When Hope Interrupts Your Plans Series

The Thrills of Hope #3

When Hope Interrupts Your Plans

Dr. Marty Baker | Luke 1:26–38 | December 21, 2025

Welcome to Stevens Creek Church! We are so glad that you are here. I also want to welcome all of you who are in our Grovetown Campus, our North Augusta Campus, our South Campus, in our Atrium and all of you watching online.

I like to start with something funny…

Did you hear about the husband completely forgot his wife’s Christmas gift?

Christmas morning comes. Stockings are full. Kids are happy. She looks at him and says, “So… where’s mine?”

She said, “Tomorrow morning, there better be something in the driveway that goes from zero to one hundred and sixty in less than ten seconds.”

The next morning, she opens the door…and sitting in the driveway is a beautifully wrapped box. Big bow. Christmas paper. She opens it up… and inside is a brand-new bathroom scale.

Some of you are laughing. Some of you are thinking, That man is no longer with us.

But here’s the truth — life interrupts our plans all the time. We’re four days away from Christmas, and every family here has its own version of December. We come into this season with expectations.

• How it’s supposed to look.

• How it’s supposed to feel.

• How it’s supposed to go.

And sometimes, right in the middle of our plans, God does something unexpected.

Which brings us to the question at the heart of this message:

“What do I do when God’s plan interrupts my plan?”

Because December has a way of exposing that tension.

You had a picture in your mind of how this season would feel… and then life stepped in.

That’s why I love the part of the Christmas story we’re going to read today. We often imagine the first Christmas as peaceful. But when God stepped into Mary’s life, it wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t staged. It wasn’t predictable.

Mary was just living her life when God interrupted her plans.

That’s what Christmas teaches us. God doesn’t always work the way we expect. Sometimes He interrupts our plans because He has something better in mind.

God met Mary in her real life. And He wants to meet you in yours — right now.

Luke 1:26–28

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,

to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you.’”

Mary is stunned. She is not sure what to do with any of this. The Bible says she was troubled and wondered what kind of greeting this could be.

But the angel calms her saying: “Mary, do not be afraid. God has chosen you. You are going to conceive and give birth to a Son, and His name will be Jesus.”

Gabriel tells her this child will be great, the Son of the Most High, and His kingdom will never end.

Now, Mary cannot see how any of this makes sense. She says, “How can this be? I am a virgin.” Gabriel says,

“Mary, this will not come from you. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. God is doing something only He can do.”

Then he tells her something she didn’t know: “Your relative Elizabeth, the one who was told she could never have a child, is already six months along. Then, he said …

Luke 1:37

For with God nothing will be impossible.

And Mary responds with one of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

As we take in this story, we have to remember who Mary was. She was young. She had plans for her life. She thought she understood the direction things were going.

And in a single conversation, everything changed.

Her engagement was interrupted. Her reputation was interrupted. Her timeline was interrupted. Even her expectations were interrupted.

What God spoke over her was beautiful—but it also turned her life upside down. Mary didn’t need all the answers.

Just the courage to say yes.

Big Idea

Hope is trusting God’s plan even when it feels bigger than you.

Mary shows us what this looks like. She did not have all the answers. She did not get a five-year plan. She did not know how her story would unfold.

But she opened her heart to God. She took one step of faith, and that step changed the world.

The same can happen in us. We may not see angels or hear dramatic announcements, but when we trust God with the parts of life that feel too big or too unclear, that is where hope begins. That is where faith grows. That is where God starts writing a new chapter in our story.