Sermons About Naomi
Joy to the World's Widows
This teahcing kicks off a new series called Joy to the World. This week focuses on the widows of our world today and how we are to spread joy to them.
0 Amens
Risk
Our aim over the next six weeks is to walk through the story of Naomi and Ruth from the Old Testament book of Ruth. As we make our way through this Tale of Two Women, my hope is that you will see how God works in a providential way to reveal His sovereignty and goodness. One of the best ways that you can get the most out of this study is to devote to reading through this story once each week for the next six weeks. This is one of the most well written stories in the whole Bible and it follows the lives these two women as they experience suffering, reward, blessing, risk, wisdom, and ultimately redemption. There are many truths for us to grasp as we journey with Naomi and Ruth.
0 Amens
Naomi, a Portrait of Enduring Faith
As we set aside this day to honor mothers, a lot of preachers wrestle with the best text to preach. Because while mother’s day can be a wonderful holiday, it can also be bittersweet. Some of you have not had the blessing of being mothers. Others of you have lost mothers recently and you’re still feeling that pain. And still there are some here who have had complicated relationships with their mothers.
0 Amens
Suffering
Our aim over the next six weeks is to walk through the story of Naomi and Ruth from the Old Testament book of Ruth. As we make our way through this Tale of Two Women, my hope is that you will see how God works in a providential way to reveal His sovereignty and goodness. One of the best ways that you can get the most out of this study is to devote to reading through this story once each week for the next six weeks. This is one of the most well written stories in the whole Bible and it follows the lives these two women as they experience suffering, reward, blessing, risk, wisdom, and ultimately redemption. There are many truths for us to grasp as we journey with Naomi and Ruth.
0 Amens
Godly Women
God honors women. They are created in his image and share a special place in his divine plan. Naomi is one example of a woman in God's favor. She was self-sacrificial given her unfortunate situation and was blessed by being an ancestor to the messiah, Jesus Christ.
0 Amens
A Courtroom, A Ceremony, and a Child
The providence of God and the hope of the nations takes center stage as our story of a young Moabite widow comes to a close.
0 Amens
Hope, Hesed, and a Hero
The hope of an aging widow. The covenant love (hesed) growing between an unlikely couple. The appearance of a hero. All under the sovereign hand of GOD. The story of Ruth continues...
0 Amens
Where You Go, I Will Go Part 4
At Sovereign King, we have spent the past month discussing the promise that God is at work in this world and in our lives whether or not that work is always visible. A lot of the time, we have no idea where things are going or what God has planned. Because of that, the call of going where God takes us leads to a life of humility, trust, and patience. For example, we've followed Naomi from fleeing Israel during a famine through losing her husband and two sons to her return to Israel with daughter in law, Ruth to her expressed anger at feeling abandoned by God. We've followed Ruth from being a pagan, Moabite to becoming a widow herself to leaving behind her family and culture to professing faith in Jehovah God to working in the welfare fields so she and Naomi can eat to catching the eye of Boaz in whose field she works. Many of us have stories like that where we start in one place in life but wind up in another. Rarely are we able to chart out our life from point A to B and if we do decide where we want to be and wind up there, rarely is the road the one we thought it would be. In our church alone, we have folks who started out as social workers who are now training to be librarians. We have folks who were in the interior design field who now work at hospitals. We have folks who were homeless who are now headed to the military. We have folks who were school teachers who are now...pastors. We have folks who thought they would never get married who have are now happily married, and we have folks who thought they would never have kids but now they do. We may or may not like where we have ended up in life, but the big question all along has been and needs to be, "Can you rise up and call God good and blessed no matter the circumstance?" I mentioned a few weeks ago that God does have a purpose and a plan for everything, but it is important for us to remember that His purpose and a plan is just that…His. And we should think about that at times other than just when things don't go our way. We often hijack our own tribulations with the expectation that God is going to bring about some blessing other than our knowing Jesus better as if knowing Jesus better was not enough. I'm reminded of a conference that I attended a few months ago where one speaker said that failure was God's means of leading us to success. Then the following speaker stood up and said, "Only in America would a Christian say that failure was God's means of bringing you success. When it is all said you and done, you might just fail and all you will have is Jesus. The big question is…is Jesus enough?" Though the book of Ruth seems to be a million miles away from Jesus, I think that is a fair question to ask as we prepare to close this study. So this Sunday at Sovereign King Church, our Big Picture Question is this: Big Picture Question: No matter the consequence, whether good or bad, rich or poor, sickness or health, dreams fulfilled or dreams deferred, is Jesus alone enough for you?
0 Amens
Refuge: In God and His People
Difficulty is promised in this life. Can we find refuge in the storms? In this beautiful short story, Boaz and Ruth show us the way.
0 Amens
Where You Go, I Will Go Part 3
***NOTE*** Because of a digital recording glitch, the last ten minutes or so of the sermon were lost in the audio recording. I've spent the last month and half studying prayer, and it has been the most productive and effective study in my entire Christian walk. I can that without any sense of hyperbole. You might ask, "How does one study prayer?" and the answer comes in different forms depending upon whom you ask. - Some would do a concordance study of every instance of the word "pray" or "prayer" in the Bible. - Some would do a study of the Psalms. - Some would read books like "Prayer by E.M. Bounds or "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home" by Richard Foster All of these are good plans, and I think you could learn a lot by doing them. I however followed the example of a good friend who just….prayed. Now, I've written my prayers out in journals for years because closing my eyes means going to sleep, so with a few helps, I have journaled through the various petitions of the Lord's Prayer now for about a month and a half, and I think I've learned as much about myself as I have about God. I've learned that one of two things happen when you prayer continually about a desire: you either grow comfortable with God's plan and His timing or you grow discontent and bitter with it. This contentment or bitterness of course rises out of whether or not you think God is giving you what you really think is best. I guess a good question to ask would be, "What happens to the heart when you ask God for something for 40 straight days and nothing seems to happen?" Let's be honest. Praying for 40 days in a row may seem like a pretty long time in terms of discipline and passion, but 40 days in a row ain't nothing in light of eternity and how God works His plan. Don't get me wrong. I would love to hear from any of you folks online or the folks at Sovereign King that you are experiencing the joy of a disciplined, prolonged time over prayer over the last 40 days. It is just that none of us have any right to get too proud of ourselves because we got 40 days closer to obeying I Thessalonians 5:17 that says, "Pray without ceasing." We have to remember. God is not impressed with our obedience. It is what He expects from us. Yet still, what happens to the heart if we continue to pray for something and we feel that those prayers are going either unheard or ignored? You know there is a story about how Augustine came to faith. If you read his book "Confessions" you find that Augustine's mother Monica was a godly woman who prayed for her very rebellious son. In fact, at one point, she kicked him out of the house he was so rebellious. Day and night, Monica prayed and cried that Augustine would repent of his sins and profess faith in Jesus Christ. After praying and praying and crying and crying, Monica sought the wisdom of a local bishop. His response was that she should be consoled because the son of so many tears could not be lost to Christ. Of course, years later, Augustine finally professed faith in Christ and became an incredible early church father articulating great doctrines for the church. That story ends well, but it doesn't always. I wish we could say with that Bishop that enough perseverance and enough tears could change God's mind, but the God of the universe doesn't have a beaker full of your tears where He measures your sincerity. He is not waiting for you to hit some unknown amount of sorrow before He relents. No, the promise of answered prayer comes in 1 John 5:14-15 "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him." Pray the will of God and God answers our requests. But the problem is, outside of the commands of scripture, we don't know the will of God which leaves us petitioning and waiting. As we approach Ruth Chapter 3 this week, we are going to see Ruth and Naomi have high and big hopes for what God might do. They do their part by obeying and keeping to God's word, but along the way, they too have to wait and see what God will do. So as we approach the scriptures this week at Sovereign King, we hope to answer one Big Picture Question. Big Picture Question: Knowing that all of God's decrees and desires come to pass, what is the proper posture of the believer while they wait?
0 Amens
