Key Scripture:
John 15:15. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
Key Idea:
The highest proof of true friendship, and one great source of its blessedness, is the intimacy that holds nothing back, and admits the friend to share our inmost secrets. It is a blessed thing to be Christ’s servant; His redeemed ones delight to call themselves His slaves. Christ had often spoken of the disciples as His servants. In His great love our Lord now says: “No longer do I call you servants”;
— Murray
Pray for revelation:
O Saviour, speak the word with power into my soul: “I have called you My friend, whom I love, whom I trust, to whom I make known all that passes between my Father and Me.”
— Murray
Key words:
Servant, Master, Friend.
It’s graduation day. The 12 disciples are passing from that phase of having to be told what to do, how to do it, when to do it. Jesus has taught them all they need to know. It is time for them to be on their own. They can do it because they have spent time abiding with Jesus. They don’t know it all yet, but through their close relationship as disciples under instruction to their master, they are now accepted as friends. They have a unity to the source of all the power and answers they will ever need.
We have been using a comparison to a vine to learn our place in God’s kingdom. That word picture has helped us understand the importance of staying connected as branches to the true vine. Forgetting ourselves and the limitations of what we can do and giving in to allow our higher power source to work through us.
Jesus is talking directly to his closest disciples in these verses, but just as the vine is a model for us, the disciples should also be a pattern for our lives. The same truth that is being told to them, and the promises made, are equally relevant and true for us.
I know the word that appears in most English versions is ‘servant,’ but it comes from the Greek word for slave. Even outside the books of the gospel, Paul and other writers often refer to themselves as the servant of Christ,or really the slave of Christ. It is through their humility that they write words like those.
Jesus tells the disciples that they have reached the point where their abiding relationship elevates them to the status of friend. They don’t have to ask anymore, because they know what Jesus would do.
Maybe you don’t yet know the will of Jesus that well yet. Well, make every effort as the servant of Christ to draw closer and become a friend. He doesn’t want to hold secrets back. He is waiting to tell it all to you.