I sat in my family room and I was steaming! I couldn’t believe that after all the years of love, all our efforts to understand, and all the investments we had made in building a relationship of mutual trust, he was willing to throw it all away for one night of fun with his friends. I couldn’t imagine how this night could be that important to him.

My son had looked me in the face and lied to me. I was so angry! I wanted him to hurt the way I did. I wanted to give him what he deserved. In my mind I rehearsed a toe-to-toe confrontation with him. (All in the name of the Lord, of course!) I con­templated a series of grave punishments that would alter his life indefinitely. I just wished he were home so I could get it over with. I told my wife, “he’ll regret the day he ever thought of doing this to me!”

I sat there steaming, but not just because my son had lied and was not home for me to punish. I was also upset because my wife completely disagreed with the way I wanted to handle him. She’s just too soft, I reasoned to myself. It’s for times like these that God called me to be the spiritual leader of this family. Somebody needs to stand for the truth! Someone needs to confront the wrong that’s taken place here.

However, the more I sat there defend­ing my anger and rehearsing what I would do to my son, the weaker my resolve became. You see, God in his awesome wis­dom had ordained that my son would be out of the house at this time. God was the one who sent my wife as an agent of intervention. God had to deal with me before he could use me in my son’s life.

It wasn’t long before I was no longer thinking about my son, but about myself. I was grieved at what I saw. After all the years of Bible study and ministry, all the years of counselling and teaching, and all the years of personal Bible study and prayer, how could I be here once again, eaten up by my own anger? Hurt and ready to hurt back?

That afternoon, alone in the family room, I was once again confronted with something we tend to forget or seriously minimise — the presence and power of indwelling sin. I became aware once again that the process of sanctification was not over for me. The great spiritual battle for my heart rages on. But I was also aware that God was powerfully at work, con­trolling the scene and raising up my wife to give me time to examine my thoughts, motives and behaviour. I saw that I needed the Lord that day just as much as the first day I believed.

By the time my son came home the next night, I was in a different place. Perhaps this is the highest goal for talk within the body of Christ — that our words would be conduits of the life-giving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we really do focus on being part of what God is doing in the lives of others. Here we die to the hopes, dreams, and desires of self so that his purposes may reign. Here we view our relationships from the vantage point of ambassadors.

What does this mean? It means recog­nising that our relationships do not belong to us. People do not exist for our happiness and contentment; rather, God has appointed us to faithfully communicate his powerful love for them. This means that we have to speak redemptively with words of grace.

Let’s look at Paul’s words as he calls us to talk in a way that gives grace.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.Ephesians 4:29-30

Paul emphasises five elements of grace-full talk. First, be unshakeably committed to wholesome talk. When Paul says, “Forbid any unwholesome talk from entering your conversation,” he is not just talking about cursing, swearing, or vulgar, four-letter words. In fact, to think of the passage this way grossly minimises its intent. Paul has something much more redemptively revo­lutionary in mind. For Paul, unwholesome talk is me-centred talk that has no higher purpose than my own wants, desires, dreams, and demands. Unwholesome words flow from a heart that is controlled by present, personal, earthly desire. They are spoken because they please me and accomplish my goals. They are an attempt to get me what I want, without reference to the lordship of Christ or my call to speak as his ambassador.

I have counseled many husbands and wives in sadly broken marriages who would never have gotten to that point had they simply heeded this principle. If me-centred, my-desire communication had been replaced early with ambassadorial talk (what is important to the Lord here, and how can I speak in a way that promotes it?), their marriages would never have reached the tragic point of disintegration.

What, then, is wholesome talk? It is other-person oriented communication that is rooted in the existence, love, mercy, grace, and calling of the Lord. It submits to his plan, speaks up to his standard, and uses words unselfishly. It finds meaning and joy in being used by God as he works in others. Wholesome talk is also other-person oriented in the way it has the needs of others as its focus.

Only when we entrust ourselves into the Lord’s sovereign care are we free to speak this way.

Second, consider the person to whom you are talking (“only what is helpful for building others up”). Paul is saying something revolutionary here: we should only speak things that consider how our listen­ers need to be built up.

To whom are we speaking? Is it a man, woman, boy, or girl? Is it someone our own age, younger, or older? Is it a long­time friend, a casual acquaintance, or a vir­tual stranger? Is it a family member, a dis­tant relative, or a neighbour? Is the person a believer, a seeker, or lost? What is his or her knowledge and experience of the truths of Scripture? How receptive is this person to my ministry? How do the answers to these questions guide me in what to say?

Third, consider the problem you are being called to address (“for building others up according to their needs”). To consider the problem means to ask, What is the need of the moment? What gift of grace is needed? How can I speak as an instrument of that grace?

Is there some specific sin that needs to be lovingly confronted? Is the work of peacemaking needed because there is dis­unity and division? Is there spiritual blind­ness? A loss of hope? Are there pockets of doubt about God? Is there the confu­sion of many counsellors and conflicting advice? Is there fear, anxiety, and dread? Is there anger, malice, bitterness, and vengeance? Is there a lack of biblical knowledge, wisdom, and insight? Are there patterns of direct rebellion against God? Is there selfishness, pride, or self-righteousness that needs to be faced? Is there an unwillingness to accept responsibility? Is there a need for thanksgiving, praise, and worship?

Having the right agenda makes a critical difference in communication. So often parents, for example, enter the rooms of their children with a punitive rather than a ministry agenda. They do little more than point out wrong (usually infected with their own anger and hurt) and announce punishment. They neglect to ask the essential question — that is, what does God want to do in the heart of my child through me? Attention to this principle alone would result in radical changes in our relationships!

Fourth, consider the process (“that it may benefit [give grace to] those who lis­ten”). Paul says it this way in Colossians 4:6:

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

God’s goal for our communication is grace; that is, that our words would be of specific spiritual benefit to those who hear. This is not just a “don’t do” passage, but more powerfully a “do” passage. We are called to exercise the courage of faith, to think and speak decisively as agents of the King.

Often parents lecture their children in an attempt to get them to see the wrong they have done. The problem is that this is the wrong process. As the parents are lec­turing, the child is silently defending, excusing, and arguing in his mind, and anxiously wait­ing for the “conversation” to be over. Perhaps you’ve even heard your child say at the end of one of your lectures, “Are you done yet?” These are not exactly words of repentance!

If I have prepared myself by considering the best process of communication, I will enter the room knowing that what my teenager needs is the grace of conviction and confession. I want to speak to my child in a way that would lead him to con­fession. Perhaps this means it is better to ask open-ended questions that enable the child to examine the situation, his thoughts and motives, and his behaviour than it is to tell him what I think. I don’t just want him to agree with me; I want him to see himself accurately in the mirror of the Word of God. I do not want him to do business with me, but with God.

Fifth, don’t let your speech hinder the Holy Spirit’s work (“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”). What is the primary work of the Holy Spirit? To make us holy. This progressive, life-long work of sanctification is ongoing in every situation and relationship. He is working in “all things” for our good, so that we would be conformed to the image of the Son (Rom. 8:28-30). It is a terrible thing when our selfish, unwholesome talk gets in the way! This is why Paul reminds us that God sealed us for the day of redemption. A seal is a sign of ownership. From the moment of our new birth, we no longer belong to ourselves. Neither do our words.