Finding Our Next Step in the New Year
Edited directly from the sermon transcript of Matthew Miller’s message at Highland Hills Church of Christ on January 4, 2026. Adapted for length and readability while preserving his voice and message.
I love the first Sunday of a new year because it feels full of possibility. We have made it to another year. You may say you came into it limping. That is all right. You are here.
The new year invites a question: What will we do with the time God places ahead of us? Our theme at Highland Hills for 2026 is next steps, because every Christian has a next step. Every relationship, marriage, ministry, and church does too.
Perhaps you feel stalled, lost, or unsure where you are on the path. Perhaps you feel as if you are running at full speed. Wherever you are, God still has a next step. He is not done with you or with us.
Philippians 3 is a fitting place to begin. Paul is showing the church what it looks like to live wholeheartedly for Jesus. He warns against placing confidence in the flesh—in the visible accomplishments people treat as proof that they have arrived.
If anyone could claim that kind of confidence, Paul says, he could. He has the right lineage, religious background, education, and zeal. He was a rising figure among his people. Yet now that he knows Jesus, he counts those former gains as loss.
Whatever happened in the previous year—our highest achievements or lowest experiences—God has something more worthy ahead, and it is found in Christ.
When we lived in North Carolina, I wanted to learn to surf. The Atlantic is a rough place to begin, but it was what I had. I made friends with a man who had surfed all his life and was also a preacher with a doctorate in theology. It felt as though God had arranged that friendship.
He taught me to surf, or perhaps more accurately, to survive getting hit by waves. One day he told me that as a young man he had pursued academic achievements and accolades. He thought he knew a great deal, but God took him back to kindergarten and showed him that what mattered most was Jesus.
That stayed with me—even more than getting hit with a surfboard.
Paul says something similar. He wants to gain Christ and be found in him, receiving righteousness through faith rather than through his own achievement. He wants to know Jesus, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering.
Then in verse 12, Paul makes an important admission: he has not yet attained all this or reached perfection.
We are all somewhere, but wherever we are, we are not done. If Paul had not arrived spiritually, none of us can claim we have reached the end of growth. Following Jesus means continuing in the direction he leads us, whatever our background or struggle.
Where do we go if we are tired? What if we are stuck in sin? What if life seems to be collapsing? Those can be places where our growth stalls because we think there is nowhere left to go. We have exhausted our energy or resources and feel as if we are drifting.
Yet those can be the places where God’s power becomes clearest. Elsewhere, Paul describes pleading with Jesus to remove a thorn in his flesh. His request is honest and recognizable. When something hurts, we want it taken away.
Jesus tells him that his grace is sufficient and that his power is made perfect in weakness. We do not find that word easy to accept. But if we are tired, God can lead us toward renewal. If we are trapped in sin, he can lead us toward freedom. If we are drifting, he can call us back to commitment.
Paul then describes his focus: forgetting what lies behind and reaching toward what is ahead, he presses toward the goal of God’s upward call in Christ.
Taking a next step requires a kind of holy dissatisfaction. Paul recognizes that Jesus is leading him toward something he has not yet reached. This is different from the lack of contentment he later addresses in the same letter. He knows how to be content in plenty and in need. Here he speaks of spiritual hunger: knowing that Jesus has more for him and wanting to follow.
Our next steps begin where complacency ends. We can examine what has become comfortable enough to keep us from moving forward.
Have we decided our prayer life is good enough? Have we assumed we are already spiritually mature? Have we seen a need and concluded that somebody else will serve it? Have we tried to share Jesus, become discouraged, and stopped?
Those assumptions may reveal where we have settled into autopilot. Paul gives us another picture: reaching forward.
Next steps also require focus. Have you ever tried to chase ten things at once? You may make a little progress in several directions without getting very far. Paul speaks of one thing: pursuing Christ’s upward call.
Jesus teaches a similar focus in Matthew 6. His hearers have real concerns about food and clothing. He directs them toward God’s kingdom and righteousness. That singular pursuit helps us find a deeper life with him amid the anxieties of the age.
What is the one thing God may be calling you toward? A relationship to repair? A sin to turn from? A ministry you have resisted joining? A person you need to remember in prayer? Growth becomes intentional as we reach toward that step.
Our next steps are personal, and they also belong to our life as a family. Paul invites the church to follow his example. It is easy to reduce Christianity to me and Jesus, but throughout Scripture, God’s calling of individuals serves a wider people.
You have an important part in what he is doing, often through local and unseen acts. Your growth benefits others. As one of my professors put it, a rising tide lifts all boats. When you take the next step with Jesus, the people connected with you are helped too.
We will be thinking about devotion, discipleship, unity, mission, service, and generosity. But we begin by asking what our own next step is.
Perhaps it is beginning a prayer habit. If you have not prayed in a long time and do not know where to start, begin honestly with your need for help. Perhaps it is forgiving someone and releasing the burden you have held for too long.
Perhaps it is baptism: trusting Jesus, asking him to be Lord, and beginning a new life in him. Perhaps it is exploring how to serve, joining a ministry, helping lead a small group, or sharing Jesus with someone.
We all have a next step. Imagine what would happen if every person in this church made an earnest decision to seek it and take it. What would a whole people moving toward Jesus look like?
That is the invitation before us. We can ask Christ for courage, walk alongside one another, and take the step he gives us. God is not finished with us. There is still life, growth, and good work ahead in him.
