If you ever want to see the whole gospel displayed in one story in the Old Testament, look no further than the story of Ruth. After following her mother-in-law to an unfamiliar land and making it her own, Ruth meets Boaz, who becomes her kinsman redeemer, restoring her family’s inheritance and turning Naomi’s bitterness into sweetness.
Through Boaz and Ruth’s union, the line of David would be established, from which was born Jesus, who took on the curse of death itself to buy us back and become our Kinsman Redeemer.
The story of Ruth is a beautiful picture of Christ, and it gives us two important gospel truths that are key to understanding this concept of redemption.
First, God uses the least likely as his instruments of redemption.
At the same time that Samson, an Israelite hero strong enough to knock down the walls of a huge temple, is off messing around with Delilah and swapping his country’s safety for some cheap thrills, a Moabite girl is forsaking everything to follow God. Ruth had everything stacked against her. She was a poor, childless widow from a hated race.
Yet Ruth, not Samson, brought Jesus into the world.
You see, God works through availability, not ability. He doesn’t need your ability, your money, or your talents. He calls only for your complete and total obedience.
The point is not how much money you give but whether or not you give what he tells you to give. The point is not how eloquent your words are but whether or not you speak when he tells you to speak. You can scarcely overestimate what God will accomplish through simple obedience!
And, of course, this all points to the fact that the one who would save us would come not as a mighty, conquering warrior riding on a horse, like a Samson. Jesus would come as a meek, obedient servant, like Ruth. A lot of people missed Jesus for that reason—just like they overlooked Ruth.
The Bible turns prejudice on its head, because those who are considered weak, poor, or lower-class by society are those into whom God chooses to put the riches of his grace and the powers of his salvation.
Second, those who experience the gospel become like the gospel.
This whole book of Ruth gives a picture of how Israel was supposed to love others in response to God’s love for them.
That’s why Ruth 2:5 contains a central question: “Whose young woman is she?” That is the question we have to ask about people in our lives.
Who is the refugee or the immigrant? Are they mainly a problem to be dealt with or people made in the image of God, people who Jesus died to save and has put in our lives to love? When refugees show up down the street from us, it doesn’t matter how they got there; I know what our job is as the church. Our job is to love them.
Who is the divorcee or the girl who has had an abortion? Examples we hold up of what not to be … or people Jesus has never stopped loving and that he gave his blood to redeem? What about the orphan? Whose son is he, really? Is he to be cast aside or become just a statistic?
Those who have been redeemed by Jesus ought to become redeemers of others.
The most powerful adoption testimony I’ve heard came from a couple in our church who felt a stirring in their spirit, but didn’t know why or for what. One morning the woman woke up and told her husband about the dream she had the night before:
I was observing a stadium full of thousands of people. They were bringing out children one by one, and they were all beautiful. Someone would say, “Who wants this one?” And people would come forward and volunteer to take the children. Then they brought out a child that was ugly, deformed, and scarred, who probably had no hope of a good life. And they asked the people in the stadium, “Who wants this one?”
The whole crowd grew silent. No one wanted the deformed child. Then, standing up from the front row, Jesus walked forward and said, “I want this one. I’ll take her.” And in my dream, I was taken closer to the child. And when I looked at her, I saw that the child that no one seemed to want was me. I knew instantly that that was the question being asked of us: “Who wants this one?” At that moment, I knew the answer. “Jesus wants this one. And I want this one, too.“
They took in a baby and raised and loved it, so that, for however long it breathed on earth, it could sense the love and compassion of the Heavenly Father.
A life of gospel generosity is not easy. Adoption or caring for foster kids or any kind of ministry is tough.
But as one person engaged in adoption said, taking a child with fetal alcohol syndrome may be tough, and it may inconvenience your life, but it’s not really anything compared to what it was like for Jesus to take us, who had the corruption and poison of sin flowing through our bodies, and bring us into his family.
We sing about Jesus’ love: “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean.
“How marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall ever be; How marvelous! How wonderful! Is my Savior’s love for me!”
Our love for others should be marvelous and cause wonder, too.
For more, be sure to listen to the entire message here.
