Christine Caine: Did God Really Say?

hey church how y'all doing I am so glad to be home you can be seated and it's so good to be here and honestly when I come to seacoast you just keep growing I know there's 14 different campuses kind of watch you're a little bit like God just omnipresent so wherever you are watching me now and online I am so glad you've joined us you are here as much as we're all here so I love it and I love Lisa with a passion and Pastor Josh and Greg and Debbie Nick and I I am here with the single most ravishing piece of masculine pastor Greg thought I was about talking about him so yeah that's what I thought you could see he was looking for that moment and Bix on the front row here he is the single most ravishing piece of masculine flesh on planet earth and so a couple of Fridays ago we celebrated 22 years of marriage which is awesome and we have two daughters Katherine Bobby who's 16 and Sophia Joyce who's 12 the further there they there's like a bit older there you go and you know I'm into arranged marriages because I'm Greek and I want them to marry a very wealthy Christian man so we'll take anyway oh my god they're bright you can tell my kids are not with me because my daughters would be dying right now if they were in the room so I love being home I feel very much at home because of course our East Coast office our 8021 started here with Lisa who you know before we talked had no intention of changing her whole life but you know God has that God and Christine I'm like when she was saying about someone wrecks your life in all the right ways I'm thinking that's my spiritual gift I don't know if it's in the spiritual gifts in Corinthians or Romans but it is my spiritual gift it's an additional one but who would have known only God of what would come out of that and here we are celebrating our 10th year anniversary as a 21 and I say this because your church has been so significant in terms of partnering with us in order to just see multiplied hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people rescued and just you know a couple of days ago in Thailand which you've got to understand how historic this is because in some of these places when we went human trafficking slavery was not even a crime so we had to change laws and three traffickers in Thailand that traffic you know kids between 4 and 12 were put away for between a hundred and sixty seven and three hundred and twenty years which was just so so significant in the midst of all of that so I love it when justice prevails and I went over yesterday to your new building and you know because I'm a preacher chicken and evangelist I I went and stood on the stage and I'm looking at this one today going I think God for our new one you should see it because the altars so much bigger and I did my in the spirit altar cause where you should have seen people get saved and delivered and healed it was so you know when you're giving you are not giving to bricks-and-mortar although it's going to be a very beautiful building I mean when I looked at what they're doing I think you can have like ugly buildings or really beautiful buildings so why not have beautiful and so I'm looking at your building and thinking what a test it makes the devil very nervous when you put a stake in the ground and say we are building a legacy for the generations to come so I think it's so exciting and I know we've got an offering in a couple of weeks so come prepared because we're not giving two bricks and mortar we are giving two altars being filled with people's marriages being restored and people's bodies being healed and souls being saved that's what we're giving to to the generations that are to come so I'm excited to come back next year I'm inviting myself in case you didn't know and um and and just seeing that building packed to capacity with all the nice problems we have when we have a Holy Ghost traffic jam and that's what we really like I better get into the word because we've got another service and is we're grateful that I'm both Greek and a woman so I speak hard fast and continuously you will not go to sleep on any of the campuses this morning or online you will not go to sleep we're gonna jump in the Bible turn with me to the book of Genesis and I figured if I read really fast we will get to Revelation by the end of the day don't time pay you're so happy like awesome whenever a preacher says Genesis you like really okay so Genesis chapter 2 verse 25 the scripture says and the man and his wife were both naked and we're not ashamed now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made he said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent we may eat are the fruit of the trees in the garden but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden neither shall you touch it lest you die but the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate then the eyes of both were open and they knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden but the Lord God called to the man and said to him where are you and he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself he said who told you that you were naked have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat the man said the woman you all know some things never changed right right they're just saying the woman whom you gave to be with me like do you like if it doesn't just blame the chick he blames God - who the woman who you gave to be with me that's another sermon pastor Josh will preach that next week I'll just continue with the text right here the woman whom you going to be with me she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate then the Lord God said to the woman what is this that you have done the woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate and hence here in Genesis we see the beginning of the victim culture you don't need a hashtag and to go on Twitter right there in the Garden of Eden we see it wasn't my fault it was his hashtag it's your fault god but anyway so Genesis chapter 2 verse 25 I began this morning's reading there because it's sometimes a a verse that we overlook as we step into Genesis chapter 3 the fall of humanity and so many of us are familiar with that text but Genesis chapter 2 verse 25 just before we step into the fall of humanity God wants us to know something very important God says to us Adam and Eve were naked and they knew no shame depending on what version you will read perhaps and they were unashamed it's interesting to me that out of every human emotion that you could feel God wanted us to know that there is one particular emotion there is one particular feeling there's one particular condition that I created Adam and Eve to not know what it felt like I created them to not know what shame felt like I want you all to know that Adam and Eve were naked and knew no shame so if I was the enemy and I wanted to take out the only thing that's created in the image of God which is humanity human beings created in the image of God if I wanted to take them out if I wanted to stop them from being fruitful or mightily effective or fulfill their potential then I would want to put on them the one thing that they were never created to know what it felt like and that would be shame do you wonder why in 2018 the New York Times ran a six-page article calling us the shaming culture and that's because of so much of what we see on the internet on social media P I mean I mean you probably have never done it but you know just for everybody else the way they just call people out on social and especially the last couple of years in this nation has been crazy the way people are shaming people publicly I mean of course colleges since they've started have always had the walk of shame not here in Charleston but every other college in the world you know they have a a walk of shame so many of us have grown up in households where parents have said shame on you you should be ashamed of yourself perhaps even as I'm speaking this morning you're thinking I just said that to my kid this morning but there's a sense of putting on us now I personally never knew a time in my life where I did not know shame and a lot of us feel the same way whether it was shame from my ethnic background I grew up as the daughter of Greek immigrants before My Big Fat Greek Wedding when it was not cool to be Greek in Australia it was really not cool very marginalized because of my ethnicity you know and kids would just mock and ridicule me because of the way I talk I didn't speak English until I was 5 and just because I look different and I talked different and I remember being shamed on the first day at school when my mother packed me a feta cheese and olive sandwich with garlic which you pay a lot of money for now but back then I remember going to school and Wayne and Robert who ate Vegemite sandwiches just ridiculed me I felt such shame that every day after that when my mum packed my lunch I would throw it out on the way to school we've all got our school story where there is something that shamed us mrs. black in kindergarten in third grade and in 1973 that's how old I am I was born before the dinosaurs and so she wrote Christine carry off less because that was my name Christine Coraopolis has to learn that she can't always be the leader and you know the devil will always try to attack you in the area and shame you in the area that God wants to use you somewhere in your future now she didn't know that I was being sexually abused she didn't know that I had so many issues of abandonment and rejection and unforgiveness and bitterness and hurt and so school was my escape school was the place that I went to kind of get involved in everything and forget about the pain that I was in but she shamed me because I could consciously remember walking home reading that report card and then it must have worked because in the end of year report she wrote Christine carry office has settled down very well now because I made a decision that day I will never put my hand up again and volunteer for anything it's amazing at what point you get stunted life I remember in Bible school the Dean of our College who didn't like chicks talking after I did my first Chapel and God really moved but he got up after that he said Christie and Carrie awfulest after that pathetic effort nobody will ever have you preach anywhere you will never be invited literally said the words you will never be invited anywhere well thirty years after Bible College I'm here and he's dead but anyway that's just that's it that's just an aside just say you can tell I'm home this is dangerous lucky I'm getting on a plane later I'm getting very relaxed with a Sunday morning crowd but the enemy will always try to shame you in the area that God wants to use you somewhere in your future so whether it's because of your gender or ethnicity growing up immigrant I grew up in the poorest ZIP code in my state I was sexually abused for 12 years I found out at 33 that I was adopted I had no idea my brother got a letter from the government he found out he was adopted and when he went to confront my mother in that moment my mom said to me Christine since were telling the truth today do you want to know the whole truth and so in that sense at 33 years old I found out that I wasn't who I thought I was I found out that I was adopted so there was a whole brokenness I tell everyone everywhere I fit every government funding category in Australia I'm a marginalized oppressed dispossessed poor ethnic minority abused adopted chick I could make a fortune on government funding because they fund people like me and they give me a label and they say victim we will pay you every week and remind you of your victims status but Church I read the book and my Bible says that he's redeemed my life from the pit that I am no longer a victim but we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who strengthened us more than and now God's using all the things that the enemy meant for evil in my life to bring Redemption and hope to others it would be just like God to take an unnamed unwanted abused adopted chick from the back of Sydney Australia and not only rescue me but now use me to turn around and open the prison doors for those that are still bound and still in captivity that's what more than is it's not that I just get by and just got through but now we can open up the prison doors for others every time we put a trafficker in jail every time we rescue a child I think W can put that in your pipe and smoke it I feel like Joseph in Genesis chapter 50 verse 20 who turned around to his brothers and his sin you meant this for evil against me but God meant it for this very purpose to save many people alive the world will try to put shame on you you paralyze you the parent that said I wish you were never born the teacher that said you're dumb you're stupid you'll never amount to anything the people that will use culture or tradition to hold you back from the fullness of what God has for your life ever since the garden the enemy has wanted to heap shame on us to us to paralyze us to immobilize us ultimately to render us ineffective because it's it is to our father's great glory that we bear much fruit so if he can quench our fruit bearing potential that's what he wants to do and that's why shame is such a destroyer and so many of us don't know the difference between guilt and shame so many of us just think there's something wrong with us I thought that my whole life because you see when you start being abused you think what's happening to you is wrong but when it keeps happening and nobody stops it you begin to believe the lie that there's something wrong with you that's why it's happening and I remember a might default to this day if I don't keep renewing my mind is there's something wrong with me there's something wrong with me and many of us that's what we think and that's very different to guilt which means I did something wrong if you don't know the difference between your who and your do you will always run from God rather than to God now we all do stuff wrong for some of us a little bit of guilt would be actually good if you had some it would actually help and so it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance but if you think you've got nothing to repent from that's a problem and so the issue is that guilt means I did something wrong and you run into the arms of a loving Heavenly Father who washes all our guilt away but shame is this deep-rooted feeling there's something wrong with me some of you are climbing that corporate ladder and forsaking your family because deep down you're trying to prove something to a father that's not even alive anymore you're trying to prove something to someone that said to you you never will you're not good enough you're not smart enough you're not talented enough and so many of us that's what we spend our life doing if I was just a little bit smarter if I was just a bit thinner if I was just a bit richer if I was just something up than I am he said we spend all our life trying to earn and then the problem is once we're richer smarter fitter thinner then we discover we're not the richest the smartest the thinnest so we spend our life on earth never doing what God's called us to do because we're trying to arrest God says I created you in my image to be who I called you to be and the enemy tries to shame us into being so much less than what God called us to do so let's continue with the text the enemy came into the garden and he said to the woman Bible says he's more crafty than any other animal that's because he understood the power of words to either take you to your destiny or keep you from your destiny our words are very important the words we listen to and the words we articulate and so the enemy comes in and he asks this question which is the question that is on the table for our generation and has been for every generation since the garden the first question in Scripture the question that the devil continues to ask to this day he comes into the garden and he asks this question did God really say and why is that an important question because if you do not know what God really said you will believe what the enemy said you will believe what that teacher said you will believe what that parent said you will believe what that friend said you believe what that ex-lover or that expell said that told you you're not good enough you're not smart enough you know tell no one will ever love you you won't ever be able to achieve this you won't ever be able to this if you don't know what God says about you you will believe the lies of the enemy you will believe the media you will believe the fear and the terror that is out there you have got to know what God says about you and what is happening to a whole generation is they're being asked to quit do God really say did God really say that marriage is between one man and one woman did God really say you shouldn't have sex before marriage to God really say scripture is inerrant did God really say there's a literal hell did God really say that Jesus is the only way to God every generation will have to answer the question did God really say and what you believe about what God really said will determine whether you fulfill your destiny or not now let me give you a case in point my own life if I didn't know what God said about me I would have believed the lies that the enemy tried to feed me through a lot of institutions that I value and I work with to this day but most of us limit our potential based on our reasoning our logic the Education Department the government the medical profession and I love them all I work with them all but they do not define nor are they the final authority on what happens in my life God's Word is the final authority of what happens in my life now let me show you how that's best exemplified when I found that I was adopted I received a government document so obviously this is my birth certificate you know how weird it is at 33 to get a birth certificate when you thought you had one and I'm watching so many of your faces especially the women as soon as you saw that word unnamed because it's like it's a huge thing number two 508 of 1966 I just visibly saw so many of your faces go Wow and it was that shocking to me when I received that and the enemy it was like a dart in my heart getting this document was actually more painful than finding out I was adopted because the tape recorder starts we've all got a tape recorder see Christine your mother didn't even want you she didn't even give you a name no wonder you're abused for 12 years you're just a number anyway that's why to me when I talk about the victims of human trafficking too many people they just sound like statistics but numbers are numbing numbers are dehumanizing it is so easy to ignore suffering when it's nameless and faceless but when you if I just said to you to 508 of nineteen sixty six you would just go yeah whatever but the minute I tell you that's Christine Kay and it changes everything no one is a number in the economy of God and so I received this unnamed now that could have sent me in a tailspin there would be no propel women there would be no a21 I wouldn't be married I wouldn't have be the mother that I am today by the grace of God because I would have so believed the lies of the enemy and all the years of abuse and rejection and abandonment and it would have so destroyed me internally I would have turned out most young women with my background don't end up doing what I'm doing they end up either drug dependent or alcohol dependent or maybe two or three different kids to two or three different fathers or confused about their gender identity like I was or just broken or hurt that's normal for what would happen to someone with my kind of background but here's the power of what I'm talking to you about today and the power of this question that the enemy asks each of one of us did God really say because see that's what the Department of Community Services said over my life unnamed number two 508 then I received a document from the Royal Hospital for women and this is the social worker report that was written two weeks before I was born about my biological mother and it says she doesn't seem to be too emotionally involved with the child she seems to want to get it all over and done with and get back to work as soon as possible and the letter goes on so essentially this document from the medical profession tells me that I'm unwanted and so that and because I work with the victims of human trafficking and have worked in pastoral care for 30 years the damage that can be done to a child when you find out that your parents didn't want you that you were an accident or a mistake I don't know if I was the result of a rape I don't know if I was a result of a one-night stand the damage that can be done for your whole life when you believe the facts and then on the 28th of March 1993 and I cut a long story short I I went in for an interview with the most prestigious Social Work School in Australia because we were running a community-based service centre advising government we were faith-based and they loved our outcomes they just didn't love our methodology and so what happened was they called me in because their students wanted to do a placement at my youth center and essentially then after I had to meet the whole faculty they sent me this letter that basically said to me that if I was to remain in youth services I would need to take several years out to get basic qualifications now by the grace of God today I run probably the largest anti-trafficking organization specifically in the world and I've been involved in youth ministry since the 28th of March 1993 in 49 countries spoken face-to-face because I've done a lot of crusades with joyce meyer to millions of people but this is what the experts said about me on the 28th the March 1993 they said to me that I was unqualified and so this is what so many of us limit our lives by so I have three documents up here that are the facts that so many of us base our life on so there it is and of course if the government says that we know it's true so that says that I'm unnamed the medical profession I don't know maybe you have a report that says incurable terminal there's no hope you're always going to have to live with this well there's the medical report that says unwanted and over here there is a document from the Education Department that says that I am unqualified now if I didn't know what God really said I would have allowed these facts to limit my life and to limit my potential I would have put greater faith in the facts than the truth and I'm not denying those facts I'm not some happy clappy charismatic that just lives in another planet and doesn't live in reality I see the facts I see the black and white ink on paper as readily as every single one of you but here is the deal I found myself another black and white ink on paper that is a little bit more powerful than the facts and although that document says that I am unnamed Isaiah 49 verse 1 says from the womb of your mother I have named your name although that document says that I'm unwanted Psalm 139 says sweetheart before you ever got in that womb I wanted you I knew you I needed you together and that document says that I'm unqualified but my Bible says that he whom he calls he qualifies you've got to build your life on the truth of the word of God and not the facts of your circumstances for every single one of us at every phase of life and particularly for this generation in North America right now we have got to settle the question did God really say destinies are at stake fruitfulness is at stake the gospel is at stake did God really say well Eve turns around and she says well God did say and she actually quoted what God said we shouldn't eat of that tree or we're going to die so you could be in church every Sunday you can have done 155 death more Bible studies and know how to memorize entire Scripture you can quote the Bible you can come to church but if you don't actually do what it says then your life is not going to flourish she quoted the word back to the enemy God did actually say God did say I should keep myself morally cure pure God did say I shouldn't lie or cheat or steal or gossip or slander maybe I should think about what I'm putting out there on social media maybe I should think about the conversations that I'm having God did say but the enemy same lie as always he turns around he goes you will not surely die you can do anything you want contrary to the Word of God and you will not surely die sleep with who you want marry who you want do whatever you want lie on your taxes cheat steal you you won't die I mean I know you went the singles group for two weeks in a row and look at God he's so bad he didn't even give you a spouse so go to the nightclub and find your own you will not surely die your boss isn't gonna know if you just take a little bit you will not surely die you can log on to the computer no one knows what you're looking at you will not surely die oh he's had the same lie from the beginning of time and he's screaming it to our generation do what you want to do I mean we cloud it in nice language you do you boo sweetheart possibly the last thing you should do is you boo some of these cute little sayings I'm going dangerous you will not surely die oh yes you will oh yes you will you do Jesus boo that is much more helpful you do Jesus and so the Bible says they ate of the fruit like so many of us do and right when we do guilt and shame hit and you get a choice whether you're gonna respond in guilt or shame guilt is okay in a healthy way I did something wrong and you can come to the presence of a loving merciful God Bible says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness there's nothing that you've done they could separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus there is nothing that you've done that God cannot and will not and has not forgiven shame though says I am wrong and it causes us instead of running to God it causes us to run from God so many of us are sitting in church watching online in one of our campuses today and your body is here but your whole spiritual posture is actually out of the presence of God cuz you feel so ashamed about something that you've done or something that's been done to you and you might have even been coming to church for years but your spiritual posture has not lent into the presence of God because of the shame that you carry and I've come here to seek hosts this weekend and the devil has declared shame on you and I'm declaring shame off you in Jesus name we're gonna see people set free across our church today because you cannot be fruitful if you are drowning in shame and so God comes into the garden the band can come up God comes into the garden can you imagine it is a normal time since it's the cool of the day he must like that time of the day he comes in and to me asks one of the saddest questions in Scripture he asks where are you now here is the deal when God asks where are you it's not because he doesn't know he is omniscient it's okay it's not like whoa I got no idea did you see Peter where did they go he's not he doesn't it's not that he doesn't know God asks where are you because he's asking you to locate where are you where are you in a sense when we gather every week that's why church and community is so important because it's a time God comes where are you where is the you that I created where are you where did you go and Adam first dialog between mankind created in the image of God and God first recorded words in Holy Writ I was naked and afraid and so I hid fear shame hiding first conversation between God and man and that dictates so many of our conversations with God fear shame and hiding I was naked and afraid and so I hid I ran from the presence of God rather to the presence of God I feel so bad about what I did I feel so ashamed of what I did so instead of coming into His mercy and His grace and his cleansing love I run from him and I try to medicate it and I try to numb it or I try to earn more money or drug it or jump from bed to bed or do something to stop feeling so many of us that's the cycle we're trapped in and I can imagine god to me the saddest this is the saddest question and I wonder whether God had a tear in his running down his face I don't know it's not there in the text but I wonder we got asked him who told you who told you that you were naked who told you that you were done who told you that there will always be addiction in your family who told you they'll always be divorced in your family who told you they'll always be poverty in your family who told you that you're stupid who told you that you can't who told you who told you that's why did God really say it's such an important question where are you where did you go the you that God created to flourish on this earth to be his salt in his life where are you where did you go who told you who told you the lie that you believe that stunted you you know my daughter Catherine ever since she was born both my kids Katherine and Sophie Joyce since they were born I've always almost daily spoken over them Catherine Bobby you are the head and not the tail you're above only and not beneath you're a leader and not a follower you're a woman of God you're a woman of Prayer you're a Holy Ghost terrorist you love the house of God and I've always told her you are gonna grow up and marry a very very very wealthy Christian man I've told her because you know when you're popping out kids at 40 you're gonna be a 180 and when you have grandkids so you need a rich son-in-law to look after you and her daddy has always said to always he speaks over her prays over them every night and says to her Catherine Bobby you are strong you're courageous you're intelligent you could do anything God's called you to do you can be anything God's called you to be you are beautiful and she's a stunner she really is outside and in but he always says you're beautiful at the end so she does not get her esteem from her external sense but that so she knows at a Koi that she's strong and courageous and beautiful and intelligent and um she went to kindergarten how many know when you go to kindergarten you don't kind of get that affirmation you know everyday from everyone and so I went to pick her up from school and the teachers said this to me I went to pick her up and the teacher said Chris you should have seen what happened to him at lunchtime there was like a little bit of a fight because a little boy wanted Catherine's teddy bear so he went up to her at lunchtime he ripped the teddy bear out of her hands and he said Catherine Bobby you are dumb and you are ugly and I'm thinking like you how does my daughter even know what that means and the teacher said this to me she said Christine you should have seen your daughter she put her shoulders back she eyeballed this kid and I seriously I really did I thought the teacher was gonna say and she king hit him I'm like yes yes extra Christmas presents do not write me letters about physical violence I'm like she goes to anyway it's okay and so the teacher said to me no and I was like excited but she goes no no Christine she put her shoulders back she looked him in the eye and she said to him no I'm not I'm not dumb and I'm not ugly my daddy says that I am intelligent and I am beautiful and why am I telling you that this morning seacoast because when the enemy comes like he does and he tells you that you're not good enough then you're not smart enough and he tries to heap shame on you you've gotta learn to turn around and say no not today devil my daddy says I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus my daddy says cheese's [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Seacoast Church

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Length: 37min 29sec (2249 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 23 2018