There is a Redeemer

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — 1 Timothy 1:17
• Hymn — Give to Our God Immortal Praise (#215)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Catechism Reading — Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 46–48
• Hymn — O Lord of Hosts, How Lovely (#48B)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Ruth 4:1–12
• Sermon
• Hymn — My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less (#459)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

Sermon Title: The Kinsman Redeemer and His Bride

Scripture: Ruth 4:1–12

I. A Wise Redeemer

• A. Boaz goes to the city gate — the ancient courtroom — and assembles ten elders as legal witnesses to bind the transaction publicly.

• B. Boaz strategically presents the land deal first, knowing the unnamed redeemer will agree to a favorable price, then reveals the obligation to marry Ruth.

  1. Had Boaz mentioned Ruth first, the man might have negotiated a lower price and Boaz would have lost Ruth.
  2. Boaz plays on the man's greed, knowing he will refuse once the full cost is clear, thereby securing his right of redemption.

• C. This wise love points to Christ's wisdom at the cross — in 1 Corinthians 1:18–25 the cross is the wisdom of God, by which Christ outwits Satan, who thinks he is winning while in fact crushing his own head (Genesis 3:15).

II. A Kind Redeemer

• A. The author repeatedly labels Ruth "the Moabitess" — a term of shame and ethnic hostility — to emphasize the shocking kindness of Boaz in taking her as his wife.

• B. Boaz's public announcement, "Ruth the Moabitess is my wife," is comparable to embracing a chief enemy; it echoes Christ eating with sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes whom no one else would touch.

• C. The woman with the discharge of blood in Luke 8 illustrates the same pattern: an outcast touches the fringe of Christ's garment in faith and power goes out from him, making her clean and restoring her to the covenant community — just as Ruth gleaned at the fringes of Boaz's field and is now wedded to him.

• D. Christ redeems the scum of the earth, the foolish of the world, to make foolish the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27).

III. A Public Redeemer

• A. The sandal ceremony in verses 7–10 is not merely a peaceful transfer; read through Deuteronomy 25:5–10, it is a rite of public shame upon the man who refuses his levirate duty.

  1. The woman was to pull off his sandal and spit in his face before the elders.
  2. His household would be called "the house of him who had his sandal pulled off."

• B. The unnamed redeemer's shame before Israel foreshadows Christ being publicly shamed at his trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate; in Matthew 26:67 they spit on his face — yet he comes to redeem, not refuse.

• C. At the cross Christ turns public shame into public triumph: Colossians 2:15 says he disarms rulers and authorities and puts them to open shame; over 500 witnesses see the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6).

• D. The public nature of redemption shapes the church's worship: the Psalter's repeated pattern is rescue followed by praise "in the midst of the congregation" (Psalm 22:22); Sunday worship is the congregation publicly testifying to the redeemer while Christ, by his Spirit, publicly declares, "Behold my bride."

IV. A Royal and Kingly Redeemer

• A. The witnesses' blessing in verse 12 — "May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah" — connects Boaz to the royal Judahite line and anticipates the closing genealogy leading to David and ultimately to Christ.

• B. Genesis 38 (Judah and Tamar) is deliberately placed after Genesis 37 (Judah selling Joseph) to contrast Judah the kinsman-seller with Judah tricked into becoming a kinsman-redeemer; the experience convicts and changes him.

  1. In Genesis 37:26 Judah proposes selling Joseph — he is a kinsman-seller, not a kinsman-redeemer.
  2. Tricked by Tamar in Genesis 38, he fathers Perez and is convicted; he becomes a changed man.
  3. In Genesis 44 Judah offers himself as a substitute slave in Benjamin's place — the kinsman-redeemer king.

• C. Genesis 49:8–12 establishes that the royal, kingly line will come through Judah — prepared by chapters 37, 38, and 44 to be a substitutionary kinsman-redeemer king.

• D. Christ fulfills this pattern as the greater kinsman-redeemer: Hebrews 2:11–12 says he is not ashamed to call us brothers, singing praise in the midst of the congregation; John 8:36 declares that if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

  1. Redemption is a family affair — Christ is not merely Redeemer but Kinsman-Redeemer, our elder brother.
  2. He stands in the place of his brothers and sisters, purchasing them from slavery to sin and death with his blood, and adopting them into the family of God.
  3. Sunday corporate worship is therefore family worship — coming to the Father through our elder brother, the kinsman-redeemer king.