The Impact of Choices

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Welcome to A Word in Season with Doug Stringer and friends.

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We share good news and godly wisdom to empower you to be salt and light in every season of life.

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In this episode, Doug shares on the book of Ruth how it's an amazing example to us

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of significant choices that define our destiny.

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Throughout our life, we are confronted with making choices that influence our lives and future.

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There is an importance to keeping our vision of hope and destination, expectation and anticipation.

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After the episode, consider leaving a review and follow us on your favorite streaming service.

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If you've gleaned anything from this podcast, consider paying it forward with a gift at somebodycares.org.

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Now let's join our host, Doug Stringer.

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I know we've all been through difficulties. We've been through challenges, hurricanes and storms,

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and spiritual hurricanes and storms. We've all gone through life.

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But at the end of the day, we can still say it's worth it.

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Because the choices we make every day determines our future.

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I'm not happy with every choice I've ever made, but I can't live in regret or the past.

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I can live every day in the choices fronted that I make in the Lord

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that determine the direction of my life, the rest of my life that I have.

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Because every life experience can become a life lesson that becomes part of our life message.

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A part of what I am and who I am today is not because I'm some great oratorically gifted speaker.

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It's not that at all. It's just every day getting up,

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saying, Lord, I'm available to you. Would you do a work in me and do a work through me?

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And part of who I am is because of all the relationships that I have in my life.

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The kingdom of God is built on relationships first with God, then with one another.

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And the degree of influence that we have in life is determined on the level or degree of those relationships

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with God and with one another.

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So who I am or who you are is not strictly because of who we are.

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It's because of who He is and what He's done and the relationship equities that He's given to each of us

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to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

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It's not a me or an ideal. It's a we deal.

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And the fact is that it is about us being together as part of the kingdom of God

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to impact the generation in which we live and the community in which we live.

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So the kingdom of God is built on relationships first with God, then with one another.

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And the degree of influence that we have or leave for the next generation

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is determined on the level of those relationships with God and with one another.

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I realize that I'm not just who I am because I chose to be here.

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It's because somewhere along the line I received the revelation of the work of the cross

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and the power of the resurrection.

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And every day I say, Lord, here I am. I want to be available to you.

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Lisa and I were just in the end of May and the first part of June back in Israel

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in the midst of all that's going on in that region and praying for the peace of Jerusalem

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and the peace of the Middle East and make some strategic meetings.

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People from our government and others were there as well.

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But while we were there, one of the highlights for us, even though those were important,

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was getting to meet with a friend who is a Texas rancher.

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He also has a home there with his wife and they purchased a place overlooking an area

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that is called Bethlehem Ephrata.

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And it's the place where the threshing floor was in the Book of Ruth.

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It's the place where you could look from his very balcony and all this excavation area right here

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across the valley is the modern day Bethlehem today.

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But the reality is Bethlehem Ephrata and the valley and the tower of the flock is right here.

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And they found an old tabernacle where they used to actually take the sheep and the animals

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and they would sacrifice them there.

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On one side from his balcony you see a well that Jacob built.

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Remember Jacob was a well builder.

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And right over here on the other side of the tower of flock near Bethlehem Ephrata

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was also the place where Rachel was buried.

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And he had carried her from the valley of Rachel where she died

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and brought her and carried her all the way over to the tower of the flock where he buried her.

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And on the other side of the tower of the flock where the well was

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where he set up camp he mourned for a year for the loss of his wife Rachel.

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So we're seeing this from his balcony.

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And he goes, you want to go walk down there and see all this archaeological find?

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Absolutely.

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And while we were down there and the reason I bring this up is because I want to talk to you about choice.

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How many remember a person named Orpah?

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I mentioned just a couple of times in the book of Ruth and it was the sister law of Ruth.

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It was the daughter law of Naomi.

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The context is we walked out there and saw where Ruth would have been gleaning from the fields of Boaz

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in that place.

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Then they would take what they had picked up and he would take it up a little bit of the hill

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into the place they called the threshing floor.

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So we actually walked in all those spots.

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Lisa, she was in tears.

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We're like a maze walking through this tabernacle.

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They had found that they'd used for the tower of the flock where the flocks were

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and probably where King David was born and where Jesus was born.

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And so we were like blown away walking through all this through the weeds and seeing all this stuff.

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That was an exciting time.

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So I'm thinking in terms of the story of Ruth because let's go back to Ruth chapter one.

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It says, Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land

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and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to soldier in the country of Moab and he and his wife and his two sons.

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The name of the man was Alem Elek.

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The name of his wife was Naomi and the names of his two sons were Malan and Chileon.

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Ephraimphorites of Bethlehem.

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They were the people from Ephraimphorites but from the place of Bethlehem, Bethlehem Ephraimphorites.

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And they went to the country of Moab and remained there.

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And you know the story after that.

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It says that their sons got married to some Moabites.

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The sons passed away.

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The husband passed away.

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Naomi has two daughter-in-law's left and that is the widows now which is she's a widow.

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Her daughter-in-law's are widows and that's Orpah and Ruth.

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The first point I want to bring is the interesting time of choices.

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Because there was three different times that Orpah and Ruth were given choices to stay where they're from.

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The people of Moab.

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There were Moabites.

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For them to follow Naomi to go back to her land, there was this unknown of the future.

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They had to make a choice, either stay in your comfortable zone or follow after Naomi into the place of the unknown but sensing destiny.

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So let's go back to verse 8.

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And Naomi said to her two daughter-in-law's, go, return back to your mother's house.

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The Lord will deal kindly with you.

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You have dealt with the dead and with me.

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In other words, you don't have to follow me.

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I can't promise you a rose garden.

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I can't promise you anything.

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Go back and stay amongst your people.

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Go back to your own mother's house.

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And God, He's still going to bless you if you don't go with me.

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Stay where you are and God will still take care of you because you've been so good to me and to my family.

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And verse 9.

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The Lord grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband.

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Then she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept.

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That's the first time that she said to them, go back to your own people.

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And it says that both Orpah and Ruth wept.

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And they said to her, surely we will return with you to your people.

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Both of them said, no, no, we're going to go with you.

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We're going to go with you because now you're our people.

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We're going to go to your people.

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Naomi said, turn back my daughter's second time.

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Turn back.

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Why will you go with me?

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Are there still sons in my womb that they may be your husbands?

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I have nothing to offer you.

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Turn back.

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Again, third time.

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Turn back my daughters.

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Go your way for I am too old to have a husband.

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And if I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons,

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would you wait for them until they were grown?

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Would you restrain yourselves from having husbands?

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No, my daughters, for it grieves me very much for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.

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Then they lifted up their voices and wept again.

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And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and Ruth clung to her.

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And they said, look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods.

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Return after your sister-in-law.

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So in other words, this time Orpah says she kissed her, she kissed Ruth,

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and she leaves Naomi to go back to her people.

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After three different opportunities, she said, no, we're going to go with you.

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But this time she says, I'm going to go back.

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And she blesses her to go back.

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It wasn't a bad or evil thing that Orpah decided to go back to her comfort because she didn't know what the future looked like.

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But here's the difference because Ruth said, and you know the famous saying,

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and treat me not to leave, she says, and treat me not to leave you is what Ruth says to Naomi.

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To turn back from following after you for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge,

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and your people shall be my people and your God my God.

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But here's the difference.

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Orpah goes back into obscurity.

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Not a bad choice.

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God probably blessed her just like Naomi said he would because she had been kind to her.

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But she has no book of the Bible written about her,

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and the majority of us in this room didn't even know who Orpah was

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because she skipped right over it in Scripture because it's the book of Ruth.

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And we look at Ruth in her life when she marries Boaz, a kinsman redeemer.

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So we have a whole book written about Ruth, and everyone preaches about her.

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She's talked about for the last thousands of years because of a choice she made.

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Of going further in the type and shadow here is to go with the Lord,

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not knowing exactly where you're going.

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Abraham, when he was, Abraham was called to go out, took a step of faith to go from the land of Ur

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to be a father of nations that had no idea where he was going.

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But he took a step of faith.

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Sometimes you don't know exactly where you're going, don't know the exact destination,

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but you have a compass of direction saying this is kind of the way to go.

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And I know this is what God is saying to do.

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I'm going to follow after the Lord, keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith.

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And when we do that, we don't have all these other promises.

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We don't even know what it's going to look like, but it is a new day dawning every day.

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And we know that in making choices to live for Christ every day has a promised future that we may not understand,

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but we know that it's a future of good and not of evil.

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So Orpah goes back, not a bad thing.

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Not all choices are bad.

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But she made a choice and she now goes to obscurity.

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Ruth makes a choice and God literally brings her into this messianic destiny into greatness.

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Is it worth it?

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It's worth it.

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Do we always know what the next day looks like? No.

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Do we have regrets? Yes.

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Do we have heartache? Yes. Do we have pains? Yes.

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But I can't change the circumstances of my past,

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but every life experience has become a part of my life message

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because I've learned life lessons through those life experiences.

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I wish I could go back 30, 40 years and make a lot of changes.

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And I could sit there and dwell on that at my age.

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I could go back and think of all the things I wished I could have, should have,

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would have, I mean I'm thinking of all these things.

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I was preaching one time and a person, a very well-known preacher said this

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and I've taken it as my own.

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He says he looks in the mirror, he's older than me.

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He looks in the mirror and says, you're not the man you used to be.

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You can't do what you used to do, but you're still today's man for God

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and God's man tomorrow.

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See, I can't do what I used to do, be who I used to be.

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I can't lift the weights I used to lift and I feel that every time I go to the gym

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I see guys half my age and I'm trying to keep up.

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Hopefully it's sanctified ego.

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You're like trying to keep up but you can't, you know, and you're getting through the pain

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and the arthritis and ache and some pain, you know,

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but you try to prove yourself anyway.

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You're not going to admit it and make excuses, but all that to be said,

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spiritually, practically, physically in every way,

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we may not be able to change the past or do things the way we used to do,

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but who we are today and the choices we make determine going into our future of greatness

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because God isn't looking for perfect people.

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He is a perfect God doing a work of perfection in and through us.

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It is the great grace of God.

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It's the amazing grace of God.

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It's the abounding grace of God.

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That's one of my prayers every morning when I say, Lord, I thank you for your great, amazing and abounding grace.

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I have no clue how I got here, but I thank you that you brought me on this journey.

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And I thank you, Lord, for the privilege of your calling.

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And then she goes on to follow her.

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And it's interesting because Boaz, in this whole journey, I'll just kind of give you the paraphrase

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when she begins to glean because it was the gleaning principle

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that when they were taking harvest time, whatever was left on the ground,

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the pork, a glean, some of the wheat, and what's left by the barley and pick it up and use it for themselves.

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And it was a principle that you would always leave something for people to glean from.

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But interestingly, when Naomi said, by the way, Boaz is a kinsman.

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We're related.

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Don't go to any other people's fields to harvest.

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Stay in his field. He'll take care of you.

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And sure enough, he would actually start telling his own guys,

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hey, by the way, leave extra, not just the glean, but leave the good stuff.

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Leave it for her to pick up and do not say anything to her.

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And eventually, Naomi says to her daughter-in-law,

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I want you to go when he's out and he's about to sleep, take off his shoes and lay by his feet.

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As you begin to read through the book of Ruth,

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he appreciated the fact that she was honorable and virtuous,

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that she didn't do anything with him,

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but she actually just took off his shoes to make him comfortable

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and then just laid it his feet.

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The rest of the story is obviously Boaz and Ruth get married,

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and she ends up becoming the lineage of the Messiah and of King David,

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and the story you read throughout the book of Ruth and throughout Scripture

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and so many other Scriptures connected to that.

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Every day we make choices.

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Good choices, bad choices.

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We can't live in the past, but every day we're confronted with opportunities

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and choices to serve God.

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One thing that I found that when we become discouraged and we begin to doubt God's promises,

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we tend to want to go back to what we're comfortable doing.

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Another example is Peter.

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When Jesus said to him,

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follow me, become a fisher of men, disciple of nations,

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after the crucifixion and resurrection and all that,

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Peter was going through all these things.

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He denied the Lord multiple times.

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He was confused.

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He had been on fire for God and for Jesus

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and following him while Jesus was walking the earth.

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But when all this stuff came down, he didn't want to identify with the Lord anymore.

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And sadly, you have a lot of people today

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that have not stayed in fellowship and in the Word because they become embarrassed by the gospel.

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Because they like it when they benefit from the gospel,

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but they don't want to truly be under the Lordship of Jesus.

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I was thinking about this the other day,

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of how many people do I know that I've watched growing up?

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They were on fire for God.

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They used the church because they could sing.

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They used the church to advance their careers.

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Then they leave the church to go into the world and become like the world.

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They begin to use their gifts in the church community,

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but then take those gifts outside the church and now do all these other things.

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Now, I'm not saying that God doesn't want us to be successful,

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but they disassociate with their identity with Christ and the church,

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even though they benefited from Jesus and the church.

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You can only flourish where you're planted and where you're rooted.

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And if you're rooted with the Lord and you're rooted in this church,

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then no matter what you launch out to do can be successful,

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but you don't have to disassociate from the relationship that got you there.

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To me, that's the highest form of hypocrisy.

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And the word hypocrite really comes originally from an ancient Greek word,

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which means stage actor, a play actor.

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People who worked on the stage today, we have a lot of Hollywood play actors.

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We have singers that are play actors, athletes who are play actors.

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They're benefiting from people to advance their self-adulation.

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They're benefiting from all of us making sacrifices to make them heroes

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and make them successful, but they don't want to have any restraints or constraints on them.

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And how many people like that in the church,

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they don't want to have the restraint of God's word

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or the protection and the constraints of God's presence to keep us in that place of a moral compass?

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To have an idea where you're going.

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How do we know that if we don't have the Lord?

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How do we know that if we're not in His word?

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How do we know the living word if we're not getting into His written word

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and the Holy Spirit giving life to the written word for us to know the character, nature, word and spirit of God?

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We need that moral compass today like never before.

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We're going to be confrontable with so many choices because of circumstances and situations and politics

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and my commitment first has to fix my eyes on Jesus, the ultimate finish of my faith

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and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, that moral compass.

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So that all these things that I need and want in my life, God can take care of

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because it becomes stewards of God's kingdom

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and not just trying to be self-absorbed in self-righteousness and selfishness.

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As A.W. Tozier has said brilliantly, he said,

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self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.

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So as we were walking that tower of the flocks and looking at the archeological finds

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and seeing where Ruth would have gleaned from the fields of Boaz

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and going up to the threshing floor and seeing and getting a visual of them doing this with all the wheat and the barley

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and then realizing that God wants to give us more than gleaning.

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Because that is like a type of shadow.

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This is a reflection of the Messiah that in Him, He wants to give us not just the crumbs from the kingdom.

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He wants us to be stewards of the extravagance of His kingdom.

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He wants to give us stewardship.

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The Bible says and proverbs that through humility and the fear of the Lord

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and too much of today in the church we no longer have a fear of God.

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But by humility and the fear of the Lord we have the stewardship of riches, honor, and life.

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Not to have them for ourselves but to steward the kingdom riches in life

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and the things of God so we can be a blessing to others.

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Just like Abraham being a father to nations, being a blessing to the nations.

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So when God begins to give us things, it's easy for us to forget where we've come from.

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And one of the things God always reminds me of every day, Doug, don't forget where you've come from.

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Some of the failures we've seen very publicly by some incredibly pioneering ministries.

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See nobody sets out to say, I can't wait till I fail.

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When you got saved, you remember going, oh Lord Jesus, thank you for your grace. Thank you. Thank you.

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And all of a sudden you go, I can't wait till I fail.

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None of us does it and leaders don't do that either.

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Somewhere along the line they forget where they've come from.

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And all the pats on the back and all the big things that they do, they somehow think it's them.

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And they forget that there's nothing without Him.

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You get a little bit of power and influence and resources.

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You think now you're it. You've arrived. You never arrive.

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Even if you have a GPS that says you have arrived, that's temporary.

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But we never arrive until we stand in the very presence of the Lord.

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And He says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest.

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I don't live in my sins of the past, but God allows me to remember what a heathen I used to be.

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And to remind me, that's not who you are today. Because of choices you made in me.

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I can look back. If I'd taken this, right, and that. Look, I can think about waste energy all the time,

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but I didn't. I made choices to be who God's called me to be and where I am today.

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And I may have wanted to make different choices or better choices than I've made.

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But by His grace, His abounding great and amazing grace, poured out of my life every day.

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I'm still here.

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We can't live in regret, but we can make choices today that determine our future.

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Ultimately, I think that God doesn't want us to live in obscurity, but to make choices for His greatness.

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The greatest days are still ahead. Even as the storms of life are swirling, we see wars and rumors of wars.

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We see all kinds of things happening around us, but this is our moment of opportunity.

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I've never seen the righteous forsaken or their seed beg for bread. Scripture says that.

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The world today stinks. The world today is in fog. The world today is in storms.

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But we, who have the light of Christ, should shine in such a way that they can see their way through the fog and the storms.

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And to find their way to the risen one, to the living King as we sang earlier. Amen.

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Thank you for watching.