The Sin of Being a Smartypants
Romans 12:1–8
August 23, 2026
Sermon
"I say to everyone among you
not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think,
but to think with sober judgment,
each according to the measure of faith
that God has assigned."
What is your opinion of yourself? /
How would you rate your service? /
Five-star? /
One-star? /
Worthy of a tip? ///
OK, / now: /
What is your opinion of your faith? /
How many stars, / there? /
Would Jesus press your tip button? ///
Faith and self-image: /
There's a connection. /
Your soul and your persona go together. /
The Bible tells us so in today's scripture. /
And this can be good, /
or not so good. ///
Between the lines of the Letter to the Romans, /
you can tell Paul is writing to people of the Capitol City /
where it's only natural for folks
to think more highly of themselves
than their measure of faith would allow. /
Paul's polite about it, /
but it's there. ///
If our self-image and our faith-image
are the two halves of one full-body image… ///
And if our opinion of our own opinions is, /
shall we say, /
over-inflated —
then being a smartypants is more than just obnoxious —
we could even say it's a sin. ///
And if this sin of inbred pomposity
is one at which you naturally excel, /
would you even know? ///
And if by some unfortunate event
you did get a healthy helping of humility —
if not just you but your judgment got sober —
how would you repent? /
Would you go one step? /
Or twelve steps? /
Or the extra mile? /
To restore balance between your body and your faith? ///
As the teachers tell the kids, /
"No one likes a smartypants." /
Not even Jesus. /
It's a sin. ///
—
George Carlin asked,
Why is it when you’re driving
That everybody going faster than you is a maniac?
And everyone going slower than you is an idiot?
"I'm an excellent driver." ///
It's a classic line from the movie Rainman. /
Dustin Hoffman plays Charlie, /
a man in the deep end of the autism spectrum. ///
Charlie's driving experience is taking his father's immaculate
1949 Buick Roadmaster Convertible
around their huge circular driveway /
at very low speed. /
And, / not a single accident on his record so far. ///
Thus, / in Charlie's mind, /
he's an excellent driver. /
Definitely. ///
We could all take a lesson from Charlie. /
Some REALLY should. //
It's amazing to me, /
the number of sub-excellent drivers on the road. /
Don't they just make you so mad? ///
I was taught Driver's Ed
by a maker of excellent drivers: /
the high school wrestling coach. /
He was very good at all his jobs. /
Or so he opined. /
I don't know if his judgment was sober /
or even his liver. ///
This was the same man who toughened up his wrestlers
by having them run the length of a hallway, /
at full speed, /
and crash their head into a locker door. ///
It may have explained
why so few of our wrestlers passed the academic requirements. /
And their frequency of road accidents. ///
Coach may not have been a smart man —
and in retrospect, / I see that now —
but one true fact he told us in Driver's Ed
always stuck with me. ///
He said, /
"Everybody thinks they're better drivers than they are. /
And if everybody thinks they're better than they are, /
everybody's average." ///
It reminds me of another man of real big smart, /
Forrest Gump, /
who gave us: /
"Stupid is as stupid does." ///
Flip that chestnut over and it says /
intelligence is as intelligence does. /
Excellence is as excellence does. /
Or does not. ///
That goes for driving. /
And wrestling. /
Teaching Driver's Ed. /
Preaching sermons. /
And just about everything else. ///
You may THINK you're excellent, / at whatever. /
You may think you're the best, /
Neither maniac nor idiot /
But until the rubber meets the road, /
until the cranium meets the locker, /
how do you know? ///
Are you as smart as you think? /
Or do you just have a swollen head, /
possibly concussed? ///
—
Paul tells us that everybody has gifts. /
Everybody has abilities. /
Gifts are good. ///
But the Apostle also knows
people tend to overestimate their gifts, /
their driving skills, /
their wisdom. /
They see them not as gifts /
but as birthrights. /
Baby, / I was born this way. ///
They approach the world going, /
"tsk, / tsk, / tsk. /
It's just so sad that everyone else is so… average. /
Or below." /
As we say in the South, /
"Bless the general population's hearts." ///
Paul tells us all that we ought not think of ourselves too highly. /
He says that we ought to think soberly —
instead of being drunk with our own powers. /
And how do you get sober at that? ///
Well, / that's what he says next. /
That we ought to think of ourselves, /
"according to the measure of faith God has assigned us." ///
The measure of faith. /
Our Faith Quotient. /
Our "FQ." ///
Which sounds like something else, /
but save that for the parking lot. ///
How do you measure faith? /
Can you put it on a 1 to 5 star scale? /
A, B, C, D? /
Do you measure faith in a teaspoon? /
Do you carry it in a bucket? /
Can you lift it in a shovel? ///
The measure of faith is a whole different kind of metric. /
And honestly, /
I'm not sure it's one we're even capable of knowing down here. /
Not completely. ///
Jesus used to say it about his disciples all the time. /
"O ye of little faith." ///
Not that they didn't have faith. /
They had plenty of faith, /
enough to drop their nets and follow him. /
Jesus didn't mean their faith wasn't abundant. /
But that the faith they DID have was too small. /
Too small-minded. /
Too short-sighted. /
Too little. /
They had pieces of the puzzle, /
and thought they saw the whole thing. ///
Isn't it funny
how the people with the smallest minds
make the biggest assumptions. /
Over-promise and under-deliver. ///
Small-minded people are exposed by big mistakes. /
Sometimes go to prison for them.
They get into big accidents. /
Because they're so confident
they know better than everyone else. ///
Therefore —
ipso to that facto —
they're people of little faith —
little faith in anyone but themselves. /
Little faith in anything but their own opinions. /
AND little faith in the worth
of the sub-average general population. ///
—
Back in 1969, /
Dr. Laurence J. Peter gave us the Peter Principle. ///
If you watched The Office, /
you know it as the Michael Scott Principle. /
The tendency of pretty good people
to get promoted into incompetence. ///
Michael was a good salesman, /
so they made him Regional Manager
of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. /
Cringe comedy and Jim and Pam's romance ensued.
For nine seasons. ///
I try hard NOT to be the Michael Scott of Senior Pastors. /
Some days I'm more successful than others. /
At least Jean hasn't put my stapler in jello. /
Yet. ///
30 years after the Principle of Peter, / in 1999, /
David Dunning and Justin Kruger
gave us the Dunning-Kruger effect. ///
Dunning-Kruger explains why we know
we're better drivers than all the maniacs
racing through your neighborhood
and all the idiots creeping down Bayou Boulevard. ///
The Dunning-Kruger effect
is the tendency of people with low ability
to give themselves overly positive assessments. /
Grade inflation. ///
According to D-K, /
we judge ourselves as being better than we are, /
as being excellent drivers, /
because that's as far as we know, /
and as far as we care to know. ///
But, / wouldn't you know, /
the Bible had this figured out all along. ///
Way back in around 55 AD, /
the Apostle Paul gave us HIS principle /
that people —
not just Romans —
that we the people tend to think more highly of ourselves
than we ought to —
when we should be thinking more soberly, /
and according to the measure of faith God has given us. ///
Paul's Principle says
we are wise when we're NOT
People of inflated opinions and little faith, /
but when we're people of big faith
that lifts up our opinions of everybody else. ///
That we should be people
Not of little faith, but
People of big faith —
big faith in God, /
big faith in the faith Christ pours into us. /
That we should be people with big faith
that God has given each and every human being
a measure of faith
for which they should ALL be treated with worth, /
with dignity, /
and with care. ///
With the firm belief that in God's eyes no one —
NO ONE —
is sub-average. ///
Every one of us is a treasured child of God. /
Every one of us is a treasure to God. /
All of us: /
The rich, / the poor, /
the most excellent, /
even the most sinful
Even the maniacs and the idiots. ///
This is the sobering thinking
that comes from faith that's bigger than we are. /
This is the sober judgment our faith puts IN us. /
This is the sobering judgment God puts ON us. ///
No one likes a smartypants. /
Even Jesus got mad at the people
who were too big for their britches, /
the ones whose heads were too swollen to fit in the car door. ///
And yet — /
and yet —
these are the people Paul is writing to. /
These are the people the Bible was written for. /
These are the people Jesus died for. /
Like us. ///
Not to punish us for our sins of self-delusion, /
but to open our faith, /
to grow our faith, /
to make it bigger —
to widen our focus. /
To show us still more excellent ways —
as he says in 1 Corinthians 12:31, /
"But I will show you a more excellent way." ///
—
What is the more excellent way? /
What is the more excellent way
to drive, / to speak, / to live? ///
In Romans 12:4 and following, /
Paul says, ///
For just as each of us has one body with many members,
and these members do not all have the same function,
so in Christ we, though many, form one body,
and each member belongs to all the others.
To show us the big picture of our sinful ways, /
Paul points to the people around us. /
Not as examples of sin, /
but as reasons for hope. ///
He says that we all —
we all —
are one body in Christ, /
that we're all part of each other. /
Everything and everyone is delicately interconnected. /
Like it or not, /
we're stuck together like glue. ///
Some of us have the gift to see the truth and speak it. /
Some of us have the gift of ministry. /
Some have the gift of caring. /
Others, / visiting. /
Others, / teaching, /
or leading, /
or compassion, /
or cheerfulness. /
Or driving —
a van full of youth to Montreat —
and returning them safely to the Earth. ///
Which means, /
none of us have to be THE most excellent at everything. /
None of us have to go around correcting everyone else's errors, /
blessing them with OUR example of perfection. ///
That job's already taken —
and surprise, /
the Boss promoted his Son and gave it to him. ///
Our job as disciples of Jesus Christ
is to use our gifts to lift up the gifts of others, /
to lift up others, /
to recognize in others the gifts
that we might not have, /
or might not have — / yet. ///
Look around. /
You'll see lots of examples of excellence –
excellence enough. ///
—
Some days, / life all just works so well for us. /
Some days we honestly know
we deserve five stars for our faith and our actions.
We’re excellent. /
Other days, / a 2.5. /
Other days, / a 0.5 is really good —
the best we can muster. ///
Hey, / we got out of bed. /
And we didn't curse at anybody. /
Yet. /
We didn't cause anyone else to crash and burn. /
And some days, / that's OK. ///
Another day will come tomorrow. /
We may not get the whole job done, /
but there are other people, /
with stars of their own, /
who are also stars
in God's sober and loving judgment. ///
At the end of the semester, /
we all get grades that say, /
"Needs improvement." /
God knows – "It's OK not to be OK." ///
[see Rabbi Brian Mayer, www.ROTB.org]
Our job of faith is not to be the best, /
but to witness to the best, /
to point to the One
who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. /
And that One is not us. ///
Our job is to humbly and soberly
be our part of Christ's body
with all these different working parts. ///
Thank the Lord
that none of us has to wear the smartest of pants. ///
And thank the Lord for the measure of humility —
the measure of faith —
within us all. ///
Romans 12:1–8
August 23, 2026
Sermon
"I say to everyone among you
not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think,
but to think with sober judgment,
each according to the measure of faith
that God has assigned."
What is your opinion of yourself? /
How would you rate your service? /
Five-star? /
One-star? /
Worthy of a tip? ///
OK, / now: /
What is your opinion of your faith? /
How many stars, / there? /
Would Jesus press your tip button? ///
Faith and self-image: /
There's a connection. /
Your soul and your persona go together. /
The Bible tells us so in today's scripture. /
And this can be good, /
or not so good. ///
Between the lines of the Letter to the Romans, /
you can tell Paul is writing to people of the Capitol City /
where it's only natural for folks
to think more highly of themselves
than their measure of faith would allow. /
Paul's polite about it, /
but it's there. ///
If our self-image and our faith-image
are the two halves of one full-body image… ///
And if our opinion of our own opinions is, /
shall we say, /
over-inflated —
then being a smartypants is more than just obnoxious —
we could even say it's a sin. ///
And if this sin of inbred pomposity
is one at which you naturally excel, /
would you even know? ///
And if by some unfortunate event
you did get a healthy helping of humility —
if not just you but your judgment got sober —
how would you repent? /
Would you go one step? /
Or twelve steps? /
Or the extra mile? /
To restore balance between your body and your faith? ///
As the teachers tell the kids, /
"No one likes a smartypants." /
Not even Jesus. /
It's a sin. ///
—
George Carlin asked,
Why is it when you’re driving
That everybody going faster than you is a maniac?
And everyone going slower than you is an idiot?
"I'm an excellent driver." ///
It's a classic line from the movie Rainman. /
Dustin Hoffman plays Charlie, /
a man in the deep end of the autism spectrum. ///
Charlie's driving experience is taking his father's immaculate
1949 Buick Roadmaster Convertible
around their huge circular driveway /
at very low speed. /
And, / not a single accident on his record so far. ///
Thus, / in Charlie's mind, /
he's an excellent driver. /
Definitely. ///
We could all take a lesson from Charlie. /
Some REALLY should. //
It's amazing to me, /
the number of sub-excellent drivers on the road. /
Don't they just make you so mad? ///
I was taught Driver's Ed
by a maker of excellent drivers: /
the high school wrestling coach. /
He was very good at all his jobs. /
Or so he opined. /
I don't know if his judgment was sober /
or even his liver. ///
This was the same man who toughened up his wrestlers
by having them run the length of a hallway, /
at full speed, /
and crash their head into a locker door. ///
It may have explained
why so few of our wrestlers passed the academic requirements. /
And their frequency of road accidents. ///
Coach may not have been a smart man —
and in retrospect, / I see that now —
but one true fact he told us in Driver's Ed
always stuck with me. ///
He said, /
"Everybody thinks they're better drivers than they are. /
And if everybody thinks they're better than they are, /
everybody's average." ///
It reminds me of another man of real big smart, /
Forrest Gump, /
who gave us: /
"Stupid is as stupid does." ///
Flip that chestnut over and it says /
intelligence is as intelligence does. /
Excellence is as excellence does. /
Or does not. ///
That goes for driving. /
And wrestling. /
Teaching Driver's Ed. /
Preaching sermons. /
And just about everything else. ///
You may THINK you're excellent, / at whatever. /
You may think you're the best, /
Neither maniac nor idiot /
But until the rubber meets the road, /
until the cranium meets the locker, /
how do you know? ///
Are you as smart as you think? /
Or do you just have a swollen head, /
possibly concussed? ///
—
Paul tells us that everybody has gifts. /
Everybody has abilities. /
Gifts are good. ///
But the Apostle also knows
people tend to overestimate their gifts, /
their driving skills, /
their wisdom. /
They see them not as gifts /
but as birthrights. /
Baby, / I was born this way. ///
They approach the world going, /
"tsk, / tsk, / tsk. /
It's just so sad that everyone else is so… average. /
Or below." /
As we say in the South, /
"Bless the general population's hearts." ///
Paul tells us all that we ought not think of ourselves too highly. /
He says that we ought to think soberly —
instead of being drunk with our own powers. /
And how do you get sober at that? ///
Well, / that's what he says next. /
That we ought to think of ourselves, /
"according to the measure of faith God has assigned us." ///
The measure of faith. /
Our Faith Quotient. /
Our "FQ." ///
Which sounds like something else, /
but save that for the parking lot. ///
How do you measure faith? /
Can you put it on a 1 to 5 star scale? /
A, B, C, D? /
Do you measure faith in a teaspoon? /
Do you carry it in a bucket? /
Can you lift it in a shovel? ///
The measure of faith is a whole different kind of metric. /
And honestly, /
I'm not sure it's one we're even capable of knowing down here. /
Not completely. ///
Jesus used to say it about his disciples all the time. /
"O ye of little faith." ///
Not that they didn't have faith. /
They had plenty of faith, /
enough to drop their nets and follow him. /
Jesus didn't mean their faith wasn't abundant. /
But that the faith they DID have was too small. /
Too small-minded. /
Too short-sighted. /
Too little. /
They had pieces of the puzzle, /
and thought they saw the whole thing. ///
Isn't it funny
how the people with the smallest minds
make the biggest assumptions. /
Over-promise and under-deliver. ///
Small-minded people are exposed by big mistakes. /
Sometimes go to prison for them.
They get into big accidents. /
Because they're so confident
they know better than everyone else. ///
Therefore —
ipso to that facto —
they're people of little faith —
little faith in anyone but themselves. /
Little faith in anything but their own opinions. /
AND little faith in the worth
of the sub-average general population. ///
—
Back in 1969, /
Dr. Laurence J. Peter gave us the Peter Principle. ///
If you watched The Office, /
you know it as the Michael Scott Principle. /
The tendency of pretty good people
to get promoted into incompetence. ///
Michael was a good salesman, /
so they made him Regional Manager
of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. /
Cringe comedy and Jim and Pam's romance ensued.
For nine seasons. ///
I try hard NOT to be the Michael Scott of Senior Pastors. /
Some days I'm more successful than others. /
At least Jean hasn't put my stapler in jello. /
Yet. ///
30 years after the Principle of Peter, / in 1999, /
David Dunning and Justin Kruger
gave us the Dunning-Kruger effect. ///
Dunning-Kruger explains why we know
we're better drivers than all the maniacs
racing through your neighborhood
and all the idiots creeping down Bayou Boulevard. ///
The Dunning-Kruger effect
is the tendency of people with low ability
to give themselves overly positive assessments. /
Grade inflation. ///
According to D-K, /
we judge ourselves as being better than we are, /
as being excellent drivers, /
because that's as far as we know, /
and as far as we care to know. ///
But, / wouldn't you know, /
the Bible had this figured out all along. ///
Way back in around 55 AD, /
the Apostle Paul gave us HIS principle /
that people —
not just Romans —
that we the people tend to think more highly of ourselves
than we ought to —
when we should be thinking more soberly, /
and according to the measure of faith God has given us. ///
Paul's Principle says
we are wise when we're NOT
People of inflated opinions and little faith, /
but when we're people of big faith
that lifts up our opinions of everybody else. ///
That we should be people
Not of little faith, but
People of big faith —
big faith in God, /
big faith in the faith Christ pours into us. /
That we should be people with big faith
that God has given each and every human being
a measure of faith
for which they should ALL be treated with worth, /
with dignity, /
and with care. ///
With the firm belief that in God's eyes no one —
NO ONE —
is sub-average. ///
Every one of us is a treasured child of God. /
Every one of us is a treasure to God. /
All of us: /
The rich, / the poor, /
the most excellent, /
even the most sinful
Even the maniacs and the idiots. ///
This is the sobering thinking
that comes from faith that's bigger than we are. /
This is the sober judgment our faith puts IN us. /
This is the sobering judgment God puts ON us. ///
No one likes a smartypants. /
Even Jesus got mad at the people
who were too big for their britches, /
the ones whose heads were too swollen to fit in the car door. ///
And yet — /
and yet —
these are the people Paul is writing to. /
These are the people the Bible was written for. /
These are the people Jesus died for. /
Like us. ///
Not to punish us for our sins of self-delusion, /
but to open our faith, /
to grow our faith, /
to make it bigger —
to widen our focus. /
To show us still more excellent ways —
as he says in 1 Corinthians 12:31, /
"But I will show you a more excellent way." ///
—
What is the more excellent way? /
What is the more excellent way
to drive, / to speak, / to live? ///
In Romans 12:4 and following, /
Paul says, ///
For just as each of us has one body with many members,
and these members do not all have the same function,
so in Christ we, though many, form one body,
and each member belongs to all the others.
To show us the big picture of our sinful ways, /
Paul points to the people around us. /
Not as examples of sin, /
but as reasons for hope. ///
He says that we all —
we all —
are one body in Christ, /
that we're all part of each other. /
Everything and everyone is delicately interconnected. /
Like it or not, /
we're stuck together like glue. ///
Some of us have the gift to see the truth and speak it. /
Some of us have the gift of ministry. /
Some have the gift of caring. /
Others, / visiting. /
Others, / teaching, /
or leading, /
or compassion, /
or cheerfulness. /
Or driving —
a van full of youth to Montreat —
and returning them safely to the Earth. ///
Which means, /
none of us have to be THE most excellent at everything. /
None of us have to go around correcting everyone else's errors, /
blessing them with OUR example of perfection. ///
That job's already taken —
and surprise, /
the Boss promoted his Son and gave it to him. ///
Our job as disciples of Jesus Christ
is to use our gifts to lift up the gifts of others, /
to lift up others, /
to recognize in others the gifts
that we might not have, /
or might not have — / yet. ///
Look around. /
You'll see lots of examples of excellence –
excellence enough. ///
—
Some days, / life all just works so well for us. /
Some days we honestly know
we deserve five stars for our faith and our actions.
We’re excellent. /
Other days, / a 2.5. /
Other days, / a 0.5 is really good —
the best we can muster. ///
Hey, / we got out of bed. /
And we didn't curse at anybody. /
Yet. /
We didn't cause anyone else to crash and burn. /
And some days, / that's OK. ///
Another day will come tomorrow. /
We may not get the whole job done, /
but there are other people, /
with stars of their own, /
who are also stars
in God's sober and loving judgment. ///
At the end of the semester, /
we all get grades that say, /
"Needs improvement." /
God knows – "It's OK not to be OK." ///
[see Rabbi Brian Mayer, www.ROTB.org]
Our job of faith is not to be the best, /
but to witness to the best, /
to point to the One
who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. /
And that One is not us. ///
Our job is to humbly and soberly
be our part of Christ's body
with all these different working parts. ///
Thank the Lord
that none of us has to wear the smartest of pants. ///
And thank the Lord for the measure of humility —
the measure of faith —
within us all. ///
