Sermon Notes

The most important piece of clothing you can put on is the overcoat of love. Trouble is inevitable, but misery is optional. You can only overcome that pain and hurt by putting on the overcoat of love. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Key Scriptures:

Colossians 3:12-16; Mark 10:30; Ephesians 4:26-27; Luke 23:34; Acts 2:1

Key Points:

1. The hundredfold return comes only with persecution. Don’t get in the kitchen if you can’t handle the heat. You can’t do anything worthwhile without persecution. If you want to receive all that God has for you and your family, it will always come with persecution.
2. Kiss your betrayal and call it friend. Jesus kissed Judas and had already forgiven him even before he betrayed him. Joseph kissed his brothers in Egypt after they betrayed him. Anything that comes your way no matter what hurt it brings, if it helps you become who God wants you to be, kiss it and call it friend. Put on the overcoat of love and get over it. Sometimes something painful comes into your life, but you can kiss it and call it friend, knowing that all things work together for good.
3. You never follow the Lamb without eventually being served the side dish of bitter herbs. The Passover lamb was always served with a side of bitter herbs. You can let the bad things in life chew on you or you can chew on them. The main meal of life and marriage is always wonderful, but every so often, you will be served a side dish of bitterness. But if you mix those bitter herbs with the sweet Lamb of God, it will all work out!
4. To let the acid of unforgiveness eat at you is to commit spiritual suicide. Like battery acid, unforgiveness eats up its container first and then spills out onto other things.
5. The thing that the devil fears the most is that the people of God will be taught to forgive. Where there is forgiveness, Satan loses all his control. If you want Satan to lose control over your family, marriage, and your life, all you must do is forgive. When you forgive, you defame the devil, bleach his red underwear white, take his horns, pull them off his head, tie a knot in his tail, and kick him out of your house! The greatest thing you can do is forgive.
6. If you handle your letdowns right, God will always make sure your gift makes room for you in the right place. Don’t worry when things don’t work out the way you want them to. Put on the overcoat of love and trust that God has a plan for you! But if you’re bitter, you won’t ever walk in it. Don’t stop putting on the overcoat of love!

Final Thoughts:

When someone hurts you, God will give you time to get over it in the cave of isolation. It takes time to put on the overcoat of love. But if you stay there too long, your cave will turn it into a prison, and your prison will become a grave. Even if you’re in a grave today, God can give you a resurrection! The life of God is greater than any offense. If you put on the overcoat of love, Satan will lose his control in your life.