In this final sermon for the Political Distortions series, Greg Boyd addresses the heart posture of humility, calling us to the mindset of living in love to the point that we take on the mind of Christ on the cross instead of the prideful-ascent mindset that characterizes Satan and those who are always pursuing a life of “more.”
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A Clash of Mindsets
• Greg Boyd
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Our world is pervaded by a prideful-ascent mindset, which leads people to operate out of self-interests and to pursue “more” because we have been told it is our right to go after it. This is diametrically opposed to the humble-love descent mindset. This prideful-ascent mindset works against the reality of the way things really are because it deceives us to think that we are more than we are.
The introduction of the prideful-ascent mindset was first introduced into God’s creation and is described to us in Isaiah 14:12-15. It reads:
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.
This is a reference to the arrogance of Satan which led to his fall. He was the greatest of all of God’s angelic beings, but he sought to rise to the level of the most-high God. Satan sought to ascend to the heavens and occupy the throne of God. He determined that he needed to rise to the highest point, wanting more and more.
We read about this mindset in Proverbs 16:18:
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
There is an organic connection between pride and destruction and between arrogance and falling. Pride eventually harms individuals and destroys societies because it carries its own seeds of destruction.
Once Lucifer introduced the prideful-ascent mindset into creation—which we read about in Genesis 3—it spread like a virus in a pandemic. Adam and Eve believed the lies of the Serpent and got infected with the lie-based, prideful-ascent mindset. They bought into the idea that they could not trust God but could rise to God’s level. And this continues throughout the Bible. The stories of Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, and the rise and fall of kings are interwoven with the prideful-ascent mindset. The book of Revelation summarizes this quite well: “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months” (Revelation 13:5).
Satan, depicted as the Ancient Serpent, causes a beast to rise out of the sea and it “utters proud and blasphemous words.” We learn later that the beast is Babylon, a city that metaphorically represented the demonic pursuit of glory. It was structured on the “I will ascend” mindset, always seeking to acquire more. As all empires have done throughout history, Babylon eventually self-imploded because pride always leads to destruction, and a haughty arrogant spirit always eventually falls.
In our current cultural situation, we must be honest about the reality that we are living in a modern version of Babylon. We’ve had a nonstop explosion of creative innovation and new technologies over the last 200 years that have allowed the Western world to ascend like no other culture. Ascent is the goal of everything. We live with a conviction that humans are so smart, we can rely on technology to create whatever world we want. Our culture relies on our own power and ingenuity to carry out our own will to bring about the heaven we want for ourselves.
In addition, all political rhetoric is based on a prideful-ascent mindset. As long as humanity is proudly ignoring God and arrogantly in a perpetual quest for more, it will always lead to further conflict, polarization, and violence. And it always eventually implodes.
In contrast, we are to embody the humble-decent mindset. This is the point of the focus scripture above. Jesus, though by nature God, didn’t use his status as God for self-serving purposes. Instead, he humbled himself and he divested himself of the use of any aspect of his divinity that was inconsistent with him becoming a full human. Then he humbled himself further by remaining obedient to God the Father, even to the point of going to the cross, out of love and on our behalf. This is the exact opposite of Lucifer’s prideful-ascent mindset. This is the mindset we are to adopt because this is the only thing that actually brings eternal life and God’s eternal kingdom. It is the only thing that lasts.
This mindset of Jesus is rooted in an accurate view of reality. It’s not about thinking too lowly of oneself. It’s about knowing the truth of who we are and embracing what God says about us. This is why it is important to know what the Bible says about our identity as being “in Christ.” We can only avoid political distortions by setting aside distorted views of ourselves.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Humility, Identity in Christ, Politics
Sermon Series: Political Distortions
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Focus Scripture:
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Philippians 2:3-11
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
