Generations Part 3 – Your Name Will Be Forgotten, but Your Legacy Might Not Be Adam Donyes
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Generations Part 3 – Your name will be forgotten, but your legacy might not be Adam Donyes If you just joined us today, the last two weeks, Ted dove into the Book of Ruth. We’ve been going through a series in the Book of Ruth, Chapter 1 and 2. Today we are going to look at Chapter 3. But before we do, I just want to talk to you about names. We’re going to see a name today in Chapter 3 that is pretty significant. Some of you are going back to school and some of you are Wolves if you’re over in Reeds Spring or you're Tigers if you're in Hollister or you're Pirates or Pirate parents or you might be Panthers out in Forsyth or you might be Patriots over at S of O. You might just be the home school Hornets. There are names and we attach names to everything. Some of you also might have a pretty popular parent. Maybe a parent that’s in a show or a popular grandparent. A lot of times, you get identified as that individual. For example, Corynn and Carson fight the battle of being “Ted’s kids,” rather than being Corynn and Carson. When you have a dad up front, you might get labeled as that individual’s son or daughter. I’ve been all over Taney County and Stone County this summer, meeting a lot of your names. As a matter of fact, I was out at Dogwood Canyon with a group of kiddoes and I met Chad. I knew Chad, but then I met Debbie, who also works at Dogwood Canyon. They’re Woodland Hills folks. Just like you, they are loving Jesus and trying to do the best they can. If you’ve never been out to Jill’s Ozark Barbeque, you need to go check out Jill’s Ozark Barbeque. It’s a complete hole in the wall between the Kimberling City bridge and Lampe. My wife went on a date night out there and we met Kelly. Sweet Kelly goes to Woodland Hills. If you’re here today, you’re awesome and you serve a mean smoked chicken. Then I’m at Michaels and I’m picking up something for my job. I’m at the cashier and I have about a five- minute conversation. At the end of the five-minute conversation, Debra tells me that she goes to Woodland Hills. She knew who I was the whole time. I’m glad I wasn’t a jerk. It helps me a lot if you just say right away “Hey, I’m so and so; I go to Woodland Hills and I know you.” I don’t know a lot of you, but you obviously know me because I’m up here. It keeps me on my toes, which is a good thing. Two days ago, I was at Walmart and I bumped into Charles who works back in electronics and he goes to Woodland Hills. 3953 Green Mountain Drive, Branson, MO 65616 417-336-5452 woodhills.org I get my hair cut at Take One Studio in Hollister by a single mom named Misha. All you mid-twenty somethings, stop playing video games and go get your hair cut by Misha and something else might happen too. Do you know what I’m saying? She’s awesome. You need to go get to know her. My wife and I got a loan this summer from the bank. I’m in there with Adrian and she had us sign all these papers. I just wrote down on a piece of paper “I’ve been praying for you and Aiden every day.” She has a little son named Aiden too. She’s a single mom, killing it. Or I go get my oil done and the guy who changed my oil is Michael. Michael goes to Woodland Hills. There are these Woodland Hills people everywhere; I just can’t get away from you guys; it was awesome. What He’s been doing all summer long is He’s been working this message in my heart. We all have names and we all know names, right? How many of you, if I called you a nimrod, would take that as a compliment? For one, you know the biblical context and where I’m going with this, but none of us would say nimrod is a compliment. As a matter of fact, in Genesis 10 it says, 8 Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Now some of you are like, I’m going to name my first boy Nimrod.” Probably not because of what culture has done to that name. The way we now use the name Nimrod is not in a positive connotation. Culture does the same thing to family. Culture does the same thing in the way we view family, the way we view parenting, the way we view bringing up our kids, the way we view success, the way we view accomplishments. If we’re not careful, we can begin living for what the cultures says defines these things versus what the Bible actually says defines these things. When my mom was 21 and my dad was 22, they had a four-year-old, a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old. I was the two-year-old. Here’s a picture of the soon to be two-year-old, in case you were wondering how chubby I was as a baby. My sister was a year older than me and she couldn’t say brother, so she called me Bubba. She always called me Bubba, so my nickname growing up… I literally can’t remember one time that my siblings called me by my name. They called me Bubba. To this day, when they text me, it’s “Hey Bub…” Or with birthday cards, it’s Bubba. That’s my name in my family; they don’t call me anything else, but Bubba. My nickname changed when I got to college. I was playing basketball. We would be disciplined if we weren’t taking care of our academics. I was always a great student. I’ve always loved to learn, but not so much with my teammates. It’s a team, so it’s a group effort. If we weren’t making good grades, there were consequences for poor decisions. Our team GPA was low one semester, so we had this thing called the 65 Club. The 65 Club is five miles at 6:00 in the morning. I could either be mad at all my teammates that weren’t getting good grades or I could figure out a solution. I figured I get really good grades and school comes pretty naturally to me. “Hey, guys, why don’t you sign up for the classes that I’m in and I’ll tutor you as you sit next to me during test day.” The next semester comes around and sure enough, our team GPA has boosted. The coach is happy and he asked them, “Have you been studying hard or what?” Kewan Woods grabs me behind my neck and says, “We’ve got a great tutor, Coach. He’s A plus.” So, from that day on, to this day, my college teammates, if they call me or text me, the call me A Plus or they’ll shorten it and just call me Plus. So, basically me whole life, I’ve never been called by my real name. Even at camp, everyone calls me by my last name and most people don’t even know my name. As a matter of fact, Ted tells me all the time that people will come up to him and ask “Who’s the short pastor that teaches at your church?” I don’t care that people do or don’t know my name, but what we’re going to learn in Ruth 3 today is the importance of one name. Not the importance of your name, not the importance of making your name known, but the importance of one name. So let’s look at Ruth 3. 1 Then Naomi… Naomi is the mother-in-law to Ruth. …her mother-in-law… Let me give you a quick background if you missed the last two weeks. Naomi lost her husband who died, lost her two sons who died, and then she was left with two widows, Ruth and the other one who left her and didn’t want to be with her. …said to her, “My daughter…” This is a term of endearment. Even though she is not her biological daughter, she is still loving her like she is. She cares about her and she wants her to be taken care of, as we see in this next verse. “…should I not seek rest for you…” That word rest there is security, comfort. She’s trying to find a husband for her that can provide for her, take care of her, especially in this dark period of Judges that they are in. “…that it may be well with you?” 2 “Is not Boaz our relative…” It wasn’t Ruth’s biological relative, but it was Naomi’s biological relative. “…with whose young women you were?” They were related to the man she married that is now deceased.