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I remember coming here, my wife Leslie, by the way, is here with me today, and I spoke Passion City, I think in 2014 or something.

I was so moved by what I experienced in the worship time and in the demeanor of the staff and the volunteers and people who serve in the core of the church.

I made a comment, kind of a side comment, before my message, I said, you know, when I think of Passion City Church, I think of the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 5,

where he talked about a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. And what was he saying? And not the Passion City is necessarily on a physical hill.

But I think of Passion City because the church that proclaims the gospel, the proclaims a message of love and grace and hope and redemption, not just in this little neighborhood and this community in this city, but really worldwide.

And so I think of this church as the city on the hill. And then I thought, well, maybe it would be a good idea to take a look at that whole passage on this visit.

And so I want to take you back 2,000 years when Jesus was standing on a hillside and he was looking into the eyes of people of that day.

But I really believe by extension, he was looking down through history. He was looking at you today. And this is what he said.

He said, you are the salt of the earth. But if a salt loses the saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. But you, you are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand because light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine among others that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

What did he mean by those metaphors of salt and light? I think he was saying this. I think he was saying, look, if you are going to be a follower of mine, I want you to live lives like salt that make people thirst for God.

I want you to live life like light that shine my message of hope and grace and love and redemption. Just shine that message in the dark areas of despair.

And the question I want to ask this morning is this, what would it look like in the 21st century for you and me to be stronger salt and brighter light?

What would that look like? Well, my buddy Mark Middelberg and I wrote a book about this and we thought long and hard about the title of the book and we decided to call it the unexpected adventure.

Because we really think if three things are true of you, if you're motivated to engage with people and spiritual conversations, if you make yourself available to do that, if you're prepared to do that, you never know what's going to happen.

Could start out to be an average and routine day, but God might open a door for you to have a conversation.

A conversation could change somebody's life and change their eternal destination. That's the unexpected adventure of the Christian life.

I've seen it in my own life, crazy things take place. I remember I was an atheist for much of my life. I was the legal editor of the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

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