Being Caught Off Guard

Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor

In our age of outrage, we know people are scouring Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and old interviews to find the slightest moral offense or cultural insensitivity. Hollywood actors, politicians, athletes, comedians, talk show hosts, and musicians are having to offer public apologies and mea culpas to the world for things that were said or done or from decades in the past. Inevitably they will try to explain their actions by saying, “But you need to understand, that’s not me. I don’t have those racist (or fill in the blank) attitudes in my heart. That’s not who I am!” Every time I hear that I wonder, if that’s not you, then who is it? Jesus says, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45 ESV)

If we want to know the true state of our hearts, it is the unguarded moments that most accurately reveal the depth of sin in our hearts. Far from us being able to say, “That’s not me,” we should be prepared to say, “That is exactly who I am at the sinful core of my heart.” Notice that the things that come out of our hearts are the overflow spilling out of what is in our hearts. That is indwelling sin that still resides within me as a believer.

I love what C. S. Lewis wrote about this reality in his book, Mere Christianity:

Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light. Apparently, the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul. Now that cellar is out of reach of my conscious will. I can to some extent control my acts: I have no direct control over my temperament. (Excerpt From: C. S. Lewis. “Mere Christianity.”)

The next time we find unkind, cutting, vulgar, or venomous words coming out of our mouths, instead of rationalizing and excusing them away, allow them to inform us of the areas of our heart that we need to confess to God and pursue repentance. True renovation of the heart begins when we are willing to become radically honest with ourselves and radically honest with a few other brothers or sisters who want to help us along. If we understand that our identity is in Christ and that the love of the Father does not change because we have sinned, we find ourselves more assured in our salvation and more willing to look at those ugly aspects of our life. When we realize how fully and freely we have been forgiven and our behavior does not change the foundational disposition of the Father, we can be open and honest allowing the Holy Spirit to do his work of conforming us to the image of Christ.