Teleios: The Freedom of Obedience

**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.

**Naomi Johnston** (0:23)
All right, it's good to be here. It's nice to be here looking at you all. And yeah, so Pastor Andrew just mentioned, he said that, you know, I've taken a lot of steps of obedience in my life and that my life's been really significantly marked by those steps of obedience. And that is true. And in that obedience, I found a lot of life and a lot of joy and a lot of freedom as I've done that. It's very releasing to know that your future is not in your own hands, and it's in the hands of somebody who created your life and knows what he's doing with it. Because I've learned from experience I don't make great decisions when I'm in charge of my own life, and as I'm sure we've all had that experience. And I've just spent time learning to know that God's plans are better than mine, and learning how to trust him and learning how to grow in him. In this series, we're talking about this word teleos, which is a beautiful word. In the series, we're talking about the definition and the markers of spiritual maturity and wholeness. And this New Testament Greek word, which is teleos, as you can see on the screen there, refers to when something fulfills its highest purpose, something when it's reached its full potential. And it's used to show us that our spiritual maturity and spiritual growth has a goal. We're not just heading aimlessly towards somewhere, but we're heading somewhere to have, with a goal in mind, and that goal is to be whole and complete. That sounds pretty good, right? I'd like being whole and complete. So we're gonna have a look today in the book of James in the New Testament. James is a pretty short book in the New Testament, but it is really densely packed with wisdom and some pretty hard-hitting wisdom. I find James provides a real healthy challenge to the way that we live, provides a real healthy challenge in the way that we follow Jesus. The first line in this book is, consider it pure joy when you face trials. And I don't know about you, but when I'm facing trials, that's certainly not my first thought. When things are going wrong, my first thought is not, oh, I'm just going to feel so joyful today. I'm going to get out of bed, and I'm just going to put the biggest smile on my face. Like, that's not my first thought. That's a countercultural statement to live like that. But James is exploring this idea of living like Jesus. And Jesus was countercultural. That's what he did. He came and he shook things up a little bit, and he said, hey, this is not what it's supposed to be like. I like to think of James as the sort of friend who tells you what you need to hear, but not what you want to hear. Does anyone have a friend like that? I have a friend like that. She's currently serving in the kids' ministry. Jess, if you've met her, I'll go to her and I'll tell her something. And she's like, gosh, you'll tell me something in response. And I'm like, oh man, that's not what I wanted to hear, Jess. She's like, I know, but it's what you needed to hear. I'm like, yeah, you're right. We all need a friend like that, and I reckon James is that friend. So this morning, we're going to read from James chapter one, verse 22 It says, don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. See, he's already kind of slapped us in the face in the first verse. For if you listen to the word and don't obey it, it's like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself walk away and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says, note that part, and don't forget what you've heard, then God will bless you for doing it. So if we want to live a life of blessing, that means a life of obedience. If we want to live a blessed life, then we need to live a life that's obedient to what God's telling us to do. And so the title of my message this morning is the freedom of obedience.
Now this might sound like a contradictory statement, because when we think of obedience, we think of someone telling us what to do, and we think of, you know, maybe obedience for you has felt a little bit oppressive, or maybe it's been somebody telling you what to do your whole life and not having that freedom. When we trust God and when we seek God for our instruction, there's a real freedom in that he knows what he's doing way better than what we know.