What is spiritual maturity and what does Jesus have to say about the topic?

Join us for a new series on the Wind Ministries podcast: The Spiritual Maturity Series! Josh and Ken dive deep into the topics of spiritual maturity, brain science, attachment theory, and stages of development. In this inaugural episode, Josh and Ken talk about what a spiritually healthy and vibrant person looks like according to the words of Jesus.

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00;00;07;10 - 00;00;18;22
Joshua Hoffert
Hey, hey.

00;00;18;25 - 00;00;36;21
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. We've lost sight of what it means to be fully integrated. Heart, brain. You know, in terms of biological neuro chemical responses to life's daily pressures, we've lost sight of what that means to be fully integrated. One, because it's a lot of work.

00;00;36;24 - 00;00;54;09
Ken Hoffert
And and it's it's not just a lot of work. It's a long time. Yeah. It's it's our it's our whole life.

00;00;54;11 - 00;01;00;19
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

00;01;00;21 - 00;01;28;11
Joshua Hoffert
Hello, everybody. And welcome to the Wind Ministries podcast. this is this is an episode one of the Wayne Ministries podcast. But this is episode one of this brand new series that we're launching a new, a new series based on, spiritual maturity and wholeness. What what is what does it look like to become spiritual people?

00;01;28;11 - 00;01;48;19
Joshua Hoffert
That's what we're talking about in this new, this new series. And I'm joined here with, the man, the myth, the legend, many of you people familiar with him through, other things that we've done. my name is Joshua Hoffert. I'm not the man. The myth and the legend. I'm Joshua Offord, and I am the founder of Wind Ministries.

00;01;48;22 - 00;02;12;29
Joshua Hoffert
And I'm here with the founder of me. That would be my father, Ken Offutt. Or, you know, more properly, John Kenneth offered all the stuff I can, Ken. So I'm, I'm, I'm here with my dad, and we're going to be doing this series, over the next few months, diving into what spiritual maturity looks like. So, dad, why don't you say hello?

00;02;13;01 - 00;02;15;07
Ken Hoffert
Hello. Nice to be here.

00;02;15;09 - 00;02;18;01
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, you could say more than that if you want fun.

00;02;18;03 - 00;02;31;09
Ken Hoffert
Well, I've always wondered what, it would be like if we used Winnie the Pooh as the foundation for emotional stability.

00;02;31;11 - 00;02;46;26
Joshua Hoffert
I did. Well, hey. Okay. In the book that I wrote. Right. You edited the book for me. The transformation book? Yeah. When it talks about the four wrong responses to suffering, I characterized each one through a Winnie the Pooh figure. So, you know, we're already 25% of the way there, right?

00;02;46;27 - 00;02;51;26
Ken Hoffert
That's right. Right. It's because, you know, how do you not like Winnie the Pooh.

00;02;51;28 - 00;03;05;15
Joshua Hoffert
Right? It's true. Winnie the Pooh is is, Unless it's one of those, like, have you seen, like there there's Winnie the Pooh horror movies now. Oh, that's terrible. It is terrible. I know, I don't, I just saw an ad or something.

00;03;05;15 - 00;03;07;05
Ken Hoffert
So immature. It's.

00;03;07;12 - 00;03;10;08
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, that's right. It's not spiritually mature.

00;03;10;10 - 00;03;12;02
Ken Hoffert


00;03;12;04 - 00;03;37;23
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right, that's right. so for those of you that are just tuning in to the wind podcast, we've, we've, put series out a number of series out in the past, looking at healing identity. We've looked at various different topics, prophetic ministry, that kind of stuff. And we've been a bit inactive, working on our voices from the Desert podcast, working on our dream show, and various different other projects.

00;03;37;23 - 00;04;01;03
Joshua Hoffert
But, but we've been and dreaming and envisioning this particular series and this particular topic for the last few months, hoping to just put some really good information out there for you. not just about what it what spiritual maturity looks like, but what are the things that get in the way of spiritual maturity? What are the process is that God brings us through to bring spiritual maturity?

00;04;01;07 - 00;04;29;24
Joshua Hoffert
And then and then one of the things I'm really excited for is we're going to dive into, we're we're going to look at some of the stuff that the life model works guys have put out. And while there and some of and some of that, because they've got some really good content and really good information. but we're going to be looking at the levels of the brain, the different, we'll look at attachment theory, we'll look at the four different centers of the brain, how those impacts spiritual maturity, what trauma does to the brain and how we recover from trauma.

00;04;29;27 - 00;04;52;26
Joshua Hoffert
We're going to go over like we're talking deep dive into spiritual maturity, wholeness and integration with the father's heart. And, and so we've got lots of things to talk about. We're going to talk about the different stages of maturity that people go through, how they get stuck, how we get free all those kind of things. So we've got a lot of episodes planned, we've got a lot of content planned, and we're really excited to be able to launch this.

00;04;52;26 - 00;05;23;20
Joshua Hoffert
And so this first episode really is our introduction to the series. And, and, and just laying out, I think, I think, dad, the one of the first things that we were talking about just discussing is, what what is spiritual maturity? You know, that's a that's a it's a simple question. What is spiritual maturity? But we have, what, maybe a thousand different answers that could be hypothesized, you know, based on what have been.

00;05;23;20 - 00;05;24;06
Ken Hoffert
Hypothesized.

00;05;24;06 - 00;05;46;11
Joshua Hoffert
Or have been hypothesized. That's right. Because we can look at, you know, what's spiritual maturity from a Christian perspective? and then we can have a thousand different answers in there. What's what? Spiritual maturity, just from a kind of a non-religious. I'm a spiritual person, but not religious perspective. What does what do people mean when they say that we could we could go back.

00;05;46;11 - 00;06;06;24
Joshua Hoffert
You and I would love doing this. We could go back to, a, Greek Stoic philosophy. yeah. I'm looking at Aristotelian logic and we can look at it, look at Epicurean philosophy and what was considered a spiritually mature and vibrant person within the context of ancient philosophical models.

00;06;07;01 - 00;06;21;25
Ken Hoffert
Well, because there's value to that, right? Yeah. And if we did that, we so what would surprise most people would probably be that the epicurean, model would be what most of the most people in Western culture identify with. Right.

00;06;21;25 - 00;06;43;21
Joshua Hoffert
And still with today. Yeah, exactly. If it feels good, do it. Follow your heart. All these kind of phrases that are about the autonomy of the individual and the expression of the inner self, and the freedom to do that right. When you look at ancient philosophical models, have been hypothesizing these kind of things as it what makes a healthy, vibrant human for a long time.

00;06;43;23 - 00;07;12;19
Joshua Hoffert
And then you'd be you'd be, I think people would be, I, you know, you looking at the Greeks, stoic philosophers, you'd go, wow, that sounds almost Christian. Yeah. Right. And but then there'd be certain key demarcation moments and things that differentiated it. Like if you read, the writings of Marcus Aurelius, some of his stuff as a stoic philosopher, and he was also a, a, was he a Roman general?

00;07;12;19 - 00;07;42;13
Joshua Hoffert
A Greek Roman general? Right. so it sounds really Christian when you read it. But he wasn't a Christian. He was a, a Roman Stoic, which was a philosophical system of thought that had religious, undertones to it. And, and so you'd find similarities, but then you'd also find major differences and the, the, the, the stoic philosophers was where we get the term to be stoic from, you know, burying up under the face of great adversity.

00;07;42;16 - 00;08;00;29
Joshua Hoffert
And that's kind of the idea. And then you'd get, we can get into the, the Renaissance and looking at what a healthy, vibrant human looks like. in the prototypical Renaissance man, you know, cultured, exquisite taste, all this kind of stuff that you see wrapped up in.

00;08;00;29 - 00;08;47;14
Ken Hoffert
So every 80 years they focused on beauty. Exactly. yeah. And which is one of the aspects of what it looks like when we reflect maturity. Beauty is one of those things. It might start to be a natural outpouring and outflow of that. So yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, none of these the different places that generation after generation have put their focus aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves that they, but often they'll diverge from a, one aspect of what it looks like to be healthy or focusing on 2 or 3 things and but still leaving a lot of stuff in the background.

00;08;47;14 - 00;09;17;15
Ken Hoffert
And what we want to do in this series is talk about what a whole brain, your whole everything connected, the field and, and, functioning on all the cylinders. and what it looks like when our heart and our brain and our, our spiritual life and everything is connected in such a fashion that we have no, we have less and less hindrances and more and more help in being in walking as Jesus people.

00;09;17;17 - 00;09;44;09
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. The, the when we look at something like, and and for those of you that have followed wind ministries for any length of time or some of the stuff that I've been doing for any length of time, you know that I love studying, talking about, and writing about the Desert Fathers in the Desert Mothers, and coming out of the some of the contemplative rhythms, and the contemplative authors of which the Desert Fathers and Mothers would be some.

00;09;44;11 - 00;10;12;14
Joshua Hoffert
You have this phrase that gets bandied about occasionally, especially more in Greek Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox circles. and you'll be familiar with it. It's the phrase dispassion and dispassion is a phrase that sums up how some in the especially, like I said, especially in the Orthodox circles, because that's a phrase that they use. They would say a spiritually healthy and vibrant person is a dispassionate person.

00;10;12;16 - 00;10;25;00
Joshua Hoffert
And and so when we hear that in the West, we think categorically of being of a lack of, any kind of passion in life, in.

00;10;25;03 - 00;10;27;09
Ken Hoffert
Basically a numb person that doesn't know.

00;10;27;10 - 00;10;47;14
Joshua Hoffert
Person, that's what that's what the word sounds like. Right? Right. And so then we've got, we've got the problem of language, we've got the problem of culture. and then the understanding that the that to, to be without passion has more to do with the passions as they relate to the vices and the virtues, in the Christian life.

00;10;47;14 - 00;10;59;02
Joshua Hoffert
So that's the in the West we would be more Catholicism in that sense with our language. Right? We would say the vices and the virtues. They would say the passions and the wounds, and so the passions and the wounds would be vices. Essentially.

00;10;59;02 - 00;11;04;18
Ken Hoffert
It's not that we fixed all that in the West. Yeah, that's right, because we have drugs.

00;11;04;21 - 00;11;06;01
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, that's true. We have.

00;11;06;01 - 00;11;22;05
Ken Hoffert
Prescriptions. You can take it that you feel this way or make you feel that way. Yes. so so if you're feeling too emotionally, above everything and you need, you need to calm down a little bit. We just have a drug for that.

00;11;22;08 - 00;11;22;18
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;11;22;18 - 00;11;39;01
Ken Hoffert
That's right. Or vice versa. If you're too melancholy and you need to have more energy, we have a drug for that. So we have substituted, immediacy, for health and wholeness.

00;11;39;01 - 00;11;56;28
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. We've lost sight of what it means to be fully integrated heart brain in, you know, in terms of biological neurochemical responses to life's daily pressures. We've lost sight of what that means to be fully integrated. One, because it's a lot of work.

00;11;57;01 - 00;12;06;03
Ken Hoffert
And and it's it's not just a lot of work. It's a long time. It's worth. Yeah. It's it's our it's our whole life.

00;12;06;05 - 00;12;21;06
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. It's a lifetime's worth of work. It's it's the journey of as as our good friend Murray Derek would say it's the journey of becoming. And we in the West tend to think of, a journey of doing, oh, especially in Christian circles, versus a journey of becoming.

00;12;21;06 - 00;12;26;07
Ken Hoffert
Well, I like how, Peterson, used the term he pulled from someone who.

00;12;26;07 - 00;12;30;25
Joshua Hoffert
Met him in Eugene Peterson, who translated from the Bible and into the message. The message.

00;12;31;02 - 00;12;35;02
Ken Hoffert
And he said that life is a long obedience in the same direction.

00;12;35;04 - 00;12;36;25
Joshua Hoffert
Okay. Well, there you go. Yeah.

00;12;37;00 - 00;13;03;18
Ken Hoffert
And and those are the those are the things that don't feel like I'm going to get my solution today. Yeah. Feels like from I've got to work a long time for this. Yeah. And in part that's true. And that's not really what we're completely saying. We're saying, that there are there are victories and there are there are progression.

00;13;03;23 - 00;13;35;17
Ken Hoffert
As we progress, we have we gain, footholds and victories and whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish so that our life is being changed as we use in our Christian circles, we use transformed. so we're being transformed. But that transformation can have explosive moments, but it can have the moments of continued, I don't want to say labor.

00;13;35;19 - 00;13;36;22
Ken Hoffert
I want to say, well.

00;13;36;22 - 00;14;09;13
Joshua Hoffert
There's peaks and valleys, right? There's there's peaks and valleys and, and sometimes the way that contemporary society approaches it is let's remove peaks and valleys. Yes. If you're if you are at a peak and you're euphoric, well, that's too much. You need to come down. And if you're at a valley and need to come up and, and and we answer that not from a communal, integrated relational perspective, we tend to answer that in today's day and day and age from a pharmaceutical perspective.

00;14;09;13 - 00;14;37;21
Joshua Hoffert
Right. Exactly. Now, now, I know that a lot of the the kind of cutting edge studies, because I have a doctor friend who's very well in, in the, in the study of this and in the, in the field of this, that the cutting edge studies are actually telling and telling us that pharmaceuticals do, maybe just just above jack squat, when it comes to recovering people, to emotional maturity.

00;14;37;21 - 00;14;57;27
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. and so this this is where we come on the scene and we go, yeah, we're starting to see the failure of the modern medical system. And we recognize as lifelong Christians and people that have spent you know, for me, it's been almost 20 years seriously following Jesus. And for you, it's been a lot longer than that.

00;14;57;27 - 00;15;15;23
Joshua Hoffert
We're saying, hey, there's something to this Christian journey and there's something to the teachings of Jesus, and there's something to how all of this brain science points us back to a lot of what Jesus says and what the Bible presents. And so that's what we're really fascinated about exploring. Right.

00;15;15;26 - 00;15;44;27
Ken Hoffert
And so a lot of this is the language of spiritual formation. But it it's spiritual formation functioning out of a whole brain. yeah, a whole heart. You know, we want to be you know, David said it this way, that that I could worship you with my whole heart, that there would be nothing. I mean, that it's that I would be fully engaged with, with a, a life that is devoted to the creator.

00;15;45;16 - 00;15;50;07
Ken Hoffert
yeah. And we, you know, we say that.

00;15;50;09 - 00;16;01;11
Ken Hoffert
And people in our, in churches and in small groups and that sort of thing, we'll hear it and say, I think that's probably a really good idea and it'll never happen to me.

00;16;01;13 - 00;16;03;02
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, that's right, that's right.

00;16;03;10 - 00;16;18;10
Ken Hoffert
And that's kind of what we want to talk about in this is okay. So if you're that person who says it'll never happen to me, then don't stop listening because you want to talk about how it is going. Is is actually happening and will continue to happen with you.

00;16;18;10 - 00;16;42;24
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. You know, there's there is, one of the major places you find in James. It's interesting because the Bible does describe because we're going to talk about hindrances to the spiritual life in a future episode. What what gets in the way. And the Bible does really give us some very apt descriptive terms, especially in the New Testament.

00;16;42;24 - 00;17;16;13
Joshua Hoffert
I'm thinking of, James one where it talks about a double minded man being unstable and all his way. and, but, you know, we think about that as having, you know, saying one thing and meaning another, or saying one thing and practicing another. And we kind of localize it and water it down. What James actually says there, because the word itself is based on the word sukha in that, in that the double minded word is the based on the word sukha, which is where we get the modern translation of the word soul.

00;17;16;15 - 00;17;37;12
Joshua Hoffert
Other places in the New Testament is translated as soul, and it's actually the word di sukha or di southcoast, which means double souled. And so this is talking about a fractured individual, right? This isn't talking about a person who talks out of one side of the mouth and does another thing, right. We've we've really watered down what what it means to be double minded.

00;17;37;12 - 00;18;12;00
Joshua Hoffert
Double minded means to be it. Basically saying a fractured person who has who has lost a sense of their identity and hasn't been able to reintegrate themselves, is unstable in all their ways. And there's a number there's actually a number of descriptive words in the New Testament related to the word for soul that describe some of the problems that we that we end up with, that when we look at the, the mental health, epidemic that we're seeing today, you go, oh, yeah, that's it's actually describing those types of very similar types of behaviors and problems.

00;18;12;17 - 00;18;28;10
Joshua Hoffert
so but what we wanted to do, one of the things we want to do in this first episode was just in looking at what is spiritual maturity. We've talked about what it might not be or different shades of it. You know, we could say even, enlightenment and beyond the idea of spiritual maturity was the acquisition of knowledge.

00;18;28;13 - 00;18;36;04
Joshua Hoffert
Right? The more that we know to know functional knowledge, the more mature that we are. And we know any, any, any.

00;18;36;06 - 00;18;39;12
Ken Hoffert
Any. Yeah. Equating knowledge with wisdom.

00;18;39;14 - 00;19;00;12
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Equate. Exactly. Wisdom is knowledge applied and that's a difficult thing to come by. So in a simple phrase wisdom is knowledge. Applied knowledge. You know, you go through what 12 years of schooling to prepare you for life in the world. And then the very first time you're supposed to pay a bill, you fail miserably, right?

00;19;00;12 - 00;19;04;10
Joshua Hoffert
Because knowledge doesn't prepare you for life. Yeah.

00;19;04;13 - 00;19;07;04
Ken Hoffert
And it's hard to right to sign your name to that check.

00;19;07;04 - 00;19;10;03
Joshua Hoffert
It's hard. Yeah, it is exactly like that money away.

00;19;10;03 - 00;19;10;23
Ken Hoffert
Yeah. Why don't you.

00;19;10;27 - 00;19;28;04
Joshua Hoffert
Why am I so controlling and holding on to that and everything? Well, that's because you've been formed and you have certain values. Knowledge hasn't informed you about that. Yeah. So, you know, learning math and how to sign the check and balance of checkbook doesn't mean that you know how to withhold yourself from overspending. Okay. That's a whole different thing.

00;19;28;04 - 00;20;03;27
Joshua Hoffert
Right? So knowledge doesn't prepare you for maturity and knowledge doesn't prepare you to operate in wisdom. So, so we see all kinds of problems breaking down when we look at how each age and our contemporary culture defines what a mature, healthy human being is. And, and so when we, when we talk about what is a mature, healthy human being, the best place for us to find any kind of language to describe that would be the words of Jesus.

00;20;03;29 - 00;20;04;22
Ken Hoffert
Yeah.

00;20;04;24 - 00;20;08;05
Joshua Hoffert
Seems like a pretty apt place to go, right?

00;20;08;08 - 00;20;09;19
Ken Hoffert
Yes.

00;20;10;04 - 00;20;41;00
Joshua Hoffert
so what what what? And one of the best places in that sense, to get a succinct version in the person of Jesus, of what a, a whole brained, integrated, healthy person looks like is the first presentation that's given in the Gospels from the perspective of Jesus, of what a spiritually mature, vibrant person looks like. And that's the sermon on the Mount.

00;20;41;02 - 00;20;44;16
Ken Hoffert
A whole separate verses of the whole wisdom.

00;20;44;18 - 00;21;20;12
Joshua Hoffert
Exactly. Yes. So what we find in just a few different things about the sermon on the Mount is, when you and the reason why. But a few different things, the reason why we can look at this as, kind of the prototypical idea that Jesus carried about what it means to be spiritually mature is because this is the this is the passage that directly follows Matthew four, the end of Matthew four, where it says that Jesus went about all of the all of the area to all the synagogues, and he went about healing the sick.

00;21;20;15 - 00;21;42;21
Joshua Hoffert
And he went about teaching the, the, the gospel of the kingdom. Right. And so then so he's teaching the gospel of the kingdom. And then the very next thing we have is Jesus teaching. Right? So when it says he's teaching the gospel, the kingdom, then it immediately follows with two chapters, Matthew five six and so three, chapters five, six, and seven.

00;21;44;04 - 00;21;48;23
Joshua Hoffert
what immediately follows is Jesus's teaching on what the kingdom is like, which.

00;21;48;25 - 00;22;20;17
Ken Hoffert
Is probably a so. So just so everybody understands that the sermon on the Mount most likely did occur, but it was also the very things that Jesus was going around teaching all the time. This is not exactly I said, I'm sitting down and now this is this one new teaching I'm giving you, but rather this is what it looks like for for people to come into relationship with the creator, be put back right.

00;22;20;19 - 00;22;44;17
Ken Hoffert
And, and as they're being put back right with the creator and, and becoming more human, that's what becoming more human is, that process of being put back the way that we're supposed to be by the one who created us, right. This is what it looks like human to human and human to the creator in this process. And what does what does then Jesus say?

00;22;44;17 - 00;22;48;27
Ken Hoffert
It's going to look like the kingdom of heaven looks like.

00;22;48;29 - 00;23;00;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. And when he says, the kingdom of heaven, yeah, the kingdom of heaven looks like. And then he describes a, he describes the kind of person that that would and would embody the kingdom of heaven.

00;23;00;21 - 00;23;00;26
Ken Hoffert
Yeah.

00;23;01;03 - 00;23;17;13
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And he starts with the Beatitudes. So the well, the first thing is it says that he he goes up the mountain and sits down and the disciples come up and sit with him. Right. And so we have clear shades that that what Jesus is doing is also pointing back to what Moses did. Moses went up the mountain.

00;23;17;20 - 00;23;45;14
Joshua Hoffert
He received instruction from God and then meted it back out to the Israelites, which was which turned into the Ten Commandments and the law. And then Jesus actually comments on the nature of the law in the sermon on the Mount. And so we have Jesus standing in the place of a Old Testament prophet who was a covenant bringing prophet, and he's giving us instruction for what it looks like, because Moses gives instruction for what it looks like to participate in the nation of Israel.

00;23;45;17 - 00;24;05;29
Joshua Hoffert
Those are the kind of ways that you need to be right. Here's our law. Jesus gives instruction for what it means, right? This is what the people of God look like. Exactly. And so so this is the author of Matthew is very consciously connecting the two. Right. He sits on the mountain and and the difference there's a number of key differences that, Moses goes up the mountain alone and comes down the mountain alone.

00;24;06;06 - 00;24;25;16
Joshua Hoffert
well, I think Joshua comes up, wakes up halfway with them or something like that. Right. and, and Jesus goes up the mountain. He doesn't come back down, but he waits. The disciples come up to him. So we've got a picture of, well, you're going to this is this is actually a higher degree, right? Like the disciples aren't down in the valley like the people were.

00;24;25;16 - 00;24;31;08
Joshua Hoffert
The disciples are up on the mountain receiving the wisdom just like Moses was. So this is right there.

00;24;31;11 - 00;24;41;26
Ken Hoffert
Yep. Because Moses does this twice. Yep. He brings up the leaders of Israel. They have a meeting.

00;24;41;27 - 00;24;42;21
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

00;24;42;23 - 00;24;44;13
Ken Hoffert
On the mountain.

00;24;44;16 - 00;24;45;17
Joshua Hoffert
With him, right.

00;24;45;17 - 00;24;59;29
Ken Hoffert
Opened above them, right where they are. And the leaders of Israel are experiencing the presence of God. And I'm having a meal. And then they go back down, but they fail. And Moses has to go. They they. Right?

00;24;59;29 - 00;25;01;09
Joshua Hoffert
Yes. Right. So.

00;25;02;01 - 00;25;10;15
Ken Hoffert
there's a difference here that Jesus is doing where he's he's bringing that same the leaders of Israel, of his new kingdom up.

00;25;10;16 - 00;25;12;07
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And the 12 disciples.

00;25;12;07 - 00;25;14;19
Ken Hoffert
Yes. So anyway, I just wanted to clarify that.

00;25;14;19 - 00;25;35;19
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. No, that's that's a that's really it's even so it's even it's like the whole point is it's even more interconnected than we realize at first glance. Right? This is this is Jesus obviously redefining what it means or clearly defining what it means to be part of God's good kingdom that he's now bringing. And heralding forth. Yeah. Right.

00;25;35;21 - 00;25;58;09
Joshua Hoffert
And and the very first thing he says radically subverts all the expectations. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs shall be the kingdom of heaven. And and this is, this is like, like when it comes to like we can juxtapose that with I think it's in Matthew 19 where Jesus has a conversation with the rich young ruler who asks what he needs to do to inherit eternal life, which means he's asking, what does it mean?

00;25;58;11 - 00;26;18;25
Joshua Hoffert
What kind of person do I need to be to participate in God's coming kingdom? He's not talking about eternal life in the sense that we kind of think today in 21st century Christian. You said a prayer and you died and you went to be in heaven with him. That's not what he's saying. He's saying what does it mean for me to be a person who, thrives in God's kingdom?

00;26;18;27 - 00;26;37;11
Joshua Hoffert
And Jesus says, ultimately sell all that you have, give to the poor, and come and follow me, which radically subverts the expectation of what a kingdom minded person would be like. Because the the at the outset, if a rich young ruler comes to Jesus, Jesus would say, bring your money and let's use it to fund the war effort.

00;26;37;14 - 00;26;58;27
Joshua Hoffert
Let's use it to fund the New Kingdom. And he says, get rid of it all and come and follow me. So this this is a radical redefinition of what it means to be a person participating in God's kingdom. The very first thing, as he talks about the blessing, you know, the blessed are the poor in spirit. And and so we have this picture of humility.

00;26;58;29 - 00;27;24;25
Joshua Hoffert
We have a picture of tenderness. Right? Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. we have a picture of the the people concerned with justice, in the, in the, in the Beatitudes. so, so the, the kind of things he lays out start to subvert the expectation of what it means to be a kingdom person who is healthy and integrated.

00;27;24;25 - 00;27;49;28
Joshua Hoffert
And I, I think that I wonder what you think about this because I think the two most the to you, the two key verses that define the Kingdom vision of Jesus. it's the last verse in Matthew five, and it's also one of the last verses in Matthew six. and it is where Jesus says, you're to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

00;27;50;01 - 00;28;10;22
Joshua Hoffert
That's one of the verses. this is kind of where he reorients the the picture of the person to the father versus just practical instruction, right? Turn the other cheek, all this kind of stuff. you're to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And we all have something to say about that. And, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you, right?

00;28;10;22 - 00;28;32;06
Joshua Hoffert
Because you could get bogged down in Matthew five and six and go, man, there's a lot of responsibility. And he says, well, actually, it's not about doing those things is about seeking his kingdom and his righteousness. Everything else is going to be taken care of in due time. Yeah. and and so he's reorienting the anchoring point for the spiritually mature, mature person beyond the system of rules.

00;28;32;06 - 00;28;51;04
Joshua Hoffert
He says, he's basically said, I'm not laying out a system of rules for you to follow when he says, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. The word perfect means to be whole or complete. It doesn't mean perfect in the sense that, you know, we might say, I love watching basketball. We might say, well, that was a perfect play.

00;28;51;07 - 00;29;14;03
Joshua Hoffert
Meaning that everybody, did all the things they were supposed to do to make the play happen. That's not what this word means in, in, in terms of, perfect. We might, but we might say, if someone, you know, the NBA playoffs are on right now, if someone had a really good game and they played really well, we might say, well, they really played a complete game.

00;29;14;03 - 00;29;35;27
Joshua Hoffert
It was a whole game, right? We don't mean they made no mistakes. What we mean is that they they fulfilled their role and brought what they had to the table and did what they needed to do to cause the team to win. That's more what the word perfect means here is they were whole in their role. They were complete in the package that they brought to the table.

00;29;36;04 - 00;30;01;12
Joshua Hoffert
So be be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect doesn't mean get everything right. It means to be mature, be complete, and be integrated as your Heavenly father. When you look at him, you see the picture of perfect completeness in him. And all of these instructions lay out right turn like turning the other cheek. Well, that's an attitude of God.

00;30;01;12 - 00;30;26;00
Joshua Hoffert
God consistently says that he doesn't cause rain to not rain on the unjust, and only rain on the just. He turns his affection in favor to all people. And so this is a it's a shade of what he's like is what Jesus is saying is be like him. And being like him happens when you're rooted in him. So spiritual maturity isn't so much a list of rules to follow, which is what we turn it into, you know?

00;30;26;00 - 00;30;48;23
Joshua Hoffert
Okay, well, I'm spiritually mature because I attend church. I am I am spiritually mature because I tithe regularly. I'm spiritually mature because I helped with the building project. I'm spiritually mature because I volunteer my time or I went on that missions trip. we turn spiritual maturity into a thing that we do. Well, first of all.

00;30;48;25 - 00;30;51;24
Ken Hoffert
If I have a list of boxes I can check.

00;30;51;27 - 00;30;53;05
Joshua Hoffert
Totally. Yeah, totally.

00;30;53;05 - 00;31;20;26
Ken Hoffert
If if my if you if your if what you're saying is you're taking away my boxes that I want to check. Yeah. Then you you're making it so that I feel untethered. Now. Yeah that I, I am I don't, I don't have point at which I can say to you, yes, I've done all those things. I, the rich young ruler you were talking about before.

00;31;21;02 - 00;31;23;29
Ken Hoffert
Or you could say, well, I've done everything that you're right.

00;31;23;29 - 00;31;25;18
Joshua Hoffert
And he does say that I've done these.

00;31;25;21 - 00;31;33;03
Ken Hoffert
Things and, and that's when Jesus said to him, do the one radical thing that you would never expect to do.

00;31;33;05 - 00;31;33;29
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, exactly.

00;31;33;29 - 00;32;01;04
Ken Hoffert
Take the turn your life upside down so that you're not looking at everything you can accomplish. But you're looking at something very different. You're having to rely. You've never had to rely on anyone but yourself. But now you'll that get rid of everything that you have that gives you self-sustainability. Right? Because you've checked all the boxes. Yes. Go to a place where you can't check all the boxes.

00;32;01;04 - 00;32;30;25
Ken Hoffert
You can't sustain yourself. You have to pay attention to me. Yeah. And when you do that, then you'll have life. Yeah. And and I think that's really uncomfortable for people because, it's easier to check boxes. But the, the dilemma you have when you just do that is you can only go so far. You come up to the place of everything you can do.

00;32;30;28 - 00;33;01;06
Ken Hoffert
Yeah. And you never get to this place that Jesus is talking about here in the Beatitudes. It's where he says, I want to rattle what you with. Your expectations are right so that life is not about what you can accomplish, but life is about what it looks like to be to be in relationship, attachment, connection to the creator, and doing things in a very different way than you could ever understand.

00;33;01;09 - 00;33;26;20
Ken Hoffert
And, and I think these are the difficult things that we run into when we talk about spiritual maturity is it's, it's not. So we think spiritual maturity is, just building line upon line. You know, this step, I'm going up the ladder. I'm going up the stairway. I take this step. Once I get this stuff done, I take the next step.

00;33;26;20 - 00;33;37;10
Ken Hoffert
I take the next step, I take the next step. And it's a and it's a continuous, line forward, upward. There's no side to side or downward movement.

00;33;37;13 - 00;33;39;18
Joshua Hoffert
There's ten commandments that I need to fulfill.

00;33;39;18 - 00;34;11;00
Ken Hoffert
That's right. And once I've got that, then I have accomplished those things right. And and spiritual maturity is a is more nuanced than that because it requires and it's very core a connectedness to both the creator and to, and to a community. And yeah, because of that, I now can't just check a box. I have to interact with someone and and an interacting with someone.

00;34;11;02 - 00;34;16;02
Ken Hoffert
I am now demonstrating whether I actually got that or not.

00;34;16;04 - 00;34;17;24
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, and I don't yeah. That's right.

00;34;17;24 - 00;34;42;24
Ken Hoffert
And I don't always get it. And so then I have to work on it again and say, okay, how do I do this and that. And again, that's part of that community thing and that relational relationship thing with with the creator, where we have to work out something that we didn't get before and, and so that becomes maturity because it produces something in me.

00;34;42;26 - 00;35;13;13
Ken Hoffert
Right. That is more as he says at the end, more whole at the end of chapter five, every it becomes something where. So becoming perfect is becoming whole, right? Yeah. Complete. You don't have you don't have any holes in, in, in your being that are porous and leak out your goodness. So God, God leaks, God pours out his goodness.

00;35;13;13 - 00;35;44;20
Ken Hoffert
But he doesn't leak it right in that he has holes in his character. Yeah, we we leak. So that's right. That's right. I'd rather be one who pours than leaks. yeah. But that's that's where we work towards, becoming whole and wholeness is the process of, you know, as we talked about before, seeing our brains healed so that they work more functionally like they're supposed to.

00;35;44;20 - 00;35;55;03
Ken Hoffert
Right? Seeing our activities healed so that we are interacting in ways that are helpful and healthy rather than destructive and damaging.

00;35;55;05 - 00;35;55;29
Joshua Hoffert
Okay.

00;35;56;01 - 00;36;21;10
Ken Hoffert
And how many times have we gone, you know, gone into relationship chips thinking that we know the answers, know how to to work with something and everything falls apart. Right. And, and those and then we realize at that moment, maybe I'm not as mature as I thought I was. Maybe I don't really get this. And. Yeah. And how do I how do I find a way through this?

00;36;21;13 - 00;36;22;06
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;36;22;09 - 00;36;25;12
Ken Hoffert
That's the beginning of wisdom is asking that kind of question.

00;36;25;14 - 00;36;37;27
Joshua Hoffert
That's right, that's right. Well, and I think that's the starting point of the Beatitudes. Very blessed are the poor in spirit is recognizing I can't get I can't when you're poor, you can't you can't do it on your own.

00;36;37;27 - 00;36;38;19
Ken Hoffert
Right.

00;36;38;21 - 00;37;00;18
Joshua Hoffert
You don't have what it takes, right? If you're poor, you need and you didn't pay rent or whatever, right? Or you need to afford, food as you would when Jesus was talking you, a poor person, was a beggar on the side of the street, recognizing their need, and they relied on what other people could give them. So when you're poor in spirit, you notice he doesn't say, blessed are the poor.

00;37;00;18 - 00;37;21;02
Joshua Hoffert
He says, blessed are the poor in spirit rain. Blessed are those who recognize they can't wade through this life alone. So that's the beginning. And theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So they're their entrance into the kingdom of heaven is recognizing their great need. And actually the last beatitude where he says, blessed are those who persecuted for my sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

00;37;21;02 - 00;37;23;18
Joshua Hoffert
The last beatitude is the same reward as the first be.

00;37;23;22 - 00;37;33;07
Ken Hoffert
And what did he say to Nicodemus when Nicodemus came to him? That's right. Almost the same thing. Yeah, this says it differently. He says you need to be born again.

00;37;33;14 - 00;37;34;09
Joshua Hoffert
Exactly.

00;37;34;11 - 00;38;01;25
Ken Hoffert
You can't even begin to see the kingdom until you have a complete reworking of how you see the world, how you see life. And it's so, so we're born into life and and unless we get this born again thing, that is the beginning point of being of coming back to seeing life as it's supposed to be. we don't even get to start.

00;38;01;28 - 00;38;11;06
Ken Hoffert
And that's right. And that's just the bare starting point, which is a good starting point. Yeah, because it has something to it that's really significant. That's humility.

00;38;11;10 - 00;38;32;19
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And and as Jesus goes through and defines what a kingdom minded person looks like, this healthy, vibrant, integrated, whole person looks like they reflect the father for sure because he says be perfect as he is perfect, behold as his whole. So there's a reflection of what the father's like in that, right? Because we're to bear his image and his likeness.

00;38;32;21 - 00;38;55;18
Joshua Hoffert
But he he defines certain character traits which people spend. well, we've spent eons as humanity striving to embody and failed miserably. Yeah, because he says things like when someone strikes, you turn the other cheek. Well, nobody does that. Naturally. Humanity doesn't know how to do that naturally. That's why we have a history of wars and conflicts, because we don't know how to turn the other cheek.

00;38;55;21 - 00;39;14;20
Joshua Hoffert
And so he said, well, this is what your father's like. Turn the other cheek. And he says, yeah. You know, things like, don't make an don't make an oath, right. Don't, don't make an oath. Just be who you are. Right. So he lays out all of these character traits of someone who would be a mature person when you're when you are praying, right?

00;39;14;20 - 00;39;36;09
Joshua Hoffert
Don't don't make your prayer a thing to be seen by everybody. But meet the father in secret. He's going, you guys. Very practical instruction. For what? To turn from his kingdom minded view. A spiritually healthy, vibrant, mature person looks like. And so we can see that all. And we see it, you know, we see it embodied in the person of Jesus because Jesus actually he did turn the other cheek when he was struck.

00;39;36;09 - 00;39;58;09
Joshua Hoffert
Right. So we see his practice lined up with his teaching and, you know, interestingly, that he gave the cloak off of his back very rapidly. He, they took the clothes from him and divided them and cast lots. So he his practice and his teaching both lined up. He actually embodied the principles that he taught and the way that he did that.

00;39;58;09 - 00;40;01;24
Joshua Hoffert
Now, that's what we have for our next episode, right?

00;40;02;01 - 00;40;07;18
Ken Hoffert
And so we we've established here that Jesus is the starting point.

00;40;07;21 - 00;40;08;25
Joshua Hoffert
Jesus is the starting point.

00;40;08;28 - 00;40;09;05
Ken Hoffert
As.

00;40;09;08 - 00;40;29;06
Joshua Hoffert
He. Yeah, what he teaches, especially looking at the sermon on the Mount, it's a great, succinct way of looking to what does it look like when we see a spiritually healthy, vibrant, mature person? We see it practically laid out in the sermon on the Mount. But then when we read the person of Jesus and see how he lived and what he did, we see the exact same picture.

00;40;29;09 - 00;40;39;10
Joshua Hoffert
We see it embodied. But how did he do that? And and that's the quote. Well, because we can go, you know, we can go while he was God. So he just did it. Yeah. Right. And and that's a cop out.

00;40;39;10 - 00;40;40;15
Ken Hoffert
So we know what it is.

00;40;40;15 - 00;40;43;29
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, it really is. We don't have to be that. So in our next episode.

00;40;44;01 - 00;40;47;16
Ken Hoffert
Or I could never do that. That's what I did. Yeah. Yeah.

00;40;47;21 - 00;41;10;19
Joshua Hoffert
Exactly. So in our next episode, we're going to dive into how does maturity happen? Can you stumble into it? All right. What's the what's the process of becoming mature in a, in a you know, in a general sense, we're we're we're going to take a while pulling these, concepts and principles apart. But so a spiritually healthy, vibrant, mature pierce and looks like Jesus.

00;41;10;22 - 00;41;28;11
Joshua Hoffert
But how do we get there? And that's that's a major question people have is how do we get there. Because we wrestle with the kind of things that Jesus says, we'll wrestle with. You know, you've heard it was said, don't murder. But I'm telling you actually that anger that's sitting in your heart, that's really the problem. Murder is not the problem.

00;41;28;13 - 00;41;46;15
Joshua Hoffert
And so he's getting at some of the root problems within humanity that we really wrestle with. And he gives us some fascinating answers as well. So we'll pull that apart in our next episode. As it stands, dad, this was wonderful. Very fun to, chat through these things. I love your perspective and for all those listeners, thanks for tuning in.

00;41;46;18 - 00;41;49;14
Joshua Hoffert
And until next week.

00;41;49;16 - 00;41;52;08
Ken Hoffert
Enjoy, George. Perspective.

00;41;52;10 - 00;42;17;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah that's right. Okay. Bye everybody.

00;42;17;17 - 00;42;18;04
Joshua Hoffert
You.