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The principle of relationships

In coming to the Principle of Relationships it is important to emphasise again that in this series of studies we are not so intent on a verse by verse or word by word exposition but rather in sharing the underlying principles which Jesus taught. We will first refer to our Scripture passage – Matthew 5:2126:

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:  and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him;  lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hat paid the uttermost farthing.”

There is much that is vital for us to understand concerning relationships. When Jesus said that the truth would set us free he did not only mean the truth about himself, but also the truth about ourselves and about one another, when we understand how to share, receive and handle such truth we are, in fact, entering into a true understanding of relationship.

In the initial stages of a revival or renewal movement there is usually much excitement as people respond to and receive blessings from God. At such times it is far too easy to let “horizontal” or interpersonal relationships assume a low priority simply because everyone is so caught up in their “vertical” response to God, as that is where the action seems to be. This intensity of “vertical” Godward relationship often obscures very real lacks in the persontoperson “horizontal” aspects. However, as the initial wave of blessing appears to pass over, people begin to become increasingly aware of the areas in which they have not learned to relate to one another.

So that which hardly seemed necessary at the height of revival can become the very weakness which, through lack of love and unity and an inability to come to terms with personal differences and personality conflicts, will ultimately spell the end of that revival as a continuing work of God.

Once the right motivation for togetherness amongst God’s people ceases to exist, there can no longer  be a true work of God. We need to learn and practise what it is to relate to one another properly. We cannot keep sailing along in some sort of “high frequency” relationship with God and ignore the need to relate to one another.

Verse 22 breaks down into two basic concepts  Attitudes and Speech. That is, what we feel about people and what we say to people.

With regard to Attitudes, we will refer to Philippians 2:116:

“If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory;  but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:  and being found in fashion as a man, he hurtled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.”

The point of the first two verses of this passage is that Paul would not have his joy fulfilled simply because there were in Philippi a number of people whom he had led to Christ. Rather it would only be because these people had come into a right relationship with one another. This would be evidenced by then being of one mind and of one accord.

To be of one mind and of one accord is not necessarily seen in what often passes for a demonstration of “unity”. This may simply be of an outward and transient nature, as when Christians get together in some kind of interdenominational gathering, hold hands and sing songs such as, “We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord”. This demonstration of apparent unity is more likely to be like that of a man and a woman coning together for a night of lovemaking, vowing their love for one another, each taking from the other that which he or she desires, and yet finally going their separate ways. Such a coming together may be an affair, but it certainly is not a marriage!

Coming together is not a demonstration of onemindedness and accord. It is only in living together that these things may be achieved. In a marriage the partners have to work through their relationship with each other. They need to come to terms with the things which may be hindering their relationship, and that is how God works. He says, “Come, let us reason together.” He is saying, in effect, “Let us sit down and talk this through. What is it that is between you and me?”

God is wanting to deal with men at the grassroots level on specific issues of their relationship with him. Too often Christians are so intent on appearing “spiritual” that they avoid such vital “reasonings together” and hide behind sweet smiles and religious platitudes.

We get nowhere in the church if we sweep things under the rug and try to find some way in which we can all lust breeze along together without rocking the boat. This is not Christian love! It is precisely because of such an avoidance of real issues that so much that passes for Christian love is a farce. The issues that are swept under the rag do not go away, they remain, even if they have been covered over.

In verse 3 we are instructed to esteem others better than ourselves. To do this is not to indulge in a sickly display of false humility and selfabasement. To esteem means to place a value upon.  It means that rather than devalue yourself you place a high value on others. To say of yourself that you have no value is to say that God is a liar. Each one of us has an incredibly high value in the whole plan of God. One indication of that value is the price which God paid for us on Calvary. We can never begin to esteem others until we understand our own personal value in God’s eyes. Having done that, we then need to highly esteem others.

Verse 4 speaks of common concern. It is true that there is a great need for this in the church.  This means that people are to be genuinely concerned and involved with the lives and affairs of others. The church is a family and within each church family there is a need for people to look beyond their own needs and situations, and even beyond those of their natural family, so as to adequately express their genuine concern for and involvement in other people’s lives. But remember, there is a difference between involvement and interference.’

The next few verses (511) make the point that Jesus did not mind what it cost him to relate fully to people. The glory of the incarnation is that God chose to be glorified in human flesh, and this is still so, for God has chosen to be glorified in people like you and me.

Jesus laid aside the glory of being God to be a man, a human being like you and me.  He gave himself so completely to the people with whom he identified that we can now be exhorted to think as he thought, to have his attitude, which is the meaning of having the “mind of Jesus”.  it is to have the attitude which he had both to God and to people.  in verses 12 and 13 we are told that it is our responsibility to obey God by working out, as an act of our wills, these vital aspects of relationship.

The other side of it is that it is God who responds to our response to see that we succeed.  Some people, however, would prefer that it be all God so that they do not have to be responsible! For example  “God I can’t love John so you will have to love him through me.”  God does not love through us. We love because of him. “We love because he first loved us.”

God does not miraculously intervene so as to allow us to opt out of our responsibilities. The phrase “fear and trembling” shows the seriousness of our calling to be to others what they need. It refers to the attitude which we are to have towards others, remembering that it is God who is working in us to see that the job is done. God will not do it unless we do, and we cannot do it without him. But if we will, he will.

We need, however, to understand something further, and that brings us to verses 14 to 16.

Real submission is to do all things without murmurings and without disputings. To say, “Well, I don’t agree, I don’t believe that you are right, but I will go along anyway”, is not submission.

It is not just in the doing of God’s will but in the doing of his will with the right attitude that God is glorified.”Holding forth the word of life” is not how you preach it, but how you demonstrate it in your relationship with one another.

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)

We then cone to the other basic aspect  speech. Our Bible reference is the well-known passage from James, chapter 3:

“Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. For we all make many mistakes, and if any one makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, we guide their whole bodies.  Look at the ships also; though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!

And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue  a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

My brethren, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insecurity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (from the Revised standard Version)

These words are sharp barbs. We can be doing everything right and still not have learned to say what is right when it needs to be said and to be quiet when nothing needs to be said. We can, therefore, still cause great problems to people. We can be so intent on “getting something off our chest” that it does not really concern us what it does to those who hear it. Even if we take it back afterwards, it has still been said and it can do harm.

Sone people are naturally inclined to be sore talkative than others. The point is not so much in the amount of speaking but in what is said and in the attitude from which it cane.

If our heart attitudes to one another are wrong, then we are lying and we have nothing to be proud of.  I have known people to freely speak in terms such as. “Oh, I just love John!”, when in fact they do not at all. What they are really doing is speaking to enhance their own image by appearing as a loving type of person.

When wrong relationships springing out of wrong attitudes exist, then right sounding words mean nothing. This is the “earthly, unspiritual, devilish wisdom” of verse 15. We live in a world where people use words to shoot one another down, where they use words to butter one another up and where they use words to get what they want from people. But behind it all there is a lack of reality and sincerity and truth.

They get their wisdom, not from above, but from below. Wherever people are striving to fulfil their own personal ambitions and to get gain for themselves whilst being jealous of others, then all kinds of disorder and vile practice will certainly be found, for the devil thrives in that kind of atmosphere.

Also in James 4:11 we read:

“Do not speak evil against one another, brethren.  He that speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law.  But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.”

There is another Scripture which tells us that it is not our business to judge another man’s servant, for he has his own master before whom he will stand or fall. It is a common tendency to “put down” others when talking about them so as to boost our own image. Speaking factual truths about others with a wrong motivation does not justify telling those truths. Factual correctness is still wrong unless it comes out of love. To speak of another with a wrong attitude does, in fact, reveal what I am. It shows what is in my heart.

We are to have the attitude of Jesus in our relationships with others and we are to be very aware of the power of the tongue.

Reconciliation

(verses 23-24)

Here again. Jesus shows the priority of a right relationship. At this point, we need to refer to Colossians 3:813:

“But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not to one another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;  and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him; where there is neither creek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. But on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;  forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”

Christians need to recognise where they are wrong if they are going to get right. This is why in verses 8 and 9 there is no concealing of the fact that these shameful things existed amongst the spiritfilled Christians at Colossi. Some whitewashed saints would not even dare think that these things might be in existence in their church!

These verses are not “spiritual” in the obvious sense, because they deal with very practical, ordinary human relations, and that is the level where so much breaks down in the church.

These same problems, which we find to exist in the church today, were so clearly in existence amongst the early churches. This underlines the fact that people then were essentially as people are now. People generally encounter the same kind of relationship problems regardless of their historical setting. We need to be prepared to recognise and to acknowledge the existence of these problems and difficulties in our churches today.

It is so easy to justify standing on our dignity and refusing to move towards reconciliation with one another. But Jesus said that when we bring our offering to God and remember that another has something against us, we are to take the initiative with that person  we are to go to him and offer to put it right.

If you have something against a person that is not known to him and it has not apparently hurt him, then it is not advisable to go to that person with the matter because all you may succeed in doing is to contaminate him with what has, to date, been only your problem. Rather it is your responsibility to set the matter right with God and to repent of your attitude towards that person.

When, however, there is something openly between yourself and another, or if you know that someone has something against you, it is your privilege and your responsibility to go to that person and put the matter right. Otherwise, when you make your approach to God, it will be your relationship with your brother which will stand between yourself and Him.

We need to work at our relationships and to learn to get along with those with whom we find it hardest. We need to appreciate then for who they are and not to simply gravitate to those people with whom we find it easiest to relate. There are some who we need to esteem because we do not naturally feel that way about them. Think of Jesus; was there anybody with whom he would have been easily compatible? After all, he was used to some pretty fine company where he came from! Yet he disciplined himself to his relationship with his disciples and others.

Reconciliation, therefore, is a practical thing. It is to be practised. We need to take every opportunity to maintain an atmosphere of reconciliation in the church, otherwise our worship will not be acceptable to God.

Our attempts at reconciliation, however, should not be tainted with efforts to prove ourselves right and the other person wrong. Whilst not compromising that which we know to be right, we must bend over backwards because of another thing that is right  and that is, it is right to be reconciled.

We are to learn to live with one another not grudgingly but cheerfully. We are to learn to let nothing come between us. That means that instead of waiting for others to cone to us, we are to go to them. This is the right way to respond to an offended brother.

Peace

We go on to verses 25 and 26:

“Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him;  lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

Jesus said that when you know that someone has something legitimate against you, you are to do your utmost to reestablish peace with that person. Whether or not lawcourt and jail are the likely consequences, the point is that in any such situation the consequences of allowing things to go on unsettled will become steadily worse. It is far better to make peace early.

If you have a conflict with someone, things should he brought to a satisfactory conclusion with peace restored. That is far more desirable than an angry break up with two people going off in different directions. Once that has occurred, there is a good chance that the two parties will never cone together.

If you have a difference of opinion with someone, do not be afraid of a good discussion (even if it becomes a little heated) because, so long as self-control prevails, we should not be afraid of displaying our true feelings. It is legitimate to feel strongly about a matter. Jesus was not exactly “whistling Dixie” when he whipped the moneychangers and overturned their tables: ie was angry. Although he was selfcontrolled, he did express his anger and he certainly made his point very well.

Peace between two people cannot be “peace at any price”. It must be a just peace which cones out of a willingness to come to terms with their differences and to find the basis on which peace can be restored. If there needs to be an argument then let it be, but let it go on from there to a state of peace.

Some people are so afraid of a difference of opinion that they often do not tell people what they are really thinking. The differences are still there, of course, only they are never openly brought out. Under such circumstances any socalled peace is artificial and, although it may look good, it is more like the relationship between the animals in the zoo  there is an apparent state of peace between them because they are separated by iron bars, but if the bars were taken away, the true relationship between them would be revealed!

We need to work at a relationship of peace so that we will not need “bars” to create an artificial peace between us.

To agree with your adversary will probably entail a lot more than simply saying “Let’s be buddies”, because something has been done and one man has become another man’s enemy.  There will have to be a willingness to sit down and talk the matter through in the hope of establishing an honest, open peace. Differences between God’s people are not a problem so long as they are settled openly and peace ultimately prevails. It is unresolved differences that are intolerable in the church. It is not spiritual to keep such unresolved differences out of sight.

Romans 14:19 says: “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.”

Peace means lack of conflict and we are to find ways in which we can be together without conflict. In this atmosphere we will be building one another up rather than tearing down.  Likewise in James 3:18: “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”

We need to realise that where God’s people are out of harmony with one another and there is no peace, there cannot be anything sown which will ultimately bear fruit to God’s glory. God can only be glorified in the fruit of that which is sown in peace. This is the right way to respond to one who has become our adversary.

We need not be afraid to admit to having problems with people. What we do need, however, is to come to terms with those problems.

About the author

Tony Kostas was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1941, where at the age of seventeen, he committed his life to Jesus at a Billy Graham Crusade. In 1967 he founded the Melbourne Outreach Crusade, a non-denominational evangelistic outreach. This later grew into Outreach International, which is now a worldwide body of believers, who share a God-given calling and are committed to live in love with Him and with one another.

Tony’s life is a true expression of all that God has revealed to him throughout the years, in its purity and focus on loving God. His passion is for God to have the desire of His hears: a people who truly represent Him because they are His and His alone.