The Courage To Let Go Of Your Past | Christine Caine at Saddleback Church

how y'all doing you awake man after that introduction I can't wait to hear myself speak and I'm like seriously who is that person well y'all I'm from the land down under I know here we're in Southern California but if you kind of fly 14 more hours south that's where I'm from anyone been to Australia a few anyone want to come we're gonna have a subtle back excursion we're gonna have a missions trip I taught past director to Australia where we speak the Queen's English and um this is probably the closest to English where one of the colonies all the convicts got sent out but we do speak proper English there we say awesome it's extremely dignified so come on we can do a bit of a class this morning run so awesome whoa do it again that sounds awesome no say it again like an Australian wonderful you're sort of like elevated now say it like an American just say I'm just saying whatever I've loved it I feel very much like family I was here last night and then back here this morning it's just an absolute honor and privilege no doubt about it to be in this house that has so impacted the globe and is continuing to impact the globe I have met pastor Rick he came down to Hillsong conference in Australia and we just loved him is coming again next year and then we were together in the Royal Albert Hall in London like he said and and that was fantastic he's possibly one of the most knowledgeable pastors about anything that I've ever met and I'm just unbelievable and then I had the privilege to begin to build a friendship with Kay a few months ago her book say yes to God was vet God used that very instrumentally in just kind of pushing me over the edge to start the a21 campaign I'm sitting down 14 hours away by aeroplane in Sydney Australia didn't even know you guys didn't know Kay but read that book and just wept almost from beginning to end went to my pastor and said we can't not do anything we have to do something so you want to thank God that you are planted in such a great church under such great leaders that are impacting the world it's such a awesome thing it really is and I am I am married to the single most ravishing piece of masculine flesh on planet Earth he's hot but taken and his name is is the Nick and he's the 12th of 13 living children there was no television in that part of Australia and so if we in fact only have two children Alpha and Omega Kathryn Bobby and severe choice and they're ten and six and the delight of our lives and you know in fact we spend a lot of our year and and have moved right here into Orange County so we are kind of resident American aliens now so that's what we are and so my kids pledge allegiance to the American flag and they say awesome and so I just have to cope you know I'm like honor they've crossed over and and so when Pastor Rick about asked me to come it was a great delight we have an office here in in Costa Mesa and I've got a whole lot of my team here with me where are you why don't y'all stand up so a whole bunch of them so this is my team from summer there you can be seated and you can sit down the reason I stand them up is a whole bunch of them are single and so I am trying to marry them off for a small fee they're yours and they'll have my very dear friend Melissa here but she's not single so but she's with me I'm gonna kick right into the word this morning and believe that the Holy Spirit's gonna do something awesome in all of our hearts and lives when I realized that I was going to be the last part of a series on courage to and particularly courage to let go of the past I almost laughed because I thought I spent so many decades of my life bound by my past attached to my past dictated to by my past there it took me a very long time to realize the power in letting go of your past to step up and into the future that Jesus has for each one of us the scripture says in John 10:10 that the enemy comes to steal kill and destroy but jesus said I came that you might have life and life more abundant but it was a lot of years before I stepped into the abundant life and the promise and the purpose of God and the only way ultimately you can do that is if you do exactly what this whole sermon is about and that's having the courage to let go of the past good or bad in order to lay a hold of the future that Jesus has why don't you turn with me this morning to the book of Philippe in Chapter three church on both Greek and a woman so I only speak three ways hard fast and continuously you won't fall asleep this morning and I know you all got like mega excited because you thought awesome Ozzy chick from Hillsong blonde hair she's gonna sing shout to the Lord but um the fact is that if I sing shout to the Lord this morning you will all cry to the Lord so it isn't gonna happen we don't all sing from Hillsong I've been on about 30 albums but I'm in the section with no microphones in the crowd that you see on the DVDs so but I've got 30 albums what have you done with your life okay so in Philippi I love this church already anyway Philippians chapter 3 verse 1 the scripture says finally my brothers rejoice in the Lord it is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again I love Paul and it is the safeguard to you watch out for those dogs those men who do evil those mutilators of the flesh I think he ought to really tell us what he's thinking and then it says in verse 3 for it is we who are the circumcision we who worship by the spirit who glory in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh though I myself have reasons for such confidence if anyone else thinks he has reason to put confidence in the flesh I have more circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews in regard to the law a Pharisee as for zeal persecuting the church as for legalistic righteousness faultless but whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ what is more I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the Fellowship of sharing in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead not that I have already obtained this or have already been made perfect but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it but one thing I do everyone say one thing I do but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward to Christ G great Jesus I love this passage of Scripture essentially Paul begins and he says look there's a whole lot of people that are trying to bring you under bondage under legalism that somehow think you could be made righteous through works and they're nothing more than mutilators and dogs and he says a whole lot of really horrible things about all of these people and he says don't entrust yourself to them because essentially there is nothing you can do to make yourself righteous our righteousness is to be found in Christ and he says in fact if if I was going to do a bit of boasting then I I really could boast because I've done some stuff in my life he ever met those kind of people those people that will tell you they lay out 45 and the last time they ever kicked a football was when they are 18 but they'll tell you about that game where they scored the winning touchdown and although they are now 45 they're living back at when they were 18 and you know he goes on and he starts to unpack a list of all his great accolades and attainments and achievements and things he'd acquired and a lot of us we could do that we could get stuck in some stuff that we have done accolades that we have business successes that we had success in parenting's maybe some academic success or some sporting success so we could have maybe won a gold medal and it's amazing how although that thing might have happened decades ago or years ago we're still talking about it as if it was today but it was in yesterday and we're living still in that moment even though we're here in this present moment papaw goes on he says I've done all this stuff and I actually could really really keep going with a great list of what I've achieved and whatever taint and who I am and my pedigree he goes but you know essentially all that stuff I counted as dung I counted as rubbish it really doesn't matter because I only have one goal and that goal is that I will lay a hold of all of that for which Christ Jesus has laid a hold of me I have not yet attained it it doesn't matter what I've done where I've been and I've done a whole lot of good stuff he gives us that list but he's also done a whole lot of bad stuff he killed a few Christians he's got quite a few mistakes and sins in his past and he says whatever all of that is behind me I'm not going to get caught up in it whether it's the good or the bad because I've still got a greater goal and that goal is that I'm pressing on to lay a hold of the future that Jesus Christ has for me I am not yet who I'm supposed to be I have not yet been totally conformed or transformed to the image of Jesus Christ while I'm still on the earth what I'm still breathing I've got to press on so that I can be transformed to his image there's still so much more in my future I haven't yet attained anything I may have planted churches I may have written 2/3 of the New Testament there might be a whole lot of stuff that I've done but I'm not there yet and a whole lot of us in order to lay a hold of the future that Jesus Christ has for us have to make a decision that we are going to let go of both the good and the bad in our past so that we can keep pressing on one of the greatest subtle attacks of the enemy is to make us complacent with where we are to make us think this is enough and I'm just going to maintain my current comfort I'm going to maintain my current lifestyle and I'm going to stop pressing that word press is to exert a steady force against and I'm gonna exert a steady force against complacency or apathy or indifference or settling I'm gonna keep pressing on at 46 I'm gonna keep pressing on to lay a hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid a hold of me but I can't strain to what is the head until I make a decision to forget what lies behind and that forgetting doesn't mean that I'm pretending that my past didn't happen good or bad it's not amnesia and then a lot of Christians think it might be that especially if you've got pain or you've made a lot of mistakes in your past you kind of think if I could just put it under the blood and forget it and pretend it didn't happen denial is not forgetting your past running away from your past is not forgetting your past pretending that your past didn't happen is not forgetting your past that's what I love that this series is called courage to let go at some point there has to be a conscious decision where I'm going to face my and let go of it to lay a hold of the future that Jesus Christ has for me we were at Cirque de Soleil with my daughters and my husband just a couple of months ago and it was fascinating to me to watch the trip I mean what those people do with their bodies is beyond comprehension but anyway they were like like grabbing letting go of one trapeze and grabbing the up but in order to grab this one they had to let go of this one and so many of us when it comes to our Christian faith are trying to hang on to that and somehow grasp before what's there but at some point we've got to embrace not only that tension but have the courage to let go there and turn around and grab a hold of the future and for so many of us the Lord saying it's time to have the courage to let go of what is back there because you cannot simultaneously hold on to your past and lay a hold of the future you cannot you must let go to lay hold you cannot bring your past into your present and then from that try to step into your future most Christians get stuck in yesterday I love you too wrote a great song called stuck in a moment says you've got to get yourself together you got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it and it is astounding how many people get stuck in some moment of either success or failure or abuse or pain or offense or hurt and that moment happened maybe 10 years ago and although your body is here this morning everything about you is still stuck in that moment back there and the way you respond in the decisions that you make and the worldview that you have is determined by some moment in your past and if you get a lay a hold of the future you've got to learn to forget that and to let go of that to lay a hold of the promises of God in his word for your future you know I am I had to do that in a big way in my own life you can't move forward if you're living in your present or in living in this present moment filled with your past I I grew up in Sydney Australia and a second-generation migrant Greek and so I grew up in a country pre multiculturalism and before My Big Fat Greek Wedding has anyone seen my Big Fat Greek Wedding in here K so that's my big fat Greek life and so I did not speak English I didn't speak English until I was five years old I grew up in a very staunch Greek Orthodox culture very very Greek and so I was very marginalized in Australia because of my ethnicity when I was growing up in the 70s and early 80s but predominately in the 70s there was no multicultural policy in Australia and there was a lot of antagonism towards migrants particularly from from Italy and Greece which there was a large migration from those countries into Australia so my brothers were frequently beaten at school I was called every name you could ever think of all of them with four letters none of them were loved and so every day like very very frequently and we would have to put bars on the windows of our house and and would have graffiti very much marginalised for nothing more than my ethnicity so I know what that's like I know what it's like not to be spoken to and to be mocked and ridiculed and literally spat on and beaten just because you're from another country I grew up in a culture that in no way esteemed women in any way in fact for a Greek Orthodox mother you know her gall for my life is that I would marry at 18 have children at 19 and great-grandchildren at 20 and and I I'd tell people I'm a Greek Orthodox mother's nightmare I didn't marry until I was 30 I didn't have my first child until I was 35 and I spent my life teaching in churches I my mother's like what did I do live wrong in my life and so it's like this is like what would happen and so I very much could have maybe not stepped into the promise of God for my life because of my gender I grew up in the poorest local government area in New South Wales the state in which I grew up in the third poorest local government area in all of Australia and in a government what we call in Australia a Housing Commission house where the government assists you in a very very rundown part of Sydney and I went to the school that rated in the lowest 10% percentile for any academic achievement in fact we rated really high on teenage pregnancies substance abuse of a few of those things gang violence but really low on anything academic and so there's a whole list whether it's my gender my ethnicity my socio-economic background my education background that I could have used as limiting factors in my past as excuses to not step into the future that jesus promised me and then pretty much every week of my life more often than not several times a week for as long as I have any memory or recollection I was sexually abused by four men for 12 years and that messes with you and when it starts as young as it did it messes with every part of you I never went from one stage of development in my life to the other in any healthy way and there was a lot of damage done from when I was a very very young girl I was a young woman that was so full of unforgiveness I was I was so angry I was so full of bitterness I was so full of shame I was so full of guilt and I was so full of condemnation and the reason why it gets so quiet in a room this size is because you don't need to be a prophet to work out there were several thousand people inevitably there are many many of you that in some way shape or form whether it's sexual or physical or emotional or spiritual understand exactly what it is to have encountered that kind of trauma in that kind of pain the word abuse the oxford dictionary says is to use an object for a purpose for which it was never designed and for 12 years I was used for a purpose for which God never designed me to be used so I was messed up my soul was damaged and extremely wounded my mind was so so messed up I was so far away from having any God thoughts about myself and I believed the lies of the enemy that I was nothing that I would become nothing that I was just some dumb stupid ethnic girl and the only thing that was worth happening to someone like me was being abused because that's what you do with someone that has no value and that is worthless so many of us can sell out to the lives of the enemy I I tell people you know I I fit almost every government funding category in Australia I was like a marginalized oppressed dispossessed poor ethnic minority abused adopted cheap like I was just like everything I could have made a fortune on government funding because what they do is they fund people like me they give me a label and they say victim and we'll pay you every week and remind Jew what you were or what you are and we'll keep you in that box and then when I was two weeks before my 33rd birthday which was 13 years ago and just last week I I turned 46 do I look it right answer I'm still taking presents this week in case you're wondering so feel free so about this time thirteen years ago I got a phone call from my brother George George was 35 at the time I was two weeks out from my 33rd birthday when you Greek or your brothers are like George or Niko or Spiro or Khan and so George Korres fetuses Christina I got a letter from the government department and it says that I've been adopted now when he said that to me I laughed Church because you know when you're growing up you never think you're related to your siblings and you always say to them you know your mother's from Mars you're adopted you're not really my brother you know I spent my whole life saying that but he goes you know I said George obviously and the department that said this document to him is called the Department of Community Services and so he goes Chris doctor sent me this document called Docs and tell them what's happened they've obviously sent this letter to the wrong person and I said then call me backs and I was sitting at a table eating my Indian vindaloo I'll never forget it when my phone called rang again and George was sobbing and he said Chris it's true they told me the name of my biological mother they told me the name of my biological father when I went to school where I was immunized they have an entire file on my life church I was gobsmacked and my father had died when I was 19 and my mom at this point when that phone call happened was 61 and I don't know if you know anything about Greeks but they are extremely volatile so they act first and think later and I'm thinking this thing is going to explode so I jump in my car I raced home to my mother's house I walk into the lounge room at the moment that my brother is giving my mum this piece of paper from the government and I see this moment of hesitation in my mother's face and then my mum starts crying and she said George I am so sorry all of the adoptions in Australia in the sixties they were closed adopt and we never thought you would find out and when your father died just before he died one of the last things that I promised him was that I would never tell you and so I tore up all of the paperwork and I threw it away and I never thought you would find out and I'm in church it was a moment and my mum's like sobbing my brother's crying the dogs crying snots flying you know like I mean it was a it was a big fat Greek moment it was like a moment I didn't know what to do I'm watching this unfold I'm thinking I'm watching an episode of Days of Our Lives I mean it was like unbelievable and so being a good Greek daughter I'm just gonna like I'm gonna go into the kitchen I'm gonna go get some baklava make some coffee food food is the answer to everything when you're Greek so I'm in the kitchen my mother walks in and she says to me in Greek Chris dinner since we're telling the truth you're a very quick church since we're telling the truth do you want to know the whole truth I froze I turned around I don't know why I said this initial went I've been adopted too and we tears streaming down her face my mum just started nodding her head and I was stunned I mean I didn't say anything for a few minutes which in and of itself was a miracle greater than the resurrection of Jesus but anyway so I didn't say anything and then in the next breath the first thing that I said I went and we're still Greek and that was because I was called a lot of names at school for a lot of years and I wanted to know there was a reason for all of that mocking and taunting and so I mean am I still Greek and then the very next thing that came out of my mouth right there in my Greek Orthodox mother's kitchen I went oh well mum before I was formed in my mother's womb who's ever woman that was he knew me he knitted together my innermost parts he fashioned all of my days before as yet there was one of them I'm fearfully and wonderfully made my mother looked at me like I've been smoking crack and so I was just kind of like it would just came out of my spirit the word that I had put in John says if you abide in my word then you will know the truth and then the truth will make you free if you're not in his words you won't know the truth so you can't be free so when the enemy came to say Christine you were adopted and to try to shock me into some kind of downward spiral the way you combat him in that moment is with the truth of God's Word because although I was shocked in that moment God wasn't it's not that God was in heaven in his struggle oh my god no I am God what am I gonna do Peter did you know she was adopted Wow quick someone get the files I mean really this is God he was not shocked from before the foundations of the earth he knew that was going to happen and so that moment and I guess really in many ways in that moment everything every fact that I thought to be true about my life changed no doubt about it my background my heritage where I was born who I was born to who my parents were what my early documents of my life all that had changed and to this morning I don't know the facts surrounding my conception although I've tried to find out I have no idea I don't know if I was the result of an ongoing adulterous affair I don't know if I was the result of a one-night stand I don't even know if I was the result of a rape but although I do not know the facts I have discovered that there is a force on the planet much higher than the facts and it's called the truth of the word of God and Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 does not say that I am the workmanship of a rape it does not say that I am the workmanship of an adulterous affair it says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do you and I are not a product of time we're a product of eternity God has plucked us out of eternity he has positioned us in time and he has given us gifts and talents for the purpose of serving our generation now the enemy sent an assignment to still kill and destroy my life when I was still in my mother's womb when that did not work he sent another assignment into my bedroom to try to still kill him destroy my life when I was three years old continued that for over a decade but the whole purpose of the cross of Jesus Christ is to give us a life beyond all of that not to get stuck in that past I can't change that but God said to Jesus would you go from heaven to earth would you die on a cross and shed your blood and rise again from the dead so that Christine and all of humanity could have not only forgiveness with our past but a brand-new life and a hope for the future the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross is what sets us free to have the courage to let go of our past and lay a hold of the future our past does not need to define our future if we allow the work of the cross to take effect in our lives if we do that so about a year after that I wrote to the government to get my documents and it was a very unnerving feeling to say the least to get your documents when you thought you had your documents for over three decades of your life and so the first thing they sent me was my birth certificate now I was in my kitchen I opened the envelopes and I pulled out my birth certificate and possibly out of this whole situation that happened in my life this moment would have been a defining moment that could have even made me stuck in my past forever or allowed me to be catapulted into the future that Jesus Christ had for me so when I opened it and you'll see that it's some the Department of Community Services under the adoption Information Act released these documents to me and so this is particulars of child prior to adoption so if you give me the up close one you'll see the little box here and when I saw that and I looked in the box that says child's name and it had that word typed in there unnamed I cannot begin to tell you in that moment what it was like when I saw that word unnamed who writes unnamed on a birth certificate and the enemy began to play in my mind see Christine your mother didn't want you see Christine she didn't even give you a name see Christine you're just a number to 508 no wonder you're abused Christine because that's what you do to numbers that's all you do to statistics you're just an unnamed number that's all you know that tape recorder that begins in all of our minds to try to unravel us we all incidentally have the power to press the off button the stop button on that tape recorder to silence the lives of the enemy but I remember looking at that and - 508 of 1966 you know I along with many others on the earth room involved in helping to rescue the victims of human trafficking and when we talk about things like slavery we talk about 27 million slaves we talk about forty thousand children a day dying of preventable diseases we shoot off numbers to do with hiv/aids millions that don't have access to clean water and it's easy as the church to just think numbers numbers numbers millions 27 million twenty million forty thousand one hundred that year year that's the stats it is easy to ignore suffering when it remains nameless and faceless numbers are numbing numbers of dehumanizing numbers are desensitizing but the minute you put a face in a name to a number it changes everything so to 508 is not just a number it's me so once you connect that to Christine Kane it's no longer just a number but you know those are the numbers the 27 million slaves the 40,000 children the millions that don't have access to water they're people too created in the image of God filled with god-given destiny filled with god-given purpose and while we continue to get on with our lives and just kind of pretend as almost not happening God's saying I'm searching to and fro across the earth wondering is anybody gonna pay attention to these people created in my image and isn't just going to put them in a category of a statistic are we gonna care about them and make a difference and thank God someone did for me because I was too 508 of 1966 but the thing that was going for me was I was born in Australia where there was a rule of law and it was very difficult for a kid like me to be trafficked but in the countries of the world that I work in that number and that kid in Orphanage would have highly likely being trafficked so just cuz I happened to be born in the right place I wasn't so it's all very close to home to me it's never just a number or a statistic and then I got another document which is from the Royal Hospital for women it was the social worker assessment that was done on my biological mother two weeks before I was born and you'll see that there it is the Royal Hospital for women and I've just taken one excerpt out of this there's so much more that I could take out but for the sake of time this one sentence 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 so when I read that what I read was unwanted so now I'm holding a black and white ink on paper my birth certificate it says unnamed and then I'm holding another black and white ink on paper from the medical profession and it says unwanted and it astounds me in the body of Christ how much we allow these documents to define our life I don't know some teacher might have said over your life you're dumb you're stupid you'll never amount to anything you couldn't do that you're not smart enough for that you know gifted enough for that you're not talented enough for that some parent might have said I wish you were never born some person might have abused you violated you betrayed you hurt you some ex-lovers some expose walked away from you and said you are worth nothing and we allow that to define us and we don't let go of that we carry that into our present and it determines our future because we don't let go of that stuff and we limit the work of God in our lives because we limit God to the facts but God can't you see the facts look what the government said it's got to be true look what the the medical profession said it's terminal it's incurable it's over it's got to be true and we limit our supernatural God where his word tells us that what is impossible with man is possible with God we've got nothing is impossible all things are possible with God but we limit him and confine him to our time and space continuum and say this is what you can work and this is what the evidence is in my past this is all I am capable of this is all I can do this is what they said about this is what was done to me and we put God in that box and we say this is all you're allowed to work and we don't dream that God dreamed for our future because of our past and then on the 28th of March in 1993 at the time I was running a community-based youth center it was the outreach arm of our youth ministry in church in Australia which had become one of the most influential and possibly largest youth centres in the nation I was just traveling across our nation working with at-risk youth and and we had some very innovative programs through all of our high schools in the nation and many the biggest and probably most prestigious socialworks school in our nation a whole lot of those students were wanting to come into their fourth year placement at our youth center but the challenge was first and foremost for this academic institution that we were a faith-based youth center and that they didn't feel that I was qualified to supervise the students because my degree is in English and economic history so basically I can count to ten and read golden books and so what they were thinking was she is not qualified enough to supervise fourth year social work welfare work a psych students so they called me in and I went and sat with the Dean of the board and about six members of the board while they patronized me for an hour and a half essentially even though I had all the results that they wanted that in like the methodology to get the results so then they wanted to pick on my lack of qualifications so they sent me this document and I loved it in my life because I have all these documents just to prove that how dumb I was so here it is right here so this is from this University dated the 28th of March 1993 so we're now in 2012 we're almost twenty years on from this day but twenty years ago this is what the experts said about me the head of the School of Social Work the professor that was over all of this she says many things which would humor you if I read them all but she ends this whole deal with if your career ambition is to remain in the era of you services for the longer term you can put that other one back up there Thanks I would strongly urge you to take time out to study for a basic Social Work welfare work or other relevant qualifications I I have to read you the next part which you can barely see but it says the comments I have made may be difficult for you to digest but they reflect my honest assessment of the most appropriate way forward for you I see you as a young woman with enormous innate potential but you will limit your innate potential if you do not get further qualifications basically unqualified and so I was like laughing because today 20 years later by the grace of God I ran and I have a whole staff here just in America but one of the largest center human-trafficking initiatives in the world that got one of the highest awards you could ever get for helping the fight against human trafficking but the experts told me that I wasn't qualified they told me that you can't do this 20 years ago they said you can't do this so here I have it three documents which most of us define our future by what was said in our past all whether we even have documents that say we've got a PhD or we're the smartest will wear this or wear that bottom line black and white ink on paper there it is the government says unnamed the education diploma in the medical profession says unwanted the Education Department says unqualified I'm not in denial black and white ink on paper there it is and most of us limit our future potential based on the stuff that was said about us in our past but you know what Church I found myself another black and white ink on paper I found another black and white ink on paper and this is the truth of the word of God that document said unnamed but Isaiah 49 verse 1 says from the womb of your mother I have named your name that document says unwanted but Psalm 139 says sweetheart before you ever got in that womb I wanted you I knew you I needed to gather your innermost parts that document says unqualified but the Word of God says that he whom he calls he qualifies if we build our life on the truth we will lay a hold of the future that Jesus Christ has for every single one of us all of us will do that church forgetting this one thing I do forgetting those things that lay behind eyestrain but you better know what your foundation of straining is towards you better know what he says about you you better know what he says you can do who you are in him because I had to fight the lies of the enemy about who I was and what I could do because God had these good works that he prepared for me in eternity to be outworked in time and the enemy Center assignment to still kill and destroy that and so many of us don't step into the fullness of what God has because we think look at the mistakes I've made or look at the things that happened to me I could have done this but there comes a point you've got to let go and stop blaming and stop minimizing the potential of the power of God to set you free to step into your future I guarantee you the enemy regrets the day he ever touched me the Bible says in Romans 8:28 that God works together for good all things does it mean all things were good no but to God take all the broken pieces of my life and work them together for good absolutely and now my past is giving other people a future and I feel like Joseph in Genesis 50:20 where he turned around to his brothers and he said you intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done the saving of many lives God rescued me and now I along with a whole team around the world are helping to rescue others bet you every day in hell the devil wakes up and says why didn't we leave her alone cuz I will spend the rest of my life making him pay for what he did making him pay for what he did I'm telling you but you've got to have the courage to let go to lay a hold to walk in freedom but most of us are so scared of embracing the pain of recovery that we would rather live in the past with the pain of the injury but until you're willing to say god I'm willing to embrace that pain because I want to step into the future that you have for me I wish I could tell you it was easy I wish I could tell you I went out on an altar call someone laid hands on me and I was healed but it has been a process a process of having the courage day by day to let go to press on to let go to press on you know my husband and I were and our family was skiing a couple of years ago with five other American families it was during the Vancouver Olympics and you know all the Americans were just so patriotic and so I would watch the Olympics at night get myself pumped up I'd get off the chairlift in the day and think I'm representing Australia I'm here and the fact that I couldn't ski was incidental and so this one day Nick and all the boys had gone on this double black diamond suicide run you know and I'm on my little green slope enjoying myself and so Nick was with me and at one point I thought I did something really cool and I turn around I go babe if you were with the boys right now you would not be skiing any quicker would you and if you're married in this room and you kind of intend to stay marriage if your wife ever asks you a loaded question like that the right answer is always sweetheart I wouldn't be doing anything quicker or better with anybody else the pinnacle of my ski existence is on this green flat slope with you and if you're kind of wanting any action that night that's exactly what you'd answer and so apparently all do that here too in Southern California and so um and so Nick goes could my husband's a man of integrity goes here baby if I was with the boys I'd be skating quicker and you don't know my personality type that's like a red rag in front of a ball so famous last words I look over my shoulder I went well sweetheart eat my snow and I went down in about 20 seconds later I knew I was in serious trouble on my second somersault that was not intentional and as I was facing the sky in my right knee I heard the loudest pop pop pop and I snapped my ACL tore my MCL tore my meniscus fractured my knee I did the whole lot I couldn't move I'm lying there there you know they brought the Ski Patrol they put you in the coffin take you down the mountain and everyone's like who's that nerd it was me and you know for 40 years as I left my mother's house all the time she would say to me it's a Greek thing she would say Christina are you wearing good clean underwear anyone else's mother asked you if there and I get mom why and she's this Christina because if you have an accident and you end up in the back of an ambulance you want to make sure you having good underwear does anyone else's mother so like I and so and I would always answer mum if I have the kind of accident where I end up in the back of an ambulance the last thing I will ever think about is the condition of my way all I want to say to y'all is our 46 years old and I have lived long enough to yet again out of those words my mother was right anyway so I'm in there I ended up having a hamstring graft and I remember when the surgeon came back in and my PT and he said Christine the rate of your recovery is totally dependent on you the degree to which your knee will return back to normal and in fact be stronger than ever is totally up to you the degree to which you are willing to embrace the pain is the degree to which you will recover but Christine you have to understand this I'll never forget this as long as I live the pain of recovery is going to be far greater than the pain of the injury that pain was like that but the recovery is going to be a process but if you embrace that pain you will come out stronger on the other side and for most of us that like to avoid pain minimize pain and Nesta ties the pain of do anything but embrace the pain we often don't walk in the fullness of our healing to have the strength to step into the future because we would just rather live as victims and crippled by the injury that was done to us in our past I was very damaged in my past and it was very painful what happened but the years of engaging and wrestling with God to get my healing really were much harder than that but the fruit of that is unbelievable I came that you might have life and life more abundant that's where I'm living now I live too many years in fear and doubt and negativity and shame and guilt and pain I live too many years where my past totally dictated my present and never allowed me to walk into the future that Jesus had for me in church we've got to make this decision because it's bigger than us it's not just about us it's about the generations that are to come after us both as the church and even in our own natural families we have to embrace the pain of recovery to step into the future so that we can build a strong foundation for the generations that are to come you know I was speaking at a conference in bed worth in England and it's very close to a place called stratford-upon-avon and because I'm an English major I studied years of Shakespeare and so I was so excited to be so close to this place that I thought I'm gonna go and visit Willie so I went to Willie's house but Willie wasn't home and so I was so into it I've got a nerdy side that you know isn't apparent but it's there and so across the road there was a um a genealogy shop and I was so pumped because Nick is English he's got a British passport and so I was so excited because it was when Charlie was gonna marry Camille and so I thought also Charles sorry for you Prince Charles Charlie for us aziz and so Charlie was going to marry Camille and I was so excited because I'm like I bet you Nik is related to royalty and he's never told me I bet you we've got estates in England and he's the Lord or a baron or a knight and this is going to be fantastic and and maybe I could get an invitation to the wedding if I can prove that I'm related so I'm going into this genealogy shop and I'm going for it anyway I'm expecting Baron Lord night I put in the name Cain no joke out the computer spits this piece of paper and this is what it's got all these names and then it says convict criminal rapist murderer the thief hilarious I'm walking down going wow what a good bloodline I married good stock didn't I my poor kids and then I was thinking of all of that all of the crime all the vile and then I thought oh well what about my one over here we've got abuse and we've got immorality and we've got fornication and we've got addiction and we've got iniquity and I'm going Wow then I started to smile cuz I thought imagine my kids when they get this they're going to be walking around and there's nothing you can do to change the past nothing you can't pretend it didn't happen you can't deny it didn't happen but you can do everything to change the future if you have the courage to let go of your past so my kids are going to have that family tree nothing will change up here convicts and criminals and rapists and murderers and and and thieves and abuse and immorality and iniquity and addictions and bondage but then all of a sudden they're going to read 30th of March 1996 nicholas joseph cain marries holy ghost terrorists Christine Caine and then everything is going to change because before that we can't do anything to change it but because Nik and I decided to draw a blood line in the sand and we said you know what with us addiction stopped with us adultery stops with us fornication stops with us abuse stops with us negativity and fear and down and Sieber it stops with us we are drawing a blood line in the sand and the generations henceforth shall be called blessed and every single day since my daughter's have been born I've spoken over their life Katherine Barbie Sofia Joyce you're 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 you are gonna grow up and marry a very very very wealthy Christian man I just wanted to put that in all I could say to all of us is no we cannot change the past we cannot change what happened to us we cannot even change the mistakes we may have done of our own volition the sins we've committed but we can make decisions today to deal with yesterday so that we can walk into the fullness of the promise of tomorrow that Jesus Christ died and rose again to give each and every one of us we have a future beyond our past in Jesus name in Jesus name in Jesus name Church let me pray for you father I thank you I thank you for this awesome house I thank you for everyone under the sound of my voice this morning and I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that each person Lord would be set free it's for freedom the Christ set us free would be set free from the bondage and the chains and the shackles of their past they would have the courage and the strength you said to Joshua only be strong and very courageous they would have the strength and the courage to do what's needed to do to let go of the past and step into the promise of the abundant Purpose Driven passionate five that you died and rose again to give each and every one of us in Jesus name Amen and amen and amen god bless you Saddleback thanks very much thank you very much awesome

Channel: Saddleback Church Berlin

Views: 698,905

Rating: 4.8544579 out of 5

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Id: NkNLGASZM7k

Length: 47min 55sec (2875 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 25 2014