A Sweet Slavery

I ask that you take your Bibles now and turn to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. We were here last week. We're going to finish this chapter and this is part of our series of the gifts of the Gospel. What God has accomplished for us in Jesus in the Gospel. Now many of us think as we share the Gospel with others, we just think in terms of getting to Heaven.

And yet the Gospel is much richer than that, says much more than that. And in Romans chapter 6 we have seen last week and we'll see this week that indeed there is much more that the Gospel gives us. If you would follow along as I read Romans chapter 6. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means.

How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For no one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we're not under law but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves who are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?

For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let's pray. Our God and our Father guide our thinking now as we look at this important passage.

Help us to understand it. Help us, Lord, not just to understand it intellectually, but that we would commit ourselves to it. That we would take that truth and begin to act in accordance with it. We are thankful for what Jesus has accomplished at the cross. Now, Father, I pray that we would live in light of that cross and of your great grace in Jesus our Lord.

We pray this in his name. Amen. You find yourself on the block because the time for your sale as a slave has arrived. This is no pleasant experience for you. Being sold can never be, and it becomes worse because the man who bought you is a cruel, harsh, violent master. He works you until you feel you will die.

He beats you for no reason at all. He half-starves you. You hate this slavery. If only you could be free. If only you could escape the horrible existence of serving this master's claims. And then one day, for reasons unknown to you, you're sold to another man.

But it makes no difference to you. Slavery is slavery. just unending horror. But you find that this master is kind and benevolent. He more than generous in providing your needs and your wants He makes no cruel demands And finally you find that there life with purpose and joy all in serving this master What do you think of slavery now? You think, if this is slavery, then I don't want freedom.

In verses 15 to 23 of Romans chapter 6, Paul describes and compares two masters who demand your allegiance. and essentially he draws for us a picture of sweet slavery to righteousness and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's get some context here. You remember that Romans is the explanation of Paul's Gospel. He's writing here and telling us what his Gospel is all about.

In Romans 5, you remember he talked about two realms, the realm of Adam and the realm of law and death. And then there's the realm of Jesus and of righteousness and life. And he says you're either in Adam's realm where you die or you're in Jesus' realm where you live. And he draws that contrast between those two realms and he shows that in Christ you're transferred from the realm of Adam to the realm of Jesus.

And in chapter 5 he says you're delivered from the penalty of sin. The death of Jesus has procured your pardon. When we come to Romans 6, he sets up those same two realms. And he says you're either in the realm of Adam or the realm of Jesus. And when you've been transferred into the realm of Jesus, you've been freed from the reign and the rule of king sin.

He no longer is your king. And you read in Romans 6, verses 1-14 that the death of Jesus has not only procured your pardon from sin, but also has produced power over sin. that you no longer are under the rule of that old master sin. You've died to sin. You've died to sin. You've died to his tyranny. He no longer is your master.

He no longer is your king. You are now free. And you remember that Paul essentially says in that first part of Romans 6, because you are now dead to sin, you are free from the rule of sin, so start acting like a free man. start acting like a free man get that in your head you're free so start acting like it you're free from the rule of sin so start acting like it however in verses 15 through 23 Paul says you are a slave to righteousness so start acting like a slave What?

That's exactly what he does. Verses 1-14, you're free from the rule of sin. Start acting like a free man. 15-23, you're a slave to righteousness. Start acting like a slave to righteousness. now why would he start talking about slavery at a time like this because of how he ended the first part verse 14 for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace what then since we're not under law then are we to sin since we're not under law but under grace should we go on sinning and he gives the same answer he gave in verse 1 by no means absolutely not strongest language he can use.

No, that doesn't mean that. You've joined to Christ by faith. You no longer live in that old realm of the Mosaic legislation. You're not under that law. And someone says, well, if that's the case, what will keep people from sinning? What will regulate our behavior?

This kind of freedom surely fosters sin. Shall we sin because we're no longer under law? and he says, absolutely not. Why not? Because you're a slave. A slave to righteousness. And so he develops that in the rest of this chapter.

So in response to that kind of thinking, well, if we're not under law but under grace, can we go on sinning? No. In response to that kind of thinking, God says, you must know, first of all, that you are and always will be slaves. You are and you always will be slaves. Look what he says in verse 16. Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

Now you know that when you offer yourself in service to someone, you are the slave of that person. Now the Romans knew this. He's writing to the Romans. They surely knew this. They knew that when you offered yourself to someone as a slave, you became their slave. You experienced slavery.

Some of the Romans in that ancient world, if you got into debt and you couldn't get out of it, you would sell yourself in slavery. That's how you could liquidate your debt. You become a slave. Offer yourself as a slave to someone, and they buy you. Pay off your debt. Now, I don't believe he's talking about the legal status of slavery, but the living experience of slavery.

When you offer yourself to someone as a slave, you experience slavery. That becomes your experience. You are a slave. Have you ever come home at night and said, you know, I feel like Honda owns me? or man, I just feel like Whirlpool just owns me. Now why do you say that? It's because for 23 years, because for 43 years, because for how many years, you have presented yourself in obedience to that company.

You feel like that company owns you. 23 years of daily giving yourself over to whatever that company says, you walk away feeling that company owns me. That's what he's talking about here. You don't have to conscientiously say, yes, I know I'm a Honda employee. If you're going there every day, year after year, you're working for that company, you give yourself to that company day after day, year after year, it owns you.

That's what he's talking about. You experience this slavery. And you will always experience slavery of one kind or another. Listen, there is no such thing as a free human being. He does not exist. The question is not whether you will serve a master.

The question is which master will you serve? Everyone is a slave. If you're not submitting to God, you're already a slave to sin. Some people say, why should I become a Christian? Why do I want to give up my freedom and submit to Jesus and all His commandments. Well, I've got news for you.

You're not free. You're not free at all. You are a slave. If you don't belong to Christ, then you're a slave to sin. You will present yourself to a Master. You will experience slavery of one kind or another.

No one is free. Some of you here may have never come to Jesus as Savior. You're religious maybe. or maybe you're not religious at all and you think you free You not Nobody free You a slave to sin or you a slave to righteousness one or the other You experience slavery to either sin or in this case he puts it, slavery to obedience, in verse 16. The ultimate masters, each with a benefits package.

Now in verses 1 through 14, he's making the point. Your master is sin, legally. unless you're freed by Jesus. Now, as you offer the members of your body in slavery to sin, you experience that kind of slavery. He is your master in every part of your life. And when sin is your master, he pays the awful wage notice of eternal death. You are slaves.

Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as an obedient slave, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. You will either experience slavery to sin, and that leads to eternal death, separation from God, or you will experience slavery to obedience. If you present yourself to Him, if you present yourself to obedience, this leads to sanctification.

This leads to holiness. This leads to righteousness. Okay? It leads to righteousness. Now, God gives us a hint here. There's a hint here.

Some people say, once I become a Christian, I've got no law code at all. I've got none. I just operate by the impulse of the Holy Spirit. I don't need any more rules. Well, that's not the case. Righteousness means measuring up to a standard.

What is our standard? Our standard are the commands, the teachings of Jesus and His apostles. That's our law code. Now, it's a different kind of a law code. But we still have a standard by which we live. Alright?

Now notice, your master, in this case, identified as obedience, pays in righteousness. Lives pleasing to God. The freedom of the Christian is not a freedom to do what you want to do. it's the freedom to obey God it the freedom now to do the things that God has always told you to do Now I want you to look over at verse 19 the very first part of verse 19 I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.

By way of explanation there, Paul says that he has to use the analogy of slavery. He says that in this life, human nature produces a weakness in understanding. I'm going to use imperfect analogies, okay? Now, we all know what that's like. No analogy is perfect. And he says, I'm using slavery as an analogy here.

But he doesn't want his readings to interpret his language to mean that the Christian experience of slavery has the marks of fear and degradation and confinement and horror that a lot of slavery involved. No, no. He wants you to understand that your Christian experience does include a master who requires absolute allegiance. But he's saying I'm using this because of your understanding.

So he's using this analogy of slavery in order for them to understand in our salvation, there is a sense of unquestioned obedience to a master that is absolute. So then he says actions have consequences. Present yourself to sin, he will pay in debt. Present yourself to obedience, and He will pay you in righteousness. Okay? Someone says, but I don't want to die then.

What must I do to become a slave to obedience and of righteousness? Well, in verses 17 and 18, he says, recall what made you slaves to righteousness. Verses 17 and 18, but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

He says you used to be slaves to sin, but you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Now do you see what these assert? Those are passive verbs. Have become, right? Have become. Having been set free and having become slaves of righteousness.

In other words you can escape slavery If you sitting here saying okay well I don want to be a slave to unrighteousness anymore I do better It not going to work You can't escape. In other words, he's saying here that you did not attain this freedom. This happened for you. It's passive. You were set free as it were. it's God who brought about this exchange of masters through Jesus all right now let's look at verse 17 but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed God accomplished this by committing you to the standard of teaching which you believed committed is the word it can be entrusted.

You were entrusted. You were handed over to this. That's what that word were committed means. You were handed over to this teaching or this tradition. Now you know what we do. We hand down or hand over our Christmas traditions, right?

They're passed down. You hand it over to your children. But he says, notice you didn't become a slave of righteousness because of the teaching handed over to you. Do you see that? You did not become a slave of righteousness because of the teaching handed over to you, but you were committed to it. Not that you made the commitment.

I like the NIV better. You were handed over. You were handed over to that standard of teaching. You didn't commit yourself to it. God handed you over to it. God delivered you over to the form of teaching and you responded by obedience.

You heard the message of Jesus. You obeyed the Gospel. You believed in Jesus. You bowed the knee to Him as your Lord. You said, I will take your righteousness and abandon all of my own. I will stop trying to be righteous in order to earn something from you.

And I accept the righteousness of Jesus and I bow to Him as my Master and my King. the obedience that happened, happened because you were handed over to that. The Gospel came to you. And you believed. And you were delivered. You became the slave of righteousness and free from sin as your Master. You came free from sin as your master when God handed you over to the good news of Jesus delivered over for sinners.

But it goes deeper than that. This is interesting. Notice he says, you became obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching. Again, NIV, to the form of teaching. Okay, that word has the idea of mold, to a certain kind of teaching. Not just to the teaching, but a certain kind of teaching.

I used to envy my cousins because they had a creepy crawler machine. Do you remember creepy crawler machine? It was like a little oven and they gave you these molds, like insect forms. And you used to put this goo. You put this goo in the forms, then you stuck it on this thing. I barely can remember this, and it cooked it, and then you got these little rubbery insects out of it.

Okay? That's the form. That's the mold. He says, you became obedient from the heart because you were handed over to a certain form of teaching, not just the teaching, but a certain form of the teaching. Well, what does he mean by that? Well, do you remember going to school?

No, most of you don't. He's going to say, you remember going to school in the early 60s? No, most of you don't remember that. Some of us do. But here's what I remember the most about going to school in the early 60s. There'd be a map on the wall, and we all knew for sure who the good guys were and who the bad guys were.

Right? I love talking this way when I go overseas to Eastern Europe and talk to my Romanian brothers and stuff. I said, you guys were the bad guys. Because you were under Soviet rule. and the whole world was divided between light and darkness, between the evil Soviets and us, the great purveyors of freedom. And so there was this evil empire and we were shaped by that.

Fear was part of the way we thought. If you give them one little bit of a chance, they're going to wipe us out. there was fear there was pride in freedom there was instilled in us this idea of you have to be diligent or you will lose your freedom to the Soviets They will get us if we're not careful. That form of teaching produced certain things in us.

So he's saying the form of the teaching that God handed you over has formed you. What does he mean by that? Jump over to Romans 12 real quick. Let's get an example of that. Romans 12, verse 1. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

The form of the teaching that came to us is the form of grace. And it is God reaching down to us and saying, obey me. And have eternal life. It's not what you can do. I'll give it to you for free. It's that kind of a gracious message that comes to us.

And even as Christians, the law that we have is not like the old law. It appeals to us as children of God. Not as recalcitrant sinners. Not as recalcitrant rebels. Because we have a new heart. And so the commands are different.

The form is different. Even the Gospel as it comes to us as unbelievers, it's in the form of grace and invites us and promises us. Well, certainly there are threats in it. There's no doubt that there are threats in it. But the answer then to the threats is not, so do better! The answer to the threats is, so accept the gift, you see.

So the form of the teaching has formed us. And so our obedience, beginning with that of trusting in Jesus, obeying the Gospel by putting our faith in Jesus, sets us free from sin and makes us slaves to righteousness. We are slaves because of the form of teaching. That's what makes our slavery so sweet. You have become slaves of righteousness by the gracious work of God in Jesus. you have not escaped, you've not bought your own freedom someone else bought it for you.

The message came and you responded Look at the benefit packages of slavery The benefit packages Verses 20-23 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death, but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Look at the benefit packages. First of all, look at your slavery to sin. That master, sin, provided a pretty consistent working environment. You go to a number of places of employment, right, and you see the signs that says this is a smoke-free environment.

That means there's no tobacco stuff going on in there, no smoke and all that sort of thing. That's the environment. Smoke free. Well, when you look at your old master sin, it has a sign that's posted that says righteousness. This is a righteousness free zone. No righteousness here.

It's pretty consistent. There's no righteousness there. many unbelievers deride Christians for living a life where there's no freedom completely unaware that the life of freedom that they live is freedom from righteousness and in fact slavery to sin you know what one of the horrible things of sins mastery is it deceives you into thinking you're free when you're not. So the working environment, righteousness free.

Every day as you left work, what did you have? Shame. Produces shame. That's what you get. You work for sin, you offer yourself to sin as a master and he'll give you shame every time. And he also provided quite the retirement program.

Do you notice what that is? Death. Eternal death. That's your old master's retirement plan. Eternal separation from God. Torment Loneliness Darkness Weeping and gnashing of teeth That your retirement program with sin Now listen, I just feel compelled this morning to say to some of you here today who think that following Christ is not the way to go. you are a slave to sin you're a slave to sin you are not free and you have in your life shame with the ultimate result of death now look at your present master if you're a christian look at your present master you've been redeemed you bought by another master and so now you are a slave to God.

What you now possess as a result of that is sanctification. Okay? You've become set free from sin and become slaves of God. The fruit you get leads to sanctification. That is holiness. That word sanctification, it means holiness.

It means you've been set apart from sin and to God. That's what it gives you. It gives you the life of holiness. You've been set apart from sin. Positionally now, you're set apart from sin. Progressively, you'll be set apart from sin in your life.

But that's what you get. Imagine a little boy, an orphan in Romania. He's playing in the streets. Playing on a muddy street, covered with slime, making mud pies and having the time of his life. And he's thinking, life doesn't get any better than this. right but then someone comes along and takes pity on him and adopts him and cleans him up and gives him a home and a room of his own a playground life does get better it's much better isn't it that's the way it is with us we wallow around in the mire and the muck of sin getting slimed with it and we think man life doesn't get any better than this then Jesus comes along and because he's redeemed you he rescues you and you find that a life of sanctification a life of holiness is better than you ever thought possible because you've been redeemed by Jesus now, and you have Him as your Master, you find yourself saying, I am going to be loyal to this woman.

You know, I love the way my dear wife Becca puts it. You don't think I stayed faithful to Tim because of Tim, do you? What she means by that is, it's all because of Christ. You see, it's all because of Christ. Oh, Lord Jesus, I will stay loyal to my wife because I want to honor You. And that produces a life of unenduring monotony, right?

No! Here you are in the slavery of sin and you're tired of this marriage, you want to get done with it, and you get divorced, and there's misery, and there's all this stuff that goes with it and all the sin that's entered into that and there's just misery, right? And yet you think, ah, this is great. And then you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and all these things that seem so odd, so awful, so monotonous to you, you find is better than you could ever have imagined.

That's what sanctification means. you have a life of holiness. What's the retirement program? What does he say? Eternal life. A life of joy. Why is that?

Well, look at verse 23. Because your old master's sin can only pay you what you deserve. You ever gone to work and you found extra money in your check? And you said, hey, what's this? I didn't work overtime. Oh, well, hey, we've decided as company policy to just be generous and give you more.

Does that ever happen to you? Never happens. Why? You get paid what you deserve. You get paid for the hours you've contracted with your company to work for. You get paid so much an hour because you both agreed well they pretty much told you If you going to work for us this is what you get paid You get exactly what you deserve That what sin does It gives you what you deserve And that is death.

And by saying wages, God implies that death is what you merit in service to sin. That's what you get. That's what you deserve. Sin can only give you what you rightfully earn. But Jesus is not that way. God, your new Master, goes far beyond that by giving you the gift of eternal life in Jesus.

Note, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. You get that for free. You don't work for it. You don't get what you deserve. That's marvelous, isn't it? Man, what a package.

God delivers me from my old master, then makes me holy, setting me apart so that I have joy, and then gives me more than I could possibly deserve in eternal life. What sweet slavery! Wow. So what must I do in light of all that God has done for me? In light of all that, what must I do? Back at verse 19.

God says, become a better slave. So become a better slave. now the last part of verse 19 for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity into lawlessness leading to more lawlessness so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification that's the only command in this whole section it's right smack dab in the middle he frames it if you will he frames that one command by all that god has done for you Okay, let's call that the indicative. Now the indicative means what is.

Reality. What God did. There's the reality. He delivered you. He set you free. That's the indicative.

And the imperative, that is the commands of God, are always built on the indicative. This is what God has done. What grace! What a marvelous thing God has done. Now you obey in light of that. Obey in light of that.

And so what God has done should drive us then to do what He commands us to do, which is what? Become a better slave. Reflect on what you used to do as a slave to when you were enslaved to sin Day after day you offered yourself your faculties your thoughts your desires the members of your body to serve sin How do you get good at what you do at work Some of you have been doing the same thing for years.

And you're good at it. Why? Because you go in day after day and do the same thing. You offer your members of your body to be employed in doing certain things. All right? So you go to that place of employment where you do those things, regularly presenting yourself to be employed in that activity.

You get good at it. That's what he's saying in verse 19. When you were a slave to sin, you kept offering yourself to sin and you became really good at it. Alright? Verse 19. You offered the members of your body over to lawlessness, which led to increased lawlessness.

Or as the NIV says, and I like that too, it says, you offered the members of your body over to unrighteousness leading to ever increasing wickedness. It became natural to you. It's natural to you. Now you all know what that's like. I've sat down with people for years now as we sit down to talk over the Word of God. Hey, I'm struggling with this, Pastor.

What can I do? I've got this anger problem. Why? Because that's natural, right? It's second nature. and all of us have those second nature sins. The more you offer yourself over, it just becomes, it leads to ever increasing, it becomes habitual, it becomes natural.

That's what happens. So he says, what should you do? Well, in the same way, now take your faculties, your thoughts, your desires, the members of your body and offer them to righteousness. Start doing the opposite. Now that you're redeemed and you've got a different master, you've got to put the old ways behind you. You've got to put off those old ways that you had with the other master because you've still got the same habits.

You have the same ways of thinking. It's not all automatically boom. You know, I wish... One of my mentors in counseling once said this. You know, if I had magic whiffled dust, I'd just sprinkle it on people and they would change automatically. And God could do that.

But He's chosen not to do that. I think He's trying to teach us this. Sin was a horrible master. And if you want to escape those old habits and everything else associated with your old master, you got to put off those things and start putting on what pleases your new master what he commands It a lifetime of regularly offering now to righteousness what you used to offer to sin All the same things with the same regularity, the same enthusiasm, the same energy.

And that leads to sanctification, to holiness. As you do that, you separate yourself from the old ways and you become more devoted to the new ways. But again, let me say, this only happens because God first delivered you to this new master. that's the only way you can devote yourself to the new master he's got to transfer you so God says in light of all that I've done for you become a better slave for me so we close today the first question you have to ask is really quite simple which master do I serve which master do I serve don't deceive yourself into thinking that you're free all men are slaves to one master or the other if you are a slave of sin that is if you have never bowed the knee in submission to Jesus as Lord if you have never done that count on this rack it up this is what you must know you then are a slave to sin you're a slave to sin and you will never escape his clutches apart from Jesus know that here today you're a slave to sin don't be deceived by what you think is freedom you're not free you're not free as a Christian you need to be asking how good of a slave am I how good of a slave am I do I listen to the voice of my former master too much where in what areas where am I listening to my master I need to identify those I need to think about that I need to remember this.

I'm no longer under any obligation to Him because Jesus has delivered me. Because of God's work, you are a slave to righteousness. Bottom line, God says this. You are a slave to righteousness. Now start acting like a slave to righteousness. Father, thank You for Your Word. we thank you for the power of the Lord Jesus to deliver us from the enslaving clutches of this tyrant called sin.

Father, I beg you today, if there is anyone here today who has never bowed the knee to Jesus, never have looked to Him and submitted to Him, accepted His righteousness in place of theirs, have never said, Lord Jesus, you now are my Master. if there are those here today I beg you Lord impress upon them bring unrelenting conviction on them and convince them that they are slaves to sin no matter what they might think they doing that right they are slaves to sin and that to be delivered they must entrust themselves to Jesus and Him alone Forgetting all that they have done. Forgetting all their works. Forgetting all that they've done to earn your pleasure.

Forgetting that all. And just resting completely in Jesus. Abandoning anything that they have ever done. Give them that unrelenting, convincing conviction. that that is the only way of freedom. God, help us to be better slaves. Help us, I beg you, to think seriously about those areas of our lives where we listen too much to our former master.

You've delivered us from his rule and his tyranny, and yet he fights for that rule and uses such persuasive tones, I beg you, help us as your people to listen to you and to offer ourselves in slavery to obedience and to righteousness. God, help us by the grace you give us in the Holy Spirit. Amen.