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 · Resources

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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Summary

Jeff Sullivan is fifty and teaching himself to run again — twenty minutes of warm-up for a twenty-minute run — and that is how he gets into Colossians 3. The sins Paul says to put to death are ones nobody wants anyway; the real question is how. Paul answers before he ever gives the list: you have been raised with Christ, so set your heart and your mind there and let him do the killing.

Sermon Outline

1

Waiting for the Standing Ovation ▶ 0:00

Our guest preacher comes up, jokes about the welcome he did not get, and says how glad he is to land in the passage the church has been walking through.
2

Who Here Loves to Run? ▶ 0:26

Five hands out of two hundred people. Toddlers run the moment they can walk, and somewhere along the way we condition ourselves out of what should be natural — which is why it now takes him twenty minutes of warm-up for a twenty-minute run.
3

How Do I Stop Sinning? ▶ 3:16

Colossians 3:5 hands you a list of things to put to death — immorality, greed, anger, malice, slander, lying — and raises the question the rest of the sermon is about.
4

Nobody Actually Wants That List ▶ 4:40

No one reads it and thinks, I'll keep those. We already hate them, and we still cannot kill them, which means the problem is not desire.
5

Set Your Heart, Set Your Mind ▶ 5:55

The instruction comes before the list: back up to verse 1, where Paul aims your affections and your thinking at Christ, seated above.
6

Piano Lessons and a Guitar ▶ 6:50

An hour of forced practice a day, and he quit the day he graduated. His son wanted to play guitar, taught himself off YouTube, and now plays in a worship band. Desire finds a way.
7

Sin Doesn't Make You Bad. It Makes You Dead. ▶ 10:05

Where the desire itself comes from — and Louie Giglio's line that reframes it. Sin is not a flaw to correct or a disease to manage; it is death, and only someone who conquers death can deal with it.
8

Not a Martyr's Death ▶ 11:36

The cross was not a good man abused for teaching good things — history has a million of those. The sky went black because the wrath of God fell on our sin.
9

Every Story Is Different, One Factor Is the Same ▶ 13:17

Saul struck down on the road, disciples who took three years and a Pentecost, the church kid who cannot name a day — and in every one of them Christ is the one killing the sin.
10

Clothe Yourself ▶ 16:52

Verse 12: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. And forgiveness in the same breath, which quietly admits this is a process rather than an instant cure.
11

Why Gathering Matters ▶ 18:45

Worship, the word, the singing, the forgiving — these are the instruments God is using to kill sin in you, which is why you should not skip them. And the disciplines are never the goal; becoming love and humility is.
12

He Is Your Life ▶ 20:38

Paul does not say Christ is in your life. He says Christ is your life — and so whatever you do, in word or deed, you do to the glory of God.

Key Points

Running should be natural — every toddler does it for fun — and most of us have conditioned ourselves out of it. The Christian life can go the same way.
Almost nobody wants the sins on Paul's list. The problem was never that we like them; it is that we cannot kill them.
The command to put sin to death comes after the promise that you have been raised with Christ. The order matters.
Set your heart and set your mind: where you set them, you will find a way to get to — as Jesus said, where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
Sin does not make you bad, it makes you dead — so the only cure is someone who can conquer death.
The cross was not martyrdom. It was the Son of God taking the sin of the world, and the wrath of God falling on it.
The disciplines are not the goal. Bible reading, serving and giving are how we teach our hearts to become love, humility, kindness and forgiveness.

Quotable Moments

“Have you ever heard of this thing called runner's high? It's not real.” ▶ 1:27

“The only way to get rid of it is to have someone who can conquer death to conquer your sin.” ▶ 11:06

“If we were instantly sanctified and purified in Christ, then we wouldn't need to forgive each other, would we?” ▶ 17:44

“And so we learn that the disciplines of life themselves aren't the goal.” ▶ 19:55

“This verse didn't say he's in your life. He said he is your life.” ▶ 20:43

Take It With You

You cannot behave your way out of something only a resurrection can fix.
Start with your heart and your mind, not with the checklist. What you want is what you will move toward.
The command to forgive each other is proof this is a process. Be patient with the people next to you.
Do not skip the gathering — it is one of the instruments God is using on you.

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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 Our Old Life · Resources

Colossians 3:1-17

Watch & Listen

Summary

Sermon Outline

Key Points

Quotable Moments

Take It With You

Downloads

Related Reading

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Greater Than Our Relationships: What Actually Changes When Jesus Is at the Center

I Can't Remember the Day I Got Saved. Does That Count?

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