Growth and Growth.

Eleven men on a Galilean hillside, listening to their leader. Go and tell all the world, i have all authority, and i'll be with you. All the doubts and worries of the last few days seem like a dream...He's alive, and He's coming with us. It's all going to be ok.

Why did Jesus choose just twelve? You know He could have efficiently disciples a thousand times that number. Why twelve when one was a betrayer? Why not disciple all of Israel, and send them out? Now you're a light to the nations.

The church always works when it's the shepherd boy agains the giant. The church is Ruth, starving and looking for mercy, the church is Esther, casting herself on the mercy of the king, the church is Jeremiah preaching from the sewer, the church is the unpopular kids at Corinth High School. And in that way, the church thrives. Jesus loses about twenty thousand followers in a day in John 6, and then turns to His guys and asks if they're leaving too. He doesn't count gain and loss like we do, His ushers aren't in the balcony counting because the Kingdom of God is not a matter of flesh and blood.

The Kingdom advances as Bibles are opened in caves in northern Iraq. Demons flee as the Gospel is proclaimed from makeshift pulpits in primary schools in southern England. The sick are healed as 'thus saith the Lord,' rings out from a multi million dollar campus in Texas.

Trendy music isn't growing the Church. Neither a light show, or the best kids work in town, or the greatest summer camps, or the newest programs, or the biggest offerings. Those things might grow a church, but not the Church.

The Church grows as one man finds other faithful men to find other faithful men. It always has. Not the rich and the famous, but the poor, the weak, the needy. Men like you and me.

Jesus is the Barley Harvest

How can you not love the book of Ruth? This is the small package good things come in. It has everything. Romance, intrigue, drama, history, a possibly loopy mother-in-law.

But perhaps one of the reasons we love Ruth so much is that the characters are so human. Boaz is passed the first flush or youth, and so doesn't approach Ruth when he perhaps would have as a younger man. Ruth is an outsider, who grows from timid farm help to a proposing lover. Perhaps no one's humanity is so raw as Naomi's in the first six verses.

There's no food in Bethlehem, no crops coming though. The city is filled with sin. It's not a place to bring up two young boys. She trusts Elimelech, she loves him. Our God is King, he's always telling her, so maybe the move to Moab won't be that bad. She pushes the worries about where they'll worship, and who the boys will marry to the back of her minds and they pack up and leave the Promised Land.

But it didn't work out. There's food in Moab sure, but not much else. The people are wicked here, in a different way to her friends in Bethlehem. Sure, their religion was pretty empty, but it had a heart. She doesn't know what to make of chemosh, or his rituals or his followers.

And then, Elimelech is sick, and there's no one to help. He dies in her arms as she wipes his brow. There's no going home now, better to make a life of it here, and let the boys marry those Moabite girls they've been talking to. It seemed like things were going to turn out ok, but now she'll never forget that day. The noise, the blood, the screams of the Moabite widows, bent over the broken bodies of their lifeless husbands.

We need Naomi in the Bible because she knows life as we know it. Sometimes life is brutal for no good reason. But more than that, we need Naomi, because of what she hears in verse 6. The rebellion at home is over, the Lord has visited His people and given them food. The rains have come, and crop is growing. There will be a barley harvest, she can glean, she can eat. She's bitter, but she has hope, more than she knows.

And we, like her, have more hope than we know. Jesus is the barley harvest. Jesus is the sweet good news from a far country. Jesus is our hope. Jesus who was plunged into a brutality more focused and less deserved than we'll ever know, and came out the other side. Jesus is the hope humming along in the background while the noise of the world tries to drown Him out. Because Jesus lives, so will we, because Jesus lives, we can face tomorrow. Jesus is the anvil, His enemies the hammer, smashing themselves to ruin.

Jesus is the promise of good, and the promise of better to come.
Jesus is the good. Jesus is the better to come.
Jesus is the barley harvest who draws us home. Come to Him.

Judges-Ruth

If there's a book that lends itself to a quick reading it's Judges. I'll not lie, and tell you i'm pleased to read it in two days rather then three weeks. The constant refrain about there being no king, the ever downward spiral of (grosser and grosser) sin, the lack of anything beautiful. Get through it quick.

But you get through it quick, turn the page and uh-oh, 'in the days when the Judges ruled the land,' no thank you! At least it's only four chapters, we think, until we dive in and find the greatest short love story ever told. What a breath of fresh air Ruth turns out to be, and what a great companion to Judges it is.

Companion? The warm summers day of Ruth with the bitter polar vortex of Judges? Sure, like a calm sunrise for the storm tossed sailor, the sweetness of Ruth is only increased when you read it along with Judges.

In Judges everyone does what is right in his own eyes. Essentially murder, immorality, private religion and disobedience. Even the good guys aren't much good, Gideon the coward, Samson the, well, maniac. Even for the good these men do, they're clearly not the Judge and King Israel needs. Israel is a mess, the people do what is right in their own eyes.

But in Ruth, one man does what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Boaz owes Ruth nothing, and takes her, and Naomi on at great cost to himself. Why? Because God said so! And because he loves her, of course, but that doesn't explain his meeting at the gate with Mr No-name. The people sing, the hero gets the girl, Naomi is a sweet old lady nursing her grandson, because Boaz did what was right.

Judges shows us who we are. We hate authority don't we? That's why we're always cheering for the bad guys in movies. We don't want to be told what to do. A hundred times a day, when we sin, we despise God's Word. Our hearts run rampant as they pursue every idol of their fancy. Just like in Judges. Sure, there are bright spots, but we trend down, and things end up worse than we could ever imagine.

But in Ruth, we see who we could be. Whose the new girl in my field? Oh really? Well make sure she's looked after, and guys. don't touch her. You're an old man, but it's your wings i want to be under. He loves you, he'll do what's right, he won't let the matter rest. I mean come on! This is the best story ever. Boaz, Ruth and Naomi shows us how to live in the Spirit, how to live with God as our King, a life that says 'the Lord be with you.'

Judges leaves us in Gibeah. Benjamin is not supposed to be the front runner, the leader among God's people. See what happened's in Gibeah Israel? Why will you choose Saul? A King from Gibeah is no King, don't choose him because he's tall and looks like the nations' Kings, says Samuel. And we're faced with that same dilemma every day. Does the church want leadership like the nations? Do i want to worship what they worship?

But Ruth takes us to Bethlehem, to David and to Jesus. Israel, David is your King, and we must unite around him. Look what the men of Bethlehem are like, and compare them to the men of Gibeah. Judah has the scepter between his feet, Judah goes up first. Judah is where Kings comes from. And Judges and Ruth remind us that our king must be from Judah. Our King must be in Davd's line, our King must be from Bethlehem.

Look at what happens when he isn't.

Elimelech

Elimelech was a good man. A responsible member of society. Never missed synagogue, and his sweet wife Naomi was always at his side, always helping with the nursery, always willing to fill in for a missing kids worker. So people understood when he took his family to Moab. There was no food in the land remember, and everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. Even though his friends indulged in a sharp intake of breath when he shared their plans, it all made sense. It's Elimelech you see, God is his King.

But what happened in Moab hardly bares repeating. His sons married pagan girls, well, surely there had been saved by Naomi's prayers...right? The stories kept coming back to Bethlehem. No children. Barren women. Then the worst of all news. Elimelech dead, his two sons left standing over a hole in the ground, and then, surely not, but a few months later came still worse news, Mahlon and Chillion had died too. Whether in an accident or from an illness, the reports weren't clear. All they did agree on was that Elimelech had chosen himself as King, not God, and it had led, as it always does, to separation.

Just like Adam and Eve. They wanted to be their own king, and it looked sensible. We've got all the other trees, surely we can have this one, and this friendly snake makes such a good case. And they, like Elimelech died. When you're your own king, however sensible it looks, you'll always die. When you skip church to work, or play, or sleep in, however good it feels, and however sensible it looks, you'll die. When you leave the house of bread to get bread, when you do what is right in your own eyes, you die, no matter how sensible it looks in the moment..

And sin looks sensible, it looks reasonable, it looks good. We know we probably shouldn't, but what's the harm. And if it doesn't ruin your union with Christ, it will ruin your communion with Him. Where there used to be a fire, now a rock, where there used to be joy only duty, where there used to be service only shirking.

The Jews cried out, 'we have no King but Caesar,' and my heart cries amen all the time. It looked sensible at the time. Why choose this redneck carpenter over the imperial machine. And what did it lead to? Separation, Mahlon and Chillion, burying and then buried.

When my heart cries no King but Caesar, for whatever good or bad reason, the Spirit replies, no King here but Jesus. When the guerrilla forces in my life take ground, the real King fights them back. Aslan is on the move, and it's certainly not safe. The real King, not Caesar, but Jesus claimed you by dying for you, by bleeding for you, by removing His grave clothes and humming Psalm Two, early in the morning on the first day of the week. The first first day, of the rest of the weeks.

 Because what we need is not to say, 'God is my King, and i'm going to make it.' We won't, it'll be death by a million paper cuts. What we need to say is 'Jesus is my King, and i only have hope as i hold tight to Him.' If Jesus is your king, yes, there are serpents in the garden, but they'll be crushed, yes there are holes in the ground, but they'll only be filled until He calls, yes there are sins we struggle, but they've been bled for.

Whisper it with humble confidence, and ask God for help...elimelech...God, be my King.

Here's Your King

Probably the best way to read Judges is quickly. Move through it at pace, and then the awful themes become clearer. The repeated refrain that there was no king in those days, that everyone did what was right in their own eyes, the systematic moving through of the tribes of Israel, none of them left untouched by rebellion and poor leadership. Even the best of them are pretty rotten.

There are many things that these dark days of Israel's history teach us, but the desire of the author, probably Samuel, is to help us understand that without a King, the people perish. A Heavenly King of course, we need Jesus to be the King of our lives and passions and desires, but an earthly King as well.

And not the one that Samuel was serving under at the moment. If the sceptre was never to depart from between Judah's feet, why was there a Benjaminite on the throne! A Benjaminite, from the tribe spoken of in such despicable tones at the end of Judges. Samuel says no, he says that Kings don't come from Benjamin, they come from Judah. And then, as he dips his quill in his ink, and asks again for help, he turns the page, and tells us about Ruth. And he says, this Israel, this is where Kings come from.

I love the story of Ruth. It's a beautiful short story all on it's won. Love and romance, death and tragedy, intrigue and unexpected plot twists, it's got it all. It also has the coolest guy in the Old Testament for a hero. Boaz. Say it slowly and in a deep voice. Bo-az. So how is it about Kingship? Well has the end of the story ever confused you? It has me. Where do Ruth and Boaz go? Our two starcrossed lovers just disappear, and we're left with Naomi, sweetly bouncing her grandson on her knee. And a genealogy. One that takes us from Perez, though Boaz, to David. King David. This where your Kings come from Israel, Judah, not Benjamin. Where do Ruth and Boaz go? It doesn't matter, they've served their purpose in this tract on the benefits of  a Davidic King.

So Israel, that's where your King should come from, but what should he do? He clearly shouldn't be like a King od the other nations, to ask for a King like that was a sin, and Saul wasn't doing a great job in teaching his people the law. Israel, your king should be like YHWH, like Boaz in fact.

What does Boaz do? He greets his bride as she comes in from the wilderness. He provides for her and protects her. He spreads his wings over her, even though he has no cause to. He loves her. They are betrothed, and he goes outside the city (Outside. The. City!) to fight off other suitors. Then they marry, and they can look at each other and say, I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine. Israel, choose a King who will do these things, who will take, and love, and sacrifice and fight for you.

Israel had to choose a King like that, and so do we. We need a King who accepts us from the wilderness, hairy, sweaty and unattractive. A king who will spread His wings over us. Who will nourish and protect us. Who will take us to Himself, who will leave the comforts of the city to win us. Who will be married to us forever.

It's no wonder Spurgeon called Jesus 'our glorious Boaz.'

When Evening Comes

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me

let me be singing when the evening comes

I love these lyrics from Matt Redman's song, '10,000 Reasons.' I think they demonstrate, as well as you can in two lines, one of the essences of the Christian life.

When we wake up each day, we've got no idea what will happen. Will we get in a car wreck and spend the night in hospital? Will we receive some terrible family news, an unexpected bill? Or will some unexpected good news come our way? We have no way of knowing. So why don't we just hide under the covers all day? Because we know the living God. 

For the Christian, the best is always yet to come. Whether a day may realise your wildest dreams or your darkest nightmares, the best is always yet to come. Look at the book of Ruth. From the unspeakable tragedy of the death of her husband and two sons, life gets better and better for Naomi. She inherits Ruth, a hard working and faithful daughter in law. Her sons land is redeemed by Boaz, then she has a grandson...and then the end of Ruth takes us far beyond the limits of Bethlehem in the time of the Judges, to the eternal plan of God in Christ. For Naomi, even at the end of the book, bouncing her grandson on her knee, the best was still yet to come. The same is true for us today. The best is yet to come. More experiences that Christ will work for our good, more opportunities to grow in our relationship with Him, and, at the end, Heaven, which will get better and better each day.

This logic leads us to the second line. We know when we awake, that there's nothing that can happen that will stop us singing at evening time. John Piper calls this 'faith in future grace.' The knowledge that Christ will never leave us, and that He works all things to our good, gives us a joy and happiness that transcends our circumstances. A joy that is rooted deep in Christ's work, a joy that keeps burning when our happiness merely flickers. These verses understand that, and put them into song.

Christians sing because we can't help it. And i'm thankful for a song that puts so much precious theology onto our lips, and into our hearts...