Mara | AKA (Part 5)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as president of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Well, good morning again. It is great to see each and every one of you with us. I know several people have already said it and I have, but let me say again, thank you for being here. There's a lot of places you could have worshiped on Mother's Day and we're thrilled to have you at Liberty Square and excited that you chose to worship with us. This morning I'm continuing this series called aka, which is about name changes in the Bible. We've talked about name changes, both Old and New Testament. Some of these have been changes that a name change that God gives someone like Abraham and Sarah. We talked about that. We talked about name changes that someone else gives someone else a couple of weeks ago when we talked about Barnabas, that the apostles in the New Testament changed his name because he was so encouraging. This morning is a little bit different. This morning is a name change that someone gives themselves. So turn, if you will, in the Old Testament to the book of Ruth. We're going to be reading Ruth, Chapter one. Before we get there, I just want to remind you of where we're at in this story and what's happening here. So this is the story of Ruth, but it doesn't start with the story of Ruth. It starts with the story of a married couple named Naomi and Elimelech. So Elimelech and Naomi are Jews. They live in Israel. However, there is a famine in Israel. And so they go from Israel to Moab. They take their two sons with them, two boys with the unfortunate names of Mahlon and Chilion, or how I learned it when I was a little boy, Chilion, because that was easy to remember. So they have two boys, they go to Moab. Then inexplicably, the husband dies. Then the boys get married to women who are from Moab. So they marry some of the ites. They don't marry nice Jewish girl. They marry Moabite women. So the woman Naomi is there in Moab. Her husband is now dead. Her sons are married to Moabite women. And then both of the boys pass away. So that is where we find Naomi in the story. Naomi, her husband has died, both of her sons have died. And so she returns to her hometown, which is Bethlehem. Of course, we know Bethlehem from Old and New Testament as well. So Naomi returns to Bethlehem in Ruth chapter one and verse 19. Look, if you will, Ruth one and 19. Now the two of them, that is Naomi and her daughter in law Ruth. We'll talk about that in a second. Now the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem. And it happened when they had come to Bethlehem that all the city was excited because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi? But she said, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. So her name was Naomi. And she says, nope, I'm changed my name to Mara, which literally means bitter. So she says I was Naomi. But now because of all these things that have happened, I am literally bitter. My name is Mara. Let's pray. God, I ask in the next few moments that you will speak to each of us, all of us, we want to hear your words for us this morning. Our hearts are open, our spirits are attentive. Speak to us in Jesus name we pray. Amen. I grew up as a little boy. There was no continual cartoon channels. There was no, of course, Internet. There was no cable tv. There was three big channels and pbs, which never had anything I wanted to watch. And that was it. And so you had cartoons on a Saturday morning and you had cartoons on the afternoon when school was over. But at night there was no such thing. It was all adult dramas and things that your parents watched after they, you know, after they put you to bed and all those kinds of things. So there wasn't that. But what I looked forward to, what I enjoyed, what I loved was the holiday season because there were cartoon specials, children's specials that were on at night, and you could stay up and watch cartoons at night on regular television. I remember the anticipation of that. You'd see an ad for Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving or Charlie Brown Christmas or something like that. But the original one of those holidays was, was a special called Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer first aired in 1964. It has continuously been telecast every year since, making it the longest continuously running Christmas TV special in the United States. Nothing has run longer than Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Now, for those of you that don't remember, it is literally the story of Rudolph. He's born at the North Pole and he's trying to learn how to be a reindeer. But because his nose shines bright. You remember the song. Because his nose shines bright, all the other reindeer make fun of him. And so Rudolph decides to leave the North Pole. In the TV special, you're staring at me like you never watched this, but I know you have. It's been on for the last 60 years. I'm pretty sure you've seen it at one time or another. In the TV special, when Rudolph leaves, he takes with him somebody else who is equally disenchanted with the North Pole. He takes Hermy the elf with him. Remember this? This is a picture of Hermi and Rudolph. Don't tell me you haven't seen this. All right, now here's the trivia question. Hermy is disenchanted with his life at the North Pole because Hermi does not want to be an elf. What does Herme want to do? Dentist. That's right. Herme wants to be a dentist. And so Hermie and Rudolph leave on adventures because they're tired of being at the North Pole. In the context of their adventures, they go to a place called the island of Misfit Toys. These are all toys that no children wanted or that no children wanted to play with. And so they find themselves. They are outcasts. They find themselves at this island full of outcasts, the unwanted. The island of Misfit Toys. The Book of Ruth is basically the Old Testament version of the island of Misfit Toys. You have three people that are desperately unhappy in this book. You have three people that are dealing with their own problems, their own struggles, their own issues. They are frustrated. They are Mara, they are bitter. They are all of these different things. And so you find them. They all have unique problems. In finding the solution, they find a specific solution to their problem, their issue. But in that, we also see a very general solution to all of us who struggle with one or all three of these things at times. Nothing that Naomi is going through or that Ruth is dealing with is not things that we ourselves have not dealt with. This is. These are normal, regular people. Yes, it's Old Testament. Yes, it's thousands of years ago. But the stuff that they are experiencing, the things that they are feeling, the frustrations that they have, the problems, the issues are all things that are going to be familiar to us. And that's what we want to look at this morning. So turn, if you will, to Ruth, chapter one in verse three. This is what I already explained, but we're going to read it Ruth, chapter one and verse three. Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left and her two sons, now they took wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other, Ruth. And they dwelt there about 10 years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died. So the woman, that is Naomi. So the woman survived her two sons and her husband. So Naomi decides, okay, it's gone horrible in Moab. Moab is, was a mistake. We shouldn't have come here. All this kind of stuff, we're not going to read this Old Testament book. We're not going to read all these verses. But this is the story. So she decides to return back home, we talked about it, to Bethlehem, to Judah. She's going back home to being surrounded by her people. She leaves and the daughter in laws come with her. They are bound to her, right? Because in the Old Testament she, if the, if the son died, then the widow would marry one of the other sons. Okay, but here's the problem. She has no husband and both of her sons are dead. So she says to the daughter in law, she says, girls, it's over, it's done, it's finished. She says, I'm never getting married. And if I did, think about how long it would be before I had boys that were old enough to marry you. She says, you're young, you can marry somebody else. Nothing's wrong. I'm not mad, I'm not upset. Go back home, stay in Moab, find a nice boy from Moab, remarry and forget about me. Orpah hugs her and goes home. Ruth says, I'm not leaving you, I'm staying with you. So Ruth returns to Bethlehem, to Judah. I want you to imagine where she's at in this scenario. She is a young widow. Her, her husband has died, her brother in law has died, her father in law has died. She is a stranger in a strange land. She may or may not speak the language. She probably does, but it's not her native tongue, so she's uncomfortable in communication. Also, by the way, the person that she's with is her mother in law who doesn't want her with her. It basically says, we didn't read the verse, but Naomi tells her to go home numerous times. And Ruth refuses to go home. And it says, naomi just quit talking to her. It says that Naomi just is done with her. So she just starts walking in silence. From Moab to Bethlehem. Any of you ever made your woman mad? You know exactly what that feels like. Right? They don't talk. It's just silent. Right. You ever driven with a really angry woman in a car? Whoo. Wow. Okay. So that's what they're doing. They're just driving. And Ruth goes, hey, are we getting close? And Naomi doesn't even say anything. She just. Hmm, Right. Doesn't say anything. So she's walking. Silence. So imagine where Ruth is in this moment. Imagine the pain that she is feeling. I think that too often we focus. Oh. On the bitterness of Naomi and we forget who Ruth is. Yes, she is noble and heroic and she refuses to leave her mother in law. But she had to have huge levels of sadness operational in her life. These three people that don't quite fit this island of misfit toys. The first thing that Ruth is dealing with is sadness. She is sad. She is in the midst of grief. She is going through the grieving process. Everybody that she loved, there must have been some level of comfort and encouragement and love in that family. She wouldn't have gone with Naomi if everybody had been awful to her. She must have loved her husband, she must have loved her brother in law. She must have loved her, her kind and sweet father in law. Now all of them are gone and the woman, Naomi, is left, but she's so mad herself that she can't offer any encouragement to Ruth in the midst of her sadness. Imagine the levels of grief that are operational in Ruth's life. I think so often we read these things and we just kind of skip through to the end and go, oh, yeah, everything works out, everything's going to be okay. Or we focus on the wrong thing because Ruth is so noble and she's so courageous and she's so kind that we forget that she is trying to process huge levels of grief and sadness in this moment. Everything she knew, the life that she could see stretched out in front of her, the future that she could imagine with her husband, the kids, grandkids, all of that is gone. It's taken from her in a moment. And what is left is deep levels of sadness. What is left is grief. What is left is pain. That's what's left. She's a stranger in a strange land with a mother in law who doesn't want her and won't talk to her. And imagine who Ruth is in this moment. Now we're going to skip around in this story because we're reading different people's stories. But as they return to Bethlehem, there is a man there named Boaz. And Boaz is wealthy and owns A number of fields. And he is a distant relation to Naomi's husband, Ahimelech. So Naomi tells Ruth to go gather grain in Boaz's field. And as she does that, Boaz seems to take a liking to her. He seems to be interested in her. It's not clear. They're not sure, don't know what to do. Ruth is giving Naomi updates. And I want you to see what happens in Ruth. Chapter three and verse three. Ruth goes to Naomi, her mother in law, and says, what am I supposed to do? I think Boaz likes me. I think he's interested in me. But I don't know how I should proceed. I don't know what I should do. Look at the advice that Naomi gives her. Ruth. 3 and 3. Therefore, wash yourself and anoint yourself. Put on your best garment. Go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. Look at the beginning of that. It says, therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself and put on your best garment. Put on your best garment because what? She's wearing black. She's in mourning. She's a widow. She's been wearing black since her husband died. She is indicating to all that she is in the process of mourning. And Naomi says to her, for all of Naomi's own personal issues that we'll talk about in a second, Naomi gives her amazing advice. And it is this. In the midst of our sadness, in the midst of our sadness, in the midst of our grief, there has to come a moment where we allow God to move us into the next season. That now I want you to hear me. I am not saying for a second that you shouldn't be sad or that it's wrong to be sad or that it's bad to be sad or have grief or there is pain. We go through trauma, and grief is necessary in order to process the trauma that we have experienced. But listen to me, it is a healing process. And grief is one part of the healing process. Pain happens. There is sadness and grief after the pain and the loss and the trauma. But God's plan for your life is never for you to remain camped in the midst of sadness for the rest of your life. I know you've gone through some stuff. I am not saying that you can't mourn. I am not saying that you shouldn't be sad. I am not saying that you can't. That grief doesn't happen in order to process that. But it is not God's will for your life. For you Just to remain imprisoned in the midst of that grief. There. There's a next season dealing with sadness. How we, how we deal with sadness is by allowing God over time, not immediately. I'm not telling you, you got to go be here and be all happy all the time tomorrow. I am not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is it may not take a day, may not be a week, it may not be a month, it may not be a year, but at some time, joy comes in the morning, as the Bible tells us, right? We are sad. There is grief in the nighttime. But eventually it doesn't mean that joy comes the next morning. It doesn't mean that joy comes two mornings from now. It doesn't mean that joy comes in a week. But eventually God is going to open that opportunity for a new season and destiny and calling of life. And if we remain in our close of mourning, M O U R N if we remain in our close of mourning, we can no longer inherit the thing that is happening for us. What happens is, though, is we move as we move into the next season. Many of us have levels of guilt that by moving into the next next season, we're betraying whatever happened in the past. But listen to me. Don't allow yourself to be chained to that pain and that trauma. Ruth could have said, naomi, are you crazy? I'm never getting married again. I'm going to wear the clothes of mourning for the rest of my life, and I'm going to serve you. And Ruth would have missed what God wanted to do in her and through her, in a new calling and a new destiny that we're going to see in just a moment. We all have sadness. All of us have grief caused by trauma and pain. But in that sadness, we are not called to live there for the rest of our life. Go wash yourself and put on your best garment. Now is the time to embrace the next thing that is happening. Now, in the midst of this, we have this other one that we haven't talked about, which is this distant relative Boaz, who is distant related to Ahimelech. Now we see him in Ruth, Chapter two. I want you to read this. Look at Ruth, chapter two and verse one. Ruth two and one. There was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Ahimelech. His name was Boaz. So Ruth, the Moabitess said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him. And in whose sight I may Find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. So what's happening here is that. Let me just explain it to you. They have reapers, they've grown wheat in the field and they have guys coming through cutting the wheat down, gathering it up. But in the midst of all of that, you're not going to be able to pick up every single piece of wheat, barley, whatever it is that you're growing in your field. So you had these. These people that had no resources, the people that had no money, that had. That didn't own a field, that didn't do any of those kinds of things, they would go and glean grain. So they would walk behind the reapers and any food, grain, barley, something that the reapers had missed, they would pick it up off the ground. So Ruth and Naomi are broke. They're destitute. They have no husbands, they're both widows. And she says, let me go and just try to find the extra grains that the reapers have left in the field. And Naomi says, you should definitely do that because if you don't do that, we're going to starve to death. We don't have anything. So she goes and does this in the fields. Now look at what happens. Look at Ruth, chapter two, right where we were. And look at verse four. Now, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered him, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his servant who is in charge of the reapers. Whose young woman is this speaking of? Ruth? Now turn if you will, same chapter, verse 15. And when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her. So I want you to look again at this. In verse 4, Boaz comes and talks to the reapers. In verse 5, Boaz speaks to his servant. In verse 15, Boaz speaks to his young men. He's asking them questions, gathering advice, talking to them about it. Who does Boaz not ask? Friends. Friends. The only people he's talking to, the only people that he's associating with, the only people that he's asking advice of is co workers. Specifically people that work for him. He's asking folks that work for him for help. So we see that Ruth is struggling with sadness, but we see that Boaz is struggling with loneliness. Boaz is lonely. He doesn't have anybody in his life. Now I want you to hear me on this. This is not a sermon. I am not preaching a sermon on if you're lonely you need to get married. Listen to me. I've done a lot of marriage counseling, so I know that's not the solution, okay? What I am saying is you need to have some people in your life that are not just co workers and casual acquaintances. You need to have people that pour into your spirit. You need to have iron sharpening IR iron. You need to have friends that you can count on and believe in, that you can call them on the phone and get advice. Get good biblical advice. You need to have some friends. The cure for loneliness is not falling in love. The cure for loneliness is relationships. You need to have friends. Friends that you've had for a long time. If you meet someone and their newest friend is their best friend, you need to be careful. I'm just going to warn you with that one. That one's for free. If you meet somebody and their newest friend is their best friend, you need to watch out. I've got two great friends. Both of these guys I've known since childhood and high school. I've known my friend Brian since we were eight years old. We went to the same little Methodist church together. My mom started a Sunday school class. His parents joined my mom's Sunday school class. And we've been friends for more than 40 years. We've been through all of it together. We still talk regularly. I texted him the evening that I had had my heart attack in January. I texted him and told him what had happened. I wanted him to hear it from me before he saw it on social media. He came and visited me in the hospital. The next morning he drove up from Atlanta. That meant more to me than. I'm not sure I could ever tell him what that meant to me, for him to come and visit me in that hospital. We've been through it. I've been in his wedding, he was in mine. Since we were eight years old. We have been friends and remain friends. We have lunch together once a month or so. We hang out. We talk about kids and wives. My other great friend is named Aaron. I met Aaron when I was in high school. My dad took a job pastoring a church in central Florida. We moved to Orlando and I met Aaron in the youth group. We've been friends since we were about 15 years old. 35 plus years of friendship. And we've been through it as well. Things that we've been through, stuff that we've struggled with, things. I can call those two guys anytime and ask them for advice. Even better is this. Neither one of them are preachers, which is great. Brian is an executive for Chick Fil A. And Aaron owns a construction firm in central Florida. Neither one of them pastors. Listen to me. You got to find somebody that is your friend that you don't work with, that doesn't work for you. You need to find somebody that can be truthful with you and honest with you, that can speak into your life. You need to have more than one. You can't just have one person that, that's the person that you go to all the time. Oh, I just need one great friend. But the problem is, what if something happens to that one great friend? Who do you talk to then in the midst of that crisis? Here's the coolest part. Aaron and Brian have both become friends with each other because of me. Neither of them knew each other. One from Florida, one from Georgia, and they have become friends with each other because of me. One time they sent me a picture. Brian had gone to Orlando on vacation and they had dinner together and I felt like they were cheating on me. I'm going to be honest with you. It hurt my feelings a little bit the last couple of years. Aaron comes up to Atlanta for the fourth of July weekend. We get tickets to the Braves game and the three of us go to the Braves game together. We have dinner before and we just hang out and talk about kids and wives and jobs. And I'm just telling you, you can't count on reapers and servants and people that work for you to speak into your life at the level that you need. We all of us struggle with levels and moments and seasons of loneliness. You go, yeah, but I'm old now. How do I find friends? How do I make friends? And I get that. I understand that it is a struggle. Here's what I would say. Find like minded people. If you make friends in a bar and something goes wrong, you know what advice you're going to get? You get bar advice, you get booze advice. If that's the advice you want, then by all means make those type of friends. But at this stage of my life, I'm not interested in booze advice. Now you make friends at church. What you're getting is Bible advice. You're getting godly advice. You're getting counsel from like minded people with a similar worldview that believe and think about things the same that you do. We've got every kind of group in the world here. We got small groups for men and for women, for young adults, with Pastor Avery, for students, for single older singles, younger singles. Pastor Matthew, I want you to, I want you to see the level of dedication that Pastor Matthew has for life groups. Don't applaud until you hear it, Kaylin. This is a level. Pastor Matthew runs a golf small group. Come on now. That's just Pastor Matthew wanting to play golf and looking for some guys to play with him. But you see what I'm saying? If you play golf, that's that there. Anytime, somewhere, there's something. There's Sunday school groups, there's ways for you to get plugged in. There is no reason in a church this size, with as many opportunities that we have, that we can't find the ability to find some friends, some relationships. The answer to loneliness is not love. It is friendship. The modern English word friend, friend is related to an old English verb. Friend is not a verb. Right. But the word that it's based on was actually a verb in Old English. And the verb meant to set free. I think that's fascinating. Friend. Our word friend is based on a verb that meant to set free. Do you see that? That friend frees us from the bondages of loneliness, of isolation, all of those things. And the more that we have of that, the easier it is to fall into sadness. Do you see that? How this island of misfit toys, they all kind of work together? The loneliness feeds the sadness. The sadness feeds the loneliness. And now back to the final one in this story that we have already read. Look back at Ruth, chapter one, verse 18. We read a couple of these verses, but I want to read it more significantly. Ruth 1:18, when she saw that she was determined to go with her. This is Naomi, she stopped speaking to her. That's the verse I referenced. When Naomi sees that Ruth is determined to go with her, she stops speaking to her. Now, the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem. And it happened when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was excited because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi? And she said, do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara. For the Almighty has dealt with very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again, empty. Why do you call me Naomi? Since the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me. Naomi just mad about everything. She's just mad about everything. She's bitter that her husband died. She's bitter that she listened to her husband and he convinced her to move to Moab. She's mad that her two sons died. She's mad that the one girl stayed home. She's mad that the one girl came with her. She's mad that they're excited to see her when she returns home. If you're happy, she's mad, you're happy. If you're sad, she's mad, you're sad. She's angry about everything. She's just bitter. What does bitterness do? Bitterness turns us inward. Bitterness focuses everything on us. Look at what happened to me. This is so unfair. This is so unjust. I'm so mad. And that's what bitterness does. Bitterness just feeds on itself internally. So mad, so angry, so upset. How could this happen to me? Why? Why is all these things always happening to me? Why is all this stuff. It's never. It's so unfair. Why did God do this? Why did these things happen? And we turn our eyes inward and we just get more and more and more upset. We become. We become dried out husks. We become Mara bitter. And it's all somebody else's fault. She says, I am bitter because the Almighty has done this to me. In my last church. There was a guy named Bruce in my last church. And he was an interesting guy. He was upset about pretty much every decision that we made at the church. He was always upset. He didn't like any of the music that we played. And all of the music that we played was too loud. This is a true story. In between worship practice and service starting, Bruce would sneak into the sound system and turn all the faders down on the board. That's a true story. We would catch him in the sound system turning all the faders down because it was too loud. But here's the thing, we had electronic board. And so you just push a button and all the faders go back into place. So Bruce was doing. But everything. One of the things that Bruce was the maddest about was that the coffee was no good. The coffee at the church was no good. I don't understand why you can't find somebody that can make good coffee. This coffee is terrible every Sunday. The music too loud, the coffee too bad. It was just one thing after another. It never ended. So at a staff meeting one time, somehow we brought up his name. And one of the staff pastors said, I got an idea on what to do with Bruce. And I was like, good. Is it excommunication or. I said, what's going on? What's your idea for Bruce? He said, here's what I think we ought to do. We ought to let Bruce be in charge of the coffee. And I was like, absolutely not. I was like, I can't let guests, maybe the first person that they meet Is Bruce. He's going to welcome them to church. I was like, we can't have the maddest guy in church welcome our guests, our first time guests. I was like, come on now, there's gotta be a better plan. He was like, no. He complains all the time that the coffee is no good, so we need to let him make the coffee. And either he'll make good coffee or at least he'll quit complaining. But either way, we solved that problem. And begrudgingly, I was like, okay. So we let Bruce start making the coffee. We called him and said, do you want to make the coffee? And he was like, yes. It was the most enthusiastic Bruce had ever been excited about making the coffee. So, okay, fine, make the coffee. And Bruce embraced it. He bought new coffee. He brewed it. He would show up early. He would make all this coffee. He would invite people to come in and have some of the good coffee. This is Bruce's coffee I'm making. He would explain it to everybody. And a fascinating thing started happening. The longer Bruce made the coffee, the less he complained about how loud the praise and worship was. It was fascinating. And I saw Bruce a year later. There's a family in the church, had like six kids under the age of 12. They just had all these kids. I kept thinking, you know how this happens, don't you? Because it was just like there was no end to these children. And they would show up and they would just pile into the coffee shop and say, bruce, Bruce, Bruce. And they'd jump on Bruce and hug him and climb all over him. And I thought, what in the world is going on here? And Bruce had a whole different pot where he just made hot water. He make hot water. And he had bought hot chocolate packets. And he would pour hot chocolate into these little cups for these little kids and sit at the table, and they would sit on his lap and climb all over him. Oh, thank you for the hot chocolate. We love you, Bruce. I thought you loved Bruce. You love Bruce. You know what the solution for bitterness is? This one is what you thought the solution was for loneliness, and it's not. The solution for bitterness is love. But it's not necessarily romantic love. It is just love for somebody else that takes your eyes off of the stuff that's going on in your own life. The answer for bitterness is love is love. You open yourself up again, you say, it could be anything. We've talked about it already. You could fall in love with the people that you serve at Harvest House. You could fall in love with whatever that is that co worker that drives you crazy. Listen to me. Instead of allowing them to make you bitter about your situation at work, you could love them, right? And take your eyes off of yourself. This is what's going wrong in my life. These are the problems, these are the issues. Instead, we open ourselves to love, to loving for others, to caring for others, to giving to others. We focus on them. Bruce was transformed by the totally, completely simplistic act of serving others. And he was transformed. I saw Bruce blossom and he changed before my very eyes because he found something other than himself to focus on. Naomi returns to Bethlehem. Dead husband, two dead sons, a daughter in law that's not even Jewish that she can't get rid of, that she can't shake. And they say, is that Naomi? Is that Naomi who's returned? And she says, do not call me Naomi, my name is Bitter. She said, I am Mara because God has dealt bitterly with me. But then Ruth meets Boaz and her sadness begins to fade and his loneliness begins to leave. And Ruth and Boaz are married. And watch what happens to Naomi. Look at Ruth, chapter 4, verse 13. Ruth 4, 13. So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went into her and the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, do you see that? Then the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a close relative. And may his name be famous in Israel. And may he be to you a restored of life and a nourisher of your old age. For your daughter in law who loves you is better to you than seven sons has borne him. Then Naomi took the child, the baby, and laid him on her bosom and became a nurse to him. Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, there is a son born to Naomi. And they called his name Obedience. He is the father of Jesse, the father of King David. Do you see that? Naomi opened herself to the new grandbaby. And the bitterness couldn't help but disintegrate. It left because she was no longer focused on the husband she had lost and the sons that had died. Instead she opened her worldview to embrace loving new people. And in loving the bitterness, just it floods out of her. There is a son born to Naomi. They called his name Obed, the father of Jesse, who was the father of King David. Three totally broken people. But because they find God and each other, God uses those three unlikely island of misfit toys to bring about the Davidic dynasty. The same dynasty that is fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, the inheritor of the Davidic dynasty, is because of Ruth, Boaz and Naomi, that that is how we can leave those things, that stuff, those issues. All of us experience sadness at one point or another. All of us deal with loneliness at one point or another. All of us deal with bitterness at one point or another. But we don't have to live there. We can, like Ruth, Boaz and Naomi, find God and find others, inherit a new season and a new calling and a new destiny. Let me close with this. I asked for permission to tell this story because when I tell stories about people in the church, I always want folks to know that the people are okay with me telling the story. So I did receive permission to tell this story. Many of you know the health struggles that Leslie DeRusso went through over the last several years. Many of you know Gary and Leslie just several weeks ago now, a month or so ago, Leslie reached the end of her fight, her struggle, and she passed. We did her memorial service right here just last week. The reason that I bring her up and talk about her this morning is that Leslie, of anyone that I've ever known, Leslie had the greatest opportunity to call herself Mara. Afflicted with various health issues since she was 18 years old, cancer survivor numerous times, all kinds of things happening inside of her body that nurses and doctors in medicine could not control and could not cure. Of anyone that I've ever met, I think it would have been easiest for Leslie to say, don't call me Leslie anymore. My name is Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. But that was not who she was. That was not who she was. That was not the calling, the destiny that God had on her life. Every time Leslie went back in the hospital, when I would call her to check on her, she would always tell me, I'm on assignment. She would say, I'm on assignment. Do you see that? She could have been sad. She could have been sad. But instead, she said to herself, like Ruth, I am taking off the old garments. I'm putting on the garments that I have to wear now, and I'm embracing what God is calling me to. I'm embracing this season. I am on assignment. Even in the hospital, even in the midst of all the medicine and drugs and doctors and pain and suffering. She says, I am still on assignment. She could have easily embraced sadness, but instead, she said, I have been called to this place and this moment and this time. She could have been bitter, but bitterness is solved through love for others. And if anybody ever loved other people, it was Leslie derusso. You should have heard the people tell stories at her memorial service celebration of her life. How Leslie had talked to them, welcomed them, greeted them, discovered them, found them, become friends with them, checked up on them. The last time that I visited Leslie in her house, as I went to leave, I said, leslie, I'm going to pray with you. She was in and out in that meeting, that time that I went that last time, I said, leslie, I want to pray for you. And she immediately opened her eyes and sat up and she said, but I need to pray for you first. She prayed for me before I prayed for her. She never allowed any bitterness to creep in because she was so focused on loving the people that God had placed in her life. Leslie DeRusso was an inspiration to me personally. We can live our lives without sadness, loneliness and bitterness, even in the midst of horrible situations. We don't have to fall prey to that. We don't have to be that person. We don't have to embrace those characteristics. We love God. We love others. We embrace our destiny and calling. And in that moment, we find healing. We find healing. I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what you're facing, but God is saying to you the same thing he said to Ruth and Boaz and Naomi. You don't have to live here forever. This is a season of life you might not want to be in, but I have destiny and purpose. Love God. Love others. Find healing. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this wonderful Sunday, for this opportunity to gather. We thank you, God, for all that you're doing in this place. God. And we submit ourselves to you. Some of us struggling with loneliness, with feeling abandoned. God, I ask that you would begin to work inside of them, others with grief and sadness, God, that you would show them the destiny and the purpose. Others that feel bitter, that feel betrayed, that are mad at you, God, are mad at others. Help them to find new levels of love for the people around them, no longer held by bitterness, loneliness and sadness. Those that the sun sets free are free indeed. God be with us in the days and weeks ahead. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. [00:44:24] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia area, we invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland. [00:44:42] Speaker B: Sam.