All Your Hell Ain't From Hell | Hope Carpenter

Well, the title of my message today is all your hell ain't from hell. Have you ever considered that all your hell ain't coming from hell, you say, well Pastor, I thought we served a good God. I thought we served a God that wanted to just shower blessing all over us and that I could shamalama ding dong and step all over my wallet and money's gonna come to me. And I just thought that all the good stuff stuff was coming when I got saved. How many of you know when you got saved? You got a target on your back. And how many of you know that God is just not up there, A genie in a bottle where you can say something and he's going to give you everything you want. He's also your father. He is your heavenly father. How many of you have children in here? Bless you, I'll pray for you. I got three. And I tell you, I tell people all the time, nobody's taught me how to pray like having children. Woo Jesus and just wait till they get teenagers. They will rack your nerves. He's a good father and sometimes he has to chasten and he has to discipline those he loves. He will do it. He will do it. He is not up there just flipping, flipping out. 20s on your life. Oh, that's not a good sign, is it? That's all I know to be, hon. That's all I know to be. Look, when I got free, I got real free. But have you ever been in situations and circumstances where you're praying and you're invoking the name of the Lord and you're binding and you're loosing and you're doing everything you know what to do. You buking and it ain't buking. Have you ever been in those situations? Listen, I've been in a fast for 30 days. I'm not going to tell you what it's for, but I've been in a fast for something that has just been weighted on me and I'm like jesus, where are you? And the other day I was praying and I cried out to God and he turned around and he spoke back to me and he asked me this question and he said, hope, have you ever thought that all your hell. I was like, now hold up, I rebuke you. Satan looking around thought it was the devil speaking to me. I said this has to be the enemy. How can this be? And he took me to 2nd Corinthians 12. If you got your bibles, got your smart device, whatever you got. 2 Corinthians 12:1. I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up into the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows. And I know that this man, whether the body or apart from the body, I do not know. But God knows, was called up into paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself except about my weaknesses. Even if I should boast, I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I say or do or because of this surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh. A messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, my grace sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. This is why you got to tell your story, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then and only then, am I strong. Now, Lord, let's break this down. Are you ready? Verse 7 says that there was given to him torment. This. This thing was come to torment, to buffet. And that means to beat, to hit, to blow and to force. And he had this thing. It didn't say what it was, but because of an issue in his life, he said he was conceited. Y' all don't know nobody like that. Because he had great revelation, powerful God allowed a thorn in his side, is the way he described it. It was that thing that just kept getting on his nerves. To beat him, to hit him, to blow him. Now, listen, I don't know what your thing is. It could be that man sitting right beside you. Come on, somebody. It could be that woman that God gave you. It could be a horrible boss, a nosy neighbor. That pain in your back, that. That disease that you feel like that God should have delivered you from by now. It could be that teenager that's wrecking your nerves or demanding, I don't know. But I've lived long enough to know. This. We all have that one thing in our life that we wish the Lord would just take away. That we wish he would just deliver us from right? And we plead with God, do something with this. Do something about this man. Do something about this woman you gave me. God, do something about these teenagers. Do something about this job. God, my husband, this kid. God, come and God is saying, when you are weak, and only when you are weak is when I can display my strength in your life. God is saying, when you are weak, that is when I am strong. I know you got conditions. I know you got issues. I know you got problems. I know sometime that bank account is depressing. But all hope is not lost. Listen, you should have been dead a long time ago. You should be under the jail. Who am I talking to in here? But all your hell ain't from hell. Listen, we don't wake up every day in a good mood. We don't wake up every day and our kids are holding hands, singing Kumbaya. No. No, we do not. But all I know is when I am going through it, his grace. He's promised me that his grace is sufficient. And listen, this is the problem. We think that sufficient means more than enough. His grace is sufficient means it is just. Y' all gonna make me run all over this church. Listen, his grace is sufficient does not mean that all hell's going on and you just having a grand old time about it. Sometime you're gonna be bent over in the floor. Sometime you gonna be crying. Sometime you gonna be up at night. He said, but my grace is just enough for you. It's enough to get you through this day. It's enough to get you through tomorrow. It's enough to make it through whatever you gotta go through. His grace is sufficient for you. Sometimes you just got to go through it. Look at your neighbor and say, sometime you just got to go through it sometime. All you got is today's allowance of grace and mercy. That's all you got. That's all you promised is today. Anyway. That's all you're promised today. Verse 7 says, and least I should be exalted above measure because the abundance of revelation. There's a thorn. That sounds like a preacher to me. I thought preachers weren't supposed to have problems. Thought preachers were supposed to have it all together. No, listen. God is not happy. I was talking to Pastor yesterday. God is not happy with this Christian celebrity cult. God is not happy with this. God superstars. That day is over. And I'm telling you, he's going to click them off one by one, one by one, one by one. These are called glory stealers. Nobody is going to get God's glory. Do you hear me? I don't care what name, little titles in front of your name. God said, I get the glory. Nobody else gets the glory. Glory. Sometime we get so puffed up with all we know and all we've done and all this pride in the body of Christ, but God says he's going to get the glory. Some of our trials are okayed by God. You say, well, this is not the good news I was looking for when I was coming to church this morning. Listen, if you'll get this in your spirit, you will be able to trust God when doors are open. And when doors are closed, you'll be able to trust God on your best day and on your worst day, you'll be able to trust God when your husband comes in and when your husband walks out, when you know that some of your trials are okayed by God and that his grace sufficient for you. Listen, that's a problem. We bail out on God when the least little thing happens to us. We think God's responsible for our happiness. No, he is not. The Bible says we were created for him. We were created for his happiness. He's not to make me happy. We do a marriage conference every year and it gets sold out every single year. We just started it three years ago on the west coast and it's already half sold out for February. But this is what I tell people from the beginning. I say, listen, God did not design marriage to make you happy. God designed marriage to make you holy. It will. It will show you everything about you. Come on, somebody. I was just telling Jazlyn, my assistant, I said, me and Ron never fight. We hardly ever fight. But we got in the worst fight last week. I told her, I looked at him, I said, I wish I could take my phone and chuck it in your face. I was so mad at him. I know y' all can't believe it. I told you I was gonna disappoint you. Don't put me on no pedestal. I'll take myself off. But I was so mad at him. And I told her. I said. But I told him, I said, you're just gonna have to give me some space because I gotta go pray. I gotta get with Jesus because I need him to show me why that came up out of me like that. You did not make me do that. Why I was so mad at you did not make me do that. What's on the inside of me made me do that. Marriage was not designed to make you happy, honey. It was designed to help make you holy. And that was for free. Whoo. Jesus. Listen, he wanted Apostle Paul to know how to call on the grace of God. He wanted to make sure that he could keep using him, that he would be a vessel, that his glory and his power could flow through, no matter what. What it cost him, no matter what he had to go through. Can you say, God, no matter what it costs me, Lord, I'm yours. I want to ask you, what can you lose and not lose your faith? Jesus, listen, this is a whole thorn. I don't know if y' all know what a thorn is, but I'm raised in the South. I mean, you can't even walk outside with getting splinters and thorns stuck in your foot. I mean, a whole thorn. A thorn. And the language here. I researched this. The language indicates that it's a physical pain that was allowed by God. A physical pain that was allowed by God. And it was sent to do something. It was sent on purpose. The scripture says it was sent to buffet him. And that word means a constant repeated attack. Have you ever had something you felt like, this thing just will not go away? Have you ever considered that it was a messenger? Have you ever considered it was trying to wake your tail up? Have you ever considered it was trying to shake you out of your comfort zone or your complacency or your pride? Listen, if we got pain more than three days, we rebuking, we pouring the oil all over it. And you should. But we think everything is the devil. Listen, do you know the devil is already defeated? He's already defeated in your life. When Jesus went into the pit and he took the keys to what? Death, hell and the grave. And he went and he said, it is finished. Satan has no power over you, only what you give him. Only the doors you open and say, come on in. Come on in. The stress here is not on the thorn, not what has hit your life. Think of the thorn as the thing that's hitting your life. The stress is not on the thorn, on the thing you're going through. See, we get all tangled up on what we going through. And the stress in the scripture is not on the thorn, but rather the acuteness of the suffering and what it is supposed to produce. Say it out loud. Say, God's trying to produce something in my life. God's trying to produce. And he pleaded with the Lord three times. Listen, God is watching us in the furnace of affliction. He's watching us. And we have got to learn to praise through our pain. Come on, y'. All. We gotta get stronger. We are the wimpiest people. We are wishy washy. We bail out on God. Listen, he's still God. When you're sick, he's still God. When your marriage is broken, he's still God. When you are broke, he is God. When you lost a job, he's God. When you got money in the bank, he's God. When you don't have money in the bank, he's still God. And he wants to see if you'll praise him. And he wants to get the glory out of your life. And listen, we've had. I've had to go home and deal with private pain. Read my book. There are people who are powerfully anointed to lead worship, but they don't know how to manage their money. Okay, There's. There's dichotomy in our life. There's. We got good stuff and bad stuff going on at the same time, right? We got people who have a great marriage, but their kids are just running crazy. We got people who. Who know how to do one thing well. But over here, their life's falling apart. And we all have contradictions. We all have pain. We all have our own thorn. When I got saved, there were just some things that I just wouldn't do anymore. But then there were other things that I constantly struggled with, things that I struggle with today, like throwing a phone in somebody's face, like wanting to pull my earrings out and stomp somebody's tail. I know y' all don't. It don't look like it. But don't let this fool you. There are things. Listen. And if you talk about my children, my whole head will turn around like the Exorcist. My whole head will three times. And I don't mind clawing your eyeballs out and then asking for forgiveness. Listen, there's just some things I don't struggle with, but there's other things that I do. And you're the same way. We all have these issues and these thorns in our life. Jacob, his name means trick. And what did God have to do? God had to wrestle his tail all night long and left him with a limp. Left him with a problem. Why? So that God could be glorified. Naaman, the captain of the Syrian army. Powerful leader. Outside, he had all this shiny stuff, but underneath all that armor, he was dying. He was dying. He had a condition called leprosy. He had a thorn. And all God was trying to do with Naaman is to get him to obey. He said, if you'll just go dip seven times. And this is Naaman, this is us. God, I've dipped so many times, God, I've given in that offering so many times and the check still is not in the mail. God, I've prayed and I fasted so many times and he's still acting the same. And God just wanted him to obey just a simple command so that he could be healed, so that God could get the glory. That's what I had to do the other night. I had to go back and get with God and say, God, show me me. Please show me me. I don't want to be that kind of wife. I don't want to be that kind of person. I don't want to be that kind of leader. God, I want you to get the glory in my life. God, I want you to get the glory. And God, this thing, this, this tension, this thing, God, did you send it just to show me me? Did you send this tension in my marriage just to show me that I'm still a hot mess? Because, God, I know you want to use a pure vessel. God, I know you want to clean me up. And I'm not going to be perfect. None of us are going to be perfect. The prize is worth the process. I know I'm not smart enough. I know I'm not. I didn't go to Bible school, I didn't go to cemetery, I mean seminary. I know I'm not educated enough. I know I'm not righteous enough. I got tattoos everywhere. I'm a woman. I'm a blond headed woman. Women ain't supposed to preach. Why is she up there preaching with all them tattoos? Because Jesus looks at my heart. God's concerned about the condition of my heart. And there's some of you today that are holding on to the bottom of the rope. You're counting your last pennies, wondering how you even gonna buy your kids Christmas. And you feel like, you know what? I've just been going through it. And you know what? It may not be an outpouring, it may not be an overflow while, but his grace is sufficient for you. No matter what you're going through, his grace is sufficient for you. He may not take you out of that mess, but I promise you he'll help you go through it. He said, when you pass through the fire, I will be with you. When you pass through the river, it will not overtake you, but you gotta keep going, you gotta Pass through it. And I came all the way down to beautiful San Diego to wrap my arms around my brothers and my sisters who have been struggling just like we all been struggling. And I want to tell you, if you. You don't fight, then you don't win. If you don't come up swinging, you don't win. If you bail out on God when it gets hard, you don't win. And God does not get the glory. And I want to pray for you today. I know y'. All. Some of y' all might be speaking scared of COVID That's what my daddy calls it, covert. But I ain't scared because I know I'm covered in the blood. And if I died of COVID It was my time. It was just my time. And I just want to pray for you this morning. If this message has pricked your heart and you say, hope, I'm going through, and I just need some extra grace this morning. Come on down here. Grace comes in measures, just like faith does. And he can stretch it for you today. Come on. Come. Some of y' all are on the verge of a breakthrough. But you gotta keep pressing. You gotta keep going. You gotta keep going. And you know what? That song they were singing, wait on the Lord. Do you know what that means? That does not mean sit here in a yoga pose and wait and do nothing. That word, wait, literally translates serve. Did you hear me? Like a waiter. How many of you have ever been a waiter or a server? That's what that word translates to be. Serve the Lord. This is what happens when you serve. This is what happens when you serve the Lord. You say, I don't care how hard it is, I'm gonna keep going. I don't care how hard it is, I'm gonna keep showing up. I don't care how tough it is. I'm still gonna keep giving. I'm still gonna keep fighting. That's what it means. So stretch your hands, hands up to Jesus. I can't give you anything, but he can give you everything. So, Jesus, right now, I pray that you encourage your people today. Oh, thank you, Father God. Oh, thank you, Father God. I hear the word warrior. Over your life. Warrior, Warrior, Warrior. Warrior. You gonna do hell some damage. Come, strength. Comes strength. Come strength. Strength. Strength. Strength. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Strength. Come, strength. Come in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. I gotta get down here in the name of Jesus and take what the enemy make free. You got this Mama.