Welcome to the Paul Tripp podcast, where pastor and best-selling author Dr. Paul David Tripp connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.

If you're a human being, you have the ability to communicate. And for the Christian, we need to ask one ultimate question. What does God

want me to say? In this final episode from our 10-part series on biblical communication, Paul Tripp reveals

that we need to speak like an ambassador. If you've been enjoying the Paul Tripp podcast, would you

consider leaving a review? Each review helps us reach more people with the

transforming power of Jesus Christ. Now, here's Paul with today's episode.

There's not a human being that ever lived who doesn't want to be in control. We all like to be in

control. You see it in a young child. You like to be in control. You see it in a young child.

You see it in a teenager. You see it in a young adult. You see it in a middle-aged person. You see it in the elderly.

We like control. And one of the reasons we like control is that we don't like trouble. We want our

lives to be predictable, ordered, and comfortable. Most of us tend to have a toxic

relationship to difficulty. We tend to think of difficulty as bad, and we struggle to think of it as

ever being productive. And the main reason we tend to think of difficulty as bad is because it

tends to stand in the way of what we want. We love ourselves, and we have a wonderful plan for our lives. So we want

to exercise control over our lives in order to assure that we will get what we've set our hearts on.

The problem is that following God is dangerous. By necessity it means giving up control to a king

who will take us places that we do not want to go,

so that he can produce in us what we could not achieve on our own.

So one of the big battles of the Christian life is the battle of kingship.

I tell God I want him to be my king, but then I take back the kingship on a Tuesday night because there's

something at stake that I am convinced I cannot live without.

You see, every decision you make, every word you speak, every relationship you have, everything

...