More Than a Christian: Becoming a Disciple

Hopefully y'all can hear me.
To introduce myself, my name is Jesus Jolimo, but people from high school know me as Little J.
I'm from Childress, Texas, and I'm an exercise science major, and I am a member of Alpha Chi Delta.
and I just want to start with a question that just challenged me deeply and I hopefully challenge
y'all a lot of us today here call ourselves Christians you know but in the New Testament
the word Christian and the word similar to that was used three times
but the word disciple was used over 260 times
so we call to be christians or called to follow christ so i just want to give you
like simple steps that can help you become a disciple because we are called to be disciples
of christ and step one is uh creating habits from jesus luke 9 verse 23 says anyone will come after
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me and the word that stuck out to me
in that verse is that jesus said daily discipleship is not a one-time decision
it's a habit that you have to do every day and if you want to follow jesus we have to look at
how he lived. Newcomers that are new to faith, even people that have been reading the Bible,
read the New Testament because I promise, watch, read how Jesus lived because that's how you build
habits from Jesus because he withdrew from the crowds. He prayed regularly. He made time alone
to be in the Father, even before he got crucified, he prayed at the garden.
He surrendered, and he said to God that it's not my will, but yours.
He loved intentionally.
He served people.
He forgave people.
Discipleship isn't about copying his miracles.
it's about copying his habits that he built
step two is abiding christ and john 15 4 says abide in me and i in you and abide means
to remain to stay connected and i just want to be vulnerable at this time i want to be honest with
y'all. There's a time in my life where I went to Honduras for a mission trip, and I wanted my mom
to go with me, but instead my mom told me my dad come with me, and growing up, me and my dad didn't
have the best relationship. He made mistakes that affected my family, but mostly affected me.
So going to Honduras, one of the last days, we were in a circle, and he was sitting right next
and he started crying.
And what he said to me
meant something to me.
He told me that he looks up to me.
I'm his firstborn son
and he says he looks up to me
and he says he's proud of me.
And that meant everything to me
but it also scared me
because I realized that people in my family
or people outside my family
are watching how I live.
or watching me.
So I hold myself to a high standard
and when I fall short,
I just don't feel bad.
I feel guilt and shame
because I'm not living to that high standard
that I put myself to.
I was trying to carry the weight
of being a good example on my own,
but Jesus told me
to abide in him.
And a few ways that you can abide in Christ
is you can go in your room,
turn off all the lights,
or find a quiet place
and just be in his presence.
Pray to him first, first of all.
But be in his presence.
And whatever you put 100% into
and you put God first into that,
that's abiding in Christ.
That's remaining in Christ.
That's an act of worship for Christ.
So when we abide in Christ,
our identity is not built on performance.
It's built on connection.
Step three is to find in a community.
You know, we go to LCU,
so the Christian life or the disciple life
was never meant to be alone
because Jesus had disciples around him.
He taught groups.
He walked with people,
and he lived in community.
So if we're serious about being disciples, at following Christ, we need people in our lives who can encourage us, who can challenge us, who can pray for us and also call us out when we're drifting away.
And I know that's hard to hear, but we need people in our lives like that.
Isolation makes obedience harder, but community makes growth stronger.
Some of us are trying to fight battles that we know are not meant to fight alone.
So if you want to grow, find a small group.
Text some of your friends.
Say, I want to do a Bible study.
Or I want to do a testimony.
And I just want to get to know you all on a spiritual level, on a deeper level,
so you can find people that you can lean on to.
If not, I highly suggest find a mentor.
or find someone that's older than you, that's more experienced than you,
that, you know, is more into the Word, that knows more into the Word.
Because I have someone, Drew Jordan, he's been there for me for a while now,
since junior year of high school.
I reached out to him in church.
I was like, hey, I'm going through something.
Can you help me out?
And he said, of course, come over.
And so one talk led to another talk, led to another talk,
And we started talking every Sunday after church.
But now in college, you know, we're both busy, so we talk once or twice a month.
But we build each other up.
Even though he builds me up spiritually, mentally, physically, I also build him up.
If not, find one person that you can be honest with.
If y'all need someone to talk to, someone to listen, y'all can come talk to me.
I promise you that.
But find a friend or someone that you trust the most that you can talk to.
Because we're not able to hold all these burdens.
We're not.
And for the men out there, it's okay to be vulnerable.
We don't need to be this ticking bomb holding all these burdens and then exploding.
Because I was once right there.
it's okay to be vulnerable it's okay to let all these burdens off of you
you cannot become who god is calling you be by yourself
and the final step is renewing your mind romans 12 verse 2 says do not be conformed to the
patterns of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You know, we all had these
moments, you know, this motivation to change, you know. I don't know, but I had one of these moments
where, you know, it was like late at night. I was scrolling through TikTok, and I found this
motivational video, and I was like, man, you know, you know what? You know, I'm going to start doing
push-ups this time. I'm going to start doing sit-ups, you know. I'm going to wake up at 5 a.m.,
and start running three miles, you know, it's going to be easy.
But when that alarm clock hit, I pressed snooze.
Why? Why did I do that?
Because motivation fades away.
It will fade away.
But renewal transforms.
Renewing your mind means letting God reshape how you think about your success, about pressure, about identity, and about obedience.
The world says protect your image.
But Jesus says deny yourself.
The world says follow your feelings.
Jesus says follow me.
And I'm going to end this chapel talk with an analogy that I've been using for a while.
I bet some of my friends heard me say this, but let this side represent God.
There's a ladder, ladder right here, that represents God.
And there's another ladder right here that represents the world.
And if you try to go in the middle and try to reach both at the top, you're not going to reach at the top.
You just can't.
You'll be stuck in the middle, and that's kind of what we call like a lukewarm Christian, just living in the middle.
But at one point in your life, you're going to have to choose.
Either follow the world or follow God.
There's always going to be a point in your life that you're going to have to make that decision, whether or not you like it or not, you know.
And there's this verse in Matthew 7 where these people was like, Lord, Lord, I did all these good things.
You know, I gave to the poor.
I tithe.
I did all of this.
But Jesus told him, go away, you evildoers, because they were doing it for the religious standpoint, not just to follow him.
Jesus wants us to have a relationship with him.
That's why we're here today, sitting here right now, alive right now, because Jesus needs you for the kingdom of heaven.
That's why you're here.
He needs you.
He wants you to be a person.
He wants you to fulfill his purpose that he has for you.
all you gotta do is just walk through that door
and say yes
I'm gonna follow you forever
I wanna become a disciple of you
show me your ways
so don't call yourself a Christian
because 99% of us are Christians
but only 1% of us are disciples
it's hard to hear right so don't call yourself a christian be a disciple
follow daily build habits from jesus abide in christ
renew your mind y'all have any questions that y'all have for me after this travel talk that
y'all want to know more about this i'm gladly to answer any else questions but this is where
life is found. Do these four steps, and I promise you'll get closer to God. You'll have a relationship
with Jesus, and you will become a disciple. You're dismissed.
Thank you.