Christine Caine - Get Ready
Hey, hey! I am so glad that you're here today, and I'm so glad that you're on the other side of the screen. I know that you have tuned into the right place at the right time. God's got a word for you. We're speaking today, we're starting a brand new series called get ready, and so I don't know what state of mind you're in, but I'm telling you, get ready, get ready, 'cause God's got so much more for you. God is going to take you from where you are into your God-given purpose and your God-given destiny. And I think God is asking for a generation of us to say, hey, are you ready, are you ready for more? Are you ready to step up and into my purpose?
I don't want to live just a mediocre, normal Christian life. I want to live a life that brings great glory to God, where people gonna look at me and go, whoa, what are you on? I'm like, Jesus, I'm only on Jesus. It's nothing else. But I don't want, who wants to be normal? Anybody can be normal, but it takes the people of God filled with the spirit of God to step up and into the purposes of God. So get ready, 'cause more is coming. Get ready, 'cause we're in a time of shift, that things are shifting, and I don't wanna be where God was, I wanna be where God is. And so that's what we're getting ready for. We're gonna look at the book of Joshua, such a pivotal book in the Bible. And, you know, God made a promise to Abraham and his descendants, and we are the descendants of Abraham, remember, father Abraham and many sons many sons oh no, you can tell I'm jet lagged because I normally would not do that, not on television, so don't worry, I don't sing, I'll just keep talking.
But in Genesis 12:7, he says, to you and your offspring, I will give this land, the Promised Land of Canaan. And the whole first five, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy. My kids sing that at school, too. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy and then we go into Joshua. And so here we are in the book of Joshua. And so the first five books of the Bible have been working up until this central goal, and this book is all about the possession of the Promised Land. And this shows us that God is a covenant-keeping God. And I want you to know that you've tuned into this today and you maybe have thought that you've tuned in by accident, but it's not by accident, God has spoken promises over your life. In the New Testament, the Bible tells us that all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, yes, and in Christ Jesus, amen.
And I want to remind you today that God is a covenant-keeping God. If God said it, God will do it. He who promised his faithful. Some of you have given up on the promises of God because you feel that God maybe has forgotten about them, or God didn't really mean it, or that God is not faithful. I'm here to remind you today that God is faithful, and the scripture tells us to a thousand generations, so if he promised to Abraham and his descendants, he said to you and your offspring, I will give this land. There are spiritual promises that are ours to lay ahold of and to appropriate in Christ Jesus in the book of Joshua when it tells us how the children of Israel possessed the physical Promised Land.
This series is all about you and I are gonna possess the spiritual promises that God has for us. So we are now, after 430 years of slavery, of bondage, of captivity, God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt through miraculous signs and wonders, he parted the Red Sea, the whole Egyptian army drowned, Jericho walls. Oh, you know, we're not there yet, but that's coming, further on, we're gonna talk about Jericho walls coming down. But God has brought them out of slavery, out of bondage, miraculously, kept them alive in the world, and it's for 40 years with manna coming out of the sky. The Bible says, in fact, for 40 years, they did not need to change their shoes, which is a really big downer for a chick. But anyway, for 40 years, God kept them alive supernaturally, God kept them alive, and now, after 40 years in the wilderness and after 430 years in slavery, 40 years in the wilderness, 470 years. They're going to go in and possess the promise.
Can you imagine what this moment would have been like? We're at an epic moment in history. So we're going back to Joshua in this series because I want us to know, as believers, how do we go in and possess what is our inheritance? In Deuteronomy 2:11, the scripture says, go in and possess, that you might inherit. A lot of Christians are just waiting for the promises of God to just fall out of the sky. Yeah, God says, no, I want you to go in and possess what is yours to inherit. So we're gonna learn about that. And so we're at a pivotal time on the kingdom calendar on the earth, and we need more Christians stepping up and into the purposes of God. This is not a time to be pulling back. This is not a time to be living in fear and timidity. This is a time to step up and into the purpose that God has for us to say I'm gonna lay ahold of all of that for which Christ Jesus has laid ahold of me. I'm not pullin' back, I'm pressing in. Like the apostle Paul, I press on. I'm gonna lay ahold of all of the promises of God. It's okay to have a break. It's okay to have a rest. But don't stay down, get back up, keep pressing on, and keep pressing in to all the purposes that God has for your life. There is so much more for you. And so let's go to Joshua 1:18.
After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of nun, that's interesting, isn't it? Who's your dad, none. I amuse myself, that's okay. Moses's assistant. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all these people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have great success. Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And Joshua commanded the officers of the people, pass through the midst of the camp and command the people. Prepare your provisions, for within three days, you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving to you to possess. And the Reubenites, the Gadites, the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said, remember the word that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, the Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land. Your wives, your little ones, your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and, shall help them until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise. And they answered Joshua, all that you have commanded us, we will do, and wherever you send us, we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and very courageous.
That's a lot of Bible reading, more than most of you have read all year. I know that, and I have just caught you up on your Bible reading plan in a year. So you can thank me now, and there it is. But this is an epic, epic passage of scripture. You know, it starts, and it gives us, it lays the whole foundation of how the children of Israel are finally gonna go in and possess the land. And I love it because it starts right there after death of Moses, the servant of the Lord. The Lord said to Joshua, son of nun, Moses's aide, my servant is dead. Now, the interesting thing is my Bible in the ESV says Moses's assistant, Moses's aide. And so here is Joshua, he starts off and he says, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord. Now, why that's important, I want you to hear that phrase, the servant of the Lord.
Now, he's speaking to the man that was Moses's assistant, he was Moses's aide, he served Moses. That's what Joshua did. And here is the Lord calling, calling Moses a servant of the Lord. In just the verse before, right there at the end of Deuteronomy, I wanna read something to you because I think you're gonna catch what I'm saying right here, I want you to know, if we're gonna possess the Promised Land, if we're gonna possess the promises that God has for us, we have to understand that the highest place that any one of us can reach in the body is to be called a servant of the Lord. See, a lot of us, we think servanthood is on the way to getting what our dream is. But in God's economy, it's actually the opposite. We serve to become a servant.
We live in a generation where we're just tryin' to take positions off people, take titles off people, we're tryin' to push people over the edge just so that we can look great. Where is a day and a time where people in the body of Christ would have a posture of humility that says, I'm trusting God to promote? And I don't have to tear someone down, I don't have to badmouth them on social media. I don't have to write a negative blog about them. I trust that promotion comes from God, and the Bible says that Joshua was Moses's aide. He's the way to greatness because we all wanna be Joshua. I wanna go and possess the Promised Land, I wanna be the top person. I wanna have the name, but you will never get anywhere in the kingdom of God unless you are willing to serve somebody else in the kingdom of God. Joshua was Moses's aide through his youth.
In Exodus chapter 17, we see Joshua, it's the first time he appears on the pages of scripture. And he's a military commander, and that he defeats the Amalekites in the wilderness. And then in Exodus chapter 24, he accompanied Moses to mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. The Bible says, then Moses set out with Joshua, his aide. Do you think when we were reading that, we were gonna think that Joshua was gonna be the one that was gonna go in and take the Promised Land? See, you don't know, when you're serving somebody else, what God's got for you down the track. A lot of the times, we think serving someone else is a negative thing. We think it's gonna hold us back from the purposes of God, but it's actually the thing that propelled Joshua into the purpose of God because he had close proximity to Moses. He got to see what Moses was like with the Ten Commandments. He got to see Moses smash the Ten Commandments when he was not in a very good mood. So he got to see what it was like.
The Bible says, in Exodus 33:11, that he guarded the tent of meeting when Moses met face to face with God. Now, the interesting thing is, Moses left the tent of meeting to go to the people, and scripture says, I have built my ministry. This is one of the foundational scriptures that I've built my ministry on. It says in Exodus 33:11, but his young aide, Joshua, the son of nun, did not leave the tent. I read that when I was in Bible school, Exodus 33:11, it says, but Joshua lingered in the tabernacle. And I remember saying to God, I'm gonna be the one that lingers in the tabernacle. While everyone else is running for the spotlight, I'm gonna linger in the tabernacle, God, I'm gonna be back here. Nobody knows who I am, and I wanna hear the voice of God. And you know, who knows what God spoke to Joshua? That's where he may have learned to hear the voice of God. He had proximity to the man of God, and he also had proximity to God himself. It is little wonder that 40 years later, God is promoting him to be the commander of the army that's gonna go in and possess the land.
A lot of us, we wanna go in and possess the Promised Land. We wanna be the front person, we wanna be the lead person, but we're not willing to linger in anonymity and obscurity in the tabernacle where we would want and yearn and hunger for the presence of God. Are you praying when nobody's watching? Are you entering into worship when nobody's watching? Can you hear the voice of God through his word when nobody's watching? If you are not willing to linger in the tabernacle, you are not ready to do anything for God out in public. It was a progression. And we live in a very self-Marketing society, where everyone just wants to upload their own BIOS, their own photos, and just scout out the land, let me just see what is, I laugh, I laugh at just at certain things where I see things today, and I think, you know what, that's just not God's way. It might be good Marketing, but God is not into good Marketing. I don't need to do a whole lot of networking. I need some divine appointments.
I find that when I pray with God, he sets me up with divine appointments, and it takes a whole lot of the stress of me trying to open doors of opportunity for myself. We need a generation that trusts God to be God, that is willing to serve the man and the woman of God, to step into the purposes of God. Joshua was Moses's aide, and in numbers 13, he was selected as one of the 12 spies. And he's only one of two that came back with a positive report. So all throughout his life, before we read the book of Joshua, he appears in the pages of scripture, but he's somebody else's servant. And God is preparing him for what he already prepared for him. So many times, we think God has forgotten us in anonymity and obscurity, and we think I'm being faithful in my job, I'm being integrous when no one else is being, does God see it, and I'm saying, yes, God does see it, and God does promote us, and then God opens doors that no man can shut.
When I look at my life, I just came back from India where A21 was given the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice. And it was bizarre to me as gandhI's great-grandson was giving me this award. And I came on and spoke before the vice president of Afghanistan, and I'm thinking, I was the kid that was left in a hospital, unnamed and unwanted, and I'm in Mumbai, India, in a sari getting a award from gandhI's great-grandson, speaking before the vice president of Afghanistan. There's nothing normal about this. But I spent the last 30 years in anonymity and obscurity, allowing God to prepare me for what he had prepared for me, that's what God does, he prepares you for the things that he has prepared for you. Don't try to bypass the process. Don't try to bypass it. So you cannot be, if you cannot be be an aide of man, you won't be a servant of the Lord.
That's my whole point. If we're gonna go in, and if you think you are too good to serve somebody else, then you are not gonna go in and become a servant of the Lord because, so it was only Abraham, David, and Joshua, Abraham, David, and Joshua that were called, outside of Moses, a servant of the Lord in scripture. And I want that. Imagine going down where you get, well done, good and faithful servant. That's what we're all looking for, we're looking for the father's well done. And so, the second thing, if we're gonna go in and possess the Promised Land is we have to understand that you've gotta be already ready so that you can get ready. I hope that you've got your head wrapped around that one. See, the Lord said to him, he said, get ready to go. The only reason he could get ready was because of all of those years he was already getting ready. When he was lingering in the tabernacle, guess what? He was getting ready.
Every time you open up the word, you're getting ready. Every time you're in worship, you're getting ready. Every time that you're in church, you're getting ready. Every time you don't lie, you're getting ready. Every time you don't cheat, you're getting ready. Every time you keep yourself morally pure, you're getting ready. Every time you obey the word of God regardless of what the culture would tell you, you are getting ready. Every time you have integrity, you are getting ready. You can't get ready if you're not already ready. You've gotta be already ready to get ready so that you can go in and possess what it is that God has for you. You've gotta get ready to be already ready, and that's what Joshua did.
When I think about it, people go, how did you get that, how did you get this, Mother Teresa Award, how do you run A21? How do you run propel, how do you do daily television? Well, you know, it doesn't happen, I've been speaking for 31 years. That's 31 years of message preparation so that I could now be ready to do this every day. People are like, Christine, how do you do it in one sermon after the other and you, well, because when nobody was listening to me anywhere, I was speaking to trees. I was writing messages and I was going to the, no joke, I got so many trees saved, it was awesome. So many birds got born again and filled with the Holy Ghost, it was fantastic. Because I was getting ready, and I knew I was getting ready.
When I was volunteering at a youth center, painting the walls of the bathroom, I remember thinking, God's preparing me. I know that I'm being prepared. That was 30 years ago. When I was leading a student youth movement in our state and I was going to out of the way places, places you've never heard of like Wagga Wagga and Narrandera and Tamworth, and I know you think, London, New York, Paris, Wagga Wagga. No, you're not hearing any of that. And I had 25 kids, and I was sleeping in rooms that, you've passed those houses with, that have three children under the age of five in the one room. And I would drive for eight hours, and I only owned one pair of jeans and a couple of tops, and there was 25 kids, and I thought I was in revival, I thought I was Billy Graham then.
I was getting ready so that I would be ready when God said to me, now, it's arenas, now, it's television. But it took 30 years, and years of 25 kids and years of country towns, and years of God getting me ready and preparing me for what he had already prepared for me. When we see all the work of A21 around the globe and 12 global offices, where did it, it started when I started working at a community-based youth center, when I was filling out government grants. I was 22 years old, I didn't know what I was doing. You know what I was doing, I was getting ready. When I was speaking in front of rotary groups in my little local community, and I would go to little rotary groups and different community groups and in front of the council and in front of local government. You know what God was getting me ready for? To stand in Mumbai, India, before the vice president of Afghanistan and address the Mother Teresa Foundation.
That's what God was getting me ready for 30 years ago when I was speaking to local government members. People go, I want the global impact of A21, but I'm not ready to speak to 20 people in the back of nowhere in my local community. Unless you are already ready, you will never be ready when God says, get ready. And so whatever you're doing now, you're getting ready for what it is that God has for you. It doesn't happen overnight. I was getting ready to be a mother before I was ever a mother. I was getting ready to be a wife before I was ever a wife. And to this day, I continue to enlarge, I continue to research. I'm now doing a master's at wheaton. Why, because I'm getting ready. Getting ready for what, I don't know, but when God says, get ready, I'm gonna say, I'm already ready, and you've told me to get ready, but I'm already ready because I'm already living in a state of getting ready, 'cause I always wanna be ready to step up and into the purposes of God for my generation.