The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together

by Jared C. Wilson

In short, I am a riddle to myself; a heap of inconsistence. John Newton1

Self-help is like sticking your broken hand in the blender, thinking that’ll fix it.

The sins of garden-variety human beings are frustratingly redundant. I don’t recall ever moving on from one area of battle to another with anybody I’ve ever “done discipleship” with. Nobody ever “achieved victory.” It’s the same old thing every time. We like our ruts, and our ruts like us.

And it’s not just the sins that don’t seem to go away; it’s the wounds too. These two things are not the same! We have to get that straight, first of all. Too many foolish teachers in the church equate wounds with sins, and vice versa, and this needlessly frustrates people’s following of Jesus.

Jesus wasn’t blowing smoke. His major contribution to the world was not a set of aphorisms. He was born in a turdy barn, grew up in a dirty world, got baptized in a muddy river. He put his hands on the oozing wounds of lepers, he let whores brush his hair and soldiers pull it out. He went to dinner with dirtbags, both religious and irreligious. His closest friends were a collection of crude fishermen and cultural traitors. He felt the spittle of the Pharisees on his face and the metal hooks of the jailer’s whip in the flesh of his back. He got sweaty and dirty and bloody—and he took all of the sin and mess of the world onto himself, onto the cross to which he was nailed naked.

What is discipleship, then, but following Jesus not on some religious quest to become bigger, better, or faster but to become more trusting of his mercy toward our total inability to become those things?

And, in fact, we somehow have an inverted sense of measurement in that big things seem to us small or familiar while small things become big to us, at least in terms of our time and attention and energy.

When our vision is constantly occupied by small things, we are tempted to yawn more at the glory of God.

But more central to our discipleship is the news that actually makes Christianity Christianity: we are holy not because of what we’ve done but because of what Jesus has done.

In prayer, we take on the right spiritual proportion—needy, helpless, dependent, faithful—that the glory of Christ might more fully fill us.

The gospel of prayer is that we need not pray to earn favor with God but rather to enjoy God’s favor already given to us in Jesus. And the good news about prayer is that this favor is applied by the Trinity praying within itself about and for us. Isn’t that amazing?

Maybe your church excels at this, but it’s become pretty routine for a church to ensure low attendance by scheduling a prayer service. Pastors, the first thing you ought to do about your people’s reluctance to pray is pray. Pray for them. And with them. And by them and in front of them.

The church Paul is writing to is experiencing a unity of doctrine, sure. But it is also experiencing the harmony of what that doctrine produces. The doctrine of grace when administered with a spirit of grace gradually becomes a culture of grace.

But can I be honest? In my forty years in the church, despite some negative experiences with a few pastors, I’ve encountered way more bullies in the pews than in the pulpits. There are just as many pastors victimized by graceless congregants as vice versa. I

Maybe you think church would be great if it weren’t for the people. But if it weren’t for the people, you would not know the depths of the gospel the way Jesus wants you to. Maybe it’s time your wish dream gets shattered. You’re not all you’re cracked up to be either, you know.

We are only these together. No Christian alone is the salt of the earth. No Christian is individually the light of the world. The church is the salt of the earth. The church is the light of the world.

If we can take anything away from a blunt comparison of the lists, it might be this: the solution to bad things we do isn’t good things to do but good things to be.

I can stop fuming about the lady in front of me in the grocery store express line with forty-six more items than the allotted ten. I might have freely chosen this line but God saw this moment coming. He predestined this very circumstance. If I believe that, I can be patient.

Let them come with their words, then. Let the devil come with his barrage of lies, even his truths-turned-lies. I rebuke him. I confound him. I may be in the ditch of Romans 7 but I throw Romans 8 at his sniveling little face.

He said, “When we were sitting in the hospital waiting on the test results—and we didn’t know exactly what they’d be, but they’d already told us to expect bad news, so we knew it wasn’t going to be anything good—I looked at him and said, ‘No father should bury his son.’ And Richard looked at me and said, ‘No, Dad, this is a good thing. This is a good thing, because God can use it.’” What? How do you get to that point? How do you get to the point of looking at your impending death and thinking, Well, if this is what God wants, it must be good?

When you are in the pit of suffering—on the verge of death, even—Jesus isn’t up in heaven simply blasting you down below with some ethereal virtues. He’s not “sending good thoughts”—or worse, “good vibes”—your way. No, when you are laid low in the dark well of despair, when the whole world seems to be crashing down on you, when your next breath seems sure to be your last, Christ Jesus is down in the void with you, holding you. He keeps your hand between his own. He offers his breast for your weary head. He whispers the words of comfort a whisker’s breadth from your ear: “And behold, I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20, emphasis added). Grace is all-sufficient for weakness and for suffering because Jesus is all-sufficient.

To practice followship of Jesus is to believe the descriptions. It is to believe that around the corner where we cannot yet go is the most wonderful thing we could ever imagine—in fact, it is beyond imagination, beyond what we can conceive.

This is how you boast in your weakness and suffering too. This is how you boast in your sorry little devotional life. This is how you boast in your constant inability to get your act together. No, not by seeing a physical revelation of the heaven that awaits you. But by beholding a vision of the glorious Christ, whose power rests on you if you’re a believer.