Wednesday, August 25, 2010

God Is At Work - The Story of Ruth Part II - A "Chance" Meeting, Part 31 of 44

TEXT: "Then Ruth fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to him, 'Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?' " (Ruth 2:10).

IDEA: Ruth's response to Boaz shows us what it means to worship.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that worship is the response of the lesser to the greater.

Do you think it is harder for Christians living in a democracy to carry out basic biblical concepts?

For example, how do you preach the "Lordship of Jesus Christ" to people living in a democracy?

Are people in a democracy hindered in the way we worship?

I. The story of Ruth gives us insight into the meaning of worship.

Ruth 2:10 says that Ruth was so overwhelmed by the generosity of Boaz that literally "she fell on her face and worshiped him."  The NIV softens this.

"She fell on her face" explains fundamentally the physical gesture of prostration, that is, of falling to one's knees, bowing with face and nose to the ground before royalty or deity. To worship God, therefore, means that we approach realizing that we come only because we have been invited to be there.

Unless the gesture is hypocritical, the socially inferior bows down before the superior in recognition of the latter's authority and honor. It's the external sign of the inner spirit.

In Ruth's case, her physical gesture of submission was accompanied by a verbal expression of amazement that Boaz had been extremely gracious to her and had "taken notice of her."

II. Do you think that any of this applies to our worship of God?

How should we approach the Lord?

Is this particularly difficult for us to do in our democratic culture?