Hold On To Hope (05/16/21)

Thrive: Beyond Survival

“Hold On to Hope"

Ruth 1:1-7

 

“…I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessings on your children. They will thrive …”
Isaiah 44:3-4

 

·      Trust is confidence in the reliability of God.

·      Hope is the expectation of God’s goodness.

 

Hope Is …

(1) BIGGER than your troubles

• v1, “In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land.”

• Judges 21:25, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”

• Job 5:7, “People are born for trouble as readily as sparks fly up from a fire.” 

(See Romans 8:35-39… nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.)

 (2) BETTER than your history

• v1b. “So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab.”

• The problem of Moab: (see Genesis 19, Numbers 22-25)

• Isaiah 40:31 (NIV), “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

  (3) BEYOND anything you can imagine

• v5b, “This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.”

• v6, “Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again.”

• See Ruth 4:14-17.

 Ephesians 3:20, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”