Avoiding Jesus as Savior

Tim Keller says this in The Reason for God:

If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding him as Savior. You are trusting in your own own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing with God. You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus.

In missional circles, a lot of emphasis is placed on following Jesus, living out the ways of Jesus, taking him seriously as a rabbi. I think most of this talk and emphasis is good, but do you think it can sometimes end up as a way of avoiding Jesus as Savior? It's easy to look heroic as we try to live out the ways of Jesus, but it is a lot more uncomfortable to take a good long look at the gospel and realize that what makes us Christians isn't how well we follow Jesus, but the fact that we are complete and utter failures who have been accepted and blessed by God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

What do you think? Does an emphasis on following Jesus make it more difficult to remember the gospel of grace?