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Riverside Dec. 28, 2025
What Just Happenedin 2025
What’s Gonna Happen in 2026
25 years ago, Riverside Church rented the No Frills Store building on George Street. At the time this vacant building was owned by Canadian Tire who had moved to their current location on Lansdowne. As a church we renovated the site, we were growing and thriving and enjoying such a visible location.
Then one Sunday morning we found out that we had to move out as No Frills was moving in. When we contemplated this event, we had 2 questions:
1 WHAT-WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
2 NOW WHAT -WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW?
-it was a bit of a faith crisis, to trust God completely for an unknown, cloudy future and not to worry or fret or fear or be anxious or get angry about what just happened.
-whether it’s a church or a person; the future is always unknown, oh, we may have our plans but we all know that the future is unknown, it is indefinite, the future is mysterious, it is unidentified and the future is unfamiliar. AND THAT IS GENERALLY UNCOMFORTABLE -to us mere mortals.
0n Thursday it will be 2026 and this unknown future will be upon us.
God has given me a verse for 2026 and I believe this verse is also for our Church at Riverside and for each of you personally.
Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
What just happened?In 2025 -it’s almost over.
What is going to happen?In 2026 -it’s almost here.
What just happened to you in 2025? With the eyes of your soul, look back over the events that happened in your personal 2025. Re-observe, at a distance, the experiences, the outcomes and the emotions you had in 2025.
-it’s sometimes uncomfortable to look closely at ourselves but I tell myself ‘get over it -if I run, hide or ignore my 2025 I only fool or hurt myself’. It seems to me that God already knows my 2025, and for that matter most other people observed me enough to know my general demeanor. But do I know myself, have I looked a me honestly?
Please humour me and humour yourself by looking at you in 2025. I bet your 2025 falls into 1 out of 3 categories.
And the categories are -GOOD-BAD-INDIFFERENT.
&* let me start with the most common experience -INDIFFERENT
"Same old same old" would describe your 2025. It’s a common phrase meaning nothing new or different happened. In other words my situation, my behavior and routines are generally repetitive and monotonous, and boring, and just vanilla.
-if someone asked in 2025 "How are you?" you might reply “status quo”
or "business as usual" or “you know- the daily grind".
-a sarcastic person might lie with a smile –“I’m living the dream’
2025 was so-so, it was indifferent.
&** if someone asked you how was your 2025 you might say GOOD or you might say I had a great year, a **lsquo;rainbow year’. Everything turned out great, some wonderful things came my way. 🡪I am truly happy for you, I’ve had a few years like that too.
I did say FEW, because generally speaking every year seems to have a few zingers in it, at least a couple ouches/heartbreaks/hurts or ‘bads’ in them.
A recent Gallup Poll reveals that 28% of the world say “We had a good year, we’re thriving -28%.
&* If someone asked you how was your 2025 you might say **ldquo;not so good” or you might say “bad”. In fact, 60% of the world globally call it ‘struggling’ -that’s their descriptive word for 2025 -a struggle. These are not polls taken of Christians but of people in general. But, does this fit you -struggling- when you look back on 2025?
-now for all you math people, business finance people and teachers and engineers etc. who added up the poll percentages of 28% good year and 60% bad year -you ask what’s the remaining 12%.
This is sad, very sad -very bad – the remaining 12% of people say life can be described as “suffering”. That’s worse then bad -like suffering for Nigerian Christians this week, or like suffering Ukrainians the last 3 years or suffering like that homeless man, an addict, who slept outside on the cement by our church’s side door all night, last winter.
How was your 2025? If the ‘truth be known’ we’ve all had a taste of good, bad, along with some suffering mixed in with so-so indifference in 2025.
BUTwhat happened in 2025?
-through 2025 was God with you all the time, through ups and down
-did God hear your every prayer, did He answer every prayer in
2025 with a yes or a no or a ‘not now’?
-did God supply you with your every need
-was God available to give you strength or hope or direction in
2025-did you ask for it?
-did God love you in 2025,
-did God want to change you and did God work at changing you to
be more like Jesus. -did you let God work?
I want to read that special verse from Isaiah again and make 3 points that will help me in 2026. (ditto for you)
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Changing Circumstances
Changes are coming, to you, in your family, in our Church, it is inevitable -things are always changing. You may not like it or feel comfortable with change, but change is bound to happen.
What does God say to changing circumstances -to you for 2026?
-don’t be afraid-fear not to the shepherds as God’s plan was unfolding anew before them.
- fear not to Joshua as he entered a new land and an unknown foe that lay ahead
-put your hope in God
Don’t hope God answers your prayer -your way, hope in God
-hope that He will do good,
(remember He is good and has promised good to us).
-hope that He will work it out,
(all things work for our good because God makes it so)
-hope that He will make a way when there seems to be no way
(remember Is. 43 ways in the wilderness and streams in the
desert)
-hope only in God, don’t hope that your circumstance will change -that doesn’t work -HOPE IN GOD -He will care, help and lead you……..
-I having been reading polls lately and 1 of these polls said that 41% of Canadians feel that things will be better in 2026 than 2025.
This is what they said the previous year -things are going to get better in 2025 over 2024 / that’s misplaced hope because 🡪things got worse in 2025 and 52% of people said so.
HOPE ONLY IN A NEVER CHANGING SOVERIEGN GOD.
-trust the Lord and don’t be anxious
Proverbs 3:5-6 King George Version
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;in all your ways follow God, and he will make your paths straight even amidst changing circumstances and shifting situations.
When things happen in 2026 and you may not understand why, ask yourself this question: what do you do in confusing times. Then answer this question by telling yourself : Trust God in confusing times.
It’s called living by trusting God. -trust God sees your circumstances/sees you, trust God answers prayers perfectly in His good will, trust God can help you 🡪 in fact -trust God in everything, all the time, every time.
-“the times they are a changing” (Bob Dylan tune from the 60’s), it will happen, change included unwanted change will come in 2026 and it’s almost here.
-please thrive in the New Year by not fearing the unknown, by putting your hope only in God, trust God at all times, including, trusting God in the dark valleys. For Christians this is what works, it is the only way.
Paul is in Macedonia and sits down to write 2 Corinthians. It could be near the end of year 55 AD. He records the answers to 2 questions:
What just happened this year (55AD) and what’s going to happen next year -shortly in 56 AD? Just like us -what just happened and what is going to happen in 2026?
2 Corinthians 4: 8 🡪
*We are pressured in every way, with all the changing circumstances,
but we are not crushed; we have faith
*We are perplexed, unsure of finding a way out or the reason why,
but not driven to despair; we are not giving up hope;
*we are hunted down and persecuted, some people can be so cruel
but we are not deserted, no-no God is with us we do not to stand alone.
*we arestruck down, but never destroyed;
(this year Paul admits that 55AD was tough but in God alone He is not destroyed and can face 56AD and carry on and thrive)
16 … we do not become discouraged, without hope, disappointed, or afraid. Though our outer self is progressively wasting away, yet our inner self, (our hope, our faith, our trust in God) is being progressively renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary distress, this passing trouble, is producing for us an … endless blessing. 18 So we look not at the things which are seen (the happenings of 2026), but at the things which are unseen (that is Our God who loves us, holds, us leads us along through everything); for the things which are visible are temporal, just brief and fleeting, but the things which are invisible are everlasting and imperishable.
Our key verse for 2026 is: Isaiah 43:18-19
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
The God who never changes works in an everchanging landscape of your life and its changing circumstances, for your good always. Therefore, don’t fear what may come in 2026, don’t be anxious over what may happen to you in 2026 but rather HOPE in God alone, trust Him completely in everything and see Him work (it’s a new thing God will do)
Will you take care of yourself in 2026 by trusting God in all that happens in 2026 and will you take care of yourself by placing your hope only in God?
