Happy To Stand Out | Nick Bodine

It really is so good and such a blessing to get to worship together as a church. Thank you so much for engaging and for participating. But hey, we just want to give a couple of quick shout outs before we get on with our message. A special shout out to those of you who are joining us online and especially for those of you who are joining us through our prison locations all across the country with our partnership with God Behind Bars and the Pando app. Yes, you can give it up for them. Let them hear you. Yes. Yes. Yes, and now is the perfect time to pull out your Central Church app and download it if you haven't already. But under our experience tab, you can follow along with our teaching notes, fillable notes that you can fill out and interact with our message. But this is our last weekend for Surprise by Happiness, and we are so excited. Yep, so let's go ahead and give a huge welcome to Pastor Nick as he comes out to bring us a message of hope. All right. Good to see you guys. Hey, I want to give a shout out to Central Summerlin, Central Sunrise Mountain, Central Kingman, Central Alliante. We are so grateful you guys are all joining us today. Can we give it up for all of our locations, church? I have a little bit of a confession to make. I'm getting old. Have you ever had one of those moments where you're feeling really good about life, you're feeling really good about yourself, and then something small happens and it just takes you out?

It throws everything off. This was this last week for me. This was this last Sunday for me. After a great weekend, I go home. I come home from church. I decide to go on a bike ride with my kid, with my youngest daughter and some of the neighborhood kids. And I don't grab just any bike. I grab the electric bike, because who really wants to pedal anymore, right? I grab the electric bike. I take it out. We're having fun. We're riding around the neighborhood. I'm acting like I'm 12 years old again. My feet are hanging off the bike. They're not even on the pedals. Just cruising around, not a care in the world, when all of a sudden, 20 miles an hour, which might sound slow in a car, but on one of these bikes, that's pretty quick. I hit a bump and my toes, the front of my foot, hits the street pavement. And immediately, I felt a pain I've never felt before, like in the back of my foot, like right above the heel. Turns out that's your Achilles tendon. And it took the brunt force. And it wasn't like a little tweak. I felt it and knew that's going to cost me. I'm going to pay the price for that for a long time.

My doctor, chat GPT, says three to six months. And immediately, my whole leg was in pain. And here's the problem. When your Achilles is messed up, you realize just how important your Achilles is. I've never thought about my Achilles before. I never even realized it was there. But it's important to stand, to walk, to push off on your toes, to do anything with your legs. And so now all of a sudden, all week long, I've just been in pain. Everything hurts, walking hurts, standing hurts, being still hurts, sleeping hurts. It's just pain. And that got me thinking, the act of standing is something you don't really think about until it's hard to do, until it's painful to do. And that's not just true physically. That's true spiritually as well. Because all of us are gonna face moments in life where it's gonna be easier to sit down or easier to back off. We're gonna face moments where it's gonna be easier to blend in. Moments where standing for what you believe actually costs you something. It's painful. And that's exactly what Jesus is teaching us in the Sermon on the Mount.

Over the last few weeks, the last three weeks, we've been in a series called Surprise by Happiness. And we've been looking at Jesus's words in Matthew chapter five. Jesus gives us beatitudes in Matthew five, nine of them, nine different ways that he's listed off blessed are statements or happy are statements. And what he's doing is he's redefining what a happy life actually looks like. Because each one of us, we have our own definition of what happiness is. Each one of us has our own perspective on what it means to be happy. And normally it's shaped by the world's perspective of happiness. But what Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount, what a blessed life looks like, what a happy life looks like, seems completely upside down from what the world tells us happiness looks like. So today we're gonna look at the last part of this beatitude section in Matthew chapter five. And this is where Jesus starts to make a big shift in the text. Because up until now, he's been talking about what God does in us, what God does in you. But now he's gonna directly talk about what God wants to do through you. So today we're gonna be in Matthew chapter five

and we're gonna be in verse 13 through 16. I'm gonna pull it up. When we get to the red words, say the words. It goes out loud with us, but it says this, it says, you are the what? You are the salt of the earth, but what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot and worthless. You are also the what? The light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one puts a light, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Instead a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly father. So Jesus is sitting here with his disciples, his followers, and he says two things. He says, you are the salt of the earth. And then he says, you are the light of the world. Not you should be the salt and not try to become the light. No, he says, you are the salt and you are the light, which means this isn't a suggestion. This is an identity. And both of these images would have meant something

very specific to the people listening. What I love about Jesus, anytime he told stories or parables, he used very real things. And he always had such a powerful message in such a gentle way. And here in Matthew five, he's talking about these two things. He's talking about salt and he's talking about light. And back in Jesus's day, salt, it was used to preserve things because they didn't have refrigerators, they didn't have freezers. So salt was used to keep food or other things from spoiling, from decaying. But salt was also used as an antiseptic. Like they didn't have neosporin or other healing ointments. It was used to help heal. It was used to preserve and to heal. And here's the thing about salt is it doesn't do its job while it's just sitting in a shaker, right? It doesn't do its job while it's just sitting in a container. It only works when it comes in contact with the thing it's supposed to preserve, the thing it's supposed to heal. The other thing that Jesus used, the other description he used is he talked about a light not being hidden underneath a basket.

I've got a light here. Now a light, it pushes back on darkness, right? Now in Jesus's day, they didn't have these fancy camp lanterns. They didn't have overhead lights, can lights in every room in the house. No, they just had lamps, oil lamps. And so lamps had to be placed in strategic places in the house that would shine the most light. So when Jesus says you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world, he's telling us like, get out of the salt shaker, go and preserve and heal what the world has broken. And when he says you are the light of the world, he's saying that you have been strategically placed to shine God's light in the darkest parts of the world, in the darkness all around you. But here's the tension a lot of us are in, right? I think a lot of the tension a lot of us are in that we are working in is we are all about like God using us, God working inside of us, but we're a little bit more hesitant when he's working through us because when your faith becomes visible, that's when it can start to cost you something. That's when you might pay the price for your faith. That's when people might not understand you or they might try to avoid you. Maybe people write you off. They don't want you around anymore.

They talk about you. Maybe they even hate you. As you go all throughout scripture, you see that people who chose to live differently for God, it normally costs them something. And there's a story in the Old Testament that shows this better than almost anywhere else. We're gonna look at it together today. It's a story found in Daniel chapter three. And in Daniel chapter three, there's this King. His name is Nebuchadnezzar and he builds this massive gold statue. Now, when I say massive, I mean massive. This wasn't like a nine foot tall little commemorative statue. This was a 90 foot tall, 90 foot wide gold statue. And the 10 commandments, when it says don't have any idols, I don't know how more obvious an idol can get that's 90 feet tall and 90 feet wide and gold, right? Like it's obnoxious. And King Nebuchadnezzar, he makes a law for everyone in the land that when the music plays, you are to bow down to this statue. When you hear the harps, when you hear the trumpets, everyone bows, no exceptions. If you don't bow, we're gonna throw you into a fiery furnace. We're gonna kill you. So in the middle of this whole scene are three guys, three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And when the music plays. When everyone else gets down on their hands and knees and bows to this golden statue, they don't. They remain standing. And there's some people nearby, there's some officials that see this, that notice them. I mean, it's hard to hide it, right? When everybody else is down on their hands and knees and you're the only three guys and thousands of people that are just still standing. And so they see this and they go to the king and look at what it says in verse 12. It says, they tell the king, these are some of the Bible's very first tattletales, by the way. They run to the king and they say, there are some Jews, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And they, what? They refuse to serve your gods and do not worship the gold statue. So here's where this story ties into Jesus' words for us in Matthew chapter five. Because Jesus said, you are the light of the world. You are like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. In other words, Jesus is saying, if you follow me, your life's gonna stand out. At least it should stand out. So the question for us is how do we actually live as salt and light in a world that makes it hard to do so, in a world that makes it hard to live that way?

And at first, it starts by knowing this. It starts by knowing that you were designed to stand out. God designed you to stand out. Have you ever tried to hide something and you think you're doing a good job, but to everybody else, it's like painfully obvious, like you're not getting away with anything? It's like that little kid, when you ask them, like, did you eat the cookie? They're like, no, and they got chocolate and crumbs all over their face. And just like, yeah, you did. I had a moment like this with my daughter just a couple of months ago. I heard this loud bang in our house. And I went up to my daughter's room to ask what had happened. And when I get up there, her and her friends are hanging out in the room and they're oddly quiet, like no talking, just silence. And I come in, I'm like, what was that loud bang? And Cozette's like, there was a bang? I'm like, bang, it shook the whole house. What was that bang? She's like, oh, that might've been when one of us accidentally tripped and we fell and we smacked the wall. I'm like, well, what wall did you smack? She's like, that one right over there with behind the teddy bear with the tiny dent in it.

It just so happened to have a giant teddy bear blocking a tiny dent. Now, when I hear tiny dent, I'm thinking quarter size dent in the wall. Here's a picture of the teddy bear blocking the wall. And here's a picture of the tiny dent, much bigger than a quarter. Like this is a dad's gotta spend the whole afternoon going back and forth between Lowe's or Home Depot trying to fix the wall. It's not a tiny dent, it's a fixer-upper project. And she tried to hide it with this stuffed animal, which was just so funny to me because there's nothing that could hide that tiny dent. And this is exactly where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are. They're faced with a choice to either stay hidden or to stand out. And everyone else around them, they bow, but they're still standing. So now this king is furious. He asked them to be brought in. He gives them one more chance. He tells them, he just, he tries to give them the benefit of the doubt. He's like, maybe you didn't hear my instruction or maybe you didn't hear the music. I know there's a lot of people, maybe people were talking around you. So maybe you missed this, but when the music plays,

I'm gonna give you one more chance, you bow down. And now it gets interesting because now they have a decision to make. Do we keep standing? Do we stay standing? Or do we protect ourselves? Like, do we keep our faith visible right here in front of this angry king? Or do we hide it to avoid the consequences? And look at their response in verse 16. This is amazing. It says, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom, what? We serve. We serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, your majesty, but even if he doesn't, we wanna make it clear to you, your majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue that you have set up. I mean, what an incredibly courageous thing to say, right? I mean, this is a bold statement of faith to say, we know the God we serve, he's gonna show up and he's gonna save us. But even if he doesn't, we're still not gonna bow. Even if he doesn't, we're still not gonna get down and submit to this gold statue.

I mean, think about that. Their faith wasn't conditional. They weren't saying, God, we'll stand as long as you come through. God, we'll stand as long as you show up. up and you save us. No, they were saying, God, no matter what happens, no matter what you do, we're not bowing down. And here's why this matters for us. Because most of us, I believe that we don't struggle believing in God. What we struggle is with being bold in our faith. We struggle when it's gonna cost us something, being bold and courageous in our commitment to follow God. Like we're good with being salt. As long as it doesn't make it awkward with those around us, it doesn't make the relationship weird. Or we're good with being light, as long as it doesn't show up as a spotlight on us. I think sometimes like we're good with our faith as long as we don't have to change too much. But the moment it might cost us something, that's when we get tempted to bend into the pressure to just blend in. So as you go throughout your week this next week, here's what I wanna challenge you to do. Just take some time to notice the 90 foot gold statues in your own life. The 90 foot gold statues that should be so obvious that it's an idol, but we're missing it.

Like what are we bowing down to? What are we blending into because of the pressure from the people around us? Are we bowing down to money? Are we bowing down to lust? Are we bowing down to substances? Are we bowing down to over cramming our calendar, leaving little room for God, leaving little room for church? Are we bowing down to control, just needing everything to go our way instead of trusting God? Are we bowing down to approval? Needing people to like us or agree with us or validate us. And I know I'm in some of our worlds right now. I know I'm in some of your business and I don't mean to be, I'm talking to myself here too. There are 90 foot gold statues in my own life that I have to watch out for, that I have the temptation to blend in or bow down to. We all face the question every day, will I stand or will I bow? And listen, we cannot be salt if we lose our distinctiveness. We can't be light if we're too busy trying to hide that light. And Jesus didn't save us to fit into the world, he saved us so that we could help in his working power to change the world.

I mean, you were never designed to blend in, God designed you to stand out. That leads us to this next thing that we see in the story and that is when you do stand out, God shows up. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they said exactly what they believe. They had that courageous statement of faith, they lived it and we're gonna see that because of that, it cost them something. Look at verse 23, it says this, it says, so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego securely tied, I want you to remember that right there, securely tied what? Fell into the roaring flames. They stood up for their faith and life didn't get easier. They stood up for what they believe and they still ended up in the fire. In fact, you can read in the Bible that King Nebuchadnezzar, he got some of the biggest men in the land to come and carry these men securely bound and then he told them to heat up the furnace seven times hotter than it normally was. He wanted to make sure it got the job done. For us, we might think if I do the right thing, God's gonna keep me from the fire, right? But that's not what happens. They stood and they still went through it. And I think some of you in here today knows exactly what that feels like. You know exactly what it feels like to do the right thing and it still costs you something.

Maybe you stood on your values and people still shunned you, they still put distance between you. Or maybe you stayed faithful and it didn't fix anything. You're still going through it. And if that's where you are right now, I've been there, I wanna encourage you, don't back off, don't give up, don't bend, don't shrink your faith just to make things easier. Stay faithful right where you are. Just because you ended up in the fire, it doesn't mean you were wrong for standing. In fact, the fire is often evidence of God in your life. It's often evidence of your faith because God loves to meet us in that fire. And that's exactly what Jesus is talking about in Matthew chapter five. When he says, you are the light of the world, a light that shines for all people to see, I'm gonna use that, I'm gonna meet you in that. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they stood when everyone else bowed, they refused to hide who they belong to. So now they find themselves tied up, bound up, thrown in a fire, surrounded by flames. If you're a bystander from the outside looking in, it just looks like this is the end of the story. Like they sacrificed themselves. They died for their faith. But as you continue reading, you see that King Nebuchadnezzar,

he looks into the furnace and he sees something crazy. Look at what it says in verse 25. It says this, it says, look, Nebuchadnezzar shouted, I see four men unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed. And the what? And the fourth looks like a God. They only threw three men into that fire, but now there are four. They went in completely tied up, completely bound, but now they're walking around free. They went in surrounded by flames, but now they're surrounded by the presence of God. So I want you to know, if you're walking through something right now, don't assume God's absent. He's likely closer than you think with a miracle on his way. God didn't keep them from the fire. He met them in the fire. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, when they stood out, God showed up. And not just for them, he showed up for everyone watching, everyone witnessing, a whole nation that was watching this miracle happen. King Nebuchadnezzar, he calls these men out of the fire. He calls the three of them out of the fire. And when they come out, the Bible says that their clothes weren't burned,

that their hair wasn't singed, and they didn't even smell like smoke. And then the same king who tried to force them to bow, who threw them into this furnace because they wouldn't bend their knee, he starts praising God. He even gives a declaration, a nationwide decree in verse 29. He says this. He says, if any people, whatever their race or nation or language, speak a word against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they will be torn limb from limb and their houses will be turned into heaps of rubble. This king means business. He means what he says. He says, there is no other God who can, what? Rescue. Who can rescue like this. There is no other God who can rescue like this. That's our God. There is no other God who can rescue like he does. That story is what happens when people shine their light. So Matthew chapter five, Jesus said, let your good deed shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly father. There is no God that can rescue like that God. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they didn't stand up to be seen. They stood up so that God could be seen.

And that's what it means to be the salt of the earth. That's what it means to be the light of the world, to live in such a way that you make a positive impact on the people that you come in contact with. To live in such a way that God's light shines out of you and brightens the dark places in this world. And when you step back and you look at this whole series that we've been going through, this is exactly what Jesus has been showing us this entire time that there's a different kind of happiness, a different kind of joy that we can experience. It's not the shallow fleeting happiness that the world has to offer. It's a deeper kind of happiness. It's an eternal happiness. It's found when you start living for him. We call this series surprised by happiness on purpose because it doesn't show up where you expect it. Jesus tells us happiness shows up when you stand and when you trust and when you stay faithful, even in the hard times, even when it costs you something. What we just saw in the story is that even in fire, even in pressure, even in a moment that should have broken these men, that should have killed them, God showed up. And it led to not only their rescue, it led to a whole nation being rescued. That's the kind of life Jesus has been inviting us into this whole time. And throughout our whole lives,

God's gonna give us moments where what he's done in us gets expressed through us. And one of those moments, maybe the first moment, a pivotal moment is baptism. Baptism is one of those moments. Now we have our misconceptions about baptism. Sometimes we think that baptism is about perfection. It's not about perfection. Baptism is not about having your life figured out. It's not about getting things cleaned up. It's not about never struggling again and being in the perfect position to take that step. Baptism is a public. declaration that says, I belong to Jesus. I'm gonna stand, my old life is gone, my new life has begun, I'm not gonna hide what God's done in me anymore. And the good news is, you don't have to stand in a fire today, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they had to face a fire, they had to stand in a furnace. We don't, because Jesus already went through the fire for us. He took the cross, he took the grave, he took the weight of your sin, he died the death that you and I deserved, and then he rose again so that we could walk in new life. We don't have to face the fire, we get to face water. We get to stand in water, and baptism is the way that Jesus gave us to do that. When you go under that water, it represents

your old life being gone, being buried. When you come up out of that water, it represents a new life in Christ. That's your moment to be the salt, to be the light, to let your light shine. And I know some of you, you're probably thinking like, well, I didn't show up ready to be baptized today. I hadn't even considered it, I didn't think about it. Listen, all throughout the Bible, all throughout Scripture, people didn't plan for moments like God just showing up and moving. They didn't plan for that, he just did it, did it anyway. And they responded, they let their light shine. But you're thinking, maybe I don't have a change of clothes, so I can't do that, we got you. We have clothes for you to change into, we have towels ready, you can still let your light shine. But Nick, I just got my hair done, hair's expensive, hair takes a lot of time, I get it. Actually, I don't get it, because I don't really have that problem, but this is a moment that's bigger than your hair, this is a moment about your heart, so you gotta let your light shine. But Nick, I don't have anyone to film it. We have people who can film it, who can capture the moment. And even if nobody gets the video, heaven still sees it, and that's all that matters, let your light shine. But we're going out to eat after this,

go to the restaurant, baptize, celebrate, get whoever you're going with to buy your meal, because you have a celebration, let your light shine. But I don't have the time. I'm trying to get you out of here early, so you do have the time. I normally go for like 15 more minutes, so I'm trying to give you the time. We're making this space for you today, so you can let your light shine. But I'm nervous, and that's okay. Courage isn't the absence of nerves, courage is taking the step anyway. You think Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't nervous standing before that king? We let our light shine anyway, but I'm not ready. If you said yes to Jesus, and you've never been baptized, this is your next step, because you have every, you don't have to have everything already figured out. God gives you everything you need along the way. You are now his. You know who you belong to. You can let your light shine. Now, maybe for some of you, you haven't taken the step of baptism because you haven't first named Jesus your Lord and Savior. I'm gonna give you that opportunity right now. Maybe he's been tugging at your heart. Maybe you've never trusted Jesus with your life. You've known about him, you've shown up to church,

you believe some things about God, but you've never taken the step to pray that prayer, to surrender your life to him. If God is inviting you to say yes to Jesus, if you're ready to take that step to declare him your Lord and Savior, I'm gonna lead you through that prayer right now. If I could have everybody bow their heads and close their eyes. Just pray, God, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know you sent Jesus to forgive me of that sin. I believe he died on the cross, but I also believe that he rose from that grave. And that gives me the opportunity to spend eternity with you. God, forgive me of my sins. I named Jesus my personal Lord and Savior. Today, I'm gonna follow after you. Now, whether you've just prayed that prayer or you prayed that prayer before, this is your time, this is your response. If you've never been baptized, this is your opportunity to not hide, to not blend in, to not keep covering your light, but to stand and to stand boldly. At all of our locations, I'm gonna hand this moment over to your location, pastor, to those of you who are in your locations, I'm gonna hand this moment over to your location, pastor, to those teams right now.

They're gonna help lead you through what it looks like to take a step in baptism.