Missions Paul

The end is another beginning! – Ruth 4: 13-22
Part Two: the end is a new beginning of service!
And we know that in all things God works for good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. Romans 8:28-29
It is God’s primary goal for your life to reproduce the image of His Son in you. But what does that look like? Jesus gives the answer:
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Mark 10:45
It is very appropriate that Obed’s name means ‘Servant’.
Something very basic to our faith seems to be diminishing in the body of Christ. With the arrival of Christian satellite and the mega church it would appear that many arrive on Sunday mornings with the attitude of seeking to be served and given to rather than that of Christ Jesus, of serving and giving. “Please me” “Entertain me” “Make me feel good or else” has replaced servanthood.
Let us all open our hands again and serve like Jesus.

Lessons from the unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12

3b He wouldn’t risk his own security.

v6 “I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate.”
Are you a might-be person? Always thinking the negatives will happen and not the positives?

If you want to walk on water, then it will most probably not be a calm day when you get the call. But it will be windy, stormy and a whole lot of risk involved. Miracles only occur when you need them not when you want them. Miracles occur not at base camp but on the summit.

Lord, lift me up and let me stand
By faith on heaven’s tableland.
A higher plane than I have found
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

There was a man who chose the higher ground. His name was Caleb. (Joshua 14) Forty-five years previously Caleb had spied out the land of Canaan, the land or Promise, bringing back a good report. But his dream never became a reality. Now the Israelites are in the process of taking the land.
I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land…but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly… So here I am today, eight five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day …Then Joshua blessed Caleb .. and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. Joshua 14: 7-13

What was in your sights a few years ago, maybe even 45 years ago? You never saw it realised. But maybe it’s still in your heart. Maybe the Holy Spirit is restoring vision to you as you listen to this. Yes you’re older now but still you know you are called for higher ground. You are not called for the foothills, but for the summit. Like Caleb you cry out ‘God give me one chance, grant me the opportunity of higher ground.’

Lessons from the unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12

3. He wouldn’t risk his own security.
v6 “I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate.”
This unknown redeemer existed on the ‘might be’ of life.
He was selfish and stubborn but he also wanted to stay safe.
He did not want to take any risks.

“One of the great discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do”.
Henry Ford

People who focus on their fears become paralysed and never grow beyond what there present stature.
The great tightrope artist, Karl Wallender died several years ago after a 75 foot fall from a tightrope. Throughout his life he showed no signs of fear. He once said ‘Being on a tightrope is living. Everything else is waiting.’ But prior to his death certain things were taking place. His wife said after his death:
All Karl thought about for three straight months prior to walking across the tightrope was falling. It was the first time he’d ever thought about that. And it seemed to me that he put all of his energies into not falling, rather than walking the tightrope.

This is what can happen to us in our Christian walk. We can so put all our energies into not going under that we often fall right in and because we have lost sight of our goal we end up going under.

Lessons from the unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12

2. His cannot was really I will not.

v6 “I cannot redeem it … You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”
It wasn’t that he couldn’t, he wasn’t willing to jeopardize his future and all that he had worked for.
How many ‘can-not’s’ have really only been camouflaged ‘will-not’s’?
How many in the body of Christ are not moving in their destiny because they simply ‘stuck to their guns’? There are so many.
How many are experiencing an unknown life simply because they wouldn’t climb down, admit they were wrong and change their opinion? There are so many.
How many have become defenders of their position and not defenders of the faith? They entrench themselves in their position using every excuse possible, blaming others, the church, their families, their upbringing, their present condition, even God Himself. There are so many.

Matthew 6:21 Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What is important to you right now? Is it your house, car, job, family, inheritance, your decisions. These treasures can become giants in our lives when faced with making decisions that in some way affect them. We need to be able to say to our God ‘I don’t want anything to consume me. Instead, I want to be consumed with You.’ If we don’t we will miss out on God’s purpose and opportunity.
Can you be described as willing? Is your heart pliable? How easy is it for you to give up your own desires and say ‘I will’?

Lessons from the unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12

1b. He responded with a qualified ‘Yes’.
v4 “I will redeem it,” he said.
Yesterday we saw how that was held within his own personal agenda.
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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17

We worship a God who knows sacrifice and asks us to follow him in this way.
Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1

A missionary society wrote to the African missionary David Livingstone saying “We have some people who would like to join you. Do you have some easy access roads to get where you are?” Dr Livingstone wrote back and said:
“If you have men who will come only if there are good roads, I don’t want them. I want men who will come even if there is no road at all.”

This way of life will cost you. But if you “no longer live but Christ lives in me” then as a dead man you don’t have any rights anyway. Lets not give lip service to a God who sacrificed His Son for us. Let us realise that all that we are and all that we have is God’s anyway, so let us get on to the altar of sacrifice with no conditions and let God truly have our lives for Him and His work. The unknown redeemer gave a qualified ‘Yes’ because he was selfish and it robbed him of a destiny in God.

Lessons from the unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12

1. He responded with a qualified ‘Yes’.
v4 “I will redeem it,” he said.
He had a personal agenda that was hidden behind his Yes. Naomi was known in the town, he knew that she was no longer a woman of child-bearing age.
“… Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband ..” 1:11-12.
Therefore Naomi would be a safe buy, there would be no chance of a levirate son, the land would be his and stay within his own family and so he says ‘Yes, I’ll redeem it.’
The kinsman – redeemer was under no obligation, he had to be willing to sacrifice. But this man was operating out of his own selfish desires.

We must stop qualifying our commitments to God. I will do this if you do that.
There is in the body of Christ a developing worldly doctrine of self-esteem, a feel-good sense of fulfilment as being the aim of Christianity. Pleasing self is on par with pleasing God. As a result no one talks about sacrifice anymore. When they do, it bears no resemblance to the sacrifice of two generations ago. So we hear of people sacrificing by giving their tithe to God, by witnessing, by turning the television off and praying instead or going to church as being a sacrifice of something. It is no such thing. Such sacrifice never existed in our grandparents nor does it in many parts of the world today.
Where has true sacrifice gone in the body of Christ? It has been replaced with personal agendas, with selfish living, with conditional commitment.

The unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12
The Message:
“The piece of property that belonged to our relative Elimelech is being sold by his widow Naomi, who has just returned from the country of Moab. I thought you ought to know about it. Buy it back if you want it – you can make it official in the presence of those sitting here and before the town elders. You have first redeemer rights. If you don’t want it, tell me so I’ll know where I stand. You’re first in line to do this and I’m next after you.
He said “I’ll buy it.”
Then Boaz added, “You realise, don’t you, that when you buy the field from Naomi, you also get Ruth the Moabite, the widow of our dead relative, along with the redeemer responsibility to have children with her to carry of the family inheritance.”
Then the relative said, “Oh, I can’t do that – I’d jeopardize my own family’s inheritance. You go ahead and buy it – you can have my rights – I can’t do it.”

If the nearest redeemer had a son by Ruth, and that son was the only surviving heir, then Mahlon’s property and part of his own estate would go to Elimelech’s family. Boaz had played the master tactician! He wanted to marry Ruth and he placed the nearest redeemer in a situation in which he can do no other than offer the right of redemption to Boaz.
In Matthew 1 we read, “Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth … Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ.”
It could have all been so different.
The unknown redeemer could have been in the genealogy of the Son of God, written down in Scripture and held in great honour. He tried to protect his name and inheritance but in doing so, no one now knows his name, or who were his family were and what became of them. He stayed in insignificance and never became what he could have become.

Wait for it! – Ruth 3: 18 – 4: 2

• God has to wait for the right people/right circumstances

Boaz was waiting for the kinsman-redeemer to come along.

As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Matthew 27:57

God always has someone/something in the wings ready at the right time to come onto centre stage.

God has an appointed time for the promises over your life. No matter how much you beg or plead or try to make it happen, it is for the appointed time.

4:3 Then he said …. and the story comes to its conclusion, Ruth reaches her destiny, she becomes what God intended.

Wait for it! – Ruth 3: 18 – 4: 2
• We have to wait
In waiting we will have to overcome:
The feeling of separation
In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me. John 16:16
Every one of us will experience the ‘little whiles’ of life. It is the rule and not the exception. It is here that God seems to have gone and left us and we have to hang on by faith. We go through times like the disciples during Friday and Sunday they are waiting without Jesus. If we are to live through these waiting times then we need to know His Word not just then, but we need to know it before that ‘little while’ so that we can hold on to it. We need to trust His Word. We need to believe that during our waiting time God is at work.
Away from the disciple’s sight God was powerfully at work defeating the principalities and powers.
Maybe you are in the waiting stage, nothing much may appear to be happening. However something may be happening to you and you are not yet aware of it.
We so often want to make waiting on God the exception and not the rule. We trust in our own wisdom and when there are no open doors we force the locks. In the end we can get the doors open, find places of opportunity but the most important stage, our maturity, our preparation never takes place and we stumble through life never growing in God.

Wait for it! – Ruth 3: 18 – 4: 2

• We have to wait
Choosing to wait and having it forced on you is something else.
Here are a few feelings that we need to overcome during the waiting period.

The feeling of helplessness: Then Naomi said, ‘Wait my daughter’ 3:18. Ruth would have accomplished nothing by following Boaz all over Bethlehem, trying to help him sort things out. So often we want to help God out, make things work and we just make things worse.

The feeling of anxiety: “As Pharoah approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them … Moses said ‘Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring.” Exodus 14:10,13. Sometimes the pressure and pain become intolerable. We panic because we cannot see a way out or a way through. You may be in a time of waiting now. God wants to replace your worrying with learning to rest in Him despite your difficulty.

The feeling of I’m going to land on my face any minute now!: Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10. Sometimes it would seem that the answer is not coming. It is then we need to ‘Be still’, meaning to take our hands off the situation and relax. He can accomplish the impossible without us. It is then that we will ‘Know’ Him.
Think of the actions of a trapeze artist:
The flyer must never try to catch the catcher. He must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him. But he must wait. His job is not to flail about in anxiety. In fact, if he does, it could kill him. His job is to be still, to wait. And to wait is the hardest work of all.
Henri Nouwen

Will you be still, are you shouting catch me I’m falling or will you wait in stillness trusting that He will?