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 · Resources

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

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Summary

Jay Reynardus came to faith as an adult and ran straight into "be holy" before he had any idea what it meant — so he made a list, and the list failed. Colossians 2:16-23 explains why: food rules, festivals, self-denial and secondhand visions are the shadow, and Christ is the body casting it. Holiness is not something you achieve by trying harder; it grows out of union and communion with him.

Sermon Outline

1

Reading: Colossians 2:16-23 ▶ 0:00

Paul closes the chapter warning the Colossians about people happy to judge them over food, festivals, and severity to the body.
2

"Be Holy?" That Was a Thing? ▶ 2:15

The first passage Jay ever went looking for, and the line in it that stopped him cold — because whatever else he was, holy was not on the list.
3

The Tongs and the Spoons Are Holy ▶ 4:15

In Exodus the utensils of the tabernacle are called holy, and they do not do anything at all. Holiness turns out to be about being, not doing.
4

Reject Religiosity, Embrace Christ ▶ 6:43

The two halves of the message, and the claim underneath them: holiness is attained as we embrace Christ.
5

Shadow and Substance ▶ 10:13

The Greek word for substance is body. Jesus stands casting a shadow back across the whole Old Testament — so why follow the shadow when the body is here?
6

When God Becomes a Transaction ▶ 14:33

If I do A, B and C, God, you owe me. Everybody has tried negotiating with God, and Jay is blunt about how well it works.
7

Five Reasons It Doesn't Work ▶ 15:47

The rules are of the world, they perish, they are human tradition, they only look like wisdom, and they are self-made. Five strikes, one verdict.
8

The Answer Is Not a What. It's a Who. ▶ 19:50

Christ has already cut off the old life and given a new one — it was never a question of what you have to do.
9

Union, Communion, and What They Produce ▶ 21:28

Union with Christ is the foundation, communion with him is the means, and holiness is the result that flows out of both.
10

The Tree by the Stream, the Vine and the Branch ▶ 24:11

Psalm 1 and John 15. A tree that walks off into the desert dies, and a branch does not manufacture fruit — it drinks and holds on.
11

Loving Something Else More ▶ 28:56

Thomas Chalmers on how a chain actually breaks: not by resisting the sin harder, but by finding a love greater than it.
12

More Jesus ▶ 31:00

The whole answer in two words, and the prayer that follows — make Jesus bigger, because he is greater than your failure.

Key Points

Holiness is not a list of do's and don'ts. It is a state of being that comes out of union with God and communion with Christ.
The festivals, food laws and Sabbaths are the shadow; Christ is the body casting it. There is no sense in following the shadow when the substance is standing right there.
The asceticism Paul names is a false humility, and it travels with pride — teachers puffed up over visions nobody else can check.
Religion turns into a transaction the moment it becomes "if I do A, B and C, God owes me." That is man-centered and man-made.
Paul gives five reasons the rules fail: they are of the world, they perish, they are human tradition, they only look like wisdom, and they are self-made.
Union with Christ is the foundation of holiness, communion with him is the means, and holiness is the result — the theological word is sanctification.
You do not break a besetting sin by resisting it harder. You break it by loving something greater, and only Christ's love is that big.

Quotable Moments

“Holiness is a state of being, a product, a result of our union with God, of our communion with Christ, of abiding in him.” ▶ 4:54

“Why are you going to follow the shadow when the substance is here?” ▶ 11:04

“Your self-made religion is foolishness before God because it is temporary, not divine, and not of heaven.” ▶ 18:58

“You don't find holiness by trying harder.” ▶ 27:03

“Jesus is greater than all your failures.” ▶ 28:26

Take It With You

Stop trying harder. Trying harder will fail you.
The branch never manufactures fruit. Its whole job is to drink from the vine and hold on.
If a sin still has you, the problem is not your willpower — you have not yet seen Jesus as big as he actually is.
Do you want to be holy? You need one thing: more Jesus.

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The study guide above (summary, outline, key points, quotes, questions) was generated from the sermon transcript with AI and reviewed by our team. Spot something off? Let us know.

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Greater Than Your Religion · Resources

Colossians 2:16-23

Watch & Listen

Summary

Sermon Outline

Key Points

Quotable Moments

Take It With You

Downloads

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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