Emerson Eggerichs - Liberty University Convocation

[Applause] well it is a great honor and in talking with Johnny we address my own personal story and he felt like sharing that with you might be of encouragement to you and so I want to do that because there's a purpose in this and I hope it encourages your heart after my dad had died I was talking with my mother who was a widow in her 80s and I said mom I remember something I remember dad attempting to strangle you to death that he had you up against the refrigerator and he was choking you and I can remember running at him because I was petrified and I was hitting him to try to get him to stop and he knocked me down and you were red in the face you couldn't breathe and then that scene ends and then you're outside on a retainer wall in our house and the you're crying and I'd never seen you cry and the neighbor lady is saying Jay Jay are you okay and the scene ends my mother is in complete shock and she says there's no way you could remember that you were too little there is no way you could remember that and I said well did it happen she said yes and I remembered it each of us has wounds from the past I want you to kind of think back a little bit about your own experience some of you had not had those experiences some of you had worse I remember when I was 11 I saw my mom and dad excuse me I saw my mom and sister talking with each other in kind of a hushed way and I said what are you talking about because I could tell they were conversing about something in a way they didn't usually converse and they both paused and with kind of shocked look on their face they said your dad is committing adultery that day I remember something dying inside of me something was defiled in me something that was innocent was no longer innocent that had a tremendous effect on me my mom and dad divorced when I was one fortunately they remarried each other but then they separated for five or six years because of Mom's concern about safety issues my mother is a very successful woman and very successful and very strong personality but she was prudent and so she took my sister and me just the two of us and we moved into another home that she purchased I can remember crying myself to sleep many a night and I can remember just this sadness of my soul remember the teddy bear that I had and how I found comfort in that teddy bear I had a flashback on that I wet the bed until I was 11 not that you needed to know that information but I was eventually sent to a military school at age 13 and I was at that military academy from age 13 to 18 because there were concerns about how I was developing as a young man and the wounds that that I experienced in the feelings that were within me and tonight a sidebar note I remember a friend of my sisters and I was in my 20s moving forward a little bit and I got a phone call from her and I hadn't heard from her in 10 years you know she was my sister's friend I just was a young kid at that time but she calls me and she identifies who it is not well yeah and her first question to me was is it wrong to love a man and her I am in my 20s and I'm thinking why is she calling me asking me is it wrong to love a man and I said to her I know you and I haven't talked for years I don't at face value the answer that question is no but you wouldn't be calling me with that question unless there's something more to this and then there was this silence and she said well he's married so I said you're asking me is it wrong to love a married man she said yes I said can I ask you a question does he have children she said yes I said go ask each of the children it it's wrong to love him see because I knew and some of you know you know the pain I harden myself came to a point where I just basically said I'm not gonna let it matter to me I'm gonna move on I've got my own life and we do we become callous I remember when I entered Wheaton College and I need to back up but and explain how I got there but I was talking to the chaplain about my dad and my feelings about my dad confronting my dad he said you can you can confront your dad and you can hurt your dad but you won't change you need to let it go that's what he told me and that was a good word of wisdom to me at that time but when I was at the military academy you need to understand we were unchurched as a family and so we were not Christ followers and when I was 16 at this Missouri Military Academy some elder at a church had given cadets these tickets to go see him movie called for pete's sake by Billy Graham I hadn't really known what this about but I've heard the message that God was there that he was ABBA he was ABBA and that he loved me and that he had a purpose for my life but that my sin separated me from that and I needed to confess that sin and I needed to ask Jesus Christ into my life that was kind of a leader among cadets and when the invitation was given I said let's go and they thought he meant out of the theater and I started to go forward and one of them said Anchorage where you going and I was crying and I said I'm gonna ask Christ in my life and one of whispered it loudly you fool years later I remember that comment you fool and I remember thinking if Christ isn't there what difference does it make how foolish I am you know there was a song written many years ago by Peggy Lee is that all there is is that all there is break out the booze and let's keep dancing you know I was one of those if it's all rooted in evolution there's no ultimate meaning and so I'm just here and it's it's just really without any ultimate significance that was smart enough to figure that out and then if Christ is in there what difference does it make life is too bad to be true but I thought if Christ really is there then maybe I found the truth and what difference does it make how foolish are you well something happened to me that day when I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life and something happened in fact when I later found out the Billy Graham had gone to wheat and I applied there I didn't know anything other than that I thought Billy and I were the only ones who kind of understood this message and so I applied and I wept all the way through my interview because I was too overcome by something that was happening in my soul there was a healing taking place in this woundedness somehow that faith flipped a switch that brought light and power to my soul something happened something happened and it happened enough that my mother was watching me and she decided to join a Bible study and at that Bible study after several Bible studies this woman Helena Jessica said Jay has there ever been a time that you received Jesus Christ into your life and my mother said no one ever asked me that question before and she said well Jay would you like to and my mother said I guess it wouldn't hurt and so my mother that day prayed to receive Jesus Christ into her life and she understood that she lived her own life independent of Christ she said I haven't committed adultery I haven't murdered anybody I've been robbed the bank and the lady said Jay do you believe Jesus Christ is God's Son Lord of lords and king of kings and she said well I guess I do have you lived your life independent of him she said yes you don't think that's a serious sin Jay and she said well that's how you define sin then yeah I'm the sinner because I've lived independently of him I haven't given him any thought and so that day my mother acknowledged that she had hurt the heart of Christ but what was so powerful when I came home from school she had the Bible open 53 years of age and tears are just rolling down her cheeks and she said all my life it was right here no one ever told me about it and she was so overwhelmed like I was overwhelmed that does a healing taking place faith flipped a switch that brought light and power into her soul my dad was watch my sister was watching us my brother-in-law who's a professor was watching this my mother burden for my sister opens her heart to the truth of Christ and my sister prays to receive Christ then my brother-in-law intellectual he hears this message he opens his heart to Christ and my father who's watching my mother the Bible teacher in this study the mom was in Ruby Thompson and pure Illinois I needed a ride from cura to Chicago and my dad volunteered to take her up and in that three-hour 3nf hour trip she explains the gospel to him and my dad broke and he opened his heart to Christ and used to watch dr. Falwell Sunday after Sunday singing then I found out that he was raised in a Holiness Church we got letters on file where they were encouraging him to tell his son about Jesus and my dad never said a word to me and he expressed to me he felt the Spirit of God skipped over him unto him unto me because his praying mother and although godly women she sold her home during the Depression and gave the proceeds to some orphans there in Mitchell South Dakota she was a godly woman his dad had died when he was 2 months old and so my mom used to always say to me your dad doesn't know how to be a daddy he doesn't know how to be a daddy but what was so encouraging to me my mother never reduced my dad to a one-sentence descriptor that he's a no-good bum you know there's a huge difference between Judas and Peter though both of them deny Jesus Christ and my mother understood that my dad even though he had issues she saw the Peter in him and Jesus Christ saw the Peter in my father how sad it is when we profile someone is the Judas when Jesus Christ sees them in us a Peter the Spirit of God descended on my dad and his faith flipped a light switch that brought light and power into his soul and all of this took place my freshman year at Wheaton and in fact it was a revival meeting that spiritual emphasis week I was class president of the freshman class and one of the other leaders got up and said this was before my whole family came to Christ they prayed that my family would find Christ I said my mom my dad my sister if my brother they don't know Christ and they prayed in that year my freshman year my whole family bowed the knee to Christ if you don't think that there isn't in this assembly when you pray for one another would you please reconsider that but I struggled at a certain point with whether or not God really loved me when I came to Wheaton the first three people I met one was an all-american football player another had been a concert pianist and another had started his own radio station and they were all National Merit Scholars and I'm walking into the situation I'm thinking what did I just walk into and then several of us decided to have this freshman uprising and then we were threatened by the freshmen the upperclassmen that you you guys think you're really something well that might but 15 guys hit my room took me out an open field and shaved me bald that's why I ran for class president because everybody could identify the bald-headed kid but I was struggling I was only in Christ for twenty four months but that gave me an opportunity meet chaplain Evan Welsh one of the most godly men that's ever lived and he had the worst speaking voice I've ever heard when I first heard him in Chapel I could not believe this fog I'm thinking how in the world would anybody let him be up there and then I met him and I never heard that voice again and we had this freshman time away where all the students were together and I I found out that Evan who was like 68 69 was still doing 100 pushups today had been the captain of the football team and Wheaton when he was there he was just a just a tremendous guy I said chaplain Welsh and all these students around chaplain Wells you do everything better than me you're smarter than me you do more push-ups than me you're holder in me you love people more than me you're unbelievable and I just come out of a military school and I this was all my new experience to Christians this was this is all new to me he grabbed me by the shoulders and all these people standing around and tears start going down his cheeks and he says to me don't you ever say that I love people more than you you will love people far more than me don't you ever say that there was such an incredible compassion that came on me it's the only time it ever happened to me in my life that I did this I literally could not handle what just came at me in terms of compassion no man no dad had ever looked at me and said you no one ever looked at me with such compassion I literally turned on my heels and walked off and everybody thought what in the world is wrong with him I couldn't handle that emotion I had never been in a situation like that I had hardened my heart and suddenly God came crashing through it was during that time though I was struggling 24 months into Christ is God really there do I really know this is this you really love me I felt like I deserved a hand from heaven to smack me on the head the guilt the shame the issues in my life I was laying in bed Here I am freshman class president I don't even know I I did a devotional on ecclesiasticus I had an Apocrypha Bible the Jerusalem Bible I didn't even know it wasn't Ecclesiastes I did it and then what was no interesting note another we'd students really commented on that there was a girl it was so I thought about what do they know they're their own Bible I was ignorant I think they had more knowledge but I was I was stupid I didn't know so many things I felt so inadequate and I'm laying there in bed and I'm thinking do you really love me do you really have a purpose all this stuff in my life and it was like that an audible voice said to me if Evan Welsh a mere man could love you that much what I love you less I don't know if you've ever had a moment but that was a moment for me it was like heaven itself spoke to me that I Abba Father loved you remember Gordon fee one of the great Bible teachers that Wheaton talking about Abba there's controversy on what Abba meant but at that time he said it was like a father would stand over the crib of the baby and say I say I say Abba and tears rolling down dr. Gordon fees cheeks and he said this is how God feels about you then I remember in Chapel a person talking about this mission field experience where he they were ministering there and a woman who had leprosy who had stubs for hands and she would collect Enid says the only way of income and she was decaying and she was walking home one night when there was a church service going on and she stopped and looked through the window and the man was talking about the love of God and the Christ died for you and it all can come all can come to him all can receive him and she went through the door then they said she was sobbing as she went forward saying even me even me he even me even me my heart broke because that's how I felt does he love even me is he really my father is this true truth or is this fairytale stuff I made a decision that I would trust this that I would trust this even though my feelings did not allow me always to enter into that I was working with a youth group and I remember hearing this message you know and you've probably heard it if Christ was if you if you were the only one here Christ would come and die for you and I was overwhelmed when I first heard this just to some of you wow you mean I I'm an important to him I'm worth Jesus to the Father so I was sharing this with a youth group and this little thirteen-year-old boy after you heard me said yeah you know what what you know what what if if you were the only one then that means you would have been the one that crucified him and I paused and I'm thinking wow if that's true truth he would have come knowing that I would have stepped over his body and whacked the other nail through his other wrist and then into the feet and then lifted him up I went from cheap grace to cost the grace and I was overwhelmed again do I really believe this first Peter 2:24 says by his wounds you are healed you know what the Lord has brought healing to my soul and the Lord can bring healing to your soul we have stuff folks I was the beginning in post-world War two all my stuff took place in the 50s now what you're experiencing is way beyond even what I experienced we have stuff there's some pain we have wounds but Jesus Christ was wounded he is the true wounded healer and by his wounds we are healed but then he says just before that he's left us an example to follow in his steps which means that we are little wounded healers that some of you have wounds the question is are you allowing Jesus Christ to heal those and are you making yourself available to become a wounded healer Johnny shared with me that his own dad had suicidal thoughts and the difficulties of being brought up in a single-parent family and the struggles of that and I said Johnny are you a wounded person yes have you become that wounded healer yes all of us come to a point where we're going to have to answer this question work that's in this box in other words we all have an unanswered question I should say and it's in a box I want you to vision that a question mark in a box and we ask why why why did this happen to me and I'm going to tell you that there are many many many of you here who will not receive an answer to that I did not receive an answer to that Johnny didn't receive an answer there are many times and people say we shouldn't ask God why would Jesus Christ on the cross that's why my God my God why it is not a Christ light to ask why but there is a question mark in that box and the Lord will not answer it it's like the choice between Jove and job's wife she said curse God and die for all the unanswered questions why would God do this why are we in effect pawns on a chessboard and God and Satan are making us their little game here and she said curse God and die but job did not send with his lips and every one of us comes to a point where we have this wound we have this pain we have the unanswered question you've had death in this great University we don't know why people were killed in a train accident we don't understand why these think there's no answer that we're going to receive the question then I had asked myself is well I trust Christ based on what I do know about him and in the face of what I don't have answers to or will I distrust Christ based on what I do know about him in the face of the unanswered questions that I'm asking and silence is nothing else I hear from him all I hear silence and will I protrude my lower spiritual lip and shake my fist and kind of pout before God and demand that he answered these questions or will I say not my will but thy will be done and O God through Christ I surrender I asked you to bring healing to my woundedness there was a medical doctor who needed to amputate the two legs of a soldier and when the soldier awakened on this bed the medical doctor was there and he explained to the soldier what happened and the soldier just was irate and screamed at the doctor and just was hostile to the doctor and just you know was in a fit of rage and the doctor said I understand and the guy said you don't understand the doctor stood up and pulled up his pant legs and had two artificial limbs and said I do understand I will tell you this that the wounds you're experiencing have a purpose because there are people that you will come across who need to know that somebody understands every time I see a little boy cry my heart has broken my son was in New York and he was working with a little league team and a little boy on the field lost one of his lenses to his glasses and the father who arrived was in a drunken stupor and realized his boy had broken his glasses and went out into the center field and busted the boy right in the mouth and the boy went down everybody's standing around and my son ran up there good boy their dad just staggers off look boy I just ripped himself in his setup and he would not cry because he'd done a bad thing when you're 8 years of age and everybody must feel that I'm really bad my son embraced you we love you and it's ok it's ok it's all right it was an accident and the little boy broke it started blubbering and convulsing and sobbing and when my son told me that I could not contain my tears it is a story that I empathize with but it has allowed me to come alongside of a person like that later in life and say I under damn look at my legs you are at a point where you can shake your fist and say why am I in this situation why why God why or you can say these are wounds and I will tell you that the external evil that came to you cannot defile your inner person that's a choice you make where they're a sin grace abounds Paul says and God is working all things together for good meaning the ain't so good right now and Joseph said the evil you brothers intended for me God has planned for good and I had to meditate on those verses and say do I really believe that's true or am i deceiving myself and I made a choice that I'm gonna trust Christ and the base of what I do know about him in the Gospels and not be pouting and saying why why was it that I had to experience new things and allowed him to begin to do something that's why Paul says in 2nd Corinthians that the God of all comfort who will comfort with us in all of our afflictions and ordered that so that we can comfort those in their afflictions will I allow myself to be a conduit or will I begin to say you know what I resent the fact that I was afflicted in the first place Paul does not answer why we were afflicted in the first place he only says that you will be a source of comfort to those who are being afflicted on the heels of your own comfort on the heels of your own afflictions and we have to come to a point of full surrender but don't deprive yourself of a life message some of you have no idea how God intends to turn this around you will come to a moment when you will be overwhelmed with gratefulness to God that he has somehow made you into this wounded healers just like Jesus and you will see a power and you will see an effect and that little eight-year-old boy will be healed because of you he will be healed because of you do not deprive yourself of this or will you be like job's wife and shake your fist toward heaven because you have it worse than the others who around you don't you see this may be God's gift to you he's not author of sin but he will use that scent to bring about a greater grace you will receive a greater grace and the person who was not sinning or who was righteous in the first place this was what was so antagonistic gospel message the Jews hated what Paul was saying that God is about to do something with people who don't deserve it and they are going to receive a grace that's beyond anything they could imagine let me ask you this question young woman have you been sexually abused evil has come to you but you make the choice whether you're going to let that evil defile your spirit I don't know why it happened I can't answer that young man why your older friends exposed you to pornography and so now there's an addiction that you'll have the rest of your life just like an alcoholic you can't go into a tab and you can look back and say God why did you allow that you you can you can ask that question every one of us has an unanswered question there is the box and you're gonna have to say I'm going to trust God to work outside the box Oh God work outside the box and he will work all around that box I pastored in an academic community east lansing michigan state university many professors even who are Christ's followers would come to me and intellectual people think they can ask this question of god that he himself can't answer it's not that he can't answer it he won't answer it and i've said to so many we just need to get down on her knees and give god an opportunity to work outside the box it has been amazing to me that those who have softened their heart and let go of the unanswered question and allowed God to work outside of the box it just starts happening you're gonna have to put your toe in the water on that and see if that's not true and in this kindness he'll be gentle and gracious to you he'll be patient with you but what I'd like you to think with me for a moment is just about your own story what is your story have you said Lord Jesus I want you to use this so that I can be a means of healing or will you say you know the impropriety of this is staggering to me God you know what frankly I Fieldy injustice it's so severe that you know what I actually resent you I'm really mad at you but he's ABBA and that's why I had to come to grips with the fact is their incongruity between the love of Abba Father and the sufferings that one experiences where are you on that I would just invite you to pray with me because I am excited about what some of you are about to begin to experience that he has a life message through you have you thought about how he's going to take that sin and bring about a greater grace how he's going to use that wound to bring healing to other wounded people but are you willing to live a whole life with him never answering now why it happened in the first place let's open our hearts to the Spirit of Christ and let's ask him to use our wounds of the past would you join me in praying Lord through the years I've met with so many students in that great college town Reese Lansing and so I know their hearts and I know their tenderness and I know their their aspirations and their lungs each of us has a sense of destiny and yet things have happened to us that have we felt taken us off the tracks that maybe were damaged goods and if people really knew how not only the evil that had come to us but the choices to do evil that we have entered into a shame that we experience we've let these defeats now defeat us and we keep up a good mass but deep in our hearts we really don't believe you're for us we really don't believe that you are going to take this and shower us with overwhelming love and grace in such a way that we suddenly begin to see a fruitfulness in our life that we could only have imagined Lord I pray that you use these sufferings of this individual hear their prayer now as they ask you to take these wounds and use them and make them into the wounded healer for the eight-year-old little boys who are in the open field having been hit in the face and don't know how to interpret life or the little boy who saw his dad attempt to strangle his mother or the person who heard that a parent is committing adultery sexual molestation or any number of things that have come Oh God through Jesus Christ may we be reminded that you're going to use this for a greater grace let me end with this you look at me this is a choice you make I remember hearing about a Frenchman during the Nazi regime who was a Christ follower and he was harboring Jews and then one day this Frenchman this Christ followers was exposed and brought before a Nazi officer known as the torturer and when he came before this Nazi officer the Peace of Christ descended upon this Frenchman you know the Peace of Christ my peace I give to you not as the world do I give to this Nazi saw that peaceful look and tranquility interpreted as snide naissance murkiness and he screamed at him Don't You Know Who I am get that snide look off your face and the Frenchman looked up and said yes sir I know who you are you are a Nazi and you are known as the torturer I've heard of you and you have the authority to torture me and you have the authority to kill me but Sir you do not have the power to get me to hate you remember when Jesus said they smack you on the right cheek turn the left or we milquetoast know because when you turn the left cheek you take over spiritual authority when he said they take one mile go the second why because we're milquetoast no because when you do that you take over authority but here's the disc this is Liberty theater what is it Liberty University what does this mean it means that you are free and these past evils will not make you evil that's your choice this can actually lead to holiness and wisdom and insight you can begin to be a person you had no idea could be because of the sin that's come to you but it's your choice what happened to you what you're dead you can confront your dead you can hurt your dad but you won't change him the issue here is you can't control the outcomes of others you can only control your own actions and reactions but what you need to understand is that you are free and you're the one that makes a decision of whether you're gonna let that defilement enter into your soul or keep it out and allow that thing to tun turn you into that wounded healer your choice choose wisely you

Channel: Liberty University

Views: 39,513

Rating: 4.8246574 out of 5

Keywords: Liberty University, Convocation, Liberty, Convo, college, university, education, Christian, Emerson Eggerichs, Eggerichs, Love and Respect, author, speaker, relationship, student, testimony, wounded healer, Higher Education, Community, Campus

Id: YCAVXVAY2Bo

Length: 32min 9sec (1929 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2012