Christine Caine

I love it you know this church is a great church and my roots are very deeply founded in the Word of Faith and as you hear my story you'll understand why and and you'll understand why God has taken us all on a journey of what he's doing on the earth right now I was with Nick you know we've done a lot of church planting and leadership development in Europe but last week in Thessaloniki Greece we launched a church Zoey Thessaloniki and I've just been getting reports they're in service right now and I'm so excited but you know planting a church is always great week one because all your friends come you rent a crowd you pay anybody off the street see week two is where the stress level is is like will anybody turn up and so they're like telling me the place is packed and God's doing stuff and so I'm very excited over over that Jesus is building his church there's no doubt about it Jesus is building his church and so um we've been involved in that for 14 years very very actively spent a lot of our time in Europe split our time a lot between Europe and America and in terms of mission and leadership development and church planting and we were over in a church a large Cathedral that used to function as a church probably a couple hundred years ago you'll see this all over Europe this church in Italy was humongous I mean it would have in its heyday possibly housed seven or eight thousand people that the sanctuary was was huge and it was cutting edge in terms in every respect in architecture I mean a beautiful dome humongous Cathedral the artwork alone I would imagine without exaggeration would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars I mean just beautiful beautiful artwork and the the building itself was just breathtaking right in the center of the city where most churches were built and the major tourist attraction of this city and I remember going in looking around starting to feel I'm a history major I love history but I starting to feel quite sad paid five euros to go up to the top of the steeple and where they advertise it as the best view of the city and as we're standing up there I started to cry and my husband looked and he said you know honey what's wrong because I'm not that kind of chick you know there are chicks that like cry and I'm like really not one of those just you'll get to know me and you'll realize if it happens there's something moving really happening and I'm standing up there I said you know honey it's so sad to me that whoever sowed the seed to build this church did not sow seed back then so that I would be standing here with all of these tourists taking pictures of a city they didn't sow seed so that this building would become a dead empty monument to what God once did that in sow seed so that this could become a tourist attraction they sowed seeds so that would build a house of God where the praise and worship of God would go forth where people would be healed and people to be delivered and people would be saved and people would be restored that's what they did but here we are standing here in what is now a dead empty monument and throughout Europe you can see this on every corner just about 100 years ago 70% of the world's Christians were in Europe 100 years later Europe is less than 1% evangelical Christian and how does that happen in one generation in a hundred years and you ought to really prick your ears up at this point in this nation if you just start tracking what is happening how does it just happen in one generation and that's what happened to me up in that church and I'll tell you I want to tell you one other part of that story I was I said to Nick how do I not know that a hundred years from now or two hundred years from now people aren't going to fly to Sydney Australia to see that church that church that the music from Hillsong churches is the most recorded Christian music ever a shelter the Lord is the most recorded Krishna no no I don't want you to clap that's not point here and I want you to clap what I'm saying is that how do I know that in a couple hundred years people are going to go wow let's go see that church and if you see our building down there it is modern-day Cathedral it is cutting-edge in every way it's gotten every architectural award that exists every technology award that exists or the major festivals and shows want to host themselves in our building because it is better than any other Arena built in our nation which that's how it should be again that's not a clapping thing that's just how it should be the house it is to be built for the Lord must be David said to Solomon exceedingly magnificent glorious famous throughout all the earth and so that is just what it should be as a church it's not that we're anything great it's just what it should be but the point is that how do I not know people aren't going to line up and go let's go check out that place where all those songs came out of where all those people got saved we're very much possibly the most influential Church in the Western world in terms of affecting church life on the planet right now how do I know that's not going to happen because whoever built that church in Europe wasn't planning for it to become a tourist attraction and we who have sown seed to build our church one planning for it to become a tourist attraction and that's when I felt the Holy Spirit said to me Christine this is what happens when the church stops being the church and the church starts doing church on a Sunday when you begin to cradle eyes and institutionalize and bureaucratize your Christianity when it starts to become forms and rituals and rules and just we adhere and it doesn't matter which spectrum you're from from word of faith right through to every other denomination in Christendom you don't have to be I'm spirit filled I'm an Assemblies of God pastor just so you all know let me just put it out there before I start to dissect this because some of what you're going to hear you're going to wonder where does all this fit in my children are named after the two most influential women in my life Bobby Houston my pastor and Joyce Meyer my spiritual mother which you all love I know all of that so next week I'll be speaking at Joyce Meyers conference with Joel Osteen and I'm not saying that for any other reason I need you to hear what I'm going to say to you I need you to know my roots and I need you to know where I am because I need you to track with me with what God is doing and so the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said Christine this is what happens when the church stops being and the church starts doing when the church just reduces everything to two creeds in some kind of institutionalized rules and regulations and sometimes we can think because we're from a particular camp or tradition that we have a monopoly on something and that we are free when we're really bound and it's so important to understand that it's for freedom Christ set us free but lets me explain to you today what freedom really is and so I was devastated and I said god I don't want that to be the story of my life I don't want to just be part of a house that in a couple of hundred years the legacy that we leave is a dead empty tourist attraction and that happens when our heart stops beating for what God's heart beats for and let me tell you what God's heart beats for essentially if you take the whole scripture and bring it down to one thing God sent His Son Jesus Christ from heaven to earth to die on a cross and rise again from the dead not just so I can sing better not just so I can have more stuff not just so I can be happy but there was one reason that caused him to send the darling of heaven to earth and that reason because it was because God so loved the world that place that most Christians have been running away from is the very place that God has called us to God loves the world not worldliness but the world in fact he loves that world so much that he sent Jesus to die and rise again for that world now if we are truly born again then our heart would beat for what God's heart beats for we wouldn't need to put guilt trips on Christians to love the world it would emanate from a heart that is passionate for what God is passionate for God is passionate about lost people God is passionate about a broken world that he sent his church to restore and to bring life and hope to now you know that your Christianity is more sort of institutionalized and creolized and lacks its passion when you kind of just go through the motions because you do what you have to out of a passion you just kind of go through the motions but when you're passionate it just flows out of who you are now my husband and I met in Bible School and then I was a lecturer he was a student we're the same age in fact it's my birthday on the 23rd of September if you want to send gifts I really received them and so we are this the same age but you know he went to college later than me so I was lecturing and in our Bible College at Hillsong we have a rule that students cannot date one another but there's no rule about students and teachers and so my husband decided that he wanted to kind of come after the teacher and so he found out from my best friend that I swam at 6 o'clock in the morning at our local swimming pool now I've been doing this for over a year church and I had never seen him at that pool then all of a sudden I would go down and at 6 o'clock in the morning there was a guy already doing laps down the pool after about a week we bumped into each other and I kind of went Nick hi what are you doing here and he kind of got very defensive because what do you mean what am I doing here I'm always here at 6 o'clock in the morning I love swimming at 6 o'clock in the morning that church I've been married to that man for 16 years never once in 16 years has my husband got up at 6 o'clock in the morning to go swimming cuz you'll do what you want out of passion you'll get up at six o'clock in the morning men you will even bathe and put on aftershave it is amazing what you will do no one's got to make you read your Bible no one's going to make you come to church no one's going to make you tithe no one's got to make you help the poor no one's got to make you do anything because you're passionate and if you ask me what's hit the church more than any way particularly in this part of America is a passion deficiency syndrome we're so intellectual that we've lost our passion and it's got to drop the six inches from here to here so that we can get passionate and radical and on fire about what God is on fire about which is a lost and a broken world you know when Mel Gibson made the movie he called it The Passion of the Christ do you remember who saw the passion he did not call it the boring religious obligation of the Christ it was called the passion in fact when that movie came out two weeks after that I was in Baton Rouge Louisiana and we just finished preaching had gone out to lunch and Jim Caviezel was in the restaurant now I'm not normally starstruck but that movie messed me up so much I very inappropriately loudly yelled across the restaurant I went oh my gosh there's Jesus remember husband grandmommy his christine one would think you would know the difference but anyway I just went and the guy that was with me goes do you want to meet him I know him and I was like oh my gosh I'm gonna meet Jesus yes what to meet Jesus and so I walked across and he was sitting and I was standing and we were exactly the same height and so I was looking into his eyes and all I could think about was they didn't use a filter in the movie those eyes they're just like gee anyway so I was freaking out he stood up the guy that introduced us he said nothing about what I did he just said to him Jim this is my friend Christine from Australia now he just got straight up and he goes you're from Australia I could not believe Jesus was talking to me I'm a Jim was talking to me and I'm like because you're from Australia I'm looking up at him and I went yes and he goes there are not many believers in Australia are they I was in shock I didn't even know what to do I went no no one believes in Australia there are no this and that I'm not joking judge for the next 15 minutes he full-on started witnessing to me I mean everything the blood the cross the resurrection the right like everything he was so passionate I did not have the heart to tell him I was a Christian I just was like and I was as his doing his spiel ten minutes in I'm thinking if he asks me to pray the sinner's prayer I'm down and I'm really like just didn't know what to do passion passion we'll take you on our way if we need to be passionate about the very things that God Himself is passionate about about a lost in a dying world a world full of injustice a world full of inequity a foot world full of pain somewhere along the line the church missed this peace and we point a finger at the government we point a finger at the Education Department and we pointed finger of judgment at Hollywood in the media but last time I checked and look for and in Isaiah the Spirit of the Lord God was not upon the government or upon the media or upon the education department but the Spirit of the Lord God was upon us the church to do what to preach the gospel to open prison doors for those that are bound to bring recovery of sight for the blind to set people free why are we blaming everybody else for not doing what they were never anointed to do and why don't we start looking at ourselves and understand God's anointing and God's Spirit is upon us it's upon the church it's our mandate it's our responsibility and so you and I are God's spiritual GPS system that's what we're on the earth to do it's not about acquiring and amassing and accumulating more stuff it's not about just trying to live this nice Christian life oh my gosh I'm trying to be good I'm trying to be good I'm trying to be good I'm a Christian I don't drink I don't smoke I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing but I'm a socially dysfunctional more on a paddle lobotomy I don't have a personality I wear beige and I'm just waiting for the rapture I mean serious if that was the case when people got saved why don't we just shoot them and say go to heaven now but obviously there's something for us to do we are his spiritual GPS gods obsessed with the lost he's obsessed in Luke chapter 15 one chapter three parables you will not find this anywhere in scripture from Genesis to Revelation one chapter three parables one subject the last he says judge you ought to get this because I've left you on the earth for that if it was just about acquiring stuff people then we'd go to heaven because no matter how much we acquire here it is nothing to the streets of gold we're going to have it is nothing to the mansions I know we all love that stuff but if you really are all about that stuff then it's quicker the quicker you die the more you're going to have so why don't we just get obsessed with what we're on earth to do which is to actually advance the kingdom of God and to seek and save that which is lost and redeem as much of a broken humanity as we actually can that's what we're actually here to do and so he says let me explain to you how and why people get lost because my church tends to do is point a finger at the lost avoid the loss run away from the lost because somewhere along the line we read you must come up from a mount unit you must come from out from amongst them and be here separatist huh and we're like I've got to come out from amongst that big bad orga booger monster the world it is so dark and evil and they have tattoos and they have piercings and they smoke and they're just horrible and I just need to come out from amongst them and be separate and now I'm separate and now I don't have tattoos and I don't have piercings and I don't smoke and I don't drink and I don't cuss I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing but I can define my christianity by what I don't do that's how most of us are I'm a Christian and I don't write well knock yourself out sounds exciting to me and then it's like I don't know what I should be doing but boy I know what I don't do and I'm coming out from amongst them to be here separate and I'm going to come over here separate from that big bad orga booger monster well I mean there's horribles in that world people have crime and violence and abuse and people traffic other people across the world and and and sell them for sex and and people are starving and hungry and I don't even know what to do so I'm going to come out and be separate and I'm going to build a defense fortress around me and I speak my own language and I've been redeemed and sanctified justified by the blood of the Lamb praise the Lord hallelujah and every unsaved American understands that kind of jargon and I am separate now the thing that we got a little bit confused with is that when Jesus said come out from amongst them and be ye separate when he talks about consecration when he talks about sanctification which are very important to him and ought to be important to us what we did was we thought it was external behavior modification we thought it's how I act and what I do and what I don't do but Christianity far transcends external behavior modification it's a hard transformation he says no no when you read the Gospels and you have a look at when Jesus is talking about worldliness let me just give you a small list and tattoos are not on that list and piercings are not on that list and hair length is not on that list and makeups not on that list and skirts or no skirts or hose or no that's not on that list let me tell you what's on that list gossip I know you all don't do that you just call one another and talk about each other's prayer needs I know that there's some slander Envy gossip I'll keep saying it jealousy guile immorality chauvinism sexism racism injustice abuse they're the things he talks about I don't see anywhere in there anything about smoking or not that you should like I'm you're not gonna go to hell for it you are gonna get to heaven a lot quicker but anyway so smoking or I see a lot more about gluttony amazing isn't it what we started is anything about tattoos or some or all the big ones that we think are big ones but gluttony very quietness Presbyterian Church but anyway so what happens is so we came over here and Jesus says in John 17:15 I need you to hear this he says I do not pray he's praying to the Father and he's telling us what he's not praying when Jesus tells us what he's not praying you better pay attention he says I do not pray that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one they're not of the world just as I am NOT of the world sanctify them by thy word for your word is truth as you sent me I send them I need you to hear that because I think that's been taken out of a lot of people's Bibles so what we did was we came out from amongst them to be here separatist and so of course we don't drink we don't smoke we don't have any personality but gossip slander envy greed gluttony guile gluttony guile gogog envy greed those sorts of things what happens is instead of being over here and being in the world I do not pray that you take them out of the world they are not of the world just as I'm not of the world instead of being in the world but not of the world we are over here the church we are of the world but not in the world very hard to change a world you're not in it's even really harder to change a world that you are the same substance as in Matthew five when we took when Jesus talks about us being the salt and the light not of the church meet the salt and the light of the world now to be salt and light they are things that actually change the substance of what they come in contact with light changes darkness salt changes what it's put on there's an actual chemical change but if you are the same as it you can't change what you are the same as and so what happens is most of us are essentially exactly like the world except we don't have tattoos and we don't smoke it we don't drink but in every other aspect we are exactly like the world we are indifferent to the pain of the world apathetic to the brokenness of the pain out of the world our ordinary hearts do not bleed for what God's heart bleeds for and I truly wonder we're the large segments of us have actually been born again because if you are that's why Jesus said to the religious people this is your problem sweetheart you need to be born again your heart needs to be born again so that your heart will beat for what my heart beats for guilt will not do it I could stand up here today and give you the most moving presentation on human trafficking that would have you slashing your wrist by the end of it it could be so tragic I just flew back my husband just flew back from Romania Bulgaria great i sat in shelters with girls I could tell you stories that would move your emotions for about two minutes and then you go out to Starbucks and go out to lunch and forget everything after this I need you to understand they said a far more fundamental level if the church is really going to rise up and do what God has called us to do so we're over here and we are of the world but not in it and then every now and again the Evangelist comes to town opens the Bible at Matthew 28 what oh my gosh the great suggestion God is suggesting if I have nothing better to do today that I need to go into that big bad worker booger monster monster world and I've got to tell them that Jesus lives but that's not my gift that's not my calling that's not my where I feed on the disc profile that's not my strength finder that's not my love language I love it I love it how we write Christian books to excuse Christians and bring Christians it's Knox it's fantastic and so what happens is that's where the Navy SEALs of the Christian Church that's for the elite troops that's for Joyce Meyer that's for Benny Hinn that's for John and Lisa Bevere that's for Christine Kane that's for those psychos of the Christian Church that's for them so let's go find them in the church because every church has got those weed ones and so what we're going to do is Friday night they're going to be the evangelism team and we're going to reduce evangelism to something that someone else does cuz it's not me and it's not my gift mix but it's the weird people in the church we're going to put them together and they're going to get together on a Friday night they're going to Shonda hunter Kawasaki and they are going to pray themselves up hot you know if you're from this part of the church if you're from the other part you do deep introspective reflective prayer what if I whatever knock yourself out and so then what happens is so you've got that little prayer thing and then the drawbridge goes down and you are really pumped up fired up and ready to go you go into New Haven and the some poor guy you've got zero relationship with him he's so tired from work all week but he's going to take his girlfriend out to dinner but no not tonight because it's my evangelism so I'm gonna take this track I'm gonna shove it down his throat so did you know Jesus Christ died for your sin if you don't repent and die and and and pray this prayer right now you're gonna die and get everlasting Hill so say this incantation or prayer after me oh my gosh it's 10 o'clock I'm a Christian I turn into a pumpkin if you want to look like me talk like me sing like me dance like me I need you to come and be with me and we put the drawbridge up and we go praise God hallelujah hallelujah I've just done my evangelism for the week and it's something that someone else does when we venture into their deep evil world every now and again but it's not me and we have our defense fortress here and Jesus goes are you kidding me who are you people who are you people he said I I prayed that you would not come out of the world but I pray that you wouldn't be of that world I pray that you'd have a whole different value system I prayed that you would have a whole different ethos to this world that you would care about things other people don't care about and that you wouldn't care about the things that most of the world cares about that you are motivated by something so different that my justice which is inherent in the character and nature and name of God my my truth my mercy my love is what would permeate your very being and you would transform the world around you the church was created to thrive in the womb of the world when you take a baby out of a mother's womb prematurely and you try to keep that baby alive on life-support it's not always going to survive we have so many churches around the world on life support because they were taken out of the very womb they were created to thrive in which is the world and when you come out of where God put you in to thrive you've got to spend all your resources or your time or your energy and all your money trying to keep a baby alive that's never going to stay alive God says if you just put yourself back in the midst of a broken and a lost humanity and start to work alongside and the hurting then you know what that's what I made you to do and you will see my provision you will see my resources you will see my power I have seen more signs wonders and miracles in the last four years than I ever so before that most Christians pray for signs wonders and miracles and then avoid any kind of context where a miracle can happen and I have found that as I am out in the midst of Eastern Europe believing God to see traffic as red you know brought to justice and put in jail and seeing women and children rescued and their lives redeemed and restored I have seen God do more miracles when the world time it would be impossible the expert we had expert consultants came in and ten times in one document that cost me twenty five thousand dollars to do a feasibility study they said to me do not start in Greece it will be impossible to see traffickers brought to trial because of the way the laws were back then it will be impossible to see girls brought through and and restored and to see approvals gained for shelters it will be impossible to work with government authorities because of the level of corruption the church is so embryonic in this region of the world it will be input ten times I saw the words it will be impossible but you know what I had a numbers 13 experience and God had spoken to me about Thessaly there's Nestle or Niki and I remember standing up to those consultants and saying you can give me all the facts but you know what we are well able to take the land because if God said it God will do it and it shall happen and let me tell you only four years later by the grace of Almighty God all of our shelters in all of our countries packed with girls being restored in the last nine weeks alone eleven traffickers in jail all of them find over a hundred thousand euros all of them over 15 years imprisonment what is impossible with man is possible with God we've got all things are possible and nothing is impossible with God nothing is impossible with God but let me tell you something you got to take your faith out of the four walls of a Sunday and start to activate a where it was created to be activated in a lost and a broken world Jesus says you are my search and rescue team I am going to mobilize my church to not just do Church but to be the church to step outside of your little comfort zone and to begin to bring my justice and mercy and truth and righteousness and redemption and restoration to a lost and a broken world it's what we're born to do so he says would you be my spiritual GPS system you know my husband and I for the sake of our marriage awhile ago we bought a little GPS for the car because um you know we get on great normally except for when we're in a car and I'm trying to give him directions for some reason he doesn't want me to tell him where to go and so um I I apparently you know can talk to the planet but not to him and so we got a GPS and in Australia this GPS it's called a nav man but it's false advertising because when we put the Navin into the car when it started talking to me it wasn't a man she was a woman and um what ticked me off was my husband would listen to that woman like I was like like what is this Oliver and so you know every now and again I I called her Matilda cuz I'm Australian you just got like Matilda so I put Matilda on and we go for a drive just so I could show her who was the real woman in his marriage and and so we'd be going through and Matilda you know she'd say next exit on the left and I would literally like it you could see me in the car talking to my GPS I'd say no no and it makes me feel really good because as soon as I go past that GPS I because that exit it would get really snowy you know like she'd start to go into tilt like what what's happened and then I'd make sure I skip the next one as well because then she goes cardiac arrest flatline like it's fantastic and I think you go woman that's it that's all it takes for me to take you out and then and then it starts with this thing rerouting rerouting and every time it reroutes and those words come up I think that's exactly our job as the church to be on the exit lanes of life where people are about to take a wrong turn or people have been taken off course and say let me help reroute you back to the relationship for which you were created let me help reroute you all over this earth so he says let's talk about a lost sheep let's talk about a lost coin let's talk about a lost son half of you are freaking out that even remembered what text we were in aren't you and so what happens I'm from Australia we know a lot about sheep and and so you could be driving past a paddock there's a whole lot of sheep and then you go past this other one there's this little sheep all by itself at the end of the night now that day that sheep just had its head down and it was preoccupied with eating grass it's not a big bad evil demonic sheep that needs demons cast out of it it just was preoccupied stuck its head up at the end of the night all its friends had gone into the other paddock it said Papa that being interpreted means I'm lost and so it just ended up lost lost you know we've got a lot of people on the planet man they're not don't need demons cast out of them they just lost they're preoccupied they're they're trying to pay the bills try to keep him my arch together trying to get married trying to try to keep their kids off drugs trying to find something just preoccupied and they've ended up lost and we have a woman that had a coin the Bible says and she lost it the coin didn't get lost on its own she was careless with that coin you know while we have a lot of people on the planet doing a lot of irresponsible things but that's because people have been careless with a generation the government's been careless with the generation the education departments being careless with a generation the church has been careless with a generation the media has been careless with the generation so they have ended up lost developing patterns of destructive behavior doing immoral things but it's not because they're big evil and need demons cast out of them have been careless with their lives maybe you might know what that is I wonder if I'm the only one someone was careless with my life and I ended up lost I didn't need people pointing a judgment to a negative critical finger at me I needed people to love me to wholeness you know I was born in Sydney Australia second-generation migrant Greek before My Big Fat Greek Wedding when it was not cool to be Greek in Australia I was very marginalized because of my ethnicity I grew up in the poorest local government area in New South Wales the state where I live the second the third poorest local government area in all of Australia in a government assisted housing project House I went to the school and you could check all this out I went to the school rated bottom the last rated school in our whole state for any kind of academic I was the only student in five years that had any tertiary education and we rated lowest on any academic achievement and highest on teenage pregnancy teenage substance abuse all those great things that's where we were really high so I didn't have the greatest star my gender my ethnicity my socio-economic background I grew up in a staunch Greek Orthodox culture where women were not you know encouraged to do anything fantastic in fact we were just encouraged to have babies you know get married at 18 have a kid have a grandkid at 19 have a great grandkid at 20 it was just like you're a lean mean breeding machine that was kind of it I tell her when I'm a Greek Orthodox mother's nightmare I didn't marry until I was 30 I didn't have my first child till I was 35 and I'm a Pentecostal preacher it does not get any worse for my mother it does not and then pretty much every week of my life several times a week several times a week I am was sexually abused by four men from the time I was three till at least 15 and most young women with that kind of background don't normally end up doing what I'm doing and the reason why it would be so quiet in this room is because you don't have to be a prophet to work out that many of us would understand in some way shape or form what that is like and I didn't go from one stage of development to the other in any healthy way at all I was a very very damaged very angry young woman I was full of shame I was full of bitterness I was full of anger and you know most chicks with that kind of background they either end up drug dependent or alcohol dependent or two or three different kids to two or three different fathers gay or at the very least confused about their gender identity that's generally what happens with someone with that kind of background and so I could have not fulfilled my purpose and destiny because all of those reasons which are most of the reasons we use somewhere in one of those reasons our gender our ethnicity our past our socio-economic background we often find as the excuse to remain a victim for the rest of our lives and then when I was two weeks before my 33rd birthday I got a phone call from my brother George um because when you Greek all your brothers are like George Niko's Sparrow Khan you know they're like it's it's it's My Big Fat Greek Wedding and so George says to me he's crying he goes Chris I got a letter from the government department it says I've been adopted I laughed because you know when you're growing up you never think you're related to your siblings and you always go your mother's from Mars we're not related but anyway now this was really happening and so I said George of course they've made some kind of administrative error you need to call them and called me back well ten minutes later he calls me back sobbing he said Chris they told me the name of my biological mother when I was born when I was immunized when I went to they have a whole file on my life I could not believe this church my dad had died when I was 19 and my mum when this letter came was 61 I'm thinking this is a family secret for 35 years my brother is going to go crazy and so I jumped in my car knowing my brother was going to go and confront my mother I got to my mother's house at the minute that my brother was giving my mum this piece of paper from the government department my mum took that paper and I saw a moment of hesitation in her eyes just enough for me to realize this is true my mum just started crying she said George I'm so sorry all the adoptions were closed adoptions 35 years ago in Australia we never thought you would find out and I mean it was it was a moment church my brother's crying my mother's crying the dogs crying snots playing you know like it's it's it's all a moment I didn't know what to do I'm sort of like this great girl so I just kind of go to the kitchen get some baklava get some coffee go food food will solve everything what do you do my mum follows me in about ten minutes later she goes to this dinner since we're telling the truth do you want to know the whole truth I don't even know Church initially why I turn around to say this but I turn around her and I went i've been adopted too and then we tears streaming down a face she just nodded a head I did not I didn't say anything for a couple of minutes which in and of itself is a miracle greater than the resurrection of Jesus but anyway so after about a couple of minute Owen I will this is exactly what I said I'm staring at my Greek mum who's got no concept of my life this life I said I will mum before I was formed in my mother's womb who's ever wound that was he knew me he needed to gather my innermost parts he fashioned all of my days before as yet there was one of them I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and that day church every fact that I thought to be true about my life changed what my name was what my heritage was every fact change and to this morning I still do not know the circumstances surrounding my conception I don't know if I was the result of a one-night stand I don't know if I was a result of an ongoing adulterous affair I don't know if I was the result of a rape but although I do not know the facts I do know that there's a force on the planet much higher than the facts and it's called the truth of the word of God and my Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 that I am NOT the workmanship of a rape I'm not the workmanship of an adulterous affair we are his workmanship recreated in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them and let me just tell you something that the enemy can send an assignment like he did in my life to try to steal kill and destroy my life when I was still in my mother's womb when that didn't work he sent another assignment into my bedroom at three years old the word abuse means to use an object for a purpose for which it was never designed and for 15 years I was used for a purpose for which God never designed me but that's why God sent Jesus from heaven to earth to die on a cross and rise again from the dead so that he could wipe away the mess of that past give us a brand new and a hope for the future and let me tell you something the most potent force on the planet is not some cruise missile or nuclear bomb the most potent force on the planet always was and always will be the blood of Jesus Christ because it sets people free it sets people free and it's for freedom Christ set us free for freedom Christ set us free and I'm living proof I'm living proof that you can start bad and finish good in and through a relationship with Jesus Christ but see I was lost because someone was careless with my life we had a generation out there and there's a world that's been careless people are trafficked across the world not because it's their fault but for most of it could be eradicated overnight if you and I cared a little bit more about what we bought and where it bought it from and how it was made and who was used in that process if we cared about the children of this world but we're careless the church is careless with the only thing created in the image of God human beings and if we don't value human beings enough it is atrocious that on our watch on the earth the number one crime the fastest-growing crime is the trafficking of human beings slavery it is disgusting that that is the legacy of the church we can have as much word of faith as we want we can have as much stuff as we think we can gather but we're going to stand before God and give an account that on our watch while we were blabbing and grabbing and blessing and confessing more slaves were on the earth today than ever before in the history of humanity I don't know about you but that is not ok with me if we have got the word of faith for anything it is so that we can start to stir up that gift on the inside of us and say you know what Jesus you rescued me I now have a responsibility to turn around and rescue a lost and a broken world it is not just about me true freedom me truly being free is not up here waxing eloquent about what Jesus did for me the only true evidence that I have really been set free is that I have now got the strength to turn around and open prison doors for someone else I want you to hear this if you hear nothing else I've said today most Christians are not free they're just delivered the children of Israel came out of slavery they were not set free at that moment they were just delivered into the wilderness freedom was in the promised land they never got into that Promised Land they were delivered from slavery but not set free into the future they have most of the church is delivered I'm no longer being abused I'm no longer addicted I'm no longer but we just kept doing down the same old laps around the same old mountains and we'll die in the wilderness never going in and possessing our promised land and our promised land is not about how much stuff I'm going to get our promised land is by using that stuff to set everyone else free and to wipe injustice off the earth and to bring life and hope to a lost in a broken world don't confuse deliverance with freedom don't confuse deliverance with freedom the real sign that Jesus Christ has set me free is that the shackles are off and I can go back and open the prison doors for other people let me just finish the parable before I give you a last thought because some of you that have all your ducks in a row in points will get very nervous put a woman up there and she doesn't even finish the whole text so here's the last bit it's very nervous laughter but the point is that the son he miscalculated he thought a life without the father would be better than a life with the father we got a whole lot of people out there doing dumb stuff because I just haven't quite realized that a life with God is better than a life without God I don't know how people end up getting lost but Jesus said it's none of your business just understand they're lost don't judge them don't point a finger at them don't run away from them step into their mess and go and seek and save that which is lost and bring justice and bring life and bring hope to them let me tell you this um you know I got some documents when I found out I was adopted three documents in particular and most of us we limit our life by the facts and the documents whatever it might be the doctor's report that says that thing is terminal incurable there's no hope the person that said you're a loser you'll never amount to anything the schoolteacher that said you dumb you stupid the ex-lover the expose that left you and said you and most of us we define our lives by that but if the church is going to be who God's called us to be in this hour and do what God's called us to do you cannot define your life by that you know when I got my birth certificate you guys can put that up I'm just going to check I don't know what screens is it going to come up on over here is my birth certificate it's really weird at 33 to get a birth certificate when you thought you had one so you'll see in there if you can bring up the next copy of this that's a little bit closer there it is child's name unnamed you can see I told you my birthday's of 23 September 1966 please send me lots of presents money is appreciated and but up there can you see up there the top two 508 of 1966 that's my registration number because I was born in a country where at least I could be registered a lot of the kids that we deal with don't even have a number we throw 27 million slaves around and see numbers and numbing numbers of dehumanizing it is easy to ignore suffering when it's nameless and faceless if I had put that piece of paper up there none of you would have even flinched it's like I year whatever but as soon as you put Christine cane to that number everything changes everything changes you can never look at a number the same way you can't think six thousand children dying of preventable diseases every day and ignore it you cannot just ignore 27 million slaves because it's not 27 million it's 27 million that could be me if I had been born in that part of Greece and not Australia or in Romania or in Albania I would have been one of those kids that we're helping to rescue now because I would have just been left in an orphanage without even a registry without even so much as this it brings it all home when you suddenly realize what Jesus is trying to do to say could you just personalize this whole deal it's not just about my children I have two beautiful daughters but I'm not on the earth just for my two daughters I've been given stewardship over them and I have a huge responsibility and I take it very seriously but also have a responsibility to the planet and so do you because those other children are God's children as well and he does not love my Catherine or my Sofia any more than he loves any of those other children and I want my heartbeat to be like his happy I love my kids with a passion I give my life for them but you know what I'm giving my life for all the kids and I'm stepping on every Idol in American culture right now I understand that and it's not the idol we watch on TV that you all love but the way we have made our own family and sport the gods of this age in this nation is amazing to me we as the church of a huge responsibility for the planet if we are truly redeemed born again spirit filled believers any way we take true the commission that Jesus Christ gave us so I was number two five oh eight there it is I'm not denying it black and white ink on paper it's a fact can you bring up the other document this is what my social worker wrote my mother's my biological mother's social worker report it's a whole report the nicest part that I could exact from that is this thing and you could ring up a closer version it says she does not 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 it goes on to say how she had wanted to abort me so there I am I'm reading this document I can't deny it it's from the Royal Hospital for women it says unwanted so now I've got two black and white ink on papers I've got unnamed and I've got unwanted one is the government Department of course if the government says that we know it's true and then over here we have the royal hospital for women of course if the medical profession says that it's true this is how so many of us limit our lives and then let me just quickly show you a document I got from the most prestigious the Dean of the most prestigious Social Work School in Australia that was dated 28 the March 1993 I was running a community-based youth center at the time and the students were wanting to do their placement with us at our youth center except my degree is in English and economic history so basically I can count to ten and read golden books and so the Dean of this college did not think that I was academically qualified enough to oversee an NGO working with young people so the experts on the 28th of March 1993 this whole letter I wish I had time to read it all to you but I'll give you one extractor just as if your career ambition is to remain in the area of you services in the longer term I would strongly urge you to take time out for to study for a basic Social Work welfare work or other relevant professional qualifications the next line says the comments I have made may be difficult for you to digest but they reflect my honest assessment of the way forward for you I see you as a young woman with enormous innate potential but you will never realize your potential unless you take several years out to get a basic Social Work qualification which is awesome so that's what the experts said in 1993 so now we're in 2012 by God's grace we're on a global anti-human trafficking initiative in ten nations we got a hero of human trafficking award from Hillary Clinton eight weeks ago we see traffickers putting job but I just want you to see the experts taught me that I can't do what I'm doing I just I just want you to see what the experts said so if you put that other document up here it is three pieces of paper black and white ink on paper it's not like Chris you know you're part of the blabber and grab a blessed and compact Christian you guys are ignorant no we're not ignorant I'm as we're to faith as it comes I want you to hear this I am NOT ignorant black and white I see the facts I see the black and white facts from the government I see the black and white facts from the medical profession I see the black and white facts from the University of New South Wales I see it the only issue is is that I discovered myself another black and white ink on paper that's the only issue I found myself another black and white ink on paper and let me tell you church that says unnamed but I saw a 49 verse one says from the womb of your mother I have named your name that says unwanted but the Word of God says sweetheart before you ever got in that womb I wanted you I needed you together I placed you there that piece of paper says unqualified but my Bible says he whom he calls he qualifies build your life on the truth of God's Word and not the facts of your circumstances and you will change the world that God has called you to change and now I stand like Joseph in Genesis that turns around and he said to his brothers you meant this for evil but God has used it to do just this to save many people alive and when I think this unnamed unwanted number to 508 unqualified chick left in a hospital 46 years ago God thought I might just pluck number 2 508 out of obscurity and anonymity and use someone that everybody else wrote off someone that they couldn't even give a name to someone that they just gave a number to someone that everyone thinks isn't qualified and someone everyone thinks isn't wanted I might just used her to reach a generation that is unnamed unwanted and unqualified and tell them Jesus Christ loves you and has a plan and a purpose and a destiny for your life whoever you are and that church is true freedom that's what we're here for not just to sing our songs in here on a Sunday but to take what happens in here out to our community and say the same God that did that for me is the same God that can do that for you and we can abolish slavery in our lifetime if we just stop acting like the church and start being the church in Jesus name

Channel: Vertical Church

Views: 24,204

Rating: 4.8596492 out of 5

Keywords: Christine Caine, Living Word Ministries, Christianity, Light, Salt, A21, Human Trafficking, Hillsong

Id: bUZ0pS-jyLM

Length: 51min 16sec (3076 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 09 2012