What is the one thing you have genuinely tried to stop, and genuinely failed to stop?

Watch a two-year-old in a nursery. The moment they can stand, they run — not because anyone told them to, but because it feels good. Open a door for a five-year-old and they are gone. So why does running feel like punishment to the rest of us? Jeff Sullivan is fifty and teaching himself to run again. Twenty minutes of warm-up for a twenty-minute run. Stiff hips from years of sitting. *I must look ridiculous to my neighbors.* The thing his body was built to do, he now has to relearn from scratch. That is the honest shape of Colossians 3:5. Paul lists what has to go — the anger, the greed, the words you wish you could take back — and almost nobody reads that list and thinks *actually, I'd like to keep those.* We agree with the list. We hate the list. And we still cannot seem to kill it.

Where in your faith are you practicing the piano — doing the right thing with no desire behind it?

Sullivan's mother had a rule: all four boys would learn piano. An hour a day, every day, unless you could get away with skipping it. It worked. He learned to play. He was, by his own account, passably bad at it. And the day he graduated, he never touched a piano again. His son was never made to take a single lesson. Then, headed off to college, he decided he wanted to play guitar. Nobody assigned it. He sat in his room with YouTube tutorials, found someone to coach him, played whenever he could. Today he plays in his church's worship band. Same family. Same house. Opposite outcome. The difference was not discipline — the piano had far more of that. The difference was *desire*. This is why Paul says it twice. *Set your hearts.* Then, in case you tried to file that under feelings and mo

Have you been treating your sin as a flaw to fix rather than a death to be raised from?

Sullivan quoted a line from Louie Giglio that is worth sitting with: *Sin doesn't make you bad. It makes you dead.* Read that twice, because almost all of us have quietly filed sin somewhere else. We treat it as a character flaw to correct. A disease to heal from. A problem to manage. A bad habit with a better version available if we try harder. Every one of those framings has the same hidden assumption: that the patient is alive, and needs improvement. Colossians says otherwise. *You died.* Not you struggled. Not you underperformed. Died. Which is either the most discouraging sentence in the chapter or the most freeing one, depending on what you do next. Here is why it is freeing. If sin is a flaw, the cure is effort — and you already know how that has gone. But if sin is death, the

Have you been measuring your faith by the drama of your story instead of by who did the saving?

Your story of coming to Christ probably does not look like the person sitting next to you on Sunday. Some are Saul on the Damascus road — full of rage and certainty one moment, undone the next, turned so hard and so fast that everyone who knew them has to learn their name again. Some are the disciples: three years of walking with Jesus in person and still, by every account, clueless, right up until the day the Spirit made sense of all of it. And some of you cannot name a day at all. Church as a kid. Grandparents in church. Maybe a Christian school. You have never not believed, and you have quietly wondered whether that counts, because there is no dramatic before-and-after to hold up. One of those is not better than the others. Sullivan's point is that every one of them has the same sin

Which discipline have you been treating as the finish line instead of the training?

Here is the sentence from Sunday most likely to rearrange something in you: Reading your Bible is not the goal. Learning Scripture is not the goal. Serving, giving, showing up — none of these is the goal. That should not be a relief and a threat at the same time, but it usually is. Look at what Paul actually tells you to put on: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Then forgiveness. Then, over all of it, love. Then the peace of Christ ruling in your heart. Every item on that list is an *interior* thing that radiates outward. Not one of them is a task you can complete and check off. So the disciplines are not the destination. They are how you teach your heart to become the destination — becoming love, becoming humility, becoming forgiveness, becoming kindness. Which r

Read Colossians 3:5 and the list that follows it. Jeff said nobody in the room actually argues with that list — none of us wants anger or greed or slander in our lives. So what makes a list everyone agrees with so hard to act on?

Running should be natural. So should holiness. Paul says the reason you cannot kill your old life by trying is that sin did not make you bad — it made you dead.

Paul says it twice in verses 1-2: set your heart, and set your mind. Jeff said those two get so tangled we can barely tell them apart. What is the difference between wanting something and thinking you should want it?

Running should be natural. So should holiness. Paul says the reason you cannot kill your old life by trying is that sin did not make you bad — it made you dead.

Jeff quoted Louie Giglio — "sin doesn't make you bad, it makes you dead." Most of us treat sin as a bad habit or a flaw to correct. What changes about how you go at it if the problem is death instead?

Running should be natural. So should holiness. Paul says the reason you cannot kill your old life by trying is that sin did not make you bad — it made you dead.

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Greater Than (Week 6)

Greater Than Our Old Life · Group Guide

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

Colossians 3:1-17

Jeff Sullivan Sunday, August 16, 2026

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Icebreaker

Think of one thing you were made to do as a kid — a lesson, a chore, a sport — and one thing you picked up on your own as an adult. Which one stuck, and why do you think that is?

Discussion Questions

1
Read Colossians 3:5 and the list that follows it. Jeff said nobody in the room actually argues with that list — none of us wants anger or greed or slander in our lives. So what makes a list everyone agrees with so hard to act on?
2
Paul says it twice in verses 1-2: set your heart, and set your mind. Jeff said those two get so tangled we can barely tell them apart. What is the difference between wanting something and thinking you should want it?
3
Jeff quoted Louie Giglio — "sin doesn't make you bad, it makes you dead." Most of us treat sin as a bad habit or a flaw to correct. What changes about how you go at it if the problem is death instead?
4
Jeff practiced piano an hour a day because his mom made him, and quit the day he graduated. His son taught himself guitar off YouTube videos and now plays in a worship band. Where in your own life are you doing the piano-lesson version of following Jesus?
5
Jeff is fifty and needs twenty minutes of warm-up for a twenty-minute run, because years of sitting stiffened everything up. What has gone stiff in you from disuse, and what would loosening it actually look like?
6
Verse 12 says clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience — and Jeff said the disciplines are not the goal, becoming those things is. Pick one of the five and name the specific person you will wear it in front of this week.

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Greater Than Our Old Life · Group Guide

Colossians 3:1-17

Discussion Questions

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