Amen and amen. Well, Merry Christmas Church. Hope you're doing well. If you got your Bibles,

and I hope you do. We're going to be in Joshua chapter 5 in week two of this series called Behold

Our King. We are in the Advent season, and if you didn't grow up in church, you don't know what that is.

Like, I didn't grow up in church, and I didn't know what it is. But essentially, my job this season, the job of our church is to help prepare us to be ready for

Christmas, to behold our king. And so that's what this series is. And so we are looking at what's called

Christophonies, these appearances of the pre-incarnate Jesus in the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant.

And part of the reason I want to do this, and my hope for us in the next 45 minutes or so,

is I want to undo and deconstruct all that this world has tried to teach you every day of your life

since you started breathing. Okay? So I got a lot of work to do,

but I got God on my side, so hang in here. And the younger you are, the more offended you will be

at the very beginning, but hopefully I will reconstruct it right at the end, and you'll feel better

about you and your Christmas. So here's what I'm trying to convince you of. It ain't about you. It ain't about you. And this whole world, and in fact, a lot of churches would even teach, it's all about you.

And it ain't.

And so that's why we're going to go to Joshua chapter 5.

And as I began to prepare for this series and this sermon, man, I'll tell you, Christmas often is all about us.

I mean, if you think about all the things that you are doing for Christmas,

if you think about the Christmas list that you're making, it's mostly about you.

And I know what you're thinking.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not because I got to go to this party and I got to go to that party and I got to get this gift.

But all of that is so that other people will think more highly of you. There are two ways to ruin

your Christmas and really all of your life. And those two pitfalls are insecurity and ego.

And every single one of us are pretty much just a big ball of insecurity and ego.

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