As we look forward to a new year, we might be wondering what it has in store for us? What can we expect in 2026?


Maybe we are glad to get through 2025 and are relieved it's behind us, we lost friends or family or we had health or money or relationship struggles. Or maybe it was a great year and we have many good memories, many nice photos on our phones. But whether it was good or bad, we have turned the page and this coming year's chapter of our lives has not yet been written but is about to be.
Let me suggest several things that we as disciples of Jesus, can expect this year, taken from Matthew's gospel and his telling of the events at the time of the birth of Jesus.
Well this year we can expect to experience Immanuel, God with us.
At the beginning of Matthew's gospel, Matthew tells us that; 'The baby Jesus would be called Immanuel, God with us.' At the end of Matthew's Gospel the risen Lord Jesus says 'And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.' Matthew is telling us that Jesus came on that first Christmas and although he eventually ascended to Heaven, he is still with us through his Spirit, He is still Immanuel, and will be until the end of the age.
So in 2026 we can expect Jesus to be with us. That means he is with us to help us, He is with us in the sense that He is on our side, and He is with us in the other sense of him being present, he is close.
And so I would encourage you to be people of his presence in 2026. What does that look like? It means be alert and sensitive to signs of his presence and to call on his help a lot in 2026.
When God speaks, let's hear. When we are in need, let's pray. Let's not try and get by just relying on our own resources, but let's do things with the One who is near. Let's live as if Immanuel, Jesus is really very close and then we will find that He is. So often we forget or doubt it and we push through life insensitive to Immanuel and not looking to him, but instead trying to do things as if Jesus were distant and out of contact.
We have been reading in 2025 the story of Nehemiah in the Bible and Nehemiah is one of Biblical characters who most clearly 'practiced the presence of God'. Nehemiah is very sensitive to the presence of God and very dependent on God's assistance. When things were bad in Jerusalem, he fasts and prays. When the king asks him what he needs, Nehemiah prays before answering. When the idea comes to him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he knows that it was God who put the idea into his heart. He is aware that God gave him the idea, it wasn't just something he dreamt up himself. When his enemies taunted him, he said, that God would give them success and then he prayed.
Nehemiah is very God aware and God dependent. Let's be the same, bring God into every part of your daily routine, pray through the day, listen to him through the day, ask him questions.
Let's take the words of Isaiah as our promise for this year:
'Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.'
I recently heard a testimony by Kenny Borthwick who had been a Minister or Evangelist at Wester Hailes Scottish Church in Edinburgh. In fact he had to retire early through lung disease. This was in 2015 and he was sitting in the doctor's surgery feeling really unwell. He had been signed off work and his big concern was - 'what if I go in to the doctor and she doesn't realise I'm unwell and makes me go back to work?' He was sitting there feeling very anxious. Do you know what happened? He says he felt Jesus moving close to him. He says he can't put into words how tender and compassionate Jesus Christ was in moving close to him that day in the doctor's waiting room.
He felt Immanuel, God with us, Jesus.
He testified that: 'Somehow I still felt nervous. What if the doctor isn't that sympathetic?' Do you know what happened? The doctor started crying herself and through her Kenny felt a part of Jesus' compassion, care and tenderness. He knew there was a way out, a way forward.
The disease didn't get cured. He didn't have total recovery, but he knew that Jesus' presence in his life would somehow help him to get forward. And that is what happened.
The presence of Jesus enables us to go forward, through thick and thin.
Do you know the game of chess? In the game of chess (western version), there is a piece called the 'Knight', the knight can move three squares. It can move two squares forward, one square sideways; or one square forward, two squares sideways. It can jump over other pieces to make its move. Do you know that the knight in chess is unstoppable, it can always get out of this jam or that jam.
As I look back on 2025, I see again God helping me to get out of some jams. Not immediately, but eventually, perhaps after some praying, some pressure, some time, he enabled me to go forward again.
Let me share another testimony by Kenny Borthwick and this is to do with Jesus being with us. This is for any of us who might feel that nobody likes you, you might feel a bit awkward in company. Do people really like you? Do they love you? Do they want you? Many people have this insecurity. How wonderful God is that he is so desperate to be with us, that he came among us, as a human being who could be touched, heard, seen and had a body.
God got as close to us as humanly possible, by being born as a baby. You can't get much closer than being a baby in your mother's womb. Growing up in a human family, with a mother and father, brothers and sisters filling the house. God got as close to human beings as Divinely possible.
Kenny Borthwick tells the story of how he was at one of the Toronto Blessing meetings one year in Toronto and a lady got up to share her testimony and she said, 'You know I only ever felt comfortable with two people in front of me and that was my Mum and Dad and they are both dead.' She said, 'I have never felt that other people are comfortable with me.' And then she went on to say, crying gently, 'During the worship I heard God say to me: "I feel comfortable with you. I love being with you."'
I don't know if that really lands with us deep down. God actually likes being with us. He loves us and he actually likes us, likes our company, and he wants to remove the distance in our relationship with him.
Embrace that truth, embrace him.
Don't keep God at a distance in 2026, as James chapter 4 says, 'Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.' Seek and you shall find.
Closely linked to the fact that God is with us and helps us, is that this year we can expect God to guide us. God can give us precise guidance to 'act now, go there'. This is the promise of Psalm 23 - He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Look how precisely God guided his people at the time of the birth of Jesus and how important it was for them to listen to God and be quickly obedient. First of all he guided Joseph through a dream, to go against his instincts, and marry Mary, even though she was pregnant, and pregnant not by him. He was obedient.
Then after Jesus was born we see the wise men from the East come to worship Jesus, they were guided to where Jesus was, mainly through a star, and the fact that Herod's advisors told them the scriptures said the King of the Jews would be born in Bethlehem. So they were guided by a combination of the miraculous and the scriptural. Then, after seeing Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus, God again guided them not to go back to Jerusalem, but to go home by another way. This was good because King Herod wanted information from them about the whereabouts of the baby born King of the Jews in order to kill him. To avoid this disaster God guided Joseph and Mary through a dream to leave Bethlehem quickly for Egypt. Joseph rose from sleep, verse 14, and took the child and his mother by night to Egypt. This was immediate and total obedience. There was no delay, no halfway obedience.
God wants to speak to us in 2026 and we can all hear his voice and his guidance. The key to hearing God's voice is to spend time with him. Pray, read the bible, meditate on scripture. You will get more and more a sense of God speaking.
God guides and God also provides. We see Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt with their newborn baby. They had no plans to go there, but God told them to, because they were in danger. Where God guides, he provides. In their case the provision came from the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, all valuable gifts for a newborn baby which would certainly help the Holy Family to survive as refugees in Egypt. Like those of us who have had to come from Hong Kong, living on savings in a foreign land - but God provided them with plenty of savings through the gifts of the wise men.
So in 2026 we can expect God's provision. Jesus said that if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all your bodily needs will be met. If you put him first, that is the condition, then don't worry, you won't run out.
Notice in all these things Mary and Joseph were letting God lead. They were giving up control of their lives, submitting their plans and ideas, and just following the Lord. They were living by faith. They didn't have a five year plan, they didn't have a one year plan, their only plan was to follow. Plans are good, plans can be very important, but we must make sure our plans are aligned to God's plans. If our plans get in the way of God's plans, then we must drop them. Mary and Joseph's plans didn't involve fleeing to Egypt in the middle of the night, and staying there until Herod died. Their plans may have been to go down to Bethlehem, Mary give birth to Jesus there, fulfil the roman census requirements, and then, when Mary and baby were strong enough, to quietly return to Nazareth.
God had different plans, and Mary and Joseph humbly followed God's plans and not their own. We must be willing to do the same in 2026.
Jesus said 'The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.'
If you are born again, born of God's spirit, then God will blow you in directions you hadn't anticipated. There is an unpredictability and uncontrollability to the movement of God's spirit in our lives, and to the movements of the Christian who is led by the spirit.
But the safest place in this life is to be in God's will. Following God is scary, it involves suffering, but also protection and ultimate safety. I really like this painting by Rembrandt called 'The rest on the flight into Egypt'. It shows the Holy Family - Mary, Joseph and Jesus - and some other travellers huddled around a camp fire.
Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus are on the left, the other travellers are on the right. Whilst the landscape feels grand and dark, the figures are sat in a safe pocket. The huge world around, in shadow, but they are sat in the light and the warmth. Rest, safe. God is covering them, protecting them.
God is covering us in the same way. We can rest, relax on the journey of faith and obedience. God is covering.
The painting makes me think of the promises in Psalm 91:
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
'Because he loves me,' says the Lord, 'I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.'
Like Mary and Joseph, with the heavy burden of responsibility - baby Jesus - we can rest in the shadow of the Almighty, knowing that the Lord will rescue, protect, deliver and honour us, even as we go forward in 2026 and take our responsibilities.
The Holy Family went through hardship, having to flee persecution. In 2026 we will go through some hardship, and maybe persecution.
Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12: 'In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.'
In 2026 we can expect trouble, difficulty. Not everything will be easy. Hopefully some of it will be easy, but there may be trouble. Jesus warned us: 'In this world you will have trouble.'
The New Living Translation puts it like this: 'Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.'
We had trials and sorrows in 2025, and there may be more to come next year.
But then, after promising trouble, Jesus adds: 'But take heart! I have overcome the world.'
In other words, despite the trouble, there is victory to be had for all of us, because Jesus has overcome, we will overcome too. The trouble will not defeat us, if we persevere.
Because we are followers of Jesus we are part of a spiritual war. This reality was really brought home to us last autumn when Charlie Kirk was shot in the USA. Charlie Kirk stands strong for Christian values, he is an evangelist, bravely sharing the gospel, and teaching people, especially young people, God's moral values, and he is doing much good work, but he got shot.
There is real opposition to Christianity.
Why?

Because there is massive evil in this world, and massive good, because we are born into a world that is at war.
All human beings have hardship and difficulty, that is part of living in this broken world, but Christians have a special spiritual opposition, as followers of Jesus Christ, we will have trouble brought to us by Satan's kingdom and those aligned to the evil one. That is a certainty.
This is what Jesus experienced and we can expect the same, persecution.
This is why Jesus prayed these words for his disciples: 'I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.'
We see this spiritual war clearly in the story of the birth of Jesus because it is a story of two kings - the legitimate King of the Jews, Jesus Christ, and the powerful usurper King Herod. Behind Jesus Christ is God and behind King Herod is Satan - so there are two spiritual kingdoms in conflict here.
Think of the world as a chessboard. You read the newspapers, the news websites and see events happening. You see people doing good things, bad things. The pieces on the chessboard are moving.
Can you imagine God moving his pieces on the chessboard of the earth and can you imagine Satan moving his pieces too? You can't see God's hand moving the pieces, you can't see Satan's hand moving the pieces, and the newspapers, the news websites rarely mention God, and rarely mention Satan, but both are involved, that is for sure.
In the last book of the bible, Revelation, it tells us that God wins the chess game. He knows Satan's every move even before he makes it, he outwits Satan, yet he still allows Satan to play freely, and Satan does cause damage in the process, like we see with Charlie Kirk.
Look how God outwits Satan in the birth of Jesus. The wise men told Herod about the baby born King of the Jews, but Herod couldn't get to baby Jesus, God moved him out of reach, in time. How? Because people were willing to be obedient to his instructions.
God knew how to get out of a potential checkmate. He warned the wise men not to return to Herod and he warned Joseph and Mary to flee the country quickly because Herod was going to try and kill the baby.
When Herod discovered he had been outwitted, he was furious. He killed all the babies in the Bethlehem area under the age of two, desperately trying to get rid of the Christ. But the trap was laid, but it was empty. God was one step ahead of his enemy.
Eventually, perhaps a couple of years later, Herod died, and Jesus was safely brought to Nazareth, and God's plan moved forward.

Friends we must realise that wherever God is moving, bringing life and blessing, Satan will also be present, trying to kill, steal and destroy.
So let's pray in 2026: 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' For ourselves, and for our church, for we are all players in this great chess game.
In 2026 we will face difficulty, but God will be with us, protecting, guiding and comforting us. If we look to him, Immanuel will be there, very close. He will always enable us to go forward, like the knight on the chess board, we won't get stuck.
So let's remember the Lord's words to his people in Deuteronomy chapter 31:
'Be strong and courageous...For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.'
Amen.