What If Humility Is The Real Proof Of Belief?

Romans is not a calm textbook, it is a pastoral intervention. We start a new series by admitting the real-world challenge of tackling Paul’s most comprehensive letter in the middle of confirmation and graduation season, then we name why Romans still matters: it is written to a community trying to stay together while Jews and Gentiles bring different histories, habits, and assumptions into the same church. Paul is not chasing abstract debates. He is fighting for a gospel that belongs to everyone, without special treatment or spiritual status.

Romans 2 comes in hot, and we do not soften it. Paul aims straight at the way we judge each other, because judgment feels holy while it quietly corrodes the soul. We talk about “God shows no partiality” and why that line exposes the permission we give ourselves to polarize, condemn, and claim that our way is the only godly way. When anger and certainty take over, we stop listening. We end up trusting our own picture of God more than God.

A children’s story about the old turtle becomes a surprisingly sharp mirror: the breeze, the mountain, the robin, and the bear all describe God through their own identity, and the argument grows until wisdom reminds them that God is bigger than any single frame. We close with a practical refrain from Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation: “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.” If you are tired of outrage and ready for a better way to live your faith with humility, press play.

Subscribe for the Romans series, share this with a friend who needs a calmer kind of courage, and leave a review. What is one “better practice” you want to try this week?

Transcript

Why Start Romans Now

Pastor Darren 0:00

We're starting a series on Romans. I'm beginning to regret trying to fit in Romans when we have confirmation and graduation. We'll see how that goes. We trying to fit in one of the more complex theological letters of our Bible in the little cracks that we're left with after confirmation. But uh like I written uh wrote in the introduction, it is probably the most comprehensive letter. Uh a lot of the uh uh originating thoughts you can see in other letters, and then you can see the maturing and the culmination that happens in Romans, which is uh why uh um a lot of people see it as kind of that comprehensive, uh probably coming a little later in his uh uh um uh in his, we'll call it a career, his calling, his ministry. Uh and in general, because of the nature of Christianity and the reality of the presence in this at this time of Jews and Christians, and Jews and Gentiles, and all of there's there's some diversity

Romans And A Divided Church

Pastor Darren 1:07

there. And he's speaking to these churches that are filled with people who have come from the Jewish faith to now be in the Christian community and walking that journey, but also people who have come not from that journey with all its its laws and and it's explicitness. And so there's a lot of arguments that are happening in these early churches. This is nothing new. I've probably preached that many, many, many times. Uh and uh Paul's message, rather than being some kind of dry theological, uh, I'm trying to explain the world, what he's doing is trying to preach to a divided community of Jews and Gentiles. And he's trying to show how the gospel is for everyone. The gospel's leveling the playing field, it's breaking down the walls of distinction and disagreement that we often make for ourselves. So that's the book itself.

Romans 2 And The Trap Of Judgment

Pastor Darren 2:08

Now, digging into Romans 2, he's coming in pretty hot, isn't he? No, I don't know. It seems there's a lot of the wrath and uh, you know, God coming with judgment, and then nobody felt uncomfortable in here. I know some of you, y'all should have been a little uncomfortable. I know what's going on out here. He's hot. Yeah, there right. Me and Michael, yeah, we were properly uh like straightened up. Yeah, that's us right here. No, it kind of hot. I like to think that he kind of walked into this. He'd had a chance to really build up some frustration with what these churches were doing, and obviously he's focused largely on judging each other, right? A big part of the argument he's making here this early is about how judging in and of itself is sinful. Right? He writes how the Jew and the Greek will find anguish from this judging. Can we attest to some of that anguish in our own lives, our anger, our frustration, our anxiety about different things that are going on in the world because of how we have imposed our feelings about how it's supposed to work? I think the key phrase for Paul here is Jew and the Greek. Paul, including both, and dare I say, speaking to all of us, he adds, God shows no partiality. I think there's a big lesson for us here in 2026, living in the United States. We've polarized ourselves really, really good. And the root of that polarization is the permission we've given ourselves to judge each other. We've put ourselves in God's place by saying, My way is the godly and right way. Closing the door to God's influence. Paul comes to us here and he says, You think this judgment, this judgment that you have is not a problem for your faith? The anger you feel towards particular groups, the turmoil in your soul for the world and its future.

The Old Turtle And Many Views Of God

Pastor Darren 4:38

This is kind of the thing that landed us on that gift for the confirmans. The old turtle book. I don't know if you heard you know some of what Carissa was telling about the story, right? We had uh uh in this mythical time when animals and elements of nature could all speak and communicate, they start to argue over who or what God really is. And here, this is what's kind of interesting about the book. The breeze says that God is a wind. Not surprising. The mountain calls God a snowy peak. The Robin says God is gentle, and the bear says God is powerful. Is that surprising? You see what's underlying happening here? Everybody's projecting their own identity on who God really is, and the argument grows louder and louder, more discordant, and then the old turtle shows up. The wise turtle rarely speaks and tells them to stop. She tells them that all of their individual unique perspectives are true. God is all things and more. Here's a famous line from the book. I'm spoiling it for you, but you know what? You've had twenty-something years to read it. You should have been on it. God is indeed deep and much higher than high, but gentle and powerful above all things and within all things.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

God is Echoes of Moses at the burning bush, right?

Pastor Darren 6:27

God is all of that. The turtle, the old turtle, also predicts that people were going to arrive, and they were going to be this strange new creature that that brings the world together. They'll be distinct and different colors, shapes, and powers. Uh, and then the people appear, and then they quickly forget to connect with the nature around them and with each other. Guess what? They start arguing about who God is. Eventually, the people stop fighting, they listen to the messages from God that are coming through the mountains, that are coming through the winds, the stones, the stars, and they remember to hear and see God in one another and in the beauty of the earth, which allows the planet and the people to heal. Silly, silly children's books with so little to say. I'm resisting the urge to tell the Confirmans you're the ones to fix this polarized world. It's your turn. I'm resistant because I remember hearing the same thing when I was young. It's your turn. I feel like our challenge is to figure out how to live what we believe with a humility that allows us to stay open to God and God's message for us. Our turn to the judgment of others, it clouds that capacity to hear God. We start listening to our own vision of God instead of the real thing.

Practice Better Instead Of Arguing

Pastor Darren 8:18

Maybe the best wisdom we can offer comes from, I apologize, here he is again, Richard Rohr. It's a big Richard Rohr year. I don't know how many of you are on the devotion, but I just had to go there because it just was echoing in my brain. It is part of his whole uh um group called the Center for Action and Contemplation. They have some basic uh rules for living in this world, and this one is particularly useful today.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.

Pastor Darren 9:09

Maybe we should stop trying to convince each other of all we understand and just live out what we know to be true about the love of God and the world. Amen. Amen.