God Sustains You: Chrysalis, Camp Lookout, 2025
God Sustains You Chrysalis – October 18, 2025
Good evening!
Before we begin, will you join me in prayer?
Let’s pray the prayer on page 7 of your worship booklet.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy your consolations; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
My name is Mitchell Jolly, and the title of our study in God’s word is “GOD SUSTAINS YOU”.
The created world we inhabit is not quite right, yet.
Creation displays some of God’s glory and is therefore beautiful. Mankind bears God’s image and is a marvelous creature.
To be clear, the image of God in man is not really abilities we have that God has. Rather the image of God is our status as God’s representatives and co-regents (kings and queens) to rule well over creation and see that his will is done and his kingdom comes in creation as in the realm of heaven. Genesis 1:26-28 tells us this.
Yet, we know something is not quite right. Creation is off center. Wobbly. Humans are off center. We are wobbly.
What’s wrong?
The problem is sin. Sin is any violation of the standards of God from missing the mark, to stepping outside of his appointed boundaries, to making filthy what God has made clean, to calling evil good and good evil, and a host of other ways God’s word defines sin.
From the opening of the metanarrative of the gospel in the opening verses of Genesis, something is off. There is darkness, and darkness is never referred to as good by God who is creating the visible universe. There is chaos in his unformed creation that God is bringing into order from the deeps. This is more evident in Hebrew and less in English, but nonetheless, something is already off.
C.S. Lewis captures this well in “The Magician’s Nephew” as he tells us about the creation of Narnia. Aslan is singing into existence all things, and as he does so, there is an evil already present that has a dark undertone. The White Witch is already present spoiling the good Aslan is creating.
The Serpent Dragon (Revelation 12) is already afoot, and shows up in force in Genesis 3, successfully entices our parents to join his evil cause, and everything broke.
The rest of Genesis 3 is the Lord graciously mediating his promised consequence of death because he loves Adam and Eve and his creation.
He tells them that things are going to be much harder for them now, but he promises that in the fullness of time he would see that One would come from the descendants of the woman who would crush the head of the Serpent Dragon even though the Serpent Dragon would wound the Crusher’s heal. This is the Bible’s first prophetic preaching of the good news.
In the meantime, though, we have a sin problem that has made us and all things wobbly.
The old apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul, experienced this sin reality as the inability to do the good he wanted to do (See Romans 7:15, 19-20).
Peter really loved the Lord Jesus and vowed to be faithful all the way to death but denies he knows Jesus when it counted the first time (Matthew 26:34, 74).
Sin has infected everything and broke everything so that it is just not yet quite right. Sin infects even the most faithful people to be unfaithful to the Lord.
Jesus is the One, the Creator, who the Father promised would crush the head of the Serpent Dragon, and he has. He was wounded, killed, buried, rose, and ascended to the Father to make right all things, or as Colossians 1:15-20 says, “reconcile all things to himself”, including all people who will repent and believe the good news. He also sent Holy Spirit to take up residence in all those who believe to help them access his constant flow of grace to put things back to their right state from their wobbly state.
However, in this ongoing fight against sin, there are 3 big obstacles we will have to fight against. Let’s look at them.
1. Unbelief
There are two kinds of unbelief:
1) Unbelief in the good news of who God is and what his mission for mankind is.
2) Unbelief in God’s good purpose for us once we are followers of Jesus, and we can call that unbelief, fear.
First, let’s look at unbelief in the good news, that metanarrative that tells us who God is and who we are and what humanity’s problem is and how God solves the problem.
We can define unbelief like this: putting one’s faith in the wrong place.
All humanity believes in something and puts their faith in something. Even atheists place their faith in their own sovereignty that their knowledge of the universe is so exhaustive that they know that matter is all that exists.
The result of the sin in the garden and following the Serpent Dragon is that mankind put his faith in the dark kingdom and the resulting consequences are that all mankind lives in a state of being dead toward Jesus.
The only way out of that state of death is to exercise faith and put that faith in Jesus, and the only way that can happen is when the good news of Jesus is communicated, heard, and believed in.
That is saving faith.
The other kind of unbelief is when a follower of Jesus forgets God’s good purpose for us in saving us and lives in doubt and fear.
This unbelief results in a follower of Jesus who will forget God’s word, busy themselves with “stuff”, or distracts them with unnecessary noise and when challenging times come. This unbelief will cause us to fade away into doubt and fear and leas us to make decisions according to the values of the Serpent Dragon that are opposed to God’s values.
Hebrews 11:1 (ESV) “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Belief is a reasoned decision to trust in the hope of the good news, and the resulting actions of a life transformed by that good news.
Believe to be saved and keep on believing just like you believed to be saved.
The second obstacle is...
2. Idolatry
Idolatry is not enjoying God’s good things too much.
Idolatry is not simply an object that one calls a god.
Idolatry is a complex and evil thing by which “godlings” and unclean spirits (Unclean spirits are the disembodied spirits of the beings spawned in Genesis 6:1-4 that God destroyed in the flood) gain access to humans through some object (it can be physical or immaterial like an idea) with the goal of controlling, abusing, and ruining the human image-bearer.
If we allow idolatry to be simply the concept of placing an good enjoyment in front of God, we have in ignorance opened access to the forces of darkness to demonize us.
For those who are not followers of Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit, they are already open vessels that forces of darkness are seeking to access and ruin. For those not following Jesus, they have no fool proof protection.
It’s not like the Bible is unclear on this point, we just don’t read it enough, meditate enough on what we read enough, and take truth to practice enough to be on guard.
We let pop culture, pop theology, and spirits through false prophets inform and teach us rather than allow God’s word to inform and teach us.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
The wild thing about the objects or ideas through which evil obtain strongholds of unbelief in us is that we will emotionally attach ourselves to those objects and ideas, and in that attachment that evil has a constant flow of access.
When idolatry progresses to this point, what Ezekiel the prophet says from the Lord has happened: Ezekiel 14:1-3 (ESV) “1 Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. 2 And the word of the LORD came to me: 3 “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them?”
We take these gods into our hearts, and we love them, we carry them where we go, we can’t stand to be parted from them, we are always looking to them, and we are controlled by them.
When I say “gods”, I mean that like the Bible means that. These “godlings” are created beings the Bible calls “sons of God” who Father, Son, and Spirit created as their counsel. You can read about them in places like Job chapter 1. One of these beings, described as the Serpent, and I call the Serpent-Dragon from Revelation 12, has rebelled and led a rebellion of his kind of beings and others in the unseen universe against the Lord Jesus.
The Bible tells us these beings continued their rebellion against the Lord in Genesis 6:1-4, and that rebellion would create a hybrid race of evil beings, most of whom, the Lord would destroy in the flood. The spirits of these dead beings are what Jesus calls “unclean spirits” and “demons” in the New Testament.
So, when we take these “gods” into our hearts through some object, we are worshipping an evil being who is not Jesus, and we have at that point violated the top 2 of the 10 commandments. If we are in a Christian setting and use Christian language to call that “god” Jesus when it is in fact not Jesus, we have violated the top 3 of the 10 commandments.
1 John 5:21 (ESV) 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
The third obstacle is...
3. Self-centeredness
Philippians 2:1-11 (ESV) 1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Self-centeredness is the opposite of Jesus, the Eternal, Creator, Savior God who gave himself up to be executed by the Father (See Isaiah 53) through the hands of the Roman empire, to be buried, and on the third day to rise and prove his resurrection to his followers, give them the Great Commission, ascend back to the Father, and send the Holy Spirit to empower his people, the church.
Self-centeredness wounds faith, and contributes to idolatry, and shuns God’s means of supernatural life for us.
How can we defeat these obstacles to overcoming sin?
GRACE
We will use the Bible’s word, GRACE, as an acronym and help you understand a little about what God’s grace is.
Grace in the Bible is less about second chances and is mostly used to talk about God’s power toward and for his people.
So, how do you access it?
Mostly you will find grace is just given by God to you regardless of your effort. That’s great news. He will empower you and you will often overlook it.
But how can you access it intentionally? This is where we will use our acronym.
G: Go to God.
Pray.
Read God’s word. Below is a link to an article I wrote with some tips on reading the Bible with my Bible reading plan.
https://www.theologyinthedirt.com/blog/11-tips-for-bible-reading-in-2025
Get quiet.
Learn to be healthily alone.
Still your mind.
Learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Look for God to cause his word to stand out as you read.
Look for God to line up circumstances.
Look for God to line up wise counsel from fellow Christians.
This is how you can go to God.
R: Remember who you really are.
Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
“Created” in Ephesians 2:10 has a grammatical construction that indicates your identity in Jesus is created for you by God and is good for you and is to be sought out in him not gathered from the values, culture, or people you happen to surround yourself with. Get to know that redeemed self through the lens of God’s word and who he says you are and remember that powerful workmanship he has created and don’t abandon it.
Fight for it.
A: Accept God’s acceptance of you in Christ.
Regardless of the temptations you will face to see yourself as less than you are, remember Romans 8:1.
Romans 8:1 (ESV) 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Believe that in Christ, God has accepted you.
This is no license to sin and violate God’s word. It is a license to shake off when we do sin and receive the deep fountain of God’s good mercy to us.
C: Connect with the local church.
Jesus does not save folks for a Lone Ranger life. Jesus saves a people to be in a covenanted local church.
The entire context of the New Testament is the local church.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
As Christians, we are gifted by the Spirit, to be a part of the body of Christ put on display in the local church.
E: Embrace the life of following Jesus according to God’s word.
1 Peter 2:21 (ESV) 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
Be ok with hearing and obeying God’s word, and in doing that, you will be following Jesus’ example and following him.
When we Go to God, Remember who we are, Accept His acceptance, Connect with His church, and Embrace His way, we find that God truly sustains us.