The Path of Fellowship

‘Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’ – Eph. 4:2-3 (NIV)

God’s will is that we should walk in fellowship with our brother. Yet true fellowship does not mean there would never be misunderstandings between brothers. Indeed, you cannot successfully travel in the path of true fellowship without knowing how to restore fellowship when conflict occurs. And this path of reconciliation is what our Lord outlines in a masterly way in Matthew 18:15-17 (NIV)

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

First note that our Lord makes allowances for misunderstandings among brothers, that is why he says ‘If your brother sins against you’. Our Lord knows that brother will sin against brother. It is George Verwer who has said, ‘Where two or three of the Lord’s people are gathered together, sooner or later there will be a mess.’ We must not become disillusioned when our brother sins against us, or when relationship problems occur among the brethren. Relationship mess will happen but the Lord wants us to use it to build up, and not destroy, fellowship.

Isn’t it beautiful to see the simplicity of our Lord’s instructions on how to win back a brother’s fellowship? I have observed first-hand the trouble it causes when men neglect this simple wisdom and seek to handle misunderstandings with man’s complicated ‘wisdom’. For example, many, when offended, would rather go and share the matter with others, rather than going first to the brother who has sinned against them as the Lord instructs here. This instruction is simple yet it is thorough and if we want to experience true healing in our relationships we will do well to humbly follow it to the letter.

It is important that I make one more comment before looking in detail at what the Lord instructs us to do here. I want you to note that the goal of this directive is the restoration of fellowship. It is obvious that this is the Lord’s intention when he says ‘If he listens to you, you have won your brother over’. The goal is to win over your brother into fellowship so that he is not cut off from you. The goal is not to prove that you are right, but to win back your brother’s fellowship. If we do not go about these instructions of the Lord with the right attitude we will never see his purpose fulfilled. God’s desire is that even in misunderstandings brothers should seek the wellbeing of each other. There must be a continual shalom (peace) from our heart towards our brother even when he has hurt us. This is in the spirit of the Lord’s words, ‘Bless them that curse (or hurt) you’ Matt 5:44b (KJV).

If this is the attitude with which we must apply these directives then we will need help, because when someone has hurt us, the natural thing is not to seek their wellbeing but their undoing. This is why it is important that our first step in carrying out these rules for reconciliation must be prayer. We need to seek God’s help to forgive our brother even before we approach him. We need also to come to a place where we are open to the possibility of being wrong in our assumption that our brother is the guilty one (remember what we learnt last week from Balaam and his ass). It is only when we obey the Lord’s directive with this attitude that it can bear the desired fruit.

I will conclude this next week.

A Man, his ass and Relationships

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” – Eph 5:1-2 (NIV)

The title is not just an attention catcher, I really want to tell you a story of a man and his ass (as a donkey is called in the old English of the King James Bible). Once upon a time there was a man called Balaam, who had a donkey. Their relationship went as well as that of a man and a donkey could go. This donkey was very useful to Mr. Balaam  as it was his chief means of transportation, and Mr. Balaam being a prophet had to go to many places.

But one day their relationship went sour. And this is what happened. Mr. Balaam was on an important journey to prophesy to a king who had promised to pay handsomely for his services. And of all the things that could happen, the donkey began to misbehave (you could say it acted like an ass!). First it embarrassed the prophet by leaving the road and veering off into the bush. Then it decided to press against the wall in a narrow vineyard path crushing Mr. Balaam’s foot. Finally it decided not to go any further and lay down under him! As you can imagine, the prophet became so upset that he hit his donkey again and again. Then a miracle happened, God opened the ass’s mouth and it spoke to the angry prophet! To tell you how angry Mr. Balaam was, he didn’t even seem to notice that a miracle had happened when his donkey began addressing him. He just went right ahead and replied to the donkey, pouring out his anger on it! He said that had he had a sword at hand, he would have killed the donkey because he was making a fool of him. It took another miracle of an angel appearing to this angry man of God for him to be restrained. He then came to understand that, contrary to what he had thought, his donkey had not been out to make a fool of him but had all the while been protecting him from being killed by the angel.

Now what does all of this have to do with our relationships? There are times when relationships go sour just like it happened between this man and his ass. There are times when those we trust, hurt, offend or betray us and misunderstandings follow. It is true that there are those who seek to hurt us on purpose, but there may be times when, just like it was with Mr. Balaam and his ass, we may be putting the wrong interpretation on the other person’s action. And even when we are right about his action we may be wrong about his motive and intent.

Just as the prophet was so angry that he didn’t notice the miracle of the beast speaking, we too can be so consumed with our justified negative reaction to the other person, that we lose proper perspective on the issues and may not even notice the things God wants us to take into account. This is why James says,

‘My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires’ (James 1:19-20 NIV)

Human anger is a quick destroyer of relationships. The truth is that many times we may be wrong in the conclusions we draw that lead to our anger. And just accepting that we may be wrong in our conclusions helps us to be more objective in handling disagreeable issues in our relationships. It would truly improve our relationships if we were to decide always to give the other person the benefit of the doubt and seek to put the best construction on their intentions.

We deceive ourselves if we believe we can afford to have  bad relationships with those God has put around us, and still become all that God wants us to be. The state of health of our relationships will determine the length we will go in fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives. We cannot be disconnected with our neighbour and stay closely connected to God. So, we had better take seriously this call to be working on having healthy relationships with those God has brought into our lives.

When the donkey found his voice it asked its owner; “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”. It was encouraging the prophet to analyse their past relationships and not to react to this present situation in isolation, but rather put it into context. If this donkey had never been known to be unkind or unco-operative like this to its master then maybe something genuine was bothering it for it to act like this. In the same way, perhaps the other person’s misbehaviour may not be aimed at hurting us, but be due to some other issue they are going through.

Just as Mr. Balaam needed God to open his eyes before he could see why his ass was ‘misbehaving’, it would help us to ask God to open our eyes to see the other person and the situation as he sees it. We need God’s help to understand others and to rightly relate to them in love, even when they seem to be behaving like an ass.