Hope, based on the confidence in a sovereign God that he is for us, yields in our hearts a thrilling impulse that I call strategic righteousness.

What role does hope in God play in motivating our pursuit of righteousness?

That's the question that John Piper answers from Ruth III in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on July 15, 1984.

The question that I think chapter 3 tries to answer is, what does a God-saturated man and a God-dependent young woman and a God-exalting older woman do?

When they are overflowing with hope in a sovereign good God.

And the answer I think of chapter 3 is strategic righteousness.

Now by righteousness I simply mean a zeal to do what's right, a zeal to do what's good, what's appropriate when God is taken into account.

And by strategic I mean something that's intentional, something that's planned and purposeful.

There's a lot of passive righteousness. Don't kill, don't steal, don't lie.

And some people's ethic is simply avoidance, just an avoidance ethic.

Stay out of the way of evil when it presents itself.

And that's not what I mean by strategic righteousness.

Strategic righteousness is when you look at wrong and you plan to change it.

You want to make things right, you just just want to stay out of the way of evil.

And I think one of the lessons of chapter 3 in relation to chapter 2 is that hope helps us dream about righteousness.

Hope helps us think up ways to do good.

Hope helps us pursue virtue and integrity in life.

It's hopelessness, the feeling of hopelessness that makes people feel like they've got to steal and lie and seize the pleasure of the moment in order to make life worthwhile.

But hope, based on the confidence in a sovereign God that he is for us, yields in our hearts a thrilling impulse that I call strategic righteousness.

And we're going to see it in Naomi, in verses 1 through 5, Ruth, in verses 6 through 9, and in Boaz, in verses 10 through 15, and then the chapter closes with a great statement of confidence from Naomi again,

that everything is going to work out indeed today.

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