Introduction.

1. There are many great truths concerning the Christian life which we need to keep close to our hearts. As we live our daily lives for the glory of God and in honour of Jesus our Saviour and Lord we must have the following truth throbbing in our hearts and minds: it is always possible to do the will of God. You will never face a situation or circumstance where it will be impossible for you to do the will of God. We must never forget the words of 1 Corinthians 10:13, ‘... remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can't stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.' (Living New Translation.) Even under the most severe temptation it is possible to do the will of God. God loves his children and never mocks them by making it impossible for them to do his will. By the working of God's providence he will never, never allow you to be in a position where your only option is sinful disobedience. We ought to start each new day by saying to ourselves, ‘By God's grace it will always be possible for me to do his will.'
    
2. We are inclined to think of sin as things we do rather than things we think or feel. What you think or feel sets the attitude you adopt towards life. The focus of your life is either on God or on yourself. The Lord often uses trials to reveal where the focus of our lives really lie. If you are not God-centred then your response and attitude towards the difficulties and hardships in life will be self-pity. You will be hounded by the question, why has this happened to me? Imprisoned for writing some derogative things about Stalin, Alexander Solzhenitsyn kept a diary of his prison experiences. His attitude towards his imprisonment can be seen in this extract, ‘How simple for me to live with you, O Lord! How easy to believe in you! When in confusion my soul bares itself or bends, when the most wise can see no further than this night and do not know what tomorrow brings, you fill me with the clear certainty that you exit, and that you watch to see that all the paths of righteousness be not closed. From the heights of worldly glory I am astonished by the path through despair you have provided me, this path from which I have been worthy enough to reflect your radiance to men. All that I will yet reflect you will grant me. And for that which I will not succeed in reflecting, you have appointed others.' Alexander Solzhenitsyn grasped that the Lord was with him and that to glorify God he needed to reflect the radiance of God to others. The meaning and the purpose of his life was reflecting the glory of God to others. He had learnt that it is always possible to do the will of God. I believe that if we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that when we fall into sin, it is simply because we are self-centred rather than God-centred and therefore do our will rather than God's will. The attitude that Ruth demonstrated clearly showed that she was a God-centred woman; every one recognised this fact about her life. Naomi, I believe was in a backslidden state when the family left the drought ravaged Bethlehem for the green plains of Moab.

1. The Lord emptied Naomi of her self-centred life.

1. It is very important to grasp that a self-centred life is a miserable life. The quality of life lived by those who are self-centred can never be compared to the life of those who are God-centred, because a God-centred life is anchored on the Lord who is unchanging and all powerful. If you are self-centred you have no anchor and therefore you are swept along by every change in your situation and circumstance. If you are self-centred hard times always make you focus on yourself and interpret life from a self focussed perspective. Naomi's response to the loss of her husband and two sons is obvious when she says, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt 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's perspective on life when she said these things was self-centred. When tragedy comes to a self-centred person the most natural response is self-pity. I realise that some think that I am being very hard on Naomi and showing very little sympathy. Some would say, ‘What Naomi did was only natural. If you lost your family you would grieve, mourn and be filled with self pity.' There is a good possibility that I would do what Naomi did. I can fully understand Naomi's response, but if it is not a response God's word sanctions then as a Christian the response must be seen as sinful. The measure against which we must test Naomi and ourselves is the word of God and not others. Self-pity is a sinful response to circumstances and situations.
   
   
2. Self-centred people interpret life in extremes, they are either not to blame or all to blame, they  speak in terms of it's not my fault or it is all my fault. The focus is on themselves and how what has happened will affect them and this is a sinful response. Was self-pity the only response open to Naomi? Was Naomi doing God's will when she filled herself with self-pity? When Job heard the news that he had lost his children and most of his possessions, he responded by looking to the Lord not to himself. Job's response makes it clear that his focus was on the Lord. Listen to Job 1:20-21, and take note of how Job responded to the news, ‘Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped.  And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord." In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.'  Job responded by humbly worshipping God. When we respond to a tragedy in self-pity, it exposes the fact that we are self-centred and self- focussed. Like Naomi we are responsible for our responses.
   
   
3. You and I are responsible for the way we respond to our situation and circumstances. It is very important for us to understand the sinful response of self-pity. When we engage in self-pity we are in a position of rebellion, pride, and mistrust. Rebellion in that we are not willing to submit to the will of God; pride in that we say through our self-pity, ‘I am too good for this' or ‘I do not deserve this', and mistrust in that we are not trusting in the providence of God. Self-pity is a sinful response and is a response Christians ought to avoid. To avoid self-pity there are four vital things that we must remember.
   
   
1. While we may not understand why God in his providence has ruled that certain things happen to us, we nevertheless accept that not only is he sovereign, but that he is also all wise, holy and love. Whatever God does is according to his perfect wisdom, holiness and love, therefore everything that God does is right. God never ever makes a mistake.
   
   
2. While we may be confused by God's providence, we nevertheless know what God wants us to do; he wants us to trust him and to continue obeying him. We should have no doubt that this is God's will for us. No matter what happens God requires us to trust and obey him.
    
3. While we may be emotionally hurt and battered we nevertheless know that God works all things for the good of those called according to his purpose. He will not cause his children to suffer needless pain or shed needless tears. Christ our High Priest is able to sympathise with us.
   
   
4. While we may see our private worlds broken and shattered, we must remember that our lives are not essentially about us, but about God's glory. Everything God does he does for his own glory. We were created by God in order for him to use us as he pleases to glorify himself. God is not man-centred, but God-centred. God saved you, not to make you happy but to glorify himself. Pride would have you believe that life is about you and that God is man-centred and committed to your happiness. It is only when we grasp that all of life is about God's glory that we begin to understand life from God's perspective. God's great ambition for you is for you to glorify and enjoy him, by being focussed and centred on him.
   
   
4. The question Naomi wanted answered was why did she go through such deep suffering? Like Naomi we often ask the question why am I suffering? Listen to Sinclair Ferguson answering this question for Naomi, ‘In the case of Naomi, part of the answer is one word- in fact, a name: Ruth. Ruth's conversion is part of the explanation of Naomi's pain. ... The story of Naomi is about Ruth; or more accurately, it is about God bringing Ruth to himself and positioning her life in the ongoing unfolding of his purposes for the world. This is the one reason why we can never say that there is a simple equation in Naomi's life: "She sinned, therefore she is suffering." God's ultimate purpose has not been to punish her for her family's spiritual failures in abandoning the land and the promises. Rather through the mysterious intermingling of his providential control of history with Naomi's family's failures, the Lord's purpose has been to reach through her life to bring Ruth to himself. Was Naomi able to comprehend this? I do not think so. Are we able see things from God's perspective? At best I think we see the tip of the iceberg, therefore we must trust God for his grace and submit to his will. Like Ruth we must seek shelter under the wings of the Almighty. Naomi needed to be emptied of self and filled with God.

2. The Lord filled Naomi with a God-centred life.

1. Before the Lord filled Naomi with himself, he emptied her of everything she held dear to her heart. As Ian Duguid says, ‘Without Naomi's emptiness, she would never have left Moab behind and returned to the land of promise. Had she stayed contently full (as she thought) in Moab, Naomi would have missed out on the far greater blessing of a prime place in the history of redemption. She was so caught up in what she had lost, however, that she could not yet see the far greater treasure she had been given in Ruth, a token of God's grace to her.' Naomi did not grasp the greatness of God's blessing in giving her a daughter in-law like Ruth. While it is relatively easy to see how God emptied Naomi's life, it is rather more difficult to see how he filled her with a God-centred life. To become God-centred Naomi needed to change her thinking and heart-attitude. While this kind of change is essentially the work of the Holy Spirit, our Saviour uses his servants to bring about great changes in the thinking and heart-attitudes of others. The Lord uses the witness (words, deeds, and attitudes) of your life as an instrument to change the hearts and minds of others.
   
   
2. Naomi was confronted by the amazing witness of Ruth every day of her life. Ruth 1:16-17 records Ruth's great commitment to the Lord and Naomi. Listen again to those words according to the New Living Translation: "Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. I will die where you die and will be buried there. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!" In these words Ruth declares that she is much, much more than a daughter-in-law. Listen to Iain Duguid's comment, ‘Ruth is committing her life to Naomi, body and soul, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. In so doing, she is also committing her life to Naomi's God, whom she calls as a witness by his personal name, the LORD. She is even willing to die and be buried in Naomi's land -the land of Naomi's God, not the god's of the Moabites. Given the intimate connection between land and deity in the ancient Near East, and the importance of proper burial for a restful afterlife, this was the ultimate commitment in the ancient world. She further binds herself to do this with an oath of self-imprecation. If she reneges on her promise, she invites the Lord -Naomi's God- to stretch out his hand to strike her down.' Ruth not only said these things, but demonstrated that her commitment was real and unshakable. Naomi should have recognised at least two things from Ruth's commitment to her. (i) Ruth's statement of commitment was in covenantal language. (ii) Ruth was pledging a bond that only death can break. These two things ought to have made her think about the fact that she was in a covenant with the Lord. God had committed himself to be Naomi's God in a covenant and sealed it in blood. God's commitment to Naomi was reflected everyday in the godly life of Ruth. Naomi ought to have seen that God's love and commitment was far greater and more profound than Ruth's could ever be.
   
   
3. Ruth lovingly took herself off early in the morning to glean in the fields in the scorching sun, coming home as the day closed carrying an ephah of barley or wheat. As Naomi witnessed the very hard work Ruth did, she ought to have been moved by her love. If Naomi had thought a bit deeper she would have seen the hand of God providing her daily needs. The witness of Ruth's life told Naomi that God was not against her, but with her. In her mind the seed thoughts of I got it wrong, the Lord has not rejected me, he is not against me, started to grow. Everyday when Ruth came home bringing new supplies of food the seed thought of I need to give God thanks, grew bigger and bigger. As the weeks passed by the thought I am greatly blessed by God was becoming stronger and stronger and shouting louder and louder to get her full attention.
   
   
4. God by his grace introduced Boaz into the thinking of Naomi very soon after her return to Bethlehem. The first time Ruth went out to glean in the fields, Naomi's thoughts were in all probability focussed on the obligation farmers had to help the poor. When Ruth came home and reported the kindness of Boaz, I am sure that in Naomi's heart a secret prayer of thankyou Lord made an appearance. The faith that the Lord gives to his people to believe, trust and depend on him is not silent, but prompts us to respond in thanks, love and praise. The thoughts that God was showing kindness and goodness to Ruth and her were at work in her mind and heart. When Naomi heard the name ‘Boaz', thoughts about the kinsman redeemer and levirate law must have run though her mind and whether she was aware of it or not she was thinking about the Word of God. She would have been asking herself ‘what does God's Word say?' Boaz's honourable response to Naomi's harebrained scheme to send Ruth to the threshing floor under the cover of darkness dressed like a bride must have made her think of God's goodness. The six ephahs of barley and the remark ‘Do not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law' were designed to make Naomi recognise that her life was full, and not empty as she thought. Two matters are presented in this response; (i) It is as if Boaz is saying to Naomi, look beyond the food to God who supplies it and who holds you in the palm of his hand. (ii) It is as if Boaz is saying; look at what you have in your daughter-in-law rather than the six ephahs of barley she has brought home. Had Naomi looked she would have come to the same conclusion that the women of Bethlehem had reached, your daughter-in-law who loves you, is better to you than seven sons (Ruth 4:15). This praise of Ruth would have been astonishing and shocking in the ancient Jewish society which counted sons far more valuable than daughters. Notice they do not say ‘better than Naomi's two sons', but better than seven sons. Naomi did what we often do; she was so focussed on herself that she did not see Ruth as an amazing blessing. God in his grace was turning her thoughts away from herself and onto him.
   
   
5. At the settlement of the issue of kinsman-redeemer and levir at Bethlehem's city gate Naomi would have heard Boaz's pledge and promise to Ruth and the house of Elimelech. Boaz's godly manner and talk on that day would have turned Naomi's thoughts to God's mercy and grace. The blessings of the Elders and the people at the wedding would have encouraged her to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Take note of Ruth 4:13 which specifically points out that the Lord gave Ruth conception; ‘So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son'. Ruth's pregnancy was to be thought of as the action of God. Naomi was to continually think of God and his goodness and grace as those nine months passed by. The news that she had a grandson ought to have overwhelmed her heart and mind with thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty. The neighbouring woman congratulating Naomi say, "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 restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age." This is a statement that calls on Naomi to grasp God's goodness towards her in giving her a grandson who would be a great blessing to her and his people. All the events that took place after Naomi returned to Bethlehem were designed by God to change her thinking and her attitude, God made her life empty to fill it with himself. The closing picture we have of Naomi is that of a happy and contented grandmother sitting on a rocking chair with baby Obed on her lap. Her eyes were probably closed and her heart was filled with wonder, awe and praise for the God of all grace. Her heart and mind were no longer held captive by the past, but were now focussed on the Lord and his goodness.

Conclusion.

Jesus had people like Naomi in mind when he told this parable; "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!' I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.'" God will not rest until our lives are God-centred and we are glorifying God and enjoying him. If the life you are living is self-centred God will empty you of self in order to make you God-centred and full of praise for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.