00:00:00 We\'re starting a new series today called Thriving Families. Over the next few weeks, we are going to look at scripture to see what makes thriving families. And as the first part of the series today, we are going to look at the topic called Finding Faithful Love. And we are going to draw some inspiration for this topic from the Book of Ruth. It\'s not a brief passage, there\'s four chapters. We got to read a couple of chapters this morning. 00:00:37 But we want to do this because we believe that God cares about families. That\'s the first and most important point we want to understand. God is the one who created the families in the Garden of Eden, even before the Fall. And God is the one who creates families since that time. He was the one who preserved Noah\'s family. He was the one who helped with Abraham to become a father of many nations. He helped his children, Isaac and Jacob, to find the right spouses they need. 00:01:13 And he has been helping build families since then till now. And if we come to the New Testament, almost all of the epistles, or several of the epistles, have very specific encouraging words of exhortation on families, for husbands, for wives, for children, and all of that. And we\'re going to look at several of these passages over the next few weeks, so we get a holistic picture of how can we align with God\'s Word for our families to also be thriving families. 00:01:52 And this is a question for us today as we are focusing on the topic of finding faithful love. If you\'re single, your question is probably when and how do I find a spouse for myself? Or perhaps you have some fears and inhibitions about even pursuing a marriage because you either saw or a broken marriage in your home or with your friends and you\'re not too sure, or you\'re just confused. 00:02:32 And if you\'re a parent like me, especially dads, we are burdened for our children to find the right spouse at the right time so they can start a thriving, godly family, isn\'t it? And for those of us and you who are married, you have your own story of how you met your spouse, right? I\'ve been involved in some of your lives, especially those that got married recently, with all the updated processes. I keep learning new apps that keep coming up every other week, I guess right now. 00:03:07 From old traditional times where your friends or families would help connect or set you up. But if you look at scripture, scripture gives no dating script or process of how to do it. But it does give explicitly a focus and an emphasis when you think about getting married on three C\'s. It focuses on character, it focuses on counsel, and covenant. The mechanics can differ. Different cultures can do it differently at different times in different places. 00:03:46 And here in this book, we have the story of two very unlikely people coming together and forming, getting married and entering a married life. Boaz, who is an Israelite man, and Ruth, who is a Moabite woman. If Boaz had to sit his children down and tell them, \"Hey, do you know how I met your mother?\" It would be an incredible story, which literally is and has been one for the ages. One of the most intriguing and best stories of how God brought two people together. 00:04:34 But here\'s the interesting thing about the book of Ruth. If you read through the entire book of Ruth, God never explicitly speaks in this book. He doesn\'t go and whisper into Boaz\'s ears, \"Hey, marry this girl.\" Or he doesn\'t go and tell Ruth, \"This is who you should marry.\" There is no prophet, there is no miracle, there is no voice from heaven. But what you get instead in this book is four ordinary people living in a very hard decade. 00:05:08 There\'s a widow, there\'s a foreigner, there\'s a farmer, and then comes a baby. And today, I want to look at this passage in three distinct views. We want to look at the portrait, three portraits. Portrait of a woman who loves faithfully, portrait of a man who loves faithfully, and portrait of a God who loves faithfully. And hopefully, we\'ll draw some insights, inspirations from each of these passages. 00:05:44 And before we go into this, we need to understand a little bit just to give you a backdrop or background of what\'s going on here. It starts with the words, \"In the days when the judges ruled.\" The Book of Ruth comes right after the Book of Judges. And if you follow and if you\'ve been reading through the Bible- There is one phrase that keeps repeating in the Book of Judges, and that\'s: everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And this was a time as a nation, Israel was spiritually bankrupt. 00:06:18 And on top of it, we read that there was a famine in Bethlehem. The name Bethlehem, the Hebrew name, literally means house of bread. Beth is house, and lehem is bread. The house of bread has no bread in a land where God brought his chosen people, and his presence seems to be missing. And then, this is not just a geographical insight, it\'s real theology here. And then the focus light moves to a family who leaves the covenant land of Israel for Moab. 00:07:00 The people of Israel were told to keep Moab at arm\'s length. We read that in Deuteronomy 23:3. And then there is this man whose name, Elimelek, which also has a very interesting Hebrew name. El, we all know is the name for God. Eli is a personal pronoun. So melekh means king. So Elimelek means my God is king, and he\'s leaving the land of the king in the era when Israel has no king. And it doesn\'t just stop here. The downward spiral just keeps getting worse and worse. 00:07:39 Within the first five verses, there are four catastrophic events happening. Three funerals. The woman, Naomi, first loses her husband in a strange foreign land, and then she loses her first son and her second son in this foreign country with no male protection, no source of income, no legal standing, and two foreign daughters-in-law. This is not a romantic book or a novel or a story. This is a widow in a refugee situation. 00:08:22 And the book is going to reveal to us that God is still at work in this dire situation, and he\'s doing his redemptive work inside of all these things that look so bleak, and he\'s going to do something amazing and build a thriving family out of it. Very hard to believe if you just read the first five verses in this book. So let\'s look at the portrait of a woman who loves faithfully. 00:08:51 One of the things that stands out in this first chapter, in this conversation that Naomi has with her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, is fascinating. There is one word that comes up very strongly. It\'s in Ruth 1:8. It says, \"May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.\" Before anything else, notice what has already happened here in Moab that the narrator didn\'t describe much. 00:09:35 For 10 years, a bitter Israelite woman and two Moabite daughters-in-law took care of each other with kindness. Naomi\'s own testimony is that they dealt kindly with her. Now, if we read through this very fast, it may not hit us, but if you just take a step back, I\'m going to do a small digression, not related to the core of this. I was fascinated by the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law dynamic going on here. Do you ever think of it, look at it from that lens? 00:10:14 How is usually mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationships in your cultures? And I can even see right as I am, I\'m not judging you, there\'s some angry faces, some sad faces. Some are like, \"Why are you even talking about my mother-in-law right now? Came to church and wanted to have a good time.\" And we know in some cultures especially, it\'s not a very great relationship. In fact, most of the times in some cultures, mother-in-laws treat their daughter-in-laws as slaves or servants. Right? 00:10:55 In the sense like, \"Hey, I gave you my son. Now you have to take care of me and do whatever I want, whenever I want, and however I want.\" There is absolutely no element of kindness towards them. And for daughter-in-laws, too. Many of you escaped living near your mother-in-laws because what you hear is for those who live very close to mother-in-laws, what\'s the most common refrain that or maybe we can say a weapon that you use? \"I want to go to my mother\'s house.\" 00:11:28 Some of you do it even here, though you\'re not near your mother-in-laws. Find a reason to just escape and go and spend months in your mother\'s house. That\'s a different story for another time, isn\'t it? But this is so counterintuitive, countercultural in so many ways. The mother-in-law is caring for her daughters-in-law with kindness, and the daughters-in-law have been caring for their mother-in-law. These daughters-in-law are not even Israelites, they are Moabites, with kindness. 00:12:02 These are some big-time mother-in-law, daughter-in-law goals, by the way. But you don\'t go tell your mother-in-law you should be kind, okay? The central Hebrew word for kindness that comes out in this passage is the word \"hesed.\" Shows up three times in Ruth 1:8, chapter 2:20, and chapter 3:10. English gives us this word as kindness. But kindness is, first of all, being kind, but it also stems from a firm covenant loyalty. 00:12:44 This love, this desire to be kind to someone comes because of a promise and not a feeling. It is the one word in the Old Testament that is used more times to refer to God than any other word, because this kindness is an attribute of God. His loving kindness is better than life. And here in this chapter, that word, that\'s an integral part of God\'s attribute and who He is, is describing two Moabite women. Kindness is a first virtue. Kindness is not a soft one. 00:13:36 It actually takes strength to be kind in a hostile moment. It takes nothing to snap when something goes out of the way, isn\'t it? You\'re weak if you snap. You need strength to be kind. The Proverbs tells us a soft answer turns away wrath. And those of us who are married, I can share from my own married life, the most profound, helpful words are when my wife speaks kindly in ways to challenge that just melts my heart. There\'s just no defense for kindness, isn\'t it? But here\'s the problem. 00:14:30 You cannot display a kindness that you have never received, and you will not receive kindness if you don\'t know the God whose kindness is this. Romans 2:4 says, \"God\'s kindness and forbearance and patience leads you to repentance.\" Kindness is a lubricant in every relationship, and its absence grinds a marriage to a screeching halt. So if you are not married, you may want to first begin by asking, \"Where have I experienced God\'s kindness in my own life?\" 00:15:19 Or for those who are married, and if kindness is not something that defines, that lubricant is missing in your married life, Romans 2:4 encourages you and gives you an option to repent and go and seek God\'s goodness because it is there for you. And I want to have a word for parents, too. I know it\'s talking about finding faithful love, but kindness is something, as parents, you want to instill as a core value in your children, even when they are young. 00:16:00 And sometimes something that is good can turn out to be a challenge, right? If you are raising your children in an overprotective environment, or if your home is a child-centered home where you make them feel like they are the most important person, you want to give them the best education, the best school, the best gifts, the best toys, make sure they don\'t fall, they don\'t fail, it tends to puff up their sense of self-image and pride and self in them. 00:16:35 And the first time they fail or something fails, they can\'t handle it. They melt down, they throw a tantrum. And the way to teach it is for you to model it and to pray for it. Because you know what? Kindness is not a switch you can flip when you\'re 40. It needs to be instilled and cultivated and developed over time. And that\'s something that we see is there in these women. Secondly, it talks of covenant loyalty. Naomi releases them. 00:17:08 Three times she tells them to go, and she does it by disclosing the full cost. She\'s not hiding it. She says, \"I have no more sons. I am too old. The hand of the Lord has gone out against me.\" And one of her daughter-in-laws, Orpah, goes back. She weeps, she kisses her mother-in-law, she obeys the instruction she was given, and her choice is reasonable. And the narrator doesn\'t condemn her. He just notes what she returns to, her people and her gods. 00:17:41 The tragedy of Orpah isn\'t that she was wicked or bad, it\'s that she was just sensible. But here\'s what comes to talk about Ruth. Says Ruth clings. The same word cling, the root word, Hebrew word, is used in Genesis of a man clinging to his wife, and that\'s a covenantal language And what follows next is the most extraordinary covenant vow you can see in the Old Testament outside of God\'s own mouth. This is what Ruth says. She says, \"Where you go, I will go.\" She has surrendered her geography. 00:18:26 \"Your people shall be my people.\" She has surrendered her identity. \"Your God will be my God.\" She has surrendered worship. \"Where you die, I will die.\" She surrendered her future. \"May the Lord do so to me, and more also.\" And she uses the word Yahweh, which is the covenant name of God. And look at the order and the significance. She starts with first God. 00:18:58 First, unlike the other daughter-in-law, she has realized if she needs her life to be stable and to thrive, more than marriage, what she first needs is this covenantal God that she saw in her husband and in her mother-in-law. That\'s the order, my friends, especially for those who are looking to find this faithful love, is to start with God, and then everything else. God and people. We normally run it backwards, isn\'t it? 00:19:35 Most of these apps and algorithms, they try to map you to compatibilities and based on your career profiles, your comfort levels, your hobbies, and all of that, which is good. There\'s nothing wrong or bad about it. And even if people are trying to connect one another, there\'s all these other dynamics. God is usually left out in the margins. Ruth inverts it at the exact moment when following Yahweh has the worst possible risk profile. 00:20:08 If you look at the visible evidence, this god\'s track record with their family is three graves. Why would you want to follow a god who took away your husband, who took away your mother-in-law\'s husband, and your brother-in-law too? That is what faith is. It\'s not looking at outcomes. It\'s allegiance without guarantees. But it\'s wonderful to see what Naomi is not doing. Naomi explicitly urges both women toward remarriage twice. 00:20:50 Ruth turns it down to care for a bitter, aging widow with nothing to offer her. And that\'s something she demonstrates that I think some of our young people can take from. She\'s not desperate about marriage. Sometimes the pursuit for marriage can be really about a pursuit for security, isn\'t it? And that\'s a pressure sometimes the culture around you can also put on you, or even for parents, sometimes that\'s the pressure we can put on our children. 00:21:25 I can\'t tell you how many times people come to me and ask, \"When are you going to get your daughter married?\" Because people have some math, I think, in their mind, right? Oh, if they are this age, they should be married by now or something\'s going to happen and their life is going to end. Ruth feels no pressure when she should be feeling pressure, with no sense of livelihood, with no family or home to go to, and walking with a widow and trusting in a God whose track record is terrible. 00:21:56 Being single can sometimes be the best phase of your life, where you use that phase to discover God, use that phase to serve Him cheerfully, develop godly friendships, authentic relationships, and grow in all these things so you can be ready when and where God brings someone into your life in His own providence in any of the myriad different ways. Parents, please don\'t put that pressure on your children. Pray for them. You can pray. God answers prayers. 00:22:32 And that\'s why when security finally arrives, we know that it was a gift and not a transaction, isn\'t it? So we see there is kindness, there is covenant loyalty, and thirdly, we see in chapter three, what happens is godly counsel is received and obeyed. By chapter three, Naomi changes. She\'s very bitter in the end of chapter one. She goes back, she says, \"Call me Mara. God has done bitterly with me,\" and all of that. In chapter three, she\'s no longer only a grieving mother-in-law. 00:23:11 She\'s an older, believing woman of God giving direction. She asks her, \"Should I not seek rest for you?\" She knows the law of redemption in Old Testament law, about there being a family line, about there having to be a kinsman redeemer, the man\'s character and his schedule. And Ruth\'s reply is five words: \"All that you say, I will do.\" She submits the most consequential decision of her life to an older believer who knows both God\'s word and the man in question. 00:23:48 It\'s very different sometimes in America. It\'s a very individualistic culture that sometimes today you just have to go find that person, however you want, and sort of discounts the value of godly counsel. And isolation is where nearly every catastrophic relationship decisions are made. So don\'t do this alone if you\'re trying to find a godly spouse. 00:24:17 If you cannot name three older believers who actually know the person you are seeing and have been invited to speak honestly, you don\'t have counsel. You\'re just making up your own decisions, and that\'s dangerous. It could be dangerous. And ask these older believers the right questions. You have several married women in our church and probably where you work and outside. And ask them, \"What do you wish you had understood before you were married? 00:24:45 What matters more at 20 years of marriage than it did on a first date? What warning sign should I not ignore?\" You get this free, valuable counsel. What\'s in a person\'s heart will never come out in a dating app or even through a friend or a family member who can connect him or her to you, isn\'t it? You can pursue any of those routes. The apps cost you some money. I used to joke around with some friends. 00:25:21 Back in India, what we have is called F Harmony, which is family and friends harmony, and it\'s free. They\'ll connect you to people, you get free food, they\'ll take care of your transportation, and they serve as your personal assistant. And use it. There\'s no subscription or app to use. But either way, have godly people speak into this very important decision of your life. I want to stop there. We can keep going. This is not the exhaustive list. 00:25:57 There are so many others we can talk about, but these are just three things that come out organically from the Book of Ruth, of the portrait of a woman who loves faithfully. Kindness, covenant loyalty, and godly counsel. Now let\'s shift gears and look at the man who loves faithfully. Ruth 2:1 says, \"Now Naomi...\" Here\'s the introduction of the hero of the story who comes in a little late. \"Now Naomi had a relative of her husband\'s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.\" 00:26:37 He comes in with this description that he was a worthy man, a man of strength, substance, and integrity. And the same word actually comes back in Ruth 3:11 when Boaz says to Ruth, \"All my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman.\" Same Hebrew term. The book is deliberately hanging both these portraits side by side, a worthy woman and a worthy man. So what makes him worthy? A worthy woman meets a worthy man, and they get married and start a thriving family. What makes Boaz worthy? 00:27:20 It isn\'t that he owns a field. It isn\'t what he does with his position, his strength, and resources. Firstly, he recognizes godly character and values it. In 2:11, which we did not read, you can go back and read, he says, \"All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me.\" Men tend to get captivated by appearance, and here\'s Boaz. He\'s not falling for that. He\'s not captivated by her appearance. He\'s not measuring her assets. She has none. 00:28:00 He heard how she treated an old woman who could do nothing for her, and that is what he valued. The Bible says, \"Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.\" And in 3:10, he adds, \"Without vanity, you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich.\" He knows she had more obvious options than him. So men, if you are seeking to find a spouse, what gets your attention? 00:28:37 And are you becoming a man capable of recognizing and honoring what God values when you see it? Secondly, we see he uses his strength to protect and not to exploit. If you read the story in the second chapter, Ruth goes to the field that is owned by Boaz to work, and it\'s a very dangerous mission. And it\'s dangerous to her life because the Israelites and Moabites didn\'t have the best of relationship. They\'ve had wars. There\'s some animosity there. 00:29:20 And if you\'re a Moabite woman and you are going and entering an Israelite farm field, which is also filled with Israelite men, you can be under attack. Your life could be at risk and more. So Boaz tells Ruth to stay in his field. He commands the young men not to touch her. He makes sure she has water and food. He tells the harvesters to leave extra grain. He has social power, financial power, male power, and here is Ruth is a poor foreign widow with no protection. 00:29:57 He does not use her vulnerability for his gratification. He spends his strength on her safety. This is biblical manhood. One of the sad things I hear from some of the young girls who are trying to find godly spouses is when someone asks them out to meet and talk about it Even Christian guys, they are waiting to take advantage of them in the very first meeting. So sad. Because that\'s what they value, that\'s what they want. That\'s not biblical manhood, my dear friends. 00:30:40 God does not give a man strength, control to intimidate, manipulate, or exploit. He gives it so that the man can protect, provide, serve, and sacrifice. Men, the measure of your strength is how many people are safer and stronger because you are present for them. And thirdly, we see he works. In chapter three, he owns the field. It says Boaz is at the threshing floor at night, winnowing his own barley. He\'s a landowner and still he\'s in the field, not passive, not entitled, not careless. 00:31:22 A godly man doesn\'t have to be wealthy. He has to be willing to stand up and take care of his own life. And I know, especially this is a very specific context for our Silicon Valley, perhaps, after COVID and the house prices being so high. I know several of you still live with your parents, even if you have a job. May I gently challenge you to get out, get your own house, stop living in your parents\' home. I know your parents are going to be so mad at me after this. I\'ll take that fire. 00:32:05 And live your life. I know you all make big bucks and work for big tech companies, but you got to grow a spiritual spine, a financial spine, and be a man to know that you can take care of yourself first. Otherwise, you\'re going to continue to expect and wait for this girl to come and baby you like your mom babied you in your house, doing your own laundry and cooking your own food. Right? So please get out of your homes, and I\'m going to talk to you guys about that. 00:32:41 And thirdly, and most importantly, he keeps his integrity in private, absolutely guarded. Chapter three is one of the most misunderstood scene in the book. A woman goes at night alone to a threshing floor where a man has fallen asleep after a feast and lies down at his feet. It\'s genuinely dangerous. And then Ruth says, \"Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.\" And if you go back one chapter, Boaz had prayed over her. 00:33:15 In chapter 2, verse 12, he says, \"May you find refuge under the wings of the Lord.\" It\'s the same Hebrew word for wings, \"Kanaph.\" The wing talks of the corner of a garment because it is a refuge Boaz recognizes is something that only a covenantal God can do. And here\'s Ruth talking to Boaz, saying, \"Boaz, become the answer to your own prayer. Do what a family redeemer does.\" You need some history to understand that. Take me into the protection of covenant. This is not seduction. 00:33:54 This is a courageous, honorable proposal grounded in God\'s own provision. Boaz has the opportunity, darkness, solitude, wealth, status, and a woman at his feet, and nobody\'s watching. But Boaz knows God is watching. He doesn\'t ask, \"What can I get away with?\" He asks what is right before the Lord. Then he protects her reputation ahead of his own. He says, \"Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor,\" and he sends her off before dawn. 00:34:29 Men, character is what you do when you have power, opportunity, and secrecy at the same time. Men, sexual purity is not merely avoiding a scandal. It\'s seeing a woman as an image-bearer and treating her accordingly. And singles, do not confuse intense attraction with faithful love. Someone who pressures you to disobey God does not really love you. Faithful love protects holiness. He won\'t take the shortcut. Chapter 3, verse 12, he says, \"It is true that I am a redeemer. 00:35:12 Yes, there is a redeemer nearer than I.\" Boaz warns her. He could stay quiet about the other claim because as per the Israelite law, if there is another redeemer in your family, he has to redeem you first. I\'ll come to that in a minute. Instead, he names the obstacle to his own desire, and he commits to settling it publicly at the town gate rather than privately in the dark. He\'s saying, \"I want you, but I want to honor God more.\" That\'s one of the clearest marks of spiritual maturity. 00:35:48 He says, \"I will not disobey God in order to obtain something good.\" Sometimes people say, \"But we love each other.\" Biblical love answers, \"Then let\'s honor God together.\" A faithful man does not merely express affection, he assumes responsibility. So men, two things before we move on. Grow a spiritual spine. Boaz makes decisions, names costs, and settles matters. He doesn\'t drift. Step out of your parents\' home and step up. Seek honorable friendships first. 00:36:27 Through friends, through family, through connections app, if that\'s how it works in your world, but move. You need to make the move as a man. Boaz didn\'t wait for it to happen to him. And married men, let me ask you this question. Does your wife experience you as a man of integrity? Do you protect her, listen to her, keep your promises, help her flourish in Christ? And when you fail, do you defend yourself or do you repent quickly? But we need more than Boaz as an example, men. 00:37:10 Boaz was called as a kinsman redeemer, which is where we are going. As a kinsman redeemer is someone who is special. And I will come to that in the next part. The final part, we talk about the portrait of a God who loves faithfully. When Naomi walks back into Bethlehem, the whole town comes out. She says this devastatingly, \"I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Don\'t call me Naomi,\" which means pleasant, \"Call me Mara,\" which means bitter. 00:37:53 \"The Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.\" Now, hold that word and jump to the end of chapter three. Ruth comes home from the threshing floor with grain in her cloak, and she tells Naomi what Boaz said. \"You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law.\" The same word empty-handed is used here. Naomi said, \"The Lord brought me back empty,\" and the Lord has been answering that ever since she said it through a harvest, through a field, through a man who noticed. 00:38:26 Though God never speaks in this book, He acts through all these ordinary means. By a harvest that happens to be barley season the week they arrive. By a field that happens to belong to a relative. By a man who happens to be at the threshing floor at the right time, at the right place. By a woman who wouldn\'t leave. And Naomi says it herself in chapter two, verse 20, \"He has not forsaken His kindness, His hesed, to the living or the dead.\" 00:39:00 The Hebrew is famously ambiguous about whether he means Boaz or Yahweh here. This ambiguity is the theology of this book. When you see hesed, kindness in a person, you\'re looking at a leak from God\'s own character, and that\'s precious. The first two portraits are painted from the third portrait of a God who loves faithfully. Ruth\'s loyalty and Boaz\'s restraint are not human achievements that we can produce by ourselves, that God wants you to just copy and imitate. 00:39:37 They are what God\'s faithfulness looks like when it shows up in two ordinary people. Boaz is called Goel, a kinsman redeemer. The law required three things of a kinsman redeemer, and all three had to be true, or the redemption failed. They had to be related to the person, they had to have the ability to redeem that person, and they had to have the willingness to redeem that person. And now let\'s put Jesus Christ in that frame. 00:40:10 He had to be related to redeem you and me, so He had to become one of us. Hebrews 2:14 says, \"Since the children share in flesh and blood, He himself partook of the same.\" He didn\'t redeem us from a distance, a safe distance. He came into our famine. Second, He has to be able to do it. No debt of ours exceeded what He had to spend. Not with silver or gold, but with His own blood, and we celebrated that in the communion. 00:40:44 Third, He had to be willing to redeem us, and this is the one that should stop you. Boaz redeemed a woman of proven character whom the whole town already respected. Christ redeemed us in our Moab while we were still enemies with nothing commendable in the file for our reputation. And there was a nearer claim on us, the demand of the law. We had to obey the law, which we could not, and we did not. We failed in practicing kindness. We failed in practicing integrity. Christ did not step around it. 00:41:22 He satisfied it in public through His life and His death at the cross so that nothing about redemption would ever be contested. Boaz protected Ruth\'s honor. Christ covers our shame with His righteousness. Boaz welcomed an outsider into the covenant community. Christ gathers people from every tribe, language, nation, caste, ethnicity into His family. Boaz settled the matter at the city gate. Christ settled ours outside the gate at the cross. 00:41:59 And Naomi\'s last word about Boaz in chapter three is this, \"The man will not rest until he settles the matter today.\" Boaz would not rest until it was settled. Jesus did not stop until He could say it is finished, and He came after you and me. Naomi tells Ruth, \"Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out.\" Ruth has done everything she can. Boaz has given his word. 00:42:29 Now she waits And waiting is one of the hardest expressions of faith, especially in the context of marriage, isn\'t it? We want to accelerate the process, resolve the uncertainty. Sometimes faithfulness is obeying and then resting in the character of the Redeemer. So how does it all end? A Moabite woman from an excluded nation becomes the great-grandmother of David, and her name stands in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1. 00:43:05 The book opened with the family that was disintegrating and falling apart, and it ends with God giving this family and making it thrive, not just for one, but for hundreds of years later on, with the pinnacle of Jesus Christ himself coming from that family. The women of Bethlehem stand over Naomi holding a baby and say, \"A restorer of life,\" in chapter 4, verse 15. Naomi never saw David. She was dead long before he was gone. 00:43:42 The hand she was certain had gone against her was the hand writing the genealogy of the Redeemer. In Old Testament times, what was valued was not your wealth or your acquisitions. What was valued was your family name, and that is why it was important to have children. And when Naomi lost her husband, she thought her family name is gone, her respect will be gone. But now she gets the respect of all respects of being one of the four parents, mothers of Jesus Christ himself. 00:44:23 So as I close with some applications, for those who are single, let me encourage you. Don\'t merely search for the right person. Seek to become a faithful person. Look beyond charm, chemistry, income, shared interests. Look for kindness rooted in God\'s kindness. Loyalty when life gets hard, a real relationship with Christ, humility that receives counsel, sexual integrity, willingness to work, courage to do the costly right thing. 00:44:59 None of that is detectable by a filter, because it only surfaces under pressure over time in front of other people. An app can introduce you. It cannot discern character for you. So live and pursue relationships where a community can see you both. For those of you who are married, stop asking, \"Did I find a faithful spouse?\" And start asking, \"Am I being that one? Am I kind when my spouse fails? Am I loyal when life is hard? Do I protect their dignity? Do I repent when I sin? 00:45:38 Do I keep my promises? Am I helping my spouse find deeper refuge under the wings of God?\" You cannot produce covenant love by trying harder. You return to the cross and receive it. We love because He first loved us. And if you are a parent, remember, you\'re not primarily building a marriage pipeline for your children. You\'re modeling, teaching, and praying for the character that makes the covenant possible, starting with kindness. Let them see that modeled in your home. 00:46:14 And if you are in a Moab season in your life, be as honest as Naomi was. She told God publicly in front of the whole town, and the book gives her the last blessing in it. In this book, God\'s hesed, kindness, always arrives on foot, carrying grain at harvest, and He will send people into your lives to be that for you. But the Book of Ruth is also a picture of what a church is supposed to be. 00:46:48 A foreigner, a widow, an outsider, and God brought her among His people, put her inside His promises, and wrote her into the story of redemption. We are not a gathering of people who found God. We are a community of people the Redeemer found, and that\'s what we are called to be to those around us. The book begins with famine, funerals, and emptiness, and God is quietly moving every part of it toward fulfillness. Ruth found faithful love, but only because faithful love had already found Ruth. 00:47:25 Behind Ruth\'s loyalty stands God\'s covenant. Behind Boaz\'s redemption stands the redeeming grace of Christ. Behind Naomi\'s emptiness stands the providence of a God preparing fullness. So maybe you came this morning asking, \"How do I find faithful love?\" The deeper question is, have you been found by it? Come under His wings, receive His kindness, trust His work, and having been loved by Him, go and love faithfully.