ABIDING  John Chapter 15
Graham Cooke
7 of 7

Jesus said, No one can take away your joy, but you can give it up.  Don’t give it up.  You need to take hold of it and tonight you need to have the joy of your salvation restored to you.  You need to take it up; you need to live in it.  You have a right to be happy because Jesus purchased that right.  You have a right to live with a smile on your face; you have a right to know that you are incredibly loved and to be amazingly happy about it.  You need to abide in the happiness of God.  You need to live there; camp there.  It’s so important to the Father that you’re happy; it’s so important that we are the happiest people on earth.

Even on our worst days we have God with us.  He is with us; He is for us.  Even when He’s praying to the Father, Jesus prayed this in John 17, “But now I come to you and these things I speak out in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.”  So when you are in Christ you are a partaker of His righteousness; you’re a partaker of His obedience; you’re a partaker of how He is wonderfully loved; and you are a partaker of His happiness and His joy.  

Everything that He is belongs to you, that’s why the Father put you into Him; So that everything in Christ belongs to you.  It is your inheritance!  He is our inheritance!  His joy is our inheritance; His personality is our inheritance.  If you don’t like your personality get His!  Give us all a break!
Every word that God speaks to you is designed to lead you into an experience where joy is one of the outcomes.  What Jesus speaks in prayer to the Father He also speaks to us.  John 15:11 “These things I’ve spoken to you, so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.”  It’s time for an upgrade.  It’s time to get top top with the joy of the Lord.

His Word in us releases the ability to smile, grin and laugh.  From this place of calm delight, were you terribly British, to this place of exuberance and leaping for sheer joy like they do in Africa.  You are supposed to have extremes of experience.  We alternate between peaceful gladness to exuberant elation at Who Jesus is for us in all our circumstances.  You deserve to live with a radiant idea of Who God is.  That’s what Jesus died to give you.  He died to give you a radiant idea of God.  That you would live in it; that you would fully embrace it and live it out and enjoy your life.  You only get one chance at life; let’s not wait till we get to heaven to be joyful.  Yeah!  You’re in eternity right now; you need to be joyful right now.
You know Nehemiah put it this way, he said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”  That’s a key spiritual principle that joy is one of the strongest powers in the world.  And joy is backed up by dynamic power so that you are lifted above yourself and above your circumstances.  And you need to see yourself and your relationship to God from a new angle that’s positive and faith filled.  You need to see your life from God’s angle not your own.  You need to get His perspective on who you are and live in it and enjoy it.  And don’t let anyone talk you out of it, you’re supposed to be joyful; be it!  Don’t let anyone talk you out of it!  Don’t give up your joy.  Joy gives you a strength to fight the enemy!  One of the coolest sounds you’re ever gonna hear is the sound of God laughing on the field of battle!  “Ha!  Is that all you’ve got?  Listen, Graham and I will wait here; why don’t you all go off and get some reinforcements?  Cause we are so gonna kick your backside if you come back.”  He is so confident in Himself.  He radiates confidence.  

Any time that we seriously contemplate Jesus, we can be touched by His joy. Joy is a response of the indwelling Spirit acting within our soul to release a knowledge and experience of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who He is and What He’s like.  The joy of God is deep and profound and it affects the whole of our entire personality.  Your life is made profound by joy!  Fullness means joy to the absolute limit; and as we are transformed and as we grow that limit increases constantly.  Your joy has to grow with your experience of God.  And for many of us ya know, it hasn’t.  It hasn’t.  There are always new experiences of joy to be had, cause you have to be filled to the full.  So what is it about your current experiences right now, where you need to experience the joy of God?

Jesus said in John 16:24, He said, “Ask and you will receive so that your joy may be made full.”  Joy is a permanent state of mind and heart.  It’s a rich part of our abiding.  It’s a normal experience that we’re supposed to be having.  And it’s a spiritual discipline that will rock your world and bless your life.  Happiness depends on something happening.  Joy depends on the Person speaking to us from the heart of the Father.  Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us.  Part of His praying is, “Dear God, can You just put a smile on his face?  That’d be good.  Could You teach her to grin this month?  That would be good.  Could You let her know that she lives under the smile of God all the time?”  He’s interceding for you, so that your joy may be full.  Speaking words out.  That’s why God loves to prophesy over us.  He loves to speak out over us so that our joy maybe full.  Every time God connects His word to your heart, joy is one of the outcomes.

“These things I speak, so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be full.”  Joy of the Lord!

Being a Christian is a marvelous experience!  Don’t you dare let anyone take away from you the majesty of what God wants to be for you.  Don’t you dare allow that!  Don’t allow any human being to rob you of the majesty of what God is.  Don’t allow the enemy to rob you of the majesty that God wants to be for you.  Your life is supposed to be earthed in majesty.  You’re supposed to be surrounded by the majesty of Who God is; overwhelmed by the sovereignty of God’s nature, God’s love, and Who God is.  Totally overshadowed and over whelmed by God’s personality.  Completely undone by His intentionality towards you.  That’s who you are.  That’s the place you live from.  Anything else it is not acceptable!  It is not acceptable to not be outrageously loved by God!  It is unacceptable!  Do you hear me Church?  It is thoroughly unacceptable!  It’s an obnoxious way to live.  It’s a stupid way to live.  It is not acceptable not to be happy in the Kingdom.  It is unacceptable not to travel with joy.  It is unacceptable not to be marvelously and stunningly and compellingly loved.  It is unacceptable to have an experience less than full.  It’s unacceptable. 

 You need to know that the Church in America is unacceptable in this regard.  We have to come up!  Ya know, like coming out of Base Camp One to the top of Everest.  We need to come up Beloved!  You need an upgrade!  It’s thoroughly unacceptable not to be compellingly loved by God; not to have a brilliant, ongoing experience of Who He is!  This is who you are!  This is your life!  Don’t settle for anything less!  Don’t settle for it!  Don’t!  Don’t!  Don’t!  I’ll knock your teeth out!  I swear to God I’ll find you; I’ll track you down; I’ll hire detectives; I’ll pursue you; I’ll find you; I’ll get the FBI to work for me!  I’ll so track you down and I’ll beat the snot out of you myself.  You can see I’m fairly passionate about this!  Come on guys.  You have a dream about God, who gave it to you?  You have a dream about what life with God should be like.  Your life doesn’t match the quality of your dream but it’s supposed to.  God wants to give you a life 

beyond anything you can imagine or even think; the kind of life that you could only dream about in God.

So Father, I pray that everyone here in this place or listening to this CD is gonna have dreams.  Would you force some dreams into our life, show us, declare to us what you want to be for us; who You want to be.  Shows us this life and for God’s sake Father, for Jesus sake, can You take us out of the realm of being ordinary, into a place of being extraordinary people who take You at Your word.  Who have brilliant experiences of You no matter what is occurring.  Could You deliver us to a place where we come into something wonderfully supernatural, way above normal; extraordinary; outstanding where we can only refer to You in superlatives.  Where we are astonished, amazed; where we marvel, we magnify!  Where we walk through life wide eyed with astonishment about Who God is and What God is really like and we live in it; and we abide in it; we revel in it; we stay in it!  And the enemy can’t touch us because we’re sooo not leaving this place!  And we become untouchable to the enemy, because we’re in this place of abiding.  Living in You as You live in us.  

Take us away to a place of extraordinary revelation; powerful life changing experiences that are ongoing.  Where everything around us everything is doable because the Holy Spirit is so wonderfully cheerful and He’s such a genius at everything; and He’s cheering us, and He’s just amazing to be around!  Take us to that place, were we understand the true state of Your personality!  What you’re really, really, really like!  God is love.  He is joyful.  He’s the Prince of Peace!  Endlessly patient.  Full of goodness and kindness and mercy; amazing grace that He travels with.  And He has a way of seeing us that’s compelling in its beauty.  The way that God sees me, compels me to see myself in the same way.  

Father in this room we need an upgrade.  We need an upgrade.  This whole weekend has been about messing with our head.”  I have so messed with your head this weekend, and I’m so proud of myself.  I’ve so messed with you and what I’ve done I’ve created a space on the inside of you of desire; of longing; that you don’t want to go back, you want to explore this territory.  You wanna go there.  You wanna know God like that.  You wanna know God like that.   You wanna know God like that.  It’s like getting saved all over again.  You wanna know God like that.  Is He that brilliant?  Oh yeah!  Is He that astonishing?  Oh yeah!  Is He that amazing?  Totally!  Does He love me that much?  Completely!  Oh Yeah!  And your role in the earth is to be outrageously loved and brilliantly happy with Who God is for you.  This is who we are.  This is real Christianity.  Anything else is crap!  Excuse my Englishness!  But it is!  Its total nonsense and we’ve lived in that place of nonsense for way too long.  We’ve lived with a cut down dream and a substandard revelation and those days are over.  We’re gonna learn to abide in something majestic.  

Heaven on earth, that’s what Jesus’ prayer was, “on earth as it is in heaven!”  You’re supposed to be having those experiences now!  This is your life!  This is who you are!  Don’t you dare let yourself be defined by anything less.  Don’t settle for anything less, and foremost, don’t settle for anything less than an incredible, majestic experience of God on an on-going basis.  Where your trust of God is so high, so big, so deep it takes you into places you don’t…you can’t think of God in any other way.  And you wouldn’t dream of thinking about God in any other way because this is how you want to live your life.  You need an adventure into the beauty of God you need to come into that place.

Let’s stand!  Thank you!  There’s a song I wanna play you in a moment, it’s called I will obey, because I think the critical thing for me is this: when you hear a deep and profound truth that moves your heart you need to move into a place of obedience about it.  Don’t wait; don’t just go back to business as usual; don’t go back to life as usual!  You need to move into a place of obedience.  You need to move into a place of saying, “Lord I want this with all of my heart, and I’m gonna co-operate with the Holy Spirit.”  So let me pray for you and then I’m gonna set you back down and we’ll listen to this song and then I’m gonna pray for you again.  I just wanna pray for you.

Just open your heart to the Lord right now.  I know that some of you are struggling because this goes against everything you’ve been taught.  And you’re being faced up with the fact that God is majestically wonderful; loves you to distraction; is totally besought with who you are.  Jesus loves His Bride!  You know we’re not married yet so we are the Girlfriend of God.  So turn to the person next to you and say, “Hello girlfriend.”  I love this moment because all the girls are going, “Hello girlfriend and all the guys are going – Dude! – What is that?  All the guys are going, “Naw!  Brilliant!

We are the girlfriend of God and He’s courting us.  He’s courting us, letting us know that we are the one for Him.  We are the beloved of God.  There’s nobody else I’m looking at I’m just looking at you.  There’s nobody else I’m looking at, it’s just you.  I just want you.  God has this way that He can just look at you personally and just make you feel like you’re the only person in the world that He knows.  And He’s doing the same number on everyone of us right now.  Wonderfully personal!  Brilliantly, thinks of us in that kind of corporate way.  Wonderfully personal; brilliantly corporate!  That’s God.

So Father, here we are and everything in us right now is reaching out to You.  And our prayer, (and we’ve had intercessors praying for this weekend) and our prayer has been that there would be a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God that would come upon us.  I ask Lord that You would get this word so deep in our heart we can not get rid of it; we can not shake it off; that it will continue acting; that You will expand our heart.  And I ask You to put within us a wholly dissatisfaction with our former life.  That we are gonna pursue this new life; we’re gonna pursue real life with You.  We’re gonna pursue the majesty of Your love; the incredible sovereignty of Your joy; we’re gonna pursue Your personality; and we’re gonna allow You to pursue us, and touch us, and catch us, and touch us and refresh us and renew us, and restore us in every possible way.

That’s what we’re all saying to You Father, “Here I am! – I wanna be loved like that.  I want that joy; I wanna live in that place of abiding and I don’t want to move away from it.  I’m gonna practice abiding; teach me, Holy Spirit!”  Just ask Him! Call out to Him in tongues; call out to Him in your language; call out to Him in your heart.  Tell the Holy Spirit I want to abide!  I wanna learn to abide; I want to abide; I wanna stay; I wanna get into that place and I wanna stay there!  I wanna learn how to live there; how to operate from there; how to think from there; how to see from there; how to be from there; how to feel from there!  I want to practice life from that place of abiding.  I don’t wanna go back to this half life that I’ve been living.  I want to go fully into that place of abiding.  Fully in, all the way in and all the way up!  I wanna explore all that territory, cause abiding, that is my promised land; to live in Christ to that level.  To live in Christ in all of His fullness; and to be obedient to His personality; to pursue Him!  I want that abiding Lord.  

So we pray together, all our hearts Lord knitted as one in this place, one heart we’re asking You.  One heart; one mind; one voice; one spirit!  We’re all crying out to You right now, in this place.  Come on!  We’re crying out to You Lord!  I wanna come into that place!  I wanna live in that place!  I wanna have a majestic life!  I wanna have a brilliant life!  I wanna be amazingly, astonishingly happy!  I wanna be totally and wonderfully loved!  I wanna have a peace that’s outrageous!  I wanna be obedient!  I wanna be clean!  I wanna bear fruit!  I wanna be somebody in Jesus!  I wanna live in that place of abiding!  And I wanna abide radically!

Lord I’ve given myself to misery; I’ve given myself ….I’ve let go of my joy!  I’ve let go of my peace!  Truth to tell, some of us have never even had peace!   We’ve let go of so much.  We’ve abandoned so much because we get taken in by circumstances, but no more Lord!  I don’t wanna live in that place any more.  I wanna live above my circumstances! I wanna live in Christ not my situation!  I wanna know fullness; I wanna know the fullness of God!  I wanna know the fullness of God!  I wanna know a fullness of joy!  I want to live everyday under Your smile!  I want it!  I want it!  I want it so bad I can taste it!  I want to live everyday under Your smile!  I wanna live everyday under You lifting up the light of Your countenance upon me.  I wanna know the cheerfulness of the Holy Spirit!  I wanna know the laughter that is in heaven.  

I wanna be loved by You in the same way that You love Jesus.  I wanna come alive in Your personality.  I wanna have a brilliant life on earth being thoroughly loved by God I want to learn to abide.  So I’m saying, “Holy Spirit, I accept the disciplines that You’re going to bring to Me.  You’re gonna teach me the way’s of abiding.  You’re gonna teach me how to stay; how to dwell; how to remain; how to be occupied and pre-occupied; how to be God conscious; how to be pre-occupied with the Holy Spirit, Who’s dedicated to showing Jesus to me.  So I ask for THAT in Jesus Name.  I ask for THAT in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Take a seat, this is a song written by a friend of mine.  Actually it’s written by my friend Jesse.  It’s written by his wife Karen, and it’s sung by another friend of mine who’s also called Karen.  And it’s called, “I Will Obey.”  And I want to end with this song because I really believe that if we’re gonna come into this life with God, obedience is a critical thing.  You have to be obedient to the revelation that’s come to you.  Yeah!  Well let me say again that obedience is best 

expressed through love.  let the love of God come to you so that obedience can actually rise up in you.  So this is the song…..

”I Will Obey”

If You ask me to walk where angels fear to tread
  I will obey You. I will obey.
And if You ask me to climb this mountain up ahead
  I will obey You. I will obey.

And if You ask me to give a drink to my sworn enemy
And if You ask me to love when love is not returned
If You ask me to shine when my lamp is growing dim
  I will obey You.  I will obey.

If You ask me to speak when the words I have not
  I will obey You.  I will obey.
And if you ask me for silence in the multitude of thoughts
  I will obey You.  I will obey.

And if You ask me to give a drink to my sworn enemy
And if You ask me to love when love is not returned
If You ask me to shine when my lamp is growing dim
  I will obey You.  I will obey.
                 
Piano Interlude

If You ask me to live on the less traveled road
  I will obey You.  I will obey.
If You ask me to die, the death of Saints of old
  I will obey You! I will obey I will obey 
I will obey I will obey I will obey    

If You ask me to walk where angels fear to tread
And if You ask me to climb this mountain up ahead
And If You ask me to speak when the words I have not
And if you ask me for silence in the multitude of thoughts
And If You ask me to live on the less traveled road
And If You ask me to die, the death of Saints of old
I will obey  I will obey  I will obey  I will obey  I’ll obey   

Jesus, I love You…..Jesus, I love You….and I will obey.  

The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel and I then will bless them.

If the word of the Lord has come to you and if you are convinced that this is Who God is and what He is like and therefore that this is who you are and what you can be like then you have no other choice but to obey the form of words that have been delivered to you.  You have no other choice but to obey the revelation that God has placed in your heart.

I declare to you in Jesus name that a road way is opened up in front of you that will take you into the deep places of God’s affection.  That He has taken you this weekend and He has put you on a path that will take you away from this life that you have known; that will take you away from poverty into a place of plenty; it will take you away from a place of ignorance into a place of revelation that continues, that God has set your feet on a path and He says to you Come to Me.  Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you peace; I will give you rest; take My yoke upon you learn from Me for I Am meek and lowly of heart and you will find rest to your souls.

Jesus is saying, Come!  Come out into this place! Get out of that boat! Come out here where I am!  Come out into this place!  Don’t delay!  Don’t procrastinate!  Move.  Come.  Come to this place.  Come explore this territory.  Come and explore this land that I’ve got for you.  Come and know this life.  Come and experience this life.  I’m waiting with open arms.  Come into My fullness for I will have nothing less than you being full.  You must know Me!  You must know Me as I really Am!  Come away with Me Beloved.  Come away with Me.  You’re My Bride.  You’re My Beauty. You’re my love.  You’re My pleasure. You’re My joy.  You’re My possession. You’re My chosen people.  Come away with Me.  Come out of this place.  Come into a deep place of revelation and truth.  Come into a broad spacious land of experience.  Come and KNOW Me.  Come and walk with Me.  Come into the land of your dreaming.  Come away into the land of My dreaming for you.  Come and experience Me in all My glory and all My fullness.  Come and experience what Heaven on earth is really like.  And do not settle for less!  Do not settle for less!  Do not settle for less!

Let that poverty spirit fall away from you.  Stand up!  Move forward!  Come, Come into My Presence! Come into fullness.  Come into a place that right now you can only dream about; but it’s real and I’ve set aside this place for you.  I Am pursuing you with everything in Me that you may come and know who you really are.  That you will come and know your true identity.  Come to Me.  I’ll show you who you are!  But first I’m gonna show you Who I Am for you.   I’ll show you Who I Am!  I wanna declare My Majesty and My Sovereignty; I want you to KNOW Me!  I want you to KNOW ME!  Not this religious version of Me; I want you to know ME.  And I want you to be known by Me.  Come away with Me Beloved.  Come away from this mess!  Don’t take anything with you; leave it all behind.  Come away with Me!

Come and explore this territory that I’ve got for you.  Come and explore this land of the Spirit that’s available.  Come and abide with Me.  Come and live with Me.  Come and stay with Me.  Make your abode in My heart as I choose to make My abode in yours.  I want to live in you, but I want you to live in Me.  I want reciprocal abiding says the Lord.   I want to make My home in you.  I want your life to be full, rich, overflowing, overwhelming.  I want you to be passionate, filled to overflowing.  I want people around you to catch the overflow of who I Am in you.  And I want you to have a radiant idea of Me.   I want you to see Me in all My brilliance, and all My beauty, cause when you see it and when you embrace it, I’ll make you brilliant and beautiful too.   I’ll beautify you.  I have so much to give you, so much to bestow upon you.  Come away from this mess.  Come find Me again!  I’m here! Come and seek Me!  I’m right next to you.  Come and seek Me, I’m right next to you.

I give you an invitation says the Lord.  Come!  Come and explore this place.  Come and be overwhelmed.  You’re supposed to live a life overwhelmed by Who I Am.  Let Me touch you; let Me overwhelm you.  This is your journey, nothing else matters.  This is your journey; this is your life!  Welcome to your best life!  Welcome!  Come away with Me!  Do not settle for anything less, than what I want to give you.  My heart is open towards you!  My heart is fully open to who you are in all your struggles in all your weaknesses in all your inadequacies!  My heart is fully engaged, fully open!  I want you!  I want you!  You’re Mine; I bought you!  I own you!  I want you to own Me as I really Am.  Come away with Me Beloved.  We have places to go.  There are things I want you to see.  There are things I want you to hear.  I want your heart to be outrageously overwhelmed.  Come away with Me.  

This is your inheritance; this is what it looks like.  It’s a place of dreaming.  Come and taste My dreams for you.  Let Me make My dream for you a reality in your life, so that you will be turned into another man and another woman; and that you will love yourself; you will love yourself even as I love you.  Enter into the joy of the Lord.  Let Me restore to you the joy of your salvation.  Come away with Me.  Come away!  You’ve been too long in this place.  You’ve been too long in this nightmare.  Come into the place of your dreaming.  Let Me touch you; let Me awaken you to love!  Let Me restore peace and joy and laughter; that you would know My goodness and My kindness and My mercy and My gentleness.  That you would know My cheeriness and Who I Am.  That you would taste the power of the age to come in this life and that you would be made beautiful and glorious as My Bride; that you would live in the majestic favor of your God;  that you would live everyday under My smile; that you would find a whole realm of life in My grin.  

My eyes are open and I’m looking at you and I want you to experience the fullness of all that I Am.  I want you to experience the majesty of your God and never to go back to poverty; never to go back!  YOU’RE NOT GOING BACK TO EGYPT!  YOU’RE NOT GOING BACK TO EGYPT!  YOU’RE NOT GOING BACK!  YOU ARE…NOT…GOING…BACK!  YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK!  YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK!  YOU ARE NOT…GOING…BACK!  Come away with Me!  Cross over into this land of promise!  There are so many promises I’ve got for you.  So many things I want to say to you; so many things I want to show and declare to you!  You’re soooo not going back!  You are so not going back!  Come away with Me.  YOU!  Come with Me!  Come with Me!  Come with Me; let Me love you!  Let me be to you all that I want to be!

Father, 
We just say yes and amen!  Yes and Amen!  Yes! So be it!  I want this adventure.  I want this life.  I’m not going back!  I’m not going back!  I don’t care what changes…I can’t go back.  If I have to move on, find some place else, I’m not going back!  I don’t want to live in this place of poverty any more in my head, my heart, or my experience!  I’m not going back.  I want to move out of this place rapidly.  I want to leave this place behind.  Lord, I wanna get there fast.  I want to get there quickly.  I don’t wanna mess around!  I wanna get there quickly.  I wanna get there quickly.  I’ve got time to redeem.  I’ve got to redeem my life.  I’ve got to redeem the time that I’ve wasted.

So Father, we sit here we stand here and we say, yeah!  I’m coming away with You!  I’m coming with You!  I’m with You Lord.  I’m so with You.  I am so with You.  Take me away!  Tare me away from all this into a new land, a new place; a promise land that’s got my name on it.  There’s a piece of territory out there in the spirit that’s got my name on it, and I‘m gonna claim it.  I’m claiming that territory.  I’m claiming that relationship for Jesus sake.  For His sake, because I want Him to look back on the travail of His soul and be satisfied.  
“That’s what I died to give you.  That’s what I was looking at when I endured the cross; the joy of seeing you come into the fullness of the Father.  That’s My joy.”

Say, “Amen Lord.  May it be so!
In Jesus Name Amen!

You guys have been brilliant!  I thank you so much for your patience!