# Embrace Your Place (Christine Caine)

An episode of [Elevation with Steven Furtick](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/216015753), 1 Mar 2026, 50 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/cbb40a38-726f-4243-a86e-b0ed01477640/e7713c30-7a8b-40b4-afba-b40001538e1c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ff9164b2-aa64-410d-9ee1-b0ed0147765c

What if where you are right now is exactly where God wants you? He hasn’t overlooked you; He’s set you apart. Learn how to stop comparing your position to someone else’s platform and start embracing the purpose God has for your life. If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: ele.vc/tIepfr Scripture References: 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12-27 1 Samuel 16, verses 1, 6-12 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
[0:06] Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Be sure to subscribe so we can get you these
[0:11] Speaker 2: new sermons every week. Hope you're blessed today.
[0:21] Speaker 3: I am so grateful for Jesus and I am so
[0:26] Speaker 3: grateful for every one of you here today at Elevation Church.
[0:32] Speaker 3: How grateful am I and all.
[0:36] Speaker 1: Of our e family.
[0:38] Speaker 3: I've got to say, I'm so excited this morning. Normally
[0:41] Speaker 3: I'm the one on the other side of the screen.
[0:44] Speaker 1: Because I'll give it. I'll let you in a little secret.
[0:46] Speaker 3: You know, I live on the West Coast, and so
[0:48] Speaker 3: you're three hours ahead of us. So before I go
[0:51] Speaker 3: and preach on the West Coast, I get a dose
[0:54] Speaker 3: of Pastor Stephen Ferdick before.
[0:56] Speaker 1: I go and breathe.
[0:57] Speaker 3: Every every Sunday, I'm so so grateful for Pastor Stephen
[1:02] Speaker 3: and Holly and this church. Turn to your neighbor and say,
[1:05] Speaker 3: you are the best looking person I've seen today wherever
[1:07] Speaker 3: you are, Okay, hang on, just before you sit down,
[1:13] Speaker 3: turn to your other neighbor that's your second choice, and
[1:15] Speaker 3: say you're actually better looking than the other person.
[1:17] Speaker 1: I was lying. I was lying you could be seated.
[1:25] Speaker 3: I could not wait to be with my Elevation Church
[1:29] Speaker 3: family today and all our e family. I'm excited because
[1:33] Speaker 3: I'm normally that person on the other side of the screen,
[1:35] Speaker 3: and it is like being home away from home. You
[1:39] Speaker 3: know when I first started coming here. I am here
[1:41] Speaker 3: today with the single most ravishing piece of masculine flesh
[1:45] Speaker 3: on planet Earth. And in about two weeks Nick and
[1:49] Speaker 3: I have been married for thirty years.
[1:51] Speaker 1: How is that?
[1:53] Speaker 3: And so you know, I gotta say my husband is
[1:58] Speaker 3: number twelve of thirteen children. Yes, there was no television
[2:03] Speaker 3: in that part of Australia at all. My Nick's mother
[2:07] Speaker 3: had fifteen full term pregnancies in seventeen years.
[2:12] Speaker 1: Yola just got to say. Every woman in this.
[2:14] Speaker 3: Room just crossed her legs right there. That was like
[2:17] Speaker 3: another level. I'm glad they didn't stop where they were.
[2:20] Speaker 3: But my mother in law, she didn't think you were
[2:21] Speaker 3: a chick unless you popped out like ten kids. And
[2:23] Speaker 3: we've only got two. So I would take my two daughters,
[2:26] Speaker 3: Katherine and I'd say to my mother in law, this
[2:29] Speaker 3: is Katherine and she is my Alpha.
[2:31] Speaker 1: And this is Sophia and she is my Omega.
[2:34] Speaker 3: And this is the beginning and the end of my
[2:37] Speaker 3: child very years.
[2:38] Speaker 1: This is where it all stops right here.
[2:41] Speaker 3: And so our daughters, you know, when we started coming
[2:44] Speaker 3: to elevation, they were like in single digits. And now Katherine,
[2:47] Speaker 3: she graduated from Pepperdine last May.
[2:50] Speaker 1: I don't know if you know where that is.
[2:51] Speaker 3: Yes, she was suffering for Jesus at Malibu Beach for
[2:55] Speaker 3: the last four years. She was like, here, I am Lord,
[2:57] Speaker 3: send me so. And then she went to Archie Dinner
[3:00] Speaker 3: and did an internship with a church down there, which
[3:03] Speaker 3: was fantastic. And now she's back working with us.
[3:06] Speaker 1: At A twenty one.
[3:08] Speaker 3: And then our Sophia is studying comparative literature in Paris,
[3:12] Speaker 3: and I know I called her. She's like, Mummy, I
[3:15] Speaker 3: can't talk to you right now. I'm just watching the
[3:17] Speaker 3: sunset over Notre Dame eating a chocolate croissant, to which
[3:21] Speaker 3: I replied, sweetheart, if you want to watch that same
[3:24] Speaker 3: sunset next semester with your fees paid, you will talk
[3:28] Speaker 3: to your mother right now. That's actually what you're going
[3:31] Speaker 3: to be doing.
[3:32] Speaker 1: There's nothing else. Don't choke on your croissant. But anyway, and.
[3:38] Speaker 3: This is the year that.
[3:40] Speaker 1: I turn sixty.
[3:42] Speaker 3: So I am so excited, and I have to tell
[3:46] Speaker 3: you all that I am celebrating every day. There is
[3:49] Speaker 3: no way I'm waiting till September.
[3:51] Speaker 1: I figure, if you'd live this.
[3:52] Speaker 3: Long and you're not dead, you are celebrating for three
[3:55] Speaker 3: hundred and sixty five days. That's what I'm doing. So
[4:00] Speaker 3: I'm telling you all because I love gifts, feel free
[4:02] Speaker 3: all year, and so I'm also doing.
[4:05] Speaker 1: Sixty things I've never.
[4:06] Speaker 3: Done before because I want to make sure.
[4:09] Speaker 1: We finish strong.
[4:10] Speaker 3: We need a generation of young people that can see
[4:12] Speaker 3: that the longer you walk with Jesus.
[4:14] Speaker 1: The better that it gets.
[4:15] Speaker 3: I'm telling you I want to run my race and
[4:18] Speaker 3: finish my course. I love being twenty, and I love
[4:20] Speaker 3: being thirty, and I love being forty.
[4:22] Speaker 1: And I love being in my fifties.
[4:23] Speaker 3: But there is nothing like your sixth decade that is
[4:26] Speaker 3: the best thing.
[4:27] Speaker 1: So you just wait. It gets better and better and better.
[4:30] Speaker 3: That's is I mean, how could you fix your eyes
[4:32] Speaker 3: on Jesus for over four decades and not grow more
[4:36] Speaker 3: in love or grace or peace, or goodness or kindness.
[4:40] Speaker 1: You know, some people like they look like just a
[4:42] Speaker 1: whole lot.
[4:43] Speaker 3: I don't know, more depressed after forty years. I'm like, honey,
[4:46] Speaker 3: you could not have fixed your eyes on Jesus and then.
[4:48] Speaker 1: Up like that.
[4:50] Speaker 3: Some people, you know, I have been in the wave
[4:51] Speaker 3: for fifty years. I'm like, get out of the way anyway.
[4:54] Speaker 1: So I'm just like I told my daughters, I'm going.
[4:56] Speaker 3: To be super Granny for Jesus's I'm going to be
[4:59] Speaker 3: like kay, he said, I'm eighty five, and I'm as
[5:02] Speaker 3: strong now as I was then. Now give me this mountain.
[5:05] Speaker 3: That's my inheritance. I'm going in.
[5:07] Speaker 1: To take it. So it just gets better. You young ones,
[5:11] Speaker 1: you don't even know. You don't even know yet. What
[5:14] Speaker 1: do I tell you all that for?
[5:15] Speaker 3: Because I'm doing sixty things I've never done, and that
[5:18] Speaker 3: could be anything. It could be, like you know, really
[5:20] Speaker 3: big things, really little things. And you know, so I
[5:24] Speaker 3: live in California and we that is a home of
[5:28] Speaker 3: in and out.
[5:28] Speaker 1: I don't know, do you have in and out? Yes?
[5:31] Speaker 3: Okay, And they're going to be serving that at the
[5:32] Speaker 3: marriage Supper of the Lamb in case anybody was not sure.
[5:36] Speaker 3: And so I thought, after like three decades of going
[5:39] Speaker 3: to Texas, I thought, Okay, this is my sixtieth year.
[5:43] Speaker 1: I'm going to do things I've never done. So I
[5:45] Speaker 1: tried what a burger?
[5:49] Speaker 3: That was a once I'm done, now I'm moving on too,
[5:51] Speaker 3: they was. And then I'd never seen the Northern lights.
[5:54] Speaker 3: So Nick took me to Alaska to see the Northern
[5:57] Speaker 3: Lights and stain and Igloo, and I thought, next time
[6:00] Speaker 3: we want to go to an igloo, you can go byself. Okay,
[6:02] Speaker 3: So it was awesome, but we also did that, and
[6:06] Speaker 3: I got to tell you to give some of you
[6:07] Speaker 3: some excitement.
[6:08] Speaker 1: To keep going.
[6:09] Speaker 3: I've been almost four decades in full time vocational ministry,
[6:12] Speaker 3: and the Lord's allowed us to do lots of things,
[6:14] Speaker 3: but I did get I just want to tell you
[6:16] Speaker 3: because I did get a.
[6:17] Speaker 1: First which for me.
[6:19] Speaker 3: You know, I've written twelve books and done a lot
[6:21] Speaker 3: of ministry in nearly four decades.
[6:22] Speaker 1: But last week, The Faith to.
[6:24] Speaker 3: Flourish came out and it was the first time I
[6:26] Speaker 3: got a New York Times bestseller?
[6:28] Speaker 1: How is that the first time?
[6:30] Speaker 3: So I'm telling you that because life does not stop
[6:34] Speaker 3: when you're sixty. There's a whole lot of first.
[6:36] Speaker 1: Ahead of you. And you know, I just truly believe.
[6:40] Speaker 3: That it is the will of God, that the body
[6:41] Speaker 3: of Christ begins to flourish again. And you know, we
[6:46] Speaker 3: dive deep into the life of the olive tree, because
[6:49] Speaker 3: I was reading some fifty two, verse eight, and David
[6:52] Speaker 3: in the midst of his darkest hour, there was so
[6:54] Speaker 3: much adversity. Was Saul was chasing him to kill him,
[6:58] Speaker 3: Doe Egg was after him. There was so much betrayal
[7:02] Speaker 3: and lies and slander and gossip and darkness. And he
[7:06] Speaker 3: was in fear of his physical life. And yet in
[7:08] Speaker 3: the midst of it, he said, but I am like
[7:11] Speaker 3: a green olive tree flourishing in the House of God.
[7:16] Speaker 3: And he was speaking of his deliverance and his state
[7:20] Speaker 3: regardless of his external circumstances.
[7:23] Speaker 1: And I was standing.
[7:23] Speaker 3: We have an a twenty one office in Athens in Greece,
[7:27] Speaker 3: and I was taking a team there.
[7:29] Speaker 1: We went up to the top of the Acropolis.
[7:30] Speaker 3: To see the Parthenon, and it's barren, and it's arid,
[7:33] Speaker 3: and it's dry and everything. It was in the middle
[7:37] Speaker 3: of the There had been great fires in Athens. There
[7:40] Speaker 3: was a great heat wave, and there was no other
[7:43] Speaker 3: trees that were alive. There was nothing, there was no vegetation,
[7:46] Speaker 3: and there was this one and if you go up
[7:48] Speaker 3: to the parthenon, you'll see it, this sacred olive tree.
[7:51] Speaker 3: And here in the midst of barrenness, here in the
[7:55] Speaker 3: midst of a place where nothing else is growing, there
[7:59] Speaker 3: is this green olive tree whose root system goes deep,
[8:02] Speaker 3: that is flourishing and thriving and producing fruit and producing
[8:07] Speaker 3: an ecosystem and keeping other things alive and giving them
[8:11] Speaker 3: shelter and producing oil.
[8:13] Speaker 1: And I sat there, and I.
[8:14] Speaker 3: Went to eight countries, went to visit olive farms on
[8:17] Speaker 3: eight different countries, talk to the owners of olive farms
[8:20] Speaker 3: to see.
[8:21] Speaker 1: I have nerded out so much.
[8:22] Speaker 3: I know more about olive trees, olive oil, olive branches,
[8:25] Speaker 3: and olives than you would ever want. But I'm Greek,
[8:27] Speaker 3: and so if you've seen my big fact Greek wedding,
[8:29] Speaker 3: that is my big fact Greek life. You had milk
[8:31] Speaker 3: in your baby bottle. I had olive oil. And so
[8:34] Speaker 3: the issue is out of that that an olive tree
[8:37] Speaker 3: grows where nothing else grows and continues to breed life.
[8:40] Speaker 1: And in scripture there are over.
[8:41] Speaker 3: Two hundred references to olive trees, olive oil, olive branches.
[8:45] Speaker 3: And I think in this hour where our world is
[8:48] Speaker 3: so chaotic, it's so full of division, it's so full
[8:50] Speaker 3: of fear, it's so full of darkness and economic instability,
[8:54] Speaker 3: and political instability, and moral instability and sociological instability. We
[8:58] Speaker 3: the Church of Jesus Christ to be like a green
[9:00] Speaker 3: olive tree, flourishing and producing life, and it will be
[9:05] Speaker 3: one of the greatest witnesses to our generation if we
[9:09] Speaker 3: would dare do that. So I was excited about writing
[9:13] Speaker 3: that message, and I'm believing to equip us to do it.
[9:16] Speaker 3: And I also want to say thank you to every
[9:20] Speaker 3: one of you because Elevation Church is such a key
[9:23] Speaker 3: partner church right from day one of a twenty one.
[9:26] Speaker 3: And I just want to testify because so many of you,
[9:29] Speaker 3: especially during Love Week, you are involved in packing packages
[9:33] Speaker 3: at our We've got an office here in Charlotte, and
[9:36] Speaker 3: so many of so much of what you pack goes
[9:39] Speaker 3: to survivors, Like we go out with law enforcement when
[9:42] Speaker 3: there are raids done and when there are operations done,
[9:45] Speaker 3: and sometimes we're the first port of contact with victims
[9:50] Speaker 3: and survivors. And because of your giving and because of
[9:54] Speaker 3: your generosity, we are able to give packs that bring
[9:58] Speaker 3: dignity to the women and the children and writing those
[10:00] Speaker 3: moments of crisis. But I do want to tell you
[10:03] Speaker 3: because there's a case that we've been working on for
[10:06] Speaker 3: nine years. This is how long it takes. Nine years.
[10:09] Speaker 3: And last week the guy from Charlotte that had trafficked
[10:13] Speaker 3: multiple women across fifty one cities, fifteen states, we put
[10:16] Speaker 3: him away for thirty five years. How is that right here?
[10:21] Speaker 3: It's Charlotte, North Carolina.
[10:23] Speaker 1: So that is what you're giving is doing. And so
[10:27] Speaker 1: I am so so grateful.
[10:28] Speaker 3: I could keep you here and tell you story after story,
[10:32] Speaker 3: but I told you we've been married thirty years in March.
[10:36] Speaker 3: And Nick and I, I mean he's from an English
[10:38] Speaker 3: Irish background. I'm from a Greek background, so I'm demonstrative
[10:42] Speaker 3: in every way. My inside voice is my outside voice,
[10:46] Speaker 3: is my every voice. And Nick is like Christine, I
[10:50] Speaker 3: am excited in worship. My big toe is moving in
[10:53] Speaker 3: my shoe, you know so.
[10:54] Speaker 1: And I'm like in orbit, like who am I on?
[10:57] Speaker 1: Like I nearly was up there through the sky today.
[11:00] Speaker 3: So but I'm also meticulous, he would say, bought aline OCD.
[11:04] Speaker 1: Anyway, I'm very meticulous.
[11:06] Speaker 3: And we have a mantra in our house since my
[11:09] Speaker 3: girls were like.
[11:11] Speaker 1: Came in Utero.
[11:12] Speaker 3: We had a mantra and we would say, and I
[11:15] Speaker 3: would say, girls, there is a place for everything, and
[11:21] Speaker 3: everything has a place.
[11:23] Speaker 1: See, you're just like me.
[11:25] Speaker 3: But Nick Nick is of the opinion that there are
[11:29] Speaker 3: many potential places for every one thing.
[11:33] Speaker 1: And let me just.
[11:34] Speaker 3: Say that over thirty years there have been some not many,
[11:38] Speaker 3: for frequent times of intense fellowship over which one of
[11:44] Speaker 3: the many places nixt keys may have been in. And
[11:48] Speaker 3: if we just put them in the one place we
[11:51] Speaker 3: would have avoided, there would have been much more fruit
[11:53] Speaker 3: of the spirit.
[11:54] Speaker 1: In our household.
[11:55] Speaker 3: He believes that the Lord sent him into my life
[11:58] Speaker 3: for sanctification, for an additional lay of sanctification. But I
[12:02] Speaker 3: always think it's really good if we just put things
[12:06] Speaker 3: in their place. I mean, it takes as much effort
[12:08] Speaker 3: to put in the right place as the wrong place.
[12:11] Speaker 3: And anyway, I'm gonna not help a lot of marriages
[12:13] Speaker 3: right now, so we're not gonna I'm watching Nudging Happening
[12:16] Speaker 3: and heads movie. But I do have to say that
[12:21] Speaker 3: after almost four decades of serving Jesus, it is nice
[12:25] Speaker 3: when God agrees with you. And so in my quiet time,
[12:30] Speaker 3: when I came across First Corinthians chapter twelve. I needed
[12:34] Speaker 3: to take it to Nick to show him that God and.
[12:36] Speaker 1: I were in the same same place.
[12:39] Speaker 3: We were on the same page when it comes to
[12:41] Speaker 3: the fact that there is a place for everything, and
[12:44] Speaker 3: I had to dig into the nineteen eighty four NIV version.
[12:50] Speaker 3: Today we have come to real church here at elevation
[12:53] Speaker 3: to pull out First Corinthians Chapter twelve, Verses twelve to
[12:56] Speaker 3: twenty seven. I'm going to read this to you. This
[12:58] Speaker 3: is the word of the Lord. The body is a
[13:00] Speaker 3: in it. Though it is made up of many parts,
[13:02] Speaker 3: and though all its parts are many, they form one body.
[13:07] Speaker 3: So it is with Christ. For we are sorry. For
[13:12] Speaker 3: we were all baptized by one spirit into one body,
[13:15] Speaker 3: whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all.
[13:19] Speaker 1: Given the one spirit to drink. Now, the body is
[13:23] Speaker 1: not made up of one part, but of many.
[13:27] Speaker 3: If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand,
[13:30] Speaker 3: I do not belong to the body, it would not,
[13:33] Speaker 3: for that reason cease to.
[13:35] Speaker 1: Be part of the body. And if the ear should say,
[13:38] Speaker 1: because I am not an eye, I.
[13:39] Speaker 3: Do not belong to the body, it would not, for
[13:42] Speaker 3: that reason cease to be part of the body. If
[13:46] Speaker 3: the whole body were an eye, where would the sense
[13:48] Speaker 3: of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear,
[13:51] Speaker 3: where would the sense of smell be? But in fact,
[13:57] Speaker 3: God has arranged the parts of the body, every one
[14:01] Speaker 3: of them, just as he wanted.
[14:03] Speaker 1: Them to be. If they were all one.
[14:06] Speaker 3: Part, where would the body be as it is?
[14:09] Speaker 1: There are many parts but one body.
[14:12] Speaker 3: The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you,
[14:14] Speaker 3: and the head cannot say to.
[14:15] Speaker 1: The feet, I don't need you.
[14:18] Speaker 3: On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem
[14:21] Speaker 3: to be weaker are indispensable. And the parts we think
[14:25] Speaker 3: are less honorable we treat.
[14:26] Speaker 1: With special honor. And the parts that.
[14:28] Speaker 3: Are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable
[14:34] Speaker 3: parts need.
[14:34] Speaker 1: No special treatment.
[14:36] Speaker 3: But God has combined the members of the body and
[14:39] Speaker 3: has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,
[14:42] Speaker 3: so that there should be no division in the body,
[14:45] Speaker 3: but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
[14:50] Speaker 3: If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If
[14:54] Speaker 3: one part is on it, every part rejoices with it.
[14:58] Speaker 3: Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of.
[15:02] Speaker 1: You is a part of it.
[15:05] Speaker 3: I love this portion of Scripture, Paul was writing to
[15:08] Speaker 3: the church in Karnth who was incredibly divided, especially in
[15:13] Speaker 3: the way that they were ranking the value of spiritual gifts.
[15:19] Speaker 1: And so the fact is that they were thinking.
[15:23] Speaker 3: That the more visible gifts and that they were the
[15:26] Speaker 3: more important gifts, the more spectacular, especially when it came
[15:30] Speaker 3: to the charismatic gifts of they have to be the
[15:33] Speaker 3: more important gifts. So what that was causing was division
[15:37] Speaker 3: and hierarchy. And yet God had set every part of
[15:41] Speaker 3: the body in place just as he saw fit.
[15:45] Speaker 1: He has a place for every single part. There's no hierarchy.
[15:49] Speaker 3: It doesn't rank as important because there's only one body
[15:53] Speaker 3: in dwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, and there's
[15:55] Speaker 3: only one head on this body, and his name is
[15:58] Speaker 3: King Jesus. He is the head of his body, and
[16:02] Speaker 3: every other part, every other part, has a very important
[16:07] Speaker 3: place to play in the Body of Christ. Now, what
[16:11] Speaker 3: happens is in our culture that so elevates visibility and
[16:17] Speaker 3: confuses prominence and visibility with significance, we end up having
[16:23] Speaker 3: a problem in the church because culture says if you
[16:26] Speaker 3: have more followers, you're more important, If you're a greater
[16:29] Speaker 3: celebrity and more people know your name. Somehow you are
[16:33] Speaker 3: more important or you have greater influence, so you are
[16:36] Speaker 3: more important. That's not how the body works. Just because
[16:40] Speaker 3: someone you today you see me here on this platform,
[16:44] Speaker 3: in the eyes of God and in the Church.
[16:46] Speaker 1: Of God, and in the Body of Christ, I am
[16:48] Speaker 1: no more.
[16:49] Speaker 3: Important than any other part of the body, because God
[16:53] Speaker 3: sets every member in place in his body.
[16:58] Speaker 1: It's actually his body.
[17:00] Speaker 3: But we can bring into our commitment to the Lord
[17:05] Speaker 3: the same.
[17:06] Speaker 1: Thinking that the world has.
[17:09] Speaker 3: Are we confuse visibility with significance, We confuse reach and
[17:16] Speaker 3: being known.
[17:17] Speaker 1: With significance to God. But here in.
[17:21] Speaker 3: This passage, Pall says, there's not one part that's dispensable.
[17:25] Speaker 3: There's not one single part of the Body of Christ
[17:28] Speaker 3: that is not an important part and doesn't have a
[17:32] Speaker 3: place in the body. Just because you can't see them
[17:35] Speaker 3: doesn't mean that they are in any way of any
[17:38] Speaker 3: less value. Now, the fact is, for you see me here,
[17:43] Speaker 3: you see the worship team here, Pastor Jonathan.
[17:45] Speaker 1: Today.
[17:46] Speaker 3: But before we even woke up this morning, there was
[17:49] Speaker 3: people that were getting up and praying for all of
[17:53] Speaker 3: our locations, for our EPAM, for all of our services.
[17:57] Speaker 3: People that nobody even has ever seen.
[18:00] Speaker 1: You don't know their names. There are people working in.
[18:03] Speaker 3: The parking lot that are getting ready, that are directing traffic.
[18:08] Speaker 3: There are people right now with our children teaching them
[18:11] Speaker 3: about the importance of the Word of God. People that
[18:15] Speaker 3: are teaching our teenagers. There are people that are working
[18:20] Speaker 3: the sound and the light, and people that are working
[18:23] Speaker 3: the scriptures going up on screen or making sure that there.
[18:27] Speaker 1: Is connection for if you.
[18:29] Speaker 3: Can't see any of them. But let me just say,
[18:32] Speaker 3: if this microphone went off, we.
[18:33] Speaker 1: Would all suffer.
[18:36] Speaker 3: If one part suffers, everyone suffers. If there was no
[18:39] Speaker 3: one to turn the lights on, if there was no
[18:42] Speaker 3: one that was praying, if there was no one that
[18:44] Speaker 3: was serving our children, or our kids or in the
[18:46] Speaker 3: parking lot, then.
[18:48] Speaker 1: We would all suffer.
[18:50] Speaker 3: But what happens is we've learned to think that the
[18:53] Speaker 3: only thing that matters in the body is the prominent positions,
[18:56] Speaker 3: and somehow that prominence is more significant to God. But
[18:59] Speaker 3: God says, it's my body, and I set every member
[19:03] Speaker 3: in place in my body. God sets the members in place. Now,
[19:12] Speaker 3: you know, it's so interesting, and I don't think we
[19:15] Speaker 3: understand really the value of what it means that if
[19:18] Speaker 3: one part suffers, every part suffers. A few years ago,
[19:22] Speaker 3: you know, really, when we moved to America, I went
[19:24] Speaker 3: skiing foremost the first time in my life. What had
[19:27] Speaker 3: happened is I'm from a Greek background, and Josh, you
[19:29] Speaker 3: have to understand that Greeks are fatalist. By that, I
[19:32] Speaker 3: mean it does not matter how bad things are, they
[19:35] Speaker 3: can always get worse with a Greek family. And so
[19:38] Speaker 3: I grew up in a Greek home where my mother
[19:40] Speaker 3: would always say whose dinner?
[19:43] Speaker 1: We speak?
[19:43] Speaker 3: Greek is my first language, and we have windecks in
[19:46] Speaker 3: every room of the house, and so.
[19:47] Speaker 1: She go, Who's dinner?
[19:49] Speaker 3: You can't go skiing because if.
[19:52] Speaker 1: You go skiing, you'll die.
[19:55] Speaker 3: There was no possibility you could go skiing and ski
[19:58] Speaker 3: It was like ski equals death. So when we finally
[20:01] Speaker 3: moved to America, I felt like I.
[20:03] Speaker 1: Was a fourteen hour plane ride away from.
[20:05] Speaker 3: My Greek mother. I know, I was forty five, but
[20:07] Speaker 3: I was still scared of her. So it was like, Okay,
[20:10] Speaker 3: I can now do what I want finally, And so
[20:13] Speaker 3: these five families from Louisiana invited us to go skiing
[20:17] Speaker 3: in Colorado. Now this was during the winter Olympics, and
[20:21] Speaker 3: I know I'm from Australia, so I could surf. I
[20:23] Speaker 3: thought surfing and skiing were the same thing. They're not,
[20:26] Speaker 3: in case you're wondering, and so I'm thinking this is
[20:28] Speaker 3: going to be easy. So what I would do Church
[20:31] Speaker 3: is I would watch the Winter Olympics at night like
[20:35] Speaker 3: we just have, and then I would get up in
[20:39] Speaker 3: the morning and think, I am representing Australia. I am
[20:43] Speaker 3: representing Australia.
[20:45] Speaker 1: The fact that I didn't know what I was doing
[20:46] Speaker 1: was incidental. So you know, all the guys would be on.
[20:50] Speaker 3: These like double black diamond suicide runs and I would
[20:53] Speaker 3: have to go to the green slopes with the two
[20:55] Speaker 3: year olds that were just learning how to ski. So
[20:57] Speaker 3: there was all the two year olds and Christine. Well,
[21:00] Speaker 3: this one day I said to my husband, I go, Dick,
[21:03] Speaker 3: I want you to.
[21:03] Speaker 1: Come with me and the guys. We had this great run.
[21:06] Speaker 3: And so you know, he'd by then had been married
[21:08] Speaker 3: for more than a minute. And any man that's been
[21:10] Speaker 3: married for more than a minute knows that if your
[21:13] Speaker 3: wife ever asks you to do anything like would you
[21:16] Speaker 3: want to go on the black double diamond slaps with
[21:18] Speaker 3: your friends or come on the green flat slaps with
[21:20] Speaker 3: me and the two year olds. If you kind of
[21:22] Speaker 3: wanted any action that night, you would come to the
[21:25] Speaker 3: thing with your wife. I'm just putting it out there
[21:27] Speaker 3: in the atmosphere. So married, I did say, married.
[21:32] Speaker 1: And so and so Nick came with me, and I.
[21:37] Speaker 3: Go to him, Babe, if you are with the guys
[21:40] Speaker 3: right now, you wouldn't be having any more fun, would you,
[21:45] Speaker 3: one would think.
[21:47] Speaker 1: But my husband, being.
[21:48] Speaker 3: A man of integrity, not only said.
[21:51] Speaker 1: Yes, this is what he said. He goes, Babe, if
[21:53] Speaker 1: I was with the guys right now, I.
[21:55] Speaker 3: Would be having much more, much more fun. Okay, Now,
[22:01] Speaker 3: that is like putting a red rag in front of
[22:03] Speaker 3: a bull.
[22:04] Speaker 1: So I went.
[22:06] Speaker 3: I looked and there was like this blue run just
[22:08] Speaker 3: over there. So I turned my skis down famous last words.
[22:12] Speaker 3: I look over my shoulder and I say to him, well, sweetheart,
[22:16] Speaker 3: eat my snow.
[22:19] Speaker 1: And off I go. Now Church, I knew I was
[22:23] Speaker 1: in serious trouble.
[22:25] Speaker 3: About twenty seconds later on my second summersault that was
[22:28] Speaker 3: not planned.
[22:29] Speaker 1: That was not planned.
[22:31] Speaker 3: Once ski went flying and then on my right leg,
[22:35] Speaker 3: I heard the loudest pop pop pop you're there that
[22:38] Speaker 3: I've heard, and I snapped my ACL, tore my MCL,
[22:41] Speaker 3: tore my meniscus, fractured my nee.
[22:44] Speaker 1: It was or I was.
[22:45] Speaker 3: Lying there, I was like I couldn't move, knick kat
[22:48] Speaker 3: to call the ski patrol.
[22:49] Speaker 1: You know, when they put you like in that coffin and.
[22:51] Speaker 3: Take you down the mountain and you go down.
[22:54] Speaker 1: That was me.
[22:55] Speaker 3: And I do need to tell you this because I'm Greek.
[22:59] Speaker 1: I would leave the house all of my.
[23:01] Speaker 3: Years that I lived at My mother would go, kose dinner, are.
[23:04] Speaker 1: You wearing good, new, clean underwear?
[23:08] Speaker 3: To wish I would say, Mum, why because cause dinner.
[23:13] Speaker 4: If you have an accident and you end up in
[23:15] Speaker 4: the back of.
[23:16] Speaker 3: An ambulance, it's important that you've got good underwear. Anyone
[23:20] Speaker 3: else's mother elevation, you are my people. And so anyway,
[23:29] Speaker 3: you know, for the sake of Sunday morning decorum, I
[23:31] Speaker 3: won't go into detail, but all I'm going to say
[23:33] Speaker 3: to you is, as they were elevating me and putting
[23:36] Speaker 3: me into the ambulance, I'm just going to say this.
[23:39] Speaker 1: My mother was right.
[23:41] Speaker 3: Anyway, So in the festival of that.
[23:45] Speaker 1: I was.
[23:47] Speaker 3: I ended up having to have a hamstring graft, and
[23:50] Speaker 3: you know, had to go through major, major rehab, and
[23:55] Speaker 3: you know I wanted.
[23:55] Speaker 1: To relive that this morning.
[23:57] Speaker 3: So I've got my friend here, who's going to come
[23:59] Speaker 3: and show you how I had to walk around for
[24:02] Speaker 3: quite a while.
[24:03] Speaker 1: Look at this, let's see how you go?
[24:07] Speaker 3: Oh yes, look at this? Come on, is this not
[24:11] Speaker 3: just skillful? I want you to come and stand over
[24:14] Speaker 3: here with me.
[24:15] Speaker 1: You are so.
[24:16] Speaker 3: Tall and the crutches are the wrong size, but that's okay. Look,
[24:21] Speaker 3: these crutches are right for me, not a six foot
[24:24] Speaker 3: seven giant.
[24:25] Speaker 1: Okay, there we go.
[24:26] Speaker 3: But this is what happened in this knee I had,
[24:30] Speaker 3: and you have an ACL. Now, before my accident, I
[24:36] Speaker 3: didn't even know if I had an abcdefg hi j I.
[24:42] Speaker 3: I didn't even know that I had an ACL or
[24:44] Speaker 3: x y Z. An ACL is a liquament that it
[24:48] Speaker 3: is smaller than this little finger.
[24:51] Speaker 1: Tucked in at the back of your knee.
[24:52] Speaker 3: I think we've got a photo of it that you're
[24:54] Speaker 3: going to see right now.
[24:56] Speaker 1: See that. I hope you don't get nauseous.
[24:58] Speaker 3: See that that ACL tucked in right there.
[25:01] Speaker 1: I snapped that thing. And when I snapped it, I
[25:04] Speaker 1: was in the.
[25:04] Speaker 3: Most excruciating pain.
[25:07] Speaker 1: I could barely function for weeks. I couldn't think straight
[25:11] Speaker 1: the pain was so great.
[25:13] Speaker 3: And then when I had my surgery, I had.
[25:16] Speaker 1: To walk around and for a long time.
[25:19] Speaker 3: With embrace because this part of my body could not
[25:24] Speaker 3: bear the weight. So this part of the body had
[25:28] Speaker 3: to overcompensate for what this for One small ligament that
[25:32] Speaker 3: had snapped, one small ligament that had been displaced, a
[25:37] Speaker 3: ligament that I did not even know existed in my
[25:41] Speaker 3: body because that did not embrace its place and it
[25:45] Speaker 3: became displaced. It crippled and paralyzed the functioning of my
[25:50] Speaker 3: entire body.
[25:51] Speaker 1: Thanks Matte.
[25:53] Speaker 3: And what happens in church, we think, well.
[25:55] Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter.
[25:56] Speaker 3: If I'm not up in front, you can even go
[25:58] Speaker 3: down the stairs.
[25:59] Speaker 1: How's that you are? Allegend? He's like, okay, now I'm limping.
[26:02] Speaker 3: We think doesn't really matter. And is teaching the kids
[26:05] Speaker 3: really important? He's parking the cars really important? He is
[26:08] Speaker 3: working in production really important? Well, nobody will ever see me,
[26:12] Speaker 3: and it doesn't matter. The prescripture says, it's the unseen
[26:15] Speaker 3: parts that often hold the whole thing together. And just
[26:19] Speaker 3: because you don't know they're there, it doesn't mean that God.
[26:22] Speaker 1: Doesn't that acl.
[26:26] Speaker 3: I ended up having to have a hamstring graft because
[26:30] Speaker 3: I am so grateful when the doctor went in to
[26:33] Speaker 3: find my hamstring that my hamstring didn't say it or
[26:37] Speaker 3: my hamstring.
[26:38] Speaker 1: I'm glad it was there. I'm glad that it didn't.
[26:40] Speaker 3: Decide the week before. I don't want to be a
[26:42] Speaker 3: hamstring anymore.
[26:44] Speaker 1: I don't like the hamstring. I don't get any attention.
[26:48] Speaker 1: I mean it's I want to be a mouth.
[26:52] Speaker 4: I mean Christine and the mouth that's what gets all
[26:54] Speaker 4: the attention.
[26:55] Speaker 3: I'm just this overlooked hamstring. I'm just taken for Graham
[27:00] Speaker 3: as a hamstring. Nobody recognized my value as a hamstring.
[27:06] Speaker 1: I'm so glad that my hamstring was in place, because
[27:11] Speaker 1: every now and.
[27:12] Speaker 3: Again a transplant has to happen. But when you try
[27:14] Speaker 3: to force that transplant because you don't like your place,
[27:17] Speaker 3: then sometimes you can be rejected by the body in
[27:20] Speaker 3: that part of the transplant. And we've got a whole
[27:22] Speaker 3: lot of people running around in the body of Christ.
[27:24] Speaker 1: Just transplanting themselves.
[27:26] Speaker 3: But just like a physical body doesn't expect, doesn't accept
[27:29] Speaker 3: every organ as a transplant, or every muscle or every
[27:32] Speaker 3: sign you in order to be able to be transplanted properly.
[27:36] Speaker 1: There's an order. There's an order.
[27:40] Speaker 3: The Church is not the NFL. It's not like we
[27:43] Speaker 3: have free agents. God sets every member in place, and
[27:49] Speaker 3: if God wants to transplant, then then that the body
[27:52] Speaker 3: will take the transplant. But I'm so glad that my
[27:57] Speaker 3: hamstring was in place. But you and I are living
[27:59] Speaker 3: in a culture where we value a position over a place,
[28:02] Speaker 3: and so many people have sacrificed their destiny on the
[28:04] Speaker 3: altar of a position they wanted because they wouldn't embrace
[28:07] Speaker 3: the place that God had for them.
[28:09] Speaker 1: So many of us.
[28:12] Speaker 3: Because in our culture, visibility and position and title and
[28:15] Speaker 3: hierarchy and the last like, I've got a body. There
[28:18] Speaker 3: is nothing more sacred than the Holy body of the
[28:20] Speaker 3: Lord Jesus Christ.
[28:22] Speaker 1: And we are part of that body. And he sets
[28:25] Speaker 1: us in place. Does that not mean at some point
[28:29] Speaker 1: he might transplant us. Of course, it's his body.
[28:33] Speaker 3: But when we start thinking were like free agents, and
[28:37] Speaker 3: I could just go I don't want to be an elbow.
[28:40] Speaker 3: I don't like an elber because the knee gets all
[28:43] Speaker 3: the attention. And Paul goes through the list because how
[28:47] Speaker 3: ridiculous that you would compare this part to that part.
[28:51] Speaker 3: I think we should just be grateful that God has
[28:54] Speaker 3: brought us into his body.
[28:55] Speaker 1: I want to care if I.
[28:56] Speaker 3: Was an ACL and MCL, if.
[28:58] Speaker 4: I was a sign, you were a tissue or a muscle.
[29:01] Speaker 4: Thank God that I am saved and I've been grafted
[29:04] Speaker 4: into the body of Christ and i have an eternity
[29:07] Speaker 4: with Jesus. I'm just grateful to be part of the body.
[29:11] Speaker 4: I'm just grateful to be any part of the body
[29:13] Speaker 4: of Christ.
[29:14] Speaker 3: When was the last time you thanked God the miracle
[29:20] Speaker 3: that we are in his body.
[29:21] Speaker 1: There's only one head. If we understood that, we'd all
[29:25] Speaker 1: embrace our place elevation.
[29:29] Speaker 3: You are one of the most potent Apostolic churches on
[29:31] Speaker 3: the earth right now.
[29:32] Speaker 1: Imagine how much more powerful you'd be if every single
[29:36] Speaker 1: person embrace their place.
[29:39] Speaker 3: Every single person said, I don't care if I'm an
[29:41] Speaker 3: ACL or an MCL.
[29:42] Speaker 1: I'm gonna hold up my part of the body.
[29:44] Speaker 3: I'm gonna take my place in all of our locations,
[29:47] Speaker 3: our epham.
[29:48] Speaker 1: I'm gonna embrace my place.
[29:49] Speaker 3: Every time you tithe, every time you give, every time
[29:52] Speaker 3: you serve, you.
[29:53] Speaker 1: Are embracing your place. Some people go, well, okay, Christiana,
[29:58] Speaker 1: I've got these dreams in my heart. What about all
[30:00] Speaker 1: these things?
[30:01] Speaker 3: Well, this is what I've discovered after almost four decades
[30:04] Speaker 3: of serving Jesus.
[30:05] Speaker 1: When God is looking to promote you to another position,
[30:09] Speaker 1: he goes to a place.
[30:11] Speaker 3: He goes to the place that you're supposed to.
[30:13] Speaker 1: Be to find you.
[30:16] Speaker 3: You go, Christine, give me bible. I'll give you some Bible.
[30:18] Speaker 3: David one Samuel sixteen. I want you to see verse one,
[30:22] Speaker 3: and says the Lord said to Samuel, how long are
[30:24] Speaker 3: you going to mourn for Saul since I've rejected him
[30:26] Speaker 3: as king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and go.
[30:28] Speaker 3: I am sending you. See God does the sending. You
[30:32] Speaker 3: don't have to market to yourself. When you've been marked
[30:34] Speaker 3: by God, you don't have to market yourself. If God
[30:39] Speaker 3: has assigned you, God will find you. You could be
[30:43] Speaker 3: not even in this room right now and serving in
[30:45] Speaker 3: the nursery.
[30:46] Speaker 1: And if God's anointed you.
[30:47] Speaker 3: To be the next Billy Graham to America, He'll find you.
[30:51] Speaker 1: He'll find you. He says, I am sending you to
[30:56] Speaker 1: Jesse of Bethlehem because I have selected for myself. Remember
[31:00] Speaker 1: this is god'svil.
[31:02] Speaker 3: I've selected for myself a king from his sons.
[31:06] Speaker 1: Let's go to verse six.
[31:08] Speaker 3: It says in verse six, when they arrived, Samuel saw
[31:12] Speaker 3: Eliab and said, certainly, the Lord's anointed one is here
[31:17] Speaker 3: before him.
[31:18] Speaker 1: Now.
[31:18] Speaker 3: The reason he thought that is because Eliab looked a
[31:21] Speaker 3: lot like Saul, head and shoulders above the rest, good looking.
[31:24] Speaker 1: He was a warrior.
[31:25] Speaker 3: And the prophet, I want you to catch this. The prophet,
[31:30] Speaker 3: surely this is the Lord's anointed, because he saw Eliab
[31:34] Speaker 3: and thought, that's what we do. We scroll through social media.
[31:37] Speaker 3: We are surely that's who God's picked.
[31:40] Speaker 1: Look at their followers. Man, they're blowing up. That's awesome.
[31:44] Speaker 3: Surely that's the Lord's anointed. And then I love what
[31:48] Speaker 3: the Lord says in verse seven. But the Lord said
[31:51] Speaker 3: to Samuel. And thus he says to most of us,
[31:53] Speaker 3: do not look at his appearance or his stature, because
[31:56] Speaker 3: I have rejected him. Honey, doesn't matter how many likes
[31:59] Speaker 3: you get. If God has rejected him.
[32:03] Speaker 1: Humans do not see what the Lord sees.
[32:08] Speaker 3: For humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees
[32:12] Speaker 3: the heart. He goes on in verse eight and says,
[32:16] Speaker 3: Jesse called Abinadab and.
[32:18] Speaker 1: Presented him to Samuel. Oh Lord, the.
[32:20] Speaker 3: Lord hasn't chosen this one either. Samuel said, So now
[32:25] Speaker 3: the parade's going. Let's get out our TikTok and our
[32:28] Speaker 3: Instagram and start going through verse nine, and we'll just
[32:31] Speaker 3: keep going.
[32:31] Speaker 1: Then Jesse presented Shama.
[32:33] Speaker 3: Here's the next one, next little celebrity Christian influencer.
[32:37] Speaker 1: But Samuel said, the.
[32:38] Speaker 3: Lord hasn't chosen this one either. You keep posting, Lord
[32:42] Speaker 3: hasn't chosen.
[32:43] Speaker 1: After Jesse presented.
[32:44] Speaker 3: Seven of his sons great marketing campaign. Man, I'm going
[32:50] Speaker 3: need to be in the right place so that the
[32:52] Speaker 3: right person in leadership sees me, because that's how I'm
[32:54] Speaker 3: going to get my promotion. A Man, if I'm serving
[32:56] Speaker 3: down in the kids or I'm out in the parking lot,
[32:58] Speaker 3: How's anyone going to see my gift? And I mean
[33:01] Speaker 3: I want to go on tour with the band, how
[33:02] Speaker 3: they going to see my gift? If I'm serving over
[33:04] Speaker 3: in the kids, They're never going to see it. I'm
[33:06] Speaker 3: never going to be discovered God, God created you.
[33:09] Speaker 1: He doesn't have to discover you. He already knows where
[33:12] Speaker 1: you are.
[33:12] Speaker 3: You don't have to wait to be discovered by God.
[33:15] Speaker 1: He created you.
[33:17] Speaker 3: After Jesse presented seven of his sons to.
[33:19] Speaker 1: Him just sounds like the world we live in. Samuel
[33:23] Speaker 1: told you, Jesse, the Lord hasn't chosen any of these.
[33:28] Speaker 1: Samuel asked him, are these all the sons you have?
[33:33] Speaker 1: They're still the youngest.
[33:36] Speaker 3: I am laughing because this is how King David first
[33:40] Speaker 3: appears on the pages of scripture.
[33:44] Speaker 1: No name the youngest.
[33:47] Speaker 2: You know.
[33:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a guy working out in the parking lot.
[33:52] Speaker 3: There's that person that's running the prayer team. There's someone
[33:54] Speaker 3: that's running an e group that I don't ever really
[33:57] Speaker 3: know their name. Just there's that that one. I think
[34:00] Speaker 3: we got this person that like, man, they come every
[34:03] Speaker 3: early on Sunday and they're like sweeping the foyer to
[34:07] Speaker 3: make sure that it's clean.
[34:08] Speaker 1: That there's that one.
[34:10] Speaker 3: Don't really know if there's the one down there with
[34:11] Speaker 3: the kids in the in you know, like the first grade.
[34:15] Speaker 1: Yes, there's that one.
[34:17] Speaker 3: Not scrolling on TikTok to see who's the.
[34:19] Speaker 1: Most prominent influential one.
[34:22] Speaker 3: There's just that one, whoever that is on any of
[34:26] Speaker 3: our campuses.
[34:28] Speaker 1: There's that that one that's.
[34:29] Speaker 3: Been just tithing for the last twenty years and just
[34:32] Speaker 3: been giving. I don't know, I don't really know the
[34:35] Speaker 3: name the youngest, he answered, But right.
[34:38] Speaker 1: Now he's doing the loser job.
[34:42] Speaker 4: I mean, it wasn't even worth bringing up in the
[34:44] Speaker 4: marketing campaign. I mean, he's just he's just just tending
[34:48] Speaker 4: the sheep.
[34:50] Speaker 3: He's actually being faithful, doing the last thing I told
[34:53] Speaker 3: him to do. He's just down there with the kids,
[34:58] Speaker 3: or with the youth, or the parking lot or somewhere
[35:01] Speaker 3: back behind the sound. Is that you can't even see
[35:04] Speaker 3: that's making this happening, or put the lights on or.
[35:06] Speaker 1: Working the cameras, don't I don't know that's all they're doing.
[35:10] Speaker 3: I mean then I'm like prominently on tour or holding
[35:15] Speaker 3: the microphone or anything.
[35:16] Speaker 1: I put those seven in front of you. He's like, no, no, no,
[35:20] Speaker 1: he's just tending the sheep. And I love this, Samuel
[35:24] Speaker 1: told Jesse.
[35:25] Speaker 3: Said for him, because this is what happens when God
[35:29] Speaker 3: says the prophet can get it wrong some of you.
[35:32] Speaker 1: But what happens if someone comes.
[35:33] Speaker 3: And they prophesying, and I'm gonna be the next person
[35:35] Speaker 3: and I'm gonna be the next campus pastor.
[35:37] Speaker 4: And they don't see me, the prophet could actually get
[35:40] Speaker 4: it wrong.
[35:41] Speaker 1: To Eliot, we go surely you're it.
[35:44] Speaker 3: The Father of the house can get it wrong. Jesse
[35:48] Speaker 3: got it wrong, but God never gets it wrong. Sometimes
[35:52] Speaker 3: we'll wonder if I do that and I start serving
[35:54] Speaker 3: and someone overlooks me, and what about my gift and
[35:56] Speaker 3: what about my talent?
[35:57] Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna And it's like you got insurance.
[36:00] Speaker 4: The prophet can get it wrong, the Father of the
[36:02] Speaker 4: house can get it wrong.
[36:03] Speaker 1: God won't get it wrong. And this is what I love.
[36:05] Speaker 3: Sabbia told Jesse said for him, we won't sit down
[36:08] Speaker 3: to eat until he gets it. It makes me laugh
[36:11] Speaker 3: because God will actually send the ones that tried to
[36:13] Speaker 3: keep you out to go and get you to put
[36:15] Speaker 3: you in position.
[36:16] Speaker 1: Because that's the kind of thing that God does.
[36:20] Speaker 3: You don't ever have to worry, So Jesse said for him.
[36:24] Speaker 3: He had beautiful eyes and a healthy, handsome appearance that
[36:27] Speaker 3: the Lord said anoint him for he is the one.
[36:30] Speaker 1: Where was he?
[36:31] Speaker 3: Oh, he was the one that this today was working
[36:33] Speaker 3: in the parking lot. He was the one that today
[36:35] Speaker 3: is working behind the lights that you can't see or
[36:37] Speaker 3: the sound that you can't see, or is down there
[36:39] Speaker 3: with our children right now teaching them. Jesus is Lord.
[36:42] Speaker 3: The Bible is beautiful. God loves you.
[36:44] Speaker 1: That's what You can't see them. You can see me,
[36:46] Speaker 1: but you can't see them.
[36:48] Speaker 3: But then if the Lord's chosen them, he'll find them.
[36:53] Speaker 3: Every acl every sign you, every muscle, every tissue is
[36:57] Speaker 3: so critical nineteen nine point nine nine percent of the
[37:00] Speaker 3: effectiveness of this church. You can't even see the people
[37:03] Speaker 3: that are driving it. You can't even see the people
[37:05] Speaker 3: that are driving it. Because it's God's body. And when
[37:10] Speaker 3: we all embrace our place, you saw Him in embrace
[37:14] Speaker 3: and crutches. If you could see a picture in the
[37:17] Speaker 3: spirit of some of the.
[37:19] Speaker 1: Church, it's like just oh making it.
[37:21] Speaker 3: Maybe Sunday to Sunday, we're just barely get by.
[37:24] Speaker 1: I know, it's so rough. The world's rough, and the
[37:28] Speaker 1: Lord's like man.
[37:28] Speaker 3: If that acl snap back into place and was willing
[37:31] Speaker 3: to embrace its place full, the stability of the church
[37:34] Speaker 3: would be greater, The strength of the church would be greater.
[37:37] Speaker 1: The rhythm and the pattern and the.
[37:39] Speaker 3: Running, and we could run faster, and we could run harder,
[37:41] Speaker 3: and we could bring God greater glory on the earth
[37:44] Speaker 3: if we all embraced our place.
[37:48] Speaker 1: When I think of my whole life.
[37:50] Speaker 3: To where by the grace of God, He's brought Nick
[37:53] Speaker 3: and I today. I got saved in you know, when
[37:56] Speaker 3: dinosaurs still roamed on the earth, you weren't even born
[38:00] Speaker 3: to view an elevation.
[38:02] Speaker 1: But I didn't know what to do. I just got saved.
[38:03] Speaker 3: So I started serving in the youth ministry. I'd never
[38:06] Speaker 3: prayed for youth. I never even thought I'm called to youth.
[38:09] Speaker 3: I came from a Greek Orthodox background. I did not
[38:10] Speaker 3: even know what a Protestant church really was, let alone
[38:14] Speaker 3: what a youth group was. But it was just like, okay,
[38:17] Speaker 3: and go to the club and get drunk, or go
[38:18] Speaker 3: to youth. Okay, I'll go to youth because at least
[38:20] Speaker 3: I was stay straight.
[38:22] Speaker 1: So I would go.
[38:23] Speaker 3: And then they said there's going to be a church
[38:25] Speaker 3: clean up day. Well, I had gotten saved, so I didn't.
[38:28] Speaker 3: I didn't pray, I didn't fast. It was like, okay,
[38:31] Speaker 3: I guess that's what.
[38:32] Speaker 1: You do now you're a Christian. I said, Jesus, you
[38:34] Speaker 1: can have all of me.
[38:35] Speaker 3: I guess all of me means all of me, and
[38:37] Speaker 3: so I wasn't thinking. And thank god, this was pre
[38:41] Speaker 3: social media, so I wasn't scrolling through everybody else's life
[38:44] Speaker 3: trying to tell.
[38:44] Speaker 1: God what I wanted to do with my life. This
[38:47] Speaker 1: was old school where you got in.
[38:49] Speaker 3: A prayer clauset and got on your knees and actually
[38:51] Speaker 3: asked God what he wanted for your life. You weren't
[38:53] Speaker 3: telling God what you wanted to do with your life.
[38:56] Speaker 1: You were just glad that you were saved and not
[38:58] Speaker 1: going to Hell, so you would do anything.
[39:00] Speaker 3: So church clean up day you were like, thank you
[39:02] Speaker 3: God that you would choose me. Well, I turned up
[39:04] Speaker 3: to the church clean up day and nobody else from
[39:07] Speaker 3: the youth ministry turned up. I tell everyone, this is
[39:09] Speaker 3: how I've gotten to where I've gotten that God had
[39:11] Speaker 3: no other options. It's like, well, you're a cane tag,
[39:15] Speaker 3: have it go. I'm going to get a lot of
[39:16] Speaker 3: glory because that's it.
[39:17] Speaker 1: I've got no other options.
[39:19] Speaker 3: And when you start getting to sixty, there's a lot
[39:21] Speaker 3: less hands that go up, and the Lord's like, well,
[39:24] Speaker 3: I will be glorified because everyone will know it's not you.
[39:28] Speaker 1: But that's how it started.
[39:29] Speaker 3: And this is the youth pastor was at the church
[39:30] Speaker 3: clean up day. He said, you're Christine carry offlus, aren't you?
[39:33] Speaker 3: That was my pre marriage name. And Nick thinks he
[39:35] Speaker 3: saved me. And so it's like you're Christine carry Offlas
[39:39] Speaker 3: and he goes, you're doing psychology, aren't you? And I
[39:41] Speaker 3: was like doing English and economic history. So basically I
[39:44] Speaker 3: can read Golden Books in counter ten, but.
[39:46] Speaker 1: My miner was psychology. And he said, we're running. We've
[39:50] Speaker 1: just got a grant for a youth center.
[39:52] Speaker 3: This is nineteen eighty nine. I said, what's a youth center?
[39:54] Speaker 3: He said, I don't know, but I'm going on a
[39:56] Speaker 3: missions trip for six weeks with a sea past us.
[39:59] Speaker 1: So when I come back, you know, i'd like you
[40:01] Speaker 1: to have worked.
[40:02] Speaker 3: Out what we're going to do with the youth center.
[40:03] Speaker 3: That was my call to ministry.
[40:04] Speaker 1: That was it.
[40:06] Speaker 3: And I hadn't prayed. I hadn't said where do I
[40:09] Speaker 3: want to serve?
[40:09] Speaker 1: What are my gifts?
[40:10] Speaker 3: I'm going to do a strength find a test, and
[40:12] Speaker 3: I'm going to do a disc profile, and I'm going
[40:14] Speaker 3: to look at my love languages, and I'm going to
[40:16] Speaker 3: have a look at wishes.
[40:16] Speaker 4: And no, no, I was I was dead to self and.
[40:19] Speaker 1: Alive to Christ.
[40:20] Speaker 3: I thought I was denying myself, taking up my crust
[40:22] Speaker 3: and following Jesus.
[40:24] Speaker 1: I'm in his body. Yes, sir, what do you want
[40:26] Speaker 1: me to do? Church cleanup day? Okay? And then from
[40:29] Speaker 1: the church.
[40:30] Speaker 3: Cleanup day, I suddenly am overseeing what became a very
[40:34] Speaker 3: very influential youth center in Australia.
[40:37] Speaker 1: It became a national youth center.
[40:39] Speaker 3: I didn't know in nineteen ninety that God was preparing
[40:42] Speaker 3: me for the thing he had prepared for me to
[40:44] Speaker 3: run a global anti trafficking organization down twenty years later
[40:48] Speaker 3: in the future.
[40:49] Speaker 1: See, if I didn't turn up to.
[40:50] Speaker 3: The church cleanup day, I would never have gotten the job.
[40:53] Speaker 3: Learning how to do government submissions, learning how to talk
[40:56] Speaker 3: to law.
[40:56] Speaker 1: Enforcement and government and schools and work everywhere.
[40:59] Speaker 3: All the skills I learned in anonymity and obscurity when
[41:02] Speaker 3: you didn't even know who I was, was preparing me
[41:05] Speaker 3: to lead one of the largest anti trafficking organizations in
[41:08] Speaker 3: the world way back then. And then people would like,
[41:14] Speaker 3: you should have gone to another church because for seven
[41:16] Speaker 3: years I never stood on a platform with a microphone
[41:18] Speaker 3: and preaching.
[41:19] Speaker 1: It would be certainly one of my a gift that
[41:21] Speaker 1: the Lord's given me.
[41:22] Speaker 3: But the fact was, thank God that I had leaders
[41:25] Speaker 3: over me. They knew that understood that the gift that
[41:29] Speaker 3: was on me would have destroyed me because my character
[41:31] Speaker 3: could not have sustained me after ten years of sexual
[41:36] Speaker 3: abuse and being abandoned at birth and being adopted out
[41:40] Speaker 3: and broken. God had to heal me before he could
[41:43] Speaker 3: actually put me at the forefront of anywhere else.
[41:48] Speaker 1: Church is what did that?
[41:51] Speaker 3: Because if the light that is on you is greater
[41:54] Speaker 3: than the light of Christ that is within you, that
[41:56] Speaker 3: light will destroy you. God cared too much about me
[42:03] Speaker 3: and my future, my marriage, my children. Then to say
[42:07] Speaker 3: it's ridiculously Imagine if I pulled Can you just put
[42:10] Speaker 3: that picture of that acl up there?
[42:13] Speaker 1: Imagine if.
[42:16] Speaker 3: If we just stood here and applaud of that aclan.
[42:20] Speaker 3: It looks weird, No, no, no, But I mean if
[42:22] Speaker 3: I just put it up, disconnected it from the knee and.
[42:25] Speaker 1: Just put it up, because that's what we do. I
[42:27] Speaker 1: want my ligament.
[42:29] Speaker 3: I mean, I'm gonna put a filter on it and
[42:31] Speaker 3: crop it and edit it and post it because I
[42:34] Speaker 3: need you to applaud my sign, you, my muscle, my.
[42:38] Speaker 3: I mean, we don't think, what are you smoking, But
[42:42] Speaker 3: that's what we've done in the body.
[42:43] Speaker 1: Look at my gift. Look about the only value of the.
[42:47] Speaker 3: Sign you or the muscle or the gift or the
[42:49] Speaker 3: talent is truly only in relation to the purpose that
[42:53] Speaker 3: it serves in the body.
[42:54] Speaker 1: That is the value of it. We appart the care
[43:03] Speaker 1: when you disconnected.
[43:04] Speaker 3: And we've got so many people in the Body of
[43:07] Speaker 3: Christ that are misplaced and displaced because they won't embrace
[43:10] Speaker 3: their place. And if you just embraced your place, the
[43:16] Speaker 3: joy and the fulfillment that would come every part of
[43:19] Speaker 3: my life, whether it came through you know, my spiritual
[43:23] Speaker 3: mother for three decades, Joyce Mayer, you know people, man,
[43:26] Speaker 3: if I just had that hook up like Chris, I'm
[43:29] Speaker 3: like I was a youth leader and then I was
[43:32] Speaker 3: working at the youth center that was training me for
[43:35] Speaker 3: twenty years time in the future. I didn't even know
[43:38] Speaker 3: a twenty one and because I wasn't speaking here, the
[43:43] Speaker 3: youth center work took me to schools all around Australia.
[43:47] Speaker 1: That's where I learned to really communicate people. Go where
[43:50] Speaker 1: did you learn to bridge a honey? I went when
[43:53] Speaker 1: nobody else wanted to go home. If you can hold.
[43:56] Speaker 3: The attention of fifteen hundred Australian boys that are private boys,
[44:00] Speaker 3: church is easy.
[44:03] Speaker 1: But everyone's like.
[44:04] Speaker 3: Your people could see I mean, if I could just
[44:05] Speaker 3: get on the Christian conference, if I could just do this.
[44:07] Speaker 1: If and I'm like, if you just embrace your place.
[44:09] Speaker 3: In church and started serving, God will find you and
[44:12] Speaker 3: God will elevate your promotion. Doesn't come from the north,
[44:15] Speaker 3: southeast or west. It comes from God. And God opens
[44:18] Speaker 3: doors that no man can shut. And God will.
[44:20] Speaker 1: Place you where you need to be.
[44:24] Speaker 3: And when God places you, you never have to fear
[44:27] Speaker 3: being replaced. I'm never looking over my shoulder. This is
[44:31] Speaker 3: not like Hollywood. There is no next, Christine came, What does.
[44:34] Speaker 1: That even mean? God doesn't do next, He doesn't you.
[44:38] Speaker 1: There's only one. He only makes one of everyone. He says,
[44:41] Speaker 1: behind I do a new thing.
[44:42] Speaker 3: We're always looking for the next thing, which is a
[44:44] Speaker 3: younger version of the same old thing.
[44:46] Speaker 1: And God says, I'm not doing the same old thing.
[44:48] Speaker 3: I'm doing your brand new thing. So there's a place
[44:50] Speaker 3: for everyone in my body.
[44:51] Speaker 4: There's a place for everyone in my body.
[44:55] Speaker 1: Would you trust him enough to embrace your place? This
[44:59] Speaker 1: is the I went from being teaching.
[45:04] Speaker 3: In high schools and then my past or because it
[45:08] Speaker 3: watched me for nearly a decade, goes Christine.
[45:12] Speaker 1: Now I want you to lead the largest youth movement
[45:14] Speaker 1: in Australias.
[45:15] Speaker 3: I went from like high schools to twenty thousand people
[45:17] Speaker 3: and people.
[45:18] Speaker 1: Go, oh, where is she come from?
[45:20] Speaker 3: I was like, David, and then like what an overnight success?
[45:23] Speaker 3: I'm going it was a long night. But God was
[45:29] Speaker 3: preparing me the whole time for what He prepared for me.
[45:32] Speaker 3: And then because I was in that position, because God
[45:36] Speaker 3: came and found me in anonymity, in obscurity at a
[45:39] Speaker 3: church cleanup day, in the back of a youth center
[45:42] Speaker 3: with teaching elta at risk young people in a high school,
[45:49] Speaker 3: teaching and serving in church the whole time. And then
[45:52] Speaker 3: He's like, Okay, I've got a woman coming from America
[45:55] Speaker 3: that I didn't even know. We didn't even have Christian TV.
[45:57] Speaker 3: Then there's the largest media ministry in the world. And
[46:01] Speaker 3: because I was a woman, and it was like, okay,
[46:03] Speaker 3: we need someone to go.
[46:03] Speaker 1: Pick her up. So I was her driver.
[46:06] Speaker 3: I'm a youth leader and there's the largest ministry in
[46:09] Speaker 3: the world and I drove her.
[46:11] Speaker 1: Some people, well, I'm too good to drive. I'm a preacher.
[46:13] Speaker 1: I speak to twenty thousand people. Why would I drive anybody?
[46:15] Speaker 3: But when you embrace your place you don't value this
[46:19] Speaker 3: anymore than you value the driving, because.
[46:21] Speaker 1: God sets you in place. Well, who would have known
[46:25] Speaker 1: that I would be driving.
[46:26] Speaker 3: Joy Spire and the Commisa. I remember they said to me, Christine,
[46:29] Speaker 3: Remember I'm a youth leader. You have to go pick
[46:31] Speaker 3: her up at eight o'clock.
[46:33] Speaker 1: I was so nervous, and I was a youth leader.
[46:35] Speaker 3: I had no money, so I borrowed a friend's suit,
[46:37] Speaker 3: and then I went and stood in the hallway outside
[46:40] Speaker 3: her room at the hotel at five point thirty in
[46:42] Speaker 3: the morning because I didn't want to be late. And
[46:44] Speaker 3: then she opens a door at six point thirty because
[46:46] Speaker 3: her breakfast came, and she looked, and I looked the
[46:49] Speaker 3: other way, like, you know, as if naturally I'm just
[46:51] Speaker 3: standing in a hall in a suit borrowed. And so
[46:54] Speaker 3: then she opens the door again at seven point thirty
[46:57] Speaker 3: to put the trade back out, and Nerd is still
[46:59] Speaker 3: standing here, and I didn't even know what She goes
[47:01] Speaker 3: Are you here for me? Honestly, church I was born aline,
[47:04] Speaker 3: thinking maybe I could lie and say no, But then
[47:07] Speaker 3: I thought she's going.
[47:08] Speaker 1: To get in my car, so she's gonna know. So
[47:10] Speaker 1: I didn't even know what to do. So I went, yeah,
[47:13] Speaker 1: I didn't want to be late, and she goes, come in.
[47:16] Speaker 1: Then I'm dying, going my past is going to kill
[47:18] Speaker 1: me because I'm going into the room of the guest speaker.
[47:21] Speaker 1: And then this is my first conversation.
[47:23] Speaker 3: She'd tell you when she comes in next time, she'll
[47:25] Speaker 3: tell you she before back then, she was like, so
[47:28] Speaker 3: into Saint John's and look at me, I'm like as plain.
[47:30] Speaker 1: As and she opens the cupboard.
[47:32] Speaker 3: And she goes, Christy shows me all her jackets, Christine.
[47:35] Speaker 3: The more it sparkles, the more I like it.
[47:38] Speaker 1: Anyway, So that was that.
[47:41] Speaker 3: And then who would have known that that woman would
[47:43] Speaker 3: bother me? That I found out that I was adopted
[47:48] Speaker 3: and don't know my biological mother and after all the
[47:50] Speaker 3: abuse and you know her story and all of the
[47:53] Speaker 3: rejection and the abandonment, and you know, last year we
[47:56] Speaker 3: found out Joyce was born the exact same year as
[47:59] Speaker 3: my biological mother. Wouldn't that just be like God to
[48:02] Speaker 3: do things full circle? And she has mothered us and
[48:04] Speaker 3: because of that, our marriage has been so strong and
[48:07] Speaker 3: our kids. Because of what she went through, she was
[48:10] Speaker 3: able to prepare the way for me, and a lot
[48:13] Speaker 3: of why I'm still here by the grace of God
[48:15] Speaker 3: at sixties, because she's still here at eighty three and
[48:17] Speaker 3: still honoring God and still serving God. And I was
[48:23] Speaker 3: the driver because my pastor asked me to go and
[48:27] Speaker 3: pick her up. You might think that's a demeaning job.
[48:31] Speaker 3: I think it sent me up pretty well.
[48:35] Speaker 1: So elevation. What am I saying? Your greatest days are
[48:37] Speaker 1: ahead of you, are not behind you.
[48:38] Speaker 3: Your strongest days are ahead of you and not behind you.
[48:42] Speaker 1: Your fastest days are.
[48:44] Speaker 3: Ahead of you and not behind you. And your willingness.
[48:48] Speaker 3: Every single person, if family, all of allocations, every single
[48:52] Speaker 3: person that says, I don't care whether I am visible
[48:56] Speaker 3: or prominent. I don't care if I'm an acl assign
[48:59] Speaker 3: you a muscle, a tissue. All I want to do
[49:03] Speaker 3: is embrace my place, because ultimately it's not even about
[49:06] Speaker 3: my place.
[49:07] Speaker 1: It's about the God that sets me in place, and
[49:09] Speaker 1: this is his body. In Jesus' name.
[49:12] Speaker 3: Come on, if you believe that, give the Lord a
[49:13] Speaker 3: mighty ovation in his place today in Jesus' name.
[49:17] Speaker 1: In Jesus' name.
[49:21] Speaker 2: Hey, I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and if you did,
[49:24] Speaker 2: make sure to share it and subscribe so we can
[49:26] Speaker 2: get you all of these new messages as soon as
[49:29] Speaker 2: they're available. I also want to take a moment and
[49:32] Speaker 2: thank all of you who are a part of Elevation.
[49:34] Speaker 2: Whether you support us financially, or serve with us, or
[49:38] Speaker 2: just share these messages, it's because of you that we're
[49:41] Speaker 2: able to reach people all around the world. And if
[49:44] Speaker 2: you want more information on how to be a part
[49:46] Speaker 2: of Elevation, click the link.
[49:48] Speaker 1: In the description.
[49:49] Speaker 2: Thanks again for listening. Make sure to leave a review,
[49:52] Speaker 2: share the message, and subscribe.
[49:54] Speaker 1: God bless you.

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