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

by Jared C. Wilson

It is as if God is constantly rearranging the furniture inside of it, showing us new things about himself and deepening our appreciation for his glory, but the more we discover this, the more prepared we are for the constant newness. The Bible is a book that teaches us how to read it as we read it.

George Herber...

Oh Book! infinite sweetnesse! let my heart Suck ev’ry letter, and a hony gain, Precious for any grief in any part; To cleare the breast, to mollifie all pain. Thou art all health, health thriving, till it make A full eternitie: thou art a masse Of strange delights, where we may wish and take. Ladies, look here; this is the thankfull glasse, That mends the lookers eyes: this is the well That washes what it shows. Who can indeare Thy praise too much? Thou art...

What is the Bible to Herbert? It is an infinite sweetness! It is a sweet morsel to suck on and savor. It is a delicious medicine, a tantalizing antidote. It is a mirror that both reflects our true sickness and at the same time heals us. It is a fountain whose water reflects our dirtiness and at the same time cleanses us.

Think of how closely connected not hearing and not seeing are in passages such as Matthew 13:13–15, where Jesus is quoting Isaiah 6:9. Consider how important proper healing is for real belief. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Rom. 10:14)

Think of that strange parable Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31, especially the part where the rich man, suffering in the torment of hell, suggests to father Abraham that the sight of a miraculous resurrection would convince his family to repent of their sin. But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” And he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (vv. 29–31)

Let’s get the wax out of our ears. Let’s tune our hearts to Scripture and look for Jesus there. If we do that, I suspect we will find “Bible study” much less routine, much less boring. Jesus cannot be boring.

To know God we must know Jesus. And to feel Scripture well we must see Jesus between its lines and at the beginning and end of its many trajectories. He is there, all over the place, and Christians committed to following him closely will seek the glorious enlightenment of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Scholar N. T. Wright says that we ought to read the New Testament as if Jesus in the Gospels is giving us sheet music for a masterwork symphony and as if Paul and the other New Testament authors are teaching the church how to perform it.

The point of the Christian life is not self-improvement or more Bible knowledge but Christlikeness.

Therefore, how you come to the Word will help shape your capacity to see Christ’s glory there. We see the glory of Christ most compellingly, most powerfully, most authoritatively, and most unerringly in his Word, but we have to look for Christ and his gospel there.

The glory of Christ is actually blaring from the pages of the Bible. God is not only not giving you the silent treatment, he is practically yelling. The problem is not with his voice but with our ears. The more and harder we listen, however, the more of heaven’s glorious music we will hear, and thus the more of heaven’s glory we will see. And then our soul finds the rhythm of heaven.

What a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more. Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Surely if we are to pray without ceasing that means we should be praying while eating, reading, driving, paying the bills, watching movies, listening to music, reading blogs, exercising, and working at our jobs. We should bathe those activities in prayer, in part to keep ourselves tuned Godward throughout our routines and in part to better “take every thought captive” (2 Cor. 10:5) that can enter our minds during times of preoccupation or distraction.

A 2009 Stanford University study published in the journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that concurrent uses of technology overload our mental capacity.2 The results suggested that multitasking actually inhibits the very process we think it helps: efficiency. It turns out that doing several things and consuming several things all at once not only stresses the brain but also prevents us from doing tasks and understanding information with accuracy.

To put it bluntly: if there is a God of the universe (and there is), and this God of the universe loved you and wanted to be in relationship with you (and he does), wouldn’t it be stupid not to talk to him? To put it more nicely, if the God of the universe is in control of our days and loves us enough to provide comfort and power for those who seek him, wouldn’t prayer be the most important part of our day?

Worship is always our response to God’s initiative. We do not of our own initiative seek him; he seeks us (Rom. 10:20). He speaks to us and declares salvation over us in the atoning and reconciling work of Jesus, and worship is our response to the instigation of salvation.

Spilling our guts in prayer is how we process God’s words to us. Prayer is how we interact with our friend Jesus.

We are constantly moving away, and he’s constantly following. He is a much better chaser of us than we are of him. And he’s a much better listener. He picks up everything. You don’t have to repeat yourself, but it’s totally okay if you do.

That is how you find the rhythm of the kingdom in a consumer culture: by seeking the humility that comes from rejection of independence and admission of dependence and embracing the confidence that comes from God’s acceptance of you through Christ. In the words of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.”

Since prayer is acknowledged helplessness—spilling our guts—the more we pray, the more we are abiding in the strength of God alone. The more we pray, the more we are surrendering thoughts of our own glory and the more we are unbusying ourselves with the enterprise of our own glory. Every day we are building our own Babel Towers, and in prayer we lay down our bricks and trowels and let God knock those towers down.

Hebrews 7:25: “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Rom. 8:26)

My wife and I eventually defected, as difficult as it was, and found ourselves on the team of a new church plant where we found not only ministry roles that helped us grow in our gifts but also a community that helped us flourish in our faith. We could be honest about our sins and our struggles and we didn’t find those confessions exploited. There was no ministerial spirit of competition or lusts for power strangling our own ambitions to follow Jesus on mission. We found a safe place to be sinners. We saw what judgment does to the honest and it was very, very bitter. Then we tasted what grace does to the honest, and it was very, very sweet.

The gospel is a family meal. It is meant to be enjoyed regularly and intentionally in the presence of others and for the benefit of others. Somehow, inside, we know this. We are wired for community, actually, even those of us who are sometimes painfully introverted. Even in our self-interest we demonstrate our underlying relational impulse.

The gospel presupposes and prescribes reconciliation; it announces salvation for individuals and a community of salvation. We need each other. The Christian life must be walked within the encouragement, edification, and accountability of Christian community. We need teachers to teach us how to do it, encouragers to inspire and sustain us, givers to remind us to give, helpers to help us embrace servitude, prophets to speak truth to us, and so forth.

Steve Timmis and Tim Chester say that most Christians love the idea of community—until it begins to infringe upon their decision making.5

“Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you” (Rom. 15:7). But until we engage fully in the messy community of discipleship, we cannot expect to feel Christ fully engaged in the mess of us. In fact, these two primary Spiritual rhythms we’ve already looked at—listening to God in his Word and speaking to God in prayer—take us to new depths of understanding and new heights of holiness when we practice them together.

When we confess our sins to each other, we set up the opportunity to share the gospel with each other, and there’s no greater privilege God gives us than to share the good news.

The gospel cannot puff us up; it cannot make us prideful; it cannot make us selfish; it cannot make us arrogant; it cannot make us rude; it cannot make us gossipy; it cannot make us accusers. So it stands to reason that the more we press into the gospel, the more the gospel takes over our hearts and the spaces we bring our hearts to, the less we would see those things. You cannot grow in holiness and holier-than-thou-ness at the same time.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Heb. 13:17)

Look, you may be a total mess. You may have a lot of pain and a lot of struggle. You may find it frustrating to get your act together. If you know this about yourself, why not give the same grace to your leaders that you expect for yourself?

Extroverts sometimes use the community to give the illusion of relational intimacy when really they’re just using people. Introverts often distance themselves from Christian community, retreating into the alleged safety of their solitude, effectively saying, “I have no need of you.” Bonhoeffer says about this dual dynamic: “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”8

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.

The brilliant, God-designed blueprint for kingdom life in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount envisions a community called by God, formed by God, and led by God into worship and outward mission that draws a lost world to behold the glory of God. When we as a community of Christ-followers demonstrate our life in Christ together through our feeling of Scripture, our prayer, our fasting, our service, and our relational intimacy, we create a compelling announcement of the kingdom’s presence in the world.

We must embrace both gospel-driven proclamation (light) and gospel-driven servanthood (salt), for both are vital to the ministry of reconciliation. The call to salt and light is a call to a two-fisted gospel, a call to crucify the idols of self and comfort and convenience and relevance and give ourselves away. Think of the brightness such light would have. The gospel is power and must be wielded with a whole heart.

Yes!

To succeed in keeping the law one must aim at something other and something more. One must aim to become the kind of person from whom the deeds of the law naturally flow. Dallas Willard1

My gospel wants to leap from my pocket and set fire to the whole damned bookcase. Self-help doesn’t help. My self is the problem. How can my self help my self?

Even after many of us are saved, we run ahead of the gospel into the field of the law, in our own power, trying to do great things for God or earn favor with him—all the while forgetting that the only thing the Bible calls power for obedience is the gospel and that it is actually grace that teaches us how to repent and obey.

It’s another great reminder that discipleship is not designed for the individual Christian life. Discipleship is meant to be experienced in the covenantal context of a Christian community.

Biblically speaking, the power of our obedience and the source of our holiness is not our efforts but the finished work of Jesus Christ. It’s God who works in us to will and to work (Phil. 2:12–13). Our good works were ordained beforehand (Eph. 2:10). The same gospel that empowers our conversion empowers our sanctification (Titus 2:11–12; 1 Cor. 15:1–2; Rom. 8:30). It is Jesus who both authors our faith and perfects it (Heb. 12:2). It is God alone who is faithful both to start the work in us and to complete it (Phil. 1:6).

Also notice this: the first list consists largely of actions, even if a few are more mental. The works of the flesh are more generally just that—works. This second list, though, the fruit of the Spirit, largely consists of what we might call qualities or conditions. 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.

More often than not, we are more concerned about people’s love for us than we are our love for people.

Only the gospel orients our love appropriately, because only the gospel reminds us that we are more sinful than we realize (humbling us to see that, apart from Christ, we are just as needy as anybody else and thus have no justification for self-interest) and that we are more loved than we know (empowering us to see that the grace that has saved us is the meaning of the universe and therefore ought to be shared with everyone).

Even if we are engaged in spiritual pursuits, if we are focused on ourselves, we end up only using God and using others. And if you’re using people, you certainly aren’t loving them. Only the gospel gives us the security (of union with Christ) to risk reputation and hurt in order to love others sacrificially and boldly.

And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. (Lev. 23:40) And you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God. (Deut. 27:7) This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Ps. 118:24) So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. (Eccles. 11:8) But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. (Isa. 65:18) Shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart. (Zeph. 3:14) Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! (Zech. 9:9) Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. (Rom. 12:12) Rejoice with those who rejoice. (Rom. 12:15)

Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (Phil. 2:18) Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. (Phil. 4:4) Rejoice always. (1 Thess. 5:16) But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings. (1 Pet. 4:13) Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready. (Rev. 19:7) Finally, brothers, rejoice. (2 Cor. 13:11) And yet what God has commanded of us, he also gifts us as an entailment of salvation. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Rom. 5:2) Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20) Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. (Matt. 5:12) In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Ps. 16:11)

He puts the joy inside of us that he demands from us. What grace! “These things I have spoken to you,” Jesus says, “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). I want a full joy. How about you? When we come to see that Christ, through his gospel, satisfies the root of every desire, we get this joy, which we have been previously seeking everywhere but in Christ.

As with joy, peace is not just commanded but actually given: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

If, indeed, he has overcome the world, we can “take heart.” We can take the heart he himself has given us! This peaceful heart results when we realize that, according to God himself, we are reconciled to him and no longer at enmity, because his Son’s blood has pardoned us, purified us, and pacified us. Peace between us and God comes through propitiation, and if we are at peace with God and have peace from God, what in the world should we be afraid of?