Grit & Grace: First Steps in the Harvest of Hope

GRIT & GRACE

First Steps in the Harvest of Hope
Pastor Aaron Sutherland  

SERIES SCRIPTURE:
The book of Ruth

I. GOD’S HOPE IS SEEN IN GOD’S PROVIDENCE 
Ruth 2:2-3 (CEB) "And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, 'Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.' Naomi said to her, 'Go ahead, my daughter.'  So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek."

II. GOD’S HOPE IS SEEN IN GOD’S PROMOTION 
Ruth 2: 8-12a (CEB) "So Boaz said to Ruth, 'My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me.  Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.' At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground.She asked him, 'Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?' Boaz replied, 'I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done.'"
 

III. GOD’S HOPE IS SEEN IN GOD’S PROVISION   
Ruth 2 17-24 (CEB) "So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening.Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. Her mother-in-law asked her, 'Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!' Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. 'The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,' she said. 'The Lord bless him!' Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. 'He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.' She added, 'That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.'"

 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How have you experienced God’s hope in providential circumstances and “so called” coincidences?

2. When have you witnessed a person’s character effect either positively or negatively, the course of their life?

3. What are elements of Ruth’s character that you find compelling and honorable?  How does that impact the way you want to live?