Ending 2025 Strong & Starting 2026 Fully Surrendered | Pastor Gladys Nordlund
- Dec 28, 2025
- 4 min read
The sermon delivered on the last Sunday of the year at River City Church centers around the theme of ending 2025 strong and starting 2026 fully surrendered to God. The speaker reflects on the struggles and burdens many have faced throughout the year, acknowledging the weariness and challenges that come with daily life and spiritual battles. Drawing from James 1:2-8, the message emphasizes faith, endurance, and the importance of trusting God fully, especially in times of trial. The concept of surrender is redefined from a worldly perspective of defeat to a biblical understanding of yielding control to God and trusting in His strength.
The sermon includes testimonies from church members—Claude, Jane, and a youth named R.J.—each illustrating different burdens and how surrendering them to God led to breakthroughs and spiritual growth. Claude shares his battle with stress and anxiety, learning to trust God amid disappointment. Jane recounts her journey through her son’s serious medical diagnosis, breaking generational curses through faith and persistence. R.J. describes overcoming negative influences in his youth and embracing faith with renewed commitment, including fasting and prayer.
The speaker encourages the congregation to participate in a symbolic act of “leaving a burden” behind for 2025 by writing down their burdens and burning them, while simultaneously “picking a promise” from scripture to carry into 2026. Practical steps for surrender include releasing control, trusting God moment by moment, and speaking scripture over challenges instead of rehearsing problems. The message calls for bold faith, unity, and wholehearted service to God in the coming year, rejecting divided loyalty and embracing a lifestyle of obedience and trust.
The sermon concludes with a prophetic declaration for 2026, envisioning breakthroughs in personal strongholds, healing in marriages, church growth, deepened community relationships, and impactful outreach beyond church walls. The congregation is encouraged to step into the new year with faith, surrender, and a commitment to serve God with one heart and one loyalty.
Highlights
- The sermon’s theme: Ending 2025 strong and starting 2026 fully surrendered to God.
- Biblical surrender is redefined as trusting and yielding to God, not as defeat or weakness.
- Testimonies from church members illustrate real-life burdens and breakthroughs through surrender.
- Practical advice on how to surrender burdens: release control, trust God in every moment, and speak scripture.
- The tradition of leaving burdens behind through a symbolic act and picking scripture promises for the new year.
- A call to reject divided loyalty and live with bold, unwavering faith in God.
- A prophetic vision for 2026: church growth, healing, deeper community, and effective outreach.
Key Insights
- Surrender as Trust and Yielding, Not Defeat:
The sermon challenges the common misunderstanding of surrender as giving up or losing control. Instead, it presents biblical surrender as an active, willful trust in God, where relinquishing control invites God’s power and grace to operate in one’s life. This redefinition empowers believers to embrace surrender as a strength rather than a weakness.
- Burdens as Opportunities for God’s Power:
Drawing from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, the message highlights that what seem like limitations or hardships are actually moments for God to demonstrate His strength. This perspective transforms burdens from obstacles into “God’s showoff moments,” encouraging believers to bring their struggles to God rather than trying to manage them alone.
- Faith Endurance Through Trials:
Using James 1:2-8, the sermon teaches that trials are opportunities for joy because they produce endurance, leading to spiritual maturity and completeness. Endurance is not passive but an active process of trusting God’s wisdom over one’s own understanding, cultivating deeper faith.
- The Danger of Divided Loyalty and Doubt:
The sermon warns against living with divided loyalty—partially trusting God while holding onto worldly patterns or doubts. Doubt is addressed not as sinful questioning but as a barrier that must be brought honestly to God for wisdom and healing. Unresolved doubt leads to instability and prevents believers from receiving God’s blessings fully.
- Breaking Generational Curses Through Faith and Renunciation:
Jane’s testimony introduces the important spiritual concept of recognizing, renouncing, and replacing generational curses with the truth of scripture. This three-step process—recognition, renunciation, and replacement—equips believers to break free from inherited patterns of sin or suffering, emphasizing the power of Christ’s redemption.
- Practical Spiritual Discipline for Surrender:
The sermon offers practical steps to surrender burdens: stop rehearsing problems, speak scripture over struggles, trust God moment by moment, and obey daily rather than sporadically. These habits foster a lifestyle of surrender that leads to peace and spiritual growth, moving away from merely managing life’s hardships.
- Youth as a Model for Radical Faith and Obedience:
The testimony of R.J. underscores the importance of youth engagement in church life and spiritual formation. His radical faith in turning “yes” to God and “no” to fleshly temptations exemplifies how surrender empowers transformation. This highlights the vital role of the church community in supporting youth to grow in faith and obedience.
- A Unified and Bold Church Vision for 2026:
The sermon’s prophetic declaration calls the church to unity, bold faith, and active outreach, emphasizing that spiritual surrender fuels effective ministry. The vision includes healing, growth, and deep covenant relationships, demonstrating how collective surrender and obedience prepare the church to impact the community and fulfill its mission.
- Obedience as Preparation for Future Harvest:
The message stresses that obedience today, even when difficult, prepares the ground for future blessings and spiritual fruit. This long-term perspective encourages believers to persevere in faith and trust, knowing that God’s timing and purposes will ultimately prevail.
- Simplicity in Spiritual Practice:
The speaker notes that surrender and faith need not be complicated or mystical but can be cultivated through simple, consistent practices like memorizing scripture, prayer, and community support. This accessibility invites all believers, regardless of background or education, to participate fully in spiritual growth.
- The Harvest is Now:
Citing scripture and the church’s mission, the sermon urges believers to recognize that the “harvest” — opportunities for saving souls and impacting lives — is present, not distant. This urgency calls for immediate action rooted in faith and surrender, reinforcing the church’s role as an active agent in God’s kingdom.
This comprehensive message aligns faith, practical steps, personal testimonies, and prophetic vision to inspire the congregation to enter the new year with renewed commitment, courage, and surrender to God’s will.