2025 Sermon Series Forecast

Jesus promised his disciples complete joy amid a life filled with tribulation (John 15-16). On the night of his betrayal, Jesus promised, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:10-11). That is quite a promise: his joy in us, but more than that, complete joy. If I were sitting next to the apostles when Jesus first spoke those words, I would likely have equated complete joy with a life free of suffering. However, right on the heels of Jesus’ promise of joy, he promises tribulation and sorrow (John 16). How can joy and pain coexist simultaneously? They cannot and will not unless we become adept at calling certain truths about Jesus, his promises to us, and our union with him to the forefront of our minds. 

I cannot count the number of times I have wrestled with the coexistence of the problem of pain and the promise of joy. For the twenty-five years leading up to New Year’s Day of 2024, Stacy and I felt as if we had been treading water, battling chronic illness. Always praying, hoping, and asking God to pull us back into the boat. A year ago, following a new treatment for Lyme disease in December of 2023, we felt God had pulled us back into the boat, dried us off, and handed us a cup of hot cocoa. After Stacy’s treatment in December 2023, by March 2024, she had felt better than in years. I had even declared to Stacy that Van Morrison’s Brand New Day should be our theme song for 2024. 

When all the dark clouds roll away
And the sun begins to shine.
I see my freedom from across the way.
And it comes right in on time.
Well, it shines so bright, and it gives so much light.
And it comes from the sky above.
Make me feel so free, make me feel like me.

And it lights my life with love

And it seems like, and it feels like
And it seems like, yes, it feels like
A brand new day
A brand new day

Joy was natural as we envisioned a future without chronic pain. I probably should have waited a few months before choosing a theme song. The dark clouds returned, the boat tossed, and we found ourselves back in the water. In April, Stacy ruptured a disc, bringing more pain and limiting her ability to walk. After months of therapy and unsuccessful treatments, she underwent another major surgery (five in the last seven years). After a long recovery, just when we thought we would be pulled back into the boat, we were both handed a few bricks as we tread water. Nineteen days before Christmas, Stacy fell and broke her hip, requiring a total hip replacement.

I do not share these things to solicit your pity but to illustrate a crucial spiritual principle: What we do with truth amid life's pain will determine whether or not Jesus’ promise of complete joy is realized or perceived as a cruel fiction we chose to believe so that we can keep treading water. If Jesus’ promises are true, we must call them to mind. If they are not, the nihilists are right: there is no boat, no God, and no hope, and all this treading water is utter vanity.

In the months between the ruptured disc and the broken hip, I poured through the scriptures and fought for joy. I found myself drawn to the Psalms, where the Psalmist would complain to God about his pain and suffering, only to pivot and turn to the truth he could not, at the moment, feel – that there is hope. 

The week before Stacy’s fall, I studied, meditated, and memorized portions of Jeremiah’s Lamentations. When I first began reading the Bible thirty-six years ago, I sometimes questioned whether laments like Jeremiah’s were something people should even think about God, let alone say or record for people throughout the ages to read and emulate. Jeremiah’s Lamentations records his lament amid God’s judgment against Judah. Here is a sample.

¹⁰He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; 

¹¹he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 

¹²he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. 

¹³He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; 

¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. 

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. 

Lamentations 3:10–15 

He likens God to a bear that tears his people to pieces and an archer who places well-aimed arrows into his people’s kidneys. He knows that while the nation of Babylon is the instrument of his nation’s pain and suffering, God is the one who has chosen to allow, ordain, and use this suffering for a purpose only he knows (Romans 8:28-29). He credits God for filling him with bitterness. Have you been there, treading water, fighting to keep your chin above the waves, asking God to pull you back in the boat, only to be given a few more bricks to hold? It is not just the pain; it is the realization that God could relieve it, but for whatever reason, he has not. If the lament ended there, Jeremiah and the rest of all those treading water would give up hope and sink to the depths. However, it does not end there; he fights for joy, and in doing so, he teaches us how to persevere. Keep reading.

¹⁹Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 

²⁰My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 

²¹But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 

²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 

²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 

²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 

Lamentations 3:19–24

Do you see it? Right there amid treading water, wearing a milestone as a life preserver, Jeremiah calls something to mind. His people have been ravaged, raped, and murdered; their temple has been burned to the ground, and starving mothers are quarreling over who gets to eat their dead children. In this moment, when all hope seems lost, he calls to mind the steadfast love of the Lord. Yes, he and his peers are in pain, but that does not change the fact that God’s love never ceases. It does not change the reality that his mercies never end. The pain does not negate the fact that the sun will set only to rise again, bringing with it a new day. All the disappointment in the world cannot prevent God from being faithful. That is why Jeremiah chooses the Lord as his portion, and it is for that reason that he hopes, even as he treads water.

I hope your 2025 will not be as bad as Jeremiah’s, the year Jerusalem fell to Babylon, but it might be. Either way, our joy will depend on the degree to which we call God’s promises to you to the forefront of our minds. Those truths will not help us if they stay in the Bibles we do not read, go unspoken in prayers we do not pray, or we insulate ourselves from Christians who can encourage us. We have a choice. We can call a million and one useless data points to mind, or we can learn to fight for joy and call the promises of God to mind. 

To help us fight for joy as 2025 begins, our first three sermon series will teach you how to call the truths about Christ and your union with him to mind. Our first three Sermon Series 

The Lord Is My Shepherd—In January, we will study David’s prayer in Psalm 23 for four weeks. We will learn to recall truths about the Good Shepherd to have peace as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We aim to learn it so that, like David and Jeremiah, we may call its truths to mind and, therefore, have hope.

Our Union with Christ—From February through April, we will study Romans 8, focusing on Paul’s emphasis on our union with Christ. We will follow Paul’s lead in remembering what Jesus has done and who we are in him. As we remember these truths, we will discover that we are more than conquerors regardless of our circumstances. 

Walking in the Spirit—Following Easter, we will spend seven weeks examining the practice of Walking in the Spirit (Romans 8:4). Each week, we will learn various disciplines that constitute walking in the Spirit. 

One thing is sure: our hope will be placed somewhere. We can passively allow it to focus on whatever the world, the flesh, and the devil place in front of our eyes, or we can develop the discipline, the habit of setting our minds on the steadfast love of the Lord. Make 2025 a year you learn to find hope in Christ.