The Call Of The Christian In 2025

My wife and I recently got a new edition of the video game “The Oregon Trail” for our family Nintendo Switch. If you are not familiar with “The Oregon Trail,” it is a video game about settlers heading out to journey on the Oregon Trail, traveling west through the challenges that came for people who would take the journey.

When we first started playing, sure enough, someone in our fictional wagon party died quickly of dysentery and was given a tombstone that read, “Here lies Charles - where there is love, there is dysentery.” Yet playing the fun, fictional game got me thinking about the many hardships and difficulties that those who would brave the journey west had to endure to reach their destination. Many did not make it. And that got me wondering, in a spiritual sense, what kind of challenges do Christians in America have to face in 2025?

Following the 2024 presidential election results, pastor and author John Piper posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Having delivered us from one evil, God now tests us with another. ‘The lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul’ (Deuteronomy 13:3).” What did he mean by that?

I believe he meant that with the return of Donald Trump to the White House, most evangelical Christians breathed a sigh of relief, with the expectation that religious freedom will be more secure, and that perhaps there might be a reprieve to some degree from the cultural clash against Christian values and beliefs in our country.

Even so, that does not mean there are no challenges facing Christians in America. In fact, the obstacles we face in some ways are more nuanced and subtle so that we may not even realize what we are going to be dealing with moving forward.

I was recently having breakfast with a fellow pastor and friend, discussing the issues of the moment we live in and what the greatest challenge now is facing Christianity in America in 2025. He thought for a moment between bites at Denny’s and said, “The greatest threat to Christianity in America at this moment is losing what it means to be Christian.”

Seeing the true message of Christianity get hijacked, misused, minimized or weaponized is what we need to be watchful of. The credibility and authenticity of our gospel witness is at stake. What does it mean to be a Christian in 2025? What does it look like to follow Jesus amid a “crooked and perverse generation” (Philippians 2:15) that is highly polarizing, divided and angry, and how can we stick out for the right reasons on this journey we happen to be on toward our destination?

A Christian is an alien, a stranger, a pilgrim whose identity is to be found not in a political or ideological tribe nor in any of the other spectrums that society tells us to base our identity on; rather, a Christian’s identity is in Christ. We are citizens, ultimately not of America or this world, but of heaven (Philippians 3:20) and we are here to build a spiritual kingdom while we are here, not a physical, national, political or ideological one.

We are Christians first, Americans second, and political third, and it must be in that order. This world and this incredible country we love is not our real home and must not be our primary focus.

We belong to a heavenly country, and a strong indicator of whether we have our identity where it should be is whether we desire that heavenly country and long for the home of heaven. We are part of a family, a community of believers that is not just local or national, but global, and while the world around us is divided, we must remain united by our common bond: the cross and our need for the forgiveness of the savior who was on that cross.

A Christian should have compassion as well as conviction. Christ implores us to not be indifferent to the plight of the hurting and helpless around us. Jesus said how we treat them reflects how we treat him. The tendency in 2025 is to demonize the “other” to the extent that one forgets that every human being is made in the image of God, and every human being is loved by Jesus Christ and therefore, should be loved by us. We must remember what happened to Jonah, the Old Testament prophet, who was so filled with hate for his enemy that he initially refused to even share the message God gave him for the people of Nineveh. The God of the Bible is compassionate, and his people must be characterized by this as well.

However, a Christian must also adhere to biblical conviction. In a world that claims we cannot be compassionate and loving if we do not affirm and condone that which God in the Bible condemns creates the conundrum facing us today. A Christian must be compassionate and loving but not at the expense of biblical truth, even if it earns us being unfriended, unfollowed and unliked. Jesus walked in grace and truth, and we must do the same.

Finally, a Christian is called to share the gospel with a lost and hurting world. Jesus is not an option; he is the answer for all our dilemmas. The problem and challenge before us is to not let the good news of God loving the world so much he gave his son be lost in the noise of the drama, confusion, angst and polarization of our time. If winning is everything, God wants us to be about winning souls for his kingdom. That is what he’s up to in 2025 and that’s what we should be up to as well.

A Christian should reflect Christ in all that we say and do, so that we bear his name with honor.

“Proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”- 1 Peter 2:9

Stephen Mitchell is the senior pastor of Trinity Bible Church in Severna Park. He also is the host of a regular podcast “Real Christian Talk with Pastor Steve,” available on all podcast platforms.