The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together
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About this ebook
For the believer who is tired of quasi-spiritual lifehacks being passed off as true, down-and-dirty discipleship, here is a discipleship book that isn't afraid to be honest about the mess we call real life. With incisive wit, warm humor, and moving stories, Jared Wilson shows readers how the gospel works in them and in their lives when
- they can't get their act together
- they think God is giving them the silent treatment
- they think church would be better without all the people
- they're not happy with the person in the mirror
- and much more
Wilson frees readers from the self-doubt and even the misplaced self-confidence they may feel as they walk with Jesus down the often difficult road of life. The result is a faith that weathers storms, lifts burdens, and goes forth to make more imperfect disciples.
Jared C. Wilson
Jared C. Wilson is assistant professor of pastoral ministry and author in residence at Midwestern Seminary, pastor for preaching and director of the pastoral training center at Liberty Baptist Church, and author of numerous books, including The Gospel-Driven Church, Gospel-Driven Ministry, and The Prodigal Church. He hosts the For the Church podcast and cohosts The Art of Pastoring podcast.
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Reviews for The Imperfect Disciple
12 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Book Recommendation #10
The title and sub-title are fitting; read this book if you need a reminder of the amazing grace that saved you, rescued you, and made you (and is making you, day-by-day) fit for service in the kingdom of your Lord; I would highly recommend this to anyone who has been a Christian for any amount of time: for those seasoned in his service, you'll be challenged to consider your salvation afresh, and for those who are new to God's family: you'll be encouraged to passionately follow your new master with all that you are. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book that's more about why we can't master spiritual disciplines than a "to do" list to become better disciples. A very personal and open book on the author's struggles in both his personal and professional life.
Book preview
The Imperfect Disciple - Jared C. Wilson
© 2017 by Jared C. Wilson
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0927-3
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2011
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Jared does a great job, with his humorous yet serious style, reminding us of God’s perfection in the midst of our inconsistencies, fears, and falls—in other words he has faithfully ‘demystified discipleship.’ Whether you feel you’re barely hanging in there or riding a wave of joy-saturated obedience, the grace of God found in this book will encourage and remind the saint that there is only One who is perfect—and that perfection is enough for all who believe on the name of Jesus.
Matt Chandler, lead teaching pastor, The Village Church
Even though St. Paul wrote that the gospel was ‘of first importance,’ for some reason most people, even Christians (no less), don’t really believe it. What we want are practical steps about how to build a discipleship group and facilitate communication, and though those things aren’t wrong in themselves, we want to do it detached from the gospel itself. Which, of course, means that it’s doomed to failure before we even start. But this book is different. Jared ties everything he has to say about being and loving disciples to the realities of what Jesus has already done. And that, dear friends, is what sets this wonderful book apart from all the others. Please do buy it. Buy one for a friend. And then read it together—and rejoice in the gospel.
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, counselor and speaker; author of Because He Loves Me
"Too often discipleship is described in strings of clichés. In Imperfect Disciple, Jared Wilson cuts the string, shares his story, and helps readers envision following Jesus in clear, inviting, and realistic ways. It’s personal, prophetic, and pastoral and it will help readers reimagine discipleship as a real possibility in the midst of ordinary life."
Mike Cosper, founder and director, Harbor Media
"Wilson takes our idea of discipleship—you know, the list of things we need to do to be a perfectly obedient Christian—and turns it on its head. Discipleship is not about our to-do lists; it’s about the glorious gospel. Wilson makes us dizzy with gospel truth and disoriented by beholding the Lamb of God. He helps us refocus so that our obedience is no longer about us. You’ll be encouraged as you read this book about discipleship."
Trillia Newbell, author of Enjoy, Fear and Faith, and United
"Drawing from Jared Wilson’s own story, The Imperfect Disciple is a book about grace for people who know about grace. It replaces our neat and tidy notions of discipleship with the real-life messiness of real people—even the good
ones. For anyone who draws confidence—or shame—from the belief that God is keeping track of their goodness, this book is for you."
Sharon Hodde Miller, writer and speaker
Follow Jared as he demystifies discipleship on this unpredictable quest into the kindness of Christ.
Christian George, curator of The Spurgeon Library; assistant professor of historical theology at Midwestern Seminary; author of Sex, Sushi, and Salvation
"While most every Christian would joyfully acknowledge that we are saved by grace alone, many of us live as if our ongoing growth in Jesus is not driven and sustained by that same grace. In terms of our discipleship, we suffer from the same self-justifying tendencies that would keep us from the cross to begin with. I’m grateful, then, for this refreshing, grace-saturated, and realistic treatment of what it means to follow Jesus."
Michael Kelley, director of discipleship at Lifeway Christian Resources; author of Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life
This is the most refreshing and encouraging book of discipleship I’ve read in the past decade. For twenty-one years, I had the priceless experience of being pursued, loved, and fathered by a 5’6
gospel Yoda named Jack Miller, who taught me, showed me, and prayed into my bones that my need for Jesus is far greater than I’ll realize in this life, but that the grace of Jesus is exponentially more extravagant, outrageous, and liberating than I could ever imagine or hope. With tears, I write this ‘blurb,’ because Jared has given fresh words, voice, and understanding to this grand reality. Everything about me is imperfect, so I’m just like you. Together, let’s seek to discover the much-more-ness of the perfect gospel. Jared helps us do so, with his words and heart."
Scotty Smith, teacher in residence, West End Community Church, Nashville, Tennessee
I’ve read too many ‘discipleship’ books that made me feel, somehow, less. This book is the exact, wonderful opposite. It’s like talking with a very insightful friend about Jesus. It’s honest, thoughtful, and unpretentious. Thank you, Jared.
Brant Hansen, storyteller/radio guy, CURE International
"In a world—and church—infatuated with ‘leaders,’ ‘platforms,’ and ‘influence,’ The Imperfect Disciple offers a much-needed antidote to our leadership overdose: following. Jared Wilson reminds us that following Christ is not about what we do but about who we are. And we need be no more—or no less—than flawed but faithful disciples of the One who has already won all of our battles for us."
Karen Swallow Prior, PhD, author of Booked and Fierce Convictions—The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More
For Mom and Dad,
who imperfectly but consistently
lived out in front of us
normal, regular, non-weird Christianity.
But she came and knelt before him, saying, Lord, help me.
And he answered, It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.
She said, Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.
Matthew 15:25–27
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 2
Copyright Page 3
Endorsements 4
Dedication 5
Epigraph 6
You Should Probably Read This Introduction 11
When You Wonder If This Book Is Worth Reading
1. Sin and the Art of Soul Maintenance 15
When You Can’t Get Your Act Together
2. Good News for Losers 33
When You Don’t See the Advantage of Being at the Bottom
3. Staring at the Glory until You See It 53
When You Struggle to Believe Beholding Is Better Than Behaving
4. The Rhythm of Listening 73
When You Think God Is Giving You the Silent Treatment
5. The Rhythm of Spilling Your Guts 99
When You Realize You’re the One Giving the Silent Treatment
6. The Revolution Will Not Be Instagrammed 117
When You Think Church Would Be Better without All the People
7. The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Followship 147
When You Feel Stuck
8. Will the Real Me Please Stand Up? 175
When You’re Not Happy with the Person in the Mirror
9. Does Grace Go All the Way Down? 197
When You Wonder If It Could Get Any Worse
10. Lurv Wins 211
When You Look Forward to the End
This Conclusion Isn’t Very Long 229
When You’re Almost Done Reading This Book
Notes 231
About the Author 235
Back Ads 237
Back Cover 241
You Should Probably Read This Introduction
(When You Wonder If This Book Is Worth Reading)
Here’s a question I used to ask the people I taught in church: "What comes to mind when you hear the word discipleship?"
Some people would play word-association and I’d get a string of adjectives in response: difficult, trusting, adventurous, obedient, and so forth.
I don’t recall many people thinking too long about the question. Very quickly somebody would offer up the right answer
—at least, the right answer for our context—Discipleship means following Jesus.
Well, yeah.
Christian discipleship does mean following Jesus. It means following Jesus wherever he goes. It means lashing ourselves to him like a sailor in a storm-tossed boat might lash himself to the mast.
When church people say, Discipleship means following Jesus,
I think they tend to picture a group of suntanned dudes in cantata-quality robe costumes peacefully strolling through green pastures, perhaps stopping here and there under the comfortable shade of a tree to watch Jesus smile at them and tousle the hair of precocious children scampering about at his Birkenstocked feet.
Or maybe I’m just cynical.
When I ask, "What comes to mind when you hear the word discipleship?" I’d love to hear people answer more along these lines:
Believing God has a plan for me even when I’m afraid he doesn’t.
Believing God loves me even when I feel like nobody else does.
Trusting that God is doing something for my good even though my life has always been terrible up till now.
Following Jesus even though my feelings speak more loudly.
Denying myself in order to do what’s right although I don’t really want to.
Imagining a time when I won’t hurt as much as I do now.
Imagining a time when my spouse or child won’t hurt as much as they do now.
You get the idea, I hope. None of those responses really suffices as a definition of discipleship like you’d find in a theological dictionary, but they all put more skin on the word, I think.
Sometimes I read books and articles on discipleship and I wonder who in the world they’re written for. And then I remember: Oh, yeah—for people who give the Sunday-school answers in Sunday school but save the real, life-or-death, grasping-for-meaning, gasping-for-breath grappling with God for those rare moments when they’re all alone, undistracted, and unable to fend off the crushing sense of their own inadequacies and apprehensions about the world and their place in it. I tend to think that a lot of the ways the evangelical church teaches discipleship seem designed for people who don’t appear to really need it. It’s like the über-toned CrossFit junkie who adds a spin class to his weekly schedule, because, well, why not?
I wonder sometimes how all of our steps, tips, and quasi-spiritual life hacks
come across to the Christian woman who is married to an unbelieving husband completely apathetic to the things of God, to the young Christian whose parents aren’t saved and hate that he is, to the husband whose wife seems more interested in Pinterest than in him, to the working-class guys and gals who see through the slick pick-me-ups of the privileged, to the frequently discouraged, the constantly disappointed, and the perennially depressed.
For those of us who have struggled our whole life to get our act together, what does a discipleship built around getting your act together eventually do?
Well, I don’t know about you, but it about made me give up.
My gracious publisher, Baker, wanted me to write a book on discipleship. I said, Okay. But I have one condition: it has to be printed with my blood.
Naturally, they had some health concerns about that—for me and for you. So I clarified. See, I don’t want to write the kind of discipleship book most people are too afraid to say they’re sick of. I don’t want to write a discipleship book for people who put notches on their Belts of Truth every time they read a discipleship book. I don’t want to write about being extreme or radical or taking it to the limit or maxing out your potential or reaching the stars or drinking cloud-juice or whatever.
I want to write a discipleship book for normal people, for people like me who know that discipleship means following Jesus—and we know that following Jesus is totally worth it, because Jesus is the end-all, be-all—but we often find that following Jesus takes us to some pretty difficult places.
I want to write a book for the Christians whose discipleship has gotten them a little bloody.
So I said, How about a book on discipleship for people who don’t feel saved each morning until they’ve had at least two cups of coffee? How about a book on following Jesus for the guy or gal sitting there in small group always wondering if it’s safe to say what they’re thinking? For the sake of the cut-ups and the screwups, the tired and the torn-up, the weary and the wounded—how about we demystify discipleship?
And they said, astonishingly, Okay.
So here you have it, in your cold little hands. This book on following Jesus is for all of you people who, like me, are tired of the mass-marketed, self-helpy be a better Christian
projects. It’s not printed with my blood, but I did bleed on the pages a little bit.
1
Sin and the Art of Soul Maintenance
(When You Can’t Get Your Act Together)
In short, I am a riddle to myself; a heap of inconsistence.
John Newton1
My gospel is a little sweaty and ragged around the edges. The print is smeared a little bit, and it’s flat and conformed to the contour of my upper thigh from hiding in my front pocket. Maybe your gospel looks like mine. Sometimes it can feel weird to show it to somebody.
When I was in the ninth grade I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and every day during that freshman year I walked home from school with my friend Steve. We had to walk a long way from El Dorado High School along Juan Tabo Boulevard before reaching the turnoff to our neighborhood. Steve was short and round; I was tall and skinny. We looked like a teenage Abbot and Costello ambling down the sidewalk. We were the frequent victims of drive-by shouting. We’d laugh about it, usually, because it was often difficult to make out the substance of this verbal abuse, thanks to the Doppler effect and the generally loud traffic noise on the street. But mainly I recall our sexuality being questioned.
One day, somebody threw a Ziploc baggie of water at us. Not a water balloon. A Ziploc baggie full of water. Steve got hit in the back. He was a pretty good sport about it, honestly. After it—splat!—smacked him square between the shoulder blades, it plopped unbroken onto the sidewalk. We stared at it for a few seconds. A baggie of water? Who does that?
Whenever we made it to the turnoff into the neighborhood, we had about fifteen more minutes of walking before we split off for our respective homes. Once we’d cleared the American Ninja Warrior course of Juan Tabo, those fifteen minutes were really the only uninterrupted time of talking we had on our journey home. We usually spent them talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger movies or rap music. I usually also spent them trying to figure out how to talk to Steve about Jesus.
I kept this tract in my pocket. And every day I thought about how to bring it out and explain its contents to Steve. But there never seemed to be an ideal opening in the conversation. You can’t talk about Predator and The Running Man and somehow smoothly transition into the Romans Road. Still more difficult is this transition from Steve waxing enthusiastic about The Humpty Dance.
I mean, I wanted to, but I couldn’t figure out how to get from being called fags
by some stupid meat-head with his stupid meat-head face hanging out the window of his stupid meat-head El Camino, or having a baggie of water thrown at us, to God having a wonderful plan for Steve’s life.
So the tract stayed put, for months on end.
Let me back up a bit. Because to understand my anxiety and apprehension about evangelizing the bejeezus out of Steve on these walks home, you have to understand how I’d been trained to evangelize—how I’d been discipled.
I grew up in the eighties attending a relatively normal Baptist church. The church was neither very traditional nor very modern. It was your run-of-the-mill, slacks-on-Sunday-morning and jeans-on-Sunday-night evangelical congregation. The gospel of Jesus was there and every sinner heard it—every sinner, that is, except those who’d already heard it. The idea that grace was for Christians too was somewhat of a foreign concept; grace was Christianity 101. Once you had God’s grace, you had to move on to bigger things, to what we called deeper
things, things like charts of the end-times and pledging abstinence until marriage. (I really hoped I’d be able to get married and have sex before Jesus returned, which might tell you a little something about how poorly we’d been pitched the concept of Christ’s glorious second coming.)
Grace got me into God’s family. I walked an aisle when I was five or six, was quickly baptized thereafter, said the sinner’s prayer a second time when I was twelve just for good measure, and was rebaptized at fifteen to make extra sure. I had that grace in my pocket, sure enough. But it was pretty clear that now I was sort of hanging on by a thread. And as a neurotic, sinful, messed-up kid, I felt like I was constantly dangling over hellfire.
There were endless checklists and progress charts tracking my growth in the Christian life. By the time I got to junior high school, I was committed to looking like the best Christian kid I could be. This is a hard place to be if you’re not exactly sure Jesus loves you, or even likes you. I kind of felt like I was a Christian only because the Bible says God is love,
and so if I signed on the dotted line, he had to take me. I was exploiting his own loophole.
By the time I reached the ninth grade, I had already sensed a calling into vocational ministry, which only intensified my commitment to playing the part of a good religious kid. And this is what made ninth-grade Sunday school so excruciating. Every Sunday morning, at the start of class, our teacher would ask us who we’d witnessed to the previous week. Most of us, I’m convinced, just made