In this transformative episode, Levi Lusko delves into the complexities of facing tribulation in the Christian faith. Drawing from biblical teachings, he encourages listeners to shift their perspective from the immediate struggles to the eternal glory that awaits. By focusing on God’s power and presence, believers can find empowerment and purpose even in the deepest valleys of life.
This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Thanks for joining us today. Here at Connect with Skip, our mission is to help you know God’s Word and apply it to your life through clear, practical Bible teaching and real encouragement every day. And if you’d like to keep growing in your walk with Jesus, sign up for Pastor Skip’s free weekly devotional. You’ll receive biblical insight, teaching highlights, and Now let’s welcome Levi Lusko, our guest speaker today on Connect with Skip Heitzig to share the final message in our series, The Bible Doesn’t Say That.
SPEAKER 01 :
In the midst of trying to see God do everything he wants to do through our lives in ministry, there’s been difficulty as Paul experienced, as we’ve experienced. And listen, if you’re going to follow God and do things for him in this world, he put it this way. Jesus did. John 16, 33. In this world, you will have tribulation. Doesn’t mean they won’t try, but nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. So we’re not going to face our difficulties just saying, these two will pass. These two will pass. What are we going to say? We’re going to say what Paul says in Romans 8, 18, where he says, I know that the sufferings of this present time aren’t even worthy to be compared to the glory that’s going to be revealed. So what are we going to say? This too shall last. We’re going to focus not on what’s been taken away, We’re going to focus on what can’t be taken away. And that is the glory God’s producing in the midst of our suffering. And it’s a better place to be. Why? Because just to focus on, this too will pass, is actually to focus on and fixate on the one thing you can’t control. The reason you found yourself down in the dumps was because something intruded into your life that you didn’t ask for. And I think the most frustrating thing to me about grief is how disempowering it is. Because there’s literally nothing you can do. I couldn’t stop this from happening. I can’t make this go any faster. And so you just sit there like completely stuck. In my worst moments of grief, my fists ball up, but there’s nothing to punch. My legs flood with blood, but there’s nowhere to run. My whole nervous system is just coursing with adrenaline, but there’s nothing to do. And when I say this too will pass, I’m just sitting there. They’re literally spinning in deep sand. But if instead I focus on God’s glory instead, it empowers me. I find myself moving from a disempowered state to an empowered state, from a loss of agency to once again realizing I do have agency now, even here, even in this dumpy situation. Why? Because I can participate in God’s glory through worship. So hear me, when you feel stuck, you’re not. You always have a choice, the choice to rejoice. And you can rejoice high. You can rejoice low. You can rejoice here. You can rejoice there. Oh, wow, I just got a spirit of green eggs and ham on me all of a sudden. I can do it with a goat. I can do it in a boat. I can do it with a fox. I can do it wearing socks. I can worship God in all times and in all places. I can lift high the matchless name of Jesus Christ. The Lord gives and takes away. But y’all, I can sit here in my ash heap and say, blessed be the name of the Lord. We can worship even in the dumps, even in difficulty. When demons come in high and low and every stormy gale, I can worship God wherever I am. So I don’t want you just to close your eyes and wait for pain to end. I want you to tap into the incredible power that you’re opened up to in the midst of impossible pain. So that the devil can’t use the pain against you by tearing your house down and causing you to turn your back on God because of how bad life’s been, but instead by understanding the hope of the gospel to keep yourself from being turned away from it. And I want you to focus on these four things. Jot them down. Number one, the wonders of heaven. When you feel… You’re just going through it. I want you to think about heaven. I want you to think about it. I want you to fix your minds on it. I want you to set your mind on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and not just on the things of this earth, the wonders of heaven. I want you to think about your recreated, resurrected, transformed body that you’re going to live in. Every time you have an achy elbow, where you get up and it just gets louder and louder. The longer we live, when we wake up in the morning and get out, I’ll be like, ah, because we’re groaning. And we groan in this tent because it’s breaking down. But thanks be to God that we don’t just have to Botox and nip and tuck and cling to this body and try and make do with it. I mean, we should be good stewards of these bodies and treat them well and honor them as they are as the temple of the Holy Spirit. But thank God we’re going to get a brand new model. Thank God we’re going to trade that sucker in and get a brand new one that we’re going to live in forever. That’s going to be a glorified body, like Paul said, conformed to his glorified body. So the same as Jesus’s body that came out of the grave, right, to live in forever, he will never die again. That body will never break down again. It will never hurt again. And we’re going to live in a brand new body, hear me, in a brand new earth, in a brand new heavens that we will get to live in forever. And it’s going to be like Willy Wonka. We’re going to be able to eat the cups. It’s going to be, it’s so sensual. The language the Bible uses talks about trees clapping their hands and hills breaking out in songs and lions lying down with lambs, right? To think about that. We’re going to live in this brand new world forever without sin, without crime, without cancer, without conflict, car accidents, and we are going to live in this world with our perfect Savior forever, forever, right? This is heaven, and heaven is in front of us, and death is not leaving home. Death is going home. And we’re getting closer to heaven every single day. I think about how tomorrow it’ll be eight months since my dad’s been with Jesus. And I have two ways of looking at that. I went to see his headstone for the first time this week, coming back for Thanksgiving. And as I stood there, I had the same choice you have when you’re in your grief. I get to look back at my life with him, or I get to look future to my future where I am with him, with Jesus. Because Jesus said, in my Father’s house are many mansions, and I go to prepare a place for you. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. And if you believe in me, though you die, you will live. So I can just fixate on what I wish I could go back to, or I can say, I’m not eight months further from him. I’m moving closer to him. So today I’m eight months and two days close. You see what I’m saying? I can choose to say I’m moving in the right direction. I can choose to say that on the second, I’ll be eight months closer in my journey to being reunited to my father, just like you have that perspective in your suffering. I’m moving closer to my daughter, not further away. My daughter’s not in the grave. She’s with Christ, which is where I’m going. And every day we move closer to heaven. So let’s think more of our homeland and less just trying to make this world better. And what do the kids say? Everyone’s looking for that Riz. You want Riz? He is risen. This is what we can look forward to in Jesus Christ. And Teresa of Avila said that one kiss from the Father at the gates of heaven will make a thousand lifetimes of suffering seem to be simply like a night in a bad hotel. That’s a different way of thinking about it. The heaven’s going to be that good. Then one moment into paradise, it will cause us to look back on every agony we’ve ever suffered and almost have it turn into a glory because of how good it is in the presence of the one who said that he, at his right hand, has pleasures evermore. And in his presence is fullness of joy. So let’s think about heaven. This too shall last. Secondly, jot it down, the weight of glory. The weight of glory is what God is producing in the midst of our suffering that’s almost a glory that can overshadow and eclipse the agony we’re going through in the moment. That’s the language of Paul in Romans 8.18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time, they’re so trivial compared to. They’re not even worthy to be compared to. So he’s saying, here we go, that the rape or that the abandonment or that the divorce or that the loss of a loved one, which is brutal if you’re just staring at it, but once you take your eyes to something better, it fades. It grows strangely dim. It stops being so heavy compared to the glory revealed in us that Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4.17, causes this horrible thing to seem like a light and momentary affliction. So the more you think about what God’s doing through your pain, the less you’ll just go, oh my gosh, I have this heavy garbage dump of stuff that I’ve had to walk through. So what is that glory? The glory is the heaviness that is felt whenever God comes near. Stay with me. Holiness is what God is. Holy is what God is. That’s why we’re told multiple times in scripture, holy, holy, holy is the Lord. When the Bible repeats itself, it’s like your mom. It means he really wants you to get what he’s saying. The Bible doesn’t just call God holy, and it doesn’t just call him holy, holy. Pastor Nelson, right? It calls him holy, holy, holy. The Trihagion. I remember hearing you preach about that on a Wednesday night many, many years ago. Powerful treatise on holiness of God. So holy, holy, holy is the Lord. It’s his essential fundamental attribute. It means other than or completely different. It means elevated to a different category. It means God is on a whole nother level. And when the holy God comes near, the impact on us is glory. Holy is the Lord. The whole earth is full of his glory. So the effect of God close to you is like, can I paraphrase it in modern vernacular? Dang. There’s a sense of heaviness. If you’ve been given an honor, it’s a little pin, but it feels heavy because there’s a pomp and circumstance attached to it. Going to Arlington and watching the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, there’s a heaviness, there’s a gravitas to that. It feels heavy. It feels weighty. It feels important.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’ll be back with our teaching from Levi Lusko in just a minute. When you give to this ministry, you help reach thousands of people every day with God’s life-changing truth. encouraging them to know Him, trust Him, and walk in His freedom. And this month, we want to thank you with a special resource package. You’ll receive Skip’s book, Biography of God, which helps you explore God’s nature, His power, the mystery of the Trinity, and the hope that comes from removing the false limitations we sometimes place on Him. Plus, you’ll get Skip’s six-message CD series, Expound Galatians, where Skip unpacks the book of Galatians and the freedom believers have through grace, not works. Your gift today helps bring the life-changing message of Jesus to people around the world through Connect with Skip. Request your resources when you give $50 or more at connectwithskiff.com slash offer or by calling 800-922-1888. Now, back to our teaching today with guest speaker Levi Lusko.
SPEAKER 01 :
Whenever God’s in the room, there’s a heaviness to it. It’s like there’s almost a hush that falls over the situation. Why do people pull weighted blankets on when they’re having panic attacks? They want a heaviness to comfort. Why does the Bible say God is near to the broken heart? Why do the Beatitudes say, blessed are the poor in spirit? blessed are those who mourn. Because there’s a unique way in which you are qualified to experience the holy God, thus open your life up to a supernatural glory when you’re on fire, when you’re going through great suffering. Or as I said a moment ago, God’s going to do more through you than you think he can, but it’s going to hurt more than you think it And you, if you’re aware of the God who is near, opened up to his glory, you’re not focused now on, oh, I had to go through, they let me in down the wall in a basket and I got bit by a snake on Malta and Demas has forsaken me. You’re like, holy, holy, holy is the Lord. And then you say, when he says, who will I send? Who will go for us? I will do it. I’ll do anything you want me to do because you’re holy. And he says, I want you to go preach, but they’re not going to listen. I want you to go, but they’re going to eventually turn their back on you and cut you in half, sawing you in half, Isaiah. And he goes, great. When do we start? The answer is yes. What’s the question? How can I be a part of more people encountering you? The weight. of glory. And so the more you focus on what God’s doing in your life and the way that he’s near to you in your difficulties, the less you’re going to be focused on the troubles of this life in the dumps that you find yourself in. Imagine someone stole $100 from your wallet or your purse. How would you feel about that? You’d be rightly bummed out. I would. $100 bill? But imagine yesterday an uncle died who you never met, and you found out he was fabulously wealthy. And you were informed that electronically, a trillion dollars had just been this morning deposited into your bank account. How would you feel then when $100 has just been taken from your wallet? Would anybody still be upset at all? You don’t understand a trillion dollars then. Because we hear trillion, billion, million. They all sound the same. They’re not. Here’s an illustration from time. If you have 1 million seconds, you have 11 days. If you have 1 billion seconds, you have 32 years. If you have 1 trillion seconds, you have 31,688 years. So for us crying over some loss, some pain, some temporary suffering, while our attention is on our inheritance in Christ, which will last forever, we’re crying over a $100 bill when we’ve been given a trillion years of glory. And even after a trillion years, we’ll have no less days to sing his praise than when we first had begun. Do you realize the tribals of this present life are not even worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed? And that’s the weight of glory. Number three, the word of God. What will last? God’s word. Because the flower fades and the grass withers, but the word of God stands forever. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to let God’s word guide us and not anything else. Not our feelings, not our friends, not culture, and certainly not our difficulties. Here’s something my counselor always reminds me of. Levi, your trauma is not your template. Truth is. When your trauma is your template, you’re so scarred by the difficult things you’ve been through, you just want to avoid them at all costs. I don’t want to have any of those hard conversations or go to any of those places. I felt that. We felt that, Jenny, the first year Christmas came. And I mean, now our Christmas season in this country begins like after the 4th of July pretty much. So good luck avoiding it. And eggnog latte shows up at the coffee shops and the rumpa-pum-pums everywhere. And if I wanted to avoid the triggers of Christmas, of that pain of losing my daughter, I would just have to just la-la-la-la-la from like Halloween until New Year’s Eve. I could avoid it because that would make the trauma my template. I got to avoid that because it brings up all those bad things. I can’t go to church because I got hurt in a church at some point. I can’t go over here because this happened over here. And pretty much, we’re avoiding or we’re becoming defined by our traumas, letting them be a template in a different way. We have a victim mentality and this wounded spirit and almost this toxicity inside of us, this root of bitterness because of what so-and-so did. And we’re just fixated on what they did to us. And that just weirdly makes our life a magnet for more things like that because we’re so convinced people are going to hurt us because we got hurt in the past. And we end up treating people terribly. And then they hurt us. They’re like, I told you I was going to get hurt. But God’s truth is to be our template, not our traumas. Be free. Your issue? is not your identity. You remember that woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment and got healed? She had for 12 years been bleeding uncontrollably until she touched the hem of his garment and she was freed. Do you know her name? We don’t. So we call her the woman with the issue of blood. That’s literally the heading in the Bible. Do you know what Jesus called her? Daughter. She was not what she had been through. And neither are you. You’re not a divorcee or a cancer survivor. You’re not an abuse victim or an alcoholic. You’re not someone who has declared bankruptcy. In Jesus’s sight, you’re a child of God. So be free. Let God’s word tell you who you are and nothing else. Number four, what are we going to focus on? We’re going to focus on what will last, and what will last is the worth and wounds of Jesus. His glory, his holiness, it will go on forever. Who Jesus is, his renown, him being made famous, this is forever. So let’s live for his glory, not our own. But let’s not also forget that that his wounds will go on forever also. For hear me, from before the foundation of the earth, he’s a lamb slain. Lion of the tribe of Judah, certainly. Undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. King of kings, Lord of lords. Only name that is life, only name that is light, only name that is salvation. name above every other name. But when we see him, he will still bear in his body the effects of the cross. He walked through walls to get to the disciples after the resurrection. So apparently the resurrected body that we’ll get one just like has a few new features, shall we say, that we don’t get to enjoy currently. And what did he say to the disciples who were afraid? Peace. Peace. He said, peace to you. I speak peace. And then saying peace, he showed them his wounds. The back whipped, the nails pierced. Isaiah says he did these things for us. By his wounds, we are free. By his stripes, we are healed. Jesus still had the wounds in his resurrected body after he had risen. Why? He chose to keep them. Don’t you think he could have gotten rid of them? I have a couple scars. I broke my femur. I’ve got scars. I cut my hand on glass when I worked at Chili’s by Cottonwood Mall in high school. It’s not a great story. I have scars. Jesus kept his scars because they’re connected to purpose. Maybe you in heaven will say, Jesus, why do you still have them? I think he’d go like almost surprised, looking down at them, go, oh, these? I kind of like them. Because without them, you couldn’t be here, my child. If I got a scar saving my wife or saving my child’s life, I pity the plastic surgeon that tries to take them from me. I would wear them like a badge of honor. And because of what Jesus had accomplished with his wounds, it so changed how he thinks about them. Hear me. Jesus’s wounds were used by God to do great things. And yours can too. How? You allow what happens in the will of God to happen. Which means, as you do life, as you do ministry, you’re going to get thrown into the dump. And you’re going to find yourself flat on your back. If it hasn’t happened yet, it’s going to. And you say, Levi, that’s not very positive. No, I’m positive. It’s going to happen. And so here you are, down in the dumps. What do you do? My encouragement to you is to do what Job did. He was in the trash, and what did he do? He found the cross. He looked to the cross. Didn’t He say, I know my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth? And though my flesh, it will be destroyed, with my eyes I will see God. He focused not on what was passing, but what was lasting. And in so doing, He started clawing around in that dump, and He found the cross. I know it’s somewhere. I know it’s here somewhere. I know it’s here somewhere. The cross is here. God is here. There’s purpose in it. I’m not alone. We can find the cross in the midst of our suffering. And when we find the cross in the dump, and lifted up in our circumstances. We remember that Jesus’s body was crucified up above a garbage dump. Golgotha was a dump. Your church is named after garbage. The cross was raised up above trash. And Christ elevated above it all. And had he not risen his body, had he not been given the grave of Joseph of Arimathea, his body would have literally been burned with trash. But God showed at the cross that he is able to take garbage and bring gold. He’s able to take suffering and produce glory. And Paul said the same thing. I know that the things that have happened to me have turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. So if you can find the cross in the midst of being down in the dumps, you will see God bring glory out of your suffering. And his glory today is roaring through the church. He’s roaring through your life. You are not alone. He’s with you and wants to work all things together for the good, for those who love God and are the call according to his purpose. So where the devil tries to get you mad at God because of the garbage and try to get you to turn your back on God and try to weaponize your pain against the Lord, you need to stiffen your back a little bit and say, devil, you can’t have my pain because it belongs to Jesus. And he’s going to use it for his purposes. Because at the cross, Jesus canceled with the stroke of his pen the handwriting of requirements that was against us. And his hand didn’t shake when he wrote his name. It is finished. Paid in full.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig with our special guest speaker, Levi Lusko. Before we go, remember, your generosity helps share God’s Word around the world, bringing truth and hope to people who need Jesus. And this month, we’d love to thank you for your support by sending you a special resource bundle, Skip’s book, Biography of God, along with his six-message CD series, Expound Galatians. Together, these resources help you explore who God really is and how to live in the spiritual freedom He offers. Give today at connectwithskiff.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skiff. Make a connection. Make a connection.
SPEAKER 02 :
Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God’s never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
