How to be Bold | Week 1

Stand Out is a call to bold faith in a culture that rewards compromise. The godly are as bold as lions, not because they are loud, but because they are rooted.
Daniel and his friends were pressured to blend in, renamed, retrained, and offered comfort in exchange for conviction. They chose obedience over convenience and decided early who they belonged to.

Part-time Christianity doesn’t hold up under pressure. Standing firm requires intention, discipline, and spiritual armor. Fasting is giving up something important to gain something more important.

We all fall short of God’s standard, but grace empowers us to stand. Better to be remembered for standing out than forgotten for blending in.

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Transcript

New Year, New Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Oh, so silent. Y'all must be excited. So excited, you're silent. All right. How many of you are excited to be in God's house this morning? Come on. I'm glad that we get to spend the very first Sunday of the year together. And I I've got a great word for you. In fact, I got a lot of things for you this morning. So just like Pastor Handel said, buckle up, put your seatbelt on because we're going to kind of move quickly. We have 21 days of prayer and fasting that's kicking off, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that just this moment because I want to talk about it during the message. But I do want to kind of unpack something after I just first say that not only am I super happy that you're here today, super glad to be able to see a bunch of you face to face, but also those who are watching online and those who have clicked in and are joining us online, it means a lot to us. So with that said, uh I want to give you uh kind of kind of unpack a little story with you. This last year, how many of you guys remember what our word of the year for 2025 was? Stretch. We believe that God was stretching us in so many different areas, and we're not gonna spend any time on that because that's last year. But I can't tell you that as we got to November, I'm I was praying and seeking God and just believing God. What is our what give me, give me my word, give me our word. Where do you want us to be? Where do you want our faith to be focused in 2026 for the whole church? And uh I didn't want to just pick a word, and I had several on my kind of semifinal list. These would work, this would work, I could use this. I had lots of thoughts and lots of ideas. But as we got closer and closer, I was so unsettled, in fact, that I threw out the semifinalist list and thought, you know what? I'm not just gonna, if God, if you're not gonna give me a word, I'm not gonna pick one. So I just threw out the list, and it's it's weird. I thought, why do we even need a word of the year? I don't need a word of the year. We just we'll just have a new word every week. We'll just we don't have to have a word of the year. That's something we did last year, and I just felt like we were supposed to do it last year. And about the second or third week of December, right in the middle of December, I woke up at like 1240 or so in the morning, just sat straight up. I turned to the side of my bed, and instantly I woke up from a dream, and I'm not gonna go into the dream, but I instantly knew what our word was. I instantly knew, not only did I know what the word was, I pulled out a notebook, I pulled out uh uh notes and started taking notes, and I wrote out like a plan for the entire year on strategy and sermons and series, and this is what we need to be talking about in the context of this new word because I feel like God has plans for us, and we need to be right where he wants us to be. So without any further delay, I'll give you that word and we're gonna stick with it for the entire year. It every series is not gonna have this word, which this is not that you guys were with me for uh with us for stretch, but it is really the theme of the year, and our theme this year is gonna be it's right here on the screen. Can you say bold? And you might think that what does that have to do with anything? I promise you. I feel like God wants us, requires of us not to just be stretched, but to be bold. There's some areas where we've been timid and shy, and I don't just mean sharing your faith. There's some decisions you need to make, there's some ideas that are challenging you, there's some faith that you haven't had because you've just been, I'd rather just blend into the background. I'd rather just blend in this thought process instead of standing bold, whether it's to cut something out or add something to or move in this direction. There's some boldness that God wants to inject into our lives and into this church, and I'm here for it. So I'm that's where we're going this year. Our theme verse for the whole year is going to be Proverbs chapter 28, verse 1. It says, The wicked run away when no one's chasing them. We're not gonna run away, but the godly are as bold as lions. So I'm looking for the Holy Spirit to give us some boldness this year where we need to have boldness, where we need to stand out, where we need to stand up. And the the kind of boldness is the the really uh boldness that is at uh in the wrong in the right way at the right time for the right reasons. Because you can be bold in the wrong way for the wrong reasons, and the problem with that kind of boldness is it really will cost you, and there's no reason for us to just be bold in the wrong ways and then uh, well, I don't care what it costs me. Um by God, I'm gonna be bold. Listen, there is a time to be bold, but there's also wisdom in boldness. And so today we're gonna look at how to be bold. How do we like I want the series for the very beginning of the year to set the pace in boldness? How not just this big idea on our spiritual boldness of faith and uh our families and living in a world of darkness that listen, I want this to be a very practical. So here's what I'm praying: I'm praying that the Holy Spirit's speaking to you today, that as we open up his word, that he's guiding us, the Spirit of God is leading us and saying, Come this way. And you have to be bold enough to say, Okay, Lord, I'll go. All right, I'm with you. That makes me uncomfortable. I don't know how I'm gonna, I don't know how I'm gonna face this situation if I go that way, because I know when I go that way, I know what's over there. That might look different for every single person in the room. But today we're gonna jump into uh we're gonna move kind of quickly at the beginning here. Daniel chapter one, verse one. We're gonna read through the book of Daniel. There's lots of men in the Bible, women in the Bible who were bold and confident and brave and courageous. But this guy, Daniel, he had the kind of boldness that I think we should all strive for. So I want us to read kind of the set the context for the story and where uh Daniel and the children of Israel, God's people are in Jerusalem. Watch this. It says, during the third year of King Jehoiakim's reign in Judah, that's the king of Judah in Jerusalem. It says, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, pause right there. I'm just gonna tell you right away, if you've never read this story, you don't know who Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar are. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon already sounds bad. He's a super bad guy. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna just do a little exercise whenever I get, whenever I say that, I'm gonna try to say it too many times, but if we read it or I say it and don't don't get lulled to sleep. But if I say Nebuchadnezzar, I want you guys to boo a little bit, alright? And last service, someone else booed for some other things, and we won't. I didn't appreciate it because it was about me, but um, you'll have to go back and watch the service. So here we go. During the third year of King Jehoakim's reign in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar, very good, I like it, of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. So God's city, God's people, God's nation, uh the the man, Jerusalem, the jewel of the nation, the city, they he besieged it. It says the Lord gave him victory over King Jehoiakim of Judah and permitted him to take some of the sacred objects from the temple of God. Now you wonder why would God allow this to happen? Over and over again in the Old Testament. We don't have time to go into it, but old over and over, when God's people turned away from God, he allowed bad things to happen. He didn't make bad things happen. But when you remove yourself from the covering, or let's just imagine an umbrella, God says, I want to protect you and guard you and bless you. But if you take yourself out from under under that umbrella, anything can happen. If you if God says, I'm gonna protect you, if you like if you stay in this circle, I'll protect you. And then what we like to do is we like to, okay, I like this, I like this circle. Oh, that's nice too. I think maybe I'll just put this foot out here, and then all of a sudden we open ourselves up to all kinds of we live in a world of darkness, and we think that, oh, I'm a Christian, I I follow God, and He'll protect me no matter what. Listen, bad things happen, but we have to stand strong. I want watch what happens whenever uh Nebuchadnezzar comes in. Some of y'all are awake. Come on, this is a test. Let's try it again. So Nebuchadnezzar, thank you, took them back to the land of Babylonia. So he not only destroys the city, burns the city, burns the temple, takes all of the uh the the implements of worship, like the uh the pieces of the altar and the um the all the oil and the the lampstand and these the the things that were so important to the Israelites and the the priests, he took them out of the temple, these things that were dedicated and holy to the Lord. He says, Your God's not holy. Not only am I gonna burn your city to the ground, but I'm also gonna take all of your special things that you have dedicated to God and put them over. It says he placed them in the treasure house of his God. That's some that's some boldness. Just because it's bold doesn't mean it's good. It's gotta be the right boldness at the right in the right for the right reason in the right ways. So he says, not only am I gonna do all these bad things to you and basically destroy you, but also I'm going to mock your God, the things you stand for, the things you value. And then he does something that's very important. He says, I want you to find all the young, brightest, sharpest young guys in the in the country, and I want you to collect them all up and bring them to work in my office. So watch this. It says, Then the king ordered Aspenaz, his king, his chief of staff, to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah's royal family and other noble families, important people of the country, been uh brought to Babylon as captives. Select only strong, healthy, and good-looking young men. So, in other words, people like me. Right? I always tell my I always tell my kids, uh, us fellow young people, we have to keep ourselves looking sharp, right? They don't, they just come on, dad. Select only young strong, healthy, and good-looking young men, make sure they are well-versed in every branch of learning, are gifted with knowledge and good judgment, and are suited to serve the royal past. In other words, we're gonna train them to take care of business, the way we take care of business. We're gonna train them to do things the way we do things. So they're not gonna bring their stuff in. We're gonna like brainwash and indoctrinate them. It says the key, uh, not only that, train these young men in the language and literature of Babylon. So, like, we're we're gonna teach them the way we do things, we're gonna make them one of us. And it says the king assigned them a daily ration of food and wine from his own kitchens, which sounds a little like it it okay. He gave them good food, but it's actually more important than that. Says they uh they were trained for three years and then they would enter royal service. So find the guys who are most likely to succeed, bring them and let them work for me. Teach them to speak our language. Uh, it was a very specific plan to take them out of the culture of Israel and Judah and God's uh nation and put them into the culture of Babylon so that they would become different people. We want them to lose their way and do it our way. So today I have on the stage a couple circles. This one in particular. Let's just say this is where uh God put them, and God sets up guidelines and boundaries in those days for them. It would have been like, okay, keep the Ten Commandments and you're gonna worship uh God the way He wants to be worshipped, you're gonna eat certain foods, you're gonna act, you're gonna wear certain clothes, and this is the cultural construct of the way that I want you to live. And I think for most of us in the room, especially if you have been raised in the context of Christianity, maybe you grew up in church or around church, read your Bible, you know that God uh there's a certain way that Christians are, there's a certain way that church people are sometimes people can think that, oh, I'll just do like church people things and that will make me a Christian. Not true. But what happens is we get within this construct and within these guidelines, and okay, I live here, and we try not to step out, but what we have an enemy, his name is the devil, his name is Satan, and his job, like King Nebuchadnezzar, this side's awake. Y'all come on, thank you. Y'all get an A, y'all get a C. Come on. Like in Babylon, the enemy wants to besiege where you live. Maybe it's your house, maybe it's your faith, maybe it's the system of belief and culture and the established roots that you put down in God and your faith, and I'm gonna live this way. What is happening every day, whether you acknowledge it or not, is that the enemy is using the things of the world to attack where you live. And what he wants to do is he wants to besiege and take all the important things, and he wants to take you out of where you are and says, Hey, I want you over here. Now you live over here in my world, and these are the ways that you live. You eat, you eat different foods, you watch different things, you're partaking of different things. What's important about the food that he gave them from the king's table was that the king's table, the food at the king's table, was designated and offered to the pagan gods. So it wasn't just him saying, Hey, eat this good food. No, this is the foods that have been dedicated and special to our pagan gods, and now you can eat that. So for them to do that was that they would be saying, Okay, we're participating in it in worshiping other gods. And so while it might seem sometimes there are things that seem like, ah, it's no big deal, it's not gonna hurt anybody. In fact, it's probably the best food in the city, it's best food in the city. Hashtag blessed. It must be God because it's it tastes so good. It must be God because this makes me feel great, right? We justify all the things that we want and we never consider God. Is this what you have for me? God, is this where you want me? Is this the the construct uh construct and the rules and the structure that you want me to live in? And most of us are so re repulsed by rules and uh expectation. Well, I don't want it. If God wants to change me, it must not be good. God loves us so much that he will not leave us. We can come to him anyhow. We give him our lives and say, God, here I am. But he loves us so much he won't leave us there. He has great and beautiful things for us. Abundant life he has for us. But here's the problem we try to go back and forth, and we're like, Well, I gotta live in the world and I have to put up with all these people I work with, and you know, in order for me to get along, I gotta act like them, and I kind of got to do the things they do, or maybe it's your family. That's just the way we are. That's how I was raised, that's how we talk, that's how we eat, that's the thing, that's how we party, that's how we get down, that's how we that we just fight. We're ugly to each other, you know. We fight and then we make up. That's how our marriage is, or we have all of these things that we think that's just how it's supposed to be. And yet, God, we know that God has better for us, and so we try to live in both. We try to like keep one foot over him, it doesn't work though. You can't reach both. You can't be in, you can't be in a godly culture and also in another culture and embrace both at the same time. So, what Daniel, you're gonna see that as we unpack this a little bit, Daniel, in a really wise and strategic way, he doesn't just say, I will not do that, I will not eat your food, I will not do all the things. I will he doesn't just reject everything, he does something so powerful, and it's important that we do it, that we follow his example because for most of us we think that, well, I'm a Christian because I'm not something else, right? Uh yeah, I'm a Christian. I I don't I don't go to like the Buddhist church or temple or like I no, I I was raised. This is a Christian country. I believe in Jesus, I believe in I go to church, I have a uh a necklace with a cross on it, or I have a tattoo with a cross on it, or so like I I must be a Christian because I'm not the other things. Hold on a second. Can you be a Christian if there's no outward proof of it in your life? Can you be can you live in 2026 in a world that is overwhelmed by darkness? Or do we just throw our hands up and say, Well, I'm doing the best I can, but this is just the way things are. This is where this is where we I've been besieged. We live in a broken world. I just have to that that's what we're doing. Daniel shows us that there is another way. Daniel shows us that we can be in the world, but not of the world. Can you work out or go to the gym one or two times at the beginning of the year and then still stay fit and healthy all year long because you bought a gym membership at the beginning of January? Maybe you're gonna go this week and buy your gym membership. And then by the time you get to the middle of January, you haven't gone again and you're thinking, well, I have to go back because I paid for it. But by the time you get to February and March and you still haven't gone back to the gym, are you still working out? Are you still a gym person? Are you still a runner if you're not running? Are you still in shape if you're not lifting, if you're not eating right? No, you have to it has to be something that continues to carry on. Can I just tell my wife, hey, it's January, just let me tell you now I love you, and then I don't have to say it again all year. That doesn't work. Can you just come to church one time a week for one hour? Or for some of you, just 50 minutes because you come in late and then that's your one hour. We'll call it an hour. I'll give you that. It's an hour. Can you come in for just your one hour a week? Let me challenge you for a second, because that's my job as your pastor, if I'm your pastor. If I'm not, that's okay. There's 112 on average waking hours a week. If you give God one, and then you live the other 111 hours of your waking life all week long doing other things. If you if you live uh over here, okay, God, this is your hour. Let's make it happen. Pastor, give me something good to live on. And then as soon as you leave church, the next hour, Monday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you're over here in the other culture and you're trying to jump back and forth, it doesn't work, it will never work. And you say, Well, I've already tried that, Pastor Sean. If you tried part-time Christianity, it will never work. And you look back and you say, Well, I I tried, I tried that, and it didn't work. If you weren't all in, that's not the way walking and following Jesus works. So, what is that? Why that I'm just telling you, that's why we do 21 days of prayer and fasting. Because at the beginning of the year, we're gonna set the pace and say, for 21 days, we're gonna set habits that put us over here in God's culture. We're gonna pray, we're gonna read our Bible, we're gonna worship. For some of you, that might mean the first 15. We talk about the first 15. When you wake up, five minutes. Minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading your Bible, five minutes of worship. Just turn on worship and worship God. 15 minutes and you're done. If you think, well, I can't do an hour every day, 15 minutes. If it's only five minutes a day, start somewhere and just start walking towards God's plan. You gotta come that that's where the boldness comes in. You just have to say, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna be bold and I don't know if I can keep this going, but I'm gonna start. And I promise you'll be better off than you were before you decided. So 21 days of prayer and fasting, why? Why fasting? Why not just prayer? Fasting is giving up something important for a period of time to gain something more important. And so I'm gonna answer a couple quick questions about fasting because I'm challenging you to fast something. We're hope. Listen, you don't have to not eat for 21 days, but do just participate with us so that together we're walking towards the will of God. We're walking towards some uh a couple of, I believe we're walking towards our greatest spiritual year ever. What do we give up? Here we go. Here's a couple things you can write these things down. Food, maybe, maybe it's one meal a day. Maybe there's something called the Daniel uh diet, and it's only eating certain things for 21 days. Maybe it's electronic or like a soul diet where you're giving up certain apps, TikTok or uh Facebook or or something to that effect where you're not in, maybe it's relationships or conversations or Netflix or et cetera, et cetera. Something you're giving up. Maybe it's for only certain periods of time, and you don't have to do the same thing all 21 days. Some of us are doing like uh more rigorous fast. I will say this don't don't work your way up to a rigorous fast. Work your way down from a rigorous fast. Start with water or liquid or the hardest thing, and then week two, add salad or something. Maybe it's an activity. Uh how long does it need to last? Well, it depends. Number one, it could be 21 days. We're sticking with 21 days. That's a very biblical, it could be 40 days. Jesus fasted for 40 days, Moses faster for 40 days. It also could be until you get a breakthrough. If you if you're believing God for something big, you just need to pray and fast until something happens. Why do we fast? Five things really quick, and then we're gonna move back into talk about Daniel. Why fast? To connect to God because we get so saturated over here in the things of the world. I need a full reset and realignment of my life into the things of the Lord. That means prayer and worship and fasting, and uh, I'm gonna read my Bible like I've never read it for 21 days, and it's gonna help set the pace for the rest of the year so that I'm connected and hearing his voice more clear. Can I tell you this? You don't think you can hear the voice of God if you've never been that person? If you close your eyes and sit down for prayer and worship, and you turn off the TV, you turn off the radio, and you turn off your phone, and all of a sudden you just can't be still because your mind is still running a thousand miles a minute, and you can't, you're thinking about what the kids need, and you're thinking about what your husband or your wife or your job or the emails that you need to write and the groceries that need, all those things. What happens when you fast is that your mind starts really clear. Your thoughts start getting much more clear on what's important and what's not important. You start taking out all of the excess. So, number one, can connect to connect to God. Number two is to control the flesh. Because what happens when I live over here in this circle is that I'm feeding my flesh, I'm I my my flesh begins to build an appetite. If you think, well, I can't go a day, I can't go a meal without eating. I can tell you this that the hungriest I've ever been is when you decide, it's like if you decide you usually eat at noon every day, that's your lunch hour, it's 12 to 1, and you decide I'm not gonna eat, you've never been more hungry than at about 11 o'clock, knowing that I I'm so hungry. It feels like you're dying, but you're not. It's your flesh telling you, no, I'm in charge. Some of us need to tell our flesh, no, you're not in charge. My spirit man is gonna be in charge here. The spirit of God's gonna be in charge of my life. And I if you're having trouble making decisions and following the spirit of God, sometimes it's because the flesh is in charge. Sometimes it's because your emotions and your will is in charge. So this is about putting God back in charge. This is about putting your spirit back in charge. Number three is clarity. We've talked about that already. Number four is consecration, saying my life is made for holiness and righteousness, and I'm choosing which way I'm gonna go. Number five is conquest, which is really basically saying I need breakthrough. I need to conquer this area. I need to, I'm looking for a win, and I'm going to fight the only way that I know how to fight because the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. And we're gonna replace those things that we're taking out. We're gonna replace them, we're gonna take the flesh out, we're gonna take the things of the world, and we're gonna put back in the things of the spirit. And uh, Ephesians chapter six, it gives us a great picture of this and why. Uh Paul says, Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so when the day of evil comes, you may be able to what? Stand your ground, be bold and stand your ground. And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted, with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil. And finally, he says, take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. If you're never standing out, you're not truly engaged in following Jesus with all of your heart. Because you're just blending into whatever happens, whatever. Oh man. Whatever comes, we'll deal with it. So let's get back to Daniel. We're gonna finish the story. Daniel, we'll jump to verse six. This is where not only are you gonna live in this area, but we're gonna impose some strict things on you. And watch what it says says Daniel, Hananiah, Meshach, and Azariah, four of the young men chosen, all from the tribe of Judah, the chief of staff renamed them with these Babylonian names. Daniel was called Belteshazzar, Hananiah was called Shadrach, Meshach was called Meshach, and Azariah was called Abinnego. So he says, I'm going to change your names. And the the importance of this is not just that, oh, we just want to call you something different, or your name was hard. It wasn't that. They their names were specifically related to their worship to God. When you go back and look at you, each of their names was in relation to uh who their God was. And when they renamed them the new names, Shadrach, Meshach, Abit, those names were related to the pagan gods. And so basically they were saying, you don't have a choice. We're going to call you what we want to call you. What's interesting is that Daniel and the Hebrew boys, they do not uh resist the names. You call me, okay, call me whatever you want to call me. Also, you might be thinking, well, these are probably the brightest young men. They're like college age, because that's kind of the that's that was my thought, college age, but most scholars will agree that uh these Hebrew boys that were collected up were young enough to where they could be indoctrinated. They were likely junior high age, so 12 or 13 years old. So they were taken away from their families and put into a new system, being taught and indoctrinated, and brainwashed, and you're gonna think this way, act this way. We're gonna give you a new name. We're gonna change everything about you. You're different now. You're one of us. You think like we think, you act like we act, you value the things we value, you worship the gods we worship, and all of these things you we don't see any resistance from these boys, except here comes the resistance. And this is so powerful because I think it's very indicative of how we there's a right and a wrong way, right and wrong reasons to be bold, and watch where they're bold. It says, But Daniel was determined not to defile himself when it came to the food that they would eat, because for them to eat the food that was uh given to the other gods would have defiled them spiritually. It says, by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. So he asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods. Notice he didn't say uh we don't eat those foods. Uh have you ever met uh like the actually Christians, the ones that pop up on Facebook that people say, ah, hashtag blessed, I'm so excited to be getting back to church now. And they're always gatekeeping God, and they're trying to tell you, well, actually, that version of the Bible is not God's word, or that song is actually not a worship song, anyway. So you shouldn't be worshiping to that song. There's all there's always people who just decide that how dare you talk about worship in a way that I don't approve of. Daniel and his Daniel and the boys, they didn't do that. They asked permission if they could not eat the food that they were trying to get them to eat. And then he goes on even further and very strategically, very thoughtfully, he doesn't just put his foot down, because that's uh I think that's what we think of whenever we think of being bold for God. Well, what would being bold as a Christian look like? Well, of course, you'd go by a bullhorn and a big sign that says turn or burn, and you'd go to Walmart, you'd climb up on top of your car, and you'd shout at everybody as they walk past and tell them they're all going to hell if they don't fall down and worship God. Right? That's what we think of as being bold. But the truth is that the that that real and impactful boldness has a lot less to do with you standing up and making other people feel ashamed or guilty, and a lot more to do with you having um spiritual roots and deciding I'm gonna live this way. I'm choosing to follow Jesus and I'm depending and following the Holy Spirit to lead me and guide me and help to influence other. I'm not talking, I'm not trying to help, I'm not trying to make everybody in the room instantly walk out of the room today and just be influencer for Jesus. I'm saying that we live in a world that's full of very bad things, and we need to be smart and strong to stand, to stand firm on our convictions, but also depend on the Holy Spirit to lead us as to where we should be making a stand. He didn't fight back when his name was taken. Because my outward name doesn't define me. You call me whatever you want to call me, but when it comes to that which will defile the name of God, if I eat this food which was given to other gods, he took a stand. And so here's uh uh one of our first keys, and that is that uh there's some areas in your life where Daniel uh had decided, predetermined, pre-decided. He didn't wait and see, well, I guess, guys, we'll just see how this goes. Let's listen wake up every day and uh see if we can do all the things they want us to do. No, he pre-decided before they got to the table. No, we can't eat that food. Would it be possible for us? Would you allow us? There's some things in your life that you need to pre-decide. This not wait till you get to the table and see that it's it looks so good. It smells pretty good, guys. I mean, I don't think God would care that much. But when you pre-decide, you predetermine make a decision, and some of you right now, the Holy Spirit is tapping you on the shoulder, and he's saying, There's some stuff that I've been talking to you about. There's some things that you know about. Maybe 2026, this is the time to take a step, and you're thinking, I don't know if I can. Let me tell you, you can. This is the year you need to be bold. This is the year you need to step out and say, Okay, this is it. I'm going where God wants me to go, and I'm gonna make a decision, and I'm not gonna do these things. I'm gonna cut this out of my life. It's not going into 2026 with me. Maybe there's some things that you need to do that you have been you've been holding back, you've been shy. Don't be shy. What have you been partaking of that was created for another kingdom? There's some things you've been consuming that have been created for another kingdom, and they're defiling you. I don't have to list them all out because you already know. And probably right right about now in the sermon is whenever you're thinking you you're already defending. No, that's not that bad. That's not no, no, no, no, no, that's not that thing. And you're trying to tell the Holy Spirit, shh, shh, no, don't talk about that thing. What else? What else? What else? I'll go and now you're negotiating with the Holy Spirit. I'll give up these things and these things, but but it's the thing you already, and it might not be it, you might think it's a smaller thing, but there's a thing that the Holy Spirit wants you to do. And I I'm I'm challenging you to take the step that he wants you to take and not the step that you want you to take. But you have to make the decision before the temptation's in front of you. I'm not going there. Not not this year. Not 21 days of prayer. This is this this is it's gonna be I'm gonna I'm gonna be clear of that. This what do you need to decide now that you will always do? What do you need to decide now that you will never do to make a stand? Maybe it's uh you're dating and you you just need to decide that we're not having sex before we get married. We're gonna keep ourselves pure. Um maybe you're there's some there's some people that you need to say, okay, I'm just not, I'm I'm gonna distance myself from them. Maybe it's inappropriate discussions. When inappropriate discussions come up and you've just participated, or dirty jokes have been told, you just laugh because everybody else is laughing. It would be awkward if I didn't laugh. And you have to make a decision now that I'm not gonna participate, I'm not gonna do that, I'm gonna abstain from some things, or I'm gonna always step into some other things. Maybe it's uh I don't talk about this all year long, but I need to just challenge you right now. There's some of you you need to give God a year. 365 days, not 21 days of prayer and fasting, you need to give God a whole year of just trying. And when you fall and you fail and you trip up, you get back on the horse and you go at it again. Because for a year, here's what I promise will happen. If you just whatever God wants you to do for a whole year, if you'll do that, if you'll jump into small groups when small groups come up in the beginning of February, if you'll go to a pizza with the pastor tonight and just commit, all right, I'm in. What are we doing? If you'll join Go Crew or join uh we're gonna do outreach, just whatever we're doing, God, I'm in. If you'll do that for a year, you'll turn around and probably way less than a year, three months, six months, you'll turn around and you you won't even recognize yourself. You'll be a different person because the process of uh the process of sanctification, the process that God wants to put you through will change you. I remember whenever I was a kid, probably kids' camp, I don't even know how old I was, but I was going into junior high, and I remember I was uh convicted. And there's a certain kind of conviction that you get at kids' camp where a kid just decides I just crying my eyes out because I knew that God was not happy with the way I was living, which seems seems silly, but uh that's where my heart was. And I had told, I told the Lord, I'm not gonna say curse words, I'm not gonna use foul language, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna listen. I burned all my CDs. I did I only had CDs when I was like probably 13 or 14, but I burned tapes and I'm not listening to any music that I'm not that I made a decision, and I can tell you something that my friends at school started to notice that I did, I'm talking about like sixth, seventh grade, started to notice that I didn't use the same language that they did. Uh, dude, why are you talking different? And you know that uh junior high kids have an excess of curse words, they just use like if they were learn a new word, they use it every sentence. My friends didn't mat, they didn't care that much. They were just like, oh, he doesn't do that. You know, he doesn't, he's not gonna, they just kind of left it at that. It didn't affect them that, but I I remember one day at uh lunchtime in junior high school. Uh some other kids that weren't my friends, I just knew them. They figured out, I don't know, it shouldn't have been a big deal. I didn't even want to even talk about it. I was like, don't look at me, don't pay attention to what I say and what I don't say. I didn't want to be bold, I just didn't want to say those words. These kids figured out that I'll call them bullies now, that they they want, they were gonna force me. They just thought it was funny to try and make me say certain words. I was like, I'm not gonna say it, guys. I've already decided, I'm not gonna say it's nothing to do with you. It's not and of course, as a as a middle schooler, you just we would fight anyway about anything, but they decided they were gonna take me to the bathroom and make me say these words. Thank God one of our assistant principals saw all these like three or four guys hauling me into the bathroom against my will. I was gearing up for a fight. I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I was not gonna say those words. I was like, I will die not saying cursed words because I already promised God I'm not gonna say these words. Thank God we didn't make it to the bathroom because the assistant pen assistant principal, I'm not sure if I could have held out. I'm not sure if you know what a swirly is, but that's standing out isn't easy. And it seems easier sometimes to think of what middle schoolers have to deal with, but it's just as hard. It's just as hard for an adult at any age to make a decision and then stick to it, to decide that I'm not going to I'm not gonna do what the world wants me to do. I'm not gonna do what the enemy wants me to do, I'm not gonna do what the devil or anybody else, I'm gonna do what God wants me to do. And that's what that's the kind of boldness that we need to start reaching for. Daniel in verse 12, watch what happens. It says, please test us for 10 days. Uh he says, Let us vegetables and water, and at the end of the 10 days, we'll see how we compare to the other young men. Um at the end of the 10 days, it turns out they were healthier than the other men. And so God allowed it, and all of a sudden, their influence in the world, there they became an influence in Babylon without having to stand up and have a sign that says, You people are going to hell. That's not what they had to do. They just had to make a stand and live by their convictions, and not being self-righteous and not making it about shame or guilt. My question for you is the people who know you know that you follow Jesus. Have you lived in a way and followed your convictions and been bold in the kind of way that other people can recognize? It says that God gave you. Them wisdom. They changed the world because they made a stand and they stood out in a really wise way. So I'll close with this idea that I would rather be remembered for standing out than forgotten for blending in. There's a lot of times where you may not be that person who is rejecting God and you're denying Jesus like Peter denied Jesus three times. It says that when people were asking, aren't you that guy who was with Jesus after Jesus had been arrested? People were asking him. It says that Peter was so defiant, it says he began to yell and curse at them. Like go completely out. No, no, no, I wasn't with him. How dare you say that about me? I'm not saying that you're doing that. I don't think most of us, because we live in a Christian culture, because we were raised in a well, I'm not the other thing. Yeah, I'm I follow Jesus, but most of us are not denying Jesus, but we're doing a really good job of blending in. We're trying really hard to blend in. There's a Chinese proverb that says the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And so we don't want to get hammered down. We just want to blend. We just want to whatever makes life easier. But I promise you, there's some things in your life that you need to stick out. You need to stand out. You need to be willing to stand up for. Because here's the deal maybe it's in your in the lives of your kids. They can see that you've compromised. Your kids are it doesn't matter what you say to kids. Parenting is more caught than taught. You could tell your kids, do it this way, but they see you, well, they see what you're doing. They see that you're not committed to God. Why do I need to go to church? My parents don't really live this way anyway. So we're creating, we're putting this image of hypocrisy in front of our children and telling them that this is important, but showing them that this is important. Coworkers, our co-workers aren't coming to us for spiritual advice because they can see we really don't care. We're really not living what we're saying. I feel like I've gone on too long. Ultimately, part-time Christianity does not work. So, how do we do it? We stop blending in. So today, we're gonna close in prayer. We're gonna do things a little bit differently. I know that usually I say, bow your head, close your eyes, I won't embarrass you. I won't embarrass you. But because we're talking about boldness, I want you to be bold today. You don't have to come up here or anything. But we're gonna bring the lights up just a little bit. Just a bit. Here's what I want you to do. There's two groups of people in the room. Maybe you're that, number one, you're that person that ye, this this message has resonated, the life of Daniel, and and standing out has resonated with you, and you're thinking, okay, I need to be more, I need to be bold this year. Maybe that's you. And number two, you're that person who's saying, Okay, I need to surrender my life, I need to boldly surrender my life to Jesus today and make a stand and take a step of faith and give my life to him. Trade my old life for a new one. And so instead of saying, bow your head, close your eyes, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you to do this. Don't bow your head. I want everybody looking around because I want us to be bold today. If you're in either one of those two groups and you're saying, I'm gonna be bold, I need to be more bold in my faith, I need to be more bold in my decisions, I need to be more bold in following Jesus. Or number two, I need to give Jesus my life today. If you're in either one of those two groups, I just want you to raise your hand up real high. I want everybody in the room just look around, draw a beer on the front row, look around with all the hands up. I believe God's taking us somewhere. I want us to pray today, and I want you to make this commitment, and then we're gonna close and worship, and we'll be out of here. But these are the moments that matter. So would you just close your eyes right where you are? Your chair right where you are is just an altar before the Lord. There's some things you need to leave there. You're not gonna take it with you when you walk out of here. You're gonna be bold, you're gonna step into some new things this year, you're gonna give God a year, you're gonna trade your life, whatever that, whatever it is. I just would you say these words with me today? Would you just say, God, thank you for sending your son to die on a cross for my sin. Today I choose to follow you. So take my old life and give me a new life. Breathe your life into me. Forgive me of my sin and help me to walk by faith and be bold every day. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Put your hands together for everybody who said that prayer. Amen. Amen. The prayer team is gonna join me up here at the front. Would you stand up on your feet? The worship team is gonna lead us in worship. I love you guys, and I'm excited about Wednesday night service this week. It'll just be one hour. Come pray with us, come worship with us. God bless you. You're dismissed in Jesus' name.