Please take your Bibles and turn with me this morning to the book of Proverbs, to Proverbs chapter 17 and verse 9. Proverbs 17 and verse 9. We'll be taking up this verse as the main main text for our consideration this morning, although we'll look at some other Proverbs. Proverbs 17 and verse 9, here now, the Word of God. I'll read it twice for us. He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends. He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends. Amen. I think I should say something first. Why this sermon? It's not because I've taken some great offense from somebody. There's some good reasons, I think, to preach this sermon this morning. Let me give you three reasons, and I think in this order. Firstly, for some time, a considerable amount of time, in Sunday school and in past sermons, we have considered our Christian duties one to another, particularly as members of one another who have given ourselves up to the Lord and to one another in the Lord. And this is one such duty that we have one to another. We covenant to one another that we will forbear and bear with one another's weaknesses and infirmities in such pity, tenderness, meekness, and patience, not daring to discover them to any without the church, nor within the church, except by Christ's rule and the order of the gospel. We vow that we will cover up and hide one another's slips or common failings. This is one of our Christian duties. And secondly, another reason, on Wednesday evenings, we've begun to consider our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, judge not that you be not judged. And those words, that instruction, forbids us from putting the worst construction on things. It forbids us from making rash judgments. And the positive side, one of the duties required of us, well, is this, it's to overlook, it's to forbear and long suffer offenses. But thirdly, I also thought it might be timely, considering the time of year. We've just had Thanksgiving, and we're going to have Christmas and New Year's, and we will all likely be spending more time with more friends and more family. And I thought too, it's wintertime, it's getting colder, the days are shorter, we're getting cooped up in our houses, spending more time with one another. Undoubtedly, there'll be more opportunities to give offenses and to take offenses. And so it would be good for us to know how to respond to offenses in Christian love for God's sake and for the sake of peace. We should be disposed to and should practice forbearing, suffering long, and overlooking offenses. And in order to do this, or better really, in order to be this way, to be the sort of people disposed to overlooking offenses, this morning let us consider God's mind on the matter, particularly as it's revealed to us in the Proverbs. Just one more word of introduction, considering the book of Proverbs. Consider the book of Proverbs just for a moment. Proverbs offers to us godly wisdom. Wisdom informed not by mere pragmatism or usefulness, but wisdom that is informed by God and centered on God. Indeed, the book of Proverbs is wisdom from God. Not man's wisdom, not a collection of just man-made proverbs or wise sayings, but this is God's wisdom. And it is, indeed, his self-revelation, which teaches us about God and how to live for God in God's world. We might summarize proverbs this way. It teaches us about right living in God's rightly ordered world. It teaches us about right living in God's rightly ordered world. And so the book of Proverbs is theological. It's theology. It's a word from God, about God, which leads us to God and leads us to imitate God. Proverbs puts theology to work, as it were, leading us to bear the fruit of godliness in our lives, which only comes by grace through Jesus Christ, through the one who became to us wisdom from God. And so the Proverbs teach us where to find wisdom. They teach us to find it in Jesus Christ. And they tell us how to practice wisdom by imitating Jesus Christ. And this morning, let us consider how to imitate Him in Christian love, in overlooking and offense. The main point of the sermon this morning is this. Christian love disposes us to seek love. Christian love disposes us to seek love, that is, friendship and unity of affection, peace and reconciliation, by endeavoring to overlook, forbear, and long suffer offenses, and all of that for God's sake. Let's open this up in three points, looking at the sermon, overlooking an offense. We'll look at the end, the means to achieve that end, and then the root by which we go on to labor for that end. First, the end. The sage tells us, he tells us, he who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends. Before we will to do something. Before we desire and will to do something, we must first determine that the end for which we seek is desirable, that it is a good thing. And so consider in the first place the end, or the purpose and reason for which we are to cover a transgression and overlook an offense. The end, the wise man tells us, the end of covering a transgression is love. We are to cover a transgression in order to seeking love. And love referred to here, it's not speaking of that Christian grace and virtue wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, by which we will and desire the good and union with the good, but this love here, it's rather the effects, you might say it's the effects of love, or it's love itself as it is a bond of perfection and union between the lover and the beloved. We seek that union. It is that state or condition of strong mutual affection one for another. The best way to put this is that love for which we seek here is friendship. He who covers a transgression seeks friendship. This is seen clearly when we consider the second half of the verse, if you look there. But he who repeats a matter separates friends. Covering a transgression seeks and promotes love and friendship. Repeating a matter threatens and frustrates love and friendship. Indeed, the Hebrew word for love, it implies an intimate and even a prior relationship, even a familial or a covenantal love. Likewise, friend means a close friend of a special kind. And so, this love, that which arises out of a previous acquaintance with one another, and it denotes, it means a certain union of affections between the lover and the beloved, as somewhat united in him or belonging to him, And so this love tends toward one another. Briefly, it's a union of affection. The lover desiring the beloved, being affected and tending toward the other, and vice versa, of course. And so this thing, this love, this is good. It is that which should be willed, desired, and sought after. We should labor to find it and to obtain it. It's a good thing. It's a gift from God. A gift of living rightly in God's rightly ordered world is this love. It's peace, unity of love or friendship in God and for the sake of God. And this friendship, then, must be ordered to God. For friendship with God himself is man's chief good and ultimate end. The love that we must seek most, chiefly and firstly, is our love with God, our friendship with God. And as we enjoy friendship with God, we desire our neighbors to have friendship with God, and for us to have friendship with them in God. Observe well the words of Thomas Aquinas. He says, for since man loves his neighbor out of charity or love, for God's sake, the more he loves God, the more does he put enmities aside and show love toward his neighbor. He says, thus, if we love a certain man very much, we would love his children, though they were not particularly friendly toward us. Because we love God so much, we love all those who belong to him, everybody. The more we love God, the more we will seek this love and friendship with one another. And this applies universally. This is the sort of love that we must have for all men, for all sinners, for all our enemies. We cannot, though, specially seek this love and friendship toward every single person because that would be impossible. But we must, as people of God, we must be ready to love everybody, prepared, disposed to seek this love with whomever it may be. But the nearness of our relation to one another strengthens this duty, doesn't it? Think about this duty. As I mentioned before, the word for love and the word for friend, it signify a special relationship, a familial or a covenantal one. And so the wise man is he who seeks this love and friendship, especially with those who are nearest to him, especially his family, friends, and his brothers and sisters in the church. We should remember, we should remember the context that this proverb is in. It's in the Book of Proverbs, God's wisdom revealed to God's people. And many of these proverbs, the first, I think, six chapters or so, many of these proverbs are recorded as wise sayings between a father and a son, presupposing a family relationship. And so, if we were to apply this, we must seek this good end of love and friendship in the home first, with one another, with our spouses, children, children to parents, siblings one to another, but more. This is God's wisdom for God's people in the church. Proverbs is wisdom for the church, for living rightly ordered lives in God's rightly ordered house, his church. If this proverb teaches us how to act in our house, how much more does it teach us how to act in God's house? St. Jerome, he says, true friendship cemented by Christ is where men are drawn together. Not by household interests, not by mere bodily presence, not by crafty or conjoling flattery, but by the fear of God and the study of the divine scriptures. True friendship cemented by Christ is where we're drawn together in the fear of God. How great and how good is it for us to seek friendship together cemented by Christ and his spirit? to come together by our mutual fear of God, giving up ourselves to Him and one to another, resolving to live before Him all of our days in love and friendship with Him and one another, how great and how good it is. This is the end for which we seek and we must seek. Which brings us in the second place to the means. If we desire love and friendship with one another, What must we do? At least according to this proverb. What means promote and obtain this good end of love and friendship? He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends. To transgress is to go beyond a bounds. What bounds? the bounds of God's law. It is to go beyond the line which you are not allowed to cross, and God has set that line in our lives by his law. And he who seeks love covers this sort of transgression, this transgression, and already, even just considering the word transgression, we already learn something very important and practical from this proverb. The sage tells us to cover a transgression or to overlook an offense. And God is the one who sets the standard, the line, the boundary. God is the one who determines what transgression is. We do not get to set that standard or that boundary. When we cover a transgression, that means we cover that which God has said is a transgression, a real transgression. And so the practical part of that is this. We are not to imagine transgressions. We ought not to take offense where one is not given. We should, in this scripture, cover real offenses, but first, we must refuse to even consider imaginary ones or pretended ones. But real offenses are given. We do. really transgress God and one another? And if we are to seek friendship, love, and unity, affection, then what must we do, the wise men? What does he tell us? He says to cover it. This is the same word used in Psalm 32.1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. What do you see there? Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Covered is paralleled with forgiveness. And in fact, if I understand the Hebrew parallelism correctly here, this second clause, covering, it's a heightening, it's an elevating of the first clause, or the first verb of forgiveness. To cover is something that elevates, it goes beyond forgiveness. It is the removing of the transgression or sin completely from view. It's a casting it out of our minds, never to return. It's a burying it into the earth so that it can never be found again. You see the same idea communicated in Psalm 85, verses 1 through 3. Lord, you have forgiven the iniquity of your people. You have covered all their sin. You have taken away all your wrath. You have turned from the fierceness of your anger. To cover a transgression includes forgiveness. It's a canceling, a releasing of a debt. And it includes a turning away of wrath, having been satisfied. We could look at many more passages, but in every case, we see that the word to cover means to forgive, to blot out, to cancel a debt, to cancel the record of. And it's a word which even overlaps in meaning with the word for atonement. Now, when someone sins against us, or we sin against another, we do not atone for sin. Only the blood of Christ, only the blood of Christ atones for sin. Nevertheless, I think this concept is useful to understand what this word to cover means. There are two, remember with me, there's these two aspects to atonement, biblical reconciliation, relating to each party of the relationship where there's been a transgression. The first aspect of the atonement is expiation, and the second is propitiation. These two aspects, they're clearly signified for us in Leviticus 16. Remember we have those two lambs, those two goats? The first lamb was to be a sacrifice and a sin offering to God. That first lamb propitiated the wrath of God. It appeased him and satisfied him so as to turn away his anger. But that second hand, that second lamb, Aaron put his hands on him, symbolizing that that lamb would bear the sins of the people. And what did they do? They cast it away. cast it away into the wilderness. That second one served to expiate the sins of the people, to remove them, to cast them away from the people. And when we cover a transgression, when we overlook an offense, something similar must happen. The sin must be expiated, removed and cast away from view, never, no longer to be remembered and repeated. And it must be propitiated. We must, we must be satisfied, appeased, cooled. There's nothing left to be done in the matter. The matter is just finished. This is what this is indicating to us. But the opposite of this covering is to repeat a matter. You see it in the text. We can do this in a variety of ways. We can do this outwardly, and we can do it inwardly. Repeating a matter or transgression can mean to publish it, and to spread it abroad outwardly. or it can mean to recall to mind after it has been passed and forgotten. You can repeat a matter publicly by bringing it to the mind of the offender and accusing him, even if it's justly, justly accusing him, you can repeat it by bringing it to his mind and confronting him with it, or worse, you can publish it to others out of hatred, malicious gossip, murdering his name. Proverbs 16.28 says this, A perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer separates the best of friends. A perverse man sows strife. Proverbs 10, 12 says, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins. A perverse man. What is that? A disordered man. He stirs up strife. He's angry. He's a hateful man. He lives in disorder. And he loves disorder, and so he desires everybody else to live in disorder. He repeats the matter. He stirs up strife, he reveals secrets. He does not, this man, this unwise man, does not seek love and union of affection, but he seeks discord and disunity. And so he takes up the means to achieve that end, which is to repeat a matter. He doesn't seek friendship, but enmity. And so he orders all the means unto that end, and repeats a matter in so strife. But so that we might understand and employ this instruction wisely, we ought also to consider when we should not cover a transgression. How are we to understand this text giving us wisdom, telling us that if we seek love, we ought to cover a transgression, overlook an offense. How are we to understand this in light of what the Bible says elsewhere about not covering a transgression? In Matthew 18, of course, our Lord tells us, listen carefully to what He says. He says, If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. Notice here that the same end is in view. Brotherhood, friendship, love of affection, union of affection. It's to gain your brother, to seek this union. And so wisdom then must dictate, wisdom must order the means to the same end. This must be our end in view. Wisdom must decide whether it's best to tell him his fault or whether it's best to cover a transgression from you. Likewise, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, he says, he says, now we exhort you, brethren. He says, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all, and then he gives us the end. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good. both for yourselves and for all. Again, here, the end is what? The end is pursuit of the good, friendship. But, Paul, when are we to warn the unruly and when are we to just be patient with all? The same question. What distinguishes these two courses of action, overlooking or telling, forbearing or warning, What distinguishes it is the nature of the offense in kind and degree. The nature of the offense in kind and degree. Those offenses which we should cover, which should be covered in love, are those crimes which are not required to be reported either to civil magistrate or the church. They are not public sins and scandalous sins which should be further dealt with by authority, whether civil or ecclesiastical. These are not so serious transgressions which betray the interest of Christ in the church. They are not the kind or degree of sin which, if left unresolved and unreconciled, would lead only to greater and greater disunity and disorder and confusion and separation. They're the kinds of offenses that can be repaired by just overlooking them. And so what are they? They're the common offenses between friends, the common failings between loved ones, They are those common sins which fall out between sinners who love one another, yet are still sinners living in this present evil age. They are indeed offenses and transgressions, but they should be viewed more as weaknesses and infirmities. The weakness of the flesh, the consequence of living in a fallen world, And so, these sorts of offenses should be dealt with patiently, gently, with forbearance, with long-suffering, with meekness, forgetting ourselves and considering their own weakness, considering that person's weakness and infirmity, even considering our own weakness and infirmity. This is precisely what Paul has in view in Ephesians 4, 1 through 3. I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, forbearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." He's talking about exactly what we're talking about. Sinners sin commonly. Sinners commonly sin. And if we were to discern and identify, if we were to discern and admonish every minor offense in every one of our brothers and sisters, how would that tend toward the end? How would that tend toward the end of unity and love and friendship? To do so, to discern and to pick out every sin and to raise it up, to stir it up, to repeat it, that would only tend to strife and disunity. Yes. Let's grant this. Every sin, every sin, causes a degree of disunity. With God, with one another, every single sin, it's a disorder. It causes disunity and disorder to one degree or another. But to repeat every minor offense would only add to the disunity and disorder. it would aggravate and prolong the confusion, when it could, in this case, just be easily covered in a mantle of love. Zenas Trivett, in his Christian Duties, it's in the back there, wonderful little book, he says this, you are not to make a man an offender for a word, but to call to mind your own infirmities, and remember how much you need forbearance, both from God and man. Is your brother in error? Perhaps he did not see it. If he did, he would probably desire to forsake it as much as you that he would. You should not severely rebuke him. Instead, instruct him with meekness, for you yourself have oftentimes been in error. Your own heart can testify without a doubt Have you ever been offended, perhaps, by somebody's carelessness or selfishness? Maybe due to a lack of consideration. We have to be careful not to impugn motives. But let's say, we are selfish at times, so let's assume this. Perhaps you extended some kindness or mercy toward another, a brother or a sister, and the debt of thanksgiving has never been repaid. Perhaps you're in some great need and you communicate it to your brother and your sister and no benevolence is ever offered. Perhaps someone has said a hurtful word. They injured your name and your honor. Perhaps someone judged you uncharitably. These are common failings and offenses. Can you testify to that without a doubt? What should you do? Exercise love and forbearance by covering a transgression. It may have been a real and not simply an imagined offense, but cover it anyway. Seek love. Seek union of affection and friendship. Refuse, brothers and sisters, refuse to separate friends for your honor and your namesake. Release the other from the debt. Quench your anger. Cover it with that mantle of love. Matthew Henry comments, the way to preserve peace among relations is to make the best of everything. Not to tell others, nor to take notice of what has been said or done against them when it is not necessary to their safety, nor to take notice of what has been said or done against ourselves, but to excuse both and to put the best construction upon them. And then he says this, as if he's talking in his own mind. You tell yourself this. It was an oversight. Therefore, overlook it. It was done through forgetfulness. Therefore, forget it. It perhaps made nothing of you. Do you make nothing of it? We must not imagine an offense where there is none, nor must we aggravate a small offense and make them into big offenses. Rather, we forbear, we suffer long, we overlook. Love covers all sins. It does not delight to observe them and to find them. It willingly forgives and forgets them. And when, perchance, we cannot overlook an offense, well then, what do we do? We reprove our brother gently for a sin against God. That's important. We reprove our brother gently for a sin against God, rather than an offense against ourselves. It's like how you instruct your children. You did not just simply dishonor mommy and daddy. You've sinned against God. That's the real offense. That's what makes it a transgression. We lament our brother's calamity more than we resent his injury toward us. But as Jonathan Edwards says, he says, but in many and probably in most cases, men ought to suffer long first in the spirit of long suffering for the sake of peace. But in many, if not most cases, overlook it. Brothers and sisters, this is a duty required of us by the Ninth Commandment. This text, Proverbs 17, 9, is used as a proof text for the Westminster Larger Catechism's explanation of what the Ninth Commandment requires of us. It requires that we cover our neighbor's infirmities, Proverbs 17, 9. overlooking an offense, it's part and parcel with obeying the ninth commandment. It means thinking well of our neighbors, loving, desiring, rejoicing in their good name, not making them out to be worse than they are. It means giving them the benefit of the doubt, being ready to receive a good report and unwilling to admit an evil report. How easy is it for us to make someone's sin worse than it actually is? especially when it's directed toward us. Maybe you hear something or you observe something. Your brother or sister has sinned against that brother or sister. Okay, it's easy to excuse, but when it's directed toward me, oh, how grievous. How grievous was the sin, sinning against me. Suddenly it's so wicked, unable to be overlooked. Don't do that. Think charitably. Overlook. Forget yourself and meekness. Forgive your brother. Don't do that. Maybe somebody forgot to show you love in a certain way, or spoke an unkind word to you. Perhaps they're careless and inconsiderate. Whatever the thing is, whatever the offense. Care for them and consider them. Consider their infirmity and weakness, and then consider your own and overlook it. What does this overlooking look like? Does it mean that, you haven't said anything about it, of course, you've overlooked it. Does that mean, though, that the next time you see them, you're going to snub them? You know you're going to see them on Sunday, but you'll refuse to show them any affection. You won't walk over to them, they'll have to walk over to you. You'll give them some attention, but you'll be cold. You'll refuse to show them that warm, loving affection that's between friends. You don't repeat the matter verbally, but you repeat it in your mind and in your heart. Outwardly, you appear to rejoice in their good name, but inwardly, you've already admitted an evil report. You know that person. You know what they've done to you. Is that forgiveness and overlooking and seeking? Is that overlooking? Is that covering? No. Covering is canceling, removing the penalty of guilt, willingly, freely, eagerly choosing to be reconciled. It is not to make somebody pay for their sins in some other passive-aggressive way. Yeah, the objection. But Pastor Sal, you don't know what this person's done to me for how long they've done it. And that might be true. That may be true. But if it is the common sins of loved ones, then I think I do understand at least to a degree. Because I just said that the common sins, the common failings of a loved one. It's not that this person is a greater sinner who sinned against you. It's not that this person is a greater sinner than all the other people you know. It's just that you spend more time with them. Have you considered that? When there's strife in the home between your brothers and sisters, you spend more time with him or her. They're not more terrible because they sinned against you more frequently. You just spend more time with them. Your closer relationship makes you more liable and vulnerable to experience their sinful actions. And it works the other way around too, doesn't it? You sin against your loved ones more than you do the cashier or the grocery store. I guarantee that. Wouldn't you want your friends, your family, your brothers and sisters in the church who we see every week, wouldn't you want them to overlook all of your transgressions? Well, then extend the same grace and overlook theirs. And remember the Lord's mercy towards you. How many of your sins has He covered in Christ? Proverbs 16, 6. In mercy and truth, atonement is provided for iniquity. Let us show mercy. Which leads us to consider our final point here, the root. The root of covering a transgression. Let me put it this way. What are some of the requisite graces? What are some of the requisite virtues and habits which we must increase and cultivate in order to just be this person, in order to be the person who's disposed to seeking love and covering a transgression? What should we do? What graces, what virtues, what's the root? I know that there's many more than this, but let's consider three. First, we must be slow to anger or patient. Turn over a couple pages to Proverbs 19. Proverbs 19 and verse 11. We must be slow to anger or patient. The discretion of a man, or the wisdom, the discretion or wisdom of a man makes him slow to anger. and his glory is to overlook a transgression. The wise, the prudent, the godly man is slow to anger, and so he overlooks a transgression. This man is not easily provoked. Rather, the word here is he passes over the offense. He looks over it. He looks past it. It appears that he has not even seen it. And if he did, he just forgives it, and he takes no revenge. He looks over it, past it. How contrary is this to the way of the world, to the air that we breathe? The Bible says that to be slow to anger is a man's glory. It's his beauty, it's his virtue, it's his strength. And the world says being quick to anger is man's glory. A man finds strength in being wrathful, vengeful, quick to anger. The angry man's the strong man. Being slow to anger is its weakness. But the Bible says it's a man's strength, his glory. He bears injuries without losing the quietness of his soul. He maintains an inward complacency of soul. His soul is not violently disturbed and cast into a tumult. Rather, he patiently bears the offense and he commits himself. He commits himself and the matter to the Lord. Well, first, we must be slow to anger. Second, the grace is humility or meekness. Proverbs 19.11 here, it tells us that the wisdom of a man is to be slow to anger. And if you look at Proverbs 11.2, Proverbs 11.2 tells us that wisdom comes from what? Humility. When pride comes, then comes shame, but with the humble is wisdom. Humility or meekness is not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to. And this, my friends, this tends most successfully to overlooking offenses. Pride causes a man to take offense and defindicate his honor quickly. He's made himself into something great. And so any offense against him must be a great offense. He cannot let them go. This prideful man, he cannot let these offenses go because any offense against him is too great and too grievous to be overlooked. But the humble man neither overestimates himself or his importance. He does not exaggerate the offense given to him. You've sinned against me. How could you do that? The humble man does not make the small things into big things, for he is little and unworthy in his own eyes. And so he'll not think of an injury done to little old unworthy me." You see that? He's so little, an injury done to him is very little. And so he overlooks it, and he declines to indulge resentment. Thirdly and finally, The root of overlooking an offense. The root of seeking love is love. Proverbs 10, 12. Turn over there, right there. Proverbs 10, 12. Hatred stirs up strife. Hatred repeats a matter. Hatred separates friends. But love covers all sins. Love is that great motive, that great grace, which covers all friends, all sins, in order to seeking love. Why? Because love, love is that grace and virtue which desires the good. It desires and wills love. I've already told you that union, that friendship, is the good. Love desires the love. Union of affection and friendship. Love then seeks itself. And it does so by ordering and informing every other virtue toward love. Love then moves us to cover sins by forbearing, by suffering long, by being slow to anger. It moves us to these things in order to seeking love. Love is that foundation and that root from which all other virtues draw their sustenance and strength. It's that foundation and root which guides all of the other virtues toward itself, and commands all the other virtues toward that good, toward the good of love. Right, what is that, what is the ultimate good it's driving at? Friendship. Friendship with God. And friendship with others in God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love moves, it compels, it drives all of these other virtues in order to seeking love. St. Augustine says, He that loves his neighbor must in consequence love love itself. If we are rightly loving our neighbor, we will love love. Love, that union of affection, is the good to be desired. And so, think what he's saying. Love loves itself. I'm not sounding like the world here. I'm sounding like the Christian tradition. Love loves to love. It loves to love the good. To love God and love others in God. I'm not saying with the world that love is love. No, love is tended toward this good, the love of knowing God, of enjoying Him, of being happy with Him, in Him, of loving others so that they might enjoy Him and be happy in Him. Love loves to love. It moves us in all other means to the end of love. And if our hearts are so full of love, it will find vent for it. It will express itself in all sorts of ways, tending toward love. So by way of conclusion, nothing more, nothing more redounds to the glory of God than the peace and unity of his house, his family, his friends, Right? Jesus no longer calls us servants, but calls us friends. We are sons and daughters of the living God. Nothing more tends to His glory than our love, our peace, our unity. And so let us seek love and the unity of affections. Let us be drawn to one another, tending toward one another. Let us be slow to anger, patient, forbearing, gentle. In meekness and in love, let us forgive one another, even as God in Christ forgave us. Remember, remember God in Christ who has forgiven us and covered all our sins in love. Let us remember Christ Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us. Truly, we love because he first loved us. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down his life for his friends. Let us, brothers and sisters, lay down our lives for our friends. Friends. Literally. If the Lord will, let us do that. But at least figuratively. Let us lay down our own name, and honor, and reputation, and sense of justice. Let us forget ourselves and forgive one another. Let us do everything that we can to promote and to seek and obtain love. Let nothing separate us from our love for one another. Let nothing separate us from our love for one another, even as nothing is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. How thankful. How thankful we should be that the love of God covers all our transgressions from view. How willing should we be to do the same for our brethren? If God can cover their sins, so too should we. Amen. Father, how we thank you that in the Lord Jesus Christ, through faith alone in him, that we can have our sins covered from view, that your love, your mercy, and your justice even has covered our sins, that through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can be made acceptable to you, that we can become your friends, that we can have union with you through the Son and in the Spirit. We thank you that we can have communion with you, that we can reach you and join with you, that we can love you and find all of our delight and pleasure in you. You've drawn us to yourself, O Lord, how undeserving we are of this grace, of the grace of your love, and all of the effects of the wonderful effects of your love set upon us before the foundation of the world. Help us to be, O Lord, a people that reflects the divine love for sinners, the divine love for friends, the divine love even for enemies, who showers on the righteous and unrighteous, rain and sun, whatever's needed. Help us, Lord, to imitate you in the person of Jesus Christ. For his glory we pray, amen.