Jeff Schreve - A Picture of Prayer
Do you desire for closeness and depth in your relationship with the Lord? I’m Pastor Jeff Schreve, and today we’ll learn that it all starts with prayer that honors God and draws us closer to Him. We’ll be in Ruth chapter 3 today in a message titled «A Picture of Prayer».
If you have your Bible, please turn to Ruth chapter 3. Ruth in the Old Testament. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, just a little book, four chapters, right before 1 Samuel, which is a much bigger book. We’ve been going through the book of Ruth, and we’re in chapter 3 today. We’re calling this series «Beauty for Ashes». Ruth is a beautiful story about love and redemption, but it starts out sad, and it ends on a note of praise. It starts out with ashes, but God is the God who gives beauty for ashes. Today, we want to look at Ruth chapter 3, a picture of prayer.
Now, I believe that Ruth chapter 3, it gives us a picture of prayer, a picture of drawing near to the Lord in prayer. You know, the Bible says, Jesus said Himself when He rose from the dead and He was talking to those two guys on the road to Emmaus, the scripture says He showed them Himself in all the scripture. The things concerning Himself in all the scripture. Every part of the Old Testament scripture has to do with Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. And in the book of Ruth, we have some main characters. We have Ruth; she is the Moabite widow who leaves Moab to go back to Bethlehem or to go to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi. And they go back to Bethlehem, and Naomi is so bitter because in Moab, she lost her husband, Elimelech, and she lost her son, Mahlon. Mahlon was Ruth’s husband. And she lost her other son, Chilion. And so she comes back empty. All she has with her is this Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth. But Ruth was a special lady.
And so they come back, and she says, «Don’t call me Naomi. That name means pleasantness. Call me Mara 'cause my life is bitter 'cause the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me». So we’re introduced to these two characters. And then in chapter 2, we’re introduced to another character. His name is Boaz. The name Boaz means strength. He’s a man of great wealth, a man of great virtue and excellence. He’s a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we find out that Boaz is a kinsman of Elimelech. He is a kinsman redeemer. He is one who can marry Ruth and purchase the land of Elimelech and carry on the name of Elimelech because the name of Elimelech and his descendants, they were all gonna be gone. His two sons had died, and there were no other sons or no grandsons. And so Boaz could be that special kinsman redeemer.
The Bible talks about that in Deuteronomy chapter 25 about a kinsman redeemer. Well, that’s the picture of Jesus. Boaz is a picture of Jesus, who redeems us. Ruth is a picture of you and me. You and me, who are cut off from God. You and I, who are born in Moab, so to speak. And we worship a false god. And the scripture says, concerning the Moabites and the Ammonites, they were both descendants of Lot and his incest with his daughters. God says, «No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord, their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall they ever enter the assembly of the Lord».
Well, you’re kind of rip potato chip if you’re an Amorite or a Moabite, and that’s where we are. We’re separated from God. We’re without hope and without God in the world. But the story doesn’t end there. The story ends with Boaz redeeming Ruth. And when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, He redeems us. Well, chapter 3 is a pivotal chapter. In chapter 2, Ruth meets Boaz, and she tells Naomi, «Hey, I’ve met this guy, Boaz. He was very kind to me». And Naomi says, «Boaz? Boaz is a close relative. He’s a kinsman. He is Elimelech’s younger brother. He can redeem you, Ruth». She’s thinkin' all this in her head, and she gets excited, and the one who was so bitter, «Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara 'cause my life is so bitter,» now, all of a sudden, she starts to have hope. «Hey, maybe somethin' could happen here».
And when we hit chapter 3, Naomi is in full gear, playin' matchmaker, and she says, «Perhaps the Lord is in this». And we’re gonna see in this chapter a picture of drawing near to the Lord, of prayer, and how we’re to come before the Lord, and what the Lord wants to do in our lives. So the scripture says in Proverbs 15, verse 8, «The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is His delight». You want to delight the Lord? Learn how to pray and practice prayer and learn what Ruth did in her relationship with Boaz because that’s what we can do in our relationship with our Redeemer. Ruth chapter 3, I’ll begin reading in verse 1, it says, «Then Naomi,» Ruth’s mother-in-law, «said to her, 'My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you? '»
It was hard in that world to be a widow. You needed to have a husband who would protect you and provide for you, and so Naomi wants to seek security for her daughter-in-law, Ruth. Verse 2, «And now is not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maids you were»? In chapter 2, «'Behold, he winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. Wash yourself therefore, and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. And it shall be when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down; then he will tell you what you shall do.' And Ruth said to her, 'All that you say I will do.' So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law had commanded her».
Hey, do you wanna grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord? You grow deeper through prayer and the ministry of the Word. And so we’re gonna look at prayer today and how to grow deeper. There are three things that you can do, starting today, that you can do to grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord. Number one, you can get clean and presentable before Him. You say, «I wanna grow closer to the Lord. I wanna grow deeper in the Lord. I wanna learn about this thing called prayer, 'cause I don’t think I do it very well. And so, yeah, I wanna do this. Well, what’s the first step»? First step: you have to make yourself clean and presentable before Him, and that is available to you.
Now, she says in verse 3, Naomi to Ruth, «Wash yourself,» literally bathe yourself, «and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor». Well, we understand what that means. We understand about takin' a shower. We understand about gettin' out the soap and cleanin' up and then comin' out of the shower and puttin' on some cologne or some perfume and then putting on our Sunday best, so to speak. We know about that. But how do you do that in the spiritual realm? Because this is a physical story, but we’re looking at spiritual truths from the physical story. How do you do that? How do you wash yourselves and make yourself clean? Well, you, first of all, need to confess your sins. That’s how you get clean. You confess your sins to the Lord.
Early in my Christian life, I was introduced to the scripture verse 1 John 1:9. A friend of mine called it «the Christian’s bar of soap». «If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all,» A-L-L, «from all unrighteousness». «If we confess our sins,» that’s the clause there. «If we confess our sins». If you don’t confess your sins, you’re not gonna be cleansed from all unrighteousness. But if you do, you will be. Now, the key word in 1 John 1:9 is the word confess. What does that mean? It’s a compound Greek word: homologeo. It literally means to say the same thing as God says about your sins. «If we say the same thing,» confess our sins, «then He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness».
So we come before the Lord with our sins, and we say, «God, this is what I did,» and we name it and we nail it to the cross. «Lord, this is what I did». We don’t try and sugarcoat it. We don’t try and dress it up. We don’t put lipstick on a pig. We just say, «God, this is what I did. It was horrible, and it was awful. And I say the same thing as You about that sin. Not only did I break Your law, but I broke Your heart. And God, I’m so sorry». That’s a confession of sin. And God says, «If you confess your sin, I’ll forgive your sin». But not only do you need to confess your sins and I need to confess my sins to get myself presentable before the Lord, but then you and I, we need to cleanse our lives before the Lord.
And then thirdly, you’ll need to clothe yourself with His righteousness. Ruth put on her best clothes, so how do we put on, spiritually, our best clothes? Isaiah chapter 61, verse 10 is such a great verse. «I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness».
See, I don’t have to come before the Lord in my own righteousness 'cause I don’t have any. My righteous deeds are a filthy rag before God. So I put away the filthy rags. I confess my sins to God. I repent and turn from those sins, and I make whatever adjustments I need to make. If I’m livin' with my boyfriend, I get out of there. I either get married or get out of there, but I don’t keep living in sin. And I get things right with the people I wronged, and I do all that I can to cleanse myself of every defilement of flesh and of spirit, and then I clothe myself with the robe of righteousness, with the garments of salvation. Because when you’re clothed with a robe of righteousness and the garments of salvation, then you can boldly come before God’s throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace to help in time of need. Ruth did those things in the physical. We can do those things in the spiritual. So you can get clean and presentable before Him.
Second step: you can get honest and vulnerable with Him. You can get honest with the Lord and vulnerable with the Lord. Look what she did. She goes down to the threshing floor. Now, Boaz is a man of great wealth, the scripture says. And that word wealth could also be translated excellence and virtue. It’s the same word that’s used, he uses it to describe Ruth, the same Hebrew word. So Ruth didn’t have a lot of wealth, but she had wealth of character. And so she goes to the threshing floor. Now, he has, it’s barley harvest time, and so when they take all the barley harvest, they take it to this kind of raised, flat area that is there for the whole town, and different people would use it at different times. They’d kinda schedule it. It’s almost like a ball field.
You’d schedule the threshing floor, and they would go, and if you’ve never done any farming, you don’t really know what this is, but they put all the stalks there, and then they beat 'em out or they run the threshing wheel over them with an ox, and you separate the grain from the stalks, and then you get the stalks out, and then you begin to winnow that grain, and then you have your harvest. And so he was there at the threshing floor, and Naomi said, «Go, he’s gonna be there tonight. You go». And so she went, in verse 7, «When Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was, merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain». They would stay there so nobody stole their grain.
«And she came secretly, and uncovered his feet and lay down. And it happened in the middle of the night that the man was startled and bent forward; and behold, a woman was lying at his feet». He didn’t know what that was. Have you ever had that happen with you, your kids come to you in the middle of the night? I had that happen just this morning. I’m sittin', workin' on my sermon. My daughter Sarah, who works nights at Saint Michael, she said, «Dad, can you… I’m at the…» It was at 6 o’clock. She said, «Dad, I’m at the garage. Can you let me in»? And I said, «Sure». You know, and I was thinkin' she was outside the garage door, but she wasn’t, and so I turned off the alarm and I opened the door, and she’s right there. She scared me to death. I said, «What are you doing there»? She goes, «Well, I have a garage door opener». I said, «Good night, nobody told me».
So he wakes up, and he sees this person there. He’s startled, which makes sense. «And he said, 'Who are you? '» He was hopin' it wasn’t Freddy Krueger or somebody like that, you know? He said, «I am Ruth your maid. So spread your covering over your maid, for you are a close relative». Now, you might read that, and you might not think much about that. That was huge for her to say that. She is basically saying to Boaz, now, she could tell a little bit. You know, you can kind of tell if somebody’s interested in you when you’re in the dating process, hopefully. But I remember a girl that I felt like me, and then I found out she was just very sanguine. She’s very outgoing, and then it’s like, «Hey, you were really nice to me, but now I see you’re really nice to Frank. What’s the deal? And then you’re really nice to this guy and this guy».
That’s just the way she was. She was just very outgoing. So you can miss it sometimes, but she kinda had a sense that, you know, «Boaz might like me. I know I like him». But she goes there, and this is what she asks him: «Marry me. Marry me. Redeem me». She makes herself so vulnerable to him. Hey, guys, you know how hard it is sometimes to ask a girl out? You call her up, your heart’s beatin' through your chest, and you’re, «I gotta ask her out. I’m so nervous». And so you get a friend, «You go ask her and see what she would say». 'Cause we try and make it work out, you know, where it saves us embarrassment. I had a girl one time ask me out. It’s like, «That’s too weird». It’s like, «No». You know, I mean, I just, I didn’t really ever say anything. I just said, «I’ve never had that happen».
This was back, you know, years ago. Thirty somethin' years ago, girls didn’t do that. Well, Ruth did it. Ruth asked him to redeem her. «Be my kinsman redeemer. You’re a close relative. You’re that kinsman redeemer». Ga’al is the Hebrew word, G-A apostrophe A-L, Ga’al. And so she put herself out there. She made herself vulnerable. You know, you can’t get close to the Lord unless you get honest with the Lord, unless you get vulnerable with the Lord. Honesty requires vulnerability, or produces vulnerability, and that produces intimacy. Now, what can you do that she did with your heavenly Boaz? Well, you and I, we can pour out our hearts to the Lord. We can get honest with the Lord. We can tell Him what’s in our heart. And what happens when you get yourself clean and presentable? What happens when you get honest and vulnerable?
Step number three: then you can get confident in the Lord. You get confident in Him. So she really risked it in verse 9, and the scripture says in verse 10, «Then he said to her, 'May you be blessed of the LORD, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich.'» He calls her not his maid. He calls her not Ruth the Moabitess. He calls her «My daughter». That’s a term of love. It’s a term of endearment and closeness. Hey, he accepted her. Did she have to wonder, «How’s this gonna go? I just kinda asked him if he would marry me. I don’t know. What is he gonna say? 'Cause he could just say, 'Hey, you’re not supposed to be here. Get out of here, and I’m not gonna marry you. You’re a Moabite woman.'»
That could have happened. We find out in chapter 4 that the closer brother, he didn’t want to marry Ruth the Moabitess. You know, people were talkin' in Bethlehem about the Moabitess. You marry a Moabite woman, and you die. That’s what happened to Mahlon and Chilion. Nobody wants to. «I don’t wanna hook up with them. I might die. You’re not supposed to marry them». And so she risked it, and he said, «May you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter». He accepted her. You know, when you pour out your heart to the Lord, it’s a scary thing. It’s scary to get vulnerable with anybody. It’s even scary to get vulnerable with God. But God will accept you every single time when you come to Him like that. When you come to Him, sit at His feet, when you’re broken before Him, when you’ve gotten yourself clean before Him, and you come before Him, and you share your heart and your hopes and your dreams, God accepts you.
Jesus said in John 6:37, «The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out». Ephesians 1:6 says that we’re «accepted in the Beloved». The «Beloved» is Jesus. And the moment we receive Jesus, the Father accepts us in His Son. So you can be assured that He will accept you, and you can be assured of His assurance and blessing. See, not only will He accept you, but He will assure you, and He will bless you. He said to her… now, this is dark. He just saw a figure. They can’t see each other’s faces, 'cause it’s dark. And you can just make out a silhouette, so he knew somebody was there. She had to watch, and she had to get there before the sun went down so she could find out where Boaz was so she could go there and uncover his feet in the middle of the night.
But he says, «And now, my daughter,» verse 11, «do not fear. I will do for you whatever you ask, for all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence. And now it is true I am a close relative; however there is a relative closer than I». Probably a brother that was older than he was that, Elimelech was, I guess, surmised, he was the oldest in the family, and then there were brothers. And Boaz was a younger brother of Elimelech. And, remember: Elimelech is Naomi’s father-in-law. Boaz is quite a bit older than Ruth. Elimelech is Ruth’s father-in-law. I got that confused. And so he’s older. He said, «You didn’t go after young men like you could have. And you want me, and so you’re a woman of excellence». He says, «But there’s a relative closer,» there’s a brother closer.
«'Remain this night,» verse 13, «and when morning comes, if he will redeem you, good; let him redeem you. But if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as the LORD lives. Lie down until morning.' So she lay at his feet until morning and rose before one could recognize another; and he said, 'Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.' Again he said, 'Give me the cloak that is on you and hold it.' So she held it, and he measured six measures of barley and laid it on her. Then she went into the city». Not only does the Lord accept us, but He assures us and He blesses us to hear from Boaz’s mouth, «Do not be afraid». Isn’t it wonderful when your Redeemer says to you, «Do not be afraid»?
We tend to get so afraid. That’s why the Bible is so replete with God saying, «Do not fear, do not fear, do not fear, do not fear». Because we’re just human. We get afraid. David, the mighty warrior, the guy that went up against Goliath with a sling and five stones, he got afraid. He said in Psalm 56, verse 3, «When I’m afraid, I will put my trust in Thee». Not, «If I ever get afraid, God, you know, 'cause I got a 'no fear' shirt on, God, and I don’t ever get afraid». He got afraid. Everybody gets afraid. It’s okay to be afraid. «But when I’m afraid, I put my trust in You». And Boaz says to her so sweetly, «Don’t be afraid, my daughter. I’ll take care of you. I will redeem you unless the closer brother redeemed you. But you can be assured that you will be redeemed by tomorrow». To hear the Lord assure us, that is so important. And see, she can’t see him. All she’s got is his word. We can’t see the Lord, but we have His word and His word of assurance to us.
What did Ruth do to deepen her relationship, to be an example for you and how we can deepen our relationship with the Lord? She got herself presentable and clean. She got herself honest and vulnerable. And she got and put her confidence in the lord and in his word, her lord, Boaz, and in his word, and she trusted him to do just like he promised. And what she did, you can do, and it can start today. We’re gonna close out today, and the steps are open to pray. Many of you need to pray. This whole message is about prayer. Many of you have a big burden. You have a big problem. You are afraid about the future, and maybe your future that you’re afraid about is on Monday. And God invites you to come to the throne of grace to pray, to receive mercy. Maybe you need for God to forgive you, and you haven’t really gotten serious about confessing your sin and cleansing that and getting that out of your life and ending relationships that are tearing you down and ruining your relationship with God. Today is the day to make that right. Today is the day to let the Lord have His way.