[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
Mr. Holland's opus is a movie that tells the story of a musician and a composer in Oregon. And probably like every single musician and composer, he had a dream. And the dream that he had for his life is that one day he would get to write an amazing orchestra and opus.
But you know how it is at times with life is we have our dreams and our expectations and sometimes reality and those expectations meet. And so he was not able to do what he wanted to. And so in his mind at this time, he was settling. And what he was settling for was a job working at a local high school.
He was going to be their band teacher.
Well, what ended up being what he thinks as just a little hiccup in the road ended up being a huge blessing in his life and that he ended up teaching at this school for 35 years.
He loved his students, and his students loved him.
Well, then in the middle of all of this, he ended up hearing some heartbreaking news that the local school system had been getting together and talking about how that they're going to have to cut back. And so what they decided to do was to cut all together the music program.
Of course, this was devastating to his students. This was devastating to him.
And so he decides to, you know, go to the office when everything's closed down. There's no school in session, no students there. He grabs a box, and he also grabs some of his family members.
They go with him to the school to grab some of his belongings, some of the artifacts that he had received over the years from his students.
He's packing it all up.
And while he's walking into his classroom, he hears down the hall some commotion.
And when school's out, there should be no sound, there should be no people down the hall.
So he, along with his family, walks down the hall to see what's going on.
He opens the door and the room is filled with Students, his current students and his past students that he had taught over the past 35 years.
And there's this massive banner that hung in there that said, goodbye, Mr. Holland.
And it was already a powerful scene. But there was a young lady that he had taught.
And what's interesting about this young lady, she eventually became governor of Oregon.
She walked up to him and she said, Mr. Holland, you know, he isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside our little town. It might be easy for him to think that he's a failure, but he'd be wrong.
I think he achieved a success far beyond riches and fame.
And then she told Mr. Holland to look around.
She said, look around. There's not a life in this room that you have not touched. And every single one of us in this room is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland.
We are the melodies and the notes of your opus, and we are the music of your life.
It's true, as a teacher in the public school system, he did not have a lot of money.
But I think we all understand, as we look back on our life and even look at it right now, we understand that legacy is not connected to something financial.
It's not connected to some kind of inheritance. Because legacy is not something that we leave for somebody. A legacy that actually lasts is something that we leave in the hearts of the people that are around us.
And today, what we're going to see as we open up our Bibles to the Book of Ruth. In Ruth, chapter four, that's exactly what a young lady named Ruth experienced. I mean, she was a lady that leaves everything that she had known.
She didn't really have anything because Naomi, her mother in law, well, truthfully had nothing to give her.
But what she did give her was far beyond an inheritance, it was far beyond land.
What she left was not necessarily something for her, but what she left was something in her.
And so today I want to invite you to turn with me to Ruth, chapter four. And as we turn there, I want to give you a little bit of context. Over the past few weeks, Brandon and I have been doing a series on the Book of Ruth, all leading up until Grandparents Day.
And I want to give you a quick context.
Some of the main players in this narrative are Ruth, Naomi and a guy named Boaz, who's going to be the redeemer. Now here's the setting. Naomi and her family were living at that time in Moab. But then what happened in Moab? Because of their sinfulness, as we See back in the book of Judges, as it ends, then opens up with the book of Ruth, that what God did is send a famine into this land.
So she's experiencing a loss in her farm, but on top of that, she loses her husband and her two sons. Keep in mind this is not today. This was back in the time where there was no government assistance, no help. In fact, widows were looked at basically just to fend for yourself. That was her situation.
Yet we're gonna see that in the middle of her loss, God was working behind the scenes.
And so what Naomi does is she takes a step and she says, listen to her daughters in law, y' all stay here in Moab. I'm gonna go back to Bethlehem.
But if you remember in the text, Ruth is like, no, I don't wanna leave you, that she decides to follow her mother in law to a new place.
Why? Because she had a big farm?
No, she had nothing.
But it was something she had left within her. Remember what it said In Ruth, chapter one, verse 16, one of the most popular verses in the whole Bible, where Ruth said, please do not ask me to depart from you. In fact, where you go, I want to go. And where you stay, I want to stay. I want your people to be my people. And this is what she said, I want your God to be my God.
There was something that her mother in law had evidently exemplified, left for her that made her want the same thing for herself.
So she goes to a new place.
And when she did. I love how Brandon mentioned a few weeks ago what the Bible said is that they just so happen to meet a man named Boaz.
Now, you and I know that those just so happen moments don't just so happen.
We can look back in our life and see what's felt like, kind of like irony is clearly the presidents and the providence of God, excuse me, presence. And that's exactly what's happening here, is that we can see God's hand in this whole thing. In fact, one of the ways that I've heard providence described is this is when God takes our natural circumstances, our natural issues. Maybe it's loss, maybe it's disappointment, maybe it's hurt.
But what he does is he takes that and accomplishes his spiritual, his supernatural will. That one thing that you couldn't deny and I could not do on my own. That's what providence is. But, but I think all of us in this room would also agree that when we think of the idea of Providence, how God turns out something for good, that providence, like one guy said is best read backwards.
It's kinda like Hebrew.
If you know about reading Hebrew, you don't read Hebrew from left to right, you read Hebrew from right to left.
And that's kinda how providence is meant to be understood.
You don't really see everything maybe right now, but maybe one day you will. You can see how God was working out all these little details. And that's what we see here in this narrative. And so, yes, God is working behind the scenes for these ladies to meet a man named Boaz who's going to redeem them, to marry Ruth and to give her what he didn't even technically have to give, but in self sacrifice he does.
And so God is no doubt working behind the scenes. Yes, but we also understand too that the decisions that you and I make today are also gonna tell the story of what we experience and we'll know and believe tomorrow. And I'll give you an example.
Like, think about it for just a second. Like Naomi, she leaves Moab and takes a step. And then we see in just a second, Ruth is gonna take a step too. And as we think about this today, the question I want us to all think about is this. When you think about your legacy, what kind of comes to your mind?
I know for me, maybe the first inclination might possibly be, well, my job or what I do. And maybe for some of you, you think about your title or how people see you, but that's not what legacy is. Legacy is not what you do. That's your history. But what legacy is, is what you set in motion. So the question I want to ask this morning is what are you setting in motion?
And do you like it?
Because we've talked about this before, future us is just an exaggerated version of current us.
I love that one quote that said. But it's also kind of scary that the legacy we leave now impacts two to 300 years down the road. That's impactful, but it also at times is kind of humbling, is it not?
What right now are you setting in motion?
Ruth and Naomi's what we might call ordinary steps ended up blessing us today. And you know, I was thinking about this morning and I love what was shared this morning in the communion when it was mentioned how, you know, what we get to experience this morning when we take the bread and drink the cup God is so beautifully working in. I mean, we see as we're going to hate to spoil it for you this morning, but the very Son of God, the redeemer, Jesus Christ, that we got to celebrate this morning. And that sacrifice is connected to the steps that Ruth, Naomi and Boaz took. You never know what faithful steps of yours and mine can bless future generations.
And so with that in mind, let's get right into the text. It leaves off where Brandon left off last week. When you notice when it says this, all the people, we're at the gate.
Now, when we read that in our. I guess today a gate doesn't seem to mean that much. But gates were where business transactions took place.
Gates were also places where people would propose. They were places where people would get married. Well, this is one of those where both are technically taking place. There is going to be a transaction of sorts where Boaz is going to redeem, purchase Ruth and all of her family. But also a wedding is about to take place too.
And I want you to notice what they say to Ruth here in this text. They said, we are all witnesses. So just imagine for just a second a crowded gate, people standing by, and they say, may the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah. We're gonna come to that in just a second.
Who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Epaphrath and be known and renowned, excuse me, in Bethlehem. And may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.
So much to highlight in just two verses. But the first thing I want you to notice here is there is really like two or three celebrations that are happening at this gate.
And I want you to notice the first one is directed at Ruth. And here's why this is a big deal.
When you and I hear that the crowd of people, that community, that spiritual community, is saying, hey, Ruth, can your community. It's going to be just like that of Rachel and Leah. That may not mean a lot to us, but ancient Hebrew writings that are non canonized, do you know how they viewed Rachel and Leah? They called Rachel and Leah the mothers of Israel.
They ended up blessing future generations. So what they're saying is, hey, what we want for you, Ruth, and what we see in you, Ruth, is that you are going to bless future generations. Here's why this is a big deal for this community to say this. You know what? She was a Moabite.
For them to see somebody who was an outsider and not just say, you have a place here, but then on top of that to say you have purpose here is a whole different ball game.
And I think it's important for us to even Think about that as a church.
When we see those on the outside coming in, do we see them from that standpoint too?
That, yes, God has planned for you to be here, but we also see a purpose for you here. We need you here.
And then on top of that, not only are they celebrating this Moabite woman, but then they say this. We want your house to be like the house of Perez. If you go Back to Genesis 38, a child named Perez was born from a very sinful situation, Judah and Tamar.
So there's two levels to this. They're saying you're going to be a future blessing, but also what happened before and how God redeemed that situation, he can redeem this one too.
This spiritual community is celebrating with them.
But the other thing that you'll notice is they're also celebrating with Naomi.
And guys, if there's anybody in this narrative that probably needed a little bit of celebrating with, it's her.
She lost her farm, she lost her husband, she lost her two sons.
And here's the irony of this whole thing, if you'll notice in the text of this little detail. It says, so Boaz took Ruth, she became his wife. He went into her. The Lord gave her conception, showing that God is the one that forms, and she bore a son. Then the woman said to Naomi, the women, excuse me, hold onto that detail. The women, blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a redeemer. And may his name be renowned in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age. And I love this last part.
Your daughter in law, who loves you, who is more to you than even seven sons, has given birth to him.
It's very clear that Naomi didn't just leave something for her, but in her. There was a deep spiritual connection there.
But the thing I wanted you to notice here is that the women said, may the Lord bless you. Here's why that's a big deal. Do y' all remember the last time in this text the women were mentioned?
If you go back to Ruth, chapter one, and you look at verse 19, it says this. So two of them, as they went to Bethlehem, they came to the town of Bethlehem, and everybody was stirred in the town.
And the women, here's what they said.
Is this Naomi?
That was code for this. Doesn't look like Naomi. Like this lady's seen a thing or two and she's experienced a thing or two.
It was even the look on her face. The marks on her face were Very clear that she had been through something, she had lost something, and they didn't even recognize her. And isn't it neat? The same group of people are like, whoa, this lady's been through something. Are like, God's blessings are now upon her.
God is working through those marks. See, I wanted to highlight that spiritual community because it's huge. It has such a massive amount of importance in our walk with God. In fact, Refocus Ministry talks about that. One of the greatest impacts on spiritual legacy is you being a part of a spiritual community.
And I'll tell you, as I was reading through this narrative and Brandon probably experienced this too, that it seems like at times that's what's highlighted is the main characters, Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz.
But there's another player in this narrative that helps set this all too, is the community.
It's the people around them that are celebrating. Yes, God's hand is. Is around these individuals, but they are also part of this community that says, listen, we're witnesses to what we see, but on top of that, we're celebrating with you.
It's so important for all of us to kind of have that spiritual community. But more importantly, sometimes it's important for us to help create a community of celebration.
I'll give you an example. A few years ago, when we first moved here, we had only been here a week, and we made the decision for Cruz and I to go to Bible camp.
And we decided to do that for two reasons. One of those reasons is when we moved here, we thought, well, that will give him an opportunity to get to know people his age and, you know, go ahead and have uninterrupted time to get to know who he's going to be with and who is going to be his buddies and those kinds of things.
But the other reason I'll go ahead and tell you why I also needed to go is I remember that first Sunday when I'm standing in the foyer and I'm meeting, like, thousands of people and I'm shaking hands that are telling me their name. And then I see them Sunday night, hey, do you remember my name? I'm like, I don't remember my name, you know? And so I needed, like, a time of, like, uninterrupted two or 300 people. And so that was super awesome and helpful, but that's not at all what I got from camp.
I remember when I came back home, I told Loriann, I said, it was an incredible week. And I said the thing that stuck out to me the most and why I'm so grateful that God has given us the opportunity to be here.
And the way I think I phrased it to her was with the youth group, it truly is an atmosphere of celebration that I kept seeing the whole week. The older kids celebrating and acting like it was the biggest deal.
Any of the things that the little kids did and letting them be a part. And if they did something in a talent show that really showed no talent, I mean, they celebrated it like it was the greatest act ever seen.
I mean, it was incredible.
They were mobbing and they were throwing them up in the air. I mean, it was incredible to see and to witness and to be a part of, but also to see, like, all these different people that have different interests, that are in different peer groups all of a sudden celebrating with each other. And I was like, man, that is incredible.
But you fast forward to, like, even just this past summer, and you still see that being alive within our youth group.
And I'll tell you, as a parent, it does me well. But I also think, man, that is so important for all of us to experience.
It's not just something that we ask for, but we also have to understand it's something that we contribute to.
It's not just one of those things. Man, I wish we would celebrate with each other, that when things go celebrate, it's not just, you know, ask for what you want, be what you want. And so having that kind of community makes a huge impact. I think about what I shared with you guys a few weeks ago when I told you a little bit about the background of Mayberry and the Andy Griffith Show.
I grew up watching it every night. And I remember that one person told me that when they wrote the Andy Griffith show, they purposefully made every character except one.
That was Otis.
He was drunk all the time, but we won't get into that. But that they made every character except for him single widow or widower.
And the whole point of why they did that was to show that in Mayberry, they had a place.
And we had that song that has been on the radio before. I miss Mayberry. Mayberry's not something we miss. It's something we can make.
And so, with that in mind, we get to this next part of the text that, again, I skipped over. And that's been the neat thing about going through Ruth is there's so many connections. And there's this phrase in the Hebrew that says this.
He shall be talking about Boaz, the one that's gonna redeem. He's gonna be restorer of Your life and a nourisher of your old age. If you look in the Hebrew, it actually means this.
A sustainer of your gray hair or a sustainer of your wrinkles. It's the idea that the marks that are on you are actually things that tell a story.
Now, I liked that for a few reasons. One of those is because a few weeks ago, one of my kids said, dad, you're getting way more gray hair in your beard.
So there was that. But then just this past Sunday, one of our sweet, sweet ladies was like, oh, Andrew, excuse me, you got something in your beard. And she pulled me with it. It was, oh, that's just a gray hair. I was like, thanks. You know, so I like it from that aspect, but. But the idea of that Hebrew phrase of a nourisher of your old age, that your gray hair, it tells the story. The marks on you tell a story.
And when you think about the marks that you have on your life, you know, we all have scars of different things.
I got this one right here from being elbowed in basketball. The reason my nose has a big bump in it is because I got elbowed again playing basketball. Same exact guy that gave me this one. Anyway, so we all have marks on us, but in those marks kind of tell a story of different things we've experienced and gone through.
There's a video that I'm about to show you, and by the way, it's from a movie named Wonder.
And if you are a parent and you're trying to find a good video to help your kids understand the impact of bullying, from the perspective of a mom and dad, but also from the perspective of a child is powerful. And so I encourage you one day to show it to them.
But there's a scene in this movie with this little boy named Augie, and Augie has a bunch of marks on his face.
Augie was born with a disease called Treacher Collins Syndrome.
And what it is is where your bone structure doesn't develop, and because your bone structure doesn't develop, it creates all these different mark on your face. Your ears don't develop, your chin doesn't develop like it should. And so for Augie, he constantly wore this space helmet everywhere he went. He didn't want people to see his marks.
Well, his mom's like, hey, listen, I'm making a tough decision, but we're not going to homeschool anymore. I think you need to go to school to, like, a public school.
And so he wanted to wear his little space helmet with him. She's like, you can't wear that to school.
And so he goes to school, and you can imagine he gets made fun of.
And so he feels like he's all alone because of his marks. But his mom lets him know something. That his marks and our marks, they're not ugly. Although difficult, they're not ugly.
And they can tell a story.
So I want us to watch this video. I want you to listen to what this mom says.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: That is not the way we leave the table.
Hey, come on.
Talk to me.
Sit down.
Take that off, please.
It's okay.
It'll be okay.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: I know I have to be so ugly.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: You are not ugly, Auggie.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: You just have to say that because you're my mom.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Because I'm your mom. It doesn't count.
Yeah, because I'm your mom. It counts the most because I know you the most.
You are not ugly. And anyone who cares to know you will see that.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: They won't even talk to me.
It matters. I look different.
I try to pretend that it doesn't, but it does.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: I know.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Is it always gonna matter?
[00:24:22] Speaker B: I don't know.
Honey, listen.
Look at me. We all have marks on our face.
I have this wrinkle here from your first surgery. And I have these wrinkles here from your last surgery.
This is the map that shows us where we're going.
And this is the map that shows us where you've been.
And it's never, ever ugly.
What about your gray hair?
That's compliments of your dad, I think.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: I love when she said, we all have marks on our face.
You know what's interesting is when she talks about these. This tells us where we've been. And you continue in the text, and what you see is that God was faithful to transform a legacy. It says, then Naomi took the child. Again, keep in mind this is the lady that had no prospects. Even idea that one day she would be holding a grandbaby in her lap.
She lost her husband.
She lost her boys.
And it says she took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse.
And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name saying, a son has been born to Naomi.
They named him Obed.
He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. You know, it's really neat. If you keep reading the genealogy in this text, there's 10 names that are mentioned.
And most scholars believe that the reason why there was 10 names, it was also God's very providential hand. Because they had experienced 10 years of famine.
A name that God had still worked through even in the middle of loss, although difficult, never ugly, we understand that God can orchestrate something incredible, extraordinary out of very ordinary paths, that he can replace even the bitterness that you've experienced with blessing.
He can bring about his redemptive purpose in very surprising ways. But as we've talked about today, the choices you and I make right now impact the story that we're going to tell later on.
I love what Psalm 78 says.
So the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and. And they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds, but keep his commands. See, here's what's amazing. Obed was not the only miracle baby that was born in Bethlehem.
We fast forward years later that God's hand was also there to give a lady named Mary conception.
It says then these are those generations.
If you keep following that genealogy, it doesn't stop. Of course we understand at David. But you know what's also neat if you look backwards, that this genealogy also includes a woman named Rahab, a prostitute.
You look at each one of these names, you'll notice that they played a crucial role in God's plan. And I want to encourage you this morning to understand. So do you.
You never know how your children, you never know how your grandchildren are going to be impacted or turned out. And you look at this lineage of Jesus Christ, all these names played a role.
See, legacy is something that you're wanting to leave for the next generation, make it better than you had it.
It's not a title, it's not something you give financially, but something you set in motion. As Psalm 78 said in verse 4, don't hide what our fathers have told us, but tell it to the next generation.
I'm going to give you some quick things of how to tell it.
His glorious deeds, his might, and the wonders he has done. And as we think about these things, I want us to all understand that when it comes to legacy, there is some big misconceptions. It's not about the money, it's not about the success.
We also think about Naomi. She really had nothing but her relationship with God to give. Yet eventually the Son of God was born.
That you don't have to be perfect and you don't have to have a squeaky clean past to leave a legacy either.
Ruth was a Moabite, but also, as we've seen in this narrative, that there might be a cycle of sin that's in your family right now because of the blood of Jesus. Christ and his redemption. Those cycles were meant to be broken.
If you're sitting there, you're thinking, well, how could I do this for me and my family?
How could we create a legacy for us? There's a book called Habits of the Household that I absolutely love. And the whole premise of the book is how to take everyday normal routines and rhythms and bring them into practice in your family and in your home.
And so I want to speak to two different groups this morning. I first want to speak to the younger group that maybe has younger kids, or you might be thinking about kids, kids still in your house. I want to talk to you first, according to Habits of the Household. We're not going to go through all of these, but these are ways to create a spiritual legacy in your family.
Starting the day with prayer. When you drop them off at school, give them what is called ascending prayer.
Practice bedtime blessings, have car line conversations.
And this, I think, is probably the most important right now.
Reiterate their identity in Jesus Christ. Your identity is in not what you do.
It's not what kind of job you have.
It's not in what happens to you. Your identity is in Jesus Christ.
The other thing is to share stories of your own redemption. What that looks like is this. Dads, if you lose your cool, you say, listen, dad should not have handled himself like that. I've got to do better.
Not that I would know from experience. Maybe for some of you ladies, you might say, here's where Mommy messed up.
I shouldn't have done this, or I shouldn't have said this. Or there was a long time ago I made this decision. But let me tell you what God did. You know what happened in Judges 2:10, they stopped doing that.
It says that they stopped telling what they had done before. You share the highs and you share the lows. You know what that is called? That sharing what God has redeemed? If you keep looking, it says this to turn meal times into keystone habits.
Outside of college football Saturdays, don't sit just beside each other looking at a tv, right? Sit across the table, look at each other's faces, talk to one another.
When you think of discipline, see discipline as discipleship, not just trying to teach a lesson of, hey, you're going to feel this or know it's teaching what they could become.
One of the things that was really interesting they talk about in the next study, talked about this too.
They say, practicing liturgies of grace and forgiveness. It teaches children that reconciliation is the outcome of conflict.
That in your homes. He talks about that if you're not teaching in your own life forgiveness and grace, they will have a hard time when they get older accepting guess what? Forgiveness and grace teach the importance of work and seeing it as spiritual, prioritizing playtime and opening your home to others. Brandon mentioned this morning how we had a loss this past here. This past week here at Madison, a man named Jesse Tubbs. Jesse, every week for years would write these things called minute messages. He would post on Facebook.
And Brandon and I got to go to Vicki's house yesterday and I just grabbed one of the books and just started flipping through it. And I landed at one where Jesse shared about leaving a legacy.
And I want you to hear what he said. And I love this so much. It says, do you want to give your children the greatest gift?
You should give them a sincere faith, one that can belong to them.
Help them to develop their own faith.
That is the greatest insurance that you can take out on their future.
He said, first you have to give them a working faith, a living example gives credibility to your message. Paul spoke of a faith that dwelt in mother and in grandmother.
They lived their faith.
The second thing he said is parents must teach their children.
Moses used a word for sharpening. It is this repeated wetting of iron that eventually makes it sharp, which means it takes time, it takes effort.
The child's faith is not a cheap investment. Then finally he said this.
You have to then give them space on their own to develop their faith.
Young faith will start out with some training wheels, but they learn to use it and they gain confidence for the future. And this is what he said. Invest in your children in the only way that lasts eternally.
Now, for those in the older generation, according to faithworks center, they said it's passing on core values.
It's prioritizing your own relationship with God.
It's sharing your own faith journey. These are, by the way, a lot of these similar to the other. List your highs and your lows. Where grandma and granddad did good and where granddad and granddad messed up. But again, it's stories of redemption.
Sharing your own dependence on God, practicing forgiveness, investing in spiritual mentorship, crafting a spiritual memoir or a legacy letter or creating meaningful traditions.
This past week, I thought the timing of it was kind of incredible. My Uncle Dean, so that's my dad's twin brother, he text us a picture of my granddad that I had never seen.
And it's pretty special. This is him in front of his farm truck. And by the way, if you're reading that right? You're like lv. His name was Louis Vivian. That's why he went by lv. If your name was Louis Vivian, you'd go by lv, too. So.
So this is lv, and he's in front of his farm truck. And here's why. This means a lot to me, especially this week.
Is, some of you in here know this, some of you don't. But my granddad had seven kids, six boys and one girl.
And they worked on the farm, especially a lot on weekends because the kids weren't in school the moment the sun came out to the moment the sun set.
Well, there's a particular Sunday that this preacher from Albany, Georgia, was driving by this farm field on his way to the Camilla Church of Christ right down the road.
And he noticed, you know, every single Sunday when I drive by this field, there's all these kids working in this field. They need to be in that church building.
And so what he did is he knocked on that door and he said, hey, I want to see if I could study with you guys.
He studied with my granddad, lv, and my Grandma Martha, and ended up baptizing my grandma, my grandpa and all the kids. My dad, who's here this morning, there in the foyer.
You know, I think about that because I think about that step where God did something behind the scenes, bringing that man by.
But also think about the very courageous step of my granddad. To think, hey, we're going on Sundays, One of my most profitable days of work.
I'm going to bring our family to the church building. From what I understand, even when there was good weather, he never missed a worship service.
What you do and what I do, that's our history. But what we set in motion, that's our legacy.
Maybe you're here today and you can feel that God is working behind the scenes of your life.
We can praise God for that, but we also have to understand we have to make courageous steps, too. So maybe you're in the audience this morning and maybe what has happened is in your family right now, there has been a cycle of sin.
The beauty of redemption that Boaz gave Ruth and Naomi is a picture of what you and I experience with Jesus Christ.
Cycles of sin are meant to be broken.
And so if you're here this morning and you've never made that decision, maybe there's some of you in here and that as a grandparent, even you have witnessed the faith of your child and your grandchild.
It's not too late.
If you want this morning, you can walk forward. We can celebrate with you as you go into the watery grave of baptism and come out brand new.
I was thinking about this morning. My grandmother was baptized in her 80s, but she was very clear. I don't want anybody in that auditorium except you. I was like, yes, ma', am. We can do that, too.
We can do it this afternoon, we can do it tonight.
Or maybe you're here today and what you've been focusing on is your history, not your legacy.
And so maybe for some of you, you want to set something different in motion.
My encouragement for you is maybe to walk down front to ask for prayers. But if you don't feel comfortable with that, every Sunday, we have shepherds that stand at all the exits that you can walk to, and they can take you and pray with you there. So whatever you have a need of this morning, maybe it's prayers to set something new in motion, or maybe it's to experience redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. Whatever you have a need of, please, please come forward or go back there. While we stand and while we sing.
