The Pull of Honor
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The Gravity of Honor | The Pull of Honor
Pastor Dean Deguara
Honor pulls people together, but dishonor pushes people apart.
Ruth 1:1 (NLT)
In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land.
Judges 21:25 (NLT)
In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
Ruth 1:2–5 (NLT)
The name of the man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion—Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; so the woman survived her two sons and her husband.
Ruth 1:20-21 (NKJV)
“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?”
Matthew 1:5 (NLT)
Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth).
HONOR STAYS
Ruth 1:6 (NKJV)
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited His people by giving them bread.
Ruth 1:8 (NKJV)
And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each to her mother’s house. The Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.
Ruth 1:11–12 (NKJV)
But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go—for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons,
Ruth 1:14 (NKJV)
Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
The greatest spiritual dangers in your life will not feel sinful, they will feel sensible.
Ruth 1:16–17 (NKJV)
But Ruth said: Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.”
Presence is one of the purest expressions of honor.
HONOR SERVES
Ruth 2:1-2 (NKJV)
There was a relative of Naomi’s husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz. 2 So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field, and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor.”
Ruth 2:3 (NKJV)
Then she left, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
Some of the holiest moments in your life will happen in unnoticed obedience.
Leviticus 19:9–10 (NKJV)
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am the Lord your God.
Ruth 2:15–16 (NKJV)
And when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. Also let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her; leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.”
Honor pulls together - Dishonor pushes apart
Ruth 2:11-12 (NKJV)
And Boaz answered and said to her, “It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before. 12 The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.”
Small acts of honor may feel insignificant in the moment, yet they often shape generations.
HONOR TRUSTS
Ruth 2:8 (NKJV)
Then Boaz said to Ruth, “You will listen, my daughter, will you not?Honor doesn’t speak about people, it speaks to people.
Ruth 2:12 (NKJV)
The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.” “May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge…”
Ephesians 2:12–13 (NLT)
In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.
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and strengthen you.
When you share those, you can tag the church.
It just helps broaden our influence in the community and beyond.
And we're gonna start a two-week series.
I'm gonna start it today.
Next week is the Next Gen Takeover service, which I'm just gonna tell you, it's one of my most favorite services of the year.
I encourage you to be here.
And then the following week, I'll wrap this sermon up.
A few weeks ago, or a couple of weeks ago, I was just doing my daily Bible reading plan.
I try to read the Bible.
in a year, every year, and I came across the book of Ruth.
Now, I've read the book of Ruth probably, I don't know, at least 30 times since being a believer, and I just kind of breezed through it, and I could not, this time when I was reading it, I could not get
away from it.
So we're going to do like a 10,000 foot view.
Maybe next year I'm going to dive deeper in a verse to verse.
It's something the Holy Spirit just kind of changed up on me.
So I'm going to do chapters one and two today and then chapters three and four when we wrap it up on the last Sunday of the month.
Are you guys ready to get in the word today?
I want to talk to you about the gravity of honor.
Honor, this is the idea of the series, the concept, honor pulls people together, but dishonor pushes people apart.
Have you ever thought about gravity?
Gravity.
It's invisible, yet everybody under the sound of my voice is experiencing and feeling gravity right now.
Did anybody wake up besides me and notice a few more wrinkles because gravity was pulling on you overnight?
You cannot see gravity pulling on you right now.
You cannot touch it.
You cannot hold it in your hands.
But yet every single person is affected by it.
Gravity, by definition, is the invisible fundamental force of attraction between two objects with mass or energy.
It pulls objects toward each other and gives mass its weight.
Earth's gravity, for instance, pulls you towards its center, and it's what keeps us grounded.
How many are thankful that your feet are standing on solid ground right now?
The fundamental concept of gravity can be broken down into two scientific theories, mass and distance.
The more mass an object has, the stronger its gravitational pull.
Distance, on the other hand, the pull of gravity gets significantly weaker as objects move farther apart.
Now relationships work the same way.
There are forces that pull people together and there are forces that push people apart.
How many know selfishness pushes people apart?
pride pushes people apart, bitterness pushes people apart, dishonor pushes people apart, but honor has weight.
Honor pulls people together.
Honor moves towards people instead of away from people.
Honor creates connection.
It creates safety.
It creates belonging.
And we're living in a culture right now that is starving for honor.
People are divided politically.
We're in a political season right now.
Families are fractured relationally.
Friendships dissolve quickly.
Marriages seem disposable.
People ghost each other, cancel each other, unfollow each other.
We experience a lot of dishonor pushing people apart.
But how many are thankful that honor, God-centered honor, pulls people together?
Why?
Why does honor pull people together?
Because honor has gravity.
Gravity.
And the book of Ruth is one of the most beautiful pictures of love, honor, and loyalty in all of scripture.
But what makes the story so powerful is the environment that it's written in.
It's much like the world we live in today.
Ruth chapter one, verse one, it says this.
It's important to note, in the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land.
When the writer tells us this important detail that in the days when the judges ruled in Israel, it's not only telling us when this story took place, but it tells us what was going on in the culture of that time.
Now, if you just turn back one page in your Bible, you will see the book of Judges ends with this statement in chapter 21, verses 25.
It says this,
In those days, Israel had no king at all.
The people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
This book, the book of Ruth, is written in a culture of dishonor, a culture where there is no shared center, a culture where there's no accountability.
Everybody's doing what they want to do.
There is no moral gravity.
Everybody's their own authority and everybody is doing what feels right to them.
And into this culture of dishonor, God inserts a quiet love story built on honor, built on loyalty, built on presence.
And here's a word we don't use a lot in today's church.
It's this, built on covenant.
And this book, the book of Ruth, it's four brief chapters.
You can read it in just a few minutes.
It teaches us that no matter how bad things get in the world, there will always be a people who continue to love and honor God
And there should be a people, come on, there should be a people in the 95834, in the 95835, in the Natomas community, in North Sacramento, or wherever you drove in from today, there should be a people not only who honor God, but honor one another.
The book of Ruth points us out that God is active in the lives of those who remain faithful to him and his word.
But this story doesn't begin like you think it should.
It actually begins with three funerals over a span of 10 years.
You get to verse five and you already have three funerals.
It begins with grief.
It begins with disappointment.
Look at verses two and five of chapter one.
It says, the name of the man was Elimelech.
The name of his wife was Naomi.
And the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah.
And they went to the country of Moab and remained there.
So they left Bethlehem, the house of bread, to Moab.
It says, and they went to the country of Moab and remained there.
Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.
We're only in verse 3, by the way.
Now they took wives of the women of Moab.
The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth.
And they dwelt there about 10 years.
So 10 years has passed by and we're only in verse four.
Then both Mahlon and Kilion also died.
So the woman survived her two sons and her husband.
So in just five verses, Naomi loses her husband,
Naomi loses her sons.
She loses her security.
She loses her stability.
And she loses her identity.
Her whole life is collapsing.
And eventually Naomi says this in verse 20.
Don't call me Naomi.
Call me Mara.
For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
I went out full.
I went out from Bethlehem 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?
She can't see through her pain in this moment.
She is living in a place of disillusionment.
She's right here where we see her.
Listen, she is blaming God for everything that is happening to her.
It's easy to do.
Her name, Naomi, meant pleasant.
but she renames herself Mara, which means bitter.
And this is the first sign of dishonor that we see in the book of Ruth, because Naomi dishonors herself.
When someone dishonors someone, including themselves, they are distancing themselves from the weight of honor they were designed by God to carry.
Can I just say that again?
When someone dishonors
Someone, including themselves, they are distancing themselves from the weight.
Come on, how many know you carry some weight?
The weight of honor they were designed to carry by God.
And when we dishonor somebody, we are disassociating that person with the weight of honor that God designed them to display in this lifetime.
Now here's the important thing to know about the gravity of honor in your life and someone's life.
You can't detach a person.
You can try to destroy it, but you can't detach a person from what God has divinely attached to a person's life, including your own.
Pain, how many of you are familiar with pain?
Yeah.
Pain changed how Naomi saw herself.
She went from pleasant to bitter.
And if we're honest, pain has a way of doing that to all of us.
Grief has a way of isolating us.
Disappointment can harden the softest of hearts.
Disillusionment can derail our lives like nothing else can.
These things often cause us to pull away
But this story is beautiful because in Naomi's bitterness, come on, in steps her daughter-in-law, Ruth.
And Ruth, whose name is Friendship.
How many of you could use a really good friend right now in this season that you're in?
Whose name means friendship does something unusual.
She doesn't move away from the pain.
She moves closer to the pain.
Everybody, this is honor right here.
And Ruth has no idea that her honor for Naomi is about to pull her into the redemptive story of God himself.
Can I give you a spoiler alert?
I'm gonna give you the end of the story right here.
Ruth is a Moabite woman.
She is an outsider.
And by the end of this story, by the end of the fourth chapter, listen, she becomes the great-grandmother of King David.
Matthew 1.5 says, Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Ruth was an outsider, a foreign woman, a widow.
And she becomes a part of the lineage of Christ.
Church, honor has gravity, and honor will always pull people into the story of God.
Amen.
It leads me to my first point, and it's this.
Honor stays.
Everybody say, honor stays.
Honor stays loyal in painful seasons.
Verse six, it says, then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab.
They're on their way back to Bethlehem, Judah.
And she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people by giving them bread.
Naomi hears that the Lord has visited his people and given them bread again in Bethlehem.
And Naomi and their daughter-in-laws begin to make this journey back towards Judah.
And on this journey, they have this emotionally charged exchange.
You can read it in Ruth chapters 8 through 13.
It says this, and Naomi said to her two daughters, again, they're walking back to Bethlehem, go return to each of your mother's house.
She's telling them, you need to go back to Moab.
The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.
The Lord grant that you find rest.
So she kissed them.
And this is verse nine and 10.
It might not be on the screen.
So she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept.
And they said to her, surely we'll return with you to your people.
And she says, no, you're not.
Why are you following bitterness?
The Lord's hand is against me and she essentially says, I'm making a long story short, she essentially says to her daughters in love, I have no more sons.
If I was to give birth tonight, you wouldn't wait to marry them.
She says, the Lord's hand is against me.
Go back home, there's a brighter future for you.
Turn around now before it's too late.
She's being logical.
How many appreciate logic?
In that culture, Naomi knew where they were headed, where her Moabite daughter-in-laws were going with her.
She knew that a widow without sons had no economic future, no inheritance, no protection, no legal covering.
And Naomi is basically saying there's no future with me, no provision, no security, no promise.
And verse 14 says this.
And again they wept together.
And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to Naomi.
Somebody say hold on.
Hold on.
Now we can learn from Orpah.
Orpah is not a villain in this story, but we can learn something from her life.
Orpah chooses security over uncertainty.
And how many know you can't blame her?
In Moab, her hometown, so to speak, she has family.
She's familiar with the culture.
There's a possibility of getting remarried.
There's economic stability if she chooses to go back to Moab.
But in Bethlehem, there's so much uncertainty.
There's no, she's a foreign widow.
There's no guarantee of provision.
There's no social standing.
There's no visible future.
And from a human perspective, Orpah makes the reasonable choice.
And this is the important thing about this story.
Reasonable is not the same as rebellious.
She presents, Orpah represents the reasonable path, the understandable path.
How many like to understand stuff?
The sensible path.
And sometimes, this is what we can learn from her life, sometimes the greatest spiritual dangers in our life will not feel sinful, they'll feel sensible.
Can I say that again?
Sometimes the greatest spiritual dangers in our life will not feel sinful, they'll feel sensible.
See, some of the biggest spiritual decisions that you and I will make are this.
What relationships will we fight for?
What covenant will we stay committed to?
Will you remain faithful in difficult seasons?
They will not come down to obvious sin.
You'll not be choosing between evil and righteousness.
You'll be choosing between what is convenient and what is covenant.
You'll be choosing between, listen, should I go this way, come on, or should I go that way?
Orpah loved Naomi.
She cried.
She walked part of the way there.
She kissed her goodbye.
And this is where Orpah becomes a mirror for you and I. And we have to look at Orpah's life story and we have to say, God, what do you want to say to us?
And this is the question that I want us to ask ourselves today.
Where in my life am I kissing goodbye something God is actually inviting me into?
A calling that feels uncertain.
A relationship that feels costly.
A church commitment that feels inconvenient.
A season of obedience, how many know this one, that feels unrewarded.
You see, Orpah's decision was sensible, and we don't read about her again.
But Ruth chose covenant, which in that moment seemed impossible.
But honor, listen, honor was pulling her into God's redemption story.
And this is one of the greatest covenant statements in scripture.
We've probably all read this scripture.
If you haven't read Ruth, you've probably at least read this scripture, verses 16 and 17.
But Ruth said, entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following after you.
For wherever you go.
I will go.
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die.
And there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts you and me.
You see, Ruth walks away from her homeland.
She walks away from her culture.
She walks away from familiarity.
She walks away from a secure future.
And she ties herself not only to Naomi, but Naomi's God when there is nothing visible to gain.
Church, this is honor that we see in this story.
You see, our culture teaches quick exits.
It teaches us to leave when things get difficult.
It teaches us to disconnect and detach.
It teaches us to ghost them or cancel them or unfollow them.
But Ruth teaches us that honor stays.
Somebody say honor stays.
When my dad's health was declining, we went through several caretakers.
He got to a point where it was too much for my mom to handle.
My sister could only get there a couple of weeks at a time.
And then I was flying out once a month for over a year.
And we went through several caretakers before finding the person that my dad liked.
My dad was picky, I'm just saying.
And someone would be there for a couple days and we would think that it was going to work out.
And then my sister would say, hey, they didn't show up today.
They didn't show up the next day.
And others would come and they weren't experienced at all.
And my mom would be still helping and showing them how to do things.
But then a woman by the name of Adina came into our lives.
And Adina would tend to my dad so my mom could have some time to herself.
She would go to the beauty salon.
She would go to the bank.
She would go do flowers in her yard.
She would go to Walmart because that's all there is where she lives.
There's only a Walmart.
And she would do all these things.
Adina would bathe my dad, dress my dad.
She treated our dad like her dad.
She would go with my mom to doctor's appointments, hospital visits.
She really was there for us.
I remember the last few times I was there, there was a few times we had to take my dad to the emergency room.
And Adita didn't have to come with us, but she hopped in the car with us.
She went to the ER with us.
She would wait long hours in the ER.
She really became a part of the family.
She was always there, and any time something happened to my dad, she would call and check in with my mom to see how he was doing.
And when my dad passed, the funeral was about an hour away.
It was in my mom's hometown, so about an hour from where they lived there, where she grew up, so it was an hour from where they currently live.
And at the viewing, before we did my dad's ceremony,
Wouldn't you know it, after about 15 minutes, in come Adina and her husband.
Several months after my dad had passed away, my mom was still in contact with Adina.
They went out to lunch together.
My mom gave Adina her kids gifts for Christmas.
She even helped get a job taking care of my aunt whose health is also failing.
Because how many know this?
People rarely forget those who stayed in their darkest season.
Amen.
And presence, everybody say presence.
Presence is one of the purest expressions of honor.
You see, people will rarely forget who sat in the hospital, who showed up at the funeral, who kept praying, who kept calling, who stayed present.
And somebody here today may need to hear what I'm about to say, but don't underestimate the ministry of staying.
Come on.
Listen, you might not be able to fix somebody's grief.
You may be not able to solve all their problems.
You may not have the perfect words, but can I just tell you, your presence matters to God and it matters to them.
And sometimes, listen, the best thing you can do is simply remain.
Amen.
Remain in prayer, remain in friendship, remain in commitment, remain in covenant love because honor stays and closes the distance.
Everybody say honor stays.
My second point is this, is honor serves.
Honor becomes visible in Ruth's life when she's found faithful.
Naomi and Ruth arrived back in Bethlehem and it's the beginning of the barley harvest.
Ruth chapter two, verses one and two.
And I just tell you, go and read these two chapters.
They are so rich.
You will find so much more in it than what you're getting right now.
It is so good.
There was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech.
His name was Boaz.
So Ruth, the Moabitess, said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight that I may find favor.
And she said to her, go my daughter.
Notice what Ruth did.
She didn't get to Bethlehem or Judah and just said, I'm just gonna wait on the Lord's timing.
I'm just gonna wait for the Lord's favor to find me.
She said, no, I'm gonna get to work.
I'm gonna start serving and maybe the Lord favor will find me when I initiate what God has called me to do.
Listen, she's not waiting for something to happen.
How many know she's making it happen?
Ruth two, verse three, it says, then she left, and she went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
I love that phrase, and she happened to come, because oftentimes what looks accidental, how many know is actually providential?
It's not an accident, it's providence.
It's providence.
Ruth is doing whatever it takes to survive, whatever it is to get her feet on the ground.
She's gathering grain, but how many know God is positioning her for legacy?
Listen, she's just gathering.
She's being faithful.
God, whatever.
I'm going to be faithful with the little so that you're going to make me faithful with much.
That's right.
She has no idea God is positioning her for legacy.
You see, many of us want legacy, but we're lazy.
We don't want to work.
We don't want to serve.
I'm going to pray about it.
Come on.
Come on, have you know that's Christian lingo for I don't want to do that.
God is positioning her for legacy because she wasn't found lazy.
She was working.
She was moving.
She was serving.
Ruth is working in the field, doing what she knows she can do.
Come on.
And God notices her hidden faithfulness.
You see, some of the most holiest moments in your life will happen in what I call unnoticed obedience.
Do you know, we've been in the ministry 30 plus years, Amy and I. Do you know most of what we've done?
Nobody knows about it.
Haven't you heard about it?
You haven't heard about it because nobody knows about it.
Unnoticed obedience.
Listen, come on, the first to arrive, come on, the last to leave.
Come on, behind the scenes, doing whatever it took.
Come on, following God's heart, following, come on, the passion that he had placed within us.
Doing whatever we could do, come on, to put our hands on something that God could bless.
Ruth is working in the field and God notices her hidden faithfulness.
Leviticus 19, nine to 10.
When you reap the harvest of your land, and I'm sure she didn't know about this verse, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.
And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard.
You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.
I am the Lord your God.
God had built provision into the law, and Ruth, come on, how many know she was unqualified on the, come on, she was unqualified, but when she stepped into Bethlehem, because of the word, she became qualified.
Come on.
Come on.
Ruth qualified as a recipient for that provision.
She was a widow.
She was a foreigner.
She was poor.
And verses 15 and 16 says this.
When she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her.
Also, I love this.
Let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her.
Amen.
Leave it that she may glean and do not correct her.
In other words, she was there just picking up scraps and the workers were ahead of her laying down the bundles.
So she was picking up scraps.
She said, oh, thank you, Lord.
And she would pick up the bundle and she would take it home.
And Naomi said, you're only supposed to bring home the scraps.
She said, I know, but the Lord is blessing me with bundles.
And what we see is Boaz is going beyond the minimum.
He's going beyond the minimum.
And church, can I tell you, honor always exceeds the minimum requirement.
Dishonor asks, what is the least I have to do?
But honor asks, how can I bless somebody over and above?
You see, it's important to understand.
I started asking myself this question.
Again, in the culture that we live in, I said, God is, I was just asking, God, is dishonor a spirit?
I was just thinking, like, is it a spirit?
And I began to look in Scripture.
No, I couldn't find anywhere where dishonor was connected to some evil spirit.
So dishonoring is not an evil spirit.
It's not the devil.
It's actually a decision that you and I make.
Am I going to honor or am I going to dishonor?
Honor pulls people together.
Honor pulls people into the blessing of God.
Honor pulls people into the will of God.
Honor pulls people together, but dishonor pushes people apart.
Can I give you some tools today?
You guys are quiet.
You're making me nervous.
Can I give you some tools today?
Because this is how, listen, we honor on Sundays.
How you doing?
Blessed and highly favored of the Lord.
Come on, we honor each other on Sunday.
Come on, a multi-ethnic church.
But are we honoring people on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday?
Are we honoring or are we dishonoring?
Because honor pulls people together.
That's the only way a church that looks like heaven works.
We honor one another.
We honor God and we honor his word and we honor people.
Dishonor, on the other hand, pushes people apart.
And listen, when people make messes, how many know it's not just the pastor's job to clean it up?
And I wanna put some tools in your hand because listen, when someone comes to you and they start disassociating somebody with the honor that God has deposited in them to carry, you need to say, hey, hold up.
God created them in the image of God.
How many know what I'm talking about?
He created them in the image of God.
Have you prayed for them?
Have you talked to them in person?
Come on, have you sat down and took them out and had a cup of coffee and tried to understand where they were coming from?
Honor pulls people together.
Dishonor puts people, can I just give you some tools really quick?
I'm gonna give you a chart.
Get out your phones, because I don't have these to hand out to you.
Honor moves towards people.
Dishonor withdraws from people.
Honor builds bridges.
Dishonor builds walls.
Honor stays loyal, dishonor walks away quickly.
Honor protects dignity, dishonor exposes weakness.
Honor serves humbly, or we say it this way in real life, leads humbly, dishonor demands entitlement.
Honor sees value in people, dishonor uses people.
Honor creates belonging, dishonor creates exclusion.
Honor chooses covenant.
How many know dishonor chooses convenience?
Honor covers shame.
Dishonor magnifies shame.
Honor speaks life.
Dishonor speaks contempt.
Honor listens carefully.
Dishonor dismisses quickly.
Honor restores relationships.
Dishonor, come on, where am I at?
Help me out.
Fractures relationships.
I got lost on my notes.
Honor gives grace.
Dishonor keeps score.
Honor seeks reconciliation.
Dishonor fuels division.
Honor encourages growth.
Dishonor criticizes constantly.
Honor, listen, honor honors privately and publicly.
Dishonor performs publicly.
Come on, and dishonors privately.
Come on.
In other words, you're saying all the right things, but on the inside, you're just like this.
Come on.
Honor remains faithful in hardship.
Dishonor leaves in hardship.
Honor sees image bearers.
Look around you.
Dishonor sees labels.
Honor welcomes outsiders.
Dishonor protects insiders only.
Honor values character.
Dishonor values usefulness.
Is anybody getting some out of this?
Honor creates safety.
Dishonor creates fear.
Honor draws people towards God.
Dishonor pushes people far from God.
Honor brings healing, dishonor deepens wounds.
Honor chooses humility, dishonor chooses pride.
Honor carries relational weight, dishonor creates relational instability.
Honor builds legacy, dishonor leaves damage for generations.
Ruth.
Now this is a tool.
I hope you took pictures of that because if you're talking to somebody, come on, you have my permission to correct somebody.
Get out.
You say, hold up, hold a minute.
Let me just check my list right here.
How many know we need to have a list, right?
God wants to equip you.
And I say this in love.
He wants to equip you, come on, to help bring correction to brothers and sisters in love.
Come on, a conversation that's out of line.
Come on, bring that in back into alignment.
Come on, somebody talking about somebody.
Bring that back into alignment.
Everybody say, bring it back.
Bring it back.
Ruth 2, ooh, I got a few minutes.
Ruth 2, 11 and 12.
And Boaz answered and said to her, it has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband.
Catch that.
And how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people whom you did not know before.
Honor creates credibility.
And what is interesting in this passage is that Boaz had already heard about Ruth before he even met her.
And it leads me to this point right here.
Her reputation arrived before she did.
People knew when you said Ruth, they knew exactly who you're talking about.
The loyal one.
Come on.
The one who will sacrifice and do anything for you.
The one, listen, who showed up early and was the last one to leave.
Everyone was raving about her worth ethic.
Worth ethic in church.
I'm here to tell you, your character, your reputation will always travel ahead of you.
And I think we need this reminder because modern culture values charisma over character.
Yet the scriptures tell us time and time again that character carries honor.
Or should I say it this way?
Character carries weight.
Integrity carries weight.
Humility carries weight.
Faithfulness carries weight.
Ruth had no idea while she was gathering leftovers in a field that she was being pulled into the story of God.
Honor pulls people together.
Dishonor pushes people apart.
It leads me to my last point.
Honor trusts.
Everybody say honor trusts.
Honor trusts.
Are you guys getting anything out of this today?
I hope so.
Honor positions us for divine opportunities.
Chapter two, verse eight, it says, then Boaz said to Ruth, you will listen, my daughter, will you not?
He didn't say, you will listen, you old Moabite woman.
He said, you will listen.
He said, you will listen, my daughter.
My daughter.
Everybody say my daughter.
Notice the covenant language.
Ruth arrived as a Moabite outsider.
And now she is being pulled into the family of God.
Honor, listen, changes how we speak about people.
And Boaz says something powerful in verse 12.
It says, the Lord repay your work and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge.
May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
Ruth came looking for refuge and now we see that she has found covering.
Everybody say covering.
And spiritually, church, that's our story too.
Ephesians 2, 12 and 13 says this, in those days you were living apart from Christ.
You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them.
You lived in this world without God and without hope, but now you've been united with Christ Jesus once you were far away from God, but now what?
You've been brought near to him through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Church, this is the good news of the book of Ruth.
It's the good news of the gospel.
Jesus pulled you in when you and I should have been left out.
Jesus moved toward us.
We were outsiders, but he brought us near.
We were far away, but he pursued us.
We were broken, but he covered us.
Church, this is honor.
It's the type of honor that reflects the heart of God.
And the book of...
Ruth, which begins with loss.
Listen, Naomi believes God's hand is against her, but God keeps pulling her, come on, out of bitterness into a better story.
How many know God wants to pull you into a better story today?
Come on, he wants to pull you into a better story.
Listen, just like a widow was pulled into hope, just like a foreigner was pulled into belonging, just like a field pulled Ruth into God's provision, just like Boaz pulled her into legacy.
Maybe this morning the Holy Spirit is pulling on your heart to come to Jesus Christ and make him the personal Lord and Savior that he wants to be in your life.
With every head bowed and every eye closed, listen, if you want to surrender your life to Christ, you want to be pulled in to the story of God and say yes to Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, will you just lift your hand very quickly as we close?
Is there anybody in the building?
You say, Pastor, yes.
Right there.
Yes.
Anybody else?
You say, Pastor Dean, will you include me in this closing prayer?
I want to accept Jesus Christ.
Yes, in the back.
Anybody else?
On the count of three.
One, two.
Anybody else?
Three.
Thank you, Jesus.
We've got at least three people that lifted their hands.
We're going to pray this prayer together.
Listen, on the count of three, if you raised your hand or you wanted to and didn't, I want you to pray this with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, together as a church.
Let's pray.
One, two, three.
Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and I ask for your forgiveness.
I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead.
Right now, I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life.
I wanna trust and follow you from this day forward.
I confess you as my personal Lord and Savior.
Thank you for saving me in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Can we give God praise for those folks that raised their hand?
I want to invite our prayer ministers to come.
If you raised your hand, listen, we want to put a new Bible in your hand.
My friend Jeff is in the back.
As you exit, just see him.
You'll see the I Have Decided banner.
Stop by there.
We'll put this in your hand.
It also has some next steps that we can help you with.
Will you stand with me, church, as our prayer ministers come?
Listen, this is what I know.
That, listen, the Holy Spirit may be asking you, listen, who, listen, have you been pushing yourself away from?
Is it a spouse?
Is it a child?
Is it a parent?
Is it a friend?
Is it somebody culturally different?
Somebody who hurts you?
Church, this is what I know.
Honor builds bridges, but dishonor builds walls.
And today, listen, if you want to see the walls come crumbling down in your life, will you just lift up your hands all over this building?
You say, Pastor Dean, I don't want to be pushing people apart.
I want to actually be invited into the story of hands up all over the building.
Father, we thank you, God, that you didn't move away from us.
God, you moved towards us and we're so thankful.
God, I pray, Lord, that as we just give you our yes, God, that you would use us as a church to pull people together.
God, help me to pull my marriage together.
Help me to pull my family together.
Help me to pull my relationships together.
God, use the gravity of honor in my life.
And God, wherever there's dishonor, dishonoring myself.
I know.
God, I come against the negative thinking.
We cast down every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.
And God, I pray that people wouldn't see themselves in a negative light, but they would see themselves as what you've called them to be and who they are in you.
God, we honor you.
God, we ask you to help us honor ourselves.
And God, we ask you to help us honor others.
God, help us to be peacemakers in Jesus' name.
Maybe you're here today listening.
You need to just take a step.
Go ahead.
You can give God praise for a moment.
I'm going to let you go.
Listen, maybe you need some prayer in an area.
Maybe you need God to help you pull it together.
Our prayer ministers are here to pray with you.
Any area, family, marriage, friendships, work related, whatever it is.
Listen, don't leave this place without prayer.
Church, I love you.
Listen, let's take this message to heart and be the vessels that God wants us to be in this season.
Amen?
God bless you, church.
We'll see you, I don't know, at baptism next week or in a small group.
God bless you.
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The Gravity of Honor: How Loyalty Pulls Us Into God's Story
In a world that seems increasingly fractured—where relationships dissolve at the first sign of difficulty, where people ghost, cancel, and unfollow one another without a second thought—we desperately need to rediscover an ancient force that holds the power to pull us together: honor.
Think about gravity for a moment. You can't see it, touch it, or hold it in your hands, yet it affects every person on earth. It pulls objects toward each other, keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground, and gives weight to everything around us. Gravity operates on two fundamental principles: mass and distance. The more mass something has, the stronger its gravitational pull. And the farther apart objects are, the weaker gravity's influence becomes.
Relationships work remarkably similar. There are forces that pull people together and forces that push them apart. Selfishness, pride, bitterness, and dishonor push people away from one another. But honor—true, God-centered honor—has weight. It pulls people together, creates connection, establishes safety, and builds belonging.
A Love Story in a Culture of Dishonor
The book of Ruth presents one of Scripture's most beautiful pictures of love, honor, and loyalty. What makes this story particularly powerful is the cultural context in which it unfolds—a context eerily similar to our own.
The story begins with these words: "In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land." This simple statement tells us not just when the story happened, but what was happening in the culture. The book of Judges ends with this haunting refrain: "In those days Israel had no king at all. The people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes."
Sound familiar? Ruth's story unfolds in a culture of dishonor, a society with no shared center, no accountability, where everyone served as their own authority and did what felt right to them. Into this moral chaos, God inserts a quiet love story built on honor, loyalty, presence, and covenant.
When Pain Changes How We See Ourselves
The story doesn't begin with hope—it begins with heartbreak. In just five verses, we witness three funerals spanning ten years. Naomi loses her husband, then both her sons. She loses her security, her stability, and her identity. Her entire life collapses around her.
In her grief, Naomi makes a telling statement: "Don't 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."
Naomi's name meant "pleasant," but she renames herself Mara—"bitter." This represents the first act of dishonor in the story: Naomi dishonors herself. When we dishonor someone, including ourselves, we distance them from the weight of honor they were designed by God to carry. Pain changed how Naomi saw herself, and if we're honest, pain has a way of doing that to all of us.
The Power of Staying
In Naomi's bitterness, her daughter-in-law Ruth does something extraordinary. She doesn't move away from the pain—she moves closer to it. This is honor in action.
When Naomi urges both her daughters-in-law to return to their homeland of Moab, where they'd have family, familiarity, and the possibility of remarriage, Orpah makes the reasonable choice. She kisses Naomi goodbye and returns home. Orpah isn't a villain; she represents the sensible path, the understandable decision.
But here's the spiritual danger: sometimes the greatest threats to our faith won't feel sinful—they'll feel sensible. The biggest spiritual decisions we face often aren't between obvious evil and clear righteousness. They're between convenience and covenant, between the comfortable and the calling.
Ruth, however, makes a different choice. She speaks one of Scripture's most powerful covenant declarations:
"Entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts you and me."
Ruth walks away from her homeland, her culture, familiarity, and a secure future. She ties herself to Naomi—and to Naomi's God—when there's nothing visible to gain. Honor stays.
People rarely forget those who stayed in their darkest season. They remember who sat in the hospital, who showed up at the funeral, who kept praying, who kept calling, who remained present. The ministry of staying is profound. You might not be able to fix someone's grief or solve all their problems. You may not have perfect words. But your presence matters to God, and it matters to them.
Hidden Faithfulness Becomes Visible Provision
When Ruth and Naomi arrive in Bethlehem, Ruth doesn't sit around waiting for God's timing. She says, "Let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor." She's not waiting for something to happen—she's making it happen.
The text says Ruth "happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz." What looks accidental is actually providential. Ruth is simply doing whatever it takes to survive, gathering leftover grain. But God is positioning her for legacy.
Many of us want legacy, but we're unwilling to work for it. We want the blessing without the faithfulness. But God notices hidden obedience. Some of the holiest moments in life happen in what we might call "unnoticed obedience"—being first to arrive and last to leave, working behind the scenes, doing whatever it takes without recognition.
When Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi's deceased husband, notices Ruth, he goes beyond the minimum requirement. He tells his workers to intentionally leave bundles of grain for her, not just scraps. Honor always exceeds the minimum requirement. Dishonor asks, "What's the least I have to do?" But honor asks, "How can I bless someone over and above?"
Honor Versus Dishonor: A Practical Guide
Understanding the difference between honor and dishonor can transform our relationships:
Honor moves toward people; dishonor withdraws
Honor builds bridges; dishonor builds walls
Honor stays loyal; dishonor walks away quickly
Honor protects dignity; dishonor exposes weakness
Honor serves humbly; dishonor demands entitlement
Honor chooses covenant; dishonor chooses convenience
Honor speaks life; dishonor speaks contempt
Honor seeks reconciliation; dishonor fuels division
Honor creates safety; dishonor creates fear
Honor draws people toward God; dishonor pushes people away
Pulled Into God's Story
Here's the remarkable ending: Ruth, a Moabite outsider, a foreign widow with no status or security, becomes the great-grandmother of King David and part of the lineage of Jesus Christ himself. She arrived as an outsider but was pulled into the family of God.
When Boaz speaks to Ruth, he calls her "my daughter"—covenant language. Ruth came looking for refuge and found covering. This is our story too. Ephesians 2:12-13 reminds us: "In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel... But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Jesus Christ."
Jesus pulled us in when we should have been left out. He moved toward us when we were outsiders. He pursued us when we were far away. He covered us when we were broken. This is honor—the kind that reflects the heart of God.
The book of Ruth begins with loss and a woman who believes God's hand is against her. But God keeps pulling her out of bitterness into a better story. He wants to pull you into a better story too. Honor has gravity, and it will always pull people into the redemptive story of God.
Who have you been pushing away? What relationship needs the gravitational pull of honor? Honor builds bridges; dishonor builds walls. Today is the day to let honor pull you back toward reconciliation, covenant, and the beautiful story God is writing in your life.