Faith Finds Grace

When Faith Finds Redemption (The Book of Ruth)

Everyone brings joy in this office
Some when they enter
Some when they leave

How do you view people?
How do you view yourself?
Do your worlds and actions reflect God’s grace?

Faith in the ordinary

• “as it happened”
• Leviticus 23:22 (NLT)
  • “²² When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”
• Naomi “Pleasant” or “Delightful”
• Boaz “Strength”
• Ruth “Friendship”
• Character is revealed through ordinary actions.
• Reputation grows as others witness those actions.

Faith Finds Grace

Faith

• Ruth 2:14-23
• Finds security in God’s unfailing love
• Receives Grace it could never earn
• Begins to recognize the Redeemer
• Romans 5:1-2 (NLT)
  • “¹ Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. ² Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.”

Grace

• Welcomes those who feel outside
  • Ephesians 2:12b-13 (NLT)
    • ^“12 In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. ¹³ But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.“
• Gives beyond what is required
  • 2 Corinthians 9:6-12
  • 1 Corinthians 3:10-23
  • “Too often, we use the world’s wisdom to justify behavior that contradicts the way of Jesus”
• Received becomes grace shared
  • Matthew 5:13-16
  • Luke 6:45 (NLT)
    • ^“45 A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.”
• Renews hope in weary hearts
  • Romans 15:13 (NLT)
    • ¹³ I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • Mara “BITTER”
    • “The Almighty has made life very bitter for me.”
  • Naomi “Pleasant” or “Delightful”
    • “He is showing his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband. That man is one of our closest relatives, one of our family redeemers.”

Grace is God’s undeserved love and kindness toward us that transforms us and flows through us to others.

Because you have experienced God’s grace, who will experience His love & kindness through you this week?

Pastor David Possinger