Today we continue our teaching series "Family Values" where we are taking a deep dive into strengthening our family relationships.

Family is so important. Though often challenging, family can be some of our deepest and closest relationships- and those matter!

We believe your family matters, and perhaps most importantly, your family matters to God.

Family Values is about walking out faithfulness to God within our families. Over the next few weeks we will consider what it takes to build strong family relationships.

Throughout this series, we are clinging to two truths that we believe can change everything for our family relationships.

There is hope and there is help.

Today as we continue with Part 3 of our teaching series Family Values, we are looking at the value of loyalty in our family relationships

That’s loyalty. A tough and resilient commitment despite many obstacles. It’s a commitment to maintaining connection. It’s relational endurance. It’s choosing family, no matter what.

In the case of Ruth and Naomi, loyalty took precedence over convenience, comfort, safety, and pleasure.

And that’s really the very heart of loyalty. A resolve, a commitment to loving others according to God’s word, according to how we have been loved by Christ.

Loyalty is the glue that bonds the family together.

In our families, do we cling to each other the way Ruth clung to Naomi?

The book of Ruth in the Old Testament details the life of a Jewish woman named Naomi and her family.
Naomi along with her husband and their two sons leave their hometown of Bethlehem because of a severe famine in the land. They travel to Moab, a neighboring pagan nation where they hope to find food and a new life.

But within the first 5 verses of this story, tragedy unfolds on a catastrophic scale.

Away from home, searching for food, Naomi’s husband dies, leaving her with her two sons. The son’s each marry Moabite women, one named Oprah, and the other Ruth.

After this family had lived there 10 years, both sons passed away, leaving Naomi utterly destitute and seemingly hopeless.

If you stopped the story here, it could be just another chronicled account of when death and despair had done its worst to another of God’s people.

But to stop reading now is to miss the entire reason the book of is included in the bible in the first place. You would miss God’s loyal love shown through Ruth.

Naomi hears that things are better back at home, and she wants to go back there to live out the last of her days. It’s not hard to imagine, this was a decision loaded with emotion and uncertainty.

Naomi urges her daughters-in-law to return to their parents’ home- this was the cultural “right thing to do” on their behalf.

Understandably so, Naomi is wrestling with severe grief at all she has lost. She just wants to go home, to be left alone, but her daughter-in-law’s object; They don’t want to leave her.

But Naomi is insistent- there is no hope for them sticking with her, there was no hope of a future husband from Naomi- they needed to cut their ties and move on. It just didn’t make sense for them to go with her.

In this moment, Orpah, Naomi’s daughter-in-law, concedes to her request. Orpah is not wrong in making this decision. She had every right to leave Naomi, to return to her home, and to marry again. In fact, it was arguably the best decision she could make.

Common sense went on home, but loyal love stuck fast.

The word for clung here is the idea of sticking close, being joined together, think of being glued to one another

Ruth in these moments demonstrates a love that defies categories- when everything was against her, when common sense said cut your losses and move on- loyal love refused to let go.

Ruth demonstrates loyal love in the context of family; just as God has loved us.

Naomi has a solid argument, one that makes sense, one that would have been considered normal. Just like Orpah- Naomi is engaging family relationships with common sense, with sound reasoning.

But Ruth doesn’t engage family with common sense or logic, or even when it’s convenient. She holds loyalty as a family value.

We have not shied away from the fact that family can be messy. You don’t need a sermon series to teach you that.

Loyalty is a critical family value because all families endure hardship, they are all messy in one way or another.

A family without loyalty is one easily scattered, quickly broken, and soon to be non-existent in any meaningful form. Loyalty is the bond of God-like love that keeps the family together.

What does loyalty look like in our daily walks with family?

I believe at its most basic form, it’s the commitment to love others as we have been loved by the father.

Loyalty is our acceptance and embrace of our families in that model- when it makes sense, and when it doesn’t.

To be clear, loyalty does not mean we have to subject ourselves to the abuse or manipulative actions family.

Loyalty does not demand that we excuse harmful, or hurtful conduct from others.

There may come a time when we must step back or allow someone to step away in relationship. Loyalty then may look like earnest and careful prayer.

Loyalty may mean that years later, we are called to forgive, to extend grace.

Loyalty is the commitment to loving others as we have been loved by our heavenly father.
Will you commit to loving like that?

When a family member doesn’t deserve your love, only then will you know if you are truly loyal… or NOT.

Will you choose loyalty now?