Jesus Shared Privileged Information

What Did Jesus Do?

“All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 15.15

It's frustrating, even belittling, to hear, “That information is on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know.” Ouch! Guess they put us in our place. For hundreds of years it was understood that man's place in relation to God was that of a servant. God was the indisputable master, and our job was to worship and serve him, end of story. God was under no obligation whatsoever to share anything with us, other than his commands. Any information sent to earth from on high was on a strictly “need to know” basis. But the master-servant relationship wasn't the end of the story. God had an entirely different relationship with us in mind, and he sent his Son to tell us about this relationship. The Father gave Jesus authority to share privileged information.

The whole master-servant relationship was to be transformed into a unique, and unimaginable friendship. Where servants are routinely kept in the dark, so to speak, by their masters; friends know all about each others' business, and Jesus no longer called God's people servants, but friends (John 15.15a). While servants simply do the bidding of their master, friends share in the work together. And the work of God is the work of a vinedresser who cultivates a vineyard so that it will bear much good fruit (John 15.1-2).

In order that the former servants-now friends should fully take up their part of God's work the Son passed along all that he heard from the Father (John 15.15b). The “secrets” of the Kingdom were no longer secret; the Father desired that we would no longer think of ourselves as his servants, but as his friends, even his daughters and sons who are privileged to call him “Abba” (see Romans 8.15).

Of course, a Father may yet not disclose everything to his children, even to the Son (see Matthew 24.36; Mark 13.32). And, though no longer servants under obligation to do the will of a master, we are under an even greater obligation, as children of our loving Father in heaven, to be obedient. The obedience that the Father desires from us is the same he asked of the Son, which is why the Son shared with us fully the privileged information that had passed between the Father and the Son. As the Son, by his obedience to the Father, loved us, so we are now to obediently love one another (John 15.17). As the Son, the true vine, yielded good fruit by fully submitting his life to the Father's will, so too with us. We have been chosen by the Son to be his friends, and children of the Father, for the express purpose of bearing much fruit as we submit our lives to the will of our gracious Father.

Jesus shared all this privileged information with us so that, when we ask in his name prayers for the bearing of much good fruit, the Father will grant it (John 15.16). If, in the end, “we are all fruit” (see WDJD for 5/28/11), we are all also part of the fruit bearing business of our Father. And the only thing that will produce fruit good enough for the Kingdom, fruit which will abide, is love. Jesus shared this privileged information with us because it's something everyone needs to know.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4