The Encounter -Pastor Hope Carpenter

But today we are, we are going on into the encounter. And at this part in the story, Naomi. Up until this part, Naomi had lost everything. Naomi's husband had died, her sons had died. And all it was was her and her daughter in laws. Now you better hope you got a good relationship with your daughter in law if that's all you got left. And I'm thankful. Nan, come give me a high five. We got this. We got this. And Naomi was broken. She was bitter. Her name literally means Mara and it means bitter. She was so bitter at the place she had found herself in, in life. But at this point in the story, things were, were starting to shift. Things were starting to turn around. And Naomi and Ruth were on the verge of a breakthrough. Naomi was starting to think different. She was starting to act different. She was starting to see herself differently. She was starting to see a future that she had never seen before. You know, it's kind of like your kids when they've been dating jagaloons for about four years and they bring home people who ain't got no job and, and they don't come up to the door and ring the doorbell and they just sit out and honk on the door and. And you're like, oh God, my daughter could do so much better. And they ain't got no money. And well now, now Ruth has met somebody and he got money. Matter of fact, he owns the whole company. Come on, somebody. Ain't that what you want for your daughter, right? Oh, yeah. See, Naomi's singing. We in the money. You bet, my honey. See, that's what Naomi was saying. Oh, come on now, somebody. Okay, see, she went for years as a beggar. But now Ruth has caught the eye of Boaz, right? She's caught the eye of Boaz. And Naomi, the mother in law says, this thing ain't going as fast as I think it should. So I gotta help her get the ball rolling. Come on, somebody. That's what we call the older women helping the younger women, right? So this is a critical time in the story. It's a critical time in harvest. Harvest was upon them right? Now all of the time that they had taken to plant to water to pull the weeds. Well, here they are, it's harvest time. And it's called winnowing. And that's when the chaff and the wheat are separated. Called winnowing. It's kind of like a watermelon and a rind. You don't want to eat the rind, right? You got to separate that thing. And that's like what winnowing is, you separate the good from the bad. And winnowing is done at night. It's when the wind picks up at night, they take their sheaves, all of their harvest, and they take them and they throw them in the air. And when the wind picks up, it separates the good from. From the bat, and what falls down onto the threshing floor, then they can see what their harvest is. Do you get a picture of what's happening right now in the story? This is called the threshing floor. The threshing floor, it's a place where the good is separated from the bad. Now, us, we all have mixture, right? None of us in here glow in the dark. None of us in here are perfect. None of us pray 24 hours a day. None of us do the right thing all the time. Come on. Nobody blesses people when they cut off in traffic on Woodruff Road. I mean, we do sometime, but sometime, you know, it just ain't a good day. So we all have mixture in our life, and we all have things that need to be shifted and sifted and removed and winnowed. And it has to happen before you can receive harvest. Come on, somebody. It has to happen in your life before you can get the good stuff. It's called process. We don't like that. We don't like people messing with us. We don't like God messing with us. We don't like anybody putting their finger on our life and saying, uh, right, just go read my Facebook. Nobody likes anybody telling them, you know, you need to cover up your cleavage. You know, if you bend over and it pops out, you might ought not wear that. Nobody likes that. But we all have process that we need to go through, right? And prior to every major breakthrough, you are going to have a major breaking down. I didn't say a breakdown. You don't have to have a breakdown. But I can promise you prior to every breakthrough, you will have a process that breaks you down. It has to happen. And it's a good thing. Because, see, we can't carry that junk. We can't carry that weight that God will not allow us to take all of our bad, all of our issues, all of our bitterness, all of our unforgiveness into a season of blessing. He can't have mixture. So God's gotta deal with us. See, here we do. We rebuke it. We curse it. We'll say, oh, the devil is a lie and it's God the whole time, him, that good God y' all preach about. Uh huh. And I'm going to prove it to you. Luke 22:31 says this. Jesus tells Peter this. He said, peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I've prayed for you that your what? That your faith won't fail you. Satan asked and God granted permission. God said, okay. And he sits back and he says, let's see what they got. He says, let's see what they made of. Let's see if they've learned yet how to fight this good fight of faith. Faith. Satan has to sift. Peter. Why? To test his. All sifting, all trouble, all issues, all breakdowns are spiritual testing of your faith. It's not because the devil just hates you and you're so wonderful he wants to take you out, just you. Nobody else has it as bad as you. No sifting comes to test your faith. It comes to sift what you're made of. God allows the test to see if you'll pass or fail so that your faith can be built. He allows it. He allows the pressure to come just like weights when we go lift weights. Well, when y' all lift weights? When you go and lift weights. And you know that hurts so bad. That's why I don't lift weights no more. It hurts so bad. But see, he puts that pressure on that muscle to build it to see what you make up to see if you'll pass or fail to build your faith, to see if. Okay, you got to stay here. You didn't pass. You ain't ready. Look at somebody and say, are you ready? You think you ready? See if you're ready. Yeah or yes, they passed. And it's time to move to the next level. Okay, so God allows the test to build your faith, but Satan sends the test to destroy your faith. God allows the. Allows the test to build you, but Satan comes and brings the test to destroy you. Now who determines who wins or loses? Oh, y' all smell it. Smell. Hide. Burning. Maybe it's just mine. God test your faith to make you stronger and to bless you so that he will be able to give you more goodness, more riches, more power, more abundance, more. More faith. Job 2 and 9 says this. Satan took everything from Job. You'll have to go back and read this story. You think you got it bad. You don't know bad. You don't know hard times till you read about Job. Job lost everything that was his. Every dab of money, every car, every motorcycle, every boat, every wife, every child, every grandchild, every dog, every cat, every. I'm trying to, you know, put it in our terms, he lost. Imagine losing everything you've got. And God allowed it. Satan took everything from Job. Why? In an attempt to steal his faith. It was so bad that Job's family and friends said, dude, it was, if I was you, if I was you, you ever heard your family and friends say, girl, if I was you, I'd leave his tail a long time ago, Girl, if I was you, I wouldn't put up with none of that. His family and friends said, job, if I was you, I would curse God and die. You better watch who you hanging out with. You better watch who has your ear. Are you hanging out with weak people? Are you hanging out with people of faith? Are you hanging out with people who say, girl, go on and get yourself some. Girl, go on and do what you got to do. Are you hanging out with people who's going to slap you upside your head and say, you better see what you can't see. You looking at the wrong thing. Stop looking at what you see. And you better look to him who's the other author and the finisher of your faith. Don't look at your situation. Don't look at the things that are going on around you. Stop looking at your children. Stop saying, they going to drive you crazy. Look to him who's the author and the finisher of your faith. That's why you can't go to every family reunion. Can't do it go the family. There's Ms. Money. She thinks, oh, she done forgot her raisin, didn't she? Sure did glad about it. Sure did glad about it. See, you wouldn't wanna. I ain't gonna hang around them, even if they got my same bloodline DNA. If they gonna drag me down. Can't do it. Ain't gonna do it. You can't make me do it. Job's family and friends looked at him and said, dude, if I was you, I'd curse God and die. He said, though he slay me, yet will I praise him. You can't break me down. Ain't nothing the devil can send me. Go break me down. I'm a fighter. I'm gonna keep fighting. You can't tear me down. You might give up, but I ain't giving up. I got a different spirit. So when it comes time for the threshing floor in your life, Satan intends to rob you of your promotion, of your graduation, of your going to the next level of blessing. He wants to wreck your confidence in God. He wants to make you think, ah, this ain't nothing but a bunch of horse crap. I mean, this ain't nothing. I'm telling you. They lied to me in church. I've been sowing, I've been praying. I believe. Where's God? God ain't come through for me. He comes to wreck your confidence in God, in God's love for you. He'll tell you God don't love you. If he loved you, he wouldn't let this happen to you. He wants to make you doubt God's love, God's faithfulness, God's provision, your adoption. You're being grafted into the vine. He wants to make you doubt all of it. And God allows the testing in your life to remove all our junk. Testing and shaking and shifting and trouble. It reveals who you really are. It really reveals what's on the inside of you. And it throws you up in the air, like winnowing. It throws you up in the middle of the night when the wind's blowing all around you, and it shakes you up and it tears you up and it shakes you, hoping that when you come back down, you're stronger and better. But many of us aren't. Scripture. I read you earlier. Peter's testing came. Listen, Peter, he was tested, asked to sift his wheat, and God said, okay. And his testing came before he was used to head up the entire church, the entire ecclesia. The gathering that you know right now as church. That happened right after Peter passed his test. You need to raise your hands and thank God. Peter passed the test. Job's testing came before his double portion for his blessing. Some of y' all saying, where is God? My blessing ain't came through. But if you'll pass the test, maybe he's going to give you double for your trouble. Maybe you just ain't held on long enough. Maybe you ain't prayed long enough. Maybe God wants to give you so much, you can't even do anything with it. Whoo. Job 42:10 says that the Lord restored the fortunes, all of his fortunes, and increased all he had two times over because he refused to curse God and die. You know, I bet you Job was kind of questioning God. I don't need double wives. And all the men said, you better not say it. You better not say it. She's sitting right beside you. There's always an exit exam. We graduate high school, we gotta take a test. I mean, you think all them other tests you've been taking was good enough? I mean, I done passed everything. Now you're gonna make me take something else Now I gotta take a sat. I passed high school, I got a diploma, but I gotta take a SAT to get into college. Sure do. We gotta make sure you're ready. We gotta make sure you're ready to operate on the next level. Lawyers have to take a bar exam, nurses have to take a. Doctors have to take a lot of exams, and so on and so forth. Ruth, here she is at the threshing floor, waiting. Here she is, waiting for her harvest, waiting for her, Boaz. And Ruth has proved faithful. She's been steadfast. She was a hard worker, she was on time, she was early, she stayed late. She obeyed authority, she submitted to leadership. Then the Lord brought her to the threshing floor, the place of sifting for Boaz, her inheritance. I mean, you talk about a beggar in a field. And now God has brought her all the way to where all of the harvest has laid, just laying there. And the owner, the CEO of the company, she's laying there at his feet. Don't you know she was shaking. Now, let me tell you something. Naomi knew a thing about getting a man's attention. Naomi's her mother in law, remember? She older, she wiser. Y' all better listen to older and wiser. She knew. Now remember, Boaz represents who in this story for us. Jesus. Boaz is a type of Jesus. He's a type of Christ in this story for us. So this is what Naomi says to Ruth. She says, now, Ruth, okay, tonight, this is what you gonna do. Okay? All right, look, girl, look, tonight this how it's going down. Look at me, okay? She said, let him eat. Let the boy eat. Let him eat. Let him drink all he wants to drink. Let him be satisfied. Before you go in there, don't you go in there and interrupt his football game now and want something. All the men said, don't you interrupt Monday Night Football. Tell him, take out the trash. Now you let him eat all the wings he wants to eat. You let him drink all the Dr. Pepper, the sprite, the Coke, the drink, Diet Coke, the water. That's it, y'. All. You let him eat, be happy, be full. Oh, you just let him just be so. Just full as a tick before you go in there. And then this is what she said. Now you better get all dolled up, you hear me? She said, don't you do your hair in that messy bun. Get that messy bun down and go wash your hair. Put your curlers in it, make it look real good. Tease it up like 1986. She said, Girl, get them smokey Eyes, get them smokey eyes on. She said, get that highlighter on. Let your eyebrows be on fleek. I don't even know what that is. I have to draw mine on. I don't even know what fleek means. I'm just glad I still got a pencil. She said, girl, this is a far cry from field clothes. You hear me? A far cry from field clothes and dirt on her face. She said, girl, you get to looking good, smelling good, get your perfume on, shave your prickly legs. Come on, man, I'm trying to help y'. All. I thought there'd be hundreds of dollars up here on this stage by now from you men. Y' all need to be writing me a check. Hope Carpenter, don't write it out to redemption, make me pay taxes on it. Hope Carpenter, I'm trying to sow into your life. I'm trying to get you free. I'm trying to get you a good die. Daddy acting like he gonna sow a seed. Daddy gonna sow a seed. She said, girl, you better prepare yourself. And Ruth got on the floor and she uncovered his feet to get his attention. And she had to get his attention. Catch this. Before she moved into his grace and his favor. Now, remember, he is a type of Lord. He's a type of Jesus. He represents Jesus. How do you approach God? You don't bust all up in his presence, all griping and cocking your neck where you being God? I thought you said God. You ain't come through for me. And there's protocol in the kingdom. There's protocol to get into the presence of God. And Jesus didn't even start his prayer life like that. Jesus didn't beg. Jesus said, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Whoo. Ain't nobody like you. That's what hallowed means. It means separate. It means other. It means can't nobody come up beside you. It means there ain't nothing in the dictionary to compare you to. He said, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed, separate other. Can't nobody compare to you, God. Can't nobody do me like you, Lord. Can't nobody be faithful like you. Ain't nobody showed me mercy like you, God. You've been better to me than I've been to myself. I thank you, God, that when doctors and lawyers don't have answers, you got the end, God. You be good. You're separate. You're different. You're other. You ain't like no man I ever met. Bragging on God, Jesus started his prayer bragging on God who? He didn't start begging. He didn't bust up in there all cocky, mad and resentful. No matter what he was going through, Jesus was a man just like me. And just like you, he was tempted just like we were. He got hungry, he got tired. Church people got on his nerves. He had to get in the boat. And he said, I'm going to the other side because all the church people's on this side. So I'm getting to the boat and I'm going the other side. He did. And him, even being a man, didn't approach God with problems and issues. He approached him. He got into his presence by bragging. Tell him how good and how separate. Now, other he is. Can nobody compare to him? Worship is the gateway to the heart of God. Worship will get you into his presence. Worship will get him to turn his head over towards you. He moves towards you when you worship Him. God inhabits the praise. No matter where you are, what situation you in, you start praising him. He's going to come right there and be right in the middle of your situation because he inhabits your praise. Ruth had his attention, and a divine reversal was about to take place. Ruth first knew Boaz as a stranger. He was a stranger to her first. Then he was her boss, then he was her friend. And honey, now they about to come on out the friend zone. You hear me? Bow chicka wow wow. She's laying at his feet in the middle of the night. Come on, somebody. She look good, smell good, and let him get full. That's a recipe for a good night. Still ain't got no money. Y' all just waiting to write a check. That's what it is. Okay? The enemy. Listen. The enemy don't play fair. See, in biblical times, this is what happens in biblical times. At this point in the story where they are after they've thrown. When they did the winnowing and they've thrown it all up into the wind, and everything was separated and the good and the bad was separated. The chaff and the wheat was laying on the floor. The enemies would wait and watch. The enemies would wait and watch as the Jews planted, as they watered. This whole season of planting, watering, pulling weeds, harvesting and winnowing the wheat. And they just sitting back like this. Mm. I'm waiting. I'm watching. You ain't got nothing I want yet. Come on, you hear me? I ain't gonna mess with you right now while you praying, believing, sowing your seed. But right about harvest time, when Boaz was tired and he Went to lay down right there on the same floor of the threshing, the winnowing. And they laid down on the same floor where their crop was. Why? To protect it. Because they knew that the enemies of their camp come in at night to try to steal, kill. Sound familiar? Their harvest. They would attack on the threshing floor and rob their harvest, their increase, their promise, their inheritance. It's not nice. Is ain't fair. Well, the enemy doesn't play fair. The enemy will let you pray. He'll let you plant seed. He'll let you have a yard sale, get your money together for expansion. Oh, you do it, you so happy. Look at the money I done put back for expansion. Ooh. He'll let you pray, he'll let you plant seed. He'll let you get on the brink of a harvest and then bam. A problem will hit your life that'll try to eat your finances and steal your blessing and tear up your marriage and your kids, start going sideways, keep you up all night. Why? To cause you. You to doubt. The threshing floor is a place where the good is separated from the bad. But the threshing floor, more importantly, is also a place of battle. It's the place of battle when God's done got you all turned up, see down, and you got a decision. What am I going to do? Am I going to curse God and die? Oh, but I got, you know, sweet, pretty young thing on my phone right here or could, should I go to Rya event? You know, you got these choice when you've been doing good, doing good, doing good. Then bam. The threshing floor is where you meet God to separate the junk out of your life and. And the enemy comes to steal your faith. Then it turns from battle to blessing when you respond right, you're sitting there with all this harvest on the ground. You're sitting there with all these great things about to start popping up. And that's when the enemy comes in like a, like a blood comes to knock you down and cause you to doubt everything you've done up to this point. You better recognize where you are and you better recognize who you're fighting. And if you don't fight, you don't win. If you don't fight, you don't win. That's why the Bible says you got to fight the good fight of what, what he's coming to steal. You gotta fight the good fight of faith. Your faith and your assurance in God, in every promise of God that he says is true. Ruth's life changed Forever. That night she went from being a beggar to a gazillionaire. Pick me. Her life changed forever that night. How will you handle your date with destiny? Will you prove faithful? Will you work hard or will you curse God and die? Will you do all the right things on the outside? But in your heart you just are so bitter and so resentful. Look at everybody else's blessings and say, pshh, it ain't for me. Will you pass or will you fail? Most people get tripped up after they fought, sowed, believed and on the verge. Isn't it true? That's where we most. Most of the time. There's a scripture in the Bible I can't think of. It just came to my mind where it says, don't faint, don't give up when you're right on the verge of the door. It's some scripture. If Dr. Paul was here, he's so smart. When you're running the race and then you trip and fall and here's the door. All you had to do was take one more step, open the door, and you're in. But you're so tired. You're so tired from the battle. Battles just worn you down. But the battle is a battle for your faith. And Satan brings the battle to steal your faith, to destroy your faith, to make you curse God and die and turn around and tell and run and never walk into your inheritance. Never meet your Boaz, never meet the blessing and never walk in the prosperity and the goodness of God. I would have seen the goodness of God if I had not fainted. People ask me all the time, hope, how'd you do it? How did you. With everything that went wrong in your life, How'd you. I said, what other choice did I have? Where else was I gonna go? Where else was I gonna go? He's the only one who has the word of life. He's the only one who can fix what's broken on the inside of me. I come today to tell you, don't give up. That I see you right now, many of you on the verge of all these years of sewing and pray, praying and believing, and you're right on the verge. Don't get derailed when he comes. Don't get caught off guard when all hell starts to break loose. It's just a testing of your faith. It's just to see what you're made of. I've been tried and I came out what? Pure gold. That's what I want you to say. I've been tried, but I came out Pure gold. You're about to encounter your Boaz. But you will have a battle on the threshing floor. One of the greatest revelations that I learned in my life so far, one of the greatest is that I don't wake up every day and believe the lie that when I became a Christian, everything was to going to be perfect. If we'd ever. If we'd stop telling people, oh, now I'm so happy for you. You got saved. It's going to be awesome. I've had more hell since I've been saved. Devil was perfectly fine with me not being saved, but bother me a lick. But when I surrendered my life and I said my life is not my own and the only way to have life is to give it away. The only way to live in abundance is to die. Every day I've learned that I don't wake up and everything's good. Every day. And I'm not mad about it. I'm not mad at God. I'm not mad at my mom, I'm not mad at my daddy. I ain't mad at my preacher. I ain't mad at whoever didn't do what they didn't do. And I ain't mad. It's just life. We have good days and bad days. We have ups and downs. There's a time to laugh, there's a time to cry. I mean, we all got. I got issues, you got issues. But I learned that every day is a battle. It's a battle for my mind, it's a battle for my peace, it's a battle for my joy, it's a battle for my prosperity, it's a battle for my love, it's a battle for my kindness, It's a battle for my attitude. Every day I'm in a fight with the devil, with the enemy of my soul who wants to steal from me, who wants wants to kill me and who wants to ultimately destroy me. And he comes to make me doubt my faith in God. But that's why every day I have to get down and I have to put on my garments of praise, and I have to put on my weapons of my warfare. And I have to gird myself with truth and the helmet of self salvation. And I have to call upon his name every day. Do I get it right? Every day. No, I do not. But there ain't no devil in hell who can steal my faith. And there ain't no devil in hell who can make me back up. I don't care what he sends me. You hear me? You hear me? I don't care what he sends me. I don't care what he makes me go through. I know he hears what I'm saying right now. I ain't skipping to you. Because greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. And as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to do and feasting on the Word and worshiping Jesus, and hallowed be Thy name, I got his attention. I got his favor. I got his grace over my life. Come on, somebody. And I want to pray for you right now. If you'd all just stand up. We are in a fight. The Bible says we are fighting a good fight. And it's the good fight of faith. And the Bible also says that we've all been given a measure of faith. So how do you stretch your measure? You pass your test. You keep passing tests and your faith gets stronger and stronger. When you've been through what I've been through, you can't convince me God ain't good. You can't convince me he can't save people. You can't convince me that he can't change a life. You can't convince me that he can't heal a marriage. You can't convince me that he can't save wayward children. You can't convince me that he can't heal a body. Because my faith has been stretched. Because he's seen me through. I look back over my life and I see strings and of victories and victories where God has come through and my faith has been strengthened. Don't rebuke them. Don't rebuke the test. Pass them. Pass them. Do what you know to do. So, God, right now I just pray for their faith, that their faith would not fail them. Lord, I pray that they would know who they believe in, that they would know that they would really know who they believe. And that they are convinced and they are persuaded that he is able to keep that which we've committed to him until the day. Till that day, till we see him strengthen us today. God, help us to fight. Give us strength to fight so that we can win, so that we can be victorious, so that we can be bulldog kind of faith, kind of redemption kind of people. Come on, somebody. Now, Satan, I know how you do. And I speak to you right now. I know that you come immediately to steal the Word. So whatever happens, when we walk out of this building, we know it's you. We ain't gonna be mad at nobody. We ain't gonna be mad at our husband. We not gonna be mad at our wife. We're not gonna be mad at the car in front of us. We ain't gonna be mad at our kids. We gonna aim our artillery on you because you are a liar. Everything you try to do, you gonna fail. In our life, we are victorious. And I thank you, God, that this word is gonna go deep. And it's gonna plant in our heart and it's gonna spring up and grow and produce a whole harvest. In Jesus name, everybody shout Amen. Pastor Ron loves you. He'll be back Sunday.