"Restored to Life"

November 12, 2006
from Ruth 4:13-17

"Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next of kin... He shall be to you a restorer of life..." Ruth 4:14, 15


My sermon outline:

• I imagine we could all come up with a good list of
“things that could never happen”. Things like
- Lasting peace in the middle east
- An end to global epidemics of hunger and injustice and poverty
- An end to those diseases that so take life from people while taking their lives
- Efficient and effective representation in our Congress, or at least an agreeable election season

• However “it can’t be done” is a phrase that should never come out of the lips of Christians, unless it’s followed by “except by the grace of God”. We worship a God of the impossible. A God who led people across the Red Sea on dry land...
- A God who brought forth water and manna and quail in the desert...
- A God who through Ezekiel brought life to “dry bones” in the desert...
- A God who loves a broken humanity and offers us forgiveness...
- A God who reconciles nations and restores life.

• We read of such a God and such a reconciliation in the book of Ruth...

• Recap of Ruth, a multifaceted story of redemption: Ruth, of a despised foreign nation which is cut off from God for inhospitality (at best) and interference with God’s plans (at worst?). (imagine Saddam Hussein) (imagine times are so hard you move to Iraq for the opportunity there, your children marry Iraqi women and then die, you decide to return) Widowed women in a time and culture when they were helpless they were essentially lifeless – no tie to life, no heir or possibility of heir.

• God however can restore life to the lifeless, can even bring life through death. We see it time and again. God does the impossible through the unlikely.

• Last week @ sil’s Lutheran church on (John 11) Lazarus, whom Jesus had allowed to die, Jesus restored to life. For God’s glory. Where we see death and don’t understand the big picture, God used death for witness.

• Today is Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday, where we see yet another instance where God uses death for witness, restores hope and life to the hopeless and lifeless. I could tell you story after story of lives saved through organ donation, but you as a congregation have already seen the effects firsthand, as there is an organ recipient in your midst. God restores hope and life to the hopeless and lifeless, even through death.

• Though I consider organ transplantation to be possible by God’s mercy, it requires human cooperation, as so many things do. I pray that regardless of your own age or health you consider being an organ donor. Talk about it with your family cuz they’re the ones who make the decision.

• I said before that God does the impossible through the unlikely. God restored to life Ruth and Naomi and clan. God restored life by God’s actions and for God’s glory and with the cooperation of people.

• We in this congregation face some impossible circumstances. We struggle to maintain vitality, clinging to life as Ruth and Naomi did; we wonder how we’ll meet our building and ministry obligations for yet another year; we weep for a lack of a children’s minister and for a scarcity of children; we are tired for going through the paces yet another time, facing the same or greater deficiencies as we remember glory days gone by...

• Ruth and Naomi restored to life. God did impossible once again, reconciling both person and nation to himself

• sil’s country church packed with every age, when previously a struggling cong; by the grace of God and in faith and cooperation with God’s Spirit

• God restores life to the lifeless, even brings life through death. We see it time and again. God does the impossible through the unlikely. As Ruth and Naomi trusted let us trust, that people may say “Blessed be the Lord, who has redeemed you, and may his name be renowned in Spring City. He is a restorer of life and a nourisher in our age.”




- Pastor Kerry
This Sunday: Cloudy and drizzly. 62 in worship.