Adrian Rogers: The Joy of the Lord Is My Strength for Abundant Living

The life of a Christian is to be a life of continual, contagious joy; Adrian Rogers says, “Joy is not a nicety in the Christian life; it is an absolute necessity.” The fullness of joy is essential to winning the lost to Jesus Christ and bearing life’s burdens. The joy of the Lord is our strength. It is how we are able to face the heartaches and trials of life.

If I would ask you, how many of you today love Jesus?
I suppose we’d all lift our hands.
Uh, some just because didn’t wanna be seen with our hands down. We’d all lift our hands.
But Jesus said, if you love me, keep my word.
He that hath my commandments and keep a thing. Here it is, the loves me.
And he that loves me should be loved my father. Now watch this, and I will manifest myself to him.
How’s god good to manifest himself to you?
The manifestation of his presence in your heart is joy. Joy unspeakable, and full of glory.
Profound truth simply stated. This is love worth finding with pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers.
Take your bibles and find John chapter 15.
And while you’re finding it, let me say something to you. I don’t know a lot.
About you. I certainly don’t know everything about you, but I know one thing about every mother’s child in building today.
I tell you what it is. You want joy in your life.
Now don’t deny it. You do? You want joy in your life.
And I want to talk to you today about how to have fullness of joy.
Uh, a woman lost a car keys. Have you ever done that? She lost her car keys.
She went through the house. She went here, there, open every drawer, Finally, she looked in her purse, and there were her keys.
Do you know why she didn’t find it at first?
Find them at first, she was looking in the wrong place. Now the reason people don’t have joy.
Many of them is they are looking for joy in the wrong place.
Friend joy is not a nicety in the Christian life. It is an absolute necessity.
You ought to have in your life, if you’re right with god, continual joy, conspicuous joy, uh, contagious joy.
Joy unspeakable and full glory.
And a a Christian without joy is a contradiction in terms, would be like speaking about a heavenly devil.
As a Christian, without joy, but I can tell you beyond the shadow of any doubt of per adventure, there are many and some in this room who have lost your joy.
Let me tell you why joy is so important.
Number 1, It is important in winning the loss to Jesus Christ.
And, you know, that’s our best advertisement is the joy of the lord.
King David, Love god with all of his heart, but he lost his joy.
And he prayed this in Psalm 51 verse 12, restoring to me, the joy of thy salvation.
He hadn’t lost his salvation, but he lost his joy, restoring me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit and then listen to it.
And then will I teach transgressor the thy ways, and senators shall be converted under thee.
Now if you’re not joyful Christian, you’re not an effective soldier.
If you’re going around with a bile under one arm and a tombstone with the other under the other and saying, don’t you want to be like I am?
He said, no. Thank you. I’ve got enough troubles already. No.
Let’s It is so essential in winning the loss.
I’ll tell you something else, uh, that, uh, the joy of the lord is essential in, and that is uh, bearing life’s burdens and, uh, living the strength of the lord in living the Christian life.
Uh, how are you gonna live a Christian life? Where you need strength?
Where are you gonna get that strength? The joy of the lord is your strength.
The joy of the lord Jesus will energize you and give you strength.
Another reason you need joy is because of the heartaches and trials of life.
You have heartaches, I have heartaches. We have difficulties. We have obstacles.
How are we gonna overcome them? The joy of the lord is the way that we can overcome.
Joy is the lubricant of life.
And the joy of the lord will take the weariness out of work.
And the joy of the lord will remove the burdens from the heart.
So let’s think a little bit about how to have fullness of joy.
Now look, if you will, in John 15 and verse 11, Jesus Christ is speaking, and the the setting is this.
He’s just facing dark Assemony and bloody calvary. And here’s what he says.
These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.
Now Jesus said, I’m telling you how to have fullness of joy.
The three things I want you to think about, when we think about the joy of the lord, my joy, first of all, we’re not to have joy like his, It is his joy that my joy might be in you.
What is the joy of Jesus? Number 1, it is abounding joy. Write it down.
The joy of Jesus is abounding joy.
He says that my joy might be in you, that your joy might be full.
Been over in the book of Hebrews, the Bible says of the lord Jesus, that god the father has anointed him with joy, with the oil of gladness above his fellows.
Uh, the word gladness there is another word for joy.
It is translated there in the in the book of as exceeding joy.
What it literally means is joy that leaps and dances. Can you imagine Jesus leaping and dancing?
That’s the kind of joy he has.
It is abounding joy, not halfhearted joy.
Not may be so joy, but joy that is abounding and supernatural.
I don’t know what your concept of Jesus Christ is, but if you don’t see Jesus as the joyful Jesus, you’ve not seen Jesus.
Don’t think of Jesus as some pale, sanctimonious religious recluse with ice water for blood.
Jesus had life of a bounding joy.
You know, one of the ways I know that little children left him.
Now listen, if you’re a sour person, little children don’t like you, you’ve got problems.
Little children loved Jesus.
They wanted to come and crowd around him and sit in his lap.
And these old The disciples said, get the kids away. Jesus said, no.
Let him come to me. Jesus had a life of abounding joy.
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Now here’s the second thing I want you to see about this joy from John chapter 15 verse 11.
Not only is it abounding joy, but it is abiting joy.
Now look at that verse again. He says that my joy might remain in you.
It’s not joy that comes and goes.
It is joy of the good times, the bad times, the night time, the daytime, the rainy day, the sunny day, Joy in the time of tragedy.
It is still there. We’re to rejoice in the lord. Always. Always.
Now listen to me, precious friend.
You may be saying, Adrian, the reason you’re saying that is you’re not going through the problems that I’m going through right now.
You don’t know the heartache You don’t know the tears. You don’t know the fears.
You don’t know the sickness. You don’t know the pain. You don’t know how I’ve been treated.
You don’t know the finances that I’m facing. And if you did, You wouldn’t say that.
Oh, friend, I’m only quoting the words of Jesus.
And where what was Jesus situation at this time?
Jesus was facing dark, gethsemane, and bloody calvary. Okay?
Dark gassemony and bloody calvary. And he says, speaking of his joy.
Now he he was not a morose person even facing the cross. Yes. He had tears.
Yes. He had pain. Yes, he had agony, but still, he had that joy in his heart.
Now let me tell you about this, uh, this abiding joy.
Now Jesus said in verse 11, these things, look, have I spoken unto you?
That you might have joy, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.
Well, just back up and see what Jesus has spoken to them.
In John chapter 15, Jesus speaks of himself as a vine, and he speaks of us as branches.
And then tells us that the branch is to abide in the vine.
And what Jesus is saying is that when the branch abides in the vine, ipso facto, There is joy.
When I say pastor, that sounds good, but abide is is it’s a word I don’t use a whole lot.
And and it’s it’s kind of a religious word.
Could you tell me in plain English what it means to abide in Jesus?
And therefore have abounding joy.
Therefore, having lasting abiding joy and and therefore, having abundant joy.
What does it mean to abide? Alright. I want you to write down these words.
And, uh, and, uh, 1st of all, it means surrender surrendered.
Did you write it down?
Lick, if you will, in John, uh, 15 verse 4, uh, Biden, me and I and you, As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me verse 5 I am the vine and ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I and him the same bringing forth much fruit, for without me, you can do nothing.
Now now think about this. Just imagine a vine. That’s the lord Jesus Christ.
And imagine a branch that’s you. Now don’t miss this point.
A branch exists for one reason. The vine.
Not two reasons. Not not one and a half reasons. One reason.
The vine. It makes a full surrender to the vine.
A great English preacher of yesteryear was Doctor FB Meyer. We still read his devotional books.
In one of his books, Doctor. Meyer told how he got joyed on it speaking about.
He said he’d been burdened for a long time in living the Christian life.
That he did not have the joy that he ought to have.
And he said one time in a meeting, there was a young man who seemed to have learned the secret, of abundant joy.
And he said, I went to him after the service. I’ve heard him speak.
And I said, sir, can you tell me how to have the joy that you have?
It seems that you have something that I do not have. Can you tell me how?
And FB Meyer, this famous preacher, said that young man looked at me and said, have you surrendered everything to Jesus Christ?
Myra said, well, in a general way I have, The young man said, uh, that’s not good enough.
Go alone tonight and get it settled.
Myer decided he would do that.
He went to his bedroom and locked the door and got on his knees.
And said, lord, I am going to get this settled tonight.
And he says, lord, I I’m going to surrender everything to you.
He said it it seemed like that I had a big bunch of keys, and I held him up to the lord.
And I said, lord, here are the keys to my life. Uh, I’ll take them.
The lord said to him, are they all there?
He said, well, They all accept one lukey.
I’ve kept that back.
The lord said, uh, you must give me that key.
And Satan said, don’t do it. Don’t do it.
If you give him everything, no telling what he will ask of you.
And Meyer was going through a struggle.
And he said to the lord, lord, I don’t have the strength to give you this last key.
But lord, would you take He said the lord opened its fingers and got that little key and went to a cupboard and opened it.
And inside was violence and wickedness and sin he’d never seen.
The import of what he was holding back from the lord.
And he repudiated that sin. And turned from it.
And he said that night, the desire for that, died in my heart.
He said, I went to sleep, expecting to wake up in the morning with hallelujah’s and praises But he said no instead.
I just had a quiet confidence.
And I found myself all day, Lord’s saying I am his. I am his.
I am completely his.
Now a vine and a branch are connected together.
When I listen, It must be a life of surrender. Did you write down the word surrender? Alright.
Now here’s the second word I want you to write down, not only surrender, but dependence. Dependence.
The joy of Jesus, uh, is is, uh, given when you depend upon the lord.
Now look at look at the scripture here when he says in John 15 verse 5, the last part of that without me You can do nothing.
You said, wait a minute, pastor. I might do a little bit.
Well, may I say that’s your opinion? I’d rather take the word of Jesus.
Without me, you can do nothing. Well, use common sense. What can a branch do without a bind?
Nothing. That’s a 0 with the edges trimmed off. Nothing.
Oh, you say, I think it’s something Well, in eternity, it will be nothing.
But the the branch makes a full surrender And that full surrender turns to an absolute dependence upon the lord.
Now when you think you’re something, then god is not everything.
And god cannot be everything until you become nothing. But don’t worry about it.
God specializes in making something out of nothing. When you abide in the lord.
Now here’s the third word I want you to write down. Surrender? Dependents. 3rd one is rest.
Rest. Now look in verse 9, if you will.
Uh, he says, as the father have loved me, so have I loved you continue ye in my love?
Rest in his love. He loves you. That’s not rhetoric. That is rock rib truth.
He loves you. He loves you. But you must abide in his love. Let him love you.
And that’ll give you rest.
I mean, when you see yourself as the object of his love, you’ll say, uh, he loves me.
Just imagine that a human being could have a conversation with a branch.
And the branch would say human beings.
And you human beings think you’re so intelligent, but you always seem frustrated me rushing around knocking things over.
No rest, no peace. And the man says to the branch.
Well, you seem to have peace. How you doing?
He says I have, I’ve reduced all my concerns to 1, and that is to abide in the vine.
And once I do that, where he has to go, When it’s summertime and I need a drink of water, I don’t worry about where it comes from.
That’s the vines business. I abide in the vine, and the vine puts his roots down into the ground and brings up that moisture.
For my wilted leaves.
And then when it’s springtime, and I need buds, I don’t worry about where those budgets are gonna come from.
I abide in the bind.
And when the time of vintage and harvest comes, I don’t worry about the grapes.
How big, how few, how sweet is none of my business.
I don’t produce The fruit.
You see, the Bible tells us in the book of Galatians chapter 5 verse 22, the fruit of the spirit is joy.
The fruit of a spirit is joy. You’re not gonna create that joy.
You’re not going to clench your fist today and grit your teeth and say, I’m gonna have joy if it kills me.
You can’t do that. You’ll buy it.
And and the branch says, sir, I just abide in the bind.
And the grapes are his, not mine. I don’t produce them. I simply bear them.
Now let me give you another word I want you to write down, and it’s a 4th word.
You won’t like this one, but it’s obedience.
Now what we’re doing is talking about how to abide.
Jesus is saying, look, I want you to have joy.
These things have I spoken under you that you might have joy. And what did he speak?
He spoke of obedience. Look in verse 10.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
And Jesus spoke of his joy because he kept the commandments of the father.
Now there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
If I would ask you, how many of you today love Jesus?
I suppose we’d all lift our hands, uh, some just because we didn’t wanna be seen with our hands down.
We’d all lift our hands. But Jesus said, if you love me, keep my word.
He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he, it is that loves me.
And he that loves me should be loved to my father. Now watch this.
And I will manifest myself to him. How’s god going to manifest himself to you?
The manifestation of his presence in your heart is joy, joy unspeakable, and full of glory.
As you, friend, op, obey the lord.
Now last of all, First of all, write down the word rejoicing, and we’ve come full circle.
Now we come back to verse 11 where we started.
What he says here, these things have I spoken of you, and and he spoke about the vine and the branches.
These things have I spoken of you that my joy might remain in you.
And that your joy will be full. I know you’ve got problems.
I know you have heartaches. And that’s why you need joy.
Our lord said this. Don’t rejoice because the demons are subject to you.
If they are, I’m glad. But Jesus said, listen.
Rejoice rejoice that your name is written in heaven.
Is your name written in heaven?
All of this that I’ve said, well, do you absolutely no good?
Unless your name is written in heaven.
Now you can be re have your name written in heaven and go to heaven’s second class without joy.
But if your name is written in heaven, you know, come what may we or woah, heartache tears, I am heavenborn.
I’m heaven bound. I’m going to heaven, and I rejoice that my name is written in heaven.
Friend, without genuine joy, your life is meaningless.
That too big a statement? Absolutely not. Without genuine joy, your life is meaningless.
And joy is only found in Jesus that my joy might remain in you.
Not joy like his, the supernatural joy of Jesus Christ.
Value heads in prayer, heads are bowed and eyes are closed.
Those of you who are saved, If you let the devil take the joy out of your life, repent of it.
Come and surrender to Jesus.
Depend upon the lord Jesus.
Rest in the lord Jesus. Do it. Do it.
Obey the lord Jesus, and let that joy be renewed in your heart and in your life.
Is called abiding in Jesus. And those of you who’ve never ever received Jesus, All of the rest of this is impossible to you until you take the first step and rejoice that your name is written in heaven.
When you give your heart to Jesus Christ, There’s a book in heaven, and god put your name in it.
Uh, what a what a thrill that is.
Would you pray this prayer with me if you are not certain that you’re saved?
Would you pray lord Jesus? That’s right. Just speak to him. I need you and I want you.
I want your life and me. I want to know that my sin is forgiven.
I want to know that I have fellowship with you.
I want the joy that only you alone can give.
I don’t wanna go to hell. I want to go to heaven.
But on the way to heaven, I want joy. Coming to my heart.
Forgive my sin. Thank you for paying for my sin with your shed blood on the cross.
I love you for that. Forgive me and cleanse me and come into my life right now.
Right now. Right now and begin to make me the person you want me to be.
And help me, never to be ashamed of you?
Give me the courage to make it public.
In your name, I’m in.