The Foundation of Belovedness (Part 1) - Winter Retreat 2026

Hey man. Hey, focus. Man, you guys are cool. And there's a lot of you. And that is the greatest snack table I have ever seen. And I'm the president of a campus ministry organization. I have been put in my place. I feel shamed for how I do campus ministry after seeing that. I also heard what the bill was. So I'm going to have to up our budget next year for that kind of grub. All right. Yeah. Lindsay already said a bunch of it. I'm the head of impact campus ministries. They started in 95. I was hired in 2010. Five years later, after doing campus ministry on University of Idaho and Washington State University, they asked me to serve as president of the organization. So I did that and been doing that ever since moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Who day? Nothing. Okay. Not this year. Where as bad as a cowboys. You invited me here and said nothing when I said who day. So tee that puppy up. All right. But wait. Let's see. What was I talking about? I can't remember anymore. I'm the creator of the Baymont podcast. By the way, if you're wanting to know like, what are they saying? Let me see if I can get. Can we get my screens up there? Are they up there? Hmm. Hmm. It says it's working. Maybe. All right. Well, while we work on that, I will, uh, I'll let you know I've been married for 22 years. I've got a 17 year old daughter who's a junior in high school named Abigail. I have a 15 year old son who's a freshman in high school named Ezekiel. That is it. We got the people up here to fix it. Steven, everybody. Steven. If I've learned anything in the last three hours, it's that Steven can fix about anything. If you just give them 60 seconds. All right. So that's what you're looking for. When you, when you keep hearing saying somebody saying Baima podcast or Baima discipleship, if you're searching your podcast, that's your logo that you're looking for. If you're trying to find that what I want to do this time that we're here, we're going to, we're going to do something I've never done before. We're going to do all of Genesis. And the whole thing. Okay. So it's going to be wild and it's going to be crazy. And I've never done it. And it might not even work. But I just want to, I want to do the whole thing. I think the prompt from Ryan when he wrote me was like, we were thinking something from Torah. And I was like, well, how about Genesis or Leviticus? And I was like, I'm feeling Genesis. So just the whole thing is what we're going to do. So here's what that means. That means there are going to be some talks that I do throughout the weekend. That will be more like they're going to be more like, I don't know what you would expect. Some of them are going to be like flying a million miles an hour, kind of like really nerdy. Tonight's going to be like, like we're just going to nerd like crazy. But we won't do that all weekend. Does that make sense? I know that some of you have listened to the podcast. I know that many of you are some of, or at least some of you haven't. So I'm going to talk like you haven't heard the podcast. And if you had heard the podcast, it's okay. Because you're just here again. And this time it will be a little bit different. And who knows what you'll hear this time. But you need to know, as we dive into this stuff, that if you, we're going to be moving fast and you're like, wait a minute, prove that. Well, A, I'm not really a big prove that kind of person. But if you want to dive deeper and get into the guts of what we're talking about, you'll want to go to the podcast. If you go to the podcast, don't skip episode zero. It's a really good one. Episode zero is the intro where we kind of talk about the difference between Eastern versus Western perspectives. But here's what I want to do tonight. Tonight, I want to talk about Genesis one through 11. Okay. Genesis one through 11 is what I often love to call the preface. Okay. I'm going to start and what you're going to find an episode one today. I'm not going to do the whole thing. It's better on the podcast. I'm just going to kind of fly through and skip a stone off the top of episode one. But what where? There we go. We're going to work on the preface here tonight. Genesis one through 11. God's Bible can be spoken of as a cohesive narrative. You can do that. It's also a biblical library. If you want to discover that, get my first book, wherever your favorite books are sold, called asking better questions of the Bible. We kind of talk about the biblical library. But what I usually like to do is talk about God's story as a cohesive narrative. You can talk about it that way too. But that narrative has a setup. Like if you were going to start reading Harry Potter, you would need some kind of introduction at the beginning of the book, because Hogwarts is not like UTD. I mean, I'll let you tell me, but nevertheless, Slytherin are everywhere. So because of that, you have to like, there's a preface as an introduction. It introduces you to the world because the world that you're reading about is not the world that you typically would assume. And so there's a setup. God's biblical narrative has the same thing. There's a preface. There's an introduction that starts tomorrow. But there's a, there's a high level. What is the world like and what is God doing here that I want to dive into? So Genesis 1 through 11, we're going to get all textual analysis tonight. We're going to get all like nerdy about textual literary devices tonight. We'll do narrative later. We're going to do some narrative tonight, but we're going to look at like Bible as literature tonight, as the Bible is trying to do something in its first 11 chapters that are really, really helpful. And we miss if all we try to do is engage in as narrative. Because your Bible starts with this incredible story that is this ancient, come on, come on. I'm begging you, man, it just doesn't like us, Stephen. Stephen. Stephen. I like you guys, you guys are fun. I think it just stops talking to each other. I don't know what it is. All right. All right. We'll see if this works. Okay. We've got, we've got your seven days of Genesis 1. You'll notice on day one, God separates light and darkness. He separates sky and waters. He separates land and seas. On day four, he builds the sun, the moons and the stars. He puts the birds in the fish in there. He puts the beasts. And then there's humans. When you look at the story, humans are like this, this kind of like odd a dendum in the story. They'll make a little bit more sense maybe as we pop there. And then day seven, he obviously rests. But Genesis 1 is also a literary device called a chiasm, say chiasm. You can look this up online. It's called chiasmists. If you want to dig into Wikipedia, it's not, it is not, listen to me. It's not Bible code. We're not talking about how they're like secret mysteries hidden in the biblical text because there's a special code that only God could see when he put in there. We're talking about an author knows how to build the story intentionally because they didn't, they didn't initially write it down. They told it and they told it around campfires and they told it in ways that you had to remember it up here and in here because they didn't have the printing press and they didn't have it on an app. So you had to have it buried inside of you. And these stories get told better and remembered better if they have a rhythm, if they have a cadence, if they have parts, if they have a design. And so this story has a design. Oh, it's just not going to work. Oh, no. What is our other option, Steven? Because I can't do this every slide. I got twenty two of them. All right, look at that while I unplug it. Got it? Mental snapshot. Oh, actually, I could have just given that to you in case it works and I got my remote ready to go. All right, you have, oh, it stayed up there too. Hooray. You have the first three days, if you read the text, you'll notice that God separates. He doesn't actually create. He separates. He separates light from darkness. He separates the waters above from the waters below. He separates the land from the seas. Then on the next three days, what God does is he fills what he previously separated. That's not, that's not science. That's poetry. Because the thing that makes the light isn't created till day four. That no chuckles on that. And, and I'd, like, we've only measured a day in all of human history one way, the way that the earth is in relationship to the sun, which isn't. So how do you even know the first three days are days? Like this, this story is trying to do something and it's not trying to tell us how stuff was made. It's trying to tell us something else about what was made and who made it, right? So day four fills the stuff in day one. Day five fills the stuff in day two and day six fills the stuff. There's a cadence to it. There are parts to the story and an ancient reader would know this. This isn't tricky for them. They don't have to take a 400-level graduate class to know this in the ancient world. You're familiar with this. Just like you're familiar with commercial breaks or ads. I guess I can't say commercial breaks anymore. Nobody watches television. Like the non-premium version of Netflix. Right? Like you know what's going on. So when you see this, when you hear this rhythm, it's called a chiasm. Chiasms are different. Kenneth Bailey will talk about how there's seven different forms of chiasm. But chiasmus is one of your dominant ancient Eastern literary forms. I don't know if we got anything working. I don't know if I did that, but if I did that, Steven's amazing. If not, he's pressing the button and he's still amazing and I'm here for it. A chiasm has an abc cba or an abc abc. What's crazy about Genesis 1, by the way, is it's both. I don't know if I can go back. I'm going to go back. Look, abc abc. But also if you look at it in your Bible, which by the way, if you have like actual Bibles or even on your phone, we're going to need them all week. So I hope you brought them. If not, download the app super free, you version. Awesome. Okay. If you look at it in your Bible, you will notice day one baby paragraph, day two, mommy paragraph, day three, daddy paragraph. Very technical terms. I learned those in seminary. I didn't go to seminary. Day four, daddy paragraph, day five, mommy paragraph, day six, baby paragraph, if you discount the creation of humanity. So baby, mommy, daddy, you could just say small, medium, large, large medium, small, or tall, Grande, Vente, Vente, Grande, tall, which that becomes abc cba. So when you have the, I'm going to, I'm trying to go forward. So when you have the abc cba, we got it. Don't you worry? And then. And now when you have abc abc or cba cba, that's what you're looking for. Now, not all chiasms are inverted parallelisms. Not all chiasms have things buried in the center of the story, but many chiasms do. Sometimes a chiasm is talking with itself, the a's talk together and the b's talk together and the c's talk together and the point of the chiasm is to follow the conversation once you find the chiasm. But the chiasm is a treasure map. The chiasm is a literary device that tells the reader or the listener, listen and look because there's wisdom and truth that I the author have buried. Why did I do this? Why do they just tell you the point? Because the Eastern thinker believes that truth is more powerful and you are more intimately connected with it if you can discover it versus if you were just told it. Which means your Bible, largely almost completely an Eastern book written to an Eastern audience, is not trying to hide things from you. It's trying to hide things from you. Thank you for loving it. Like it's trying to bury stuff because it wants you to discover that truth. So when you look at the chiasm and you look at Genesis 1, you find out that the story and the word, the literal word and the literal middle of the literal Hebrew text in this literary device is the word moa deem. Say moa deem. Moa deem is the word we use for festivals in the Hebrew language, party. Oh, by the way, in my introduction, I forgot to tell you, I'm Jewish. So that's why that's going to be, I'm going to bring that up a lot. And you're going to be like, why is this guy always talking about Jewish stuff? Because I am one. But I'm one of the ones that thinks that Jesus was the guy, which is cool, like it's cool. I also wasn't, I was raised in a good old Christian church, church, a Christ up ringing, like that's kind of like my thing. So, so don't worry, I'm like, I'm cool. But it like, like, one of those things hanging off of his pants. It's an undergarment. Okay. So there you go. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Okay. Usually I tell you that in the first five minutes. That was me stalling some more to see if I get that chiasm on the screen. So that chiasm, the festivals, one of the Hebrew words for festivals is also one of the Hebrew words for Sabbaths. Because when we're celebrating a party, we're having a Sabbath. There's the Sabbath, which started at sundown tonight, by the way, for a Jew. There's the Sabbath, capital S. Then there is the idea of sabbathine. Then there is the idea of a non Sabbath Sabbath when a holiday falls on a day that's not a Saturday. That's also a Sabbath. It's just not the Sabbath. You guys track it with me? I know it's a lot. This, why is this story? Guys, it's the first story of your Bible. This is Genesis chapter one. Why? Why this story? God, why are you bearing festivals and parties and Sabbath? Because the story is about creating and the story is about resting, the story Oh, hooray. What's happening? Let's just see if, let's just see. I don't know if you guys can control it. Feel free to, is that me doing that? Oh, it's me. You know, all this making sense, what you're seeing on the screen? Yeah. Okay. There's your chiasm. Like the chiasm, literally points towards, sometimes when there's a center, literally points towards the center, like it's a roadmap for you. Genesis one, oh, I lost it again. Oh, no, there it is. Okay. There's your Moadim. Genesis one. Remember, baby, mommy, daddy, daddy, mommy, baby. Looks like that literally on the paper in the middle seasons. This story has refrains. It was good seven times. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was very good. What is this poem trying to say about creation? There's goodness in that. It's a first story. The first thing the Bible wants you to know, the world is a good place. That's not what I think we usually assume. But the Bible is trying to get you. It's like Hogwarts. This is not, this is not what you thought. The world is, the world, I know you don't think so. The world is a good place. And you're a part of this good world. There's this refrain evening and morning, which is weird because that's not how you and I talk about a day. You and I talk about days morning and evening. So why does the Hebrew language do evening and mornings? Because in the Hebrew world, tomorrow started at sundown for me. This is already the next day. Yesterday ended when the sunset for me as a Jew. And then, and the next day started at sundown. Why? Because the first thing that I do is not get up to produce the first thing that I do is go to bed to rest. Yeah. See, half the room is getting there. The story is trying to tell you, who's, who's hearing this story for the first time? I'm going to do this a lot, by the way. Who's hearing this story for the first time? Traditionally, they're at the base amount Sinai. It's the Israelites hearing this story from Moses. Where did they just come out of? Egypt, where they did what? They were slaves. They made bricks and their only value and their only worth to the Egyptians was that they were brick makers and their whole life was about how much they could produce. God's first story is your value and your worth does not come from what you do. You are not human doings. You are human beings. The first thing God wants us to do is to party, to know how to throw festivals, to know how to Sabbath. Do you realize why Jews are so hung up on the Sabbath all the time when you're reading about Jesus, the Pharisees are always like Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath because Sabbath is so, and yes, they got it twisted. But Sabbath is so central to the biblical narrative. It's the starting place. God says, you have to remind yourself that you're just loved and valued because you're a part of creation. And when I made creation, I was like, that's pretty great. I like that. There's nothing more I could do. Okay, so then there's these other stories. So now we're going to jump a few episodes ahead in the podcast and just talk about the preface. Remember in this story, we're talking about this whole Genesis 1 through 11 stuff. And then Genesis 1 through 11, you have eight stories. You have creation which you just looked at. And then you have Adam and Eve. Now Genesis 1 is the creation narrative that is really inviting us to to trust the story by stopping. Trust the story of God's goodness by knowing when to stop. Stop working. Stop doing your homework. Stop striving. Stop producing. Know when to say enough is a Hebrew way the rabbi say it. Know when to say enough. Know when to unplug. Know when to stop because it's good. Adam and Eve don't do that. It's a story of tragedy. Because they let their fear and insecurity. Am I really good enough? Am I really smart enough? Am I really prepared enough? Am I doing enough? Am I loved enough? Genesis 1 says yes. And stop to remind yourself. Yes. Stop and throw a party to remember that you are loved. You are beloved. Just stop. But Adam and Eve, am I loved the fear and insecurity? The fear and insecurity sin is the byproduct of the fear and insecurity. And I know I'm treading on thin ice. We've made sin the thing. Sin is the byproduct of the thing. The core of human existence in the Jewish mind, the fundamental essence is our battle with fear and insecurity. Because of our fear and insecurity, we sin. Adam and Eve with their fear and insecurity get the better of them. Can't enable. You know that story? Kane, what's it like I get it? Like able how to good day. It's not even that Kane had a bad day. Able just had a good day. Right? Kane, Kane brought a sacrifice. I can't kill anybody. Sorry, I was bad joke. Kane, Kane just like Kane had like a midday and able how like Able was killing him. I'm trying to talk to like my freshman son and it's not going to work. Kane was like Able was doing awesome. And Kane felt his fear and insecurity said, Oh, God's going to love him more. And God's like, No, I'm not. Why are you upset? Like your brother had a good day? You could have a good day tomorrow. If you do what's right, won't you be accepted? But if you let your fear and insecurity run wild, Kane, you're going to do something really stupid. You see the preface is trying to teach us something. Creation is a good place, but we don't believe it. And that fear and insecurity causes us to do really dumb things. Bless you. Well timed. Then there's a genealogy. Won't do that tonight. Then there's the flood, which the flood is just a retelling of creation. Actually, it mentions the same things the creation story does in the same order. And it's wild and crazy and awesome. And it's really an affirmation of creation. I know it's kind of crazy to think about because the flood like, isn't that the story where God kills everybody? Yeah. But every culture had one of those. This story was crazy. Different. The Mesopotamian's had a story of God killing everybody with a flood. The Samaritan's had a story of God killing everybody with a flood. The Caldean's had a story of God killing everybody with a flood. The Hittites have a story of God killing everybody with a flood. This Hebrew culture has a story of God killing everybody except except he saves it. Like he goes to destroy it, but immediately God's like, I'm going to wipe out creation. Hey, Noah, you want to help me save creation? Like this God. And this is what the Bible is trying to do. You think God is like this, but he's not really like that. He's trying, he's trying to save it. He's trying to redeem it. And you know how the story ends? It's the story of creation's goodness, God's reaffirming that creation is worth saving. And he knows when to stop. He knows when to stop destroying. Never again. There's this beautiful episode in the podcast about his bow and the clouds and it's awesome. And guess what? It's a chiasm. By the way, story number one chiasm, story number two, chiasm, story number three, chiasm. I'm not sure if the genealogies are chiasm. I'm not sure. Flood chiasm. If you want to find the chiasm of the flood, pay attention to the numbers. 7, 7, 40, 150, 150, 40, 7, 7, guys, that's not a coincidence. That's an author building a story so that you know, hey, look at what the treasure is. Okay. There's a chiasm. Then there's a story of Noah's vineyard, which is a crazy story about him coming out. This is the part we never tell this part of the Noah's story. Like we do the arc thing or like, yay. And then we don't tell the rest of the story. Noah comes out of the arc. He plants a vineyard. He gets drunk on the grapes. His son comes in and sees him naked, tells the brothers. The story is so weird. And trust me, the Jewish tradition around it is only weirder. And if those you listen to the podcast, you know, it's usually where I lose everybody. If I lose you in the podcast, it's usually when I get to know his castration. But I just got you. Everybody just said what? You're at least going to listen to five episodes. Jewish tradition says that there's a whole thing that's going on in this interaction between because what's weird is Noah gets up and who, which son, who knows their Bible? Which son has like gone in and seen his dad naked? Or is like, how dad's naked? And he went out and told his brothers, dad's naked. Who was it? Hum. Him. Yeah. Jews have been against pork from beginning. So hum is how he would say that, right? So hum. Noah gets up. He finds out what hum is done. And he curses. If you know the punch line, don't screw it up. Who does he curse? Hum. No. He curses kind of on the grandson. Yes. Yes. Whoever's saying what? Yes. What? Why? Why is he cursing the grandson? What do the grandson do? Get mad at your son. But don't get mad at the little grandson kid or I don't know how old he is. He didn't do anything. He didn't walk into the tent. He didn't make funny. Why are you cursing the and the Jews are like because the whole story is about vengeance, which is why the Jews teach. He got castrated. Hum stole his father. What is God's first command to know when he comes out of the arc? Says it twice. First command. Be fruitful and multiply. And hum takes his ability to be fruitful and multiply. And Noah says, if you're going to do that to me, then I'll do that to you. I'll curse your own progeny. Yes. Guys, you get it. Call this group. It's so cool. I freaking love college students. Everybody's always like, you really got to dumb it down for college students. And I'm like, um, no. Yes, you get it. Like this story. And see when you read the story, like we always read it, we're like, oh, hum. And like, I think he probably slept with his mom and like, oh, we have all these other weird takes. But we make it a story about hum and Noah and whoever sinned. And we make it like a story about like sexual morality. But Jewish tradition says it's a story about the danger of vengeance. Hold on to that. By the time I leave on Sunday night, we will have come back around to that. When you let fear, where does vengeance come from? Fear and insecurity. When you don't trust that God's got the universe, when you don't trust that the world is a good place, you take that righteousness and justice into your own hands and you make things right. And the Bible, the biblical wisdom says that's a dangerous, dangerous road to start walking down. You see what the preface is doing? Creation is good. Just trust it. Fear and insecurity, fear and insecurity, genealogy, God's like, man, the world's really jacked up. Let's destroy it, save it. It's good. Trust me. Fear and insecurity, Tower of Babel, fear and insecurity. Got to make a name for myself. Genealogy. Which by the way, if you really want to tie those stories together, oh, I should have had that slide up for a little bit. Sorry. That's all stuff I talked about. And then, and then these stories are tied together. They're literally tied together by the Hebrew phrases that are used. Right? Can enable Tower of Babel, Adam and Eve. Hold on. Noah got out of the ark and he did what? He took of the vineyards fruit. Have you ever heard another story of somebody eating fruit that he shouldn't have eaten? And then, okay, these stories are, and I could do that for the next 20 minutes. These stories are paralleled on purpose. Which if you're paying attention, you might be like, hey, wait a minute. Are all these stories that are chiasms making a mega chiasm? Yeah, that was the greatest. I will never do better than that. However many hundred college students, all going, oh, at the same time, it's one of my greatest moments I've ever had. This group is so great. I'm never leaving. Okay. Yes. You have a chiasm of chiasms. This is your preface. Your Bible is so genius. It's so inspired. Not the way that I was always taught in my fundamentalist upbringing. I mean, yeah, that way, I guess it's just better than that. It's even more inspired than what I was told. Because it's trying to teach me biblical wisdom. It's setting the stage for a larger narrative that we're going to spend the rest of the weekend in. But if this is a chiasm, what's your next question? Does it have a middle? Not all chiasms do. And maybe this isn't even one of them. It's not inverted. It's not A, B, C, D, D, C, B, A. It's A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D. So maybe it doesn't. But if A is talking together, we've already seen that. If B is talking together, if C is talking together, if D is talking together, like it's, it still might lead to somewhere. I wonder what the middle. Why not the middle? There's your middle verses. When Lamach had lived 182 years, he had a son. He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands, caused by the ground the Lord has cursed. He will enable us to rest." Your whole preface is God like guys. I love you. There's nothing you could do. There's not a tower you could build. There's not a world you could destroy. And I'm not making light of those things either. If the next thing I said was there's not a brother you could murder. Those are dark. All of the stuff is dark. Their dark stories. The empires that were built off of dysfunction abuse and evil are dark empires. Like there, I'm not trying to make light of it or make it trivial. What I'm trying to tell you is nothing could separate us from the love of God. Nothing, not our worst darkest empires will never change God's fundamental position toward us. Full stop. That's you don't have to like succeed. You will gain no points for succeeding in whatever degree program you're chasing and getting a great job and being awesome and making everybody else proud of you. God will not be more proud of you because he's already as proud of you as he possibly could be. And when you let fear and insecurity drive, it will drive you to really bad destinations. I have this prayer that I say every single morning at the end of I take I have about two two and a half hours every morning where I sit in different disciplines prayer, scripture memorization, reading and study. I get up at 4 30 in the morning because I always wanted to prove that somebody can do it if they have a job at 8 a.m. So I do this every morning. Not as I'm not trying to get your pat on the back. I'm not trying to brag. I'm trying to say this is this is something you can give your life to. Like you can choose to give your life to it. It also means I go to bed 20 minutes ago. College students keep me up late. But I get up to do this every morning and at the end of all of this study and memorization and time and all that kind of stuff. I get down at the end and before I go to my office, I sit for 20 minutes in contemplative mindfulness silence that my therapist helped me craft because therapy is a really good, beautiful thing. Oh yeah, you guys are epic. How screwed up is it if I'm a leader with a podcast and I speak to whatever and I'm not emotionally healthy. It's dangerous as all gets up. So my therapist, we crafted this time together, have this prayer. I say it four times really, really slowly. And I breathe. I think about it. And I say this, I am not loved and valued today because of what I do and produce. And should I fail today in larger, small ways, it will not affect my worth. I will still be loved and valued. I am simply beloved. And I say it again, I am not loved and valued because of what I do and produce today. Should I fail today in larger, small ways, it will not affect my worth. I am simply beloved. And I say it backwards just because it's fun. I am simply beloved. I will still be loved and valued and it will not affect my worth if in large or small ways. I fail today. What I do and produce today is not the reason I'm loved and valued. And I say it one more time and I slow way down and I say, I am not loved and valued because of what I do and produce. And should I fail today because I'm going to in large or small ways. And I mean that like the large ways, like I really fail today, like I blow up an organization or I blow up a marriage or I blow up parenting or I really screw up and I do some horrible, I commit some horrible crime or the little things which seem to actually affect us more on the day today than the big ones. Little habit I can't kick. It's a little narcissistic trait that just won't seem to leave me alone. Should I fail in large or small ways, it will not affect my worth. I do not become less valuable of a human being. God does not change his position with me if I really screw up today. There are consequences to screwing up. Don't mishear me. But my worth and my value doesn't change. I'm just I'm beloved. I'm beloved. Which is what my second book is about, which is available for pre-order. And my publicist really wanted me to tell you that. So there you go. Noah's name means comfort. The preface is really trying to get you to the story is good, creation, good. It's also totally broken and screwed up. Can I get a name in? Like it's a messy place out there. It's dark. It's wild. But at its core, if you were to really get down to its essence, what is creation? Good. Loved. God looks at it and what he sees is what a good parent looks at when they see their kid. With all their mistakes and their scripts and some of their worst seasons, a parent will always look at their child and be like, I love them. I love that kid. God looks at his broken creation. And the most fundamental truth about it is that's loved. We are a part of that creation. We are loved. In Genesis 1 through 11, we see the brilliant design of the scriptures. And you are being invited to reframe your understanding of reality. I do not know how long I've been talking and slides. Thanks Stephen for getting it working. We got it. So I'm ruining my closing. I don't know how I don't know if I'm late. Sorry. Here's what I will say, as we start, as we close our opening night of our weekend together, let us begin with an understanding of your belovedness. And if you don't believe it, I will just, I'll let your other staff talk to you about the details or how you want to communicate that. It's just the gospel. That's what that is. That God loves you and nothing could ever change that. And then he's made away and all that. But that God, that's the gospel. You are loved. If you don't believe that, nothing else fifths, nothing else works. Nothing else goes together. Or when it does, we end up making really jacked up versions of the story. We have to start with the right foundation, which is that God thinks you're pretty great. God does not think you're perfect in case you are curious. But God thinks you're pretty great. And you should be able to rest easy tonight and every night. And that foundational truth. And we have a lot to build on from here. The story keeps going. Because right now it's pretty dark, by the way. Like if you're reading this, you're like, I don't think we'll ever trust it, God. Like if you're listening to this, God's like, it's really good. And we're like, nope, nope, nope, nope. God's like, no, no, no, let's fix it. Hard, hard reset. All right, we're good. And we're like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. God, it's not going to work. But but somebody shows up and shows us that not perfect. But by George, this story, probably not a guy named George, but by Avram, this story's got a next chapter. But that's where we need to pick up tomorrow morning. But go with the good news tonight. Go with the gospel tonight. And and wrestle with an invitation. If you have not already, if this is your first chance, the rest with that invitation, wrestle with an invitation to trust that God really does love you. That the scandal is really that scandalous. That's right.