The Preciousness of Jesus

Let's start with prayer. Heavenly Father, you're so wonderful, good, and gracious to us. May we learn more of thee this morning, and of our precious Lord Jesus Christ, and come to love you more.

In our Lord's name I pray. Amen. 1 Peter 2 has much rich, blessed teaching in it.

I'll start with verse, look at verse 1 and 2, and I'll start reading in verse 3, chapter 2, verse Peter. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. That is my testimony.

I have tasted of how gracious the Lord is, and I thank Him for being ever so merciful and gracious to me. Verse 4, to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. I like that word.

So precious is Jesus my Savior, my King. His praise all the day long with rapture I sing. To Him in my weakness for strength I can cling, for He is so precious to me.

Oh, He is so precious, so precious to me. Yes, He is so precious, so precious to me. Tis heaven below my Redeemer to know, for He is so precious to me.

I think the story goes that a Sunday school teacher asked the little children in her class, what's the meaning of precious? And a girl defined it precisely, precious just means precious, and that's about all precious can mean. You'll find that in Webster's Dictionary, no doubt. If not, he needs to get updated on the true meaning of precious.

What a wonderful word it is. Verse 5, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scriptures, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

Unto you, therefore, which believe, he is precious. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that has made Him ever so precious to me. He's many different things to different people.

And you can read here, the next one, the next phrase starts with but. Unto them which be disobedient, oh, we talk to the disobedient around us, and he's a lot of different things to them, a name to be taken in vain, a name to be cursed. But unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, God forbid that we stumble over this stone of stumbling, as the majority of the human race does, and a rock of offense, may he never be an offense to us, and may we never be ashamed to go without the count, going to him without the count, bearing his reproach.

Even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. He stood at my heart's door midst sunshine and rain, and patiently waited an entrance to gain, for shame that so long he entreated in vain, for he is so precious to me. Oh, he is so precious, so precious to me.

Yes, he is so precious, so precious to me. His heaven below, my Redeemer to know, for he is so precious to me. That's why I like to stand out in public amongst the human race and sing unto him to let everyone I can know how precious he is to me.

From Genesis, the beginning of Genesis, to Revelation, the Bible teaches us how precious he is. Each and every scripture is wonderful, blessed. We should study it life on much.

I like the way his preciousness is revealed back in the short little love story of Ruth. If you would turn to it please. Just before 1 Samuel, we have Ruth.

1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, but before 1 Samuel is Ruth. A very short book of four chapters, a wonderful love story. I always forget the husband's name.

Elimelech took his wife Naomi into a foreign land because of famines in Israel. And his two sons married. Elimelech died.

Both sons married. They must not have lived to be very old. And Naomi is left there with her two Moabites daughter-in-laws.

And you can look in chapter 1, verse 14, as Naomi plans to go back into her land. And she tells them, you stay here in your land. And in verse 14, they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law.

That's one daughter-in-law. But Ruth clave unto her. I like that.

And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people and unto her gods, which is most regretful. Return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from Balanath to thee.

For whither thou goest, I will go. Look at this determination. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.

Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. So she returns with Naomi back into Israel. And starting in chapter 2, we see the kinsmen of Naomi.

And in Ruth, we have our precious Lord Jesus, His type of a kinsman redeemer, which is most important, and was most important in the ordinances that the Lord set up for the nation of Israel. Now, as we read in chapter 2, this kinsman is a type of our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of wealth.

Our Lord owns it all. The cattle on a thousand heels and the taters under the heels, as the country preachers always preached to me. And we have Boaz coming here in the picture as that kinsman.

And likely you know the story quite well that Ruth goes out to glean in the fields. And she goes and gleans in Boaz' fields. And he meets up with her.

Look at verse 3 there of chapter 2. I like the way they greeted each other at those times. Verse 4, they greet each other, the Lord be with you. And they answered him, the Lord bless you.

That's wonderful greetings. They say our goodbye used to be God be with you. And long before the Texan age, we chopped it down.

We chopped down the Lord be with you to just goodbye and bye-bye. That's just about nothing of a greeting. But here we have scriptural greetings that I really like.

And you can see her gleaning there in his fields and talking with Boaz. In verse 12, he speaks up and says, the Lord recompense thy work and a full reward be given thee for the Lord God of Israel under whose wings thou art come to trust. What a wonderful inheritance she entered into when Ruth played to her mother-in-law and left Moab and went to Israel and came to trust under the wings of the Lord God of Israel.

Down in verse 16, we are familiar with Boaz telling the men, let her glean among the sheaves even in verse 15 and verse 16 and let some handfuls of purpose fall there for her to pick up. That's a wonderful sermon itself. A handful of purpose.

And Naomi talks to her daughter-in-law after Ruth comes back to the house with the wheat, the grain, that she has gleaned that day. In verse 20 of chapter 2, Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, Blessed is he of the Lord who has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, For the man is near a kin unto us.

One of our next kinsmen. Here we have the kinsman-redeemer spoken of much here. Go on through chapter 3 to see what goes on there talking of the redeemer-kinsman.

And I want to go on to chapter 4 where the rest of the sermon is, the meat of the sermon is this morning. And Boaz has spoken of this other redeemer also as being a great man and a closer redeemer. In chapter 3, he tells Ruth, chapter 3, verse 13, Carry this night, and it shall be in the morning that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman's will, let him do the kinsman's part.

In verse 12, he mentions, It is true that I am thy near kinsman, howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. Now, we've got to keep both of these kinsmen in mind here because both of them are most important. Verse 13, Let him do the part of a kinsman. He gets the first choice, this other unnamed kinsman.

But if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then I will do the part of a kinsman to thee. As the Lord liveth, lie down until the morning. Now, let's go to chapter 4, verse 1. Then went Boaz up to the gate the next morning and set him down there.

And behold, a kinsman of whom Boaz spake, never named here, came by unto whom he said, Ho, such a one. Turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down.

When the Lord called me to be a missionary in Japan, often alone in my house, long many hours, I would put this on the low table that we sit at when we sit at the floor. And I'd kneel on the table and read and pray verse by verse, studying and letting the Holy Spirit teach me. No tuition was required, which was good because often I didn't have any money to eat with.

So I'd just get in the Bible school with the Lord and the Holy Spirit. And praying through the book of Ruth, the Holy Spirit stopped me on this greeting that Boaz gave to this unnamed kinsman. He said, Ho, such a one.

So Boaz is looking up to him as greater than Boaz, I thought. And the Holy Spirit stopped me and said, there's something here. And I read it over and over again.

And now I've been over a period of days that I said, if Boaz is a type of Christ, then this one that he pays tribute to as being higher than him would be God the Father. And that opened up a whole new... a lot of whole new wisdom and blessing to me when I saw that and I believe to this day that it is true that this one represents God the Father. And in my Japanese Bible where it says, Ho, such a one, in Japanese it just says, Moshi Moshi.

Hey there, hey there. And I don't know about the Proverbial Bibles here if they maintain this or not, but this is an important greeting that he greeted him as one higher than him. Turn aside and sit down.

And he took the ten men of the elders and they sit down. So he talks to this unnamed kinsman, Redeemer, in verse 3. Now we're talking about God the Son and God the Father here. And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land which was of our brother Elimelech's.

And I thought to advertise thee, saying, buy it before the inhabitants and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it. But if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me that I may know.

For there is none to redeem it besides thee, and I am after thee. And this unnamed kinsman said, I will redeem it. Possibly before anything was created.

God the Father and God the Son had a conversation such as this. And each of them agreed to redeem the fallen human race if and when the time came. And they probably already knowing everything, all knowing, they knew the time would come.

And both of their minds was, I will redeem it. Because of that, my God is so precious to me. In verse 5, Boaz keeps explaining more things about this situation.

Verse 5, then said Boaz, What day thou buy'st the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. Now this throws a monkey wrench into the works. Because in Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse 3, the Lord God commanded the Israelites, An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord even to their tenth generation.

Shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever. And that's why this unnamed redeemer says in verse 6, he immediately, we would think, he changed his mind. And the Kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself lest I mar my own inheritance.

Everyone I've listened to preach and every commentator I've read on this, they speak against this Kinsman redeemer for refusing to go ahead and redeem it himself. But look what God the Father is saying here. I cannot redeem it for myself lest I mar my own inheritance.

Our almighty God who can do anything has chosen and ordained that he will not defy himself. A God that lives from eternity past and for all eternity future who has no beginning and no end. He will not die.

He cannot die. He must be on that throne ruling forever and ever. And a holy, righteous, pure, upright God cannot become sin.

And because of that, God the Father cannot come down here and redeem us. One of these two has to do the dirty work to put it in words that we understand. And one thing God the Father has done from eternity past to eternity future, he sits on that throne ruling and reigning were he to leave off doing that for one second, I guess the whole universe would just spin out into chaos.

That is one of the main functions of God the Father. And that's why he begat and only begotten Son. So that there's a Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

God the Holy Spirit by whom God is omnipresent. And here is Boaz, a type of God the Son, talking to this other kinsman, the Redeemer, that is a type of God the Father. I believe with all my heart that the Lord has taught me what I'm saying now and it's amazing to see how blind we can be, how blind the good commentators are.

May God help us to each cry out to not be blind and not be mistaken about anything we read in the Bible. I read about them speaking, they write against him because he was just too good to take in that more about him. It was forbidden.

And God the Father's not going to step off that throne and come down here and die, praise God. He's going to rule and reign forever. And this is one reason why my Lord Jesus Christ is ever so precious to me.

No other being in existence but Him could redeem me. Not my own daddy, not my own mommy, my brothers or sisters, none of my kinfolks on earth, none of my good friends, not even God the Holy Spirit. Apparently He doesn't take on a body.

Not even God the Father could redeem me. I've got only one chance of being redeemed and saved from going to hell forever. That is if God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be willing to redeem me.

And that's why He is so precious to me. At the end of verse 4, chapter 4, But if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me that I may know, for there is none to redeem it besides thee, and I am after thee. And He said, I will redeem it.

And then when He brings in Boaz, the Kennethsman Redeemer replies in verse 6, I cannot. He didn't say I will not. I'm not willing to.

God cannot defy Himself. I remember when I left the farm and I believed every word in the Bible and I went to Auburn University. I was around a lot of students that didn't believe anything in the Bible.

And they like to probe you like this. Can God make a stick with one end to it? Can God create a rock so big that He can't move it? They think they're smart, don't they? When they meet that God in judgment, all those questions are going to evaporate and they're going to be trembling and such. Oh, such is foolishness, vain foolishness before our Lord, man who thinks he's something that he can come up with questions like that.

God will not defy Himself and I praise His name that He will not. Yes, He's the God that does the impossible. He's done it so many times for me and I praise His name that He will not defy Himself.

And the Kennethsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself. Lest I mar my own inheritance. What is God the Father's inheritance? The entire universe that He created.

All His creation. So he says to Boaz, Redeem thou my right to thyself for I cannot redeem it. So, what will Boaz do? Now this was the manner in former time in Israel concerning the redeeming and concerning changing.

For to confirm all things, a man plucked off his shoe and gave it to his neighbor. And this was the testimony in Israel. Therefore, the Kennethsman said unto Boaz, Thine for thee.

So he drew off his shoe and he gave it to his neighbor. And he said, I'm willing. I'll go and redeem it.

I'll redeem that mobile. And my Savior said, I'm willing to go, be born in a stable, be rejected by men before I'm even born, be despised and rejected, and go through all the suffering that we well know he went through hanging on the cross. And the greatest agony must have been when he said, my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? He's going to have to be forsaken by this greater Kennethsman for my sake so that I will not have to be forsaken by God.

And that was prophesied, you well know, in Psalm 22 where David said the exact words, Psalm 22, verse 1, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Why art Thou far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? And the answer is in verse 3, but Thou art holy. A holy God turned His back on the Son who had become sin and let Him die. And my Savior was willing to suffer that for me so that God would not turn His back upon me and I could live with my Lord and Creator God forever and ever.

Therefore, the kingdoms of this world are all given over to the Son. And God the Father allowed the Son to create these things, as Hebrews tells us. And He's given Him also the church as His own body.

That's why so much has been given to this Son because He was willing. The only one who had the ability or the qualifications to redeem me and He was ever so willing to do so. And this all has been given to Him and truly He is most precious to me.

He promised that He hath appointed a place where one day by faith in His marvelous grace I know I shall see Him, shall look on His face, for He is so precious to me. Oh, He is so precious, so precious to me. Yes, He is so precious, so precious, you see.

Tis heaven below my Redeemer to know for He is so precious to me. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, why would we ever want to hold back anything from Thee? Why would we not love Thee with all our hearts and serve Thee with all our might? Lord, help us to pour out all of our life's energies and resources unto Thee just as You poured out the last drop of Your life's blood for us on the cross, the only being in existence who was qualified to redeem us and You ever so willingly did so.

Thank You for it, Lord, truly You're most precious. In our Lord's name I pray, Amen.