Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 12, 2023 | Beating Burnout - Bitter Medicine

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March 12, 2023 | Beating Burnout - Bitter Medicine · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning, everybody.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to start this morning just a little bit different.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go ahead and invite up the men who have been elected at our annual meeting to be our new deacons and elders for this year.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you were at the annual meeting on February 26th, you'd know that these men, Travis Buchanan, Jason Hildebrandt uh joining our elder board, Andrew Crandall, Randy Krask, David Reynolds, and Travis Strong joining our deacon board, fit the qualifications found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and were approved unanimously by those in attendance in our congregation to serve on the board for the next year.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, if you guys, if the elders want to come up as well from last year, we are just going to pray for them as they lead our church over this next year.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so Sam has also instructed me that the light is better if you guys go ahead and step forward so that everybody can that cab, that's for you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the light is better.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll go ahead and give this to Jeff Sorensen.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: He is their elder chair for this year.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so the elders from last year will go ahead and place our hands on these men and let's go ahead and pray.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning worshiping you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the opportunity for these men and others to serve you in these roles.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for their willingness to uh just represent the body uh before you.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Pray that you will bless them.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, thank you for the opportunity that many others in this church also have, men and women who are serving you in many different roles.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I pray that you will uh honor them as well and just use their efforts to uh lead people to life in Christ.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your faithfulness to each one of us as individuals.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for your faithfulness to the church.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank these guys for their service.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Doug.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Put this in though.
• 2:16
  unknown: Thank you.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning we are finishing um our series called Beating Burnout.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been with us the last three weeks, we've been talking about uh burnout, that feeling, that emotion when we are physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausted.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there are a lot of things that can lead to it.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I experienced burnout though a couple years ago.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not many people know this, but the job that I had before coming to TBC, I was fired from.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was fired, I was working for an organization called K-Life.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's kind of like Young Life here in Topeka, but it's through an arm of Canicook Ministries.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was working down there in Fort Worth while we were going to seminary, and um, you know, when I had interviewed with them, it is uh it's a job that is that is difficult, and they ask you to make a commitment for how long you're gonna be there.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I would be there.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I said, but if Topeka ever comes calling, I'm gonna pick up the phone.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason we said that is because Topeka not only is my home, it's my wife's home.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but furthermore, we couldn't have imagined being here at TBC.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But this is where she grew up, this is where I started going in high school, uh, it's where we met, it's where we both have worked.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's very important to us.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: But Topeka eventually came calling, uh, specifically Doug Will came calling and asked me if I was interested in serving as the student pastor here at the church.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that be kind of began a process where we were praying and going through uh the decision that we were going to leave kind of this verbal commitment we had made to K Life so that we could come back here and serve in the capacity where we felt God was leading us.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, recognizing though that that would be a big shift for the organization, um, I had made some promises about some curriculum that I would write and things like that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I actually delayed coming up here for about six months so that I could work longer down there, finish out some things, and basically help them out with the hiring process.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or so I thought.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was about mid-October, and I let them know, I gave them about a two-month notice, and they gave me my two-week notice.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um I the next day I came into work, and my boss, without my knowing, had told everybody else who I worked with that they should stay home so that it would just be me coming into the office, and he dressed me down, would be the easiest way to say it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was selfish, I was lazy, I was unreliable, um, and that the next time that I felt like disobeying God, I should talk with more people before making that decision.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, not for nothing, my last day was my birthday, which is just okay, thank you.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what really came about though is it was extremely difficult for Hannah and I because we um we had already committed to being down there for the semester uh because I was going to school.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so even though their claim was that uh they wanted to free me up to be able to go ahead and pursue what I was coming here to do, um, as I told them, I said, the only thing you've done is taken away my income for the next couple months here, uh, because we're committed to staying down here for school.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And over that next, those next few months, as all of my friends down there evaporated or turned on us, um everybody that we had been connected with kind of kicked us on the way out.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um it made it, it was this period that was extremely difficult.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't depressed, but I was I was embarrassed.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I remember calling Doug Will and saying, Um, hey, I gotta let you know, I got fired from my job, and I know you've already said that I have a job up there, but you probably want to know that, and that it's not because I did something you know morally wrong.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: But through all that process, though, I was extremely bitter.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very, very bitter at the organization, and I was I was certainly burnt out.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, you might be burnt out or have experienced burnout or will because of a a long and a slow process that's just drained you, or sometimes you just have the rug kind of taken out from under your feet, and you find yourself being absolutely exhausted and burnt out.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that that was where I was.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And during those, um, when I have really, really intense periods of stress, like for a very long time, I start getting stomach cramps.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had like weeks of stomach cramps where I'd be kind of curled up on my couch and really just asking these questions of like, why, God, did this happen to me?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're we're gonna be okay, and I know some of you have far more serious situations, but nevertheless, I was like, I don't understand the purpose behind this.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was doing something that was benefiting them.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like we're going to do what you've asked us to do.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel like we made the right steps here and really felt like we got the raw end of this deal.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand how God was working in that space, why it had happened to me, and I was really bitter with God as well.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning I share that though, because A, you might be able to relate, but B, because there's a story in the Bible I want to share with you.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's going to come from the book of Ruth, but it's not about Ruth.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's about Ruth's mother-in-law.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Naomi.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you want to turn with me to Ruth chapter 1, I want to share with you the story of Naomi.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to primarily be in Ruth chapter 1 and 4.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that story of Naomi is one of bitterness.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is one where Naomi is going through a situation, as we'll look at, and she's going to be asking these questions, though in different ways.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: God, why me?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why now?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what purpose does this serve?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And she's going to throw some pretty heavy accusations against God, and we're going to see at the very end if she was right.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you go to Ruth chapter 1, verse 1.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: During the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: A man left Bethlehem and Judah with his wife and two sons to stay in the territory of Moab for a while.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: The man's name was Elamelech, and his wife's name was Naomi.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The names of his two sons were Malon and Kilion.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: They were Ephraithites from Bethlehem and Judah.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: They entered the fields of Moab and settled there.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi's husband, Elamelech, died, and she was left with her two sons.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Her sons took Moabite women as their wives.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: One was named Orpah and the second was named Ruth.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: After they lived in Moab about ten years, both Malon and Kilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and without her husband.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how the book of Ruth begins, and we're introduced to the family of Naomi, where in the span of ten years, she has lost her husband and both of her sons.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: The period of Judges, right, to kind of orient you to your Bible, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: You've got Israel has come through the desert.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: They've come out of Egypt, they've come through the promise, or they've come through the desert, the wilderness, which, by the way, next week we're going to be starting a series in the book of Numbers, which covers the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, then they get to the promised land.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But God says, hey, when you get into the promised land, there are some people there who don't like you, and they don't like me, and you need to get them out, or else you're gonna have problems.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, we'll take our chances.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so Israel does not move anybody out, or does not move everybody out of the promised land, and experiences a lot of trouble and hardship and famine and disease and ultimately idolatry.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what happened during that time is that, and this would be the period as well, of Samson and Gideon and Deborah and all those individuals who were working, God sort of raised up these individuals in a tumultuous time to lead the nation over and against their enemies.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi lives during that period of time.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it was also during that time that she made the decision, or probably Elamelech her husband, that because there was a famine in the land of Israel, that they were going to go to Israel's sworn enemies, one of them, the Moabites.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to go to the land of Moab, and while they were there, they comm or their sons, rather, do something which is kind of a big no-no in the Bible, is they began to marry outside of their tribes.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you might say, well, that's kind of odd.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Today that doesn't mean as much to us.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: But back then, being in Israel meaned you worshiped Yahweh.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you lived somewhere else, you worshiped that God.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so by aligning yourselves with the people of that God, you were aligning yourselves with those who did not respect or honor the Lord.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that is where Ruth and Orpah come in.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fun fact: Orpah is the name where is the name that Oprah, the talk show host, that's where she got her name, except they messed it up on the birth certificate.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: True story.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, this comes along, though, and Naomi finds herself at the end of ten years in a foreign land without her husband, without her two sons, and with two daughters-in-law who do not follow the same God.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, we get the sense her sons' names, uh the meaning behind people's names is really relevant in this story.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Malon and Killion, their names mean sickly and failing.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you get the sense that Moab was not a really great time for Naomi.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So at the very end, right, we see the situation that she has been left in.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Alone, separated from her people, tragedy and famine trailing at her, and more than anybody else, more than Orpa and Ruth, Naomi has lost the most.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people's need by providing them food.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: She left the place where she had been living, accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, and travelled along the road leading back to the land of Judah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi said to them, Each of you go back to your mother's home.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to the dead and to me.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: May the Lord grant each of you rest in the house of a new husband.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: She kissed them, and they wept loudly.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: They said to her, We insist on returning with you to your people.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that you're going to notice about Naomi's story, and one of the things that I want to tread carefully to not assume too much, but based upon the whole narrative, it seems as if Naomi has lost quite a bit of faith in the Lord.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at this in just a moment.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: But even here, as we see that she is speaking to Orpa and to Ruth and telling them to go back to their families, it is obvious that the blessing of the Lord she does not consider to be coming from the promised land, the place where God's covenant dwells.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so by Naomi sort of using the Lord's name and blessing upon these Moabite women who up to this point have been exceedingly faithful to her, even still it shows us just a glimpse, we kind of get a window into Naomi's spiritual life that she is not as high on God as she probably once was.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: She's using the Lord as a term of blessing, but she's trying to send these women back to what she thinks is best for them, which is ultimately a foreign land, away from the God of her covenant people.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It continues on, though.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: The daughter said, We want to stay with you.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi Rabut, she says, Return home, my daughters.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you want to go with me?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Return home, my daughters.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Go on, for I am too old to have another husband.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, would you be willing to wait for them to grow up?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, my daughters.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: My life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord's hand has turned against me.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi said, Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Follow your sister-in-law.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's very sad, but we also see Naomi's true grievance against the Lord.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: She's away from her people, she's experiencing famine, and those are hard things.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the greatest frustration to her, and the thing which she sees is the Lord really putting his hand against her, preventing her from growing and succeeding, is the fact that she has lost her sons.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Significant for a couple reasons.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: One, I mean, this goes beyond just obviously the emotional toll of losing a child.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But in a society dominated by men taking care of women, this meant that Naomi had very little hope that people were going to be able to look after her because her husband, who was probably a righteous man, his name means God is my king, Elamelech.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, Elamelech was gone, and now her two sons are gone, those who were supposed to be looking after her in her old age.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you come with me?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am going back to a land to my people, but sort of slinking back to Israel, the place that I didn't think held as much promise.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm going there for food, but nobody is coming with me.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is her language about the sons for her daughters, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would you wait for me to have another son?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even have a son, but if I did, you wouldn't wait, however long it would be, to get married to them again.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's her first grievance.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the second one is significant as well.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: By Naomi not having sons, there was nobody that was going to perpetuate her line and continue the line within Israel of her family.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Really significant when we look at the Old Testament that people were able to have kids that would take on responsibilities and land and perpetuate their family.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was a sign of covenant blessing from the Lord that they would have children.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Naomi's lost hers.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of those two things, it is not just that she has had a hard ten years, it is that her future looks extremely bleak as well.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so she says, Don't come with me, go back.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we can see again her telling Ruth and Orpa to go back to their gods.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because, as we're about to see, when Ruth makes the commitment to stay with Naomi, Ruth is also making a change of heart in which God she is going to follow after.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped talking to her.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: The two of them travelled until they came to Bethlehem.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: When they entered Bethlehem, which means the house of bread, the whole town was excited about their arrival, and the local women exclaimed, Can this be Naomi?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, she answered.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: For the Almighty has made me very bitter.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has opposed me and the Almighty has afflicted me?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Naomi came back from the territory of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitis.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, ironically, and I skipped over a section if you're following along and your Bibles, great work, but um I skipped over a section where Ruth kind of has this statement of faith directed towards Naomi.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what is ironic about the whole thing is that Naomi is that Ruth is the one who aligns herself with the Lord, and Naomi's like, I'm here for the food.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: She probably recognizes as a daughter of Israel what is the promise that God has in his land, the covenant loyalty that he has given to his people, his commitment to blessing them if they would follow after him.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, her main concern is that she is following this path of back to Judah for the sake of food.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is Ruth who recognizes and says, Naomi, your God will be my God, and your people will be my people.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth really comes about and begins to sort of transition at this point into the forefront of the story that then carries on for chapters two and three and four.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's where Naomi begins to recede into the back.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: But before we go on, a couple things, though.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi is met by, I don't know, the real housewives of Bethlehem.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what you want to call them.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: But they say they haven't seen her for 10 years.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is her hometown.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is that Naomi?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Last time she left, she looked quite a bit younger.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: She had a husband, and she had two sons.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now she is returning with a Moabitis.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Our sworn enemy.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is that Naomi?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're probably a bit more charitable than that.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're probably excited to see her.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, Naomi responds to their greeting by saying, Don't call me Naomi, which means pleasant.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Call me Mara, which means bitter.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Says, I'm not pleasant because the Lord has not been pleasant with me.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am bitter because the Lord has made me bitter.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi's leveling a lot of accusations here.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Almighty has made me bitter, the Lord has brought me back empty, and he has opposed me, and he has afflicted me.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those are four heavy accusations to make against the God of the universe.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Naomi does it.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: But she doesn't see what's going on.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here in a moment we're going to look and we're going to kind of look with fresh eyes back on this section.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But right now, all I think that is important is us seeing the situation that Naomi is in and recognizing how many of us have also been there.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who has not experienced bitterness and at some point had some kind of fist-shaking frustration with the Lord?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing this to me?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this happening to me?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: What good is this going to do?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starving, my children and my husband are dead.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've got this woman attached at my hip who I tried to send back, and I have no future.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've returned in shame to my hometown.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, as we'll see, God's working in Naomi's life even still.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: We get a glimpse of it in the very last verse here.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: They arrived at Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Already, Naomi, who was seeking out food, has come to a land where God is protecting and blessing his people.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But she's not about noticing those things right now.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens over the next couple chapters, and I'd encourage you to go and read the book of Ruth.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's four chapters.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can handle it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful story about Ruth, and then ultimately a man that is introduced named Boaz.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Boaz is a righteous man, it says multiple times, a noble man, a trustworthy man, a loyal and kind man, who is a landowner.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that he's introduced is because Naomi is somehow like kind of down the family tree related to him.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she tells Ruth, Go to his fields.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's a man who follows after the command in Leviticus 23 that you should not glean or harvest to the edges of your field, but you should leave a margin so that the poor and needy may be able to feed off of your abundance.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's Boaz.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so Ruth goes to his field and at first begins to gather food.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then Naomi kind of plays matchmaker a little bit and ultimately encourages Ruth and her relationship with Boaz.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: They develop a romantic interest, and Boaz comes to take care of Ruth and then Naomi.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Along this whole way, we haven't heard much from Naomi.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: She kind of is in the background, again, encouraging Ruth to sort of meet him and talk with him and do these things so that they would be able to be provided for.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: If the husband passed away, the uh the wife could get married to effectively her brother-in-law, and as long as he wasn't married, and then he could have child, they would have children, and they would be belonged to the original line.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what's happening here with Boaz.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we were going through the book of Ruth in its totality, we'd talk about it more.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we're here for Naomi.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And really where Naomi appears in this story is that Boaz has just bought everything from her.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: The land of her husband still belonged to her, and Boaz pays her for it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we get to this conclusion here at the end of chapter, or excuse me, verse 10, and we go, okay, well, that's the end of the story, right?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The kinsman redeemer has come in.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: The line has been continued through Ruth.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the conclusion of the story.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Except there's one more section.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're following along, you can see, because the Lord has not forgotten Naomi.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi thinks the Lord has forgotten her.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: But those neighbor ladies from Bethlehem, they come back into the story and remind her of a couple things.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: He slept with her, and the Lord granted conception to her, and she gave birth to a son.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: The women said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a family redeemer today.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: May his name become well known in Israel.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became a mother to him.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: The neighbor women said, A son has been born to Naomi, and they named him Obed.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the end of the story of Ruth.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But this is at least how the book of Ruth ends.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Begins with Naomi, ends with Naomi.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord was with Naomi throughout the whole thing.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And here these women come along who had been gracious to Naomi when she came in, the same women that she had said, Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara because I'm bitter.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those same women come along to her and remind her of a couple different things.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I want to be charitable.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always careful when I'm trying to project how somebody must have felt.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: But to be honest with you, I think the reason that these women come along to Naomi is because she probably didn't fully grasp how the Lord had blessed her in this situation.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Lord brought her this group of women to basically help her understand.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi, I have not afflicted you.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have not put my hand against you.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have not, well, you are bitter, but not because of me.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: They reveal these things.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the Lord who has not left you without a family redeemer today.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi, your angry cry against God, it wasn't even a prayer.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was a frustration, an outburst that you couldn't have a son.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody to continue your family line.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here he is, bouncing on your lap.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi, your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth has been with you this entire time.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when she committed herself to you, you were silent.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: You tried to push her away three different times, tell her to go back to the land of her gods, and she came with you and has been with you throughout all of your trials.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's better to you than any of the sons that you had.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, we get this little line at the end.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: The neighbor women said, A son has been born to Naomi.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not a grandson, a son.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: They recognize that Naomi, right, is going to be the one now to care for this little child, Obed.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Obed, as we see, was the father of Jesse and the father of David.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know your Bible, you might also know that David is King David, the king, the righteous king of Israel, who draws them out of the period of judges completely, is uh ministered to by the final judge, Samuel, as his attendant, his counselor, and his priest.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that King David is the one who is righteous and is ultimately the ancestor of Jesus Christ.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi has no idea about any of that.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right now she sees little Obed bouncing on her knee.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: She has no idea that David is coming.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: She has no idea that Jesus Christ is coming.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she's aware of the prophecy of the Messiah and the fact that he should come out of Judah and he is going to be born in the town of Bethlehem, where little Obed is born, where David is born.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: But she probably has no conception that the Savior of the world is coming from her family line that she thought was cut off.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Troll has no idea that I was going to preach about her 3,000 years later.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I picked this story of Naomi because of how it's kind of succinct, right?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: She comes in, she's bitter, we can sympathize or empathize with what she's going through.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably been in a situation where you were angry with God and said, Why me?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why now?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's the purpose?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we see that God was working in Naomi's life.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: All the charges that she leveled against him were mute.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were unfulfilled.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: They were untrue.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: God was not doing those things.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: But as we close this morning, though, I want to give you three reminders from Naomi's story.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Three things that I want you to hold on to when you are going through a time of bitterness, a time of burnout, a time where you are asking some of the same questions that Naomi was probably feeling.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: All of them come from the story, and in fact, all of them come from the real housewives of Bethlehem and what they said to Naomi.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is that God is providing for you.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: You might feel like he's not, but he is.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth 4.15, indeed, your daughter-in-law who loves you and is better to you than seven sons.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: You see, Naomi was a bit like a horse with blinders on.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: She had convinced herself that the only way that she could experience God's blessing was if she had a son again.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, because she had created a situation, she had sort of fabricated an expectation about what God was going to do in her life, instead of allowing him to work, instead of opening up her eyes, because she created the system, when it didn't meet her exact expectations, she became really angry with God.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, as we're going to see in a second, it didn't meet her timeline nor what she was hoping for.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, she was completely blind to what Ruth was doing right next to her.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth, go back home.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm staying with you.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth, go back home.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm staying with you.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth, go back home.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have nothing to offer to you.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Go back home.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Go be with your people.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Don't leave your family.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Go back to your mother's house.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Find a new husband.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Make a new life.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Leave me.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your people are going to be my people.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your God is going to be my God.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi's silent.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't realize Ruth.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Her name means good friend.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: What she was to Naomi.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it took these the neighbor women to be able to help Ruth see, hey, Ruth is better to you than anybody else in your family.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she's been with you through this whole journey.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's the one that provided for you.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing when we set our own expectations for how God is going to solve our situation exactly how we want him to, is that we are becoming blinded to the other ways in which the Lord is taking care of us, the other blessings that are continuing on unabated.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: But because we are so narrowly focused on one thing, we become frustrated with God and leveling our own accusations against him.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Look around for God's blessing, even if it's not where you were hoping to find it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And by doing that, you will move from a position of scarcity into one of abundance.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: There are all these blessings.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is an area that I am deeply struggling in, but God is still sustaining me and providing for me elsewhere.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Second, God did not, is not, and will not forget you in your circumstances.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi had forgotten this.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: The woman said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord who has not left you without a family redeemer today.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good ringtone.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: That sort of threw me off for a second.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was expecting Doug Will has bad to the bone as his ringtone, and I was expecting that.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: God did not forget you.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this was something that Naomi needed to be reminded of.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: See, there are a lot of people in the Bible who have had to wait a very long time to see what the Lord is bringing about in their lives.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham had to wait 25 years for Isaac.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Moses, he had a bunch of waiting, but as we're going to look at in the book of Numbers, he had to wait 40 years until he could even see the promised land, and even then he didn't get to enter into it.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had 40 years where he was a shepherd before he even rescued the people of Israel.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Joseph, back when he was sold into slavery by his brothers, had between 12 and 15 years, meanwhile going through prison before he was ultimately second to Pharaoh and was able to help Israel endure their famine.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over again, you see people who have to wait longer than they would have liked in order to experience the outcome of what God was doing in their lives.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yet in all of those stories, and in many more, and in yours too, God is working something out.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: But most of all, he did not forget you during that time period.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to practice patience when speaking with God.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: He knows your situation and is acting with perfect timing.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are two things I think we need to keep in mind when we go to God with our frustrations.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm of the opinion that he welcomes that to an extent.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the Lord wants us to go to him in our frustration, in our bitterness, in our anger.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think he is a good and gracious God who desires for us to go to him with our troubles, and I don't think we should be ashamed about that.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, there is a level there, though, that we need to sometimes put our feelings through a filter because we're speaking to the holy God.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're speaking to the Lord of all.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're speaking to our Savior.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I know because I have had the claims of Naomi before, that it doesn't always look that way, it doesn't always sound that way.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's important to hold in concert two things when we go to God as we're waiting.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: One is that he welcomes our frustrations, but that we also need to keep in mind the grace that he gives us and how he handles us when we give those frustrations to him.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be afraid of him.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be afraid of thinking that God is going to smite us or something like that because we've said, God, I'm angry at you.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in that pathway, we need to remember the full course of who God is.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one who has blessed you, has not forgotten about you, and he is one who is working things out in his perfect plan.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: We need to at least try and keep those things in mind when we go to him and say, Why, when, how, but I trust you.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you did not forget me.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: All of this leads into the third and final point, though, that I want to share with you, which is that God does have a plan.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And bear with me, I'm explaining this because I find the statement God has a plan being given in response to every difficult thing to be a little trite.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically when people are going through hard times, that you just tell them, don't worry, God has a plan.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: God does have a plan, He has an overarching plan.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's the author of all things, and all things go according to his will.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you and I do so do a lot of stupid things too, right?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: We do our best to derail his plans.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he still chooses to use us.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: A perfect example of this is Joseph.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: I almost preached about Joseph because of this point.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: When Joseph is sold into slavery, right, by his brothers, who ultimately one of some many of them wanted to kill him, but when he's sold into slavery and goes to Egypt and is wrongly accused and is in the prison and then is not released from prison for years, even though he thought he would, so on and so forth.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: We get to the very end of the story at the end of the book of Genesis, and he is reunited with his brothers.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And his brothers apologize to him for what happened.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: As Joseph is providing them with food so that they can be relieved from their own famine.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what does Joseph say?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What you intended for bad, God intended for good.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there is a lot of bad in this world.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And God is not the author of evil, but he is ultimately in control.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to remember those two things when we kind of walk between these boundaries.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you've brought situations upon yourself that are hard to deal with.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, you're still burnt out.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you got the raw end of a deal.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: You had nothing to do with it, and you're burnt out.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God has allowed you to go through something that you did not want to go through, but ultimately it is a part and will work into his plan if we allow him to use it for his glory.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean that sometimes we would love it if God didn't let us use our story for his glory.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: We would love it if God if we kept this hard time, this shameful time, this difficult thing, this addiction, this relationship struggle, whatever it is, we would bottle it up and keep it inside of us so that the Lord might never use what was bad and use it for good.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: We might never let what Satan loved to see and let the Lord use it for something that ultimately furthers his kingdom.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I say God has a plan, because the ultimate point of your struggle is not that you would be comforted in it, ultimately.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even though we can pray for those things and God graciously often brings those things.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: The ultimate point of your struggle is that God may be glorified because it's an example of the fall of mankind.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: All of the difficulty that you experience is because we live in a fallen world that is brought about because of our sin.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And every time that you go through a hard time and see God's goodness in it and can tell that story, it's a miniature story of God's redemption that He provides through Jesus Christ.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you can, that's why during baptisms we share testimonies, and sometimes you see videos up on the screens of members of our church who have said, I went through cancer, I went through this divorce, I went through this terribly hard time of whatever.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: In their pain, they're extending that out so that other people who are experiencing pain as well might also benefit.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And by doing that, they take that story that was theirs alone and they recognize that they're no longer the main character and that God can use that for his purposes.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: See, you don't know how God is going to use your story.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi was pleased with Obed.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't know that Obed was going to have David.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't know that David was ultimately going to have Jesus Christ.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what God used her story for.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: God gave us the book of Ruth.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: He told us about Naomi and her bitterness.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, I have a plan.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to bring you back.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have you meet this guy named Boaz.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to bring along Ruth as well to support you and encourage you.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: And through all of that, it's come about a solution that you could have never imagined or dreamed of, which is that the savior of the world is going to come from your line.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Messiah is going to come from you, Naomi, who is bitter because God would not give her another son.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Pray that your situation would glorify God.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: How could your story help someone else?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's going to be some situations that are not going to be resolved the way that you like.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: The ultimate thing that you can do when that's the situation is that you find out a way to help somebody else with your pain.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Find out a way to help somebody else with your bitterness.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, you will be blessed because of it.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you will see that there's a redemptive purpose to what God was doing.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: The guy that fired me from K Life called me a couple months ago, out of the blue, to apologize to me.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: He said that he was sorry for the way that he had treated me.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was wrong for what he had done.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And through that whole situation, made him rethink some of the things that he was doing.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And because of it, he's become a better husband and a better church leader.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Can't say I loved God's method, right?
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Felt like he could have tackled that one.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: God's all powerful without me.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: But that's how God chose to use me in that circumstance.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't fully know how that situation impacted other people as well.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: But in hindsight, I've been able to look at that as I've overcome my bitterness because of it.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because I saw that God had not forgotten me, right?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that he had a plan.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw that along the way he was providing for me.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I will say, when he called me, it made me feel a lot better because it showed me that something dramatic and life-changing had come out of something that was dramatic and negatively life-changing for me.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's how God works sometimes.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to give him, as the God of all things, the freedom to use your story and my stories, even when they're painful, ultimately for his goodness, so that more people may know that Jesus Christ died for their sins and that by coming to him they can be forgiven and they can have a peace that surpasses all understanding, and they can overcome their own bitterness as well by being one with their Savior.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's ultimately what we're here to do, right?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tell other people about Jesus.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, as we close the book on beating burnout, I thank you for the stories of burnout that you have provided in your word.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: That God simply tell us that there are a lot of other people that struggle with burnout and bitterness and frustration and anger and weariness and exhaustion and so forth, and that, Lord, every time you come alongside them and say, I'm here for you.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that you would help those who are experiencing burnout right now.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you would remind them that you are providing for them still, in many ways that they often don't see.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you would remind them that you have not forgotten about them, that you're carrying out something in your perfect timing that is ultimately a part of your grand design for this world, that leads us and shows us the path to the cross.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, I pray that you might help us be a little bold in sharing some of those painful moments of our life so that other people might benefit from them.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: They might hear a word of encouragement from somebody who's further down the path of goodness and mercy than they feel, and will turn to you because of it.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Father, might you reveal those situations to us and we could use them as a window to tell others about the goodness of Jesus Christ our Savior?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: God, finally, Lord, I pray that we would recognize that the greatest end and outcome of our story is that you are glorified.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Father, it is not about our comfort, for you have asked us to take up our cross daily.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we still do pray for those things and we thank you for them when those healing reigns come.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we ask that you would help us to remember the ultimate purpose behind our journey here on earth is to lead people to life in Christ.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in his name that we pray.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we're going to begin going through our new series in the Old Testament book of Numbers.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that is a book of the Bible.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage you to read the first and second chapters of Numbers so that you can be ready for next week.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.