I want to talk about two things Jesus never said. First thing Jesus never said to his followers: “Just believe in me.”

Now, it’s true – to the crowds he often said to believe, like in John 5 – Jesus says, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

And even to his own disciples, he said, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” … but then he said…”whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.” So Jesus’ followers were expected to be DOERS…not just BELIEVERS.

And that’s important, because you can BELIEVE lots of things, but not BELONG to that thing. I believe Teslas are cool cars. I will never own one. I believe watching a good college football game is excited. I don’t follow any team. I believe firefighting is a fascinating profession. I have no plans to ever become a firefighter. I believe it would be cool to know how to cook. I have done NOTHING to act on that belief – I cook in a microwave.

See, there are tons of things we can say we BELIEVE, but we don’t believe it so strongly that we BELONG to it so that it changes our behavior. Some people own Teslas. Some are die-hard college football fans. Some people work as firefighters. Some are expert cooks at home. I am none of those things. What’s the difference between them & me? They belong to those truths they believe, enough that they act on it.

So…what about you? If you consider yourself a Christian, and say, “I believe in Jesus Christ” – well, what does that mean? Do you BELIEVE strongly enough that you BELONG to him? And Jesus had a word for the people who belonged to him: It was “disciple.”

Disciples followed him around. They spent lots and lots of time with him. They believed his teachings, but it didn’t stop there…..at the end of his time on earth, before Jesus went to heaven, do you know what he said to his disciples? He told them to “go into the world and make other disciples…baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

See, Jesus doesn’t want just believers. He wants followers.

And here’s the second thing Jesus never said: “Go build church buildings.”

Nope. Whenever Jesus talked about “church,” he wasn’t talking about buildings, he was talking about people….groups of followers. So many times when we think of “church,” we think of “Going to church” and we picture the building, or the room, or the Caffe, and I love being on our campus, but it’s all meant for a purpose, and that purpose is: that the church we build and strengthen is you.

The church was never meant to be an amusement park, or a restaurant, or a concert venue. A church isn’t a skate park, or a room with foosball tables & video games. Church is not a summer camp– those are just places that we use to actually build the real church – which is a group of people – you – who then go out and be Jesus’ disciples, and hopefully make other disciples.

We don’t need a building to do what Jesus commanded. It sure helps, but the real church is the building up of me & you, and it’s not like that can only happen at church buildings.

And that’s why today, I want to invite you into something called “Discipleship Experience” – “DX” for short. Discipleship Experience is all about helping you become a disciple of Jesus, which is what he wants, and discipleship can and should happen no matter where you live, no matter who you are, no matter where you’re allowed to go. In Elevate we talk about helping you “take the next step”…well, this is the next step.

If you’ve grown up in church, and since you were a kid you’ve said, “I believe in Jesus” – DX is all about putting your money where your mouth is. It’s about moving beyond, “Oh, hey, Jesus – you’re a cool dude.” to, “No, Jesus – I am in as your follower.”

In part one of the Discipleship Experience – DX-1 – it’s all about training you to get good at spending time with God.

So I want to challenge you – with a partner – to spend 40 days going through this devotional called Awesome God. This book is out of print, meaning you cannot buy a new copy anywhere, but I like it so much I wrote to the authors and said hey, are you ok with me scanning the pages and sending them out for free to Jr High students who might want to do this? They said: absolutely, you can do that. Go for it. So because Rich Miller and Neil Anderson are generous guys, you don’t have to spend anything, you don’t have to order anything. It’s all being given free to you online to help you grow & spend time with God.

I mentioned having a partner. DX is something you do TOGETHER. Because on your own, you lose motivation. You don’t keep up. But also, as you go through Awesome God, we want you to be talking with someone about what you’re experiencing as you spend time with God.

So now – let me address some questions & excuses that are probably in your mind:

#1 – Is this school?

This is not school. With school, you read & do assignments and the focus is usually projects and tests. That’s not what this is. This is about how to use a devotional for its intended purpose, which is to help you spend time with God. If you can just get in a quiet place and be with God, and you already have a habit of doing that regularly, and you feel close to him in that time and away from that time – then you don’t need DX-1. You’re already doing it. The rest of us – we probably need this.

Excuse #2: I’m Zoomed out.

The amount of Zoom involved with DX-1 is actually pretty low. You’ll be checking in with your partner every day to make sure you both stay on track. But you’ll be doing a video call with a discipleship coach once a week, and those calls are easy – they’re not quizzes, you just answer questions about yourself, and you’ll work that out with your partner and your coach.

Excuse #3: I’ll just do something like this when I’m older. Right now I want to enjoy life.

Look – you probably won’t do something like this when you’re older. There’s a reason most adults aren’t Super-Christians. There’s a reason most adults don’t spend a lot of time with God, and it’s because older people are busier. They have jobs.

Did you know it’s likely that most of Jesus’ original disciples were young – maybe even teenagers? You are not too young to start living as a disciple.

Now, DX is not for everybody. Maybe it’s not for you. But let me ask you a question: What kind of person do you want to become. What kind of person? Who do want to become?

My kids have started playing with Play-Do…playing with it, not just eating it – and the cool thing is that, with a little imagination, Play-Do can become anything. You just have to press it into a mold.

Of course, once it’s out of the mold, it’s in danger of being shaped and influenced by other things and becoming other things.

And that’s kind of like you & me. If your Christian life revolves around programs at church, or yearly camp – well, what happens when you leave that mold? Because you’re getting shaped by something else. So being a disciple is putting yourself into God’s mold – day after day after day after day. If you don’t do that…something else will shape you. What are you going to choose?

Excuse #4: It might be boring.

Look – I’m not asking you to be a monk. This will take some of your time. Time away from YouTube, time away from Instagram, time away from video games. But boring? I mean, do you really believe God – the eternal God – if you dig into what’s there…it will be BORING? “Yeah, I’m a Christian…and I believe the God I worship is basically boring and not worth much attention”? Why wouldn’t you give this a chance?

I’m so excited about Awesome God that I believe if you give it 40 days and put your heart into it – you’re going to see your own life change.

Jesus wants disciples. Jesus talks to and leads his disciples. Reach out to a friend – because following Jesus isn’t something we do in private, in a lonely way – and say to them, “Come on – do DX with me.”

If you absolutely can’t find someone to pair up with on it, we can help you with that. But now is the time. Become a disciple. Let us help you do that.