Series: Ruthless
Message: Redefining the Status Quo
Preacher: Jessyka Albert

Refresh: Open with prayer. Read or listen to Psalm 38:1-8.

Read: Ruth 4:18-22, Matthew 1:1-16 - As you read in the ESV translation, what did you discover new about God’s character?

Reflect: Only four women are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus, not including His mother Mary. Four women are included in this long list of forty-two male ancestors and they all have one thing in common. They broke the status quo one way or another. In her commentary on Ruth, Katherine Doob Sakenfeld explains the importance of these women leading into the birth of Jesus: Scholars are unanimous in supposing that these four women were not selected at random, but there is considerable diversity of opinion about the principles of selection at work…All four women’s stories refer to sexual activity and/or marriage circumstance that would normally be regarded as unacceptable…”none of them fits in with the way things are ‘supposed’ to be” (Gaventa, p. 38). In this way Ruth and the others prepare the way for Mary, whose pregnancy by the Holy Spirit and whose child who will persistently challenge the status quo certainly do not “fit,” even thought the work is of God (9).

Ruth’s place in history is but a small foreshadowing of a Savior who comes to not only break the status quo of this world, but to redefine it.

Recalibrate: 

1. Have you ever doubted how God can use any person in His plan?
2. Have you ever doubted if God can use you?

Respond: Pray for God to redefine your life.  

Research: Read the stories of Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba.