Who Needs Christmas Part 3

Reference

Matthew 1:5, Ruth 1

Sometimes it's dangerous to be an outsider.

Turn to Ruth 1

This December we're unpacking the surprising truth, that the message of Christmas is not for the holy & the whole, but for schemers, sinners, outsiders, and the broken. In Other Words, the message of Christmas is for people just like me and you.

We're discovering that by looking at four characters in the genealogy of Jesus. Four women who stick out like a sore thumb, because women weren't usually included in genealogies of that day.

Tamar -- the message of Christmas is for schemers
Rahab -- the message of Christmas is for sinners
This morning we'll see that the message of Christmas isn't for the holy and the whole, but for outsiders like Ruth, and like you and me.

Two Questions:

1) The Pain of Rejection

Genesis 19:20-27
Sodom and Gomorrah have been destroyed
Abraham’s nephew Lot has been rescued
His wife is turned into a pillar of salt
Lot and his two daughters are holed up in a cave
Lot’s daughters get him drunk and sleep with him
His firstborn daughter becomes pregnant and has a son named Moab
Hundreds of years later (Numbers 22-24), the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness

The Moabite people are afraid of them so their king Balak hires a prophet named Balaam to curse them
Balaam is unable to curse Israel from the outside, so they infiltrate them from the inside
Moabite women seduce Israelite men, and God’s people begin worshiping the false gods of Moab

Deuteronomy‬ ‭23:3-4‬—“No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.”

Ruth 1:1 says this story happened in the days when the Judges ruled
Since Boaz, one of the main characters in Ruth, is the son of Rahab who was rescued from Jericho, this has to be fairly early in the period of Judges.
Perhaps shortly after the death of Joshua.
Judges 3 tells us about one of the very first judges that led Israel, a man named Ehud. He was a lefty assassin who delivered the Israelites by killing a fat king named Eglon. Can anybody guess the ethnicity of King Eglon? Moabite.
In fact, Jewish rabbinic tradition says that King Eglon was Ruth’s father. Although there is nothing in the text to suggest such a connection, it may indicate common belief that Ruth’s story occurred during the years that Israel was enslaved by Moab.

We live in a world of girl power and #MeToo, but Ruth lived in a day when women were often treated like property
How pro-women the Bible is (including women in genealogy, story like this, etc.)

Ruth was an outcast because she was Barren
Hard to realize how painful this is when you live in a culture where women regularly choose a type of infertility through sterilization, birth control and abortion

Just like Ruth, we are outsiders who need redemption!

2) The Power of Relationships

Hallmark movies—it’s the destination
We know how this story ends, but how?!?
Ruth won’t get to meet Boaz if she doesn’t go to Bethlehem and she won’t go to Bethlehem without Naomi
Naomi didn’t get everything right, and neither do we
But she took Ruth to the right place—for us it’s not a place but a person
Hershael York teaching kid about trinity