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.
Here’s what Mary’s story shows us—four ways hope interrupts our plans. Here’s the first one.
1. Hope finds you in ordinary moments.
Sometimes the interruption of God doesn’t come with a warning. It shows up in the middle of an ordinary day.
When the angel appears in Luke 1, Mary is not in Jerusalem. She’s not at the temple. She’s not in a worship service or on a spiritual retreat.
She’s in Nazareth—a small farming village in Galilee. And here’s something most people don’t know: Nazareth never appears once in the Old Testament. Not one time.
If you were ranking cities by spiritual importance, Jerusalem was the center of everything. Nazareth wasn’t even on the map.
Mary is likely between 13 and 16 years old. She’s not doing anything remarkable. She’s doing normal life—carrying water, helping at home, thinking about her upcoming marriage.
In other words, she’s doing what many of you were doing this morning—managing responsibilities, thinking ahead, trying to hold life together.
And that’s the moment God steps in. Mary didn’t go looking for an angel. The angel came looking for her.
That tells us something we can’t miss: God does not wait for perfect conditions. He’s not limited to holy places or quiet moments. He shows up in the middle of real life.
When Gabriel says, “The Lord is with you,” that’s not a comment on Mary’s spiritual résumé. It’s a reminder that God meets ordinary people in ordinary places.
God speaks in kitchens and carpools. While you’re folding laundry, packing lunches, driving to practice, or lying awake at night thinking about tomorrow.
Sometimes the most significant spiritual moments don’t feel spiritual at all. They come disguised as a conversation you didn’t expect… a prayer you didn’t plan to pray… or a when you finally slow down long enough to hear quiet moment God whisper, “I’m here. And I’m with you.”
This is something we have seen here at Stevens Creek as well.
On November 29, 1987, Stevens Creek Church held its very first service. Not in a sanctuary. Not in a rented facility. Not in a chapel.
But in a borrowed living room—a simple home in North Augusta with 24 chairs squeezed between a fireplace and a sofa.
Nothing about that setting looked spiritual. No stage. No sound system. No children’s building. No worship team.
No structure.
Just a handful of people gathered in a small living room, believing that God could do something with what they had. And God did. What began in a borrowed living room became a movement. Lives changed. Families restored. Generations touched.
We didn’t know it then, but God knew exactly what He was starting. A borrowed living room became holy ground.
Because God shows up in ordinary places to do extraordinary things. And that leads us to the next principle.
2. Hope comes when you feel unprepared.
When Gabriel gives Mary this message, her first response is not, “Great, I’ve been waiting for this.” God’s interruption didn’t meet Mary at a place of readiness.
It met her at a place of uncertainty.
Her first response is confusion. She is troubled. She is unsure. And she asks the honest question anyone her age would ask: “How can this be?”
Mary’s question isn’t pushback. It’s faith trying to understand. She’s not saying, “Prove it.” She’s saying, “Help me see it.”
That question tells us something important: Mary is not standing in confidence here. She is standing in wonder.
She is standing in uncertainty. She is standing in the gap between what she understands and what God has just spoken.
Luke wants us to see her humanity. She is young. She has no status. She has no influence. She has no experience raising a child, much less raising the Messiah.
From a human perspective, Mary is completely unprepared for this moment. And that is exactly where God meets her.
Gabriel doesn’t hand her a plan. He gives her a promise. “This is the work of the Holy Spirit.” “With God, nothing will be impossible.”
In other words, God is saying, “Mary, this won’t depend on your strength. It won’t depend on your resources. It won’t depend on how ready you feel. I will do in you what you cannot do on your own.”
Many of us need to hear that same truth.
Some of the things God calls us to will feel bigger than us.
They will stretch us. They will make us aware of our limitations. And that is not a sign that we are in the wrong place. It is often the clearest sign that God is working.
Because when God calls you to something you can already handle, you do not need faith.
But when He calls you to something that feels beyond you, that is where faith comes alive—and hope is born.
When I read Mary’s story, I’m reminded of something from my own life.
I was thirteen years old, praying at a little Pentecostal Holiness church in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. I wasn’t seeking a vision. I wasn’t asking God to change my life. I was just a kid at an altar on a summer night.
And right there, in a moment I never expected, I sensed the Lord calling me into ministry. It felt so much bigger than me. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t feel ready for it.
But God knew what He was doing.
Sometimes God speaks into ordinary moments with a plan that is bigger than anything we could imagine.
God often begins His work long before we feel ready for it.
So first, hope finds you in ordinary moments.
Second, hope comes even when you feel unprepared.
But there is something else Mary teaches us.
When God speaks something new into your life, it often raises questions and that brings us to the third principle.
3. Hope grows when you trust God with your questions.
When God spoke to Mary, her first reaction was not confidence. God’s interruption raised questions before it produced clarity. It was an honest question. She did not understand how any of this could happen, and she said, “How can this be?”
Luke includes this moment because he wants us to see something important: Mary was a person of faith, but she did not understand everything God was doing.
And instead of hiding her questions, she brought them into the conversation. And instead of scolding her, God answered her.
He said, “This is the work of the Holy Spirit.”
He pointed her to Elizabeth’s miracle. He reminded her that nothing is impossible with God.
Mary teaches us something many believers never learn: Faith does not mean you never have questions.
Faith means you bring your questions to the right place.
The Christmas story does not begin with perfect clarity. It begins with an honest conversation between a young girl and a faithful God. And that is where hope begins to grow in us too.
Some of you are carrying real questions today:
questions about your family, your future, your finances, your health, your children, your next step. God is not threatened by your questions. He welcomes them.
Because questions brought to God do not weaken your faith: they strengthen it. I know this personally.
I walked through this with my own mother when she began slipping into Alzheimer’s.
At first, it was small. She forgot to bake a cake for my son’s graduation. This was something she would never forget.
A few months later, on a family cruise, the photographer asked her to take one simple step… and she couldn’t follow the instruction. That’s when we knew something was wrong.
For the next nine years, we walked the long road of her memory fading. It is hard to describe what that does to you.
I remember filming a video in her own home, pointing to furniture and saying, “Mom, this is your house… I’m Marty… I’m your son.”
I was doing everything I could to reconnect her to the story she had lived… to help her remember. It was painful. It was confusing. Alzheimer’s is a disease of a thousand goodbyes.
And I had a lot of questions in those years. Questions God didn’t answer quickly. Mary didn’t know how her story would unfold. I didn’t either. But God was present in both.
But here is what I learned: God is not afraid of your questions. He meets you right in the middle of them.
And that is where hope starts to grow--when you bring those questions to Him. And that leads us to the fourth principle.
4. Hope Becomes Real When You Surrender to God’s Plan.
Every part of Mary’s story leads to this moment.
The angel speaks. Mary wrestles. She asks her questions.
She listens and learns. But everything changes when she responds in faith.
The moment of surrender always comes when your plan collides with God’s plan.
Luke 1:38
“‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said.’”
This is the turning point of the story. It is where the miracle enters her life. Where faith becomes action. Where the promise becomes personal.
God initiated the miracle — but Mary embraced it.
God can speak to you. He can draw you, comfort you, challenge you, and call you. But hope becomes real when you say, “Lord, I’m Yours. I trust You. I surrender my plans to Your plan.”
Think about Mary’s response. She doesn’t have the details. She doesn’t know how Joseph will react. She doesn’t know what people will say. She doesn’t know what next year will hold. But she knows this: God is trustworthy.
When Mary said “yes,” it changed everything. And in the same way, your “yes” may be the doorway God uses to change your life, your family, your future, and even generations after you.
For many of us, the hardest part isn’t believing that God exists. It’s believing tha
t His plan is better than ours.
We don’t always say it out loud, but we feel it.
What if I lose control? What if this costs me something? What if it doesn’t turn out the way I hoped?
But surrender isn’t losing control. It’s trusting the One who sees what you cannot see.
Here at Stevens Creek, we see this all the time.
People walk in carrying questions, disappointment, broken places. And somewhere in the worship… somewhere in the message… or in a quiet moment of prayer… God whispers something simple: Come home. Trust Me. Let go. Say yes.
I’ve watched people place their work in God’s hands—and He led them in ways they never imagined. I’ve watched relationships surrendered—and God redirected them with purpose.
I’ve watched families release the future—and God opened doors they didn’t even know existed. And I’ve watched hundreds of people pray their own version of Mary’s prayer: “Lord, I’m Yours. Do in me what You want to do.”
That’s where hope becomes real. Mary’s final words aren’t complicated. They’re not polished. They’re not rehearsed. “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as You have said.”
And maybe today, that’s the prayer God is inviting you to pray. Your “yes” doesn’t have to be loud or dramatic. It just has to be real.
Closing Thought and Prayer
