Northpointe PCA Sermons

A. Ruth and Naomi are destitute widows — Ruth goes to glean in the fields, hoping only for leftovers, as provided for in Deuteronomy 24:19.

B. Boaz goes far beyond normal custom in his provision for Ruth.

C. Boaz instructs his workers to allow Ruth to glean from the best of the harvest, even from already-bundled sheaves (Ruth 2:15-16).

D. This manner of provision points to the Lord's own abundant care for his people throughout Scripture.

E. Boaz points forward to Christ, the greater Redeemer and greater Boaz.

A. Ruth returns to Naomi with arms full — both the leftover meal and the abundant grain — and Naomi sees it all (Ruth 2:18).

B. When Naomi learns the field belongs to Boaz, her eyes are opened and she bursts out in praise (Ruth 2:20).

C. The driving motivation behind all God's redemptive work is his hesed — his covenant love.

D. Like Naomi, we are prone to forget God's hesed when trials press hard upon us.

A. The fourth petition — "Give us this day our daily bread" — is intentionally ordinary, following the lofty heavenly petitions of the Lord's Prayer, resisting the error of over-realized eschatology.

B. Spiritual kingdom truths are realized not by denying bodily existence but by living into our creaturely dependence.

C. We receive daily provisions as "kingdom come" children — in moderation, as a guard against idolatry and as protection of our hope in the eternal abundance of the marriage feast of the Lamb.

A. From creation, man was made to live and work within time — day by day under the expanse God set in the heavens (Genesis 1:1).

B. Ecclesiastes 3:13 teaches that eating, drinking, and taking pleasure in toil is God's gift to man.

C. The Lord's Prayer does not promote escapism from daily life but brings meaning and purpose to it.

D. Creatureliness and time are not evil — they were present at the very beginning and were always meant to find their meaning in the eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A. Throughout Scripture, God uses created things as metaphors pointing to himself — rock, refuge, sun and shield, vine, shepherd, bread, cornerstone, light, lamb, lion, dove, fire, wind, water.

B. All of creation is one grand signpost pointing back to the eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

C. Daily bread eaten in faith becomes a cosmic event — every ordinary act of eating, drinking, working, and resting is a signpost to eternal glory.

A. The setting — barley harvest begins in late April, a time of abundance and celebration for Israel, and Ruth and Naomi arrive at its beginning, not its end, revealing God's sweet providence.

B. Boaz is a relative of Elimelech — this family connection will play a significant role in the kinsman-redeemer theme developed later, rooted in Deuteronomy 25.

C. Boaz's name means "in him is strength" — in the era of the judges, when men are depicted as weak and cowardly (cf. Judges 4, where Barak refuses to fight Sisera without Deborah, and Jael — a woman — kills Sisera), Boaz stands as a man of genuine strength.

D. Boaz is described in Ruth 2:1 as a "worthy man" — the Hebrew combines gibbor (great man) and hayil (worthy, excellent), conveying power, dignity, and honor, in stark contrast to the rape, theft, murder, and manipulation filling the book of Judges.

E. Boaz is a godly man — his first words in verse 4, "The Lord be with you," and his workers' response, "The Lord bless you," show that in a time when Israel followed the fertility god Baal (Judges), Boaz credits Yahweh as the provider of the harvest.

F. Illustration — Gerta and Kurt Klein: Gerta, a Polish Jewish teenager who survived three years in Nazi labor camps, described the first American soldier she saw (Kurt Klein, who would become her husband) as sounding like "the voice of God" because he spoke to her with kindness and dignity after years of brutal treatment. Boaz must have had a similar effect on Ruth and Naomi amid the wickedness of the judges' era.

A. Ruth is Naomi's strength — where Naomi is consumed by bitterness and grief (having renamed herself Mara, meaning "bitter"), Ruth provides the active, forward-moving strength that Naomi cannot muster, much as Martin Luther called on his congregation to pray on his behalf when he and his wife lacked the strength to pray after burying their daughter.

B. Ruth is humble — the word "glean" occurs twelve times in this chapter. Rather than succumbing to bitterness and inaction as Naomi has, Ruth takes humble advantage of Israel's lawful provision for the poor, widows, sojourners, and orphans (grain left in field corners and dropped stalks), refusing to let sorrow blind her to the provisions God has placed before her.

C. Ruth is persistent — verse 7 notes she worked "from early morning until now, except for a short rest," embodying the Reformation principle that any vocation, however menial, can be done zealously to the glory of God.

A. The theme of "seeing" and "finding favor" recurs in verses 10 and 13 — Ruth asks why Boaz would "take notice" of a foreigner; the eyes are a gateway to the heart, for good or ill.

B. Redeemed seeing leads to loving action — God sees Israel's affliction in Exodus 3; Jesus sees the crowd and has compassion in Mark 6:34; Boaz sees Ruth and acts in steadfast lovingkindness.

C. The book of Ruth was read aloud in Israel's liturgical calendar at the Feast of Weeks (commemorating the giving of the law, seven weeks after the Exodus) — reminding Israel that lovingkindness is the fulfillment of the law, not cold obedience.

D. Boaz as type points to the greater need — the era of judges cries out for a king; 1 Samuel 16 gives David, but David's eyes lust after Bathsheba and Nathan declares in 2 Samuel 12, "You are the man."

E. Pontius Pilate's unwitting proclamation in John 19 — "Behold the man" — points to Christ as the truly good man: humbled through suffering, identifying with the lowly, with eyes unstained by sin that see and redeem the afflicted.

A. The world is constantly searching for a good man — may it find him in believers who live out Christlike love.

B. True goodness does not originate in us but flows from the righteousness of Christ poured into our hearts by the Spirit, renewing our wills, affections, and eyes.

C. Practically, redeemed eyes trained by grace will notice the "Ruths" of the world whom others pass by, and draw near to them with dignity, kindness, and steadfast love.

A. The Lord's Prayer orients the heart toward heaven — hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done — before turning to earthly needs.

B. The location of the Father's throne matters: the "third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:2-4) is the unseen realm of God's uncanny, holy presence, distinct from the sky (first heaven) and outer space (second heaven).

C. Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6 illustrates the awe demanded by the God of the third heaven — the seraphim shield their eyes, and Isaiah cries, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips."

D. Modern culture, described by Charles Taylor as the "immanent frame," confines the imagination to the first and second heavens, effectively eliminating transcendence.

E. Obedience to God's will is inseparable from knowing where he gives it — from his transcendent, unchangeable throne, not from creation.

A. The philosophical debate over "freedom of the will" almost always concerns man's will — but only God possesses a truly free will.

B. The divine name Yahweh — "I AM WHO I AM" — first revealed in Exodus 3 — expresses God's absolute independence and self-existence.

C. The doctrine of divine simplicity means God does not merely have freedom — God is freedom.

D. Creation was designed to serve mankind (the Sabbath was made for man), but God's service flows from absolute freedom, not slavish dependence.

E. Christ's high priestly prayer in John 17 — "that they may be in us" — is a prayer that the absolute freedom of the triune God would be shared with his people through conformity to the Father's will.

F. Even the 250th anniversary of American independence should remind Christians that only God is truly free; human freedom is derivative and grows through absorption into his will.

A. The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) established that Christ has two natures — fully divine and fully human — in one person.

B. The Third Council of Constantinople (681 AD) further affirmed that Christ has two wills: a human will and a divine will.

C. Gregory of Nazianzus: "That which Christ does not assume, Christ cannot redeem."

D. Christ demonstrates the redeemed human will in two decisive moments:

E. Outside of Christ there is no freedom of the will — only bondage to sin; in Christ, the will is set free (Galatians 5:1).

F. The prayer "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" has already been accomplished in Christ, who descended from heaven to do the Father's will perfectly, finishing it on the cross at Golgotha.

G. Therefore, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things (Colossians 3:2) — not on the flesh sown in Adam, but on Christ, who was sown to the Father's will on our behalf.