Title: Loyalty and Freedom
Contents
▒▒ Bible : Ruth 1:16~18
Loyalty and loyalty may be thought of as outdated stories, but I hope you will realize and feel once again how precious loyalty and loyalty are through the book of Ruth.
The classic examples of poverty in the Old Testament are the orphans and widows. When Naomi lost her husband, it was heartbreaking. After losing my two sons, I couldn't lift my head. Naomi means 'joy', but Naomi, heartbroken, said, "Don't call me Naomi." Naomi no longer has the courage to live in a foreign land, so she decides to return home.
So Naomi wanted to give her two daughters-in-law freedom. Rather than making my daughters-in-law continue to suffer, I thought that suffering alone was enough, so I gave her freedom. So, the eldest daughter-in-law returned to her own home with the freedom that her mother-in-law had given her, but the second daughter-in-law, Ruth, left the famous saying in Ruth 1:16-17, 'Your people will become my people, and your God will become my God'. I did.
Naomi felt the determination of her mother-in-law Ruth and returned to Bethlehem with Ruth. But when he returned to Bethlehem, he said, “Hey, that second pride is great. How did you follow your mother-in-law all the way here? Second, the loyalty of self-confidence is great.” Ruth slowly began to spread, and a man named Boaz, who was one of the richest men in the village and very close to Ruth's husband Kirio, liked Ruth very much, and Ruth and Boaz got married. They get married and have a son named Obed. Obed has Jesse, and Jesse has a son, who becomes the famous David. And among the descendants of David, Jesus Christ, who saved all mankind, was born.
Ruth was loyal to her mother-in-law, and she took it for granted, and followed suit. To Ruth who was so loyal, she unexpectedly met a wonderful husband named Boaz, had a son Obed, and through her descendants, King David and Jesus Christ were born, and Ruth became the great woman mentioned in Matthew 1. That's an amazing fact. This single word of loyalty really made a woman so precious that she could be trampled down like dust on the ground and easily forgotten. This is an important fact of the book of Ruth.
The second important fact is that Ruth's loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi was a compulsion to her mother-in-law Naomi with her free will. My mother-in-law gave me freedom. So, with that freedom, the older daughter-in-law Orpah returned to her own home, and the second daughter-in-law with that freedom again belonged to her mother-in-law. Loyalty is not something you force yourself to do. The reason Jesus came to this earth was to set us free. Jesus came to give us freedom from sin, freedom from death. Believe that we who believe in Jesus are at least set free from sin and death.
So what should we do with this freedom? It's really important to do. The parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 teaches us a very important story. The prodigal son gained freedom from his father, and with that freedom he shared his father's property and went out into the world. As I served the world with freedom, I lost all freedom. After that, the prodigal son returned to his father and asked for forgiveness to be used as a hired servant in his father's household.
If Ruth had returned to her land of Moab with the freedom she had received from her mother-in-law, she would surely have worshiped the idol of the god Chemosh. They would have become slaves to idols. However, Ruth served her mother-in-law with the freedom that her mother-in-law had given her, and freed herself from all the bondages that bound her when she served God. The fact is that Ruth was raised as a noble person and the ancestor of Jesus Christ.
And one more thing we must point out is that God is first and foremost loyal to us. God loves us very faithfully. It is the fact that God wants us to be loyal to Him again.
In Isaiah 43, “Though you go into the midst of the waters, the waters will not engulf you; though you go through the fire, the fire will not consume you; for I am with you. God faithfully and faithfully protects us through water and fire.
God's loyalty to us is unchanging. In John 6, “All that God gives me will come to me, and I will not forsake any of them who come to me, and I will protect them. It is the will of God to keep those who come to me, without losing a single one until the last day.” These are the words of Jesus.
Loyalty is when I draw near to God. Loyalty is never slandering God with my mouth. Loyalty is giving thanks to God. Because Ruth was so loyal to her mother-in-law and to God, this little woman turned into a great woman in the Bible. Because David was loyal to God, David was just a young shepherd who was ignored by his brothers. Because Joseph was loyal to God wherever he went, God appointed him as the prime minister of the Egyptian kingdom.
Dear saints, loyalty is not a thing of the past. Loyalty is a channel that pleases God and is blessed. In the name of the Lord, I pray in the name of the Lord that, like Ruth, we, our members, will be faithful to God in 2008 and be a year of honor for God to use.
2008-01-29 10:37:14