What It Means to Follow Jesus: A Lifetime of Chagrin, Repentance, and Celebration

I’ve recently discovered something I’ve been wrong about for a long time, and it’s hard for me to admit.

I’ve noticed that the older I get, the harder it is to admit I’ve been wrong. Sure, I’ll learn new things, and there’s nothing embarrassing about learning new things, even at my age. But admitting that I’ve been wrong about something I’ve long assumed is downright embarrassing for a man of my mature years.

And yet here I am, in the middle of my seventh decade of life, having walked with Christ for all but five of those decades, just now realizing that I’ve been wrong about something really important for a long time.

What is this new and embarrassing discovery? I have come to realize that I’ve been wrong about the gospel, about the role it plays in my ongoing spiritual life.

I’ve come to realize that the way I have approached my spiritual life would lead me to answer “yes” to Paul’s probing question in his letter to the churches of Galatia: “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3).

I would have to admit that until recently I would have to answer that question in the affirmative: “Yes. I am just so foolish as to think that I would have to complete by my own efforts what God has begun to do by His Spirit.”

I have thought this way because I have misunderstood what the gospel is for. Until just the past few years, I thought the gospel was just the basics of the Christian faith, something that brings us into faith but is largely irrelevant after that.

I know, as soon as I put that assumption into words, it sounds as ridiculous as it is.

I was partly right about the gospel, of course. As we first respond to the gospel, God’s Spirit convicts us of our sin and of our hopeless state before a Holy God. The gospel shows us that our only hope lies not in our virtuous actions or even our good intentions but in what God has already given us in Christ.

So, yes, the gospel introduces me to Jesus as my only hope. I got that much right. That is the glorious entrance of the gospel into a life darkened and ruined by sin.

My problem – and it is significant – was that I thought that was all the gospel was for. Once you’ve put your faith in Christ, the gospel is no longer relevant; you no longer need to rehearse the fact that Jesus died for your sins. Once you’ve been born again, you’re on your own dealing with sin and guilt.

Or so I thought.

What is the result of this way of shortsighted way of thinking about the gospel?

If the gospel speaks only to my transgressions before I came to faith, if it’s up to me to manage my sin and guilt after that, I am doomed to frustration and failure because I am in a lose-lose situation.

Either I have “victory over sin” (that is, I manage my behavior well enough to pacify my conscience) and I cultivate a self-righteous spirit, looking down on others who are not so disciplined and “victorious.”

Or, when I fail – when I fall into sin – I resort to the old techniques of justifying my sin – comparing, rationalizing, hiding, making excuses.

I lose either way, either as a Pharisee or as a guilt-laden sinner.

When we focus on our own performance (what we are doing) instead of on the gospel (what Christ has done), we lose sight of the gospel, we forget that we continue to need God’s grace. Jerry Bridges’ book The Discipline of Grace explains it this way: “Pharisee-type believers unconsciously think they have earned God’s blessing through their behavior. Guilt-laden believers are quite sure they have forfeited God’s blessing through their lack of discipline or their disobedience. Both have forgotten the meaning of grace because they have moved away from the gospel and slipped into a performance relationship with God.”

When I was a teen, I was part of a Bible quiz team at my church. Some quizzers were very quick and very smart, and the other team members came to count on those quizzing super-stars to carry the team.

So our coach came up with a solution. He printed a label with the letters “IADOM” and taped it in a prominent location where we would always see it when we were in competition. He wanted each team member – not just the star quizzers but all of us – to realize “It all depends on me.”

It’s another way of expressing the old cliché that “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link” (a saying I first heard in eighth grade from our soccer coach). And it’s true in team sports: the success of a team depends not just on the few stars but on each teammate playing his or her role well.

“IADOM” might be a good motivational technique for team sports, but it is a lethal way to think about my spiritual life.

Because it doesn’t depend on me.

My life with God is something He purchased for me in Christ and is making actual in me by His Spirit. And it depends not on me but on what He has given me in Christ and in His Spirit.

Having said that, I must then acknowledge that my daily experience often doesn’t look as if it’s trending in the direction of holiness. My sins are many and various: lapses in judgment, compulsive acts of regrettable passion and knowing and deliberate transgressions.

And that gap between what I have in Christ and how I actually live my life is precisely why I need the gospel daily.

It is in my own keen awareness of my sin – both my deeply entrenched tendency to sin and in the actual sins that I commit – that I see over and over again my continued need for the gospel. In the gospel, and only in the gospel, I have the resources to deal honestly with my sin without being overwhelmed by guilt.

Bridges again: ”The gospel, applied to our hearts every day, frees us to be brutally honest with ourselves and with God. The assurance of His total forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ means we don’t have to play defensive games anymore. We don’t have to rationalize and excuse our sins.”

As I say, it is embarrassing for me to admit that I’m just now getting this. After all, I’ve walked with Jesus since I was a very small child. And I’ve had almost ten years of Christian education, including a seminary degree. Shouldn’t I have had understood this long ago? What took me so long?

Which leads me to make this observation about what it means to follow Jesus: There’s a lovely pattern here. God’s Spirit will be about this task for the rest of my earthly days: unmasking my idols, exposing my secret sins, laying bare the absurdity of my assumptions.

And as He does His patient and persistent work in my heart and mind, I will repeatedly experience first the chagrin of realizing how wrong I’ve been and then, as I repent and confess, I will experience the joy of celebrating His gracious work in my life.

This is how God’s Spirit does His gracious, patient work of reframing my inner self, recalibrating my spiritual instincts, patiently overseeing and carrying out my spiritual formation.

And this will be my story, from now until I reach the other side: chagrin, repentance, celebration.
And thanks be to God, this will all be His doing, not mine.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor

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