Christine Caine

I'm really excited today to be able to introduce our special speaker to you.

Many of you ladies will know Christine Kane from the Pink Conferences, which she'll be with us this next week.

A lot of you men have never gotten to meet her.

Her and her husband Nick are on the leadership team there at Hillsong in Sydney, Australia.

And I have to tell you that about three years ago, my wife and my daughter, I'm kind of choked up today for some reason.

They came home from a uh pink conference, and uh and uh my wife said, You're just not gonna believe the anointing on this lady and the message of liberty and freedom.

And I could see it in the face of my wife that something had gone on inside of her spirit.

And uh I I admit uh Kevin's one of the elders here today.

I admit I snuck in the pink conference.

I'm so sorry.

I stood in the back, but I was just so drawn by the liberty and the freedom.

Uh, and actually, we jumped in a car and drove all the way to Oklahoma City just to get more.

And so we're excited that she's gonna be with us here today.

Another one of the projects that she works on, something called the A21 project.

We're gonna show you a brief video concerning that, and then Christine will come and speak to us.

Human trafficking is underwise.

It astounds me that not only does human trafficking exist on the earth today, but that there are actually more slaves than they've ever been before in the history of humanity.

It's almost incomprehensible when you think about it.

Often when you hear a statistic, it can just seem like a number, not a person.

I've heard it said that a million is just a statistic until you meet the one.

Well, for me, I meant that one earlier.

And all of a sudden, human trafficking was no longer an impersonal statistic.

It became a person.

It had a face, it had a name.

Most importantly, it suddenly had a voice.

I grew up in a small town in Bulgaria.

When I was 16, my father got you starved.

Our family was struggling.

We were starving.

So I had to look for work.

That is when I met Amelia.

She told me her cousin owned a hair salon in Greece.

And that she would get me a job there.

It was my dream to become a hairdresser.

Amelia arranged everything.

I said goodbye to my family and boarded the plane to Greece.

When I arrived in Greece, Amelia's cousin beat me up from the airport.

He brought me into an apartment.

That is when the night began.

He closed the door to the apartment and then he turned around.

He told me he did not own a hair salon.

He owned a brother.

But he had a job for me.

I was cute.

He kicked me.

He told me that he knew where my family is.

And if I told anyone, if I do not want for you, if I tried to escape, you wouldn't kill my family.

I cannot believe what people will do to one another just for money.

Today, the reality is that Lily is one of 27 million people trapped in slavery.

Her life is not her own.

As a sex slave, she is forced to toil in the shadows.

She's hidden in plain sight.

Day and night, her frantic pleas for help often go unheard.

She's the long lonely cry in the darkness that echoes across the earth 27 million times.

Lilia could be your sister, your friend, or perhaps even your daughter.

Because of the A21 campaign, girls like Lilia have truly found freedom, hope, and restoration.

The truth is, there are millions more crying out.

I'm asking, will you listen to their cry?

And together, we can all be her freedom.

Good morning, church.

How are you doing?

Thank you.

You could be seated.

I know what a way to be introduced after that video.

But you know, I want you to be excited, not distressed.

I I thank God for Gateway because right from the beginning, when we started the A21 campaign, Gateway was one of the very first churches that got on board and helped us and helped us kickstart this program.

And because of that, you know, in the part of the world in Eastern Europe where people said it is very, very hard to rescue the victims of human trafficking, there have been literally, just in the last 14 months, dozens and dozens of girls that have been helped and saved and restored, and it's just the start.

And we don't have to live in despondency.

It just takes a little bit of light to illuminate the darkness and bring life and hope and liberty.

So thank you, Gateway, for making that possible, which is awesome.

And um, for those of you that don't know me, which would be uh a lot of you, um, my name's Chris Kane, as you know, and I'm part of the leadership team at Sydney's Hillsong Church.

And um, anyone heard of Hillsong Church here?

I know you're all probably really excited thinking I'm gonna burst forth into shout to the Lord, but if I was to shout to the Lord this morning, you would all cry to the Lord, so it's not gonna happen.

That's why we have Carrie and we vote for you.

And um, but I could join the worship team I decided today.

They didn't even tell me.

I'm in black, and it's been like a dream to come true that I would sing, but it's not gonna happen.

I'm never gonna get a dub award.

So um, and I'm here with the single most ravishing piece of masculine flesh on planet Earth.

So, Nick, if you want to stand up, this is my husband, Nick.

And um, we have two little girls, my little Catherine Bobby, and my Sophia Joyce, and they're in your kids program.

It's so good they were there last night, got up early, ready to go again today.

So we are honored to be here.

We love Pastor Robert and Debbie, and and your church is an amazing church.

And um, you know, I'm live all the way in Sydney, Australia, but definitely we know of Gateway, we know of your worship, and just the great blessing that this house is.

Your pastor's actually coming to our church next month um to teach on the blessed life.

And I think it's pretty awesome.

You know what?

We you think y'all are from down south, y'all, and um, but we're south other than y'all, and so I love how God just connects and and kind of combines us all, and we're just one.

There's one big kingdom, and God's doing his thing on the earth, and right up here in Dallas, Texas, and down there in Sydney, Australia, and together we're gonna checkmate the devil and make a difference for the kingdom of God on the earth.

I think it's pretty awesome.

And um, for those of you that don't know, I'm here for the pink conference.

If you were having a shower this morning and remembered and discovered that you're a woman, would you put your hand up?

If you're not sure, we have prayer counselors outside.

But for those of you that are sure on a Sunday morning, you don't want to miss the conference.

I don't know if you've um registered.

If you have not registered yet, you want to get to conference one.

I'm telling you, it's gonna be absolutely phenomenal.

I'm gonna be very well behaved because it's Sunday morning, but I won't be Monday.

And so you need to um to come.

It'll be a lot of fun.

And it's a miracle that I'm here, really.

I rang Pastor Debbie three weeks ago, and um six weeks ago, my husband and I and our family were skiing in um a place called Vale in Colorado, and you know, have you ever heard the proverb that um pride comes before a fall?

Okay, so we're going down the mountain, and I turned around to my husband Nick and I said, Honey, if you were not with me, would you be skiing any quicker?

To which he said, You know what, honey, um that's not that easy for me to pick up, I'll tell you why in a minute.

I said, I said, you know what, honey?

He goes, Oh, thank you.

How nice are you?

I'm gonna vote for you just for that.

Okay, so and um and I said, Would you be going any quicker?

And he said to me, you know, yeah, I'd be going a little bit quicker if I was with the boys.

And so that's like putting a red rag in front of a bull of this personality type.

So I turned around, I went, Really?

Well, then eat my snow.

And off I went, and I turned round, and let's just say that I ate my own snow that day, and that the um rescue team had to come and take me down the mountain, and I snapped my ACL, tore my MCL, my meniscus, and fractured my knee.

And I know it's pretty impressive.

All the boys impressed.

Not only that, two and a half weeks ago, so 17 days ago, I went in and had a full knee reconstruction, and um and I rang Debbie and I said, I've got to go and have my knee done.

And I knew we had the conference and we had church this weekend.

She goes, Well, you know what?

You rang the right place.

We're a praying church.

And I said, if anyone is gonna pray me through, it's gonna be gateway.

The surgeon thought I was on something, thinking that I would even get on a plane, fly 25 hours, and get here and preach all week, meaning yesterday, today, and every day this week.

And um, I said, No, I'm gonna do it because you know what?

What is impossible with man is possible with God.

And 17 days later, here I am, standing here after a full near reconstruction.

I'm telling you, Jesus is a healer, he heals today, and I'm not gonna do any running, but I am standing and um and we'll bring the word.

So I'm I'm pumped.

I was twittering to everyone.

I'm so excited to be here.

So anyway, God's miraculous.

Let's get straight to the words.

Some of you might get um a little bit nervous if I keep talking.

So let's go to the book of Joshua, chapter five this morning.

I love the word of God.

And um have we got our NRH campus here as well this morning?

Yes, I love you all.

I said last night that this is um like God, you're just like omnipresent.

Gateway is everywhere.

So good morning.

I'm so pumped you're here.

It's fantastic.

You know, I was here a couple of months ago and met with some of the ladies' team and looked across at the new church building that's going up.

And um, as I was thinking about the miracle journey that is the gateway journey, I was thinking, this is just the beginning, all that has happened, and as miraculous as it is, it's just a foundation for what God has for this house and the influence and the impact of this house.

And I looked at the building and I thought, here you are as a church, just on the edge, on the edge of so much more, on the edge of the future and the promise that God has for your life.

And the interesting thing is the word of God is full of the promise of God in every sphere of life emotionally, physically, financially, relationally, spiritually.

It's full of promise.

Yet so many Christians and so many churches live so far beneath the promise that God has for his life, for our lives.

I mean, and the reason is because we're kind of waiting for God to just drop some things out of the sky that he really wants us to go in and possess.

In the book of Deuteronomy, 45 times, the Lord uses the phrase, go in and possess.

Go in and possess that you might inherit the promise that I have for you in Deuteronomy chapter 2, verse 31.

Deuteronomy 2:31

Yet so many of us don't possess the promises of God.

We kind of just think it's all gonna just happen.

And in Joshua chapter 5, we're at a pivotal time in Israel's history, and the children of Israel, they had been set free after 430 years of slavery and captivity in Egypt.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

They were set free, and a whole generation had died in the wilderness.

You know the story.

Forty years they'd been doing laps around Mount Sinai and they'd forgotten why they were free.

They've forgotten that they weren't set free just to kind of wander in the wilderness.

And many of us this morning have been saved and delivered by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we've been saved, the Bible says, and called in Ephesians.

God has a purpose for our life.

We're not just saved to do nice little Christian lifestyle.

We've been saved and called to possess the promises of God, to bring light into the midst of a dark world, to bring hope and life and liberty and mercy and justice and truth to a world that desperately needs answers and hope.

And as a church, here we are this morning, and we're building a new building and making room for what God wants to do.

And we're right on the edge, but we can't just presume it's all gonna happen.

I am part of a church family, I've been part of Hillsong for 21 years.

I went when we were just a few hundred people in the back of a warehouse before any of you knew Hillsong or Hillsong music.

It didn't just kind of happen.

We didn't just sit back and say, okay, God, well, you know, whatever.

Twenty odd years later, nearly 28 years later, there's been a journey of possessing the promises of God along the way.

And yet, despite all that has happened, the best is yet ahead because with God, the best is never behind you, it's always ahead of you.

There is a greater place for your marriage, there are greater places for your relationships and your friendships, there's more territory for us to take as a church.

And right here in Joshua chapter 5, the children of Israel were on the edge of the promised land.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

A whole generation had died.

God had risen up another generation, I believe on the earth today, we are that generation.

That God has risen up and said, Okay, you're gonna go in and possess the promise.

You're actually gonna do what this whole deal's about.

But there were certain things that the children of Israel still had to do before they would possess the promise.

And if they didn't, then this generation would have died, and God would have had to raise up another generation to go in and do what he called them to do.

So if you want to possess the promises of God as a church in your own life, in your marriage, in your single life, in your job, in your destiny, then there are certain things we need to do.

I'm gonna give you hopefully five or six of those this morning.

If that happens, it'll be a miracle greater than the resurrection of Jesus.

But we'll get through at least one, it'll be okay.

Do you all understand my accent?

Like I'm not the one with the accent.

This is the Queen's English.

You understand that because let me just give you a lesson for a moment.

Just like everyone say, This is how an Australian, how the Queen says awesome.

After three, it's awesome.

One, two, three.

See how distinguished that sounds?

It's just awesome.

Now, after three, say it like an American.

One, two, three.

Okay.

Just saying, just saying.

Awesome.

Okay, that's great.

We are relocating um to North America in July.

One, it'll be our base.

We have a Sydney base and a North American base.

And I said to my girls, I just don't want you coming home from school, going, Mom, that's awesome.

Okay, anyway.

Joshua chapter 5, verse 1.

Joshua 5:1

If you're taking notes, the first thing we need to do is to make sure that we cut away certain things if we want to lay a hold of the promises of God.

The Bible says, So it was when all the kings of the Amorites were on the west side of the Jordan and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel.

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.

I want you to underline that.

So Joshua made flint knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins.

I'm glad I'm a woman.

And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them.

All the people who had come out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the way after they'd come out of Egypt.

For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

So what's the Lord saying?

He says that a whole generation came out of bondage, a generation came out of captivity, and that generation had had their own cutting away, that had their own circumcision, they had paid their own price.

And now he's saying for this generation to go in and possess the promise, he says, circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.

He's saying this generation cannot go in and possess the promises of God based on the price that was paid by the generation before them.

They've got to pay their own price.

In order to go in and lay a hold of the promises of God in any sphere of life, we can't just ride the coattails of those that have gone before us.

Just because your parents were Christians doesn't mean you can just ride on that.

Just because somebody paid a price, somebody paid a price for me to be standing here today for this awesome worship that comes out of this house, for the seat that you're sitting on, for this wonderful facility, for the lights, for the sound.

It didn't just happen, it didn't just fall out of the sky.

Somebody paid a price.

But the Lord says if you're gonna lay a hold of the next phase of what God has for you as a church, then it takes all of us to pay continually our own price and to circumcise our hearts and our lives again the second time and to lay a hold of what God has.

The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way in Hebrews chapter 12, he says, Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us, not God, let us, lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us so that we can run unhindered the race that is set before us.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

The fact that the writer to the Hebrews says weights and sin suggests to me there's a difference between await and sin.

And maybe in some areas you haven't pressed into the promise that God has.

And it might not be a sin that's holding you back, it could be await.

You go, well, Chris, what do you mean await?

Well, await could be the people that you're hanging out with.

Good Christian people.

Maybe even led you to the Lord, heaven-bound, no doubt.

But the truth is you get into a faith environment like this, you take 20 steps forward, and then suddenly you get around these people and you've just taken another five steps back.

You don't have to be that committed, you don't have to be full that full on, you don't have to give that much, you don't have to serve that much.

I mean, that's a little bit over the top, Christine.

Having knee surgery and like going, you know, what that's a little bit over the top.

That's a bit irresponsible.

You don't need to do that.

Because you've got to make a decision.

There are certain voices you've got to silence in order to lay a hold of the promise of God.

There are certain people you need to lay aside to love.

But if you're honest, you're marching to a different drumbeat to them.

And if you've got to keep making them understand what and how and why you're doing what you're doing, when you're pursuing passionately the purposes of God, maybe it's time to lay that aside.

Maybe you're getting all of your counsel from unsafe family and friends.

And it's great to have those people in our lives, no doubt, but not to get all of our counsel for our destiny and our purpose and our God decisions.

If I listened to all of mine, uh there'd be no way I would be doing what I'm doing today.

I come from a very staunch Greek Orthodox background.

Anyone here's seen my Big Fat Greek wedding?

That's my big fat Greek life.

Okay, so and and you know, I I come from that kind of background.

It's like my mother still doesn't understand, you know, like Christina.

Everywhere you go, you talk about God.

God, God, God, God.

Christina, even God gets sick of God sometimes.

Anyway, that's my mom.

No understanding.

So if I listen to those voices, I would never be doing all that God has called us to do.

So we've got to lay some things aside.

Maybe it's a level of giving, and you've been giving at this level, and it's good, it's not sinful.

But the truth is, your next level of breakthrough is to begin to give at this level.

So now if you keep giving at this level, this has become a weight, an anger.

It's holding you back.

Maybe it's a level of serving you've been serving at this level, and it's good, it's brought us this far as a church.

But you know, when I first started going to our church, we had a morning service and a night service, and now we have 32 services around the city and a global influence and global churches.

Well, we can't have the same level of commitment we had back then in order to possess the promises that God has for us right now.

And that commitment has become a weight or an anchor to the purposes of God at this level.

It could be a level of thinking.

And your thinking has brought you thus far.

It's fantastic, it's good.

But in order to lay a hold of the promises of God, the Bible says his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

Then we've got to elevate our thinking and bring it into alignment with the truth of the word of God to lay a hold of the promises of God.

We could camp here all day.

Or it could be sin.

You know, in my own life, I come from a background where there is every reason why I shouldn't be and couldn't be doing what God's called me to do.

There's every excuse.

I tell people all over the world I fit every government funding category in my nation.

I come from a background second-generation migrant Greek in Australia before my big fat Greek wedding when it was not cool to be Greek in Australia.

And we were very much marginalized because of our ethnicity.

I grew up in the poorest local government area in my state.

It had the lowest socioeconomic demographic of any local government area in the state that I grew up in in government housing, in a culture that really did not esteem women in any way.

And um pretty much every week of my life, from the time I was three years old until the time I was fifteen for twelve years, I was abused at the hands of four men.

Now, uh most young women with that kind of background don't normally end up doing what I'm doing.

They end up either drug dependent or alcohol dependent, or maybe have two or three different kids to two or three different fathers, or confused about their gender identity.

And the reason it gets so profoundly quiet when I say that, and it wouldn't matter where I say it in the world, is because you don't need to be a prophet to work out.

In a room this size, that many of you in some way, shape, or form, understand what it is to have been abused.

And the word abuse means 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.

And so I could have easily not fulfilled my destiny because, you know, well, I grew up in a poor background, I was a woman, I was marginalized because of my ethnicity.

Well, you know, what about the fact that I was full of rejection and I was full of shame and I was full of guilt and all of the abuse that came.

And when I was 33 years old, uh my my brother, uh, who was 35 at the time, got a letter from the government that had said that he was adopted.

We just didn't believe that that was true.

And so he was crying and he said, Christine, it's true, I'm gonna go and see mum.

So he went to my mum's house and I raced over to my mother's house because I thought they'd obviously make some kind of administrative error.

So I ran over to my mum's house and um I walked in as my brother was giving my mum this piece of paper from the government.

And he gave her that piece of paper, and my mum took it, and there was this moment of hesitation in her eyes, and I thought, oh no, this is true.

And my mum just started crying.

She said, George, I'm so sorry.

We were never gonna tell you.

All the adoptions in Australia 35 years ago, they were all closed adoptions.

And before your father died, my father died when I was 19.

He said, My mum said, Before your father died, we tore up all of the paperwork, we threw it away.

I promised him I would never tell you, we never thought you would find out.

So it was a very, very emotional moment.

But about 10 minutes after my mom admitted this to my brother, my mother looked up across me, at me, across the kitchen table, and she said, Christina, since we're telling the truth, do you want to know the whole truth?

And um I looked at her and I don't even know why I said this.

I went, I've been adopted too.

It was two weeks before my 33rd birthday.

And um, she just started crying and she said yes.

And so I found out then that I was left at birth and rejected and that I was adopted, and I was just stunned.

I kind of stood there, and the first thing I said after a couple of minutes, I went, Am I still Greek?

And um I was called a lot of names at school for a lot of years.

I want to make sure there was a reason for it.

And um and so why do I fit every government funding?

I'm I'm marginalized, oppressed, dispossessed, poor, ethnic, minority, abused, adopted chick.

I could make a fortune on government funding in Australia.

That I could make a fortune 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 to remain a victim.

But let me tell you, church, I've read the book and the Bible says that he has redeemed my life from the pit, that I don't need to live as any kind of victim at all.

Because of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

That's why we can get excited about that last song that we sang.

Because there's truth in it.

Let me tell you, the most potent force on the planet, it's not some cruise missile, it's not some nuclear bomb, it's not sending some man to the moon, 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 us free, and it continues to work in the 21st century.

But you see, I was carrying a lot of shame, I was carrying a lot of guilt, a lot of pain, a lot of rejection.

So my heart was full of a lot of bitterness and unforgiveness, and the Bible calls that sin.

A lot of people wanted to excuse that.

Well, you know, look what happened to Christine.

No wonder Christine is full of anger and bitterness.

Look what happened.

But the Bible says that if I do not forgive my brother, his sin against me, then God will not forgive my sin against him.

Colossians says, as God has forgiven my sin against him, so also must I forgive others their sin against me.

And you see, me hanging on to the unforgiveness and bitterness was worse for me than it was for the perpetrators of the abuse against me.

It's much, much, much, much worse to carry that.

Worse than me being abused for 12 years is carrying that unforgiveness in my heart because I'm carrying those abusers into my future every day through bitterness and unforgiveness.

And the scripture said that's why you need to lay aside the sin that holds you back.

And all it was doing was holding me back.

I don't know, friend, what's going on in your life this morning.

But if there's offense, if there's bitterness, if there's rejection and hurt, it's holding you back from the promises of God.

And so the Bible says, let's lay it aside.

And I haven't got time to labor this this morning.

We could spend the whole morning on this.

But I want to move on.

If we want to lay a hold of the promises of God, the second thing we need to do from this passage of scripture is that we need to move on from where we are.

The Bible says, and they ate in verse 11, and they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain on the very same day.

Then the manna ceased.

Everyone say the manna ceased.

Then the manna ceased on the day after they'd eaten the produce of the land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate of the food of the land of Canaan that year.

I love this.

The Bible says the manna ceased.

For forty years God had dropped food out of the sky, he had done things a particular way.

But then he said, I'm not doing it that way anymore.

That's how I did it when you're in the old building.

That's how I did it when you're in the wilderness.

I do things differently in the promised land than the way I do them in the wilderness.

In fact, he goes on and he says to Joshua, You go and plant your own corn, you go and dig your own wells.

There's a whole different spirit, there's a whole different thing and way of doing things when you go into the promised land.

But too many Christians get used to the way God does it in the wilderness.

We almost don't need faith there.

Well, God's just gonna do it, God's just gonna drop it out of the sky.

But he says, No, no, no, in the promised land, you're gonna go in and possess it.

You're gonna go in and you're gonna possess your healing, you're gonna go in and possess your promise, you're gonna go in and possess the promises I have for your marriage and for your family and for life.

There's a whole different way of doing it and of operating in faith in the promised land.

But what happens is um Nick and I, we travel, you know, our family travels over 300 nights a year.

We only spent 43 nights in our bed in Australia last year.

So we're constantly on the road all across the earth.

We're involved in a lot of church planting and leadership development in Europe and the human trafficking program.

And the fact is that there is nothing sadder when you go and you see that a church doesn't understand when the manner has ceased.

And um, you know, I see this all the time.

God once moved on some song 300 years ago, and so everyone keeps going back, you know, to try to get that same anointing, to try to get that same feeling.

And so churches all over the world are still singing Noah's Ark's greatest hits because God once moved on some song 450 years ago, despite the fact that the scripture says sing a new song unto the Lord, and we're going back looking.

Imagine if Hill's song, if we just kept going back to 1993, I'll tell you the one church in the world you're not gonna ever hear shout to the Lord.

Because if we were still singing shout to the Lord, we would be very bored to the Lord, it's not gonna happen.

And so people are looking, well, I want to go back to the good old days, just stick around, these will be the good old days, they just are, and people are longing and going back, and God says, No, my promise is ahead, my promise is ahead.

Yeah, I was once in um Southern California and I was preaching, and you know, this guy comes up to me afterwards and he goes, Well, Christine, you know, that was great, but if there was ever a woman in ministry, it was Catherine Coleman.

She was so powerful, so anointed, so awesome.

And she would come out and she would wave her hand and she had a long frock on, and you know, the anointing of God would fill the room, and he was going on and on.

I said, Sir, I bet it was awesome.

I bet it was fantastic, but there's a really big difference between Catherine and me.

I'm alive, and I'm not wearing those frocks, it's a new day, it's a new hour.

God's doing a new thing.

We gotta keep moving on with what the Lord's doing.

Church, it's a new day.

And some of you, things have happened.

Maybe there's been an offense, a broken marriage, pain, hurt, a disappointment.

And it happened 20 years ago, and your body's here, but everything about you is still locked back in that 20 years.

You two wrote a song one, stuck in a moment.

It says you've got to get yourself together.

You got stuck in a moment, and now you can't get out of it.

And yes, I was abused for 12 years, there's no denying that.

But I'm 43 years old.

Do I look it?

Right answer.

Okay, so I'm 43.

I'm 43 years old.

So although I was abused for 12 years, I have not been being abused for 31 years.

So why am I gonna allow the 12 years to rob me of any more of my life?

The best with God is all ahead.

It is over.

I'm not giving the devil any more than he's already taken.

So we've got to move on, church.

The third thing we need to do.

You're excited over there.

I like you.

The third thing we need to do, the Bible says in chapter 6, verse 1, now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel.

None went out and none came in.

And the Lord said to Joshua, see, I've given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor.

I love this.

And this is very real to me at the moment because I've walked this journey, especially the last 16 days, because I saw the MRI scans.

I saw what the surgeon said was impossible.

I saw what happened to my leg and the hamstring they took out and put into as my UACL.

And it was interesting because if you're gonna possess the promises of God, you've got to see beyond the natural into the supernatural promise of God.

You've got to see beyond your circumstances to what the promise of God's word says.

You see, too many of us build our life on the facts of our circumstances.

Well, Christine, what about the facts?

What about the facts?

Well, friend, the facts can change, but the truth has the power to change things.

And if you build your life on the truth of the word of God, then you will possess the promises of God because the Bible says all the promises of God are in Him, yes.

And in Him, amen.

And so what we have to do is see, beyond our circumstances, in my life, I have lived this and continue to live it every day.

I remember when I found out I was adopted.

This is the best way in four minutes that I can illustrate this to you this morning.

The facts, we've all got the facts.

I don't know what you've walked into church this morning with.

I don't know what your walls of Jericho are that seem tightly shut up.

Perhaps the doctor's report that says it's incurable, it's terminal, you're on your own.

Perhaps it looks like this relationship, this marriage is the ink's just got to dry on the divorce papers.

It's there's no hope.

Maybe it seems that the thing you were dreaming for, believing God for, it's just finished.

There's no hope for it.

Maybe I don't know.

Emotionally, it seems like you'll never get that breakthrough.

You'll just never overcome that addiction.

And the facts are right before you.

It's all black and white.

The facts are right there.

Well, I remember when they sent me my birth certificate, which was really weird at 33 to get a new birth certificate when you thought you had a birth certificate all your life.

And on here, they've got a little column where it says child's name, and typed in there is the word unnamed.

And then a number, 2508, of 1966.

Unnamed number 2508.

I remember when I read that, it was like a knife went into my heart.

And um the enemy begins, you know that tape recorder, see Christine?

Your mother didn't even want you, she didn't even give you a name, you're just a number.

No wonder you're abused for 12 years.

That's what you deserve.

You know that tape recorder that begins in our minds, that tape recorder that we've all got the power to press the stop button, in case you're wondering as well.

So it would start.

I can't deny that.

This is from the Department of Community Services.

It's a government department, it must be true.

And so they sent this to me and said, Well, you know, this is it, unnamed.

And then from the Royal Hospital for Women, here it is.

There's the logo, black and white ink on paper.

This is what they said.

The social worker did an assessment of my biological mother two weeks before I was born.

This is what it says.

She does not seem to be too emotionally involved with this child.

She seems to want to get it over and done with and get back to work as soon as possible.

So this says the medical report, because of course the medical profession's always right.

I love the medical profession, they've helped me with my knee, but I'm just saying.

In this case, in this case, it's like, you know what?

There it is, black and white.

She didn't want you.

That's what the social worker said, that's what the psychologist said, she didn't want you.

And then over here I've got another piece of paper from the education department, because of course, either the government or the medical profession or the education department, I mean, it's all got to be true.

So here it is.

Black and white, the facts.

And this was written on the 28th of March, 1995, from one of the most reputable kind of um social work schools in our nation.

And they basically said that I was not, they said that unless I take several years out to get formal academic qualifications that provide me with the recognized professional basis from which to operate, I'll never be able to do what I'm doing.

28th of March 1995, in that last 15-year period, by God's grace, I've had the opportunity to go to over 15 nations and speak face to face to well over two million young people, see hundreds of thousands come to Christ.

But the experts on the 28th of March 1995 said that I was unqualified to do what I'm called to do.

So there it all is.

Here's the facts: black and white ink on paper, unnamed, unwanted, unqualified, unhealed.

There's all the facts, it's all there in black and white.

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 it's called the truth of the word of God.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, see, I want you to see the promise.

This might say unnamed.

But Psalm 49, verse 1 says, From the womb of your mother, I have named your name.

Psalms 49:1

That might say unwanted.

But Psalm 139 says, Sweetheart, before you ever got in that womb, I wanted you, I knew you, I called you, I appointed you.

That might say that I'm unqualified, but the word of God says that he whom he calls, he qualifies.

Build your life on the truth and not the facts, friend.

And that's how you change the world.

Come on, give the Lord a great hand this morning.