Campus Community | Levi Lusko
Overview:
Pastor Levi Lusko taught us how to worship God by practicing patience. In a culture that desires to always be authentic, Christians can easily fall into the trap of letting our emotions dictate our obedience towards God. This should not be so. Even if we feel impatient, Christians should depend on the Holy Spirit for strength and respond with patience.
Levi Lusko taught us that “the process is the product.” This means that when we patiently endure trials, difficult people, and difficult circumstances, God is doing a work in us that will bear fruit in the future.
He went on to say that there are four ways we should be patient. First, we should be patient like a farmer (wait proactively). Second, we should be patient like a family (be kind). Third, we should be patient knowing the future (Jesus is returning). And finally, we should be patient like our forefathers (tenaciously).
Verses:
James 5:7-11 MSG “Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.
Friends, don’t complain about each other. A far greater complaint could be lodged against you, you know. The Judge is standing just around the corner.
Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honoring God. What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You’ve heard, of course, of Job’s staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That’s because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.”
2 Kings 3:16 “Make this valley full of ditches”
Job 1:21 “and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”
Job 2:10 “He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”
Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.”
Job 19:25-26 “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God.”
Quotes:
Patience is the spirit of serenity in the face of vexing circumstances.
Patient people are built, they are not born.
The only way to develop your patience is to be in a situation where you are at the end of yours.
I’m not saying to act like someone you’re not. I’m saying behave like the person God says you are.
Patience comes across as a settled confidence.
We owe the grandeur of our lives to the hardships and the difficulties that we have faced.
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“By far the most powerful evidence against Christianity is Christians” – G.K Chesterton
Questions:
- In what areas of your life are you struggling to demonstrate patience?
- How would the people closest to you describe what you look like when you are impatient?
- Are there roots of sin that lead to your impatience? (ex. Pride, Control, Anger)
- What are steps that you can take today so that the next time you feel impatient, you do not let it control your decision making?
- What would it look like for you to live out what Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “But he is brave for five minutes longer?”