Luella and I have been married for more than 50 years, and we enjoy a wonderfully sweet relationship. God has given me an amazing wife who has much more character than I do, and I pray that he will continue to blind her eyes to what a bad deal she got! We spend daily time in prayer, always laughing and encouraging one another, and truly enjoying one another's company more than ever.

But even still, there's rarely a day when I am free from troublesome talk in my relationship with my dear wife. That doesn't mean I'm screaming or yelling or intentionally trying to hurt Luella with my words. But I don't have to look back very far to see sin in my talk. It may have been a word hastily and thoughtlessly spoken, a moment of irritation, a quick accusation, a selfish comment or demand, an "I told you so" when a word of comfort or encouragement was needed. It might have been an impatient retort, a moment of needless nitpicking, a comment filled with self-righteousness or self-pity, or the resurrecting of past sins.

Wouldn't you think that after all these years, I would have finally gotten a hold of tongue? That's why I find the discouraging words of James 3 so encouraging!

"The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, 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 mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so" (James 3:6-10).

Now this begs the question: if "these things ought not to be so" but no human being can tame the tongue, is there any hope for us?

The Word Became Flesh

While the Word calls us to a pure standard in our communication, God does not demand that we meet this standard in our own strength. Rather, the Word became flesh to address our need (see John 1:1-18).

So how, practically, does the Word becoming flesh help us with our talk? What has the Word given us so that we can speak up to God's standard and according to his design? In a brief prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23, Paul uses four dynamic words to capture the resources that are ours because of Christ's redeeming work.

"For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the HOPE to which he has called you, what are the RICHES of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his POWER toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all RULE and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

HOPE: "That you may know what is the hope to which he has called you" (v. 18)

Does your communication flow our out confidence in the resource-giving work of the Word who became flesh? Meditate on this. The God who created speech and spoke the world into existence, the God who used human words to reveal himself to his people throughout the ages, comes to his world as the Word, to people who have forsaken him. Not only is he a speaker of truth, he is Truth--and only in him is there any hope for us.

Only in the Word do we find hope to win the war of words and speak again according to our Maker's example and design. The Word became flesh because there was no other way to fix what is broken in us. As a spouse, a parent, a pastor, a neighbor, a co-worker, you must believe that you can win the war of words, but it is not in us or our potential. It is in the Word and his presence, power, and promises.

When our best efforts to win the war of words have failed, we encounter the greatest hope of all. Because Jesus has come to live, die, and be raised for us, there is hope that we can speak as God has designed. His work on our behalf totally alters the way we can respond to the struggle of words. We have hope for our words because the Word became flesh for us.

The next three words unpack that why we have hope even more specifically.

RICHES: "The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints" (v. 18)

As an heir to the glorious inheritance that is yours in Christ, this means the Lord will never put you in a situation without giving you everything you need to do what he has called you to do. It means that Christ has already placed in my storehouse everything that I need. Everything you need to speak in a godly way has already been given. All the riches that you need to move beyond your own hurt or anger or selfish desire and to speak as an ambassador for Christ in whatever moment you are in have been given to you. The Word has come, and in his hands are glorious riches. His supply is the only thing that will tame the human tongue!

I love how Peter captures it: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). Not a lot, not more than most, but all things we need. Consider the words here. The verb in the passage ("has granted") is in the perfect tense, which indicates an action in the past that has continuing results into the future. It means that Christ has already placed in my storehouse everything that I need. I have been given not just everything I need for eternal life but everything I need to live a godly life from the time I am saved until the time God takes me home to be with him!

POWER: "The immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe" (v. 19)

We do not struggle with communication simply because we lack the skills, strategy, or vocabulary. Our problem is powerlessness and inability. But Christ has come, demonstrating his power in his ministry, exercising his power over evil on the cross, and blessing his people with power in the person of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul says that God, "who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think," is at work "according to the power within us" (Ephesians 3:20).

God hasn't issued us a series of grand and lofty directives and then sat back to see if we would obey them. No, he understands that our sin has rendered us powerless and that we will not know what we need to know and cannot do what we need to do apart from him. So, he has unzipped us and gotten inside us by his Spirit.

The gospel prevents us from having a communication model of independent strength that assumes that our problems can be solved with the right insights and skills. The gospel forces us to face our inability. The gospel also prevents us from having a communication model of weakness and inability that would cause us to look at God's goals and say, "If only we were able..." In Christ we embrace both inability and ability. The Word comes to fill us with his power precisely because we are so weak. But in Christ, we who could not stand now stand able.

RULE: "He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church" (vv. 20-22).

First, there is no situation, location, or relationship we will ever encounter that is not ruled by Christ. And because Christ rules, he has the POWER to unlock the RICHES of the gospel for us, which is our HOPE. The promises of the gospel are reliable because Christ has complete rule and can administer those promises.

But I want to focus on this specifically: we get ourselves into trouble with our communication because we try to rule and be the head. Our words reveal a heart that craves to rule over people and situations. We are motivated by a personal sense of what we want or what we think would be good, and so we speak in a way that guarantees we will get it. We defend, accuse, inflict guilt, manipulate, rationalize, argue, cajole, beg, plead, or threaten, all to control a person or a situation.

Sometimes we do this out of fear, and fear-driven talk reveals that we have forgotten one of the most precious promises of the gospel: that Christ, right now, at this moment, is ruling all things for our particular benefit as his children.

But verbal attempts at control don't always flow out of fear. They often expose selfishness. When I get up in the morning, very often the first person I think about is me! I am already filled with my own desires, rehearsing in my mind what I would like the day to be like. Our words often reveal how utterly self-focused we are and how intent we are on getting what we want from others.

The gospel speaks to this struggle as well. Christ calls us to an agenda higher than our own pleasure. Christ rules everything for us, but he has not established that rule so that we would be happy. We are called to submit ourselves to Christ so that we would be holy and so that our holiness would bring him glory.

Hope for Our Words

Yes, we are living with sinners, our schedules are busy, the stresses of life are many, and a lot of us were raised in negative environments where words were used as weapons. But we do not have to settle for bitter, angry, destructive, divisive communication. We can have high standards and set lofty goals, not because of who we are, but because of what he has done. The Word has come and brought with him everything we need to live a life of godly talk.

The resources of Christ are our only hope that our words will be spoken up to his standard and according to his design. In the Word, we find hope when all seems hopeless, riches when we feel poor, power when we see our weakness, and rule when everything around us seems out of control.

Christ has come to tame what man will never tame. He has come to use for his purpose what seems unusable. He has come to endow us with glorious riches and incomparable power so that our tongues can be used as his instruments of righteousness.

Refuse to settle for the status quo. Don't let the creeping cynicism of hopelessness cause you to give up in the face of struggle. No, live and speak with hope, faith, and courage, believing that something better can be achieved because the Word became flesh.