You are listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, Dan continues with the third part of our Advent series as he explores the ways in which

the Christmas story unfolds in the midst of shame and disruption. He explores passages about

the Holy Family, the Shepherds, and King Herod, and discusses the interplay between God's sovereignty and the schemes of evil.

What parts of our heart need to be captured and disrupted by honor of the coming of God on earth?

If there's a single premise that I've been asking you to consider through this Advent series,

it is what would it mean to give up the nostalgia and stress and complexity of this holiday

for your heart then actually to be disrupted?

Not by the process of shopping, not by trying to get everything done, but simply by the fact that Jesus has become fully human and is yet fully God.

And that somehow in the God man engagement with each of our lives,

there is a profound disruption that will inevitably occur.

And what I want to do is look at some of the so-called Advent passages

that seem to give context to that reality of disruption.

And I'm going to talk about the Holy Family.

I want to talk about the shepherds, and then I want to return and talk about Herod.

So reading from scriptures in those days and Caesar, Augustusus issued a decree that a census should be

taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place why Quirnirius was

governor of Syria and everyone went to their own hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in

Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David because he belonged to the house and the line

of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was

expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for

the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn a son. She wrapped him in clothes and

...