Seven Mile Road

As Christians, we are called to pursue gospel ends by gospel means, entrusting ourselves fully to God not only in what we are going for but in how we get there.

This Sunday we’ll see our father-in-the-faith Boaz do just this. In love, He entrusts himself and his future to God, not only by committing himself to the costly redemption of Ruth, but by refusing to sinfully usurp the right of the first redeemer on his way there.

In doing so he typifies Christ, who took no shortcuts in His redemption of us.

 Ruth 4:1-10

We said that the book of Ruth is a love story … but not the kind you’d expect! It begins with the love of a daughter-in-law for her mother-in-law (surprise!). Then we are caught off guard again as we realize that Boaz and Ruth’s marriage is about more being in love: it’s about a bigger, deeper mission that God is accomplishing through them for the good of others, not just for themselves.

In this sermon we’ll see this beautiful reality unfold and consider how all marriages are meant to work this way.

This month Pastor Matt had a special opportunity to sit down with not one but two Katies! Katie Barker and Katie Ryou give an update on this fall's Kalos Team initiative. Some of the newest married women that are a part of the life of Seven Mile Road are participating in a newly-married-women's-intensive.  Listen for a glimpse into what is happening in that intensive and how the Spirit is working through it. 

We stop right where we are in the story of Ruth and rerun the scene zooming in on Boaz. 

What we see is a worthy man, and upon more than a cursory glance, we see the marks of his vocation or work. There were marks of how Boaz ran his business that showed he loved God deeply. It made his work different; it made his work worthy.

In our story, we’ll see God has given us our work as a venue to display our love for Him. What marks of your work show you’re a gospel-infused follower of Jesus?

The gospel births in us a relentless optimism because we have entrusted ourselves to a God of limitless grace. That doesn’t mean we presume that everything will go our way every time. But it does mean that, by faith, we get up every day and give ourselves - energetically and expectantly - to doing the next gospel-shaped thing, confident that God will meet us with all the grace we need … and often more than we could even have imagined!

This Sunday we’ll see Ruth, in love for Naomi, doing just that. And we’ll see both of them finding more favor than they ever could have expected, because this is how the God of gospel grace works.

The gospel life is a life of love. We’ve been loved – deeply, steadfastly, sacrificially – by God, and now we bend that love out to others. The Hebrew word for this kind of love is “hesed,” a concept so beautifully rich we don’t have a single, compatible word for it in English.

In this sermon, our breath will be stolen (as Naomi’s was!) as we see Ruth put the beauty of “hesed” on full display in her refusal to leave Naomi’s side no matter the cost.

The book of Ruth spins tragic fast: within a few sentences a woman named Naomi has everything that mattered in her life taken away.

Everything.

She's not technically dead, but she might as well be.

What does a daughter (or son) of God do in those moments?

We fall towards God, and that falling is called "lament."

In this sermon we think on how we can build a culture in our church where lament is allowed and embraced.

For the next 3 months we are going to be swimming in the deep gospel waters of the Biblical book of Ruth.

It’s a love story ... but not the kind you’d think. 
It’s a hope story … in bitter and bleak circumstances.
It’s a 3,100 year old story … yet strikingly relevant for today.
It’s a gospel story … the best kind there are.

We dive in in this sermon.