Christine Caine - Generation Changers
Hey everyone, I am so glad that you have joined us today. Thank you so much for joining us. I believe that you have tuned in right at the right time and the right place because God has got a word for you. You know, I'm so fired up about starting this brand new series on what it is to become a generation changer, now that is a huge statement. What does it mean to be a generation changer? Do you know that you were created by God with intentionality? Do you know a lot of people don't actually believe that or don't even understand that that is truly what's happened.
You might have just tuned in tonight, and man, you're just scrolling through the TV stations and you're in fact you came by me and you're thinking who is this five foot nothing little Greek woman like yelling at me and you're trying to change the channel and you just actually can't. I'd say man, just sit back and enjoy this. But you may have thought, look, I'm just the result of some cosmic accident, a lot of people believe that stuff. Or perhaps their parents said to them, I wish you were never born. You were just a mistake. You should never have been here on the earth. And you know, so many people actually believe that kind of lie.
In fact, where I grew up in Australia. I grew up in, you know, we were schooled on this incredible philosophy and you have to be extremely bright to actually believe this but in my schools we were taught that many, many moons ago in the eternal nothing of the nothing two nothing's came together and went bang. And there it was your great grandfather, the cockroach and the cockroach just crawled around planet earth and it had a genetic mutation. Went bang and there it was the frog. And the frog just hopped around planet earth it had a genetic mutation went bang, and there it was the ape in the ape was walking through Sydney on one very hot summer's day. And then it went to the hairdresser and had a cut, shave and blow dry. And here we are today.
And so essentially, we have told a generation you came from nothing. And you live for no reason. And guess what? You're going nowhere. So why are we surprised? When you've told a generation that they come from nothing, they live for no reason, and they going nowhere, why are we surprised when they act like they came from nothing, they live for no reason, and they're going nowhere. So many people live without purpose. So many people live self-indulgent self-gratifying lives purely because they do not understand that they were created for a reason that is bigger than themselves.
I want you to know today that friend, you are not the result of some cosmic accident. You were born on purpose and for a purpose. You are created in the image of Almighty God. You were created for relationship with God and it's Jesus that connects us to God. It's Jesus that connects us to the grace of God. You are not an accident, you are not a mistake. You are not some blip on the radar. You are not just some empty mindless amoeba. You are created by God Almighty before you ever got in your mother's womb. God knew who you were, God called you, God anointed you God appointed you, it is so easy to think that I'm here just by default.
You know, when I was two weeks before my 33rd birthday, I got a phone call from my brother George because when you're Greek all your brothers are George, Nicko, Spiro, Con, you know, it's all nice and Greek. And I was eating I'll never forget it, I was in castle hill in Sydney, Australia. I was running youth alive at the time and I was in the food court at castle towers, a local shopping center right there in the suburbs of Sydney. And I was eating my beef vindaloo and you know, I'm Greek, Australian, and I love Indian food and the hotter the better. And to the effect, you know, when they have the little chili's, you go into a restaurant and it's got little pictures of chili's next to the meal and there's like three, four, five and I always go five, and I could see the Indian waiter looks at me and says, "oh, miss Caine, oh, miss Caine". I said, "yes, I know, I love it, I'm Indian in my heart. I'm Indian in my heart"!
But I was eating my beef vindaloo and my phone rang. And my brother George, he's crying, he says "Christine, I just got a letter from the government. And it says I've been adopted". Now, I started laughing when he told me that because, you know, when you're a kid and you're growing up in the same household, with your siblings, you always tell your siblings they're adopted, you always tell them that they are not part of the family that they're adopted. You know, and anyway, but then when one of your siblings calls you and tells you that they actually are adopted that they've got this document, suddenly I went into defense mode. I went, "No, you're not, no, you're not, they've made a mistake. Send that letter, call the Dept. of Community Services and tell them they've sent this letter to the wrong person".
And, you know, I thought, "gosh, that's odd". And in fact, I went back to eating my vindaloo, I hung up. And I was thinking to myself, how rude some administrative clerk, what a mistake, how you could just mess up a family. I mean, how could they make that mistake? I was just thinking in my own head, then my phone rang again. And this time my brother is just a mess he is going, "Christine, it's true they told me the name of my biological mother, my biological father. When I was born, when I was immunized, they have a whole file on my life". Now you could imagine this 35 years old, I'm 33. You're just thinking this is a Monty Python show, this is not real. And my dad had died when I was 19.
So, you know, my mom had been living alone for those 14 years. And my mom by this point was in her 60s, and I was freaking out 'cause George was just so distraught. He's saying, I'm going to go confront mom, I'm going to and I don't know if you know anything about Greeks. But Greeks are very volatile, like they act first and think later. And so I'm thinking this thing if you've seen my big, fat Greek wedding, that is my big, fat Greek life, and I'm thinking, this whole thing is going to go to buckler val end and it's going to be insane.
So I jump in my car, cause I think I'm going to go and avert some disaster at home, I jump in, I drive to my mom's house, and I get there right at the minute that my brother is giving my mother this document from the government. And I saw in that second, I saw my mother's face change. And I mean, I just the blood just drained from her I thought this is true. And my mom just starts crying. And she said, "George, I'm so sorry. All of the adoptions in Australia 35 years ago, they were all closed adoptions. And we never thought you would find out. And before your father died, one of the last things I promised your dad is that I would never tell you. And so I tore up all of the paperwork, I threw away all of the files. And we didn't know that the law was going to change, and that the people could contact their adopted children or their adopted parents".
And so, I mean, you got to imagine this moment in my house, you know, my brother was crying. My mother was crying. The dog was crying, you know, snot was flying. It was like it was a moment. And so I didn't know what to do, and for Greeks, you know, food is the answer to life, the universe and everything. And so, we go, I go into the kitchen off and I'm just going to make coffee food, do something. And so as I'm in the kitchen, about 15 minutes later, my mother walks in after me and in Greek she spoke to us always in Greek. She said, "Christina, since we are telling the truth today, do you want to know the whole truth"?
And I just froze. And then I remember just turned around. And I didn't even know why I said this to her I went I've been adopted to. And then with just tears streaming down her face. She just nodded her head. And I was stunned, just stunned. And I didn't say anything, you know, for a few minutes, which that ended itself was a miracle greater than the resurrection of Jesus right there. But anyway, I didn't say anything. And then, well the actual very first thing I said to my mom, I went, am I still Greek? Because I wanted to know I was called a lot of names at school for a long time. I want to know there was a reason for that persecution for all of those years.
But then the very next thing that I said right there standing in my Greek orthodox mother's kitchen right there. I went all well mom, before I was formed in my mother's womb, who's ever womb that was, he knew me. He needed to give them my innermost parts he fashioned all of my days before his yet there was one of them. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And you know what? That day every fact that I thought to be true about my life changed.
God says in the beginning he created. He created us in his image, male and female. So no matter what anyone has said about you, no matter ultimately what anyone has done to us, we come back to the ultimate source of truth, the ultimate authority in our life, which is the truth of the Word of God. And in this truth God declares and decrees that he created us in his image. There are no accidents, there are no mistakes. We are created on purpose for a purpose, and we are to live lives that bring glory to the greatness of God. That's what we are called to do.
So when I say that being a generation changer, is not like some kind of accident. It's actually what you and I are called to do. We were intentionally set on earth. 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's given us gifts and talents for the purpose of serving our generation. There are no accidents. So you can live your whole life feeling like you're not supposed to be here and you're an accident and you just waste your one and only life. Friend, this is not a dress rehearsal for the real thing. There is no plan b. This is it. Life is but a vapor. We are here today, and we are gone tomorrow. Do not waste this one and only life wishing you had somebody else's life. Do not waste this one and only life wishing that maybe you were never born. Do not waste this one and only life, believing the lies of the enemy. Make a decision that you are going to tap into what God has for your one and only life. You are going to discover "why did you pluck me out of eternity? Why did you position me in time"?
It's not an accident. God knows the world is cray cray. God knows what's going on politically, economically, socially, environmentally. God knows what's going on in every facet of society, every strata of society, every industry in society, God knows what's happening in the hearts of all eight plus billion people on the earth. It is not an accident. He's not in ever going "Oh, I had no idea what's going on in 2019 or 2020". God knows exactly what's going on. He's still on the throne, and he said "I need to send salt and light into that lost and broken world". So he plucked you out of eternity. He positioned you right where you are, in your town, in your city, in your community, in your workplace, in your school, in your university. It's not by accident. He says "I want to send salt, I want to send light, I want my hands my feet to go into a lost and a broken world". And you are it. Tag, #you're it! Tag, #you're it!
There is no plan B. Stop waiting for the Calvary, you're it. You are the cavalry. I am the cavalry. I am what we're praying for, that's dangerous, that's scary. But you are more often than not the answer to your own prayer. "O, Lord, send someone", he says "I did, you". "But God, I'm not smart enough, I'm not talented enough, I'm not educated enough, I'm not gifted enough, I'm not resourced enough", and God said, "I'm really aware of what you're not believe it or not. I actually made you, I'm not up here surprised". "God, oh, I had no idea you couldn't do math. I had no idea you couldn't sing. I had no idea", of course he knows. He goes, "I gave you exactly what you need to do exactly what you need to do, where you are needing to do it". Because it's actually not about what you can't do. It's about what he can do.
And you see, we also feel like "oh, man, I'm just so humbled. I'm just so humble, 'cause of such a worm. Oh, I'm just such a worm, I'm just so hopeless I'm just so terrible, God could never use anyone like me because I'm just like, hopeless. So I'm just going to lie here, because I'm hopeless. I'm just so bad, I'm just so bad. I've made so many mistakes. I've failed so much, man, God could use me if I was a nuclear scientist. Oh, God could use me if I had a brilliant mathematical brain. Oh, God could use me if I could sing like Taya. Oh, God could use me. God could use me if I could preach like Bishop Jakes oh, God could use me if I was just anybody but me. So since I'm not anybody but me, but I'm only me, I better lie here because I'm hopeless".
And what we're actually saying to the Creator is, "Well, you didn't know what you were making. And I'd like to be salt and light. But if I was just smarter, if I was just thinner, if I was just fitter. If I was just richer, if I was just anybody but me, then maybe you could do something, but since I'm only me, I'm just going to sit here and wait for the rapture. I'm just going to sit here because God, you really couldn't use anyone like me because you didn't know when you made me. Man if you just gave me a singing voice, then I could just be a really famous singer and I could bring glory to you. And man, if you just gave me a better intellect, then you know, I could just be someone really really awesome and then I could just bring glory to you 'cause I could get like the Nobel peace prize and then God you could like use me or maybe I could just write a New York Times bestselling book and then you know I could just bring you some glory but God I'm just like, I'm just like an elementary school teacher. I just work at the local coffee shop and man I'm just a homeschooling mother and man, don't me what could as if you could use, God I know you just made a mistake when you made me but that's okay, I'll just sit here. I'll wait for the rapture and I'll pray for all the super duper navy seal Christians 'cause they're the real Christians that you've called to do something but not little loser me my little loser country town with my little loser no gifts. No, I'll just sit".
And what we're basically saying to the potter is, "You didn't know what you were making when you made me". What we're saying to the Creator is "You made a fundamentally flawed product". What we're saying to the Creator is, "Well, you don't even know what you told me to go into all the world, but you made a mistake, you didn't really mean me. You just meant all the really cool people. You just meant all the really talented people. You just meant all the celebrity Christians because I mean, now God, I don't even need to like go to church, I could just watch people on Instagram. It's awesome, it's just the same thing. God, I know I can just download my favorite preacher. It's just so fantastic. And I'll just sit here and I'll just spectate at a Christian event. Because you know, surely God, you wouldn't want to use me to make a difference in my generation. I mean, look, there's just one of me. And there's an entire university. There's like 18.000 students and like, God, I'm the only Christian nerd. What could you do with me"?
So we just sit here, our whole life, we just sit here just waiting to die. Oh, like, yes, we eat, we drink and we go out and we buy a house. But we don't do anything of significance, we don't even begin to tap into the potential that God's put on the inside of us. We don't even begin to pursue the purpose that God has got for us, because we've already said "God can't do something with me". We've already said, "You know, well look, I'm just not made of the right product", because we have looked at worldly success. And we have looked at worldly success indicators. And we've transferred that into the church. And so we no longer look at what the biblical indicators are for success. We no longer look at how God measures success. We no longer look at the kind of people that God uses, we look at the kind of people that the world celebrates.
And of course, if they're the kind of people that the world celebrates, they're the only people that God can use. So they've got to be the most talented, they've got to be the most gifted, they've got to be the biggest hustlers. They've got to be the ones that can make things happen. And the whole time God's just standing at the side going, you know what I'm willing to use any body that is willing to be used, that will allow me to use them. God is not looking for our ability. He is looking for our availability. God could do this with or without us. He invites us into the privilege of co-laboring with him. I mean, there is no higher privilege on the earth. I don't care what your vocation is here on earth. Whether you hold the highest office in the land to me, there is nothing, nothing more honoring than being invited by the king of the universe to be a co-laborer into his harvest field.
He says, "I'm inviting you to co-labor with me. I'm inviting you to work amongst the harvest field with me. I'm inviting you to be salt and light for me in a lost and a broken world. I'm inviting you into kingdom work, I'm inviting you into eternal work, you are significant, you are infinitely significant, you are eternally significant, you are so significant that I gave my life for you, so that you would not have to die. I gave my life for you. I lay down my life for you. I shed my blood for you". I don't know how much more important you think you need to be, that the God of the universe shed his blood was crucified, died and was separated from God for three days before he rose again. That's how valuable you are. That's how significant you are. That's how intricately God has worked on the inside of you. Nobody would do that, but God Almighty, but that's how important you are to him.
So you playing small, you playing like a worm that does not give glory to God, I love what C.S. Lewis says, "Humility is not thinking of less of myself, it's not thinking less of myself, like I'm just a worm. It's just thinking of myself less". That's what true humility is that I just walk around, not with myself on my mind all the time, not about me and what I'm going to do and what I'm going to achieve, what I accumulate. That's what humility is, is that I'm living for others. It's not that I'm making myself a worm, the people that have believed man if I just make myself nothing and make God everything. You don't make God everything by making yourself nothing. When people go I don't want to take any glory from God, honey, you on your best day couldn't take any glory from God. I don't know how small your God is, but my God is so big, so strong and so mighty there is nothing that my God cannot do. There is nothing that my God cannot do.
Me on my best day could not cast a shadow over God's toenail. I couldn't do it on my best day because my God is strong and my God is glorious. Let me tell you what scripture says brings our father great glory. It says it is to our father's great glory that we what? Bear much fruit. You are not going to bear much fruit by living a small life you are not going to bear much fruit by living an insignificant life. You are not going to bear much fruit by minimizing yourself, or living like you were nothing and you are insignificant and you are a worm. How dare we say that about ourselves. We are created in the image of Almighty God we are filled with God given destiny and God given potential. In Jesus name, in Jesus name.
Part 2
Hey, everybody! I am so glad that you have joined us today, thank you so much for tuning in. I know that God has the word for you today, in this series, we're talking about what it is to be a generation-changer, you and I are created by God with intentionality, God has created us in his very own image, filled us with his very own Holy Spirit, and sent us into a lost and a broken world, I mean, how awesome is that? There is no better job profile in the world. And there is no better equipping or training in the world than to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, lives on the inside of you and me.
God says, "I'm going to fill you with that Holy Ghost and I'm going to send you as a Holy Ghost terrorist into a lost and a broken world so that you can make a difference and bring life and hope and beauty into a lost and a broken world". Well, I believe that God has called all of us to be generation-changers and that word "Generate" means to "Bring into existence", and that word "Change" is "Something different".
And I believe every single one of us, whether you're a stay-at-home mum, whether you're a home-schooling mum, whether you're a corporate CEO, whether you're a doctor, whether you're a lawyer, whether you're a nurse, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a student, whatever spirit of life you are in, I believe that if we are in Christ, and filled with the spirit of Almighty God, then you and I are called to generate change, to bring it into existence something different wherever we are, we are called to change the atmosphere wherever we go into, if it's an atmosphere of hate, we're called to bring a spirit of love, if there's somewhere where there's hopelessness, we're called to bring in hope, we're called to bring in joy and where there's anger, we're called to bring kindness, where there is a sense of just chaos and divisiveness, we are called to be peace-makers in the midst of all, we're called to bring into existence something different.
We're not supposed to be the same spirit as the world, but we're supposed to be of a different spirit, the Lord said of Caleb, "Because my servant Caleb had a different spirit in him, I will cause him to go in and inherit the land". I love that in every spirit of life, I love to carry a different spirit, I love the fact that my office and the people that surround me in our A21 offices, fifteen of them around the world and propel chapters all over world, I think, I look at all the people, I go, "You're not normal", which is awesome, because I'm not normal either and I think there is a different spirit about you and I want them to have a different spirit so that we can go in and possess the land, possess the promise that God has for us, but we're called to generate change. We're not called to go with the flow, we're not just called to go with the current.
You know, there is nothing worse than a believer that forgets that they're a believer and they become an unbelieving believer. And they just go with the current of the age, it's like, you know, it's too much hassle to try to resist the current, you realize that even a dead fish can swim downstream? You don't need to have any life to go with the flow. You don't need to be alive to go with the flow. But it takes life to go against the flow, you know, not that I know that much about fishing because I don't want to touch fish, but the fact is that from, you know, the little bit of research that I've done, salmon swim upstream against, that's what Christians are called to do.
We're not called to go with the current just because something is happening in the world, just because something is popular in the world, just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean we should be doing it, we're supposed to go against the current, you know I have a seventeen year old daughter and a thirteen year old daughter and the other day Catherine said something, my eldest, I thought, "I've become my mother", because my mum used to say, when I used to go, "Mum, but all my friends are doing it"! And my mother would always say, "Christina, if all your friends were going to jump off the Harbour bridge, would you jump off the Harbour bridge with them in Australia"? And you know I'd go, "Probably", no, but the thing is you would die, but, Catherine said something to me, and I said, "Just because all your friends are doing it, if you were going to do this with", you know, and I pick the most ridiculous thing, like, "Would you go to the top of the Eiffel Tower if they were all jumping off, would you jump off with them"?
But it's kind of like that's what our world's like, just because everyone else is doing it. I don't know where we ever got to the fact that just because the world is changing their views and their policies and their ideas about different values and morality and ethics, that doesn't mean we should, and we set our lives according to the truth of this word. This word is full of hope, this word is full of life, this word is eternal, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord shall remain forever. I don't care what changes in society, I don't care what changes in culture, I don't care what changes with the current of this age or with the winds of this age, this is what remains eternal, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
We are not to be impacted by culture, we are supposed to be the ones that are impacting and transforming culture, we're going to look at one of the greatest generation-changers in the Bible, the scripture tells us in the book of acts, chapter 13, verse 36, "For David, after serving God's purpose in his own generation, fell asleep, and was buried with his fathers, and decayed". I always love that because it says, "And David, after he served the purpose of God in his own generation", I'm thinking, "There is no other time to serve the purposes of God, you only ever have your generation".
You know, always, like, sometimes, I come from a more charismatic background so we, you know, often move in the prophetic gifts and sometimes people like, you know, go, "Oh, well, this is your time such as this", and it sounds so prophetic and I'm thinking, "Yes, honey, because you're alive now, that's why", that's about as prophetic as it gets. If your time such as this was a hundred years ago, you would have been alive then, or if your time such as this is a hundred years from now, you know what, you would have been alive then, so thus sayeth the Lord-eth, if you are watching me-eth, this is your time such as this-eth, okay? That is it, that's it! This is your time such as this, because you're alive right now, you've only ever got your generation.
The, the dictionary defines a generation as a group of people who are alive at the same time, so if you woke up this morning and there was not a white chalk mark around your body, that means it's you, that means you are alive, in case you are wondering, heaven is not ready for you yet and so you've got a job and you've got an assignment to do here on earth. And so this is your time to serve your generation and in the book of 2 Kings 24:1-4, we learn about one of the great kings in a myriad of idolatrous kings, evil kings, very, very evil kings in Israel's history, but there was one great king in the midst of all of this.
The Bible says in 2 Kings 22:1, "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign". I mean that's hilarious to me, because just imagine if, you know, you were thinking that you were going to go into like elementary school and all of a sudden, you became the president, I think that's basically what just happened here. And so it says, "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath, and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or the left. In the eighteenth year of king Josiah, the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, son of meshullam, the secretary, to the house of the Lord, saying, 'go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the money that has been brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people'".
And then it goes on to talk about how Josiah repairs all of the temple of God and the money that they collected so that they could repair the temple of the Lord. And so this is interesting to me, we're going to get to this whole text, but Josiah was chosen by God to basically fight for his people. Josiah came to the throne during a really dark time in Israel's history, so he, instead of, you know, really going to elementary school, he became the king at eight years old. Now he had a grandfather called Manasseh and the Bible says that he was one of the worst kings in the whole history of all of Israel, I mean, it's horrible, his grandfather Manasseh had been, literally the Bible says he was the most wicked king in all of Israel's history, imagine that's your testimony, that your grandfather is written in the Bible as Israel's most wicked king.
Manasseh dedicated himself, this was his sole purpose, to removing the Word of God from Judah and replacing the worship of God with idols. So imagine if you made it your goal of removing the Word of God from this nation and we are going to worship idols, idolatry was rampant in these days. And so, he shed so much innocent blood, Manasseh, this is what the Bible says, the Bible says that he filled Jerusalem with the blood of people from one end to the other, just, I want you to get a glimpse that this young king Josiah, it's not that he had a great family lineage of everyone serving God. In fact, his grandfather was the most evil, his own father Amon was evil and he was assassinated after two years of being king, so things are not going well.
Your granddad, he's removing the Word of God from the nation, he's building idols in the nation, he's shed so much blood that it's gone from one side to the other and his dad is assassinated after two years, you know what? You're not going to write the book "How to be a king and influence people", like, this is not, like, the really cool thing. So what happened is people in the kingdom, they claimed to follow God, but they had incorporated all sorts of worldly practices, idolatry, sexual immorality, even child sacrifice, under the reign of religion.
It doesn't sound very different to the world that you and I are living in today. Idolatry, immorality, our child sacrifice looks a little different in the form of abortion, but let me just say, we still live in a world that is just full of so such pain and suffering and injustice and idolatry, a world where sin and evil and inequity just are rampant, it's not very different, I want you to get a picture, the era that Josiah was raised in is not unlike the world in which you and I live. This is the world an eight year old stepped into and was called to be king.
I sometimes think we treat God like he's in prison, in church on Sunday for one hour, and so we go and visit him, like visitation rights, for one hour, and God's like, "Honey, I don't need visitation rights, I'm God, I'm not in jail, and I don't need you to just come and visit me once a week, I want you to worship and live for me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in every place. In every place". That's what God wants us to do, and so that's what he was, he was whole-hearted.
I love it in 2 Kings 23:25, it says, "Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his mind and with all his heart and with all his strength according to all the law of Moses, and no one like him arose after him". What a cool thing to be written in the Bible about you. "Before him there was no one like him, who turned to the Lord with all his mind, all his heart, all his soul", doesn't this sound like the great commandment? Thou love the Lord you got in the New Testament, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. And then Jesus says, "The second commandment is just like the first, and love your neighbor as you love yourself", you cannot separate loving God from loving people.
I love it, it's a love God with all your heart, and we go on too, it's just we love him with all our broken heart, all your soul, yeah, we do, all our wounded soul. And all your mind, just all our very tormented mind. So we have to ask God to come in and bring healing to all our broken hearts, to all of our wounded soul, to all of our tormented mind, because that's going to affect how we see God and that's going to affect how we see other people. We've got to allow God into those broken places of our heart, those places that have been fragmented and broken, if you just live life, your heart's been broken.
Somebody's walked out on you, somebody's betrayed you, somebody's hurt you. In some cases you've broken your own heart because you did some things you never thought you would do. You said some things you never thought you said. And you walk around with a very, very broken and fragmented heart but this is the great news about our Lord, is the scripture says he binds up the broken-hearted. It's what he does. God can fix what no human being can fix. The Spirit of God, if you allow him into those broken fragments of your heart, Jesus Christ can bring healing, Jesus Christ can bring wholeness, Jesus Christ can bring completeness into those areas of your broken heart and he will bind it up and your heart will beat again, your heart will flourish again.
I know right now you feel like your heart will never again be strong, I know right now you feel like you will never love again, I know that you right now feel like you will never trust again, I know right now you feel like you could never be all in again, but I want you to know that if you allow Jesus Christ into those broken places he will never hurt you, he will never abuse you, he, God is light, and in him there is no darkness, I know some people have hurt you but God has no dark side, God has no dark side, he is always good to you, he is always kind to you, he is always compassionate to you, he is always merciful to you and if you allow him to go into those deep, broken places, he will bind them together, he will bring healing, he will bring wholeness, your heart will beat again, you will love again, you will trust again, you will flourish again in life. And you will rise up and be all that Father told you to be, you will do that, allow God into those fragmented areas of your soul.
See, because a whole lot of us, we forget our, when we come to Christ, and our spirit is born again, when we pray as sinners pray, now we recognize when our spirit is born again, we know that in that moment that our body's not born again, I mean like if you came to Christ on an altar call and you came to that altar call with cellulite on your thighs, I just want you to know that after you pray the sinner's prayer, you know that prayer that plucks you out of eternal darkness and flings you into eternal life, well that prayer, even when you've said amen, that, if you had that cellulite on your thigh before the amen, honey, after the amen, that cellulite's going back to your seat with you, it really is, and pretty much until you stop eating the krispy kreme donuts and you get on that treadmill, that cellulite's coming to the grave with you, I'm just letting you know, it may not be part of your new body, but it is part of this current body.
Now we all get that? We get that when it comes to our body. So what makes us think if we come to Jesus with a wounded soul that once we pray a sinner's prayer and our spirit is born again, what makes us think that our soul isn't still wounded again, is instantly born again? If our body's not instantly born again? Honey, if you came to God like I did, after twelve years of sexual abuse, after just, you know, being abandoned at a hospital, being adopted when I was very young and just the brokenness of coming through that, I lived, I was so broken, so full of shame, so full of guilt, so full of unforgiveness, just so messed-up.
Well, I came to Jesus, I had such a wounded soul, praying one sinner's prayer did not instantly heal my soul, I had to go through, I wish I could tell you that I went out on an altar call, someone spat on me, I fell over and got back up and went, "Phew, I'm healed", but that's not what happened, there was a process of restoration and a lot of us were unwilling to commit to the process and that's why we're not whole-hearted when it comes in to our service for the Lord, but if you would commit to the process, it would make such a difference to your life, and you know what? It would just help everything, instead of visiting with God just once a week, going, "Okay, I'm going to be a good person at church", because most of us can hold it together for about an hour, and then the minute we leave, it just doesn't happen.
You know, because it's like if we visit God, it's like if we give him visitation rights, now, listen, if a friend is going to come to your house and visit, what do you do? You clean your house, you clean that laundry room beautiful, you know, you go into the kids' bedroom, you get all the dirty undies, throw them in the cupboards, you know, you just kind of hide it. You go into the bathroom, you get rid of the sandpaper, you put really nice soft toilet paper because the visitors are coming? You know, you go into the kitchen and you make really good cookies and you tell the kids if they touch the cookies, they're dead, because that's for the visitors, only the visitors get the really good cookies, and you've already warned your children that if they in any way fight when the visitors are over, there is no Christmas presents until the second coming, I mean it is not going to happen.
And so the visitor comes at the appointed time, the visitor sits, everything's really polite, you can basically tell your kids are about to fight, you give them the evil eye while you're still looking at the visitor and it's amazing how a mother can do that simultaneously, it's just a spiritual gift, and then as soon as the visitor leaves, man, it's just like World War III. Everything just breaks out at home, you're like, we're like that with God, this is what we do when we do our visitation, like we come to church on a Sunday and you know if you're married, you're in the car and you're in there and you've got your spouse, you've got your kids, and I mean, you are going for it and you are saying a lot of four letter words, none of them are love, none of them are in the Bible, and so it is amazing.
I mean you have threatened the children with murder on the way, but then you pull into the church parking lot and what happens? That spirit of hypocrisy, it just comes upon us all. We get out of the car and we've just nearly killed everybody, but now we get to the foyer and there is a greeter at the door and they're like, "Hi, good morning, welcome to church, how are you"? All of a sudden, that hypocritical "I'm blessed. I'm blessed. I've been sanctified and justified and redeemed by the blood of the lamb and you know, here is my cherubim and my Seraphim and they're going into church, it's awesome".
And I mean you're in worship and you know, you're like, "I'm in worship service and I worship you, Almighty God, if he thinks he's getting any for the next two months", it's amazing. You can multitask when you are worshiping God and the pastor's preaching his sermon, you get into the car, you barely shut the car door, you hit your spouse and go, "Did you hear? That was for you! Every word was for you"! And then you get, and you can normally be a Christian maybe through to the end of Sunday but by Monday your evil twin is out and by Tuesday, oh my word, you are, we just can't even see any Fruit of the Spirit and by Wednesday you hate yourself because you're like, "Man, God, I can't do this".
And the deal is, because although your spirit's been born again, you haven't allowed God to come into those wounded places of your soul to bring healing and to bring wholeness and so you live a yo-yo Christianity, two days good, three days bad, two days good, three days bad, never making any progress, but if you would allow God to come and heal you from the inside out, you can know healing, you can know wholeness, and you can walk in victory in your life in Jesus' name.
Part 3
Hey everyone. I am so glad that you have joined us today. Welcome to this program. I believe that God has got a word for you and you have tuned in on an epic episode. We are wrapping up our series on what it is to be a generation changer. Do you know that you are not an accident? You are created by God on purpose and for a purpose and God has called you to generate change, bring into existence something different wherever you are on the earth today and I thank God that you and I do not have to live a purposeless life, but we can live a life on purpose and for a purpose, no matter what's going on in the world around us. You and I know that we are on assignment from God.
I feel a little bit like the men in black, I'm on a mission from God, that's what we're on and you know what? We are, every single one of us, wherever we are placed is called to bring a taste of heaven to earth, that's why we are here. We pray the prayer, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done", where? "Here on earth as it is in heaven". And so we have got a job to do to advance the Kingdom of God to bring the peace of God, to bring the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God into a lost and a broken world, and we're looking at the life of Josiah, one of the kings of Israel, one of the good kings. His grandfather was Manasseh, who was not a good king. He was actually, the Bible says that Manasseh was the most evil king.
Now a lot of the kings of Israel were really evil dudes, to get the wrap as the most evil of all the dudes, then you were really evil and he was really evil. He made it his assignment to get the Word of God out of Judah. I mean, who wants to go down in history as the person that eradicated the Word of God from a nation? The Bible says that he built idols to other Gods and just how sad, that you would just sell a culture out to idolatry and that he filled Judah with the blood of people from one side to the other. I mean, he was just a bloodthirsty man and obviously Josiah's own father only served for two years and was assassinated.
He, too, was an evil king, so to me the miracle of it is that an eight year old that should have been going into elementary school becomes a king, and his grandfather's obviously a very evil man. His own father is a very evil man, so the very fact that this young boy actually rose up with a heart for God is a miracle. I'm saying that because any one of us could be used by God to make a difference in our generation. You don't have to think I need to have the right heritage, I need to have the right history, I need to have generations of Christians in my background for God to use me.
I'm telling you, God raised up a young boy whose grandfather was the most evil man in the history of the nation. God raised that young boy to be a generation changer in his generation and God is looking for generation changers and I want God to use me, I want to make a difference and so the first thing he started to do was he repaired the temple.
The second thing he did, and scripture tells us in Second Kings chapter 22, verse eight, "And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, 'I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord'. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan and he read it. And Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, 'your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord'. Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, 'Hilkiah the priest has given me a book'. And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest and ahikam the son of Shaphan, and achbor the son of micaiah, and Shaphan the secretary and asaiah the king's servant, saying, 'go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us'".
I mean, how powerful? His grandfather had removed the Word of God. His grandfather, that was his assignment, to take the Word of God out of this place, to destroy it, to remove it from there and so, you know what? In Josiah's day, just like today, there was a widespread misunderstanding and lack of understanding about this word and what is actually is. In our own society, I hate to break this news to you, not everyone's reading the Bible. Not everybody's following the Bible. Most people don't actually, we've never had more access to the Word of God and never had fewer people reading it. And people just don't understand, there is a whole world that has been raised up not honoring this word.
There's a whole generation that doesn't even know what's in this word. It is not any different to the world that you and I are living in and the fact is that, imagine discovering. I mean, they found unread copies of the law in the temple. Imagine going into church and just finding unread copies of the Bible everywhere. Just unread copies of the Bible. It's so quiet because, most of us, that's what it's like. It is amazing to me, is that what's going to happen 100 years from now? People are going to come into the houses of worship and there's unread copies of the Bible because a whole generation has been raised that doesn't even know what this word is? And so it is crucial, it is crucial, those of us that have access to this word never, ever take it for granted.
The first thing Josiah did when the book of the law was read to the king, what did he do? He rent his clothes, which in those days was like a huge sign of grief. He rent his clothes in sorrow and in shame when he thought about how this word had been neglected, how this law had been broken. You and I just go, will I have a quiet time today or not? Which version will I read it in? How many versions have I got on this one app? And you can have it on an app on your phone and still not read it, it's of no value to you. This only brings change when you value it. Are we raising up a generation that does not value the holy Word of God?
This is a sacred text, these are the holy words of God. This is not just any book. This book is alive, these words are alive. This is the very breath of God, breathed on this page. These are holy words, these are sacred words, these are words... You wonder why our world is so out of control? Because they don't even know how to live life according to the Word of God, but there's no point blaming the world. The people of God ought to honor the Word of God and live the Word of God so the world can think, "I want what they've got". We ought to prioritize the centrality of the Word of God, the Word of God. Let me just tell you, you know Jesus Christ saved my soul from hell but this word saved my mind. This word saved my mind. The Bible says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed", Romans 12:1, "By the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God".
I couldn't think two straight thoughts. I was so messed up from 12 years of abuse, I was so messed up from abandonment. At 22, I started to meditate and to memorize the Word of God. It saved my mind, it saved my mind, this word, this word saved my mind. And so you know what? We've got it on our phones, on our computers, we've got it in books. How about we open it? How about we read it? Honey, that unopened app isn't going to do anything to your life. You've got to open the app and you've got to start using it if it's going to make a difference.
Hebrews 4:12, "For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart". It's this word. Matthew 4:4, "But he answered, 'it is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"'".
Second Timothy 3:16, "All scripture". How much? "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness".
Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and it shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it".
Romans 10:17, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ". You will not have faith for what you do not hear and so we need to hear the word of Christ that we can stir up that gift of faith and we can step out and do mighty exploits to the glory of our God, that's what we need to do.
Isaiah 40:8, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord will stand forever".
Jeremiah 23:29, "Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces"? Oh I love this word. I love this word. He restored the house of God, he restored the centrality of the Word of God.
2 Kings 23:4-10, scripture tells us that he tore down idols. He says, "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest that he may count the money". Oh sorry, 2 Kings 23, that was 22, that's good too but I'll go to 23. "And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal". Can you imagine what Manasseh did to bring into the house of God? Imagine, idols that were built for Baal worship. I mean, it's an abomination, it's an abomination.
"For Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the city of Judah and around Jerusalem: those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens and he brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the brook kidron and burned it at the brook kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah and he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings from geba to BeerSheba, and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one's left at the gate of the city. However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the alter of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers", and it just keeps going.
He went through a process of tearing down idols. Very early on, he began to do what was right to do. He had a zealous desire to go in and take out these abominations that people had built up. People that had put idols to Baal, and imagine in the house of God. Male prostitutes, female prostitutes, as they were being sacrificed and they were being worshiped instead of the living, one true God.
Now today, you and I don't have those kinds, we don't bow down to idols and we don't bow down to images but let me just say, we have plenty of idolatry happening in our generation as well. In our days, we worship at the God of self. Never has there been a generation quite like the selfie generation. It is amazing how we are the center of our world. All idolatry, I want you to hear this, all idolatry has self at its core. It actually really does. In first John 2:16 it says, "For all that is in the world", and I want you to hear these things, "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the father but of the world".
Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, everything comes down to those three things. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. You go back, any form of idolatry, sin, iniquity will come back to one of these categories. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. And so, an idol, some people are going "Okay, Chris, what do you mean? I don't have a Buddhist statue sitting there in my kitchen so what are you talking about"? And if you do, get rid of it. And so here is the deal. The deal is, anything that takes the place of Jesus. That could be a person, that could be an addiction. The root of all addictions actually is idolatry. You could unpack that. I might have to teach that another time.
Idolatry and the root of... When you elevate a person in your life to a place that only God should be, that could be a spouse, that could be a lover, that could be a boyfriend, a girlfriend, that could be just a friend, a boss, an employee. Wherever you elevate someone to a place that only Jesus should be, that becomes an idol and I promise you, if you hear nothing else I say, idols will 100% guarantee, every time disappoint. Every time. Every time in your life, they will disappoint and so what happened, the idols of our generation are things like materialism.
Things like celebrity, things like fame, sports can be an idol, relationships can be idols, activities can be idols, addictions can be idols, careers can be idols, education can be an idol, accomplishments can be idols, food can become an idol, sexual appetites can become an idol. Where we spend the majority of our time, our talent, our treasure, that's going to tell you what you worship in your life. That's going to tell you what you worship. You can say what you want about your love for Jesus but check your checkbook, check your time, check what you do with your talents. That's going to tell you what you idolize, not just what you say with your mouth.
Our hearts and minds must be centered on God and others. Jesus Christ is the one that we worship. He becomes the motivating force in our life. Anything that takes the place of Jesus. When you're looking to anything, a substance, a person, an accomplishment, something else to give you value, to give you significance, to give you security, to give you what you can only ultimately get from God, that thing has become an idol in your life and an idol will disappoint you and an idol will destroy you. And so you have got to make a decision that you are going to place Jesus back on the throne, and you know what? You're going to let a lot of your relationships off the hook. You are demanding things from people that they just cannot give you. They just cannot give you. It's not in them to give you.
You know, I remember there was a situation in my life and there was something and I remember my spiritual mamma, Joyce Meyer, she said to me, "Christine, God will not let them give you what you think you need from them because you have to learn to get it from him", and some of you are trying to get something from people and there's so much conflict, and there's so much division in that relationship because you're trying to get from them what they can't give you. If someone's in a wheelchair, they can't walk and so you're trying to demand that this person walks but they're not God, they're not able to do it so let them off the hook.
Stop trying to make them your God and go to Jesus. He will never let you down, he will never leave you, he will never disappoint you, he will never forsake you. Jesus is the only one that is able to be a God in your life. And then Josiah, he also restored the passover. In chapter 23, verse 21 the Bible says "And the king commanded all the people, 'keep the passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant'".
You know, after all this was done, so he restored the house of God, he restored the Word of God, he tore down idols and then he kept the passover, a form of worship. We know passover is symbolic of Jesus and what he has done for us, but he had the biggest, greatest passover in history at that time. So it's quite amazing to me, this passover is the central act of redemption in the Old Testament.
Remember when God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and took them into the wilderness and then the Promised Land, that passover, it was the central act of redemption in the Old Testament and he, after all of these years, no house of God, no Word of God, idols in the nation, what Josiah did was instituted one of the greatest passovers, it says a passover like this had never been held before. It was so neglected in Israel's history that he reinstituted this act of worship, this holy act of worship and it is amazing to me that Josiah, he restored the house of God, he restored the Word of God, he tore down all the idols and he restored worship to God and if you and I are going to see a revival in our idolatrous, immoral, ungodly generation, then you and I ought to be committed to the same thing.
Josiah saved a generation from God's judgment. He found the land full of idolatry and corruption but he pulled down idols, he burned altars, he swept away the dens of iniquity and he found the temple closed and neglected and it was in decay but he repaired it and he restored it. He found the law of God forgotten and a temple copy was hidden out of sight, but he restored it in its proper place and he ruled and governed the nation by it and then he restored the passover and worship to God, so if we are going to be a people of God that are going to see a revival of God in our generation then let's be a people that are committed to tearing down idols, to restoring the house of God, the Word of God and worship of the one, true, living God in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name let's do that, let's do that.