The sovereignty of God and o..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Very good. Ruth chapter 4 in front of you.

We're going to be reading those 22 verses and speaking about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of God's people. Let us read the words of the Lord. This is Ruth chapter 4. I'm reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible. Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the Redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by.

So Boaz said, Turn aside, friend, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, Sit down here. So they sat down. Then he said to the Redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech.

So I thought I would tell you of it and say, buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me. that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.' And he said, I will redeem it.

Then Boaz said, The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance. Then the Redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging. To confirm my transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel.

So when the Redeemer said to Boaz, Buy it yourself, he drew off his sandal. Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech and all that belong to Chilon and to Malan. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Malon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead might not be cut off from among his brothers, and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day. Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, We are witnesses.

May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem. And may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar brought to Judah because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman. So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.

Then the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a Redeemer, and may His name be renowned in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him." Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, My son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed.

He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now, these are the generations of Perez. Perez, father Hizron. Hizron, father Ram. Ram, father Aminadab.

Aminadab, father Nashon. Nashon, father Salmon. Salmon, father Boaz. Boaz, father Obed. Obed, father Jesse.

And Jesse, father David. And amen. This is the reading of God's Word. My dear brother and sister, perhaps one of the greatest pillars of peace and rest for the life of the Christian and those who profess to be children of God is the certainty and the assurance of the sovereignty of the Lord. To know by faith, by grace, and by faith to know that God is absolutely sovereign above all things that take place, provides to the soul of the child of God rest and peace.

To know that independently of the circumstances, independently of our fears, independently of our anxieties, independently of the things that we do know that are coming ahead, that He is in absolute control of all things, is perhaps one of the greatest pillars of the peace and the rest of the Christian. To know that He is in control of all circumstances, and not only that, but that the outcome of everything that happens, it is for His glory and for the betterment of those who are His people. This Book of Ruth is indeed a testimony to the sovereignty of the Lord, bringing about His divine sovereignty and His purpose. We concluded the Book of Judges knowing that in unrighteous times, Israel were doing everything that they wanted to do in their own eyes because there was no king in those days. The Book of Ruth, in a sovereign way, is going to provide an answer to that situation that Israel was going through by giving us the genealogy of the king.

King David, that is going to be the beloved of God, that is going to be the man after God's heart, the one that is going to come to apply the law of the Lord, and that is going to be the one that is going to shadow the Lord Jesus Christ. We have concluded the reading of this book with the genealogy of David that is the accomplishment of that divine sovereignty purpose of God. But as we have read through these 4 chapters, that divine purpose could have been accomplished in many different ways, in many different circumstances. But it pleased the Lord that the way that David was going to be born would have been through the sufferings, through the tribulations, through the famines, and all the circumstances that this family, Naomi and her family, went through, even death and much sorrow. And this is because the sovereignty of the Lord comes together with the circumstances of people.

And if that was not enough, the sovereignty of the Lord is also attached to the works and the deeds of God's people. Because what we have read in Ruth chapter 4 is not other thing than the obedience of a man who submitted himself to the will of the Lord. and His deeds and His works were also the means by which the sovereign decree of the Lord came to be fulfilled." We see Roas, a man of God, that is bringing righteousness, not because he's good, but rather because the Spirit of God is moving him to fulfill righteousness so that the eternal sovereign decree of the Lord will be fulfilled and David will be born. Sovereignty of the Lord and the deeds and the actions and the works of men, we can see them here very clearly.

And at times, brothers and sisters, we can be tempted to just simply have this abstract concept of the sovereignty of the Lord abiding outside of us and allowing ourselves just to simply be taken by the wind of providence not taking genuine responsibility of the importance of the things that we, as people of God, are supposed to do. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2, verses 9 and 10, that the good works for which we have been called were prepared beforehand in Christ Jesus. That is, that between the good works of people, the people of God, and the eternal decree of the Lord, there's no other thing than alignment and purpose. The sovereign decree of the Lord is fulfilled through the obedience of God's people. And we can see it here in the example of Boaz.

Boaz had a heart of compassion, a heart that was moved in compassion to sacrifice. He did not have to do what he actually did, which is to be the Redeemer. He did not have to do so. There was someone else who was closer in line to Kingsman, to the family of Naomi, who could have been the Redeemer, but in a heart of compassion, he came to support Naomi and Ruth, and he sacrificed himself. The fact that he was going to be the Redeemer required, my dear brother and sister, that there will be a sacrifice on the side of the person that was going to be the Redeemer.

You paid attention there carefully that this person to whom the redeeming option was offered first, the one that was closer in relationship to the family, that initially he said, yes, I will redeem the land. When he thought that he was only taking possession of the land and just looking after this family, he was willing to do so. But when the price of redemption was made more clear to him, namely, that he was going to preserve the inheritance of the offspring of someone else, in other words, that your first son is not going to be your son, but is rather going to be their first son, so that their name, the name of the dead is preserved, then this person simply backed up and said, I cannot be the redeemer of Naomi. I cannot be the redeemer of Ruth. You be the redeemer, lest I impair my inheritance.

Boaz was willing, in compassion, to take the sacrifice and the price of redemption. And this was the heart of obedience that was in Boaz. A heart that was also submitted, my dear brother and sister, to the Word of the Law, to the Word of the Lord. Everything that the Lord had commanded was the guiding principle of the works of Boaz. Because the works of obedience of those who claim to be the people of God are not only supposed to be from a heart of compassion that cannot be initiated by themselves, but by God Himself, but it's also works of obedience that are to be ruled and governed by the law of the Lord.

Because He could have taken Ruth in the secret place where no one was seen. He could have, in times of unrighteousness of the judges, what everyone was doing according to their own eyes. He could have simply taken and touched Ruth and just moved with her. But rather, he knew that he was supposed to follow the law of the Lord. And he submitted himself to the precepts and the protocols and the traditions of the law that the Lord had given to Israel.

So he is going to call all of these witnesses to come and to see how or who was going to take Ruth as a wife. Not only a heart of compassion, and not only submitted to the law of the Lord, but my dear brother and sister. He was also under the accountability of God's people. He could have done this in a very different way. But He came to the gate of the city.

He called all of these elders to be witnesses of all of these things that were going to take place. His submission to the law of the Lord, His heart of compassion for this family and for this woman, that all of this accountability before the eyes of all of these witnesses, will be attested at that place following the traditions of the words of the Lord, and this is the way that He obeyed. An obedience, my dear brother and sister, that perhaps in His eyes only had value in the present time. He did not know what the result of His works and deeds was going to be. He did not know what the result of His compassion and submitting to the law and doing things as the Lord had required that they should be done was going to be.

He had no idea! that the outcome of His works, that the outcome of His obedience, that the outcome of His heart of compassion was not only going to be obeyed, that the son that He was going to have after that David, but that through Him will be the Messiah of Israel coming. Because as I said in Ruth chapter 1, if you read Matthew chapter 1, you see that it's through the action of these men, that the Lord Jesus Christ will come to redeem not only a family or a woman, but will come to redeem His people. Oh, my dear brother and sister, the sovereignty of the Lord is not only the greatest pillar for us to rest and to have peace, but it's also the great encouragement that the saint has that everything that we do by faith and everything that we do trusting in Him is empowered, yes, for present purposes, but there's someone that has promised that absolutely everything that we do by faith and in the Lord Jesus Christ has an ultimate purpose for us and for the work of the kingdom of the Lord. Why is that?

Because someone has already come. The Lord Jesus Christ. And that person that has already come fulfilled already the work that the Father gave Him to do. And because the Son of God came to fulfill the work that the Father gave Him to do, all the works of those who are found in Jesus Christ Gain and have substance and purpose, because now they are governed by the sovereignty, by the love, and by the providence of the One that holds them in His hands. And there is the One that has promised that the good work that He has begun in them, He will bring it to completion.

What a glorious thing, my dear brother, it is that for the person who is not in Christ Jesus, absolutely all things that they do are not only sinful and unrighteous but without purpose, purpose of condemnation. But the one that is in the Lord now finds ultimate purpose because rooted and established in the Lord Jesus Christ, the things that we do are not in vain before the glory of the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen? Let us pray.