The Plans You Did NOT Make
The Characters of Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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SCRIPTURE: Luke 1:26-38 (NIV)
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Christmas Time.
Christmas Time.
Honesty hour, how many of you waited until Thanksgiving was over to listen to Christmas music? For those of you with some self-discipline, THANK YOU! But, I’m happy to announce that, now that Thanksgiving is over, we can all finally agree that it is OFFICIALLY Christmas season!
Christmas is a big deal for a lot of us personally because it’s our favorite holiday, but Christmas is also a big deal here at the church. In fact, Christmas is one of the two most important seasons of the year because during the Christmas season we get to go back and revisit, relive, and remember the beginning of the greatest story ever told: that Jesus, God Himself, came down from heaven to live with us and die for us. Now obviously, Jesus is the main character of the story, but there are all kinds of characters that appear alongside Jesus.
Christmas Series. Anybody have one of these [Nativity Scene Slide] set up as part of their Christmas decorations? It all revolves around Jesus, but the story also includes Mary and Joseph, the wise men, the cow and everyone else! So this month as we prepare for Christmas, we’re going to take a look at the story through the eyes of some of the other characters of Christmas.
And tonight we’re going to begin by looking at the story from the perspective of Jesus’ mom: Mary. And I’m titling this message: The Plans You Did NOT Make.
Anybody else HATE when other people makes plans for you?
Dad’s Saturday Chore List.
Dad’s Saturday Chore List.
My dad used to do this to me every Saturday. I would plan to sleep in and get caught on some rest after a long week of school. I’m thinking I can make it to 10:30/11 before I wake up nice and slow, go downstairs, have some cinnamon rolls, then sit on the couch and watch college football until I fall back asleep. Anybody else? That’s a GREAT Saturday!
But my dad always made plans for me on Saturdays. It was like clockwork, 7:30 would roll around and he’d bust into the room, “Dave, time to wake up. It’s 7:30, you’re already behind! Here’s your chore list for the day. Make sure you get those done before the end of the day today. C’mon, lets get up.”
It used to drive me nuts! And I get it, there’s chores to do and I have responsibility to pull my weight around the house, but can’t I pull my weight at 11? The thing that bothered me the most was that I felt like I didn’t have a say in my day off.
Anybody else relate? Maybe you feel that way about being here right now, this was NOT how you were planning to spend your Wednesday night, but your momma made plans for you.
Jesus’ momma, Mary, can relate. In fact, for Mary, the entire Christmas story is one about the plans that she didn’t make.
She lives in a small town, fell in love with a boy, got engaged and was waiting to get married and start a family. Honestly, Mary’s life would make a great country song! Everything is going according to plan…until the angel shows up.
The Plans Mary Did NOT Make.
The Plans Mary Did NOT Make.
Luke 1:26-29: 26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
Mary has never been more relatable. Have you ever had someone walk in your house when you weren’t planning on anyone being at your house? It’s terrifying! The angel Gabriel just shows up and starts talking to her like he knows her. Mary’s freaked out and is like, “what is happening right now?”
Luke 1:30: 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.
Luckily Gabriel senses that she’s a bit freaked out and helps put her at ease. But I do find it funny, for many of us, our first response when God is calling us is to be afraid. Of course, a lot of the time we’re afraid because what God is calling us to is outside of our plans and outside of our comfort zone. This was certainly the case for what God was calling Mary to...
Luke 1:31-33: 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
These are plans that Mary did not make. Her plan was to marry Joseph and start their own family. I bet she had some cute names picked out. I bet she had an idea of how many boys and girls they would have. Like many of us, I bet Mary had all kinds of cute little plans in her mind for how the next stage of her life would go. Instead, she gets told she would become pregnant with the Son of God and by the way, she doesn’t even get to pick the name.
How do you tend to respond when plans are made for you? I fight against it SO HARD. I look for a way out. And if I can’t find a way out, I make sure that everyone else has just as bad a time as I’m having because I have a terrible attitude. I hate having to obey when I don’t have a say. But that is precisely what is being asked of Mary.
And if you’re serious about following Jesus, I would argue that this is exactly what is being asked of you as well. If we have chosen to follow Jesus and make Him the Savior and Lord of our lives, what told God is “You have all authority in my life.” We don’t get the choice of accepting salvation through Jesus without obedience to Jesus.
Can You Obey When You Don’t Have a Say?
Can You Obey When You Don’t Have a Say?
Leaders, students, Dave (I preach to me too), part of what faith requires is learning to obey when you don’t have a say.
And by far the hardest part of that for me is verse 32 and 33. Mary has all these plans she did not make revealed to her, which to me, seems like God owes her one. This happens a lot at my house, if I’ve made plans for Shelby, I tend to look for opportunities to “make it up to her” as a way of saying thank you. It feels like God would look for ways to make it up to Mary as a way of saying thank you. To me, it would make sense for God to say “Mary, if you do this, I will make you great and you will be called the daughter of the Most High. I will give you the throne and you will reign forever.”
But God says none of that. Instead He says...
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Giving Up Making A Name for Yourself.
Giving Up Making A Name for Yourself.
For me, the hardest part of giving God all authority in my life is giving up my right to make a name for myself. The moment that I choose to follow Jesus, I trade a life of trying to make my name great for a life of making His name great. And it is only once I make that trade that I can actually obey what God asks of me. If I’ve traded trying to make my name great, then I can risk being made fun of when I live differently than my friends or coworkers. I can risk being talked about when I don’t participate in the hallway gossip. I can risk being left out of the group of left off of the invite when I stand up for someone who can’t stand up for themselves. I can risk being misunderstood when I don’t value money or prestige the same way as the people around me do and place a higher value on things like character and relationships.
A life where you make someone else’s name great - those are the plans that most of us DIDN’T make. And yet, it is exactly that life that God is calling those of us who follow Jesus to.
Following God means obeying Him, and trusting His plans over our own.
And I love following the example that Mary set for us in that because the Bible doesn’t romanticize her story at all. It’s very honest about her response to all of this.
Luke 1:34: 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
She did exactly what I do when God asks something of me, she asks questions. Don’t you do this too? What do you mean you want me to go on a mission trip, how will I pay for that? What do you mean you want me to start fasting, what will my friends at the lunch table think when I don’t eat anything? What do you mean you want me you’re calling me to be a pastor someday, what about my plans to become ___________?
Luke 1:35-38: 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
You know what’s interesting about Mary’s response? God didn’t give her all the details, and she didn’t need them.
Mary’s obedience was not dependent on God giving her all the details. That’s called faith. Obeying without having all the details of if or how everything will work out. I think what she was showing us was: When you trust who God is, you’ll do what He says.
Kentucky Story.
Kentucky Story.
Shelb and I had our own Mary moment almost 6 years ago. At the time, we lived in Owensboro Kentucky. On paper, everything was going according to plan. We both had really great jobs. I was a Student Pastor at our church, and the Senior Pastor had picked me to become the next Senior Pastor, and Shelb had a dream teaching job at one of the high schools.
Then one day, I was interrupted with a phone call from a mentor of mine who was running the Residency program here at the church. He called and said he thought it would be a good thing for us, but that meant quitting both of our jobs and moving down here where we were only set to make $500 a month. Shelb would have to find a new job and we’d have to start all over since we only knew about 5 people here. And I just remember thinking, “how are we going to pay for that? What about our jobs? What about the relationships that we’ve built here?”
We ultimately quit our jobs and moved here…and the rest is history. But we didn’t do it because we had all the details or knew how everything would turn out. We obeyed what we felt God asked because we trusted Him.
That meant we had to work through the fear of how we’d pay for things. That meant we had to work through the anxiety of leaving friends and making new ones. That meant we had to grapple with the uncertainty of if it would work out or if we’d just made the biggest mistake of our lives.
APPLICATION.
The Christmas story, for Mary, is a story of obeying God without having all the answers and details of how things will turn out. The truth for a lot of us is that, each of us have our own places where God is asking us to obey where we didn’t get a say. Many of us are wrestling with the plans that we didn’t make that we feel God is revealing to us. And so the question we need to answer is: Where is God asking me to obey and what is keeping me from doing it?
If you’re not sure what that is, remember back to Mary’s response to Gabriel, he had to tell her to not be afraid. If you don’t know where God is asking you to obey, a good place to start may be by looking at the places where you’re scared.
Let’s pause right now. I’m going to give you a few moments in silence, and I would encourage you to pull our your phone and pull up a note. Take a moment and prayer this old prayer from the Old Testament in the book of 1 Samuel: Speak Lord, your servant is listening. And then wait for God to tell you where He is asking you to obey.