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Day 7: When You Realize You Need a Redeemer
Scripture:
In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Ruth 1:1-5
For most of you reading this, you know that you need a Savior and Redeemer. You know that you were lost and dead in your sins, and that He was the only way of escape. In your mind, you know and believe these truths. But there is a difference between knowing you need a Redeemer and realizing you need one. Knowing is intellectual, but realizing is personal. Knowing says, “I need help.” Realizing says, “I cannot save myself.” And often, we don’t realize how deeply we need a Redeemer until the kingdom we’ve built for ourselves collapses.
Some of you know this kind of collapse firsthand. You’ve been carrying burdens that feel too heavy, and you’re tired in a way that a night of sleep doesn’t fix. You’ve been holding your world together with trembling hands, but now it’s slipping through your fingers. So you know what it’s like to have a kingdom you can’t hold together.
Naomi was her own worst enemy in our passage. For years, she had been building her kingdom in a foreign country with her own plans and dreams. And she had them. She had the husband, the children, and the daughters-in-law. She had the food and provisions for life. And in her kingdom, she thought she was full and had it all. She didn’t necessarily set out to rebel against God, but in the end, she was ruling on the throne instead of the Lord.
Naomi’s collapse wasn’t theoretical. It was painfully human, as she had the silence in the house after three funerals. She had those empty chairs at the table and the fear of being a widow in a foreign land. She thought she had no future, and she experienced the ache of watching every dream die. Her world crumbled, her security vanished, her fullness turned to emptiness. But as devastating as it was, this collapse became the doorway to redemption.
Don’t get confused, it wasn’t good that her husband or sons died. But it was good that her kingdom did. Why? Because as long as her kingdom was thriving, she wasn’t living for the Lord’s kingdom. As hard as it is, this could be where you are. You might have built a kingdom of your own that you have been working on for days or even years.
You may have spent years building a life, a plan, a dream, a future, and now it’s collapsing. You may have included Jesus in your world, but if you’re honest, He wasn’t the King. He was more like a servant, someone you called on to bless your plans, not someone you surrendered your plans to. You have thought that you were the strong one for years, but you’ve forgotten that you too need a redeemer.
And now the collapse has exposed that. You don’t just need a helper or a comforter. You need a Redeemer. See, the hard places the Lord puts us in are designed to show us our kingdoms and how they can never fulfill. They are meant to remind us that unless our world is built on Christ alone, our lives will collapse as our worlds crumble. These hard places are really invitations to look to Christ alone, instead of your strength which is running thin, your abilities which are exhausted, or your plans which haven’t worked.
Some of you are looking around and thinking, “This isn’t the life I had planned.” All those dreams you had for your children, retirement, health, or marriage have crumbled. It could be too that your grief is not from what has happened, but what has not happened. The things you wanted to see have not worked out, and you are left empty.
Where are you exhausted right now? Where are you hurting from trying to love someone who isn’t responding well? Where are you grieving that life you didn’t have, and where is Jesus exposing your kingdom emptiness?
And when you begin looking to Him and living in His kingdom, you will find the grace you’ve been hungry for. The grace to keep walking when everything in you wants to quit. The grace to speak gently when you are misunderstood or dismissed. The grace to bless when you are rejected. The grace to keep a soft heart when everything in you wants to shut down. The grace to face the future you didn’t plan for or want. And the grace to stop trying to fix what only Jesus can. This kind of grace doesn’t come from trying harder or toughing it out. It only comes from Jesus. And this is the kind of grace Naomi needed, and it’s the kind you need as well.
God’s grace enables Naomi to see even through hard times that she needs a Redeemer. It opens her eyes to see the emptiness of her own kingdom and the reality that she cannot save herself. She needs a Savior and Redeemer, someone kinder, stronger, and better than herself. And this could be where you are at as well. The Lord has shown to you the emptiness of your own kingdom, and your inability to rescue yourself. He might be showing you as you are at the end of your rope that strategies and self-reliance cannot save. That only Jesus can.
Your kingdom and dreams may have been beautiful, with a marriage, a career, a ministry, a dream for your children, a plan for your future. But even the best self‑built kingdoms crack and crumble under pressure. And Jesus doesn’t just rebuild what collapsed so you can go back to your kingdom again. He gives you a better kingdom — one that cannot be shaken. Yes, the collapse of your kingdom is often painful. But it will be far better and sweeter in the end.
Pastor Josh Gerber
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