Praise
( Ruth 4:11~22 )
Praise is more than just singing with our lips. Its rejoicing and glorifying God through our life. The core message of Ruth is that only God is worthy of our praise because everything is caused by him. Lets see how God blesses us and how we praise Him.
1. God blesses us through a witness community.
① A witness community is a channel of blessing. Boaz prefigures Jesus as a redeemer. Redemption calls for sacrifice. Boaz put this into practice by making his application of sacrifice, which seemed impossible from a human perspective. This gave him a witness community. The community blessed his wife Ruth, saying, 'may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.' When we reveal our sins in our small group, our community will be glad as if its their own affair and bless us to be famous. Being joyous over others prosperity comes from Gods work. Therefore, he is the only one, worthy of our praise.
② We have senior witnesses. In Ruth, Tamar is a good example that shows how Ruth was blessed. Tamar is the woman who slept with Judah, her father-in-law in order to keep the lineage of her family in law after losing her husband and all of her husbands brothers. It was a shameful incident. But she boldly did it for the redemption of her family. The witnesses praised Ruth, placing her in the same rank of Tamar from the perspective of redemption history. So it is with us. When we confess in our community, one of our senior witnesses will praise us, saying 'We have a role model whos been there!'
③ Theres no discriminating between my from your child in our community. It is not easy for us to bless others truly along with their child. Yet the town women(v.14) truly blessed Ruth, saying 'May this baby grow up to be famous in Israel!' Thus the witness community shows no discrimination among its children. By faith, we can bless others without jealousy. Therefore, encountering a true witness community is a great blessing to us.
2. Jehovahs blessing precedes us. Boaz didnt stop doing his ministry till it was done. He did his best in his marriage project and then in his marital duty. And God blessed Ruth, the barren woman with pregnancy. In order to be productive spiritually and physically, we need to be sincere in our small application of worshiping, stopping drinking and smoking, and doing exercise with our minimum obedience. All that Ruth and Boaz did in their trials, from chapter 1 to 4, was trust God. This is their minimum obedience. The goal of our life is producing our spiritual offspring. Ruth gave birth to Obed after the time of her obedience was fulfilled.
3. Only God blesses our children. Notice that Obed is called Naomis Goel even though Boaz supported her. The restorer and the supporter of our elderly life will be our spiritual heir. Obeds physical parents are Ruth and Boaz, yet he is called Naomis son. Later, however, he is described as Boazs son in verse 21 and in Matthew chapter 1. They seem to be saying Hes your son, not mine. This is how Obed became a son of them all. Finally, God had Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz enrolled in Jesus genealogy. Thus the theme of Ruth and the whole Bible is living for our spiritual heirs through sharing the gospel and our ministry of redemption.
4. It ends with Jesus genealogy beyond natural descent or human decision. Jesus genealogy started with Perez, son of Judah and Tamar, his daughter in law. God hates adultery and lewdness the most. Yet he placed the woman of adultery in his lineage. The feature of those who belong to the genealogy is rejoicing in Jesus despite the scourge of their ancestors. Heres the sharing of one of our deacons who sired a spiritual heir after reviving from his trial through the blessing of his witness community. Because of his irregular pulse, his son fell in front of the pulpit on the very day when he first came to our church . His heartbeat stopped on his way to the hospital. Even though he narrowly escape death thanks to the CPR, he has been living in a coma for 6 years. Through his son in his sickbed during this 6 years, the deacon and his family met Jesus, using the same language in Jesus and enjoying the Sabbath with a grateful heart. We can praise God in the midst of our trials not because of our childs success but because of our witness community. May God bless us all to keep praising God through our testimony and to share it with others.
The women said to Naomi: 'Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! (Ruth 4:14)
