with me to Ruth chapter 1. Ruth chapter 1. What we're going to do, last week we did not get as far as I thought we were going to get. That kind of becomes a problem because I've only got a few weeks to make sure I get through the book of Ruth. And so we're going to bundle some things a little bit here today. Pick up at Ruth 1 verse 16. And we're gonna go down through chapter two. And I'm just expanding the sermon title from last week to include both of these things, Ruth one and two. Ruth's Biblical Conversion. These are the proofs of her conversion. We just sang the song. I hope that when you were singing this, you were really thinking about it, not in terms of somebody else, but when you're singing about lawbreakers and thieves, the worthless and the least, we're talking about ourselves. That's what we are outside of Christ before we came to faith in Christ. That's describing everybody in this room. You're thinking, man, I sure am glad that wasn't me. No, that was you, and if you don't understand that, you don't understand the gospel. Ruth, the book of Ruth is very clear about that. We looked at it last week in the first five verses of chapter one. And the thing that we, I just want to remind you about this, in the context of Ruth, she was a Moabite. And that was very significant because the book of Deuteronomy said you had nothing to do with them down to the 10th generation. God said you never have anything to do with these pagans. And in the book of Ruth, God in his sovereignty and his mercy and his grace brings a Moabite to Bethlehem, to the house of bread, right? Through Naomi, one of the covenant people of God. And she's going to be brought fully into the covenant eventually when she meets Boaz, her kinsman redeemer, and she's brought into the covenant. We're all Moabites. We're all Moabites. None of us deserve, the Bible condemns all of us. It doesn't just condemn the Moabites, it condemns all of us because of our law breaking, right, that we were singing about. The gospel, the gospel of grace is what it is. has brought us in. And I hope as we go through this that you see this. So another thing I wanna say at the outset, we're looking at proofs of Ruth's biblical conversion. You'll have things out of order if you see these proofs that I'm looking at as something that you need to like check off a list and do yourself in order to be saved. That's not what we're talking about. Again, it's a gospel of grace. She's recipient of grace. But because she's received this grace, these things happen. That's the order. When you receive the grace of God, and God gives you life, there's fruit of that. That's what we're talking about. So don't get the cart in front of the horse. If you're here thinking, well, I need to do these things in order to be saved. That's not the message. The message is go to Christ. The message is, go to Christ, find conversion in Him, find forgiveness of sin in Christ, and then the proofs of that conversion will follow. Okay, so I just want to make sure I'm very clear about those things as we go forward. Almost everyone in the average local church claims to be converted to Christ. If you're an average evangelical church. evangelical churches, most of which you can find anywhere in Azal, all it takes to be considered converted is participation in some sort of man-made ritual. If the preacher asks you to pray a specific prayer after him using specific words, walk an aisle, sign a decision card, look up at the preacher at the end of a sinner's prayer, stand up, sit down, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around, right, all of that, and he'll say, praise God, brother, you're saved, right? Just do something like that and you are into the kingdom or whatever, into the church. But what does biblical conversion look like? The life of Ruth gives us a wonderful example. And so I want to remind you, last week, some Jewish rabbis recognized the beauty of Ruth's conversion in this text. One said, come and see how precious in the eyes of the omniscient are converts. You know, look at what happens with this Moabitess, and she's converted, and when we, especially in 16 through 18, you're gonna see it. Her, the words she says are incredible. Like, they're beautiful, and they're not just words. These are the realities of her heart. Some rabbis consider her the perfect proselyte, or the perfect convert. What they're saying is, this is what it should look like when a Gentile comes to Judaism. I'm just saying, this is what it looks like when you come to Christ. No matter who you are, Gentile, Jew, whatever, this is what it looks like when you come to Christ. And so what we have here in chapter one, verse 16, down through the end of chapter two, are eight proofs of Ruth's biblical conversion. Now, if you say that you're a Christian, you say, I am, but you're thinking, well, I walked the aisle, I prayed the prayer, I did the hokey pokey, I did all that stuff that they told me to do, so, but I don't see these things in my life, that should be a concern. If these things don't exist in your life, you don't recognize these things in your life, that's, the reason I'm preaching this is to serve as a warning to you. Maybe when you did all that stuff that they asked you to do, you weren't really turning to Christ, Maybe you were being manipulated, that happens. Maybe you were just in a moment in your life and you had some emotional need that you thought you were gonna have met when you came to faith in Christ or you did this ritual that they came up with. That's not conversion. But if you recognize your sin before God and the fact that you need Christ or else you are in big trouble on the day of judgment and you repent and place your faith in him, that's conversion. And if that happened, these things will be evident in your life. So let's look at these proofs. Well, let's just read through the text and then we'll come back and look at them. We'll go back to verse 15. She said, see your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, to her gods. This is Naomi speaking to Ruth. She's gone back to her people and to her gods, return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go, I will go. "'Where you lodge, I will lodge. "'Your people shall be my people, "'and your God, my God. "'Where you die, I will die, "'and there will I be buried. "'May the Lord do so to me, and more also, "'if anything but death parts me from you.'" And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi? She said to them, do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? So Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him, in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, she is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. And Boaz said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner? But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me. And how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given you by the Lord the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge. Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me in spoking kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants. And at mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed to her roasted grain and she ate until she was satisfied and she had some left over. When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ifa of barley. And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today, and where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness is not forsaken the living or the dead. Naomi also said to her, the man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers. And Ruth the Moabite said, besides, he said to me, you shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted. So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvest, and she lived with her mother-in-law. So we are looking at proofs of biblical conversion. This is not me exegeting all of this text. This is me looking across the text and seeing some evidences of our conversion. We start, and we'll spend most of our time in verses 16 through 18 of chapter 1, but there are some in Chapter 2 as well. I do have to give credit where credit is due. Part of this outline at least is from Philip Morrow's book, Ruth the Satisfied Stranger. So let me give you these eight proofs. The first proof is this, and this is true then and it's true now. Conversion submits to new and total leadership. Go back to verse 16. Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. When you come to faith in Christ, you have an understanding. Ruth had this understanding. She's saying, I'm staying with Naomi. Okay, I know, this is an amazing statement that she makes here in these verses. You have to give, I think, at least think that Naomi has done a wonderful job like telling Ruth about the truth of the Word of God. She's done a far better job of it, I think, than anything that you read in the book of Judges. Because over there in the book of Judges, it seems like everybody has forgotten what God's Word has said. But here's a woman, an older woman, who's being faithful and doing what the Scriptures say in the New Testament that widows ought to be doing. Right? Teaching younger women. And so I think it's something like that has to be going on here based on how Ruth responds to all of this. But she recognizes she's hearing truth from Naomi. She's not like her sister-in-law that went back. Orpah went back, remember? She went back to who? Her people and her gods. Remember what we said last week about her gods? What were we talking about? We were talking about Chemosh, who had a human sacrifice was involved in the worship of Chemosh. And Ashtoreth, which had to do with sexual worship, just different perversions involved in that goddess of fertility. And so she went back to that. Ruth, something's going on with Ruth. Something's going on with Ruth, and she's saying, no matter what, I have heard truth from you, and I am not going to leave you. Don't even urge me to go back. I'm not going back. From here on out, I'm following you. That at least foreshadows what conversion looks like in the New Testament, does it not? What does Jesus say? Come follow me. All the time with his disciples, come follow me. He says things like count the cost. It's gonna cost you everything. He says take up your cross and come follow me. Be willing to die to everything. Ruth is in that spot. She's leaving everything behind. She's not going back to her people. She's not going back to her gods. She's going someplace she knows nothing about. All she knows about is what she's heard from Naomi. And she says, whatever I've heard, whatever I've seen, it's enough to make me want that God and to be with those people. And so she says, I will follow you, Naomi, and it should look like that in your life as a Christian. What does Christ want? I'm leaving, I'm leaving all of my other gods and all my other desires and my sins and all the rest of it, and I'm going to follow Christ Like Peter said, where else do we go? Only you have the words of eternal life. Where else can I possibly go? That should be our attitude. It's not right when you got people who claim to be Christians who look back. Remember Lot's wife, right? You don't look back to the things that this world has and think that you want some of that action. You're done with that. You have a new leader. Jesus is your Lord. We just said in the catechism, he's king. King of the world. Is there any greater leader? John chapter 12, verse 26. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. A.W. Tozer, in his book, The Root of the Righteous, says, In the evangelical world, everybody goes to Christ for help. I've got this addiction. I've got this problem in my family. I've got financial problems. And so you go, you hear some good advice on a Sunday morning for 20 minutes or so, telling you about some good advice, maybe one or two verses out of the Bible taken out of context. That's not preaching, right? That's not proclamation. So many people respond to that kind of preaching, and they think they're saved because they came to God for help with their stuff. But they weren't broken over their sin. They didn't see that their chief need was the fact that they're separated from holy God. And they don't look at him as Lord. Do you look at him as Lord? If not, you should examine yourself. In Ruth chapter one, verse 16, the next part of the verse, it says, for where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. So the second proof is that conversion will endure any hardship. Put yourself in the sandals of Ruth for a second. You're leaving everything that you know. We've already said that. But she's with a widow. She's chosen to make this widow her leader. Now, it's not like today. Women back at that time, I mean, unless you were married, that was your source of income and support. She knows because she's in the same spot. She's a widow too. What are two widows gonna do to take care of themselves? They are completely at the mercy of the culture. Completely. And she says to her, where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Where's that gonna be? She has no basis. It's not like she's got some 401k or something she's relying on. There's nothing like that. They got nothing. For a widowed woman, there would be no expectation of ease for either of them. Not a chance. Now she had a better chance, because she's younger, that she can get remarried, but she knows nothing about Boaz at this point. Naomi has no chance of remarriage at this stage. And she's already said it. What do you think? I'm gonna get remarried? You're gonna have another kid? You can go marry my son? There's no chance of that. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples? Matthew chapter eight, verse 20. Jesus said to him, boxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Like, they were the disciples. Jesus is saying to them, look, I've got nothing. This is the life that you're choosing. And this is where she's at. And it even goes further than that, because here we're talking about, with Naomi and Ruth, we're talking about this physical reality of your day-to-day provisions, but as I already said, Jesus even goes further than that, because when he says, take up your cross, as A.W. Tozer once said, it means he's asking you to come and die. So it's not just like not having stuff, but you could lose everything, you could die. And really, that's a reality at this point, even for them. If you just freeze it in this moment in the text, at that moment, she has no promise of anything, not even life. But she's still saying, wherever you go, that's where I'm gonna go, and I will stay where you're gonna stay. I'm throwing my lot in with you, and that's the heart of saving faith. I'm throwing my lot in with Christ, and it doesn't matter what that means. Now, in our culture, that doesn't mean much, because in North Texas, like this is the Bible Belt, right? But you go to other parts of the world, and you say that you're following Christ, it means you may have signed your death warrant. And that's the way it is in much of the world. We don't know how long we'll have what we have here. but we should still have that same level of commitment whether we're facing that threat or not. That's what conversion looks like. I'm all in with Christ, I don't care what it costs me. So in the next part of verse 16, conversion, the third mark, proof, whatever you wanna call this, third proof of conversion. Conversion brings you to a different people. Your people shall be my people. Now, we can look at that, right? We already established Moabite, you know, Jewish people, two different kinds, literally, genetically, two different kinds of people. However, if we're looking at this as like a foreshadowing of the gospel, then when someone comes to faith in Christ, they too have a different people. Right? The people that the new convert has, before, who'd they have? Maybe family, maybe friends, co-workers, neighbors, things like that. And that's what they have. But when you come to faith in Christ, then what do you have? The church. You have the church. You have a different people. You don't need those relationships that you had with family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, people doing hobbies, whatever. Those commonalities that you had suddenly and slowly over time, I think, as you get closer and closer to Christ, there's a drift, and you drift further away from those people. So where are you gonna land? There's only one place for the believer to land. That's why there's a baptism, and you're brought into the church at baptism, right? And that's what happens because now you have the church. Brings you to a different people. Psalm 45, 10 and 11 says, hear, O daughter, and consider and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty, since he is your lord, bow to him. Coming back to that lordship theme, right? You have a new people. As you bow to Him, you go with the people who are also bowing to Him. 1 John 3, verse 1, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we, that we should be called children, what? That we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Yes, you're a child of God. And so once you're identified as a child of God, adopted into His family, the world's like, what is up with this guy or girl, whatever? What is up with them? Well, it's because they're aligned with Christ. Ultimate leadership. Ultimate identity. Everything is found in Christ because Christ is everything. I said it last week. When you get through the book of Ruth, what you determine is Christ is everything. He's everything. And He's everything for us. He's no less everything for us. Ruth chapter 2, verse 11. Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. Isn't it weird, though, when you first get saved, right? You first come to Christ, and you're like, okay, so I guess I go to church. And you go to church, and you're like, they do all this different stuff. Like, they stand, they sit. They all seem to know when, you know? Unless the guy up there is leading, he doesn't know when you're supposed to stand, memory verse, whatever. And so, like, you know, all that kind of stuff's going on, and the way that they talk to each other is different. It's almost like they've got their own language or something. Right, and so, and the relationships, when you're first coming in, I just want to remind you of this. When people first come in to a church, there's sort of a culture in every church. And it's hard for them to break into that. Right? I mean, at some point you were new here. And so when you first came, it took you a bit, didn't it? Let me just say, if you're already here, and you see people here that are just coming in, will you welcome them? I'm not great at this either. I gotta remind my, I get wrapped up, okay, I gotta do this thing, that thing, and the other, and I gotta focus on my thing, my plan. Pay attention, look beyond the end of your nose. You see somebody coming in, welcome them. Welcome them. It's important. Pastor sees it when he goes on vacation, visits churches. When we were up in Canada, I stopped at a church, visited at this church. Not one person in the entire place welcomed me. Couple hundred people, you know. And it was obvious I'm a visitor, but nobody welcomed me. It was a good experience for me. And so I urge you to be thinking about that. Pay attention to what's going on because we need to welcome people into the family. Boaz was certainly doing that here, wasn't he? He certainly was doing that. Conversion brings you into a different people, the church. In verse 16, conversion changes your God. Verse 16, your God, my God. Who is this God? Who is this God that Ruth is talking about, who Naomi has been telling Ruth about? Jonathan Edwards has an incredible sermon on Ruth chapter 1, verse 16, called Ruth's Resolution. Here is what he says about our God. There is none like Him, who is infinite in glory and excellence. He is the Most High God, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. His name is excellent in all the earth and is glorious above the heavens. Among the gods there is none like unto Him. There is none in heaven to be compared to Him, nor are there any among the sons of the mighty that can be likened unto Him. Their God is the fountain of all good and an inexhaustible fountain. He is an all-sufficient God, able to protect and defend them and do all things for them. He is the King of glory, the Lord strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle, a strong rock and a high tower, the eternal God is the refuge and underneath our everlasting arms. He is a God who hath all things in his hands and does whatsoever he pleases. He kills and makes alive, he brings down to the grave and he brings up, he makes poor and makes rich. The pillars of the earth are the Lord's. Their God is an infinitely holy God. There is none holy as the Lord, and He is infinitely good and merciful. Many that others worship and serve as gods are cruel beings. Spirits that seek the ruin of souls. But this is a God that delights in mercy. His grace is infinite and endures forever. He is love itself, an infinite fountain and ocean of love. Such a God is our God. Such is the excellency of Jacob. Such is the God of them who have forsaken their sins and are converted. They've made a wise choice, who have chosen this for their God. They've made a happy exchange indeed. They've exchanged sin and the world for such a God. They have an excellent and glorious Savior who is the only begotten Son of God, the brightness of his Father's glory, one in whom God from eternity had infinite delight, a Savior of infinite love, one that has shed his own blood and made his soul an offering for their sins, and one that is able to save them to the uttermost. That is the God that we serve. And Ruth, knew enough of this God to say, I compare that God to all these false, they're sacrificing people to Chemosh. They're engaged in perversion to this goddess of fertility. I see that on one hand, and I see this God. I want that God. That God's gonna be my God. I'm done with these gods. That's what happens. Are we really done? Are we still, like I said last week, playing around with religious syncretism, taking a little of this, a little of that, taking a little Christianity, a little bit of everything else, and we think we must be Christians because we have a little bit of that Christianity on the plate, that we're engaging in that, but we're not engaging in, you know, we're playing around with the rest of it. Be done with it. Be done with it, and go whole hog with God. Conversion brings you, conversion changes your God. Consider what Boaz said in Ruth chapter 2 verse 12. What a beautiful picture of salvation. He recognizes you're a widow and you're in a mess. You are in danger and you need to take refuge. Take refuge in this God. Psalm 57, verse one. Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me. For in you my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by. For a fact, for Ruth, it had to feel like a storm of destruction. A storm of destruction. And so, in that case, and in every case, no matter where you're at in your life, you find yourself in this storm of destruction, trust in this God. It seems rare these days, but conversion will do that. Conversion will do that. Remember the words of Thomas in John chapter 20 verse 17, after the resurrection, where he says, my Lord and my God. He wasn't there when Jesus first made his appearance to the disciples. But here, he sees Jesus and he says it, he confesses it, my Lord and my God. Be done with idolatry. The next mark of conversion is in the first part of verse 17, and that is that conversion changes your entire life. The whole course of your life is different. Verse 17, the first part. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. First part of that, where you die, I will die. There is no going back. Her whole life is going to be marked by following the true and the living God. In Luke chapter 9, verse 62, Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. John Flavel, talking about converts, says, converts not only lay down their arms and fight no more against Christ, but they join his camp and fight for him. Is that you? Have you made that kind of definitive change? William Gurnall, the Puritan, said, can Christ be in your heart and you not know it? Can one king be dethroned and another one crowned in your soul and you don't even hear the fighting? There ought to be some, you ought to know, right, whether or not there ought to be a war that goes on. Have you experienced that or have you just sort of done the American Christianity thing where you've added something to do on Sunday morning to your schedule and nothing else has changed in your life? That's not Ruth. She's saying, where you die, I will die. I'm gonna follow your God, I'm gonna follow you, and where I die, that's where I'm going. That's it. Now you know the Bible says in Christ we've died. Remember that? Romans chapter 6 verse 11, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Have you died to that old way of living or is it still very much alive? Just because you had that ritual thing take place, where you walk that aisle, you prayed that prayer, did whatever thing they asked you to do, whatever it is, You need to know that ultimately, if that ritual that you did did not lead to the death of sin in your life, and you didn't actually place your faith in Christ in reality, nothing happened. Nothing happened. A ritual doesn't save you. And it even looks beyond the grave. It's the next mark. Conversion looks beyond the grave. It says there in this text, there I'll be buried. Now that's kind of the main thought in the Jewish mindset. When you read in the Old Testament, a lot of times you've got to look pretty hard to find much evidence of life beyond the grave. And here, right here in this spot, Ruth is saying, I'll be buried and that'll be it. In the New Covenant we have a clearer understanding of life beyond the grave. We know that we will live in Him because of Christ's death on the cross and His burial resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 10 says, talking about Jesus, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him. For us we have even a greater hope because conversion looks beyond the grave. Aren't you glad for that? Man, I'm telling you, the older you get, and I've said it before, but the older that you get, the more of death that you see, you're ready for that to be done. I have a friend this past week who thought that they saw a dead body laying in the road up in Canada, just driving down the road, body laying out there in the middle of the road. pulled over and to have a look. Praise God, found out later, he hadn't really died. This guy had not really died, but on the side of the road, there was like 10 people standing around just watching. Probably filming it on their phone or something, I don't know. And like, people could run over that guy. Thank God nobody did. It's after dark, all that kind of thing. But it's a shocker, isn't it? I don't know, you know, if you've ever seen a body outside of a funeral home. You ever seen someone die? It's a bad thing. It's terrible. But the good news of the gospel is that even as terrible as death is, that's not the end for those who repented and placed their faith in Christ. There is a resurrection. Our family just dealt with Kim's uncle passing away. Terrible stuff when this happens. And, you know, death is all around us. Friends die, family members die. This is why we need to be urgent with the Gospel. Because everybody's dying. Whether you recognize it or not, whether you've been diagnosed with anything or not, you're dying. You're one day closer to death today than you were yesterday. Conversion looks back, or looks beyond the grave, sorry. And then conversion is a matter of finding grace from Christ. Gonna move quickly through this, but it's in chapter 2. In chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, now, Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor. So she's looking for grace, favor. It's talking about grace. You skip down to verse 10 of Ruth chapter 2, and after she's received that grace, she's met Boaz and gleaned in his field. She fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner? She's saying, don't deserve these considerations. I am a Moabite. You shouldn't have anything to do with me. Why are you showing me favor or grace? Conversion is a matter of finding grace. Conversion is not a matter of earning it. You are that Moabite. You are that one separated from God because of who you are, a sinner outside of the covenant of God. But you can enter that. You can find grace. God, she found grace, right? She said it very clearly here. The rest of her life, she's met Boaz. We'll talk more about this next week. The rest of her life is going to be shaped by Boaz. And even generations are going to be shaped because of this relationship with Boaz. Boaz is prominent in this book. No other man after this point is mentioned by name unless he's a descendant of Boaz and Ruth. And so conversion is a matter of finding this grace and you find it in Christ is what I'm trying to say. Boaz is a type, he's a foreshadowing of Jesus, our Redeemer. Donald Gray Barnhouse tells this story of conversion. He says, at the graduation at a Bible Institute, a young woman gave a powerful testimony. She said, I was found on a doorstep in a basket in Leeds, England when I was six days old. I was found by the Lord Jesus Christ here in Canada 10 years ago. So she was found as a baby on the doorstep. She goes, well, Christ found me. And that's what happened here. Christ found Ruth. Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, finds Ruth, foreshadowing what happens with us. This term for grace is mostly a secular term and not usually theological in tone, but sometimes it is. The focus here in this word in the Hebrew is on the recipient and not on the giver of grace. It has to do with the superior giving grace to an inferior. She's received grace from a superior. We all have to receive grace from someone who's superior than us, higher than us. In Genesis chapter 6 verse 8, it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In Exodus 33 verse 12, it says that Moses found grace in the eyes of the Lord and she also found grace. In Ruth chapter 2, verses 19 and 20, you see this idea of the foreshadowing. Her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz. And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness is not forsaking the living or the dead. Naomi also said to her, the man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers. Ken's been a Redeemer, we'll talk a lot about that next week. About what that means, that he's a Redeemer. But that's who he is. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities. This is just a shadow of Christ. Foreshadowing him. Last point. Ruth chapter 2, verse 3. Ruth 2, verse 3 says, it's a strange language in Hebrew, or in English, actually. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened, that word happened is a weird thing, she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. Now, what's weird about that? In the Hebrew, that word happened, is you can literally translate it, she chanced her chance. She just chanced her chance. What in the world does that mean, right? She just chanced her chance. In old English, like in the King James, it uses the word she happed. Not happened, but she happed. And in some translations, she happed her hap. What? She chanced her chance. She happed her hap. What is going on here? The word hap in English speaks of an event that comes about by chance. And it also can be translated as chance, fortune, or luck from the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology. And so the emphasis here is all about this is a chance. Now why is the Spirit of God inspiring the writer of the book of Ruth to say this? I think it's a joke. There is nothing in the book of Ruth that happens by luck or chance. I think it's a tongue-in-cheek sort of joke. Ah, she just happened. It just sort of happened that she ended up out here in Boaz's field. Obviously, when you read the entire book, none of this just happened. I think it's tongue-in-cheek, it's ironic. It's not Ruth's lucky day, okay? There's no such thing as luck or chance. Proverbs 16, verse 33, the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Do you think it's something less than that? When you come to faith in Christ, you think it just was your lucky day? You know, when you heard the gospel, you think it was your lucky day? You think that maybe you were just smarter than the average bear or something? And you make good decisions and that's why you came to Christ? No. You didn't hap your hap. You didn't chance your chance. God orchestrated it. He brought you to hear the Word of God the day that you heard it. under the circumstances that you heard it in. He worked it all out to do that. I was talking to a friend who's talking about like this Jehovah's Witness has been coming to their house and it just happened. right, that this person's husband was home, right, and could go out there and talk to this Jehovah's Witness. He'd been working on a document for like three years on the mistranslations of the New World translation of the Jehovah's Witness, and this Jehovah's Witness just happens to come by. Oh really? Hap to his hap, chance to his chance? I'm telling you, God's in control of something like that. and he's in control of every one of those things. You've heard pastors say it. God will move heaven and earth to bring someone to Christ. He knows who his elect are, and he's gonna get them. He's gonna get him. And if you're here today, you say, man, I don't believe, I've never believed any of this stuff, but it's starting to make sense. You didn't come here today because you chanced your chance, or happed your hap, or whatever you wanna say. You came here under the direct divine sovereignty of God. Romans 8, 28, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. He works those things out. He directs things. There is no way to read this book and conclude, wow, Ruth sure was lucky. The entire book has a sovereign hand of God at work behind the scenes, guiding her conversion, guiding not only her conversion, but her marriage, not only guiding her marriage, her descendants, right down to her great-grandson King David, which you'll see at the end of chapter 4. And in the lineage of Christ, there's Boaz in Matthew chapter 1. There's not one thing about that has anything to do with chance. That's a divine move of God and it's no different in your life when you come to faith in Christ. Thank God, because if it was left up to us, we'd never get there. Joseph Alleyne in his book, Call to the Unconverted, conversion is no repairing of the old building, but it takes down and erects a whole new structure. The sincere Christian is quite a new creation, from the foundation to the rafters, it's all new, it's all new. Do these proofs of conversion mark your own life? Can you honestly say that your conversion looks something like this? If not, then examine yourself. If it does, you look at it, you say, wow, I can see it. Yeah, I'm not perfect, I'm certainly not perfect, not where I wanna be, but I can see where these things happen. The response there is rejoicing. Giving God glory for the way that he stepped into your life, just like he stepped into Ruth's life, right? And bringing you to where you are today. Bringing you to salvation, bringing you to a church, to the people of God, right? And now you're in Christ. That's the response, is rejoicing. And so I hope that you see that and I hope you can rejoice over that. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you that it's not a matter of chance. We didn't hap or hap or whatever, but Lord God, that you have revealed truth to us just as it was revealed to Ruth. We pray now, Lord, that you would help us as your people to rejoice over what we have found in you and to be grateful. And for those who don't know you, I pray that they would look at these marks and say, wow, that has not happened. And I pray that if that's the case for them, that they repent and come to Christ. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you died for sinners. Thank you that you are our Redeemer. We pray that you would show yourself as Redeemer to those who see themselves outside of the gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.