Love That Is Satisfied (Pt 2)

Turn to Hebrews 13 — Hebrews 13. We come to God’s house, and as I mentioned last Lord’s Day, at times we can be in a condition of feeling overwhelmed. The reasons for feeling overwhelmed can be numerous. Sometimes those things can be publicly known; sometimes they are very much only known in private. We can be struggling with all sorts of fears about the future, anxieties about material needs, concerns of various sorts. And yet what we need is to have our heart rightly set upon Christ.

Your heart constantly tends to drift—mine too. And we need to come back to what? Who God is and what He has said. The hymn we just sang is notable because it is a reflection of things God has said. The reason it’s loved is because it keeps rehearsing through every stanza, “here’s what God has said.” And so we are being reminded: He said this, and He said it to me.

We’re going to read Hebrews 13:1–6 again. This is the second part of what I hoped to complete last Lord’s Day in our looking at verses 5 and 6. So let’s hope we finish it this morning.

Hebrews 13 verse 1, let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefined, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have. For he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Amen. We’ll end the reading at verse six.

And what you have heard is the word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, give help. We plead for thy help. The powers of argumentation, the necessity of rhetoric, the art of man skillfully presenting a cohesive message pale in importance in comparison to the need of divine help. So we plead for divine help. We plead for the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, take Thy Word. Take what Thou hast given and drive it home to every heart. Drive it home as there is distinction of need. Drive it home unmistakably as men and women and children struggle in a fallen world. Drive it home to sanctify. Drive it home to encourage. Drive it home to save. Give me help, Lord. Please give help. I just plead in Jesus’ name, the Holy Spirit, come now and set aside this time as a time when the Lord meets with his people. For we pray in our Savior’s name, amen.

Feeling a deep sense of loss and yet still being grateful can be extremely difficult. When someone tells you in a condition of discouragement or in loss to be thankful, it’s a little like saying to a starving man, don’t feel hungry. The challenge that we face in this world of maintaining ongoing gratitude is made all the more difficult by the fact that things do not turn out as we may have planned or expected. And yet the call of our text this morning is to one of contentment: Be content. The word primarily signifies to be possessed with sufficient strength. Contentment is to be possessed with sufficient strength—that is, the strength in which you are able to be at rest: at rest with your current condition, at rest with the circumstances.

A part of our struggle is also found within ourselves. It’s not just the fact that things don’t go according to plan; it is also because we are who we are. Thomas Boston, in addressing the matter of contentment in his works on the Ten Commandments when he gets to the Tenth Commandment—those shall not covet—notes that it’s not just circumstances that we have a problem with; it’s our heart. He suggests that discontent is a compound of, quote, the blackest ingredients. He goes on to give four of those ingredients.

He suggests, first of all, unsubjection to and rebellion against the will of God. The reason why we feel discontent, the reason why we are not content, is unsubjection to and rebellion against the will of God. The other ingredient is anger and wrath against our lot. In the third place he speaks of sorrow of heart under the divine dispensation towards ourselves. So it’s not just anger, but sometimes sorrow toward what’s going on. And then he adds a fourth, which is—he kind of divides up—he says there’s a spice of heart-blasphemy. It strikes very directly against God, the governor of the world, and accuses His administration. He says it charges God first with folly, as if He were not wise enough to govern; with injustice, as if He did us wrong; and with cruelty. Folly, injustice, and cruelty—that brings about a blasphemy of the heart toward the Lord.

So it’s not just a matter of us trying to accept our circumstances. We have to have our heart taught. You and I need the heart to be constantly instructed by what God’s Word says. And that’s what the apostle does here in verses 5 and 6. Let your conversation—let your whole manner of conduct, your whole behavior—be without love of silver. That’s the sense of covetousness: be without the love of silver. And be content with such things as ye have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee; so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. This again is a form of love: a love that is satisfied, a love that is at rest with what God has done for us and is doing for us.

And we have seen in this passage a number of things: love that is steadfast (verse 1), serving (verse 2), sympathetic (verse 3), sanctified (verse 4), and now we come to this love that is satisfied. We are at rest—at rest.

So, as we consider this, I’ve obviously dealt with the first point last time: a satisfied love renounces covetousness. A satisfied love renounces covetousness. I had two ideas there: that covetousness corrupts the heart and, secondly, competes with Christ. Now, I’m not going to go over that at all. I’m going to move on to the second point and consider that a satisfied love rests in God’s care.

Now, we touched on this, so I am going to overlap a little bit just to remind you. As we think—not just that we renounce covetousness, but—we rest in God’s care. Be content: a positive command. Have an understanding of the sufficiency that God has provided in His providence, which brings us to see, first of all, that His care is seen in His provision. His care is seen in His provision: Be content with such things as ye have. God is sovereign. He is furnishing His people with all that they need. And in times of great loss, or when we’re facing a sense of impossibility, when there’s a diminishment of resources that leads us to think it’s not possible to go on, we are not recognizing that God is sovereign over every moment of the existence of His people.

“Be content with such things as ye have.” These believers had been cut off in various ways, no doubt—maybe even from family inheritance. Certainly they had been willing to suffer the loss materially, as chapter 10 tells us. And so they know what it is to feel loss, to lose out materially, to sacrifice for a cause they believe is higher.

What motivated them (again, chapter 10:31) is that they knew they had an enduring substance. They possessed something that couldn’t be taken from them. They had in hand, by virtue of what Christ had accomplished for them, something that could never be taken from them. No hostility of the world, no removal of their substance could take away this enduring substance.

So when it says “such things as ye have,” I said last week it calls us then to ponder: what do we have? “Such things as ye have.” Our mind goes to what’s not here. I mean that: when you’re shopping, right, and you’re planning to shop, you focus on what’s missing, don’t you? You tend to look at what’s not there, and you’re drawing up lists based on what is not there or before you.

There’s a lot in life in which that’s where our eye goes—what’s missing, not what’s there. So we look at our cupboards and we look at what we have and we kind of, in one sense, overlook or don’t focus or meditate upon what we have; we just see what’s not there. In terms of life generally, we tend to have that focus. We have all these things and yet we don’t focus or ponder them or rightly reflect upon them.

And yet we’re coming to this week—the week of Thanksgiving—the day of Thanksgiving. This is a season in which what we’re doing is we’re looking at what we have. The whole holiday was about reflecting upon, giving thanks because of what they had, what God had provided—God furnishing them, focusing upon not what they still desired, not what they were without, but what they had.

But let’s not leave it to Thursday. Every believer all the time is to have this posture of recognizing “such things as ye have.” Daily saying, I have this. Stop me. Stop. Why do I focus on—I’m sure I’m not the only one—why do I focus on what’s not there? And when we train, part of it is just a necessary aspect of living in a world full of deficiencies.

When you’re a teacher, when you’re trying to bring people up in a subject matter to understand something, and you have a paper and you have an exam, you focus on what’s absent. If you’re a music teacher and you’re hearing a piece being played, again, you focus on what’s missing and what’s not quite right. Most of the comments then focus around the deficiency. Our whole world tends to then focus on—our minds focus on—these things.

But we are called here in the text: be content with such things as you have. Reflect upon what you have, what you possess, what providence has granted to you—the many things. I’m not going to do this for you. I’m encouraging you to do it, to be reflective. Certainly it would be a good exercise this week: What do I have? And be thankful. Think of what you have generally in this world, but think of what you have especially in the gospel. You have a pardon from God. You have an adoption into His family. You have a great High Priest who sympathizes and prays for you. You have a name written in heaven. You have the assurance He is returning to take you to be with Himself. You have these things.

And you start thinking upon them and what it would be to live life without them. Again, I suggested that contentment is not refusing to pray for lawful needs; it is refusing to accuse God when He withholds what we expect. And we learn contentment like the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:11—learning, being educated, being schooled by God and His providence.

There are times we have much and we don’t really recognize fully how much we have; and then He may strip it away. Begin to reflect upon, A, what we once had, and B, what we still have that He hasn’t yet stripped away. “Be content with such things as you have.” When health diminishes, we begin to look at what we’re losing. But we may still have sight; we may still have other faculties that we can be thankful for. And the text then is an exhortation: focus on what you have. Take note of what you have. Let thanksgiving—let contentment—arise because you’re engaging in a conscientious effort to observe the deposits that God has given, the blessings that are yours, especially what you have in Christ: “such things as ye have.”

Again, I know when there’s a real sense of loss and there’s a pain attached to it, you don’t read Job and think, “Job, you’re being melodramatic.” No one reads Job that way, do they? Our heart goes out to him; we understand the response. And yet we have to bring ourselves back and see what we have. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

His care is seen in His provision. God cares. His care is also seen in His presence. Not only being content with such things as you have, it goes on to say, “for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” And the construction of this text is fascinating in that the plurality of negatives—five negatives here—gives an effect that says, I will never, ever leave you, nor will I ever, ever, ever forsake you. I will never, ever leave you, nor will I ever, ever, ever forsake you.

Is there not a sense of condescension to our slowness to believe in that? God should say something once; it could be put in the most terse, abbreviated fashion, and we should believe it. “I will never leave you.” That should be enough. Implied is “forsaken” as well. He won’t forsake. “I will never leave you,” or “I will always be with you.” It should be enough. But He condescends. You see the love—the love of His condescension. He condescends to shore this up, to shut every door against our unbelief.

Your unbelief. That question that arises: Is it true of me? And you don’t doubt this when things go well. You’re not questioning this when things are going relatively according to plan. You begin to question when things don’t go according to plan, when things aren’t working out the way you might expect. You begin to question this when prayers appear to be unheard or unanswered, when material things are diminishing rather than increasing, when health is diminishing in ways that you have not faced, and all the other things: when there’s tension within the home and the family, when there’s a hardness of heart in a spouse or a child, when there’s a difficulty in the place in which we are employed—you begin to ask yourself, Lord, where are you? He left you.

So I want you to get it. I want you to get into your heart that God, condescending, He’s looking at you and He says, “O you of little faith.” He sees the littleness of your faith. And He says, I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you here so that you know how true this is: I will never, ever leave you, nor will I ever, ever, ever forsake you.

You could end there and just go home and say, what more do I need to hear? God, who cannot lie, states this. He does not state, “I will never let your income drop.” It doesn’t say that. “I will never have it that you have to eat into savings prematurely.” It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say, “I will never allow you to have diminished physical capacity.” It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say, “I will never give you hardship in your family.” It doesn’t say that. That’s what we read into things. We think that’s the way it should be.

So we come back to what we have. What is He saying? I, the triune God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Savior of your soul, I will never, ever leave you, nor will I ever, ever, ever forsake you. It is the gift that makes any loss bearable—more than bearable. And this is the key to God’s people throughout all history: this promise of His presence.

So Israel: they are on the brink of Moses dying, and it’s like life without Moses—what’s that going to be like? An unknown future, crossing into the promised land. Deuteronomy 31:6: He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. That’s the word. Let’s repeat it again in verse 8. You have a sense of repetition there as well. I wasn’t thinking about that, but the repetition—God repeating it: He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. And then He says it again in verse 8.

God’s people have always been slow to take God at His word. So let’s repeat it; so they get encouragement. “I’ll be with you.” To Joshua then, stepping into Moses’ place, facing the giants, the walled cities: Joshua 1:5, “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.” To Solomon, given an impossible task, taking over from his father—again, God comes: 1 Chronicles 28:20, “he will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

So you have these terrifying transitions. It’s hard for us to put ourselves there: transitions of this magnitude—Moses dying, Joshua having to take his place, Solomon taking over from David. You think, well, there’s no way. It’s not possible. And God’s encouragement is, I will not leave. I will not fail. I will not forsake. And that’s what He says to us as well. As you face transitions in life—changes in life—things that happened that were unplanned, not expected, catch you unawares, hit harder than you ever imagined, and you’re looking into that unknown future and you’re wondering—God affirms in the most concrete and explicit fashion, I am there with you. Don’t doubt it.

In the great transition—when you think of trying to replace Moses, trying to encourage Joshua, trying to replace David—those are big transitions, but there was a bigger transition whenever the disciples had to take over from the Lord Jesus. How does He communicate encouragement to them? “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” It’s the same sentiment. In times of transition, facing an unknown future, walking into a change or difficulty, God reminds you, His child, never will I forsake you, ever. Don’t question it. I’m with you right now in this moment. You’re sitting here this morning, heart sinking, feeling maybe like you’re drowning for one reason or another. Maybe you’ve come through—it’s been some time since the news. In some ways it has settled. But you find even with that settling that the wave of fear still seems to come back at times.

He says this morning, I’m with you. I will never, ever leave you. I will never, ever, ever forsake you. So a satisfied love rests in God’s care: renounces covetousness and rests in God’s care—His provision and His presence are guaranteed.

Beloved, there’s the foundation for your confidence today. It’s summarized right there. In one sense, there’s nothing more you need to be told: I’ll provide; My presence is with you—whatever you’re facing, He will meet your needs. I feel alone; I’m weak; He is with me.

In the third place then, a satisfied love responds with courage. Verse 6: “so that we may boldly say”—and note that: God says something and then we get to say something. That’s the order. I was just reflecting on this this morning. That’s the order. God says something, and we get to respond. We are not in the business of looking in the mirror and just saying positive affirmations to yourself—“I am a great person, I am successful,” and all this kind of nonsense. That’s not how we live.

God says something, and to use the kind of language that Spurgeon used in terms of God’s promises, it’s a check that we take to the bank of faith and cash. He says, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” We may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper; and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

So the promise leads to a response. God speaks; faith speaks in return. He is quoting here from Psalm 118:6, and he is using that to encourage those believers. Psalm 118:6: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.” It’s put then in the interrogative—“What can man do unto me?”—it’s a question. But the apostle here states it without the interrogative: “I will not fear what man shall do unto me,” because that’s the sentiment.

But if you think about the original construction, if you think about how it’s put in Psalm 118 with the question, and he’s trying to answer the question “What can man do unto me?”—quite a lot. Man can do quite a lot. We read at the end of chapter 11, go back there just to refresh your mind in case some of you weren’t here or you have forgotten: verse 36. These great heroes of the faith—these people who lived heroically before God—others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings. That’s what man did unto them. Moreover, of bonds and imprisonment—that’s what man did to them. They were stoned. Man did that. They were sawn asunder. Man did that. They were tempted. They were slain with a sword. Man did that.

So man did a lot. He has done a lot in the past to God’s people. They have lost a lot in this world as a result of their love for Jesus Christ. And that’s what’s going on in the present time. These Hebrews—they are going through a time of loss. Some of them have borne it really well. Others perhaps are observing the loss; they’re seeing it encroach, the possibility they will endure loss, and they are struggling. Some perhaps have already gone. The apostle is trying to grab them, keep them from leaving Jesus Christ, drifting from the moorings. He has made his argument. He has told them, without Christ you have nothing. What are you going back to? What are you returning to? If you have not Christ, what of it? And now he’s getting down to earth. The theology was practical, but there’s a certain direct application here in the closing remarks that says, here’s your standing. Here’s what you have.

“We may boldly say, The Lord is my helper; and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” So two things here. First, we refuse the fear of man. We refuse the fear of man because of what God has said, and the courage then is imparted to us. That courage is reflected in us refusing the fear of man.

As I’ve said, man can do a lot. He can cause you to suffer tremendously—take everything from you, leave you destitute, leave you in the wilderness with nothing, even end your life. Man can do a lot. But there are things he cannot do. For all of man’s effort, if every single man on the planet turned their attention on you to destroy you—the entire world turned their attention to you—there are things they cannot do. They cannot sever you from Christ. And they cannot delete your name from heaven. Impossible.

I’ve mentioned this before; I bring it to your attention again: that invincibility of the Christian. I say “invincibility” cautiously, but when you read the book of Acts and you see the general tenor of the Apostle Paul and others—how they navigated the challenges they faced and the resistance they were against—you see all of that. There’s a sense in which they are invincible.

You can arrest them because the message they’re preaching is diminishing your goods. That’s what happens in Acts 16 when they come into Philippi. Through the salvation of that young woman, the hopes of their future gains are gone, and they’re upset about it. So they arrest Paul and Silas. Through the gospel they were losing materially. They arrest Paul and Silas and they lay many stripes on them. They beat them to within an inch of their life. They leave them to bleed out there—imprisoned, bleeding with their wounds, the threat of infection very real. Just left in a dungeon. What man could do unto them?

At midnight they start singing. I love it. I love it. They start singing. I told you this before with Dr. Paisley preaching on that passage; he titled his sermon “The Strangest Duet of All Time”—Paul and Silas singing. I don’t know if they were much in the way of being good singers, but they had a song. And they were invincible. There’s that sense: you can’t touch these men. Because what mattered to them was out of their reach. He cannot dissolve my union to the Son of God, and he can’t delete my name from heaven. I have a better and enduring substance, and it’s out of your reach to touch.

You see the same with Peter. Joked about this before as well: Peter—James has lost his life, right? James has already paid the price. Then Peter’s arrested, and it’s going exactly the same way. Peter, you’re gonna lose everything. This is a man with a wife—family—and there he is, locked up. And he’s asleep. He’s asleep. He doesn’t have someone to sing along with. He’s sleeping—no nerves, no worry, no concern. He’s asleep hours before he dies in the most gruesome way. I mean, he has to be almost thumped by the angel—“Wake up here!”—and he’s just like, “Hang on, I’m having a good sleep here.” He says, you can’t touch these people. See? That’s what I’m saying: they’re invincible, because when you talk to them about what they had—when they spoke of their possessions, when they reflected upon “be content with such things as you have”—the main focus of what they had was out of reach from man. Therefore there is this refusal of the fear of man.

We will boldly say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” There’s where to get to. That’s a good place to be. When covetousness is rolling in our heart—when it’s all about here and now and love of silver, which is what’s warned against—then this can be taken from us. The state can come and take your property. The market can change and your retirement plans can go up in a puff of smoke—a Black Swan event—gone. Say goodbye. All your thought of having enough for retirement and enough even to bestow upon your children—gone. That can happen. And you come back and you say, “I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” I just can’t take this away. It’s not bravado. It’s a heart that understands the greatness of God.

“The fear of man bringeth a snare; but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” Yes: the fear of man—what man might do—and so he, through that fear, can get you to compromise; he can silence you when you should speak and encourage dishonesty, paralyze you from a good path. But you trust in the Lord: “I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” So they needed it reminded of this. Some of the believers there really needed it. They were feeling the pressure; maybe they would be the next to suffer loss.

But also, we not only refuse the fear of man—we rest in the help of God. We rest in the help of God. “The Lord is my helper.” My helper—personal possessive. He’s my helper. He doesn’t just help the church in general; He is my helper. That’s what the choir sang this morning. Not “The Lord is our shepherd”—that’s true—but Scripture sometimes brings us to reflect upon the personal reality: He is my shepherd. He is my helper.

So that if I stood in a room with five thousand men who did not know the Lord, the Lord would be right there—my helper with me. This is covenant language: He is our God; we are His people. He is my helper. And He does help His people. Stand at the Red Sea: “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” Facing Goliath—the battle is the Lord’s. Surrounded by the Assyrians: “With us is the Lord our God to help us.” Again and again—this is the confidence of God’s people.

And so He is my helper. How is He my helper? The Lord Jesus Christ is your helper. He’s your helper. He wants to be your helper. He promises to be your helper.

Way back in this book, chapter 2, verse 18, it speaks about Him being able to succour them that are tempted. He has the ability to come alongside in the temptation, in the fear. When the threat is right there, He comes as a helper so that you will not fear what man shall do. And He’s right there to do this. He’s not a spectator. He lives to make intercession. He lives to pray constantly for you.

You can say, “I have a helper. His name is Jesus. He’s always praying for me.” It’s a good thing, isn’t it, to know? He is praying for me. He was wounded for me. He bled out for me. He suffered for me—under the experience of death for me. He bore judgment for me. He rose and He didn’t forget me. He went to heaven to still think upon me, to succour me, to sympathize with me, to pray for me. And He’s going to come back for me. He wants me to be with Himself that I may behold His glory one day. That’s what He wants for you.

So He’s your helper here. He is your helper. Don’t doubt it. Do not doubt it. Lean into it. “I have a helper this morning.” That’s what you boldly say. That’s what you go out of here saying—boldly, boldly, with confidence. The same confidence that comes to the throne of grace is a confidence that says in the midst of trial and difficulty, “The Lord is my helper.” The Lord is my helper. Oh, let that resonate: The Lord is my helper.

Who is your helper? The Lord is my helper. Does that make any difference? Yes, it makes a difference. He is the Creator of the ends of the earth. Go on, read Hebrews 1 to see the glory of this One who is my helper. What does it say of Him? The One who is the Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds, upholding all things by the word of His power. This is the One who’s my helper. He upholds everything by the word of His power. The world moves at His order and sovereignty, and He is my helper. He’s not a distant spectator. He is an active helper. So lean into that, beloved—lean into that.

When fear arises, for whatever reason, preach it to yourself: The Lord is my helper. And go boldly—this is your confession—resting in the help of God: “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” I can say that with confidence. I can say it with confidence because He says, “I will never, ever leave thee; I will never, ever, ever forsake thee.” He’s my helper. That’s great. That’s great. Oh, the face would rise and see it—we’re like Gehazi, aren’t we? The prophet has to say, “Lord, open his eyes, let him see.” But instead of angels camping around to see, it’s to say, The Lord is my helper. It’s like what Shane spoke of: if I could only know that the Lord was next door right there praying for me, I would not fear. He does—He’s with you. He will never leave you. This is so encouraging. This allows the first-century church to suffer the loss of everything. It allows them to go and be the spectacle of entertainment to a world that does not know Christ. It allows them to be torn apart with lions. It allows them to be the plaything of the world and to exude this confidence. If it undergirded men and women to suffer being torn by wild beasts as entertainment, it’s more than sufficient for you in the trials you face. You have to believe them.

The bottom line is we have all that we need. Why do we covet material things? Live your life without a love of silver—verse 5. That’s the idea. Let your whole manner be without this governing false love: a love for silver. Be content with such things as you have. Remembering this—“I will never, ever leave thee; I will never, ever, ever forsake thee”—so that we confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” The righteous are as bold as a lion.

Let’s bow together in prayer.

Looking on to Jesus—that’s the exhortation. It bleeds into that passage, doesn’t it? Looking on to Jesus, the one who is my helper, the author and finisher of my faith. Are you looking to Him? Are you seeing what you have in Him? This old world—our passing experience here in this world—will soon come to an end. In our grasp, let it be the fullness of God’s Son. We have Him.

Lord, bless us with the confidence this text encourages. Let us rest not in ourselves, but in Thy Word. And may it therefore give us a buoyancy in life amidst the afflictions and the sorrows.

There may be empty chairs this Thanksgiving and the loss may be real. There may be diminishing health. There may be financial difficulties. There may be a hostile family environment. There may be challenges that seem insurmountable. There may be experiences that just keep going on and on and feel like they will never end.

And through all the exhaustion of it and the discouragement, let us leave here simply repeating Thy covenant assurance to never leave us nor forsake us. And let our confidence then be built on that.

Bless every person here. Endue them with a fresh awareness of Thy covenant nearness. And may we walk in the light as Thou art in the light, and enjoy the fellowship unique to Thy people.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God, now and evermore. Amen.