There’s only one way to keep Tom Brady from winning another ring:
Author: Allan (Page 133 of 492)
This is the second of a three-part series on Ruth chapter four. This post considers Ruth 4:5-12.
At first, the nearer relative is eager to buy back Naomi’s property. “I will redeem it!” he says. Immediately. He knows Elimelech is dead and Naomi’s two sons are dead and she’s too old to have more kids, so there are no descendants to Elimelech’s line. This guy can just buy back the land and it’ll become a part of his family’s inheritance. Whatever he has to pay to redeem it, he’ll make up in the value of the property and the produce it provides. Yeah, of course I’ll take it!
Then Boaz observes, “You realize this property comes with Ruth and the obligation to carry on Naomi’s line in connection with the property.” And the first guy says, “If the land comes with a wife, I’m out!” This guy didn’t want to take on the risk or the responsibility. He didn’t want to spend his own money to purchase a wife and a mother-in-law only to have the kids he has with the wife take the property back to the mother-in-law’s possession. “I cannot do it,” he says. It’s not that he can’t, it’s that he won’t. He wouldn’t make the sacrifice. It wasn’t worth it to him.
Boaz thought it was worth it. Boaz wanted to make the sacrifice for the sake of Naomi and her family. So he did. He redeemed for Naomi what she had lost.
It’s easy to see why the Bible calls Jesus our redeemer and why his death on the cross is described as redemption. Naomi and Ruth were too poor to redeem themselves. And so are you.
You and I need a redeemer more than we need anything else. You need a redeemer to buy back everything you’ve lost, everything you’ve given up, everything the devil and this world have stolen from you. You need a redeemer to restore your righteousness and your holiness, to give back to you your honor and your good name and your place in the community of God’s people. You need a redeemer to fix what’s broken in your life and to make right everything that’s gone wrong. And Jesus Christ is the only one who can do it!
If anyone is in Christ: New Creation! The old has gone! The new has come! God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus has become for us our righteousness, holiness, and redemption!
And like Boaz, Jesus had to be related to us to redeem us.
Jesus left his home in glory; he gave up his authority and power and rights, he came to this earth and made himself nothing, he became a servant, he took on our humanity, our flesh and blood; he took on all our weaknesses and pains and sufferings, he took on all the risk and responsibility, and he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. He did all of that to redeem every part of you because he thinks you’re worth it. The Bible says you were redeemed at a price. Jesus paid that price with his own precious blood to buy you back, to put his name on you, to bring you into the eternal family of God forever.
Peace,
Allan
I’m publishing a series of posts here this week on Ruth chapter four: Lost, Redeemed, and Confident. I pray this short series will be a blessing to you.
In the opening verses of Ruth 4 we learn that Naomi has lost her land. We didn’t know this before, but now we do. Naomi has lost her land. It’s been mortgaged. The bank or somebody else owns her property. It appears that Naomi’s late husband sold the rights to the land before they moved to Moab. Naomi is a poor widow and has no way to repurchase the property herself but, under Israel’s law, she can transfer the obligation to her nearest relative and he can buy it back. He can redeem the property and place it back into the family’s possession.
The way this works is spelled out in Leviticus 25. The closest living relative can buy back any property that used to belong in the family but had been sold out of financial necessity. If it was the only way out of a bad economic situation, a person could sell the rights to his land, knowing that a near relative could always buy it back. That’s what is happening here. Naomi and her husband had gotten into some trouble during the famine and had made a terrible decision. They gave up their land.
They had probably been forced into it by the awful situation they were in. They probably felt like they didn’t have a choice. Whether they sold it on their own terms to get out of a jam or to help pay for their relocation to Moab, or whether it was taken from them against their will, the bottom line is that Naomi has lost her land. She gave it up.
Even though she is back in Bethlehem, she doesn’t really have a home. There’s no way for her family name to continue. In this context, it’s not just the property at stake, it’s Naomi’s name, it’s her honor, it’s her worth in the community. This is a terrible thing that’s happened. Her property has been mortgaged, her land has been lost, and she is powerless to buy it back.
I don’t know what you have lost. I don’t know in your life what has been taken away from you. I don’t know what terrible foolish choices you’ve made in the past or what maybe you’ve been forced into doing when you didn’t really have an option. But somewhere along the way, maybe you gave up your innocence. You gave up your righteousness. You gave up a relationship. You lost it. And you can’t get it back. Your good name. Your honor. Your worth in the community. Your place with your family or in God’s Church. You lost it. Maybe you feel like you’ve mortgaged your future. Maybe it was stolen from you. But you’ve lost any opportunity to be truly happy and whole and at peace. And maybe you feel powerless to get it back.
You need to be redeemed. That’s what Naomi and Ruth need. They need to be redeemed by a redeemer.
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live… But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression – it is by grace you have been saved!” ~Ephesians 2:1-5
Peace,
Allan
After a 33-year snub, the only member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1970s not to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame is finally going in. The original number 88, Drew Pearson, was announced last night as a member of the 2021 Hall of Fame Class and will be officially inducted in Canton in August. Drew becomes the 20th Dallas Cowboy to receive this immortal distinction.
I’ve still not heard a legitimate attempt by anyone associated with the Hall of Fame voting as to why Drew has been neglected for so many years. It’s not just a head-scratcher of a mystery for everyone who cares about such things, it’s a travesty of justice. Not only has Drew been the only member of the 1970s All Decade Team to be left out, he is the only wide receiver of any All-Decade team to not be inducted. Not only that, he is the only offensive player from any All Decade Team since 1930 to not be included. It’s about time. It’s way past time.
As an undrafted free agent coming out of the University of Tulsa in 1973, Pearson moved from third string to starter during the course of that first season and, by the time of his retirement in 1984, established himself as the greatest receiver in Cowboys history. He played all eleven years in Dallas, helping lead the Cowboys to seven conference championship games and winning three, three Super Bowls and winning Super Bowl XII over the Broncos. During an era when NFL teams ran first and threw later, Drew amassed 489 catches for 7,822 yards and 48 touchdowns, plus an additional 68 catches for 1,131 yards and eight touchdowns in 22 playoff games. That kind of consistency made him a team captain and an NFL superstar, his last-second 50-yard hip-grab of Roger Staubach’s “Hail Mary” in Minnesota made him a legend, and his rightful place in the Hall of Fame cements his status as a football immortal. 
I had the great honor of working with Drew during my mediocre sports radio career in Dallas. I interviewed him many times on the phone and in person between 2000 and 2005 and once talked him into co-hosting my three-hour talk show with me before the 2005 draft. You’ve never met a nicer guy. A more humble and gracious guy. A more down-to-earth human.
Congratulations, Drew Pearson. You truly deserve this outstanding recognition.
Peace,
Allan
We just finished preaching through Naomi and Ruth’s story here at Central as a way to visualize moving into 2021 with our God and with one another. It’s easy for us to relate to these two widow ladies because they suffered great loss during the days of the judges, when the social and political landscape was an absolute mess, and they were dealing with a famine, a national natural disaster that was causing the death of many people. Tough times. Feels familiar.
When Naomi details her plan for their financial and familial security in Ruth chapter three, Ruth replies, “I will do whatever you say.” That reminds me of the first time God gathered his people together at Mt. Sinai and gave them his commands. The people all responded together, “Everything the Lord has said, we will do!” That’s what Mary, the mother of Jesus, told the angel Gabriel: “May it be to me as you have said.” That’s what Jesus said to our Father on that last night in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Not my will, but yours be done.”
It seems like the correct response to a powerful line in Psalm 37: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust him and he will do this.”
And that seems like the best way to live in 2021.
Ruth and Naomi and Boaz each had their own struggles, their own issues. But in the middle of their own problems they showed an uncommonly selfless love for one another. Each one showed extraordinary care and concern for the other two. And they had plenty of differences between them. There were background and culture and nationality differences, gender and language and social status differences — a lot of differences here with a lot of stress and pressure on top. There’s plenty of room for disagreements and arguments here. Selfish behavior would be understandable, it would be expected and probably excused. But they each show this incredible compassion for the other two, even at great personal risk.
And God moves them and he moves their story from famine to harvest, from emptiness to fullness, from hopelessness to promise, and from devastating death to everlasting life. That’s how it happens. When we trust him and his ways, God makes it happen.
Our God has already inaugurated the new creation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus has been raised and exalted, he is seated at the right hand of the heavenly Father in eternal glory where he reigns supreme today and forever. That assures you and me that death will be destroyed, that creation will be redeemed, and that God’s people will be restored to righteous relationship with him and with one another forever. All of that is happening right now and you and I are the instruments of that transforming work. Through us, the Kingdom of God breaks into the world for healing and reconciliation and justice and peace. Christ’s Church is a witness and a community that embodies the Kingdom of God as present and real. We are participating in God’s everything new and we are a sign of God’s everything new. We are both the promise and the presence.
Just like he works in Naomi and Ruth and Boaz, we trust the Lord is working in us and through us to still make amazing things happen. God is still at work when parents make sacrifices for their children and when children go out of their way for their parents. God is still at work when strangers open up their doors and their hearts and their lives to other strangers. When people cross the barriers of race and culture and class without a second thought, when people rise up to defend and protect the marginalized, when we move to understand instead of accuse, when we love and forgive and accept first, when we put the needs of others ahead of our own — God will move you and he will move this world from emptiness to fullness, from division and violence to unity and peace, and from darkness and death to everlasting light and life.
I am confident that he who began a good work in you and in this world will carry it on to completion until the day of our Lord Jesus. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this.
Peace,
Allan
Prediction: Stars lose tonight. The Dallas Stars are off to the best start in ten years, not just in the win-loss column, but in several other categories, too. The Stars’ power play and penalty kill are both on an NHL record pace. Dallas has scored nine power play goals in their first three games with a league-leading 56.3% scoring rate. And Joe Pavelski and John Klingbert are killing it at both ends of the ice.
But they lose tonight. This evening at home against Detroit, Dallas will debut their new alternate sweater and uniform and it is hideous. They’re calling it “Blackout,” but it looks like something out of Tron. Black is the primary color and the trim is called “Skyline Green” to match the neon tubes that outline the legendary 72-story Bank of America Plaza (InterFirst Plaza a long time ago) building in downtown Dallas. On a hockey player, it looks more like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle green. They’re not as bad as the alternate unis and logos they suffered through for two seasons back in 2003-2005 . But they will lose tonight with these awful sweaters and they will become a jinx for this club. They’re too gimmicked up. They don’t look real. It looks like something out of an energy drink commercial. They won’t be able to win in these things. Starting tonight.
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Ten months into the global pandemic and counting, the national surveys and polls show that the people around us are searching for what’s significant and lasting. They’re looking for something solid and dependable and real. Transitioning now into the post-pandemic future, they’re seeking what’s trustworthy and true. The people you’re running into every day are disappointed, disillusioned, and divided; but they’re open to something different. They want an answer to everything that’s gone wrong; they’re looking for a solution to everything that’s broken. That way, that truth, that life is our Lord Jesus Christ and you’ve got him! And the time is right now to make him known to our desperate and dying world.
Your life, your words, your attitude can be the walking, talking proof that good overcomes evil. You can show people that love is greater than hate, that unity is more fun than division, that peace is far more effective than violence, and that forgiveness always beats revenge.
What if you and I remained calm when the people around us are anxious and demanding? Everything is turned up so loud right now, what would it mean to others if you were quiet and calm? I think it would be noticed.
What if you and I spoke with humility and grace? Instead of saying things so other people will like you or approve of you, what if you only said things that were encouraging to others and built others up? That kind of language would really stick out.
What if you and I tried to love everybody? What if we were known for how kind and graciously we treated others, even when we disagree? Wouldn’t that get people’s attention?
And what if we committed to that right now? Instead of being paralyzed by what we’ve lost in the past or stuck while we wait for the conditions to be perfect later, what if we committed to seizing the opportunities all around us right now? Opportunity is not something that happens at a dim distance somewhere in the future; opportunity is what you and I have right in front of us today!
Here’s our new normal: the virus and the political and social chaos have laid us bare. We’ve been cooped up in our homes with our broken habits for months and it’s revealed to us that our lives, this country, and the world are in more trouble than we thought. The folks around us know right now, more than they’ve ever known in their lives, that the answers cannot be found in government, science, technology, or in just trying harder. They’re looking for the way, the truth, the life right now more than they ever have. And you’ve got that in Jesus Christ!
The new normal is not to be feared. It is to be embraced and engaged as God’s time and place for something beautiful and eternal and new. What if right now you committed to living in a way that points others to what and who they need the most?
Peace,
Allan
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