickle as the wind. And he says, no, the farmer replied. He says, I meant that whichever way the wind blows, God is love. So true, isn't it? Sometimes it's hard to remember that God loves you when you're going through a trial. And God's love is constant all the time, no matter where the wind blows. Even if the wind is not blowing in the direction that you want it to blow, listen, God is still love. God is still good. And we have to understand that difficulties are not forever. They're not forever. Naomi probably thought this is gonna last for a very long time. Perhaps I might even just die like this. But difficulties are not forever. The dark clouds will disappear and God will reveal his love and grace in a very sweet way. Listen to what it says in Psalm 30 verse five. It says, for his anger lasts is only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Naomi is rejoicing after weeping for a long time. She is excited. And Naomi had some idea here, or actually she had an idea here in verse 22. She said, you know what, go and stay with the young women. Just go back. Naomi realized that God was up to something and the timing of it couldn't be more perfect. The timing of it couldn't be more perfect. Let me close with a few things here. The God of perfect timing. Listen, let me remind you something that I said at the beginning. There are no accidents with God. There are no accidents with God. Everything has a purpose. Everything works according to plan. Exodus chapter one. Pharaoh wanted to kill all the male babies that came from the Hebrew ladies. He said, when a baby's born from among them, basically cast them into water, drown the baby. Kind of interesting, huh? Because remember, Herod, kill all the babies two and under? I mean, Satan is the same. I mean, really, he just changes things in a different way, but he's still the same. He's a murderer. And so he was born, Moses. His mom hit him for three months. And then it says, when she couldn't hide him anymore, she built this little ark, this little basket, put some reeds and stuff and she put the baby in there and she put him at the river's bank to let the baby go. And then all of a sudden, it says it clearly, in Exodus chapter one, that Pharaoh's daughter happened to be bathing in the river. And here comes Moses. She takes them and you know the story. Was that a coincidence? Nope. It was God's perfect timing. Here's another one. Acts chapter eight, Philip. Philip in chapter eight was part of this huge ministry, Samaria. God was using this man in a very awesome way. And then as all these things were happening, all of a sudden, God says to him, Philip, the Spirit took him, he says, now I want you to go to this road. It's a deserted road. From a huge ministry to this little road, all of a sudden, I would question, right? God, I'm like, wait a minute, things are booming here. What am I gonna go on this deserted road? There's nothing but crickets and whatever else is in there, right? Well, as he listened and obeyed God, he went on this little road and as he's going there, we read, because we have the whole picture, there's a man, an Ethiopian eunuch, coming from Jerusalem to worship in his chariot. And here comes Philip probably wondering, like, okay, God told me to walk. I guess I'm just gonna keep walking. I don't know what's going on here. And here comes his chariot and the Spirit says, go overtake that chariot. And it was at that time that God told him to go overtake that chariot that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading the Isaiah scroll. And God was already perking his heart. God was already preparing his heart to come to Christ and all he needed was an understanding of what he was reading and guess who was there? Philip. And Philip comes to there and the guy asks him, who is this speaking of? And you know the story, he gave him the gospel. The man's life was changed. Was that coincidence? That's God's perfect timing, isn't it cool? Now, we read these things, but we forget. God does the same thing in your life and in my life. He works in the same way. And the cool thing about this, as we look at these things about Naomi and Ruth, we see that God's timing is never early and it's never been late. Did you know that? That's the cool thing about God. God is never early. He's never late. You and I can be early and lay on things, right? God's timing is perfect. In Ruth chapter two, we noticed four specific events that God coordinated to perfection as Naomi and Ruth yielded to God. One is that God moved at the right time. Chapter one, verse 22 said, it was at the beginning of harvest. Number two, God moved in the right person. Chapter two, verse one, we see Boaz coming into the picture. He had him in mind. Three, God moved in the right place. It was in Boaz's field. Four, God moved in the right ways. Chapter two, verse five, Boaz was asking, who was this woman? And God used that to bring favor to Ruth and we see the story unfold. God moved in the right person. He moved in the right place. He moved in the right ways. You know what's sad when I read something like this, I think about life in general, that with the hustle and bustle of our hectic lives, we often find it very difficult to wait for anything or anyone. We get very impatient, don't we? We really do. And what we want, we want now, don't we? I mean, we're very impatient people. We're actually conditioned to be impatient and with our modern technological advances, we're often able to get what we want now. Most of you are aware that now, Amazon has Amazon Prime now. If you haven't used it, don't feel guilty. It's kind of cool. You can get groceries, you can do a lot and buy stuff within one hour. This little guy in the car comes, not little guy, but little car comes in. I'm sorry if you work for them. You're like, so I'm gonna get somebody here tonight. I'm like, I didn't mean you buddy, you know? But you have an employee who comes in an Amazon now car to your house in an hour and says, here's your dinner. Isn't that crazy? I mean, we thought microwaves were quick. I mean, you can just call Amazon Prime now and just get what you want. And there's so many things you can get within an hour. Anywhere. I think that's crazy because we want things now. And guys, listen, it hurts us as Christians because as a result, we are not only losing our patience, but we're also finding it increasingly difficult to discern God's timing because we're thinking, it's now God, it's now God. Why not now? Why not now? And we get impatient and all of a sudden either one, we do it ourselves and then we get in trouble or two, we get mad at God because he's not working in that realm of time. We have to understand that God's timing isn't always our timing. And if you're in the waiting room of life right now, if you're waiting for something right now, whether ladies you're waiting for a husband, guys you're waiting for a wife, perhaps you guys, somebody's waiting here for a job, whatever it is, if you are in the waiting room of life right now, consider three things about God. One, God is the author of time. Two, God makes no mistakes. And three, God knows more than you. If you can just write these down and put them somewhere that when you begin to get impatient as you're in that waiting room of life, read these three and remind yourself, okay, God is the author of time. I need to stop here. God makes no mistakes. He's not gonna be like, oh, I'm so sorry. It came a little too early. I didn't know you weren't ready. No, none of that. And three, God knows more than you. He knows why it's not happening right now. He knows why you're not going there yet. Because he knows more than you. And you have to rest in that. You have to let God be God. And not try to get involved in those decisions to say, okay, God, I think I know better than you now. I think you should go this way. That's not the way God works. Satisfaction with how God operates in our lives begins with faith. It begins with faith. So the question you have to ask yourself is, will you trust God's perfect knowledge? Or are you gonna trust your own? Can you trust his perfect knowledge? Or are you going to go back to your own understanding? God knows what is best for you. Do you guys know that? He knows what is best for you. He's not distracted like some of you are. He is attentive to you when you're talking to him. He understands everything that you're going through right now. He sees it. Sometimes we think that God is not seeing everything. He only sees a little bit because he's busy with somebody else. No, no, no, it's not like that. He's so in tune to your life, you wouldn't even believe it. I mean, it's just crazy how just attentive he is to you. And we see that God knows what is best for you. And with that understanding, we need to continue to yield our lives to him. And not only that, but we need to trust him. Stay active, serve. Do what you know you need to do now. Do what you know what you need to do now. And in his time, you're going to see things come to fruition. I've seen it happen in people's lives and I've seen it happen in my own life. Yes, it's very difficult to wait on the Lord. I think that's probably one of the hardest things in the Christian life is to wait on the Lord. If you want to do a really neat study, get a concordance. You can probably find that on the internet too. And type in the word waits. And look at all the scriptures that talk about waiting on God. You're going to find tons of those in the Psalms. David repeatedly said, wait on the Lord. I say, wait. Blessed are those who wait on the Lord. Are you in a waiting period right now? Trust the Lord. Trust him. Don't get impatient. He's not Amazon Prime now. He's the God Almighty, amen.