But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. –Ruth 1:16b
Do you remember those senior class superlatives from your high school yearbook? The kids who were voted “Class Clown”, “Best Smile”, and “Most Likely to Succeed?” I didn’t earn any of these coveted titles when I was in high school—as a shy marching band geek in a school of over 2000 students, I wasn’t anywhere near the inner circle of popular kids who usually earned those honors! (Although when I was in 8th grade, I was elected “Class Bookworm” and I wore the title with pride!)
We like to honor the people who stand out from the crowd; the people who shine brightly and seem to “have it all.” But strangely enough, we don’t find too many of those shining stars in the Bible! To the contrary: the Bible is filled with underdogs and losers and nobodies! The pages of Scripture are full of outsiders and outcasts—and the really crazy thing is that in the end, God turns these people into the stars! Throughout the Bible, God is constantly using the most unlikely people, and God is always transforming underdogs into heroes and heroines!
In our July sermon series, we’re going to be studying one of these unlikely heroines: a young woman named Ruth. We will examine her story and see what it has to teach us today—we’ll talk about faith and trust, we’ll talk about how Christians are often called to be outsiders in the world, and we’ll talk about how wide and expansive the Kingdom of God truly is! Join us on this journey as we get to know Ruth: a woman who was the least likely to succeed, but through whom God accomplished powerful things!
July Sermon Series: “Girl Least Likely to Succeed”
July 10th: Ruth 1
“Girl Least Likely to Succeed: The Outsider”
July 17th: Ruth 2
“Girl Least Likely to Succeed: No Good Deed Goes Unnoticed”
July 24th: Ruth 3
“Girl Least Likely to Succeed: When is ‘Bad’ Behavior Good?”
July 31st: Ruth 4
“Girl Least Likely to Succeed: From Outsider to Insider!”