Teleios: Defining the Destination

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
Welcome to the City Lights Church Podcast. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing today, we hope this message inspires you to follow Jesus. You can find out more about City Lights Church at city-lights.church.

**Andrew Scott** (0:23)
This morning, we're starting a new series, and this new series is a conversation about spiritual growth. Now, one of the words that we often use when we're asked the question, what does it mean to grow spiritually, is one of the answers to that question, I know an answer that I've given at times, and use frequently when we discuss spiritual growth, is this word journey. So we say, what does spiritual growth mean? We say, well, it's a journey. Now, sometimes there's a limitation with using that word, because sometimes we can unintentionally confuse people, because when we start with a journey and not a destination, then sometimes people are like, well, it's a journey, but where are we going? We recently did a road trip as part of our holidays. Imagine this, if I got up one morning and said, hey kids, we're going on a journey. And they said, where are we going? And I said, it's a journey. Don't worry about it. How will we know that we're making progress? It's a journey. When will we be able to eat? That's a good question kids always ask. When will we stop? And then I would say, like a good parent, no more questions, just get in the car. We're going.
I, last week, I've been home for a couple of days, last week joined a gym for the first time in 20 years. All right. Actually, my wife joined the gym for me. So I received an email that said, you have joined a gym. And I was like, cool. So I go to my first session. They're just by myself. And I'm more kind of like exploring the place. You know, poking around. And I encountered this machine that I've only ever heard about, but I've never actually seen in the flesh. It's called, I don't know if you've seen this. It's called a Stairmaster. Has anyone ever seen a Stairmaster? Has anyone ever tried a Stairmaster? Okay, so essentially, it's like this. Those stairs just rotate. And out of pure fascination, not something that I actually ever want to do again, but out of pure fascination, I thought, I'm going to go on this Stairmaster. Now, the thing with the Stairmaster is what you're actually doing is you're building certain groups of muscles, but those stairs are just looping. And you have no real sense of progress, and you have no real sense that you're going anywhere. Now, sometimes, unintentionally, that is how some of us feel about our spiritual life. That I have, I'm just going through the motions, and the Stairmaster is a type of journey that does definitely strengthen us, but we don't feel like we're getting anywhere. And we don't feel like we have a destination. And so the purpose of this message is, as we start to talk about spiritual growth, is to start with this idea that spiritual growth starts with a clear destination and a goal. And it's really important in the same way that if we said, hey, we're going on a journey, a logical question, a question that would actually bring a sense of peace within us, is a question, where are we going? And how will we know that we're making progress? And that's certainly the hope from today.
When we start on a journey, number one, you should want to go there. As adults, we should want to go to that journey, that destination. We should know where we're going, and we should know when we're making progress. We should know when we're on track, we should know when we're off track. That's a good, healthy thing. And so this morning, I want to start to define the destination and goals of our spiritual growth. And I want to start with the words of Jesus, from Matthew, and I believe it's Matthew chapter 5 It's coming up on the screen. It says this, Matthew 5, 48 Be perfect.
Therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. Now, often, as we read this, this is when we tap out and we go, God is perfect. Jesus is perfect. I can never be perfect. So I'm not sure what's going on here. Therefore, I'm just going to, this then becomes irrelevant to me. And I'll just focus on some other parts of the Bible, because I love the Bible, but this I don't get and this I don't think is realistic. Is that what we've ever felt?
This scripture actually fascinated me when I was reading, just as part of my daily readings, and I decided to dig a little deeper. And here is the conviction. Jesus was actually talking about something, and He was serious.