What is on your own list right now — the one you wrote yourself and keep failing?

He came to faith as an adult, and one of the first things he read was Peter quoting Leviticus: *be holy, for I am holy.* His reaction was honest. *Whoa. Hold on a second. Be holy? That's a thing?* He knew he was many things. Holy was not one of them. So he did what most of us do. He built a list. Go to church. Feed the poor. Stop the Friday nights that ran till four in the morning. It was a reasonable list. It was even a good list. It failed. Not because he was lazy, but because he kept doing the very things he had already decided he would not do. He called it *the religion of Jay* — and he could not keep up with the religion of Jay. You have a list too. It may not look religious. Be more patient. Be less on your phone. Be the kind of person who has it together by now. You wrote it you

Where are you still living like you have to earn a place you have already been given?

There is a strange little moment in Exodus. Moses sets apart the equipment of the tabernacle, and Scripture calls it holy. The tongs are holy. The spoons are holy. The candelabras are holy. Sit with that. The spoons did not volunteer. They did not serve, or give, or try harder. They just sat there — and God called them holy. Which means holiness cannot be mainly about doing. If it were, a spoon could never qualify. Holiness is about being. It is a state, not a performance — the result of belonging to God, of being set apart by him and near to him. The spoons were holy because of whose they were and where they stood. This reframes the whole question. You have been asking *what do I have to do?* Paul is asking something else entirely: *why are you still living like someone who belongs to

What good thing have you been treating as the substance, when it was only ever pointing you to Christ?

The word Paul uses for *substance* is **soma**. Body. So the picture is not abstract. There is a body standing in the light, and it throws a shadow. The festivals, the food laws, the new moons, the Sabbaths, the whole apparatus — all of it is the shadow. Christ is the body casting it. A shadow is not a lie. It is real, and it tells you something true: someone is standing there. The Old Testament sacrifices were not a mistake. They were a shape on the ground pointing to the one who would come. But once the person walks into the room, you do not keep talking to the shadow. That is the strange thing the Colossians were being talked into — going back to the outline when they already had the person. And it is what we do when we would rather have a system than a Savior. A system is manageabl

What have you been straining to produce that you could instead receive by staying close to Christ?

Watch a branch closely and you will notice it never strains. It does not manufacture anything. It has exactly two jobs: stay attached, and hold what shows up. The fruit is the vine's work. The branch simply drinks. Psalm 1 says the same thing with a different picture — a tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in season, its leaf refusing to wither. Not a tree straining to produce. A tree standing where the water is. Now imagine that tree deciding it could do better. It pulls itself up, walks into the desert, and plants itself in the sand. Nothing about it has changed — same trunk, same roots, same branches. It shrivels anyway. Not because it stopped trying, but because it left the water. This is why *try harder* keeps failing you. It is not too demanding. It is aimed at the w

What would change this week if you stopped fighting that one sin and started feeding on Christ instead?

Two hundred years ago a Scottish preacher named Thomas Chalmers gave a sermon with a title worth remembering: *The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.* His argument was simple and it has outlived him. You do not get free of the thing that has you by gritting your teeth against it. You get free by coming to love something else more. Which means the honest diagnosis of the sin you keep returning to is not that you have insufficient willpower. It is that you have not yet seen Jesus as bigger than it. Somewhere in you, that thing still looks better than he does. That is uncomfortable, but it is far better news than *try harder*. Willpower runs out. Affection does not have to be manufactured — it grows by looking. So the answer to a week of failure is not a stricter list. It is a longer loo

Jay came to faith as an adult, started reading 1 Peter, and stopped cold at chapter one where Peter quotes Leviticus — be holy, for I am holy. He had heard be happy, be good, be prosperous. Holy was new. When you hear the word holy, what picture comes to mind, and is it a picture of something you do or something you are?

Religion hands you a list. Paul says the list has no power to change you. Holiness is not something you achieve — it grows out of holding fast to Christ.

His response was a list: go to church, feed the poor, stop the Friday nights. He could not keep it — and he called it the religion of Jay, because he had written it himself to a standard he set himself. What is on your list? Be specific, and say whether you wrote it or inherited it.

Religion hands you a list. Paul says the list has no power to change you. Holiness is not something you achieve — it grows out of holding fast to Christ.

In Exodus the tabernacle equipment is consecrated — the tongs, the spoons, the lampstands — and Scripture calls them holy. They do not do anything. They sit there. If a spoon can be holy, what does that settle about whether holiness is mainly performance?

Religion hands you a list. Paul says the list has no power to change you. Holiness is not something you achieve — it grows out of holding fast to Christ.

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Greater Than (Week 5)

Greater Than Your Religion · Group Guide

Name: Christchurch Miami
Address: 8485 SW 112th Street, Miami, FL, 33156, US
Telephone: +13052715262
Price range: Free

Colossians 2:16-23

Jay Reynardus Sunday, August 9, 2026

Printable study guide

📄 Bible Study (English)📄 Estudio Bíblico (Español)

Icebreaker

Think of a rule you set for yourself — a diet, a bedtime, a screen limit. Nobody imposed it, you wrote it. How long did you keep it?

Colossians 2:16-23

Discussion Questions

1
Jay came to faith as an adult, started reading 1 Peter, and stopped cold at chapter one where Peter quotes Leviticus — be holy, for I am holy. He had heard be happy, be good, be prosperous. Holy was new. When you hear the word holy, what picture comes to mind, and is it a picture of something you do or something you are?
2
His response was a list: go to church, feed the poor, stop the Friday nights. He could not keep it — and he called it the religion of Jay, because he had written it himself to a standard he set himself. What is on your list? Be specific, and say whether you wrote it or inherited it.
3
In Exodus the tabernacle equipment is consecrated — the tongs, the spoons, the lampstands — and Scripture calls them holy. They do not do anything. They sit there. If a spoon can be holy, what does that settle about whether holiness is mainly performance?
4
Read Colossians 2:16-17. Somebody in Colossae was handing out rules about food, drink and festivals and passing judgment on those who did not comply. Paul says God has already passed judgment on these people and the verdict was righteous. Who in your life still gets to reopen a case God has already closed?
5
Paul calls the festivals and food laws a shadow, and the word behind substance is the ordinary Greek word for a body — someone standing in the light throwing a shadow on the ground. Jesus is the body casting it. Where are you still chasing the shadow when the substance is standing right there?
6
Read Colossians 2:20-23. Jay drew five reasons out of the text that self-made religion cannot deliver: it belongs to a passing world, its concerns perish as they are used, it runs on human precepts, it has only the appearance of wisdom, and it is self-made. Paul's verdict is that it is of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Which of the five lands closest to home?
7
Jay said the deeper danger is what a list does to the relationship — it turns God into a transaction. “If you have been around for more than five minutes, you have negotiated with God. Does it work? Never. Because he’s God and you ain’t him.” What have you tried to negotiate, and what did you offer?
8
The order he gave was: union with Christ is the foundation, communion with Christ is the means, holiness is the result. Not a goal you march toward — something that grows out of proximity. Read Psalm 1:3 and John 15:4-5. A tree that walks into the desert shrivels, not because it stopped trying but because it left the water. What have you been treating as the goal that is actually the fruit?
9
Thomas Chalmers wrote a sermon called The Explosive Power of a New Affection, and Jay says it has been the key of his life: you do not break a chain by gritting your teeth against it, you break it by loving something else more. If you are losing to the same thing over and over, the problem may not be that you have not resisted hard enough. What would it take to see something big enough to outweigh it?
10
Jay reads biographies of mature men of God and finds the same pattern — the closer they get to God, the more of their own failure they see. He says that is not bad news, because Jesus carries all of it. His one-line answer to do you want to be holy was: more Jesus. What is one concrete way you will get more of him this week, and who here will ask you about it?

Closing Prayer

Pray for each other by name — not for better performance, but for nearness. Ask God to make one person in this room love him more than the thing that keeps winning.

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Greater Than Your Religion · Group Guide

Colossians 2:16-23

Discussion Questions

Related Reading

Jesus Plus Nothing: The Math I Keep Doing on My Own Salvation

Greater Than All: What Colossians 1:15–20 Says About Who Jesus Really Is

Greater Than Your Religion: Why Trying Harder Never Made Anyone Holy

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