Ruth 2 // Kindness that changes the world

Amen. Galatians chapter 5, reading from verse 16. I'll be reading, first of all, from the International Children's Bible.

! So I tell you, live by following the Spirit. Then you will not do what your sinful selves want. Our sinful selves want what is against the Spirit.

The Spirit wants what is against our sinful selves. The two are against each other. So you must not do just what you please. But if you let the Spirit lead you, you are not under the law.

The wrong things the sinful self does are clear. Being sexually unfaithful, not being pure, taking part in sexual sins, worshipping false gods, doing witchcraft, hating, making trouble, being jealous, being angry, being selfish, making people angry with each other, causing divisions among people.

Having envy, being drunk, having wild and wasteful parties, and doing other things like this. I warn you now, as I warned you before, those who do these things will not be in God's kingdom.

But the Spirit gives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

There is no law that says these things are wrong. Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified their own sinful selves. They have given up their old selfish feelings and the evil things they wanted to do.

We get our new life from the Spirit, so we should follow the Spirit. This is the Word of the Lord. Reading from the Book of Ruth, which can be found on page 267 of the Bibles there in front of you.

So reading from the Book of Ruth on page 267, we'll be starting at the end of chapter 1 from verse 22 until verse 18 and the following chapter.

Ruth chapter 1 verse 22. So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Emelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.

Naomi said to her, Go ahead, my daughter. And so she went out, entered a field, and began to glean behind the harvesters. And as it turned out, she was working in a field that belonged to Boaz, who was from the clan of Emelech.

Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters. The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you, they answered. Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, Who does that young woman belong to?

The overseer replied, She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters. She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.

So Boaz said to Ruth, My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in any other field. Don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me.

Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.

At this she bowed down with her face to the ground and she asked him, Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me, a foreigner? Boaz replied, I have been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother on your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.

May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord, she said.

You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant, though I do not have the standing of one of your servants. At mealtime, Boaz said to her, Come over here, have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.

When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men.

Let her gather among the sheaves and don't reprimand her. Even pull out some stocks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up and don't rebuke her. So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening.

Then she threshed the barley she had gathered and it amounted to a button ephath. And she carried it back to town and her mother-in-law saw how much she gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, Josh, for reading. Let me add my welcome. It's absolutely brilliant to see you all here.

And if you're here visiting St. Silas or here as a guest or this is your first time indeed, we're delighted to have you with us. And we'd love to get to know you a little bit better after this service of tea and coffee.

Well, we're continuing, as Robbie said, our summer series in the fruit of the Spirit today. And this morning we're thinking about kindness. And we're going to do it a little bit differently than last week.

Last week we sort of traced the theme of patience through the Scriptures. This week we'll be focusing on this brilliant little chapter in the book of Ruth, chapter 2 of Ruth, as a kind of lens through which we will see the God who is kind and the kindness of his people.

And let us show us just how much God can do through ordinary acts of kindness. So let's pray and then we'll get cracking. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your living words.

And as we come to the book of Ruth, would you open our eyes to see the extraordinary kindness that you have shown us ultimately in your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

By your Holy Spirit, then shape us through your word today. Grow us in kindness, grow in us the fruits of kindness, both as individuals and as a church family, so that our lives might make your kindness visible to those around us.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, does what we do really matter? Does what we do really matter?

I suppose most of us have asked that kind of question at one time or another. Does what we do really matter? Does what I do actually make that much of a difference?

You know, we turn on the news and assume that history is shaped by presidents and politicians, people in power. And it's easy to assume that the ordinary acts of ordinary people don't really amount to very much, don't really change very much.

Perhaps that's one reason that kindness can feel a little kind of underwhelming. We admire kindness. We're sometimes moved by kindness.

We certainly appreciate it when we are receiving kindness. At the start of our holiday in Latvia, I was lying on the beach looking forward to reading a novel.

I'd been for a long swim and dried off and opened the first page. I don't think I'd got very far. I don't think I'd even managed to read the first sentence before I felt my eyelids starting to feel a little bit heavy and before I drifted off into a deep sleep, which was lovely for me, less lovely for everyone within earshot apparently.

After a while, I woke up with a start. Where am I? How long have I been asleep? I'm probably burnt to a crisp, red as a lobster. But when I opened my eyes, I couldn't see anything at first because someone, I'm assuming my wife, had put our daughter's straw hat over my face and covered me with towels to keep the sun off.

A tiny act of kindness, but one for which I was very grateful. We all appreciate kindness when we're shown it. Our culture even talks about random acts of kindness.

But if we're honest, we often think of kindness as simply being nice, pleasant, thoughtful, but not particularly significant.

We rarely think of kindness as something that changes the world. Yet I want to suggest this morning that the Bible has a very different attitude towards kindness.

It presents kindness very differently. Not as weak, not as sentimental, but as astonishingly powerful. Someone recently gave me a novel called Theo of Golden.

It wasn't the one I was reading on the beach. I wonder if any of you have read Theo of Golden. Well, it's a story of an elderly man who quietly arrives in a struggling little town.

He doesn't make headlines. He doesn't perform miracles. He simply takes an interest in people. He listens. He helps.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, his creative acts of kindness begin to ripple through the community. And without giving too much away, it's a story about the surprising power of ordinary kindness.

And as I've been reflecting on Ruth this week, it suddenly struck me that the Theo of Golden is remarkably similar. Because Ruth is also another story about ordinary people showing ordinary kindness.

And yet, through those ordinary acts, God is changing the course of history. That's the heartbeat of Ruth chapter 2.

Kindness that changes the world. And so, as we walk through this chapter, we're going to see three dimensions of kindness. Firstly, the hidden kindness of God.

And you know, one of the striking things about the book of Ruth is that God is almost never center stage. There are no miracles, no visions, no fire from heaven.

And yet, every page quietly whispers the same truth. God is here. Try out this little book. God accomplishes his purposes through the ordinary lives of his people.

I think that's one of the book's really great encouragements for us. Because we often long for, don't we, God, to do something spectacular in our lives.

Something dramatic in our lives. We long for that sometimes. Sometimes he does act like that. But much more often, I think, he advances his kingdom through faithful people doing faithful things.

And sometimes those faithful little things seem very small. Sometimes they're very costly. But they're never insignificant.

So let's begin by seeing the Lord's hidden kindness. Now, by chapter 2, Ruth and Naomi have arrived back in Bethlehem. If you know this story, you'll remember how bleak it had become in chapter 1.

Naomi had left Bethlehem in the first place with her husband and two sons. She returns with none of them. She says in chapter 1, verse 21, I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.

Everything seems lost. And yet, one person has stayed with her. Her daughter-in-law, Ruth. And the narrator keeps reminding us who she is.

She is the Moabite. Again and again, we're told that she's an outsider, a foreigner. Someone who, by every human measure, doesn't belong. Yet, at enormous personal cost to herself, to her own prospects, humanly speaking, Ruth has bound herself, not only to Naomi, but more importantly, to Naomi's God.

So let's pick up the story in chapter 2, verse 2. Now, Naomi is more or less paralyzed by grief, but they still need to eat.

So Ruth takes the initiative and simply does the next faithful thing, which in her case is to go out into the fields. Now, she doesn't know where this will lead. She gets up, she goes to work, and she takes the next obedient step.

And isn't that just so often what the Christian life looks like for us? Not seeing 20 years ahead, not seeing 10 years ahead, simply trusting him enough to take the next obedient step.

Now, even before Boaz appears, we're given a glimpse of the Lord's kindness. Because long before Ruth arrived in Bethlehem, God had already written into the fabric of the society, written kindness into the life of his people.

If we move on to the next slide there. When God's people harvested their fields, they weren't to reap right to the edges. They were to leave something behind for the poor and the foreigner.

So just think about that. God had built generosity into Israel's economy. It wasn't simply to kind of maximize their profits.

Even their business practices were to reflect the kindness of the God that they served. And then comes one of my favorite little lines in the book, verse 3.

As it turned out, literally, she happened to come, just so happened to choose this field.

And then in verse 4, would you believe it? Just then, Boaz arrived. What are the chances? Just then, the man himself arrives. And the reader has his tongue firmly in his cheek at this point.

From a human perspective, this might seem like coincidence. But from heaven's perspective, this is divine providence. Ruth thinks that she's simply out there in the field looking for enough grain to feed two widows.

God is leading her to the man who will redeem her. She can't see that yet. But God does. That is the hidden kindness of God.

He's carefully weaving together a story that none of them yet understands. And isn't that, again, so often how God works?

You know, we desperately want to see the whole plan. We want to know what God's got lined up in store for our lives. But most of the time, we can't. We only see what's in front of us.

We only see today's field, today's conversation, today's disappointment, maybe. Today's ordinary act of obedience. Meanwhile, God is quietly weaving together a story far bigger than we can possibly imagine.

And so what looks ordinary to us is often extraordinary in the hands of God. None of this was accidental. What looks like coincidence was all along the hidden hand of God at work in their lives.

And just in case we missed it, the narrator gives us two signposts. So at the end of chapter 2 in verse 20, Naomi looks back over everything that's happened and says, Now, by this point, Boaz has been wonderfully kind, but Naomi sees beyond Boaz.

She sees the Lord. And earlier on in verse 12, Boaz himself says to Ruth, Again, the focus is on the Lord.

Both of these characters, both of them recognize that behind everything that's taking place in this chapter stands the hidden kindness of the Lord.

But that leaves us with another question. How does the hidden kindness of God become visible?

And that's exactly where the story takes us next. The visible kindness of God's people. We've been watching The Hobbit recently with the kids for the first time.

We read it last year and we're sort of skipping through the bits, that are maybe a little bit scary. So it's still actually quite long, even once you've cut out half of it. But there's a line from Gandalf that's really striking.

Here it is. Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But I have found it's the small, everyday deeds of ordinary folk.

Simple acts of kindness and love. Now that isn't Tolkien. It's from the film version. But it could be the book of Ruth, couldn't it?

Because Ruth is the story of ordinary people showing ordinary kindness. And through that ordinary kindness, God is accomplishing extraordinary purposes.

And we've seen throughout chapter 2 that God's hidden hand is at work. Now we've begun to see how he is at work. Because I suppose God could have fed Naomi and Ruth miraculously.

He's done that before. He's done that with Elijah, with the ravens, with the manna from heaven in the wilderness for God's people there. But that's not how he chooses to work here.

Instead, God's hidden kindness becomes visible through the ordinary kindnesses of God's people. And that's exactly where Boaz walks onto the stage in verse 4.

Just then, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters. The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you, they answered. And so immediately we're shown just what a kind of a guy Boaz is.

He is a God-saturated man. The Lord isn't someone he sort of simply thinks of when he goes to church once a week. The Lord shapes his whole life.

He's someone whose business practices and relationships are marked by his faith. And that matters. Because this sort of kindness doesn't simply appear out of nowhere.

Godly kindness grows in people whose lives themselves have been shaped by God's kindness. They've been touched by the kindness of God.

And then the very first thing that Boaz does is wonderfully simple. Verse 5, he asks in words to these effect, Who is that young woman?

He notices her. Now, don't rush past that. Kindness begins by noticing. It refuses to let people remain invisible.

Verse 6, the overseer replies, She is the Moabite. Again, the narrator reminds us she's the outsider, the woman many people would have simply overlooked.

Or worse. And throughout the Old Testament, the Lord commands his people to care for the widow, the foreigner, the outsider. Why? Because Israel knew what it was like firsthand to be vulnerable.

They'd once been foreigners in a foreign land under the servitude of the Egyptians. They knew what it was like to need mercy.

Now, Boaz doesn't simply know these commands. He embodies them and exemplifies them. Listen to what he tells Ruth in verse 8. Don't go into another field.

Stay here. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. Drink from our water. Now, remember, this is the time of the judges.

Everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. This was no safe place for a vulnerable foreign woman to be at work. But Boaz steps in.

He notices. He protects. He provides. He goes well beyond what the law requires. And I think that this little chapter in the book of Ruth gives us one of the loveliest pictures anywhere in Scripture of what kindness looks like.

What godly kindness looks like. When you sit down and think about it, kindness can be surprisingly difficult to define. Well, here's the simplest definition that I've come across this past week.

Kindness is compassion in action. Kindness is compassion in action. Compassion feels, but kindness acts.

That's the difference between kindness and compassion. Kindness acts where compassion merely feels. Kindness notices a need and then rolls up its sleeves.

That's Boaz. But Boaz isn't the only person in this chapter displaying kindness. In verse 10, Ruth asks, And Boaz replies, I've been told all about what you've done for your mother-in-law.

He's heard about her costly loyalty. Her leaving home. Leaving her family. Her country.

Leaving all that to come and care for Naomi. To stick by her. And I think that Ruth is one of the most encouraging and challenging indeed characters in the whole Bible.

She isn't some long-seasoned believer. She's not long established in the faith. I think that's one of the reasons why she's so brilliant. She hasn't grown up in a Christian home.

She's a young woman who's known a terrific loss. Who's lost her husband. Who's had more than her fair share of hardship.

She's an outsider. Recently come to know the Lord. No platform. No influence to speak of.

Yet she doesn't hang around to get going in her faith. She simply gets on with the next faithful thing. She stays with Naomi. She's industrious. She gets going.

She goes out to glean. She puts someone else's needs ahead of her own. It's ordinary obedience. Costly kindness. That's what Boaz has heard about.

And one act of kindness gives rise to another. That's what kindness does. It ripples. It shapes communities. It can shape whole cultures. And here's the remarkable thing.

Neither Ruth nor Boaz has any idea of what the story they're living in. Ruth thinks that she's merely gathering grain.

Boaz thinks he's helping a vulnerable woman. Neither of them can yet see what God is doing. But God can. He's accomplishing purposes far bigger than either of them can possibly imagine.

Isn't that so often how the Lord works? Isn't that so often how the Christian life feels? Most of the time we don't get to see the whole picture.

Faithfulness simply means taking the next obedient step and leaving the larger story in God's hands.

Ruth's answer is don't underestimate what God does through ordinary faithfulness.

Don't underestimate what God is doing in your life. Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.

Kindness has converted more sinners. And I think he's onto something there. Again and again, when people tell their story of coming to faith in the Lord Jesus, somewhere in that story you'll often find the quiet kindness of an ordinary Christian.

Someone who noticed them. Somebody who listened. Somebody who welcomed them. Somebody who kept showing up in their lives. Someone whose life made the kindness of God visible. And Jesus speaks about it too.

A cup of cold water in his name. A meal for someone who can never repay you. The world barely notices these things. But Jesus always does.

Nothing done in obedience to him is ever wasted. And as Paul says in Galatians chapter 6, As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.

Especially those who belong to the family of believers. Now over the next few weeks and months, hundreds, thousands of people will be arriving in Glasgow.

Students, young professionals, people from abroad. People have moved here knowing no one. Some of them we pray will walk through these doors. In fact, if that's you this morning, we're genuinely delighted that you're here among us.

So glad that you're here. Wouldn't it be wonderful then if over the coming months, more and more people encountered the kindness of God here at St. Silas?

Through our kindness. Someone remembers their name. Somebody invites them for lunch. Someone notices that they're on their own.

None of these moments is particularly spectacular. But none of them is insignificant either. The hidden kindness of God becomes visible through the kindness of his people.

Now, by the end of chapter 2, it looks as though kindness has changed everything in Ruth and Naomi's life. But kindness, wonderful though it is, isn't the end of the story.

So on to our third section. Boaz has been astonishingly kind. He's gone far above and beyond what the law requires, what anybody could reasonably expect.

He's been extravagantly generous. In verse 14, he invites Ruth to his own table. He shares his meal until she's full. Then in verses 15 to 16, he quietly tells his workers to leave extra grain behind for her.

By the end of the day, Ruth leaves with an astonishing amount of barley, far more than she can have expected when she sat out in the morning.

And Naomi, when she gets home, can hardly believe her eyes. Listen to verse 19. Where did you glean today? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.

And Ruth replies, Naomi sits bolt upright at this point.

Boaz isn't just a kind and godly man. That's not just who he is. There's just a chance that he could be the answer to all their problems. In fact, we've known since verse 1.

The narrator told us right at the beginning of the chapter that Boaz was a relative of Naomi's late husband, Elimelech. But now Naomi sees it too.

And suddenly she's much more interested in Boaz than she's in the barley. Listen to verse 20. At first that sounds a little bit like a strange thing today to say.

How has the Lord through Boaz shown kindness to the dead? Boaz has only given some food to Ruth and Naomi. No. Naomi has realized something much bigger, much more important.

This kindness isn't simply about today's food. It could be about tomorrow's future. And then comes a sentence that changes the whole book.

She added, That man is our close relative. He is one of our guardian redeemers. And it's one of those moments in a story where the gear suddenly shifts gear.

And until now we've admired Boaz. But now we begin to hope. Because a redeemer in this context wasn't simply a generous neighbor.

A redeemer was a close relative who accepted responsibility for restoring what tragedy had taken away. He bore the cost of restoring what had been lost.

Do you hear how much bigger that is than merely kindness? Kindness. Kindness can help someone get through the day. A redeemer gives them a future.

Now Boaz has been wonderfully kind. Wonderfully kind. But if that was all that he were, he wouldn't have been enough. The reason that he can change everything in their lives is because he's a redeemer.

Someone able and willing to bind his future to theirs. Not simply a generous gift. A costly commitment. That's why the whole book suddenly leans forward at this point.

Could Boaz be the one? Would he be willing to pay the price? Would he bind his future to theirs? So that's what redemption means.

And isn't that exactly what each and every one of us needs? A redeemer. A church full of kindness is a beautiful thing.

A church where strangers are welcomed. Where burdens are shared. Thank God for churches like that. Let's become more and more a church that is marked by that kind of kindness.

But even the kindest church can't ultimately save us. Every one of us needs a redeemer.

Someone who doesn't simply help us through today's difficulties. Someone who addresses and deals with our deepest needs.

Someone willing to bear the cost of putting right all that sin has broken. Someone who commits himself personally to us.

Not just for today. But forever. That's exactly who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Isn't he? A redeemer.

See if the book of Ruth had ended there with Ruth and Boaz. It would already have been a beautiful short story. Naomi began the book saying. I went away full but the Lord has brought me back empty.

Yet quietly, patiently, almost invisibly. The Lord has been working behind the scenes. To bring about and weave together this incredible reversal in their lives.

Through ordinary acts of kindness. Through costly redemption. Just then. Just then. Just when you think the story is over. The narrator opens one last door.

And at the end of chapter 4. After Boaz has acted as redeemer. We are given this genealogy. The book climaxes with one name.

David. At first, you might wonder why. Then you realize. This was never simply Ruth's story.

Or Naomi's. Or even Boaz's. It was always a far, far bigger story. Always part of a far bigger story.

It's like opening one of those Russian dolls. You think you've reached the story. And then another one opens. Ruth's story opens into David's.

David's opens into Christ. Christ's opens into. Suddenly, you realize this little story. Has always belonged inside a far bigger one. All along, God has been writing a story.

None of these people could yet see. He was preparing the coming of the world's true redeemer. History really is his story.

And right at its center stands the Lord Jesus Christ. The greater Boaz. Like Boaz, Jesus is another redeemer from Bethlehem.

Only the redemption that he brings comes to the ends of the earth. Boaz paid a great price. Jesus paid a greater price by far.

Boaz restored an inheritance. Jesus gives an eternal inheritance. Boaz welcomed one outsider beneath his care.

Jesus welcomes every outsider who comes to him. Boaz paid with his wealth. Jesus paid with his blood. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And that is the greatest kindness that the world has ever known. Not because we deserved it. Not because we earned it somehow. But because of the astonishing kindness of God.

So if you're here this morning and you've never yet entrusted yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to him. Come to the Lord Jesus.

Come and take shelter under his wings. Come and know him as your redeemer. Because those wings were spread wide on the cross for us.

However far off you may feel. Come to him. He delights to welcome strangers.

He delights to show kindness to know they have nothing to bring. Come to him. Come to Jesus. And if you already belong to him.

Trust the author of your story. Trust him. Ruth couldn't see every chapter. Neither can you.

She thought she was simply gathering grain. God was preparing for the coming of the Messiah. God could see what she couldn't.

And perhaps that's exactly where some of us are here today. Wondering what on earth is God doing in my life?

What's he up to? Wondering whether our ordinary lives really matter. Wondering whether our small acts of kindness make any difference whatsoever.

The book of Ruth whispers. They do. They matter. God sees them. And God sees you.

God's got you. He is weaving together the story of all his people. For his good and ultimate purposes. Because behind every ordinary act of faithfulness stands a God whose hidden kindness is accomplishing far more than we can begin to imagine.

Our own acts of kindness can feel rather small and insignificant. So easily forgotten. But we rarely can know what the Lord might do through them.

As we close. As we close. Let me just tell you about Rosaria Butterfield. She was an atheist professor of English literature who once wrote critically about Christianity.

She expected Christians to respond to her hostility with hostility. Instead a pastor, a local pastor called Ken Smith wrote her a very gracious letter.

And he and his wife Flo welcomed her into their home. Meal after meal. Conversation after conversation. Never treated her as a project. Genuinely became friends with her.

Years later, Rosaria Butterfield reflected that before she believed in the Christian message. She first experienced the kindness of God through Christian people.

The hidden kindness of God became visible to her through this one ordinary Christian family. So as the Spirit grows this fruit in us, let's never despise those ordinary opportunities he gives us to show kindness.

A meal. A conversation. A listening ear. Creative acts of compassion. We may never know how God may use them.

Because the hidden kindness of God still becomes visible through the kindness of his people. Pointing men and women to the redeeming kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that brings us back to where we began. Does what we do really matter? Ruth's answer is yes. Not because our kindness by itself changes the world.

But because God delights to take ordinary acts of faithfulness. Ordinary acts of kindness. And weave them into his extraordinary purposes. Because there are no random acts of kindness in the hands of a sovereign God.

Amen. And thanks be to him. My gracious Father, thank you for your extraordinary kindness in sending your Son to be our Redeemer.

Thank you that in him you have welcomed us, forgiven us and made us your own. Help us to entrust our lives and our stories to you.

Confident that you're at work even when we cannot see what you're doing. By your Holy Spirit, grow in us this fruit of kindness.

Help us to notice with compassion those around us. To welcome the outsider. To love our neighbors well. And to reflect the kindness of Christ in our words and our actions.

And may the kindness that we show always point beyond ourselves. To the redeeming kindness of the Lord Jesus. In whose name we pray. Amen.

Amen.