Speaker 1: Hey, did you hear the news. Elevation Nights Spring twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two tour April twenty sixth through May fifth. Oh
Speaker 1: you gotta come. I mean, you really gotta come. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be preaching, Holly's going to be sharing elevation worship.
Speaker 1: Your favorite songs, old songs, new songs, kind of old
Speaker 1: new ish songs. I want to see you if you
Speaker 1: are anywhere near these cities, I want to see you.
Speaker 1: No excuses, no delay. Get your ticket right now. Let
Speaker 1: me know in the comments what night I'm going to
Speaker 1: see you, and what's your name? So I can try
Speaker 1: to shout you out, but I'll probably forget. But this
Speaker 1: is going to be amazing, the best night of our year.
Speaker 1: Go to Elevation Nights dot com right now, get your ticket,
Speaker 1: leave a comment. Let's go to the Word of God.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. I'm excited. Tell somebody it's not a sin
Speaker 1: to have a good time in church. You don't have
Speaker 1: to just endure it. God gave it to us to
Speaker 1: enjoy it, and I intend to do that. I intend
Speaker 1: to do it, and I'm gonna have a good time.
Speaker 1: If I got to do it every seven days, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a good time. And the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is, I believe you are too. I believe I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're expecting today. I think God is
Speaker 1: gonna beat it. And I know that's bold. I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about me. I'm saying what he said for me
Speaker 1: to tell you. It's just so meaningful. And I want
Speaker 1: you to find that little book called Ruth in your
Speaker 1: Bible one more time, this accidental sermon series from the
Speaker 1: Book of Ruth. The Lord tricked me into preaching a
Speaker 1: sermon series on Ruth. I mean, I used to plan
Speaker 1: my series in advance, and now I call them series
Speaker 1: in reverse. So but I know this will at least
Speaker 1: be the end of the series for now, because we've
Speaker 1: got Easter on Sunday, and I'm sure I could preach
Speaker 1: Ruth for Easter, but the Lord gave me another message
Speaker 1: for Easter, and then we'll see. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: one thing I know about God. He's taking us from
Speaker 1: glory to glory, I mean, from good to better, and
Speaker 1: the best is yet ahead in your life. Amen, Amen,
Speaker 1: get your expectation up, all right, get your expectation. Oh
Speaker 1: you know, I say, don't get your hopes up? Do it?
Speaker 1: Get them up, get them up, get them as high.
Speaker 1: Lift your hands right now and say, Lord, reaching for
Speaker 1: you today. I want to experience you today. Amen. That's
Speaker 1: the spirit of faith God wants. Okay, y'all be mad
Speaker 1: if I read twenty verses, do your feet hurt? Because
Speaker 1: you've been running through my mind all day? Ruth, Chapter two,
Speaker 1: verse one. Now, they only had a relative on her
Speaker 1: husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Alimelech,
Speaker 1: whose name was all the single people shout bow ass,
Speaker 1: shout to the Lord, bring me my bow ass. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: But we've been learning about this, okay, because she did not. Ruth,
Speaker 1: who the book is named after, she does not go
Speaker 1: into the field looking for bow ass. She's just looking
Speaker 1: for barley right food, just doing what she has to
Speaker 1: do to survive. She's not even on a dating app,
Speaker 1: and she really the story is not about marriage at all.
Speaker 1: It's not so much a romantic story. It's a redemption story.
Speaker 1: And the theme of it. What is so refreshing to
Speaker 1: me about Ruth? I don't know for you. Her sense
Speaker 1: of responsibility is refreshing for me because I live in
Speaker 1: a time of such entitlement, so to watch her stay
Speaker 1: with her mother in law, although she had the option
Speaker 1: to go back to her people and to choose something
Speaker 1: new that God was leading her into. Really just blows
Speaker 1: my mind because I look around and I see so
Speaker 1: many people who are celebrated only when they step out
Speaker 1: in faith. Ruth impressed me because she stayed in a
Speaker 1: situation that was hard. And I think every year you live,
Speaker 1: what impresses you is a little different. What impresses you
Speaker 1: is a little different. And I've gone, you know, e'ven
Speaker 1: pastoring a church from being impressed when somebody can sing, well,
Speaker 1: well that's cool, and it can be a blessing, and
Speaker 1: I want the people that sing here to be able
Speaker 1: to do it skillful. But that in many ways is
Speaker 1: a gift from God. Now what you do with that
Speaker 1: gift is your active worship. And so I'm I'm equally,
Speaker 1: if not more impressed by somebody who takes two talents
Speaker 1: and turns it into four as somebody who takes five
Speaker 1: and turns it into ten. It's just amazing, as you
Speaker 1: how many how many know that's true that sometimes the
Speaker 1: most impressive people that that you you don't you don't
Speaker 1: even notice them at first. Yeah, So that's who Ruth
Speaker 1: is in this passage and verse two. I will not
Speaker 1: stop after every single one and talk that much. I'll
Speaker 1: promise you, and Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let
Speaker 1: me go to the fields and pick up the leftover
Speaker 1: grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor. I
Speaker 1: just want to pick up grain behind anyone in whose
Speaker 1: eyes I find favor. And one note I wrote was,
Speaker 1: don't be too picky about who God can bless you through.
Speaker 1: Don't be too picky about who God can bless you through.
Speaker 1: All right, that's good because we get to a picky
Speaker 1: we forget. God is our provider, whoever he chooses to
Speaker 1: use in whatever season. That's good with me. Right. I
Speaker 1: don't care if the door dasher has blonde hair and
Speaker 1: blue eyes. I just want to know did you get
Speaker 1: in the bag what I'm supposed to have to eat?
Speaker 1: And some of us want to treat God's will like
Speaker 1: a la cart, like I want this and I want that,
Speaker 1: but not that. But I know this comes with that,
Speaker 1: but I don't want that. God, can you customize my
Speaker 1: calling to be meaningful and convenient? Verse to be Naomi
Speaker 1: said to her, go ahead, my daughter, So she went out,
Speaker 1: entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters.
Speaker 1: As it turned out, she was working in a field
Speaker 1: belonging to Boaz. The narrator is winking at us. As
Speaker 1: it turned out, just so happened that the field belonged
Speaker 1: to Boas, who was from the clan of Alimelech. Just then,
Speaker 1: wink wwin. Boas arrived coincidental from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters.
Speaker 1: The Lord be with you, The Lord bless you, they answered.
Speaker 1: Boas asked the overseer of his harvesters, who is that?
Speaker 1: Who does that young woman belong to? And the overseer replied,
Speaker 1: She's the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi.
Speaker 1: She said, please let me glean and gather among the
Speaker 1: sheaves behind the harvesters. She came into the field and
Speaker 1: has remained here from morning till now, except for a
Speaker 1: short rest in the shelter. So Boas said to Ruth,
Speaker 1: my daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in
Speaker 1: another field. Imagine how shocked Ruth was when the man
Speaker 1: who owned the field spoke to her. She must have
Speaker 1: been absolutely she must have been scared. That is something wrong.
Speaker 1: Are you about to kick me out? Please? I promise,
Speaker 1: I promise, I won't take too much grain. Just let
Speaker 1: me glean behind the harvesters. But he called her daughter.
Speaker 1: Doesn't even know her name, but he speaks to her
Speaker 1: with affection. Must have shocked her, must have blown her mind.
Speaker 1: Stay with the women who work for me. Watch the
Speaker 1: field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after
Speaker 1: the women. I have told the men not to lay
Speaker 1: a hand on you, And whenever you are thirsty, go
Speaker 1: get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.
Speaker 1: At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground,
Speaker 1: and she asked him, why have I found such favor
Speaker 1: in your eyes that you notice me a foreigner? And
Speaker 1: Boaz replied, I've been told all about what you have
Speaker 1: done for your mother in law since the death of
Speaker 1: your husband, how you left your father and mother and
Speaker 1: your homeland and came to live with the people you
Speaker 1: did not know before. May the Lord repay you. May
Speaker 1: the Lord repay you for what you have done. I
Speaker 1: hear the spirit saying to somebody has payback time. You
Speaker 1: thought nobody saw the sacrifices you made. You thought nobody
Speaker 1: saw the treasure that you invested into the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: You thought nobody heard your cry, but God saved your
Speaker 1: tears in a jar and his payback time. Wow. May
Speaker 1: you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel,
Speaker 1: under whose wings you have come to take refuge. May
Speaker 1: I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord,
Speaker 1: She said, you have put me at ease by speaking
Speaker 1: kindly to your servant, though I do not have the
Speaker 1: standing of one of your servants. She can't believe it.
Speaker 1: At meal time, now it gets crazier. It gets crazier
Speaker 1: at meal time. Boas said to her, Come over here,
Speaker 1: have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's just coming to survive, and now she's
Speaker 1: invited to lunch and watch what happens next. When she
Speaker 1: sat down with the harvesters, Huh, she's sitting down with
Speaker 1: the same harvesters that she needed permission to even stand
Speaker 1: behind just a few hours ago. God can do amazing
Speaker 1: things quickly in your life. Quickly in your life, suddenly
Speaker 1: in your life. He offered her some roasted grain. You
Speaker 1: don't even have to cook it, girl, I'll roast it
Speaker 1: for you and dip it in this vinegar. She ate
Speaker 1: all she wanted and had some left over. Wow, she
Speaker 1: got up to glean. Bow As gave orders to his men.
Speaker 1: Let her gather among the sheaves and don't reprimand her.
Speaker 1: Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles
Speaker 1: and leave them for her to pick up, and don't
Speaker 1: review her. Spill some extra for her. So Rude gleaned
Speaker 1: in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley
Speaker 1: she had gathered, and it amounted to about an epha.
Speaker 1: She carried it back to town and her mother in
Speaker 1: law saw how much she had gathered. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had
Speaker 1: left over. After she had eaten it up. Her mother
Speaker 1: in law asked her, where did you glean today? Where
Speaker 1: did you work? This is ridiculous, blessed me the man
Speaker 1: who took notice of you. Then Ruth told her mother
Speaker 1: in law about the one at whose place she had
Speaker 1: been working, and she keeps her in suspense. The name
Speaker 1: of the man I worked with today is Boass, she
Speaker 1: said verse twenty, and I'll quit. The Lord bless him,
Speaker 1: Naomi said to her daughter in law, he has not stopped.
Speaker 1: I can't believe he's still showing his kindness to the
Speaker 1: living and the dead. And she added, what you didn't know, Ruth,
Speaker 1: that man is our close relative. He is one of
Speaker 1: our guardian redeemer. Here's what the Lord told me to
Speaker 1: preach to you today. He told me to preach to
Speaker 1: you and call the message blown away, Oh, blown away,
Speaker 1: blown away, blown away. Do it God in Jesus name, Amen,
Speaker 1: blown away, blown away. You know what the hardest thing
Speaker 1: for us reading the Book of Ruth is we read
Speaker 1: it wrong. Not only do we not understand the context
Speaker 1: of this little book wedged between the Book of Judges
Speaker 1: in the Book of First Samuel, which only serves in
Speaker 1: the broader schemata of scripture as a bridge between the
Speaker 1: time of the Judges and the time of the kings,
Speaker 1: as an apologetic almost to let the nation of Israel
Speaker 1: know that David has the right to the throne, because see,
Speaker 1: Ruth would be the great great, great great grandmother of
Speaker 1: King David. But I want to step out on a
Speaker 1: limb theologically and speculate for a moment. I know it's dangerous,
Speaker 1: and they might clip this and put it on a
Speaker 1: social media blog or something. But I'm gonna speculate for
Speaker 1: a moment, just a speculation that I don't think Ruth
Speaker 1: read Ruth chapter two, Verse twenty. It's just a speculation.
Speaker 1: I don't think Ruth knew. You know, Hey, Ruth, it's
Speaker 1: going to be all right. I know you're hungry, I
Speaker 1: know your heart broken because you lost your husband. But
Speaker 1: just turn to the Book of You chapter four. She
Speaker 1: would be shocked most of all to know that there
Speaker 1: would be a Bible book bearing her name, because she's
Speaker 1: a Mobite Yahweh wasn't even her God when her story started.
Speaker 1: Her background and ancestry suggested nothing that she would be
Speaker 1: a part of the lineage of our Savior Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So we read the Book of Ruth through the lens
Speaker 1: of our knowledge, But she had to live the Book
Speaker 1: of Ruth through the pain of her present situation. And
Speaker 1: the challenge is that I have to live my own
Speaker 1: scriptures out not knowing what's in Ruth chapter Like you
Speaker 1: never read the Book of You chapter two. So when
Speaker 1: her husband Maelon dies in chapter one, she doesn't even
Speaker 1: know there is a chapter two. Now, if she knew
Speaker 1: about chapter two, perhaps chapter one wouldn't have hurt so much.
Speaker 1: But you don't get to read the Book of You
Speaker 1: chapter two. You don't get to know that it won't
Speaker 1: hurt like this forever. You don't get to read the
Speaker 1: part of the scripture where you flip to the back
Speaker 1: of the thing and Joseph all the way in Genesis
Speaker 1: fifty says you meant it for evil, but God meant
Speaker 1: it for good. We get to shout over now what
Speaker 1: he had to doubt about then? Did he really know
Speaker 1: it would turn out this way? And so invariably when
Speaker 1: Holly and I speak to people about dating or marriage,
Speaker 1: which I don't do it too much. The reason for
Speaker 1: it is I feel like most of what I did
Speaker 1: right in marriage was in the selection process. I'm like,
Speaker 1: just pray, pray that. I mean, because if you were
Speaker 1: married to Holly, you probably do pretty good too. She
Speaker 1: is not hard to be married too. And I mean that, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're like, ah, you're just sucking up so she can
Speaker 1: kiss you day after lunch and all that, and you
Speaker 1: just want to look good. No, I'm serious about it.
Speaker 1: That's really how I feel about it. But I think
Speaker 1: she kind of feels that way about me too. Did
Speaker 1: you say that for the cameras. We were talking the
Speaker 1: other day, I said, I know it's hard. I know
Speaker 1: it's hard to have me for a husband. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: know it's hard, and not because I'm abusive or mean
Speaker 1: or don't love you or anything like that, but I mean, like,
Speaker 1: there's so much you didn't know about me when you
Speaker 1: said you marry me. And she says this thing a
Speaker 1: lot of times. She said, I love everything that there
Speaker 1: is to know about you. That makes me feel good.
Speaker 1: So I always teach. And I know it's an unusual
Speaker 1: scripture to teach about dating. From Matthew thirteen forty four,
Speaker 1: to bring a New Testament verse right alongside this Old
Speaker 1: Testament story about Ruth and your current situation. In Matthew
Speaker 1: thirteen forty four, it says, the Kingdom of Heaven is
Speaker 1: like treasure in a field. When a man found it,
Speaker 1: he hit it again, and then in his joy when
Speaker 1: sold all he had and bought that treasure. No, he
Speaker 1: bought the field that the treasure was in. Jesus said,
Speaker 1: the kingdom is like that. And I would say that
Speaker 1: being married is like that. You don't just buy the
Speaker 1: shiny stuff. You don't oh oh oh oh oh oh
Speaker 1: oh oh no no, you buy the whole patch a field.
Speaker 1: I'm not marrying their family. I'm marrying them. But on Christmas,
Speaker 1: guess who you get to kick it with every Christmas? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll ask, colleague, how did you know that, Pastor STEVEM
Speaker 1: I remember when I'm an internet teaching this, How did
Speaker 1: you know that he was the one? And I was
Speaker 1: hereated that day about something, so I said, she didn't
Speaker 1: She didn't know. She hoped in the moment of candor.
Speaker 1: Probably the interns couldn't handle that. That was probably malpractice
Speaker 1: on these young hearts, just thinking it's gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: have this total Jerry Maguire moment. If y'all remember that movie.
Speaker 1: I'm just imagining, like Holly going, I think, I think,
Speaker 1: I think he's probably the one. I think, I think,
Speaker 1: I think you know? How does she know? You don't know?
Speaker 1: She hoped, and then she held herself to a standard
Speaker 1: that she would be the kind of woman that would
Speaker 1: find the man that she wanted God to bring in
Speaker 1: her life. That's very important. How did you know? You
Speaker 1: don't know? Ruth? How did you know when you got
Speaker 1: up that morning that you were going to be in
Speaker 1: the field of boass? Did you just sense it. Did
Speaker 1: you wake up that morning, Ruth and say, I have
Speaker 1: a good feeling that today I am going to bump
Speaker 1: into my boass. Ruth said, no, I was just hungry.
Speaker 1: It was do or die. I had no husband. My
Speaker 1: mother in law was depressed. My mother in law was
Speaker 1: so depressed she started saying, call me Mara. She changed
Speaker 1: her name to reflect her situation. She has a conflated
Speaker 1: identity that is informed now by her experiences. I've been
Speaker 1: thinking a lot lately about how our experiences affect our identity.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about the entanglement that happens when you
Speaker 1: can no longer know the difference between who you are
Speaker 1: and what you've been through, or who you are and
Speaker 1: where you come from. Ruth the moa Bie was a
Speaker 1: part of the lineage of Jesus the Messiah that makes
Speaker 1: no sense, and Ruth knew none of it. Why are
Speaker 1: you slowing down to tell us all of this instead
Speaker 1: of just preaching the verses? Because I want you to
Speaker 1: realize that you've been reading the book of Ruth wrong,
Speaker 1: as if she had some great faith, and as if
Speaker 1: you have to have some great faith that knows I'm
Speaker 1: exactly where God wants me to be doing exactly what
Speaker 1: God's called me to do, and this is going to
Speaker 1: turn out okay for his glory. No, you don't know,
Speaker 1: but you just had to know, right, No, I hoped,
Speaker 1: I worked. I know. You had to know that Jiro
Speaker 1: was going to be nominated for a Grammy right after
Speaker 1: you wrote it. No, I loved it, and I thought,
Speaker 1: if they don't give us a Grammy for this album,
Speaker 1: they're stupid. I did. I thought that, but I didn't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know. And in a matter of fact, in
Speaker 1: the middle of trying to process that particular album, have
Speaker 1: y'all heard this song Gyra. Yeah, after we wrote it,
Speaker 1: I loved it so much and I sent it to
Speaker 1: my friend and he didn't say anything back about it.
Speaker 1: You know who you are. And I was hanging out
Speaker 1: with my friend and my son and me and Elijah
Speaker 1: really loved Gyra and we thought it was the greatest
Speaker 1: song and we just loved it. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to my friend and he said something about Gyra, which
Speaker 1: he never responded to on the text message. And look,
Speaker 1: I was so scared that maybe I liked it more
Speaker 1: than other people would, because when you put something out there,
Speaker 1: you never really know if they're gonna judge it or not.
Speaker 1: That goes from everything from an outfit to an opportunity
Speaker 1: that you try to seize, to an encouraging word that
Speaker 1: you try to give. That potential of rejection can be
Speaker 1: a really difficult thing. So I said to him, I
Speaker 1: know Gira isn't a banger. I like it. And afterwards
Speaker 1: Elijah said, what was that crap about Gira is not
Speaker 1: a banger? I thought we liked Gira. I thought we
Speaker 1: loved Gira. I thought we felt the presence of God
Speaker 1: in your truck when we listened to Gira. I said,
Speaker 1: you caught me red handed. I was so scared that
Speaker 1: he didn't like it that I brought myself down so
Speaker 1: that he couldn't do it to me. I did it
Speaker 1: to myself. You had to know that song was special, No,
Speaker 1: I knew it was special to me. And so all
Speaker 1: of these little things do you see it in the scripture,
Speaker 1: all of these little things that whoever wrote down ruthed
Speaker 1: wrote down way after it happened. You know that, right,
Speaker 1: this is not a live feed. So even when it
Speaker 1: says in verse one, I love stuff like this, even
Speaker 1: in verse one, when it says it was the field
Speaker 1: belonging to bo Ass that was added after years after
Speaker 1: Ruth did not know Boass was Boass, even after she Madams,
Speaker 1: she didn't know who he was. So it sets me
Speaker 1: free to know that certainty is not a prerequisite for fate,
Speaker 1: that understanding is not a prerequisite for blessing. That knowing because, okay,
Speaker 1: let me do a poll. How many of you believe
Speaker 1: this is for online too? Okay, you can participate in
Speaker 1: the chat. How many of you believe that God is
Speaker 1: guiding your life? Raise your hand? How many of you
Speaker 1: believe that from time to time you get off trap?
Speaker 1: How can both be true? If God is guiding your
Speaker 1: life and he's good at what he does, how can
Speaker 1: you be better than God at your job? This willbe
Speaker 1: because that is what you do. Because the Bible says,
Speaker 1: we all like sheep, have gone astray because sheep are
Speaker 1: bad at following directions. Y'all like that. But the question
Speaker 1: really is God is guiding my life? Yes, trust in
Speaker 1: the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your
Speaker 1: own understanding all your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will
Speaker 1: direct your past. The steps of a good man are
Speaker 1: ordered by the Lord. All these scriptures that I love.
Speaker 1: I love those verses. I need God to lead me.
Speaker 1: I need God to lead me. I need God. What
Speaker 1: else am I gonna let lead me? My feelings? My friends?
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think they're dumber than I am. I love them,
Speaker 1: but they're just as dumb as I am, if not dumber.
Speaker 1: I can't follow them. I'm sorry, I can't follow another
Speaker 1: frail of human. I need the Lord to leave me.
Speaker 1: But the question I have deep beneath the veneer of
Speaker 1: that verbalization of a theological belief that God is leading
Speaker 1: me is how detailed will he be? How involved will
Speaker 1: he get? Right? When you say God leads me? Some
Speaker 1: people say that in fact, from a scale of one
Speaker 1: to ten, how much do you believe God is leading
Speaker 1: your life? Where would you fall on a scale of
Speaker 1: one to ten, how much would you believe it? So
Speaker 1: watch out for the people who shout ten real quick,
Speaker 1: because they think God speaks to them about everything everything.
Speaker 1: They put God in stuff that I don't think God
Speaker 1: cares about very much. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: I mean, they really do. They just put God in
Speaker 1: the craziest stuff. And the Lord told me to wear pink,
Speaker 1: But pink does not look good on your skin tone?
Speaker 1: That wasn't the Lord? Be careful When people say ten
Speaker 1: like that, it's just a sign they're over compensating a
Speaker 1: little bit, because probably if they're saying ten, they don't
Speaker 1: want to have to make decisions. Right. Oh, I believe
Speaker 1: the Lord is leading me. And uh, you know that's
Speaker 1: why I've been fired four times in the last eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Because the Lord was leading you to another place to
Speaker 1: get fired from because you're irresponsible. That's what it was. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was the Lord that made you late to work
Speaker 1: fourteen times? That was the Lord? How much can I
Speaker 1: trust God to lead me? You know what I'm saying? Like, well,
Speaker 1: he step in, you know, like Jonah. Will he send
Speaker 1: a fish to spit me out in Eneva? Maybe when
Speaker 1: he send a wind trying to go to Tarshish and
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be an m Maybe he did that
Speaker 1: in the scripture. Sometimes will he completely redirect me? Is
Speaker 1: God like a GPS who will reroute me with a
Speaker 1: polite British accent? What does he sound like? When? Well,
Speaker 1: how does God leave me? Now? Remember, in the Book
Speaker 1: of Ruth, we started with eight main characters, and now
Speaker 1: we're down to four. We started with a man named
Speaker 1: a Limelech. He died ten years ago in Moab during
Speaker 1: the famine, at the very beginning of the relocation of
Speaker 1: the family. We started with his sons, Killian and Maelan.
Speaker 1: They're dead too. All we're left with now is Ruth
Speaker 1: and Naomi, and there is no record of whether or
Speaker 1: not they even like each other. There is no record.
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you both of them would have rather
Speaker 1: had Maylan back than to have to live with each other,
Speaker 1: Naomi's son, Ruth's husband. But now they're making do with
Speaker 1: what's left. And the tension of the text is that
Speaker 1: God is doing something that will result in a king
Speaker 1: named David and a king named Jesus. And they don't
Speaker 1: get to read that part, and you don't get to
Speaker 1: read that part. And that's why it's not easy for
Speaker 1: you to raise kids. And that's why other people who
Speaker 1: have sent their kids far, far away and only have
Speaker 1: to see them three times a year can tell you
Speaker 1: how to raise your kids, because they got to read
Speaker 1: the last sentence of the book where the kids left
Speaker 1: the house, but yours are still here. You don't get
Speaker 1: to read how it is. You don't get to know
Speaker 1: how it is. You don't get to know as it's
Speaker 1: the end. You don't get to know what's my best
Speaker 1: behind me. You don't get to know any of that.
Speaker 1: You have to live in the tension. That's hard to do.
Speaker 1: And yet there is this note of grace. It's almost
Speaker 1: implied that Naomi and Ruth are walking along together back
Speaker 1: in Bethlehem, Ruth away from everything that she knew. You
Speaker 1: know that God Kimash that she grew up serving, demanded
Speaker 1: human sacrifices according to their mindset, and now she's learning
Speaker 1: how to worship a God that she's only heard about
Speaker 1: through the lens of Naomi, who is bitter about what
Speaker 1: God has allowed to happen in her life. And she
Speaker 1: just makes a decision one day in the scripture. I
Speaker 1: love this scripture. It really got my attention to know
Speaker 1: that the Bible doesn't say the Lord led Ruth to
Speaker 1: the field, It just says she went to work. Now,
Speaker 1: if you are not a ten person, the Lord is
Speaker 1: leading me every step I take, every breath I take.
Speaker 1: What's the song every sep? So creepy? It's such such
Speaker 1: a stalker song. If you're not a ten on that
Speaker 1: it's okay if you want to believe that the Lord
Speaker 1: is leading me, but it doesn't feel like it or
Speaker 1: seem like it right now. If you want to believe
Speaker 1: that the Lord is leading you, but you know it's
Speaker 1: your own stupidity that got you in the storm to
Speaker 1: begin with. If you are somewhere in the six I
Speaker 1: think God is leading me here. I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to go out today and I'm going to see if
Speaker 1: I can glean in the field. That's all Ruth said.
Speaker 1: And that's what we talked about last week. Were you
Speaker 1: here last week? When Ruth was going through the field,
Speaker 1: it was so powerful she had to look for what
Speaker 1: other people left behind. When the reapers would go through
Speaker 1: the field, they had to leave what they dropped for
Speaker 1: the foreigners, for the for the people who couldn't have
Speaker 1: their own field. And so Ruth is just gleaning behind them.
Speaker 1: And we talked about how sometimes in our life we
Speaker 1: need to learn to glean in our own field, in
Speaker 1: our own life, in our own situation, to be able
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, I walked my own body
Speaker 1: into church today. Somebody else didn't do that. They would
Speaker 1: love to have walked into church today, and I did.
Speaker 1: That's gleaning that's when you're like, put my back hurts
Speaker 1: and my hipside of socket. And I got these bills.
Speaker 1: But I walked into church today and somebody else is
Speaker 1: in a wheelchair. And while that doesn't mean I'm better
Speaker 1: than them. I have got to learn to go through
Speaker 1: my own field and glean things. You gotta do it
Speaker 1: for yourself. Nobody is gonna do this for you. You
Speaker 1: will never reach a moment in time where you go,
Speaker 1: I've arrived. God is good, and I'm blessed and highly faith.
Speaker 1: That is a statement of faith you have to make.
Speaker 1: You have to make it daily. Somebody shout I'm blessed.
Speaker 1: You call that a shout. Let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: A lot of people died because they couldn't breathe in
Speaker 1: the last two years. And I told you to shout
Speaker 1: I'm blessed. And the Bible says, let everything that has
Speaker 1: bread praise the Lord. Now breathe deep and say I'm blessed.
Speaker 1: That's how you glean. And that's what you gotta do
Speaker 1: to the devil, not only when I tell you to
Speaker 1: do it, but you gotta shout. Now I'm crazy because
Speaker 1: I'll be sitting there having a panic attack almost and
Speaker 1: I'll just start shouting I have peace. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: who I'm trying to convince, but watch, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: glean peace. Glean doesn't mean it just pops up. Ruth
Speaker 1: didn't wake up and pray for bread. Ruth didn't wake
Speaker 1: up and pray for colonels. Ruth didn't pray for seeds.
Speaker 1: She went in a stray feel to find it. Are
Speaker 1: you in a strange field trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: am I doing? And nobody knows that? You don't know
Speaker 1: what you're doing either. They got you making budgets for
Speaker 1: the department, and if they saw your bank account, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, oh ma, show me in the scripture where
Speaker 1: Ruth went to Gleaning University. She had to do it.
Speaker 1: You have to do it. Some of you won't rejoice
Speaker 1: over simple stuff because you haven't been low enough yet.
Speaker 1: You haven't been low enough yet. You don't know how
Speaker 1: good sunshine feels because you haven't been closed up yet
Speaker 1: where you couldn't get to it. You look at people
Speaker 1: in church. Some of you are so judgmental of how
Speaker 1: other people praise God. I don't like how they say
Speaker 1: wow every time Pastor Stephen says something Wow. Oh Wow,
Speaker 1: what's going on down there. I don't think it takes
Speaker 1: all that. I don't think they asked you. Maybe they
Speaker 1: were so hungry when they came that they can survive
Speaker 1: off of a syllable every work that bro I'll lift
Speaker 1: my brother alone. I needn't work. Wud you get hungry enough,
Speaker 1: you won't be so picky, You won't be so picky.
Speaker 1: I don't like that song interpetitive. Oh, Ruth again, Ruth
Speaker 1: rus and RUMs. I'm a bad parent. I told Holly
Speaker 1: quit fighting with Abby, telling her she needs to eat
Speaker 1: her dinner and starve her. Put a padlock on. I'm
Speaker 1: the pantry, and then when she says down, she will
Speaker 1: not be able to wait to see what mom made
Speaker 1: All this arguing back and forth. That's not gonna get it.
Speaker 1: She's not hungry enough. She's not hungry enough. Ruth was
Speaker 1: hungry enough. Oh. Oh, desperation looks just like faith. Oh,
Speaker 1: you have so much faith. No, I'm just that desperate.
Speaker 1: I've been depressed, so I know the value of joy.
Speaker 1: I've been broke, so I know the value of when
Speaker 1: God provides for my needs physically. My dad was a barber.
Speaker 1: When we would go to the Chinese restaurant. He would
Speaker 1: count how much the meal costs and say, that's seven
Speaker 1: heads of hair. I got a cut to pay for
Speaker 1: this meal. I can't eat with that guilt of me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. When they showed me my first job, they said,
Speaker 1: here's your salary, here's the benefits. I said to what.
Speaker 1: Now I know it makes me sound stupid. I was
Speaker 1: twenty two. I didn't know my dad was self employee,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know that somebody else would pay your benefits.
Speaker 1: I had already done all of the division and the
Speaker 1: calculations on this much per month, and we could do this,
Speaker 1: and the apartment is four to ten. And the internet, now,
Speaker 1: I gotta have high speed internet. Lord, that's a necessity.
Speaker 1: I can't be serving Jesus out here and shall be
Speaker 1: on a modem, a dial up. But then I was
Speaker 1: buying my own insurance, and when Rick Bowling said, and that,
Speaker 1: of course doesn't include your benefits, I said, my what?
Speaker 1: And I had to pretend like I expected it, you know,
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to look as dumb as I was.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, the benefits. But I
Speaker 1: got out to my car, I picked up my car
Speaker 1: phone don't know about the car phone. I picked up
Speaker 1: my Zach Morris Motorola car phone. I called chunks. I said,
Speaker 1: they got benefits on this job. I don't have to
Speaker 1: pay the health insurance to any of that out of
Speaker 1: my pocket anymore. I wish I could feel the way
Speaker 1: I felt that day again about benefits. Now, I've been
Speaker 1: getting benefits so many years, so many benefits. Why that
Speaker 1: the Bible saying Let me ask you this, Why does
Speaker 1: the Bible saying Psalms, bless the Lord O my soul,
Speaker 1: and forget not all his benefits. It's like he already
Speaker 1: knows that the longer we stay in a field, the
Speaker 1: less we will respect the treasure and get more focused
Speaker 1: on the dirt that's around it. I have to practice gratitude.
Speaker 1: I am not naturally good at it, because I am
Speaker 1: naturally good at catastrophizing, so I can imagine everything that
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong. And I told you about this
Speaker 1: a little bit last week. But that's why gleaning was
Speaker 1: so meaningful to me, Because I realized that the five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars bonus that they gave me that year, the
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars that they gave me that year, same job.
Speaker 1: He said, Oh, and here's your Christmas bonus. I said,
Speaker 1: my what he said, your Christmas bonus is five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you how five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: felt that day. I didn't expect it. This is where Ruth,
Speaker 1: a widow and a foreigner, had an advantage over everybody
Speaker 1: else in Boaz's field, because as she walked through what
Speaker 1: they were used to, it was new to her as
Speaker 1: she so, Lord, show me how to walk through my
Speaker 1: salvation and my relationship with Jesus, and my relationship with
Speaker 1: that woman on the front row, and show me how
Speaker 1: to walk through that field again, and focus more on
Speaker 1: the treasure than the dirt. You follow me, life will
Speaker 1: layer you with dirt. Life will layer you like Naomi,
Speaker 1: with bitterness, with experiences that all of a sudden become
Speaker 1: the focus. The Bible does not say that the treasure
Speaker 1: was sitting in the field waiting to be discovered. The
Speaker 1: treasure was actually hidden beneath something that had to be
Speaker 1: dug through to recognize what was there all along. And this, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a message for somebody who is guilty as charged. Lord,
Speaker 1: I have gotten more focused on the field. The work,
Speaker 1: the stress than I am, the blessings and the treasure.
Speaker 1: I have gotten more focused in my relationships on what
Speaker 1: annoys me about that person. May I remind you that's
Speaker 1: what attracted you to them in the first place, and
Speaker 1: now you want to be annoyed by what you were
Speaker 1: attracted to, because, like the country preacher said, before marriage,
Speaker 1: opposite its attract After marriage, opposites attack you loved he
Speaker 1: was quiet. Oh he's mysterious. Ah, ten years in that field,
Speaker 1: tell about I can't get him to talk. He's mysterious.
Speaker 1: Now you're miserable. Now you're magnified everything that makes you miserable.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do a Bible study on this.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I hate this format. I wish I could have
Speaker 1: the ten people who are the hungriest, and I wish
Speaker 1: I could just come over to the house and Holly
Speaker 1: could cook something for you, and then I would serve
Speaker 1: up the dessert of the Word of God, and I
Speaker 1: would say, did you save room for dessert? And you
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, yeah, I was hungry today. I was
Speaker 1: hungry today. I went through a breakup last month. I've
Speaker 1: been asking God why I've been wondering, is there anybody
Speaker 1: for me, I'm hungry today. I'm hungry today. I don't
Speaker 1: have the money that my neighbor has. They think I do.
Speaker 1: I'm driving a car. What they don't know is every
Speaker 1: time I stop and think about the payments, I almost wreck.
Speaker 1: And they're impressed with my car, but they don't know
Speaker 1: I can't even afford what I'm driving in I'm hungry today.
Speaker 1: Tell me something I made some mistakes. Tell me something
Speaker 1: I passed up the best thing that could have happened.
Speaker 1: Tell me something I could have bought Apple for three
Speaker 1: dollars a share and I didn't. All these regrets in here.
Speaker 1: I'm hungry today. I'm hungry today. Give me something. If
Speaker 1: I could talk to the ten hungriest people in the room,
Speaker 1: here's what I would tell you. When Ruth said, why
Speaker 1: would you notice me a foreigner? It's a wordplay. The
Speaker 1: Hebrew word for a foreigner means notice. Don't you see
Speaker 1: what's happening? She's blown away, she's blown away. When's the
Speaker 1: last time you were blown away by God? When's the
Speaker 1: last time you were blown away by his benefits? I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about a BMW, I'm talking about forgiveness. When's
Speaker 1: the last time you thought about, Oh my you, Lord,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to love me. You ain't even have
Speaker 1: to give me the chance to live. I'm not even
Speaker 1: supposed to be here. When's the last time you thank
Speaker 1: God for your church? Just slipping that in? When's lesson
Speaker 1: and you've been here a minute? What used to blow
Speaker 1: me away is now just benefits. I think we got
Speaker 1: to walk through our field and glean Right, Lord, I'm
Speaker 1: thanking you for this. Lord, I am thanking you for that. Lord.
Speaker 1: I'm thanking you for the thing that I don't like
Speaker 1: right now, trusting that you are going to use it
Speaker 1: in my future. Because that's the beauty of this text.
Speaker 1: You can walk walk through your own field, your own
Speaker 1: What would it look like for you? This is my
Speaker 1: challenge to you. What would it look like for you
Speaker 1: to walk through your own life like a foreigner in
Speaker 1: the field. What would it look like for you to
Speaker 1: go back through the things God has done for you
Speaker 1: and the things He is doing. Because here's the trick.
Speaker 1: It is easy to see what God did after you're
Speaker 1: on the other side of it. And that's when we
Speaker 1: say things like it was the best thing in the
Speaker 1: world that they broke my heart, It was the best
Speaker 1: thing in the world that I had to move. It
Speaker 1: was the best thing in the world. If I hadn't
Speaker 1: have gone through that, I wouldn't have this. The trick
Speaker 1: is not recognizing God's guidance later. The trick is can
Speaker 1: you recognize God's guidance in real time, to say, like Jacob,
Speaker 1: the Lord was in this place and I was not
Speaker 1: aware of it, To say, Oh, God must be here too. Oh,
Speaker 1: God must be you using this too. Oh. God has
Speaker 1: a plan for this too. Oh, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see how God works this sin. Oh, I can't believe
Speaker 1: God let me be in this field at this time.
Speaker 1: She gleaned and gathered and gleaned and gathered and gleaned
Speaker 1: and gathered, not knowing that Boaz was gonna end up
Speaker 1: being her husband, not knowing that Naomi knew who he was,
Speaker 1: not knowing that God would put her in a position
Speaker 1: to be a part of the lineage. Can you stand
Speaker 1: there in the field surrounded by dirt or you're gonna say, God,
Speaker 1: I don't want the dirt. I want the treasure. God,
Speaker 1: I don't want the pain. I want the progress. I
Speaker 1: used to always say, God, I don't want the v ups.
Speaker 1: I want the six pack. God, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't want the discipline, but God, I do want
Speaker 1: the benefits of commitment. You have to You have to
Speaker 1: glean and gather in those moments when you don't even
Speaker 1: know why you're here or how this is going to
Speaker 1: turn out. Wow. The most delicious verse in the text
Speaker 1: to me is verse seventeen. After Ruth got done gleaning
Speaker 1: in the fields and gathering, the Bible says something is
Speaker 1: almost something you would skip over. It said that after
Speaker 1: she gleaned in the field until evening, then she threshed
Speaker 1: the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about
Speaker 1: an epha. See what I'm saying. That is the least
Speaker 1: sexy verse in the whole passage, but it talks about
Speaker 1: the next thing that Ruth had to do and that
Speaker 1: you and I have to understand too. It said that
Speaker 1: after she gleaned in a field where she didn't even
Speaker 1: have the right to be, after she gathered everything that
Speaker 1: she could, she threshed the wheat before she took it home.
Speaker 1: And when she finished threshing it, they measured it and
Speaker 1: it was an epha, which means nothing to us, but
Speaker 1: if you look it up and search the word epha
Speaker 1: in the Bible. Do it later, not right now. Do
Speaker 1: it you'll find it again. In First Samuel seventeen, verse seventeen,
Speaker 1: the chapter where David fought Goliath, it said the day
Speaker 1: he went down there, his dad sent him to his
Speaker 1: brothers with an epha of grain, So it's a measurement.
Speaker 1: And he had three brothers that were down at the battle,
Speaker 1: and his father sent him with an epha of grain.
Speaker 1: So we still don't know how much it is, but
Speaker 1: that must be a lot of grain if it fed
Speaker 1: three teenage soldiers in the heat of battle. And now
Speaker 1: remember we're down to just Ruth and Naomi. They are
Speaker 1: the only two left. They don't know about bo as yet.
Speaker 1: They don't know who he is yet, what he's gonna
Speaker 1: do yet. Oh and there's God, the character who is
Speaker 1: not named by the other characters, but is implied because
Speaker 1: he's always working, even when he's not named, even when
Speaker 1: he's not seen, even when he's not felt, even when
Speaker 1: he's not speaking, he's still speaking, even if you're not
Speaker 1: hearing it, he's still speaking. And she gleaned an epha
Speaker 1: enough for three teenage soldiers, for just her and her
Speaker 1: mother in law. So that made me wonder, can we
Speaker 1: find out about how much grain is in an epha?
Speaker 1: And when I found out how much an efa was,
Speaker 1: I was blown away. It turned out that an epha
Speaker 1: is somewhere between thirty and fifty pounds in a day,
Speaker 1: in a day. She's only been in this field one day,
Speaker 1: and she's not even an experienced laborer, and she's one woman.
Speaker 1: And when she measured it after she threshed it, it
Speaker 1: was thirty pounds. Thirty pounds of grain after she threshed it,
Speaker 1: after she threshed it. See, you can't really measure it
Speaker 1: until after it's been threshed. You can't really measure You
Speaker 1: don't really know what you have until it's been threshed.
Speaker 1: You think you know what you have, but you don't
Speaker 1: really know what you have. Helped me, Jesus, you don't
Speaker 1: really know what you have. Until Naomi turns to Ruth
Speaker 1: and orphans as y'all leave, an Orpha says okay, and
Speaker 1: Ruth says, I'll stay because she was being threshed. Naomi
Speaker 1: was being threshed. She lost her husband, she lost her boys.
Speaker 1: She's being freshed, she's being threshed. That word doesn't even
Speaker 1: sound appealing. Thresh it sounds violent. It is violent. It's
Speaker 1: a violent process. The process of threshing is not nice
Speaker 1: like gleaning. It's not taking a journal and writing to
Speaker 1: Jesus a love note for all of the beautiful sunsets.
Speaker 1: Oh Lord, I saw that sunset today. I'm just so
Speaker 1: proud that you did that. It's just for me. Lord,
Speaker 1: you are such a great artist. I saw the sunset
Speaker 1: and I saw your eyes, and I'm so thankful. Threshing
Speaker 1: is different than that. When they threshed the grain, they
Speaker 1: would have the cattle to beat the grain out until
Speaker 1: the stalks and the seeds were separate, until the grain
Speaker 1: and the husk were separate. The threshing. When it says
Speaker 1: that Ruth threshed, it was a process of separation. It
Speaker 1: was a process of separating the grain from the husk
Speaker 1: or what they call the chaff. Everybody say chaff. And
Speaker 1: the way they would do it is that after it
Speaker 1: was beaten, after it was trodden, after it had been
Speaker 1: after it had been laid out on the threshing floor.
Speaker 1: Now all a threshing floor is. It's not fancy. It's
Speaker 1: just a solid surface in a high place. And the
Speaker 1: reason it's in a high place is because you would
Speaker 1: thresh at evening, and the process of threshing was very simple.
Speaker 1: After it had been beaten, you would take the grain
Speaker 1: that was left on the floor, you would sweep it
Speaker 1: up and gather it from the clean surface. You would
Speaker 1: throw it up into the Mediterranean wind, and the grain
Speaker 1: would fall back down to the ground. But the chaff,
Speaker 1: the chaff wouldn't fall back to the ground. The chaff
Speaker 1: would be blown away. The chaff, the stuff that couldn't
Speaker 1: stay on the threshing floor, would be blown away into
Speaker 1: the evening wind that came off the Mediterranean Sea. And
Speaker 1: so I see a lot of you on the threshing
Speaker 1: floor of life right now. I hear from you, I
Speaker 1: meet you, and even when I study, it's like the
Speaker 1: spirit of God brings you to my mind. And I
Speaker 1: see the things that you're going through in your life
Speaker 1: right now, not as a process of destruction, but as
Speaker 1: a process of threshing. See, you don't know what you
Speaker 1: have until it's been threshed. You don't know what's real
Speaker 1: until it's been threshed. You don't know what's edible, you
Speaker 1: don't know what's sustainable. You don't know what is substance
Speaker 1: until it has been threshed. And a lot of us
Speaker 1: have been in a big wind lately. All the winds
Speaker 1: will blow and beat against every house. Whether you build
Speaker 1: it on the rock of Jesus or whether you build
Speaker 1: it on the shaky foundations of the world, the wind
Speaker 1: will blow. And the wind has been blowing. But you
Speaker 1: have been misinterpreting the wind. You have been thinking that
Speaker 1: the wind was sent by the enemy to destroy you.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't. But it wasn't, But it wasn't, But
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It was sin so that all the chaff
Speaker 1: could be blown away, blown away, blown away. See, God
Speaker 1: is dealing with your insecurities right now, and he's got
Speaker 1: you on the threshing floor, and you're watching people walk
Speaker 1: away and opportunities evaporate. You used to know that you're
Speaker 1: now separated from But this wind is not sent by
Speaker 1: the enemy. This wind is under the control of the
Speaker 1: mighty hand of it all, seeing God, and the grain
Speaker 1: that falls back to the ground is all you need
Speaker 1: to live on, and the rest will be blown away,
Speaker 1: blown away, blown away, blown away. The Lord told me
Speaker 1: to preach to you, blown away, and he said to
Speaker 1: tell you, when you see what I'm going to do
Speaker 1: after you get done going through what you're going through,
Speaker 1: if you will keep gleaning and stay in my hands
Speaker 1: through this process. When you see what I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: through my life, I wish I had an organist. When
Speaker 1: you see what I'm about to do, your eyes have
Speaker 1: not seen, your ears have not heard. Lord has it
Speaker 1: in and into your heart? What I have a pair?
Speaker 1: But when you pumping the boy ass, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: blown away? Now what good hell? Who is able to do? Indaderably?
Speaker 1: Blown away? High five at least six people and tell
Speaker 1: them you're gonna be blown away. You're gonna be blown away.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be blown away. Hey, it's a promise. It's
Speaker 1: not a problem. It's a promise. Everything that you're going
Speaker 1: through is going to serve the purpose. Pump the blood
Speaker 1: you've belonged to. You're gonna be threshing. Hurts like hell,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it comes from heaven. You can't even really
Speaker 1: measure the blessing until after it's been threshed. No, my
Speaker 1: advice is your brother in Christ, let it blow. Don't
Speaker 1: try to control it so much, don't even try to
Speaker 1: understand it. Too much. The grain will stay you hear me,
Speaker 1: That's what I know about God. The grain will stay.
Speaker 1: Thirty pounds is not a day's worth of food, y'all.
Speaker 1: They lived off of this for weeks. When Rabbi said
Speaker 1: that would have been four months of wages in a day.
Speaker 1: That's why Naomi was like, whoa, I'm blown away, and
Speaker 1: Ruth was like me too, I'm blown away. And Boaz
Speaker 1: when he saw Ruth, he was like, I'm blown away,
Speaker 1: and everybody is blown away. Accept God. Accept God. He
Speaker 1: knew exactly where to put Ruth, exactly where to put Boas,
Speaker 1: exactly who to let her glean behind, and exactly who
Speaker 1: to send her home to. When you see what you
Speaker 1: cannot see with your spirit, instead of judging what you're
Speaker 1: going through with your eyes by the spirit of God,
Speaker 1: I prophetically declare, if it's not your word, get out
Speaker 1: of the way so somebody else can receive it. You
Speaker 1: will be blown away. You will be blown away. My
Speaker 1: prayer lately is God, I'm assuming that it's either you
Speaker 1: doing this or is something that you will use If
Speaker 1: it's not. Don't you love that prayer? It's really just
Speaker 1: a threshing floor prayer. It's really just a threshing floor prayer.
Speaker 1: It's going here. It is godsh whatever is not meant
Speaker 1: to stay, Blow it away, Blow it away, God, I
Speaker 1: don't want it. If it's chaff. I don't want the
Speaker 1: attitudes I clung to. Like I saw the whole story
Speaker 1: of Ruth through a different lens. When I read it
Speaker 1: like that, I said, of course she had to thresh
Speaker 1: the grain because she herself was being threshed, a mo
Speaker 1: bie leaving her gods, a mobie leaving her family, a
Speaker 1: Moabie leaving her customs. And that's been you lately, and
Speaker 1: it's been windy. Just lift your right hand if it's
Speaker 1: been windy in your life. We don't have to talk
Speaker 1: about why. We don't have to talk about who, we
Speaker 1: don't have to talk about what. Just it's been Wendy.
Speaker 1: Raise your hand if it's been wendy. All right, catch
Speaker 1: the wind of the Holy Spirit in this moment and
Speaker 1: allow it to carry you forward in the field that
Speaker 1: you're in until you find the treasure from it. Because
Speaker 1: that's what the kingdom is like. It's like a man
Speaker 1: who found a treasure in a field. It is like
Speaker 1: the grain that stayed after the wind blew. So in
Speaker 1: this season of my life, God, on the threshing floor
Speaker 1: of failure, on the threshing floor of frustration. For whoever
Speaker 1: this word is for today, I declare prophetically that they
Speaker 1: will stand here a year from now and be blown
Speaker 1: away by what you did through an epha. I declare
Speaker 1: over them that their epha is enough. Come on, let's minister,
Speaker 1: let's minister together, your epha is enough. I want you
Speaker 1: to begin to believe again in the enoughness of God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I made the word up, the enoughness of God. I
Speaker 1: want you to begin to believe that whatever has left
Speaker 1: your life, that you still have something to live for.
Speaker 1: Come on, shout it, Shout it for the devil to hear.
Speaker 1: I still have something to live for. I still have
Speaker 1: something to live for. I will not die in Moab.
Speaker 1: I will not die in bitterness. I have something to
Speaker 1: live for. I have something to live for. And God,
Speaker 1: by your eternal word, would you sanctify those who you
Speaker 1: are calling to yourself, because we don't want to be
Speaker 1: in Bethlehem in our body, but be in Moab in
Speaker 1: our mind, living in the thing that you did. God,
Speaker 1: your word said that you could do exceeding abundantly above
Speaker 1: what we ask her imagine. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: hold so tightly to what I thought you'd do that
Speaker 1: I can't be blown away by what you have in store.
Speaker 1: Your eyes have not seen, your ears have not heard,
Speaker 1: neither has it even entered into your heart. You don't
Speaker 1: even have the capacity to imagine what God is going
Speaker 1: to do through your life. And Ruth knew none of that.
Speaker 1: If we would have told her that we're going to
Speaker 1: turn to the Book of You at Elevation Church in
Speaker 1: April of twenty twenty two, she would have said who,
Speaker 1: And we would have said you, Ruth, see if you
Speaker 1: only knew the glory that God is going to get.
Speaker 1: I can feel that your faith is weak. I can
Speaker 1: feel that your faith is worn. I can feel that
Speaker 1: your mind is weary. But I'm calling you back to
Speaker 1: that place of surrendering God to let the wind of
Speaker 1: His spirit blow on your situation. If it's something with
Speaker 1: your kids, if it's something in your body, do everything
Speaker 1: you can do. Don't say it's God's plan but you
Speaker 1: ate sugar. Go on the diet. Well, when the Lord
Speaker 1: wants to take me out, he's going to take me. No,
Speaker 1: you can eat some broccoli and stay another ten years.
Speaker 1: So don't do that. But sometimes we get separated from
Speaker 1: everything we knew, and everything we planned, and everything we thought.
Speaker 1: And that's the threshing floor. God. After that, we have
Speaker 1: gleaned your word. Today we accept the process of your threshold,
Speaker 1: giving it up to you. Let you blow away whatever
Speaker 1: doesn't belong. I got something to live for. I've got
Speaker 1: something to live for. And I'll tell you something else.
Speaker 1: I've lost a lot, but I've got a lot left.
Speaker 1: Do it real quick, look in the eyes, look in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the person your next to, and say
Speaker 1: you've got a lot left. You do, You've got a
Speaker 1: lot left. Now bow your head, say it to yourself.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot left. You said that softer. Why
Speaker 1: can you encourage them? But you can't encourage you. Close
Speaker 1: your eyes and say to yourself, you've got a lot left.
Speaker 1: So bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not
Speaker 1: all his benefits, who redeems your life from the pit,
Speaker 1: and who crowns you with love and compassion. You've got
Speaker 1: a lot left. You've got a whole Epha. You got
Speaker 1: thirty pounds to take back to Naomi. You got a
Speaker 1: basketful to take home. You can live off of this
Speaker 1: word for a week. You can live off of this
Speaker 1: word for a month, and you will be blown away.
Speaker 1: Come on, let's lift up a sound of anticipatory praise.
Speaker 1: Praise me for what I haven't seen. I praise you
Speaker 1: in the unknown. Hot five. Everybody you can read say,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be blown away, blown away, blown away, blown away,
Speaker 1: You're gonna be blown away. Boom, mind blowing blessings, boom,
Speaker 1: pot seeking blessings, boom, basket full, pressed out, check it together,
Speaker 1: better run it over well. If you enjoyed today's podcast,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things I'd love for you
Speaker 1: to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also help us reach others by investing today
Speaker 1: at Elevationchurch dot org, slash give and thanks again for
Speaker 1: joining us on the Elevation Podcast.