Steven Furtick - There's Been A Change of Plans (06/11/2017)
Pastor Steven Furtick preaches from Luke 1:26-38 on Mary's response to the angel's announcement that changed all her plans. The Christmas story shows God's surprises and interruptions often carry divine purpose. Mary accepted the change saying, "I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled." The message challenges us this Christmas: don't let disrupted plans cause us to miss God's greater purpose—plan for interruptions, inconvenience, imperfection, and impossibility, trusting that when our plans change, God's promise remains.
A Divine Change of Plans – From Mary's Perspective
I want to preach to you today from the Christmas story. I was a little bit concerned because I prepared a message that I was planning to preach this weekend. I got that stomach bug. On Thursday, but I was finished with the message, so I thought, when I recovered from the stomach bug, the Lord said to me in my heart, or gave me an impression, however that works, Oh, you thought that was the message, you're going to save that one for Christmas Eve, and I got another one that I want you to share with the people.
Now I see how God wanted me to do it, because the title of this message, and this is a laugh, now that you know the story behind it, what I want to call this message, there's been a change of plans. There's been a change of plans. After you write that down on the top of your worship guide with your soon-to-be-stolen Elevation Church pen, which is also an excellent stocking stuffer, I want you to turn to five people around you and tell them there's been a change of plans. There's been a change of plans.
Welcome to GTA. We love you guys. Our Toronto site gave over $400,000 to surround just with a couple hundred people. Proud of y'all. Roanoke is going to two worship experiences in January. Hey, I'm stoked about the note. Amen. And then we also want to say welcome to Melbourne, Florida, our extension site there. Hello. Lots of people. Just good things, man.
Luke chapter 1, verse 26 through 38 is my text. You can join me there if you so desire. There's been a change of plans. 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.
Now, here's how the Lord told me to do it. This week, I'm going to preach from Mary's point of view. Christmas Eve, I'm going to let Joseph have the last word. Joseph never gets to talk in the Bible. You don't hear much about him. But what I want to share with you about him... So this is the appetizer. Okay. This is just chips and salsa. Feliz Navidad, somebody.
But we want to talk about Mary this week, the hero, obviously, of the Christmas story from a human standpoint, who birthed the Son of God. What great faith. The virgin's name was Mary. And the angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you.
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, Don't be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son. And you are to call him Jesus. And 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. And he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end.
He cannot be voted out for years from now. But Mary had some questions, like we all do. How will this be, since I am a virgin? 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.
Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. Don't you tell somebody next to you, You're not in this by yourself. Yeah, yeah, you're not the only one. And she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month for no word. I felt my preach coming on on that. From God will ever fail.
No, I'm the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May your word to me be fulfilled. Then the angel, whew, just like he came. There's been a change of plans.
Planners vs. Spontaneous – How We Handle Change
How many planners do we have in the room? Planners. Planners. Detailed planners. Meticulous planners. Controlling, sometimes planners. OCD, occasionally planners. Put your hands up high. I want you to notice how many of the people in the front of the room have their hands up because they planned to get to church on time.
How many people are more spontaneous in nature and you do not consider yourself much of a planner? You can raise your hands as well, those of you online. That's why you're watching online. Raise them again if you're not planners. You are the ones. Raise them. Raise them. I already saw you. You are the ones. You are the ones. You are the ones.
I'm adventurous. No, you're annoying. Because you are the ones. We will be supporting you in your old age because you don't plan for retirement. But in all seriousness, I could just as easily offend the planners because, well, we can be... I am a planner. So I guess you see the category that I fall into.
I'm not ashamed to be a planner. I think to be a pastor, you've got to be a planner. And I hate to plan, but I hate even more not having a plan. So I plan. I don't like it, but I plan.
Pastors come into our church occasionally and they say, Oh, your creativity of your team and everything they produce is remarkable. It really is. Our team is the best. But they say, how do you do that? And I'll always ask the pastor this. How much notice do you give your team about the subjects and the content you're going to be preaching? Well, I usually call them up on, you know, like Friday or Saturday.
Now, how are they going to support your message if they don't have time for preparation? However, as much as I plan, and I'll plan our series maybe six to nine months in advance. It used to be a year in advance. Now it's about six to nine months in advance. There is a subject to change by orders of headquarters. Like if God puts it to preach something different, then we'll change it.
And we usually end up changing the plans a lot, but at least we have a plan to change. I figure I ought to give God a plan to change. So, God, you can change it, but I'm going to make a plan, and then you can change the plan.
Yeah, so the thing about God is he likes to surprise people, apparently. You can see it in the passage. Because the Christmas story in some ways… And it just hit me this way. I preach this thing every year. At least there are, you know, a couple texts about Christmas, and you preach them every year. But it hit me this year how much the Christmas story on the surface level is a case study in poor planning.
From the fact that they didn't have a room booked when it came time for the baby to be born. From the fact that there was all this miscommunication where the angel came to Mary, but he didn't tell Joseph, so Joseph was going to divorce Mary. And why couldn't the angel have met with both of them together at the same time, saved them a trip from heaven, saved on the fuel bill? It seems to be a case study in poor planning.
But from another standpoint, God must love to surprise people. My brother and I, we used to have this thing where we like to surprise my mom all the time. My brother still does this. He is serving in the United States Air Force in Japan right now. He came... Yeah. Love you, Max. You better be watching.
He came in a couple weeks ago, and when I finished preaching here at our church on a Saturday night, I walked backstage, and there he was. He just flew in from Japan. Surprise! I'm here for three weeks. It's like, I'm so glad to see you, but could you have told somebody? Maybe because we could have made your visit so much more enjoyable and elaborate if we'd have known to plan for it, if you would have told us.
My wife, she's so brilliant, when she came into our family, she noticed that me and my brother would love to surprise my mom. And she said, I know you guys like to surprise your mom. I've noticed this. But have you ever stopped to ask your mom if she likes to be surprised?
And you kind of wonder that about God sometimes. It's like, I know you like to surprise people, God, and you like to show up at the... But have you ever stopped to wonder if we like to be surprised? Because if you would do things with a little more advanced planning, we could support your work so much better, Lord.
He would do things with a little more advanced planning. We could schedule. We could prepare. We could brace for things in our lives. I'm sure Mary felt this way, but yet she had a response to accept God's plan above her own.
When Plans Change – Trust God's Greater Purpose
Here's a line I learned in high school. The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay. That's the original Scottish language. Does anybody know where that quote comes from? Anybody? It was the title for John Steinbeck's book, Of Mice and Men, but it was actually from a poem in the 18th century. It was about a man who was plowing, and he overturned a nest full of mice. And he was speaking to the mice about what they built, and how he was sorry to have to overturn it.
And he said, the best laid plans of mice and men, we're in the same category, because we think we build things that are so sustainable, and then whoosh, everything gets toppled. King aft aglay, which means oft go awry.
Another great philosophical quote on the subject of planning I came across in my study. Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face. And that's from the theologian Mike Tyson, who's very similar to the 18th century Scottish poet.
And then, of course, there's the wisdom of Solomon in Proverb number three, verses five and six, where he said, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.
I'm grateful for that, that he will direct my path. Now, I want to help us get prepared for the holiday season, because although there won't be an angel appearing to you and telling you that you're pregnant with God's baby, don't even try it. It only happened once.
There may be some, well, some surprises that God or life, or the people who raised their hand in the second group, might spring on you. And I want you to know what to do when life says there's been a change of plans.
It won't always be an angel showing up. It would be nice if it was. Then I could know that God changed the plan. Then I could be on with it. But it's another thing when you change plans on me, or when the script gets flipped on me and it's out of my control.
I don't mind changing plans. I just don't like plans being changed without my consent. That's the bottom line. Now I'm getting to the depth of what it really is. I like to be in control. But sometimes life will give you an announcement, there's been a change of plans.
I know that you planned on always having Christmas with your father and mother, but now you're going to split time because they're no longer together. There's been a change of plans. I know that you were expecting to retire in that job, but now you're going to have to figure another way out how to provide for your family. There's been a change of plans.
Doesn't even that phrase, just hearing it, make you a little sick to your stomach? If you are a planner like me, there's been, especially in an airport, there's been a change of plans. I haven't started dinner yet. That's devastating to hear for a man at any point. There's been a change of plans.
Yet, if we plan for a change, maybe we'll be ready to discover the purpose in God's plan. Here's my challenge in a very simple format today. I wanted to encourage you this Christmas season. Whatever happens, whatever they do, whoever shows up, however they show up. Whatever gets sent around the table, whatever doesn't happen that's supposed to happen.
Ever how long it takes him to propose to you. Ever how long it takes you to find her. Ever how long it seems like it's not going to come together. I wanted to challenge you. Don't let your plans make you miss God's purpose.
Mary, I know you were planning a wedding, but while you were planning a wedding, God was planning to save the world. There's been a change of plans. There's been a change of plans. I know you didn't even get to finish your wedding registry yet, Mary, but now you have to make a baby registry. Because there's been a change of plans.
It isn't that Mary didn't want a baby. It's just that she didn't want a baby yet. It's not that she didn't want it to happen. It was just out of order. What do you do when life makes an announcement and shows up with a change of plans without consulting your itinerary?
You ever notice God doesn't check your calendar? Come on, somebody. And for those of us who aren't very flexible, God wants to change some of our plans. And I want to give you a couple simple strategies this Christmas.
I want you this Christmas season, I'm preaching to myself, let's get in this together. I want us to plan for interruptions. How can you plan for an interruption? The very essence of an interruption is that it isn't a part of the plan. This is called margin and flexibility.
Mary said it. She said, I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said. I wasn't planning for this, but there's a purpose in this. You know, some of the greatest invitations in our lives will come in the form of an interruption.
I mean, seriously. I'm learning this more and more. I don't consider myself old yet. But you know, every year teaches you a little bit that when you get one of those moments... It was the other day, I didn't even tell anybody in the office this. But I had finished this meeting. We were trying to get the Christmas Eve experience just right for you.
And for some reason we were having a really hard time. But we finally got it and we're excited about it. And at that point, when we finished, I was just feeling relaxed. And I really had to go to the bathroom. But a few of the staff started kind of gathering around. And I spent a lot of my time alone during the week preparing these messages.
But a few of them were around. I love them so much. And you know, I just sat there and held it for like 45 minutes. Because I was like, man, I just feel good with these people right now. I know I've got to get back to work and all this, but this is special.
Sometimes you just get in a moment that interrupted your plan but was God's plan all along. That interrupted your agenda but was probably top priority on God's agenda all along. The interruptions of life that we don't plan for. But if you plan for interruption, you can treat it as the invitation that it is.
Plan for interruption. While you're at it, Mary would tell you if she were preaching, she would say, plan for inconvenience. She would say, plan for inconvenience. Not only plan to find out you're pregnant, divinely pregnant, inexplicably pregnant. I've got to explain to everybody how I'm really not a slut pregnant.
I've got to run and see Elizabeth for a little while while I can get a game plan together of how to announce this pregnant. Not only that kind of interruption, but the inconvenience of actually carrying this child to the census and giving birth in a barn.
Couldn't God have made accommodations for the king? But maybe he's preaching a message to us to plan for inconvenience. Just plan for it. Some of you are so disappointed in the Christmas season because you worship the idea of Christmas. You're in love with your idea of Christmas. You're in love with your picture of Christmas.
See, Holly loves getting Christmas cards from people. I don't care about no Christmas cards because that's not real life. I mean, yeah, your family is beautiful. I will look at it and all that. No, I'm not cold callous like that. But I just know that really on the other side of the card, if you put what the shoot looked like… I just know I've been through enough Christmas shoots.
I know that the reason the parents weren't in the card is because they put on some weight and they don't want anybody to see. Oh, that's too real. But I know. Because I've been heavy on Christmas before, like Holly, this one is just you and Elijah.
But, you know, it's a thing. It's a thing about sometimes… Oh, this is another thing I want to tell you while we're on the subject. Plan for imperfection. Because if you plan for perfection, you're going to be very disappointed.
Sometimes our expectation of perfection stops our celebration of progress. Everything doesn't have to be perfect for us to celebrate. I struggle with this because I really do think I'm a perfectionist at heart. I really do. But it takes one to help one. It takes one to help one.
It can be in the middle of an amazing moment. But do you see how disorganized that table is over there? It could be in the middle of an amazing moment. But did you see the way she looked at me? It could be in the middle of an amazing moment. But you remember what they said to me three years ago? In the middle.
Stop expecting perfection and start celebrating progress. Pregnancy is such an apt metaphor for what it is like to carry anything that God puts inside of you, because you celebrate the progress. Look at the sonogram. Isn't my blob adorable? Yeah, it looks just like you.
I don't know what to say to that, but I know what it feels like, because I remember the first time I saw mine kicking around and all that, but we're celebrating the progress. Listen, isn't this cute? She said her first word. She didn't say a sentence. She didn't say anything quotable. She didn't even say anything really intelligent. She didn't even really say da-da. She just mumbled, and you made it into da-da, but we'll celebrate with you, because it's progress.
But then we grow up a little, and we get so hard on ourselves, and we don't know how to celebrate our own progress or anybody else's, and we get so mad at ourselves, and so frustrated with ourselves. God wanted to say to you, I didn't wait until you were perfect to send my son for you. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God said, I prepared for your imperfection. You know what's the beautiful thing about the gospel? Jesus coming to earth wasn't God calling an audible from heaven. The Scripture says that Jesus is the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.
What does that mean? That means God didn't try Moses, and try David, and try Elijah, and try the prophets. Oh, I guess we're going to have to send Jesus down. God knew from the beginning that we couldn't get it right, that we'd never get it right. And he said, since I expected your imperfection, I incarnated perfection, and now the incarnate perfection, and the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Father, full of grace and truth.
Come on, tell somebody, there's been a change of plans. And so we're changing what we plan for. We're not planning for the people in our lives to be perfect this Christmas. They're hurting too. We're not planning for them to say all the right stuff this Christmas. We don't say all the right stuff either.
We're not planning on getting all the right gifts this Christmas and getting everything wrapped for everybody and then being surprised when they say, oh, because somebody's going to say, oh, slap Clap them across the face and get on with it and drink you some eggnog and have a good Christmas. Merry Christmas, somebody.
Plan for impossibility. I believe God wants to do things in your life in this coming year that defy human reason. How can this be since I am a virgin? And he said, it's simple. No word from God will ever fail.
And I want to take a moment with this. I want to take a moment with this because some of you, when I say that, it's like it automatically strikes a certain nerve. It's like, oh yeah, I want God to do something impossible. But some of you are bearing impossible weight to carry this season.
Impossible for you to reconcile what you've been through with where God says he's taken you. I got a video, a text message with a video from a friend today. I want to show this to you real quick. Just go ahead and play it on the screen, guys. This is pretty cool.
My friend, he's got a Christmas tradition with his little girls. You can see he and his wife and their three little girls. He sent me this text today. And this is a new Christmas tradition that they've been doing the last couple years in their family.
And what you wouldn't know from that time-lapse video is that a couple Christmases ago, on this very day that I'm preaching, my friend Levi Lusko came home from a date to find his five-year-old daughter dead from an asthma attack, tried to breathe life into her body himself. But it was too late at that point. And she died in his arms.
Now, it was this very day. This is the anniversary. He called me today. And I missed his call. As soon as I saw it, I remembered that it was the anniversary, because I remembered that it had been two years ago that I was planning my Christmas sermon, finishing my Christmas sermon, coming out to preach it at Blakeney campus when I got the news about his daughter.
And it hit me so hard because I had a five-year-old son at the time, Graham. And I just imagined life without Graham. And then to think about the possibility. for this family of life without Lenya. And this little girl, I mean, Levi is the best dad ever. He's the kind of guy I never, ever asked him anything about what he's doing with his kids on family day because I'm going to feel so guilty after I hear it.
The most extravagantly loving dad. And I was going back and forth with him today talking and really trying to give him something else to think about. I asked him how he was doing, but I realized he might just want to talk about something normal. So we just were talking about Christmas and preaching. What are you preaching? Just trying to have a normal conversation because he calls me his big brother in the ministry.
So I was just trying to be there for him. And I said, when we got off the phone, I said, send me some pictures from the day I want to track with you. And he said, oh, we've got a full day planned. On the day that he could be curled up in the bed, on the day that he could be saying, God, I served you as a pastor.
He lives in Montana, got a great church in Montana. I've been out there to preach on a couple occasions. Could have said, God, I gave my life to start a church in Montana and you let my little girl die while I was on a date. How do you plan for that? How do you plan for that?
And then he sends me a time-lapse video. of the three girls that he has left, taking all their favorite colors to the grave site of where his five-year-old daughter is. And you know, we thought we'd be holding her this Christmas and we thought she'd be in the Christmas card. And we never imagined that she wouldn't be around the tree with us. We never could have planned for this.
There's been a change of plans. What do you do when life changes your plans and doesn't consult you? And he said, there's a hole in my heart and I'll never be the same and it'll never not hurt. But you know, Lenya loved rainbows and she loved her sisters. So I reckon we'll make a new tradition.
I reckon we'll go out to the place where her body lays, but her spirit isn't there. We'll go out to the place where her body is buried, but we know that she's not in the ground. We'll go out of this. She didn't die for nothing. There's been a change of plans, but God still has a purpose.
I came to preach to somebody. I don't care how much pain, I don't care how much trouble, I don't care how it took you by surprise. There's a purpose in this. Don't you let the pain make you miss the purpose. Some stuff you can't plan for, some stuff you'll never feel the same again, but don't let your plans that didn't happen make you miss God's purpose that is happening.
Amen. Be okay to grieve. Be okay to be sad. Don't be afraid of shadows in the midst of Christmas lights, but don't let what you lost make you miss what you got left.
I told Levi, I said, man, can I put the video up? Can I show my church? Because I feel like every one of them that's going to be frustrated with their kids this Christmas. needs a reason to throw their arms around them and say, I could be visiting your grave.
I know our family is imperfect. I know sometimes raising kids is inconvenient. I know sometimes, like me, you have visions not of sugar plums, but of ground and pound. But, but, but throw your arms around. What you got left? There's been a change of plans.
God's Plans Remain – Jeremiah 29:11 in Context
You know what I thought would make a great Christmas scripture that we never put on a Christmas card, but we should, because it's a real well-known scripture, Ruth, but I never saw it on Christmas card? Jeremiah 29 11. It would be a great Christmas scripture.
Because see, Mary had her plan, Joseph had his plan, and then God had plan B. What if your plan B was God's plan A? See, I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you. Because he said in Jeremiah 29 11, the prophet said, For I know the plans, the plans. I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Usually when you hear that verse read, everybody gets happy about certain words in the passage. Put it up again. They like the word prosper, they like the word hope, and the word future. That's the words everybody started getting excited about while I was reading it.
But I figure the key word of that passage is not prosper, is not hope, is not future, because all of those things are subjective and frankly outside of our control. See, the context of Jeremiah 29 11 is that God's people weren't following God's plan. They had strayed so far outside of God's plan that they had been removed from their homeland into Babylonian captivity.
Now, nobody wanted to put Jeremiah 29 10 on their Christmas card, but I'm going to read it this Christmas to you. Because it said, This is what the Lord says, when 70 years are completed for Babylon. Follow that. After 70 years of captivity. 70 years.
You do know that between Malachi and Matthew, the last book of the Old Testament, the last book of the New Testament, there was 400 years of silence from heaven, bubbles on the iPhone. He said, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise. I'm going to preach that on Christmas Eve about the promise of God. Come on back.
He said to bring you back to this place. I read that. because in Jeremiah 29 11, he talks about plans, but the key word must not be prosper, because they weren't prospering when he said it. The key word must not be hope, because they felt hopeless when he said it. The key word must not be future, because they were stuck when he said it. You can only live in this moment.
The key word must be, put it up. I, I, I, I know the plan. I know the plans. Implicit in this instruction is that you do not know the plans I have for you. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. But I know. The plans I have for you.
We get plans confused with promises. Just because the plan has changed doesn't mean the promise has. Just because the plan changed doesn't mean God's mind has. Just because the plan changed doesn't mean your destiny has. Just because the plan… Who am I preaching to? Just because the plan changed, just because he broke your heart doesn't mean you're never going to find love.
It just means there's somebody with a love that will actually love you past the point where God said, I know the plan… The best thing he ever did was break your heart, because I know the plans I have for you. I know the plans I have for you.
Christmas is a cosmic announcement. that there's been a change in plans. Think about all the plans that got changed in the Bible. Abram, I know you like it in Ur of the Chaldeans, with your wealthy self. But go to a land I will show you.
God said, I'm going to change the plan so many times that I'm not even going to tell you plan A, because I don't want you so confused. See, I figure it's like this. God tells us to set out. He knows where he's taking us, but he knows that we're a little bit too directionally impaired to take it more than one stop at a time.
So he'll tell us he's taking us here, but he'll lead us here and here and here and here. And God loves to surprise his people, not because he wants to punish his people, but because he wants to keep his people in a place where they don't trust their plans, but instead they trust his plans.
Don't you understand if everything happened the way you diagrammed it, you would need God? You would need Emmanuel? Moses, the plan has changed. There's been a change in plans. I know you're comfortable with Jethro, your father-in-law, priest of Midian.
I know you are tending sheep effectively in the desert, but there's been a change of plans. Go to Pharaoh and tell him, let my people go, because I've seen the way he's treating my people in Egypt, and there's been a change of plans. I'm coming to set my people free.
I know you're a murderer, and I know you made some mistakes, and I know you've been in 40 years of isolation, and I know you thought that what I put in your heart to help your people was never going to come to pass. But there's been a change of plans.
I know you've been out here feeling like a failure, because you've got some stuff you've been trying to hide, and some mistakes you made that you can't correct. But there's been a change of plans. This is a great Christmas message. Tell somebody there's been a change of plans.
You never know. They might need to hear it. They might have thought their life was over. They might have thought it was all done. They might have thrown in the towel. They might be on the verge of giving up. They may feel unwanted, unloved, unuseful. But God said, there's been a change.
I feel a change. I feel a change. Jesus went down in the grave, three days in a borrowed tomb. The devil thought his plan had prevailed. Thought he'd killed the one that came to save the world. But early one Sunday morning, I'm skipping Christmas. I'm going to Easter now.
Jesus got up, got up, got up, got up. He got up with all power in his hands and said, tell the devil, there's been a change. There's been a change. I got the keys of death and hell. There's been a change. of plans.
Yeah, there's been a change of plans. See, they kept trying to get to God. They kept trying to get to God. They kept trying to get to God. They made rules and laws. The Pharisees put law on top of law on top of law to get to God and to please God and to perform for God.
God saw his people in their plight and in their struggle. When it says in Matthew chapter 1 that this is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham, it lists in excruciating detail how there were 14 generations from Abraham to David and 14 from David to the exile in Babylon and 14 from the exile to the Messiah.
He's saying that. God found a man and used a man and found a man, that's Abraham, and used a man and found a man, that's Moses, and used a man. But when the time had come, when the time had come… I believe today for somebody the time has come.
When the time had come, God said, I'm done finding a man and using a man. I'm coming down to take care of this myself because there's been a change of plans. I want you to go get the Shepherds in the field, those Shepherds that are considered unclean, those Shepherds who aren't ceremonially appropriately dressed to come into my presence.
I want you to go get the Shepherds, the ones that everybody else would have overlooked. They wouldn't have used them to herald the birth of a king. I want you to find the Shepherds. I want you to find the addict. I want you to find the alcoholic. I want you to find the girl that was abused when she was 12 and thought she was trash.
I want you to find the dirtiest, rottenest, most despicable. I want you to find the A person who found out they could never get to me and tell them, I got good news. There's been a change of plan. You couldn't get to God. So God came to you. Merry Christmas.
There's been a change. There's been a change. There's been a change. Amen.
The Gospel Change – God Came to Us
Romans 8.3. For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did, watch this, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh. Give me four.
In order that the righteous requirement of the law... See, that was the plan. You keep the law, you can be right with God. That's religion. You do it right, you can be right. God said, no, there's been a change of plans.
I've seen my people struggle. I've seen my people oppressed. I've seen my people bow their backs under the heavy weight of sin. And now, the righteous requirement of the law is met fully in us who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
There's been... I can't preach no harder. You've got to shout here if you're going to shout. Some of you need to tell the devil before you leave church. You know, I know that I was depressed this Christmas season before I came to church today, but there's been a change of plans.
I know, I know. I know. I know. I was planning on... Because, see, my kids got sick, and then Johnny flunked all three of his subjects, and I was all mad, and I was just going to be mad at everybody all Christmas. And I was just going to miss Meemaw all Christmas, because I miss Meemaw, and I was just going to... But there's been a change of plans.
I don't need an angel to appear to me. I've got the Word of the Lord. I've got the Spirit of God inside of me, and there's been a change of plans. Come on, you can turn your attitude around. You might not turn the situation around, but once you turn your attitude around right now...
Somebody who came in here grumpy, get grateful. Come on, smile about something. Smile about something. Smile about something. Smile about something. The promise still stands. The plan may change, but the promise still stands. And I'm going to pick that up on Christmas Eve.
Stand up on your feet. Let's clap our hands for the Word of God. Hallelujah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Changing some plans. Changing some plans. We're changing some plans. Come on, we're planning for joy.
I know Christmas has kind of been chaotic so far. I've been running around and honking at people and acting crazy. And I was planning on just being chaotic like everybody else this Christmas. But I came to church, and I got a change of plans. I got a new itinerary. I got a new agenda.
I'm not going to try to impress people this Christmas. I'm going to try to be perfect. I'm going to just be dysfunctional, dysfunctionally happy. That's awesome. I don't know who God had me change this whole message for, but I would feel like if you were important enough that this is the Word God wanted you to have, and He made me change my plans to preach this message on a change of plans, I think we ought to take a moment and give you an opportunity to respond.
Would you bow your head and close your eyes all over this church? For the one who is unholy for the one who is broken, for the one who is unworthy, for the unclean, for the one whose plans have fallen apart. For the Lord, what do you do when your plan for life has fallen apart?
The promise of God still stands that whosoever will call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. He's moved. It's for you He came. It's for you He came. It's for you He came. It's for you He came. It's for you. It's for you.
He's bowed eyes closed. We're going to pray a prayer for those of you who need to come to God for the first time or come back to Him. You've heard the Gospel today. You've heard that when you could not get to God, God changed the plan and made a way. He came to you.
All He requires is that you come and believe and you will be changed. We're going to pray out loud as a church family for the benefit of those who are coming to God. Let's pray together. I'll pray you repeat after me.
Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a Savior. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. I believe He died for me. To forgive my sin, I believe He Rose again to give me new life. I repent of my sin. Change me, God, from the inside out. Help me to follow you all the days of my life.
Heads still bowed, eyes still closed. If you just prayed that prayer, raise your hand on three. One, two, three. Shoot them up. Welcome to the family of God. God bless you. Welcome to the family of God.
Come on, if anyone is in Christ, He's a new creation. The devil thought he had you. He thought he had you. But God had another plan. Hey, God had another plan. For I know the plans I have for you. Come on, give them a shout, somebody! Come on, give them a shout, somebody!