Awhile back I read about a man who bought a new Winnebago. He took it out on the highway, and after he got it up to cruising speed, turned on the cruise control and then went into the back to make himself a cup of coffee. He thought cruise control was something like auto-pilot, I guess, so he didn’t see any need to remain at the wheel. So he was indignant and sued the company. Obviously there was something wrong. The cruise control wasn’t working.
We saw in chapter two that Naomi has come to a new realization of God’s sovereign care. He hasn’t forsaken her after all (as she had thought); He has her life in His hand and is caring for her and for her daughter-in-law, Ruth. When she sees what is happening, she cries out, “God hasn’t quite walked out on us after all! He still loves us, in bad times as well as good!” (The Message). He has plans for them, greater things than they ever could have imagined for themselves. But that realization doesn’t lead Naomi to sit back and do nothing, waiting for God to work out His sovereign will. She doesn’t turn on the cruise control and sit back with a cup of coffee, as if her responsibilities were now over. She understands that God’s sovereign care in our lives is not like cruise control (or auto-pilot). God doesn’t work in that way. He calls us to work in cooperation with His purposes.
What do we mean when we say that God is sovereign? We mean that He is the King of all creation. He is the ruler of the universe. This means, 1) that all things belong to Him, that He is the owner of everything in creation. Everything that exists was made by Him and belongs to Him. The Bible only allows for a limited idea of private property. We are stewards of the things He’s entrusted to our care, and none of it belongs to us absolutely. Someday we’ll have to give an account for how we’ve used the things He’s entrusted to our care. 2) Saying that God is sovereign also means that He has the authority to impose His will on His creation. This follows from saying that He is King. He has the right to command, and it’s our duty to obey Him. And 3) it implies that He is in control of all things, that nothing happens unless He allows it (see New Dictionary of Theology, pp. 654-55). Jesus is assuming God’s sovereignty when He says: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-30). Naomi has rediscovered the truth of God’s sovereign care. She always assumed His sovereignty, but for awhile she was convinced that He was exercising His sovereign power to destroy her and bring her to ruin. Now she’s rediscovered the truth that He, the Almighty, is watching over and caring for her.
Notice, first of all, that this new realization of God’s sovereign care doesn’t lead Naomi and Ruth to sit back and wait passively for Him to act. They don’t say, “well, we know now that God has this situation under control; all we need to do now is wait. If we get involved we’ll just make a mess of things.” I’ve known some people who believed so strongly in God’s sovereignty that it crippled them. They were sure that God has all things under control, that He is ordering all things according to His own will. And it crippled them. It led them to fatalism: “God has already decided everything that’s going to happen; what difference do my choices make.” It often led them to irresponsible choices, because they were assured that God is taking care of everything, and even if something bad happens as a result of my irresponsibility, all of it comes under the umbrella of His sovereign rule anyway. Notice that the assurance of God’s sovereign care doesn’t affect Naomi and Ruth in this way. It doesn’t give them a license to sit back and do nothing.
Naomi was passive before, when she was depressed and believed that God had become her enemy. When life was filled with nothing but bitterness and pain, and when she believed God was trying to destroy her, what was the use of trying to better her situation? But now, everything has changed. The assurance that God is with them, that He is working out His purposes in their lives, gives her the courage to act.
We need to be careful how we apply biblical doctrine. The truth is that we really don’t understand God’s sovereignty very clearly. We’re not capable, at this point, of grasping the relationship between God’s control over all things and our very real responsibility to act in obedience to His will. God’s Word tells us that we can rest in the assurance that He is sovereign, that He has all things under His control, that nothing happens unless He allows it, and that He is even able to take evil and turn it for good. But when we become fatalistic in response to this, we’ve misapplied the doctrine. Or when we say, “God already knows everything I need, and He’s promised to take care of me, so there’s really no need to pray,” we’ve twisted things. We’ve applied the truth in ways that are not true.
Daniel says, in chapter 9 of his book, that he’s been studying the prophesy of Jeremiah: “I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, must be fulfilled for the devastation of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years” (9:2). It sound pretty clear-cut. Once the seventy years are over, they’ll be able to return. All they need to do is wait it out. But that’s not how Daniel responds: “Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession....” (9:3-4). He understands something of God’s plan from meditating on Scripture, but that leads him to an intensive time of prayer and fasting. He wants to understand more, and he also wants to confess the sins of his people and cry out for the fulfilment of God’s promises. He doesn’t assume that God’s purposes for His people will be fulfilled apart from any action on their part.
Naomi has come to see the truth that Paul expounds in Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left for her to do. She sees it as her responsibility to seek a husband for Ruth: “My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.” Knowing that God has their lives under His sovereign care frees her to act. When she didn’t know this, she was paralyzed. There didn’t seem to be any point in trying any more. Now that she knows God is working on their behalf, she’s free to take some initiative. An assurance of God’s sovereignty over all things sets us free to act in obedience, trusting Him to use our feeble efforts to carry out His purposes. An understanding of God’s sovereignty should stir us to action, not paralyze us.
The next thing to notice is this: the assurance of God’s sovereign care doesn’t take away the element of risk in their lives. Ruth takes some real risks following Naomi’s instructions. She goes to the threshing floor alone at night, in a society where the vulnerable are often taken advantage of (we see some examples of this in the book of Judges). There’s a very real possibility that she’ll be harmed, which is why Boaz, once he discovers that she’s there, tells her to stay till morning. It simply wouldn’t be safe for her to return home alone at night. But she’s also risking her reputation. Prostitutes often carried out their trade at the threshing floors. Here’s an example from the book of Hosea, where God is comparing Israel to a prostitute: “Do not rejoice, O Israel! Do not exult as other nations do; for you have played the whore, departing from your God. You have loved a prostitute's pay on all threshing floors” (9:1). There’s every possibility that if Ruth is seen there her intentions will be misunderstood. That’s why Boaz sends her away before it is light, saying “It must not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.”
And there’s also the possibility that Boaz himself will reject her. He’s shown her kindness while she’s been gleaning in his fields, but now she’s going to ask him to marry her. She’s a foreigner, after all, and he’s an important person in the community. Ruth takes some real risks in following Naomi’s instructions. An assurance of God’s sovereign care is no guarantee that things are going to work out well in the short term. We know the end of the story, but Ruth doesn’t when she sets out to visit the threshing floor. Scripture has plenty of examples of people for whom things haven’t worked out well, even though they’ve been people who are under God’s sovereign care, people who love Him and want to serve Him. Living in obedience to our sovereign God often involves taking risks and making ourselves vulnerable, and there’s no guarantee that things, in the short term, will work out the way we want.
But then, having stepped out, having taken the risk of going to the threshing floor at night, trusting in God’s sovereign care does mean that the end result is not up to them. It’s not their responsibility to make things turn out well. Boaz tells Ruth something she didn’t know: there’s another kinsman who is actually first in line. He needs to follow the Law and make the need known to this other person. So things aren’t yet resolved at the end of chapter 3. They’ve done what they can, and now it’s out of their hands. But trusting in God’s sovereign care means that they can stop and wait. They don’t have to keep pushing, trying to pull strings to make sure things turn out the way they want. They’re assured that God has their lives in His hands, so, having done what they could, they leave it with Him.
Here’s what sometimes happens to us. On the one hand, we respond to the realization of God’s sovereignty by becoming passive. It all depends on Him, so we don’t have to do anything. We just sit back and wait for Him to do it all. Whatever happens is God’s will. But then, on the other hand, we respond to the realization of our own responsibility by taking the whole burden upon ourselves. Now it all depends on us. We saw, in the first chapter, this attitude in Carlo Carretto before he went to live in the desert: “With this mentality I was no longer capable of taking a holiday; even during the night I felt I was ‘in action.’ There was never enough time to get everything done. One raced continually from one project to another, from one city to another. Prayer was hurried, conversations frenzied, and one's heart in a turmoil” (Letters from the Desert, trans. by Rose Mary Hancock, pp. 14-15).
But neither of these extremes is true. God does call us to act in obedience, and our obedience makes a difference. There is something for us to do, and God expects us to step out in obedience, even when it means risking everything for His sake. But then, having done that, we can rest in the assurance that the burden of success doesn’t rest on us. Once Ruth gives Naomi a report, Naomi responds: “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest, but will settle the matter today.” She knows that Boaz is responsible and that he will do what he promised. But this other relative could decide to marry Ruth, and they don’t know him; maybe he’s not as honorable as Boaz. They don’t know what the outcome is going to be. But Naomi’s able to step back and wait because she’s already been assured that “God hasn’t quite walked out on us after all! He still loves us, in bad times as well as good!”
God doesn’t call us to make sure things turn out well. Our part, in reality, is very small, and the burden rests on Him. That’s why Jesus could say: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Here’s the truth: God is the sovereign ruler of the universe. He is the one who “accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will” (Ephesians 1:11). He is the one who is able to make all things work together for good. And He, as sovereign of the universe, calls us to cooperate with Him in the fulfillment of His purposes. He doesn’t call us to bear the burden of it all; He simply calls us to walk with Him in obedience. Paul gives the balance in Philippians 2:12-13: “Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” The foundation is “God is at work in you.” He’s the one who enables us to act in obedience. But we’re not just to wait passively. We’re to work out our salvation, cultivating a life of loving obedience to our King and Master, taking risks in obedience to Him, knowing that the ultimate outcome is His responsibility.
Martin Luther lived much of his adult life at the center of controversy and conflict. When he first began to confront some of the corruptions that had crept into the life of the Church, it looked like he might not survive. Just 100 years earlier, Jan Huss, had been burned at the stake under almost identical circumstances. But God preserved Luther’s life, and the Reformation transformed the Western world. Listen to what Luther said later in his ministry: “I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise, I did nothing. And while I slept... or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no priest or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.... I did nothing; I let the Word do its work” (quoted by Fred W. Meuser, Luther the Preacher, p. 66). God had done great things through Luther’s preaching, but Luther recognized that the outcome wasn’t his doing at all. He had simply carried out his calling; he had preached and taught and written God’s Word, resting in God’s sovereign power for the outcome. He acted in obedience, and he took great risks. But in the end he admitted, “I did nothing.”
In our hyper-vigilant, hyperactive age, we need this assurance: God is in control. The sovereign ruler of the universe has our lives in His hand. He is all-powerful, and “He... loves us, in bad times as well as good!” All power in heaven and on earth is His. Being assured of this truth, we can have confidence to lay our lives at His feet, to take risks for Him, to risk losing everything for His sake. The immediate results are His burden, and He’s already assured us that the final outcome will be beyond our wildest expectations.
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