Such Love!

16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

Ruth 1:16-18

The story of Ruth is a beautiful story appropriate for any time of year – but particularly appropriate for harvest.

It is a story that is like a shaft of sunlight on a dark threatening day – about an “asylum seeker” coming to the home country of her mother-in-law after the death of her husband.

Throughout the story Ruth is referred to as “the Moabitess” – she is constantly labelled as an outsider – but she is received by her new people. Ruth marries her kinsman on her late husband’s side and becomes one of those in the line from which Jesus is descended.

The words of our text, which are in fact famous in all literature, show us Ruth’s devotion. These words mark the turning point in the story of Naomi who has become very bitter.

This transforming love reminds us of the far greater love of Ruth’s most famous descendant – Christ. The events happen at the wheat and barley harvest time in the countryside around Bethlehem.

Ruth’s love is a love that transforms the darkness

a. The darkness of those awful times the times of the Judges

b. The darkness of family sorrow Elimelech, Naomi’s husband & Her two sons also

c. The darkness of personal sorrow Her own husband

d. The darkness of farewells the departure of her sister Orpah

8Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. 9May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."

Then she kissed them and they wept aloud 10and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people."

11But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me-even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- 13would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!"

14At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.

e. The darkness of uncertainty in a new land

15"Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."

f. The darkness of Naomi’s bitterness

20"Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."

Into all of this darkness and gloom the radiance of Ruth’s steadfast love shone – as does the love of Christ in all the darkness of human sorrow and sin transforming evil times

Family sorrow

Bitterness

Uncertainty

Let’s take a closer look at her words:

"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

o Love that will not let go

o Love that shares ALL of life

o &

o Love unto death

A. Love that will not let go

"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go,

It was a love out of the ordinary

A love unselfish and unfading

A love that will not say “Goodbye”

There are a few examples of such love in Scripture – Ruth, and Jonathan and David, but the greatest of all is CHRIST’S

Greater love has no man than this …. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep

John 13 1

Jesus showed them (his disciples) the full extent of his love

A love that never fails.

We may fail Him – He never fails!

B. Love that shares ALL of life

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Ruth’s commitment was absolute :

In direction

In home

In family

In faith

That is what marked out this outsider.

She is entering the unknown,

A new culture

A new people

A new faith

The Love of Christ embraces ALL of our life

Direction hopes and ambition

Home possessions, security

Family all the relationships

& especially –

Faith

This is…

The way of the cross

The homeless Christ with nowhere to lay His head

The Christ who left family for his followers

The way of faith is IN HIM ALONE

We need to reckon up our love for Him

Regarding its direction

Home

Family

Faith

C. Love – even unto death.

Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

Ruth does not offer part of her life – but ALL of it – life to the end ALL of it.

Of course she cannot offer as the Lord Jesus offers – hers is magnificent but it is only a faint echo of His

Whose death was the climax of His love for us

“where we die” in the place

and carrying the weight of sin upon Him

and defeating death!

“buried” to carry my sins far away

but gloriously - Rising He justified

SUCH LOVE!

Of course we have been looking at the beginning of Ruth’s story – there is so much more.

It is so with the Christian’s pilgrimage

The clouds roll back and the sun shines!

SUCH LOVE!

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