Phil & Evan Wickham - Liberty University Convocation

hey hey man but he's way smarter than me yeah theologian you're like the psalmist I'll take it what kind of what kind of parents you have to be to raise kids like you I mean tell us a little bit about your family dynamic just to get going yeah just kick us off our parents there's something about authenticity that you just can't you just can't substitute my dad and mom you know I'm we're pastors kids worship leaders kids and so yeah a passive kids all right cool Wow I heard some hand up for the lost parent cuz they're so so set PK syndrome aside it was great so our parents were the same people like it was a megachurch in Southern California that my dad was a worship leader for and he was the same guy leading worship for 20,000 as he was around the dinner table same guy and I really think that that was a seed sown in me and in all of us and Phil - yeah of what true Kingdom service looks like and you can't replace that yeah their faith but their faithfulness just to serve and is a for sure the bedrock of my faith you know just seeing it's just true it's not like put on my church face then come home put on my I know it at my kids face you know they're just they're just love lovers of Jesus and I'm filled with the spirit and growing up in that it just it was never never really has been a question of whether it's real or non it's just like how much am I gonna trust you know yeah so you watch your mom and dad lead worship on stage lead worship off stage it's never perfect but it was a healthy relationship local government dynamic growing up you weren't the only two in the house you have a little sister bill Jill Phil and Jill is she the theologian and she's you drew what what is her gifting yes she's a deep person prayer like I would say gifted in prayer warrior miss whatever that is like she's very sensitive very sweet sensitivity that kind of stuff yeah that's great so she can't just go and go further into like YouTube growing up you were the older brother yeah was he always just like this sweet little worse yeah sterno for sure not yeah but yes longer here we want to hear a story so I'm like just just shy of three years older than Phil and so like this story should some kind of the dynamic so like tone is this like Halloween so like you're trick-or-treating and get a bunch of candy and that you're you know he's eight I'm 11 and I'm the type of you guys allowed to do Halloween cuz some of these P K's they know we actually worried something we actually weren't allowed to we're not illusion is not Halloween that is how the Minah hallelujah didn't tell me they did Halloween that's so bad yeah so much generational sin they have to get over this or that 100% so the guys got to do Halloween know as hallelujah night on the campus of our church also at night is actually amazing that was amazing set up with me Christian candy only the thing a lot like Testament the Testament snows know the candies but so he took all the candy and put it in his pillowcase and and saved it for like ages and like I'm an anagram 7 I don't know if you know like I'm up just like I go crazy so I ate all my candy October 31st and then I woke up kind of sick gone at 8:32 p.m. October 31st yeah and then I so I woke up kind of sick but I wanted some of his I'm like can I have some he's like fifty cents a sucker and and I got mad at that because I got mad he got a little and I got a little three at me he's like no years old so he's eight years old and I'm like okay fine fifty cents like sorry price just went up I don't like your attitude and so eight years that's not a three that's mafia I don't make you a three that's not unhealthy three all right I'm nuts I didn't say was healthy yeah that's like a six six six more than the three you don't know oh you can't you can't sell your big brother candy man and you got it the holy Wiener what that secrets of lugar whatever that candy party giant watching Steve Urkel on TGIF I say that can't be Friday nights do you get you guys don't even know Steve Urkel is huh Family Matters I was going I would go and get out I was so calculate I would get like spied piece of candy and watched one every like every commercial break I like eat it I would save it for Friday so he wanted some kid I'm like this is my Friday and I can't like you want to get 50 cents he's like what like dollar she paid for it planner no I would not pay out steal it your turn hey bet you got a story I just I just remember lots of controllers being thrown in my face Nintendo controllers any Street Fighter 2 turbos Evan yeah Evan was always better than me at first but I would just be like I could've beat him and I was just I wouldn't let he be at school or something I'm like practicing Street Fighter 2 turbo industry powdered fans out there is this all before your time and then he'd get home I'd be like beat him any throw controllers in my head yeah drew blood brothers did you actually drove what drew blood with NES controller did you tell your parents oh yeah I gave my parents a hard time I was like the strong-willed kid he just kind of you know he's he's a 3 just kind of work the system I was a middle kid so I just kind of figured I was on I was more like just figured out on my own I never really needed help but the schoolwork or anything I just kind of did it you don't mean like he's kind of made it happen yeah yeah as my sister was like the youngest she was the baby he was the oldest you got to do everything first I was like I'll just figure out my house so what's this pretty pretty typical sibling you know like just a lot of that kind of brotherly just you know just messing around and growing up and video games and it seems like you were in a pretty not perfect but a healthy environment growing up at what point did that relationship turn because I know you guys are dearest friends now yeah yeah I would agree I think we're best friends and I think the relationship really did honestly turn before we were in high school together he's freshman I'm senior in high school we would commute so to go to high school that year 1995 96 96 97 can't remember but we would commute an hour it's like a forced bro hang like we was together it wasn't an hour it was like 30 minutes in traffic there our round trip and and we were together just us forced to like it'd just be n each other presents and at first it was awkward because our whole lives leading up to that was so much competition that we just wouldn't erna lies and not verbalize and it would fester and he was just this annoying person you know and and and then so he's 14 and I'm 17 now I just got my license driving my freshman little brother and you know I had a girlfriend at the time who's now my wife which is awesome they've been married 19 years by the way that amazing amazing but she's here with us hopefully they'll introduce her tonight yeah yeah so I would talk to Phil about my wife sandy and we just we just start we just didn't even know we were going deep and actually doing important emotional health work because we were forced to be side by side shotgun and driver's side yeah I would say that point of our life like I had no idea what you were doing in your life same and we just you know what I mean like I was in junior high I went to G at different school he was in high school at different school he had friends I had friends we just were our lives that disconnected so much you would stay out late I just wasn't around then all of a sudden we were going to the same high school you're like 13 yeah and then so when I walked got in I'm not felt my brother was driving me to school right even though I didn't let him know I mean I was pumped like I felt so cool in that car you know and then he would start playing he's like and then I remember that guy's the weeks when I was like check out this this new record it's called sub ankle delirious you know worship banned from from the UK I'm like this is awesome and I was starting to lead worship at the time he was like already accomplished musician and like so I wouldn't let him know I'm like this is awesome you know yeah No yeah same I mean I really do like look back at that that year as as pivotal and I know that you know time with your siblings isn't always not always end well but I think the repetition and the forced communication forced communication and then and then him weighing in on my relationship with my girlfriend at the time as a little teenager how does it look what do you think about relationships it didn't mean ended up well it ended up being a really a really good moment I think the Holy Spirit was involved yeah and so now I mean you guys do a lot of life together and you you're just this much great uncle to you know each other's kids and but a lot of our students here this and this is a reoccurring thing in this series that we've been in but we talk about marriage and a lot of times our guests will come and prop up their marriage as an illustration and it's a really healthy one or we'll talk about some other dynamic and and this as well we talk about you know good kids growing up in a good home that weren't perfect but then in their teenage years really forged this relationship healthy brotherly affection but a lot of our students had the very opposite the car ride was very toxic or the relationship was hijacked by a brother who went rogue or a sister who went prodigal so what advice would you give to someone who grew up in an environment that was very different from that because you passed her people who went through a very different path you sing songs over people and lead worship with people and pastor people who went through something different so coming out of a healthy relationship you know what advice would you give to someone who's coming today to this moment and their definition of sibling is something very dangerous yes maybe yeah I'll go first yeah so I I would say to start starting with Jesus is good and in in Matthew 12 Jesus's brothers his siblings were knocking on the door thinking he was nuts and his mother and his brothers were there saying our you know our son our sibling is off his rocker we got to bring him home and straighten him out and Jesus did something that was extremely provocative and I would even say like just as scandalous in that day as it would be now and he actually redefines family he turns the notion of family on its head and with his parents within earshot because houses were really tiny back then with his parents in earshot he's like they're like hey your mother and brothers are here and he's like who are my mother and brothers he just like throws that question out there it's like a mic drop who are the who's at the door I don't even know them almost and any any points to the people seated at his feet to learn as disciples and he says those that do my father's will are my mother and my sisters and my brothers Jesus actually redefines family no longer primarily by blood but by faith this is ecclesiology this is how to rightly think about what the church is this is why it's so important for us to actually have a rooted integrated life with your church family because when your church family is your first family I really think only then can you re-enter the matrix which is sometimes toxic the matrix of your blood family in a healthy way for it I can actually be an agent of change and actually have the boldness and the identity wherewithal as Christ son related to your church to come into your may be toxic family as a missionary from the kingdom and to have the hard conversations like hey I think that it's weird when we're together don't you like imagine having that conversation like face to face with the brother or sister or a mother or father that it's weird with like oh I really think the fact that like boldness I can only come from rightly orienting yourself in the family of faith the first family Jesus says is primarily family because then your blood family will only benefit heaven will invade it I've seen it happen yeah and I think I think just that might be the biggest thing sentence or thought that some of our students needed to hear this entire semester that God is calling them back into their family as a missionary and that there will be a day where he will no longer be your brother for Jason who just lost his mom and his that like there will be a day when they're no longer his mom and his dad but forever his mom is ultimately his sister in Christ his dad is ultimately eternally his brother in Christ phil is eternally your brother in Christ yeah and so when you see things as the long play then you have a different perspective as you get in but can you get practical with us if someone has a relationship where the boundaries have been imposed you know what I mean so it's not like just fun and games and someone's like getting your Halloween candy man it's like I'm in a very different kind of relationship where I'm feel like I'm enabling more than equipping a sibling give us some advice on how someone can navigate through that get back in it without being in an abusive situation possibly Wow yeah again it starts with accepting Jesus's definition of true family as family defined by faith and so this is why well you guys had one of my other best friends ever come speak here last month his name is John mark comer so he and I go way back and I and I heard what he said here his his thing on community is so important it's not his thing it's literally a historic teaching of the church the church as family is the antidote to so much emotional unhealth in our bio families it really is and so for me I mean you know he's I'm a musician he's a musician and I'll just say it how what would it feel like to you if your little sibling was a hundred times more influential to you in your chosen field of influence like you would have identity issues to work out where you gonna work them out like first here maybe not with your elders at your church with your trusted community with those that you actually call spirit faith family that's that's the only way to like get your like which way is up where am I mind reading him where do I think he's mind reading me and where's the unhealth your spiritual family can help you diagnose that and the antidote is the spirits empowered presence through the family of faith giving you wisdom and guidance so that you can reenter this matrix and be like hey and then you can Pete's cos arrow has this great and like tool like we can go to with boldness grounded in your identity in Christ through the church you can be like I think that you think I'm weird is that true like you can actually get rid of mind-reading because that's that's why this all this all starts with mind-reading we don't have the guts or the tools to deal with mind-reading we're always doing feel like Phil I think that you think that I'm weird in some way is that true and you can be like oh my gosh no I think that you think I'm whatever and I had takes so much guts to do that but I think those guts come from the Holy Spirit within the context of your true family the church so I'll talk about worship and the role that plays maybe in someone here who deals with a very broken home and so the idea is a father and the ideas of brother and the ideas of family just conjure up a very different emotion yeah I often say that on stage you know I think because sometimes I feel like I need to do it myself as like you know that that's your mouse preach to your soul right now as we sing out in faith you know so much of what we do in the worship is remembering who God is so we can respond to him and a lot of what we do is is it what kind of singing into our own futures you know what I mean like even when I don't see it your work you know when I feel your work in your the waymaker you and and maybe maybe maybe you could be like well are you God like I'm I've been asking for a way through this or through that or for you to bring a miracle into this or that for years you know and into instead of like singing into the present like well I'm singing I'm singing with faith into the future of who you are the angle and you Jesus is this and I'm singing into my future and over my life but you're a good good father you know and so I'm singing I'm singing those words of healing into my life you know and it's it's pretty amazing as you're like something very very powerful I mean weeks just experienced here and God even giving us a special promises when the family of God and the people of God sing the praises of God in the presence of God to coin the Matt Redman phrase that I heard him say a lot there's just a special spiritual thing that happens and so in the context of the family of God singing out God's character over your life there's there's true true healing it's it's not just like it's not just the brainwashing thing at all it's a it's a it's a you're letting your your your physical body preach to your spiritual self and and true healing happens so I mean we wanted to introduce this idea but honestly having seen a little bit of what God's put on your heart for tonight heaven and knowing what we're about to go and it goes so much further than the sibling dynamic and or the family dynamic it just goes into every relationship that you have in this world don't give the whole thing away but give us a little thought especially again someone who's transparent enough to say man like last night my brother wins a double ward their song you know come on and you want to go up last night every time every time you like puts out an album instantly becomes massively successful you you've had your run in music and in a very different definition of what success looks like I mean I know you just celebrate him as like this great theologian and this amazing pastor but tonight what can we expect because we're gonna go take this a lot further tonight but give us a little more insight yeah yeah tonight we're gonna talk about unhealthy comparison nobody struggles with that none of you and unhealthy comparison really the problem is envy and envy drives are consciously and subconsciously envy drives so many of our daily decisions and there's this cycle of crazy that we get into that I'm gonna talk about where it's actually in one of Jesus's parables I won't tell you which one but Jesus talks about these people who begin with calculation like how much do they have how little do and then it moves into complaining where they actually bring other people into their misery and then that gives birth to a competitive an unhealthy competitive spirit and it goes back to calculating and that will ruin our relationship with God and our relationship with our community of faith almost more than anything else because it perverts our view of reality we have these incredibly powerful heavenly ordained work things called words that create power so God speaks and light happens and the authors of the New Testament talk about God at God's Word the universe is rightly ordered and then God it speaks and makes you and we are in His image we're different from animals in a few important ways one of which is we use language to create perceptions of reality we speak and we can actually cause other people to see reality in a perverse way or in a true way and it really is rooted in this like toxic addiction to envy it's really like an illness and Jesus offers the cure to envy so we're gonna talk about that cure we're gonna diagnose the illness talk about the cure tonight not the band the cure that sounded awesome almost but we're talking about the cure to envy and I really pray that the Holy Spirit actually uproots roots of bitterness the the ancient biblical authors call them roots of bitterness that actually grow in us which sounds so gross it is gross it's meant to sound gross and Jesus wants to like surgically remove those to deposit heaven in your homes so yeah I think tonight's gonna be again one of those nights where from the songs that we've selected for the night to the the word that God's put on you know pastor Evans heart it's gonna be one of those nights that's gonna be very pivotal in a crossroad for a lot of you I think God's gonna be a lot of healing in your life and prepare you for what God wants to do during Christmas break we on our way out and want to since we had two siblings and we've been blessing different dorms play this 4-minute game that we have in store for you where the where the people from the South Tower where the lady for the South Tower there it is you scream again just one more time where you scream again South Tower let me hear you cool so obviously as you just heard that's an all-female dorm for anyone else who's visiting today it doesn't know so since we have brothers here we're gonna play a game called brotherly love the South Tower edition and if we get enough points we have for all of you again a real big prize all right so we're gonna play this it's gonna be the the Wickham's against the Nasser's I've asked my brother Benjamin to come join me and so here we go are you all ready twins come out count the room all right everybody it's time to play brother's keeper it's the game where brothers will work together to decode secret messages to score points today our team of brothers will be Ben and David Nasser versus Phil Nevin Wiggum that's right and one brother will wear noise-cancelling headphones in order to have three tries to guess the secret message the other brother is trying to communicate to them if by the end of the game that Wickham's have outscored that Nasir than the girls of Liberty South Tower are all going home with a Twix the brother's keeper of candy that's right it looks like our contestants are about ready to play so let's begin the game and play brother's keeper all right guys you guys feelin ready ready all right all right are you ready I don't okay hey we need music in the head okay Phil can you hear me Phil yeah he can't hear me all right here we go Evan you're gonna start on my mark here we go ready the music is coming in and out okay all right because it in T hearing and saying I don't think any all right here we go three two one go liberty worship committee worship collective pumpkin spice latte the music keeps going in and I heard that one here we go here we go okay one more time here we go from the beginning yeah we're gonna start from the beginning research scoreboard here we go three two one go Liberty worship collective you never did where's correct alright he got his pumpkin spice latte up conspire saute all right San Diego California something California San Diego San Diego California stranger things season for greater thinks he's a poor stranger things stranger things see them for eight seconds left coffee creamer coffee River coffee creamer coffee creamer five points for the whip cups that's a good score guys you guys can make your way out at the out of the place here we go all right Ben will be wearing the headphones all right David here are your questions Ben can you hear me fantastic all right guys here we go in three two one brotherly love if you're taking notes write this down if you're if you're taking notes if you're taking notes write this down write this out yes good night who's the boss Jerry shirtless in Volvo [Music] that's time you guys are gonna have to do better next round then you're gonna have to do better economics your points come on bugs are a lot harder and you're wearing the headphones this time Evan can you hear me can you hear me you hear anything can't hear anything awesome all right Phil you're up we're gonna get started here in just a second here we go three two one go your love awakens me your love awakens me Cain and Abel he is able Cain and Abel Cain and Abel yeah you're adopted I'm a better musician I don't know I'm a better musician sorry I'm I'm a better better me I'm a better musician yeah that's time good job guys nine points that's a good score that's a good sport all right guys let's get situated debt again here David's got the headphones on David can you hear me I can't hear a thing okay we'll see all right you ready yeah all right you're gonna read that one first okay here we go yeah that is I think it's time yellow everybody Kanye [Applause] favorite dad's favorite hey brother is born for a time of adversity hey brother there's a bowl of fruits no brother is born for a time of adversity hey brother it's born fourth of July Liberty smears not manually Liberty what smells like man your Liberty smells like Mandarin girls don't want congratulations you guys you get twits after campus community tonight oh you guys are dismissed we'll see you tonight at a campus community

Channel: Liberty University

Views: 37,619

Rating: 4.901505 out of 5

Keywords: Liberty University, LibertyU, Liberty, Jerry Falwell, Phil Wickham, Evan Wickham

Id: CYV5W_fImS0

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2019