Explain This To Me

What does it truly mean to live a great life? This message challenges us to rethink our understanding of greatness by examining Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:13-16, where He calls His followers to be salt and light in the world. We discover that genuine greatness isn't about fitting in or achieving worldly success, but about being distinctively different in a way that confounds the world around us. Like a city on a hill that provides refuge and safety in darkness, we are called to live counterintuitively, displaying peace in anxiety, joy in hardship, and kindness in the face of injustice. The sermon draws on 1 Peter 3:13-16, revealing that when we live with this kind of hope, people will inevitably ask us to explain ourselves. They'll need us to break down our behavior in terms they can understand, much like someone unfamiliar with sports needs an explanation for an unprecedented athletic feat. This is the divine design: our lives become walking invitations for others to encounter Jesus. We don't need to manufacture opportunities to share our faith or worry about having perfect apologetic arguments. When we genuinely live as Christ calls us to live, the world will come asking questions, and we simply need to point them to the greatest of all time who lives within us. The challenge isn't to be successful by the world's standards, but to be significant by adding value to others' lives in ways that last forever.