Text: Ruth 1:15-18. Sermon Series: What a wonderful woman! August 5, 2012.
What a friend we have in Jesus. Amen.
Ruth. Do you know anyone by that name? Ruth. What do you know about this wonderful woman of the Bible? Ruth. Can you think
of anything? Anything? Anything come to mind? Ruth. One of only two women with a book of the Bible named after her. Ruth. We
know more about her than almost any other woman in the Bible. Esther would be the lone exception. Ruth. There are more verses in
the Bible about Ruth than there are about Mary, the mother of Jesus! Ruth. What do we know about her? I pray four weeks from
now you will know a lot more, as for the next four weeks we will examine what a wonderful woman Ruth was. What a wonderful
woman. We’ll see Ruth was a faithful friend, a faithful worker, a faithful wife and best of all, an ancestor of Jesus. Let’s start today
with this wonderful woman Ruth and see what a faithful friend.
Let’s back up a little bit so we are on the same page, ok? Let’s talk about friend and faithful, because many people might have
different definitions of these two words. What makes a good friend? Would you agree that a friend is someone who sticks by you in
good times and bad? Would a good friend sacrifice their own comforts to help you out? Wouldn’t you agree that would make a good
friend? Would a good friend be willing to die for you? I pray you answer yes to that one, because Jesus said, “Greater love has no
one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends.”
Ok, so that’s friend, a stick by you, sacrifice, even if it means my life, friend. What about faithful? We don’t use that word very often.
We maybe talk about husbands and wives as faithful to each other. That means they keep their promises to each other. A faithful
friend keeps a promise even when it hurts, right? A faithful friend keeps a promise even when there is no personal advantage,
wouldn’t you agree? When the Bible describes God as faithful, the Bible means that God keeps his promises, especially the promise
to send Jesus and forgive our sins and take us to perfect eternal life in heaven.
So, now I pray we are on the same page with friend and faithful. Does Ruth measure up? Was Ruth really a faithful friend? Let’s
examine a little of the background and then we’ll examine Ruth’s speech itself. Background first. Naomi and her husband lived in
Israel. There was a famine. They moved to Moab, a foreign country, a country not very welcoming to Israelites, a country that
worshiped false gods, but a country that had food. Naomi’s two sons married women from the foreign country of Moab. Then all
three men in Naomi’s life died: her husband and her two sons. So now we have three widows. Three women of mixed race, in a time
without welfare, or workfare, or without any real way for women to make a living. They are destitute, deserted, despondent, not
really even family, just a mother-in-law and two daughters-in-law.
A mother-in-law and two daughters-in-law. Will the daughters-in-law go with the mother-in-law to a foreign land, where they know
no one, have no family, no friends, no skype, no job, no…nothing, to wander with a destitute widow who has no money, and no
hope? Let’s see, no money, no hope, no family, no friends, foreign land, a land where the men are not allowed to marry women
from my country, including me, wandering with my mother-in-law, or go back to my home and family and maybe I can find a
husband and start a family of my own? You can hardly blame Orpah for kissing her mother-in-law good bye and going back home.
So why does Ruth stay? What could motivate her to wander a foreign country, as a destitute widow, with no family and no friends
and no home and no money and no hope, with her mother-in-law? With her mother-in-law? That’s not even her blood family! With
her mother-in-law? Come on, nobody wants to live with their mother-in-law if they can help it! With her mother-in-law? We don’t
need tasteless mother-in-law jokes. They are out of place. That’s the thing. Ruth is such a wonderful woman, such a faithful friend,
she clings to her mother-in-law.
Why? Let’s let Ruth answer for herself and you can decide if she is a wonderful woman and a faithful friend. Where you go, I will go.
I don’t even know where that is going to be exactly, but wherever, I’ll go. Where you stay I will stay. The word stay sounds very
permanent at first glance, but there’s more than just permanence to this word stay. It has the idea of lodging here and there,
moving around. It’s more of staying at a hotel than living at house. Where are you staying is what you ask someone when they are
visiting temporarily, not when they are living permanently. Ruth understands that life with Naomi may be a nomadic life of moving
around, staying here and there. That doesn’t stop Ruth. That only strengthens the resolve of this wonderful woman to be a more
faithful friend. Does Ruth sound like a wonderful woman and faithful friend so far?
But she’s only getting started. Your people my people and your God, my God! Stop. Hold the phone. Your God, my God. This is the
most important part of Ruth’s speech. This is the center of her words, where people of the time put their central idea. Your God, my
God. Your God, my God. This is what motivated Ruth to go with Naomi. Your God, my God. This is why Ruth was leaving family and
friends and country to wander with a destitute widow and her mother-in-law at that. Your God. My God. Ruth even used the proper
name of the true God, the LORD, all capital letters to show she wasn’t blowing smoke. Ruth had been converted to the truth faith in
the true God. The only person Ruth knew with this true faith in this true God was Naomi. Ruth wasn’t going to leave Naomi and risk
losing her only earthly connection with the true God, the LORD. Ruth probably was hopeful and prayerful that by going with Naomi
back to Naomi’s home country that Ruth could meet some more people like Naomi who worshipped the LORD. The only thing that
mattered to Ruth was staying close to the LORD. And to stay close to the LORD meant staying close to those who worshipped the
LORD. Maybe that says something today about being in worship with fellow Christians.
Ruth has reached the high point in her speech: Your God, my God. Now she can go on and say how serious she is. Where you die I
will die, not might die, but will die and there I will be buried. Only death will separate us on this earth and it’s very likely that Ruth
was confessing that not even death can separate us, because we will be together in heaven. A promise for life. A promise for death.
A promise for eternity. Does that sound like a faithful friend? Does that sound like a wonderful woman?
Does that sound like you and me, a faithful friend who keeps promises in life, to death and for eternity? You’re moving again? That’s
the sixth time! I’ve only asked you to help me move once! When is there going to be some payback! I know I said I’d help you with
painting this summer, but the kids have been so busy, we just can’t find the time. Maybe next summer. Did you have a best friend
when you were six years old? You both promised you’d be best friends. Forever. Then he moved away and by eight years old you
had another best friend. Then you moved away and you learned, friends move. People move on. They go to college. They get
boyfriends and you just don’t exist anymore. A faithful friend? I haven’t been one. A faithful friend, for life and death and eternity? I
can’t find one.
Maybe you haven’t been a faithful friend. Let’s take out the maybe. We haven’t been faithful friends. We’re sinful people. We don’t
keep promises when it hurts. We only stay friends when friends pay us back. But even though we haven’t been faithful friends, we
have a faithful friend. Jesus. Jesus promised his love, even when it hurt. Jesus gave up heaven to come to our earth. That had to hurt,
leaving heaven and perfection to come to this earth? But Jesus promised. Jesus kept the promise. Jesus was faithful. Jesus promised
us his love for life. Jesus loved us every day of his life. Every day, Jesus loved us with a perfect life, a life that stands in your place, a
life of perfect friendship that is so loving, so powerful, so perfect, that God can see nothing else. God doesn’t see your life of
unfaithful friendship. God only sees the perfection of Jesus. Jesus kept his promises, even when it hurt. The whip on Jesus’ back, it
hurt. The thorns in Christ’s skull, they stung. The nails, the thirst, the slow but sure suffocation of the cross, they hurt. But Jesus
gladly hurt, for you. Jesus would have endured one hundred crosses, if that’s what it took. But it only took one. One cross equals
wonderful forgiveness. One cross and every sin is paid in full. One cross and all your unfaithfulness is washed clean in a flood of
faithful blood, spilled by a faithful Jesus, forgiving you, once and for all. Jesus promised love for life and he delivered a perfect life,
faithful. Jesus promised love in death and he delivered, an innocent death, just for you. Faithful. Jesus promised love for eternal life
and Jesus delivered. Jesus’ resurrection removes the sting of death. Jesus’ defeat of death takes away the victory of the grave. We
are the winners. Our faithful friend won the victory. And thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, our
faithful friend.
Listen to the promises Jesus made and Jesus kept. I will never leave you or forsake you. Neither death nor life can separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I call you friends. Friends. Friends.
My Christian friends, be faithful friends, like Jesus, like Ruth. Keep your promises, even when it hurts, even when there is no hope of
repayment. Help a friend move twenty times even if you never move once. Thank God you don’t have to move around like she does.
Do that painting, even if you have vinyl siding and a composite deck. Bring your kids along. They will see and learn the value of real
friendship. They will see a little of Ruth and better yet, a little of Jesus in keeping your promise, even when it hurts. Maybe you’ve
already committed the greatest act of friendship and brought a friend to meet our best friend Jesus today. If not, invite a friend for
next week. I know it hurts. It’s awkward. The friend might not welcome your invite. Or maybe, like Ruth, you’ll have a friend for life
and death. Maybe, you’ll introduce your friend, to our best friend, the greatest faithful friend of all, Jesus. Amen.