Abundant Peace with Ourselves

Justin Turney

Abundant • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

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Many people in our world suffer from internal conflict.

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Transcript

INTRO

The mental health industry was an $83.7 Billion dollar industry in the United States alone last year. ($532 Billion Globally)

Has a current projected annual growth rate of 4.7%

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, 50 Million Americans last year received a prescription for mental health medications (20% increase from the previous year).

It is fair to assess that there are many who live with internal conflict. Mental health is a very serious issue in our country, an issue which we should take seriously.

While there are many causes and factors that attribute to our mental health, one important factor that is often overlooked is the reality that much of our internal conflict comes from a struggle between flesh and spirit.

I’m not promoting some New Age Zen Guru ideas of becoming one with nature or anything like that. But I am calling us to see the real correlation that more we move away from the One True God that is revealed to us by His Son, Jesus, and His Word, the Bible, the more we see internal conflict and a deterioration of mental health in our culture.

I am sure there are other factors and I know that correlation doesn’t always mean causation, but understanding and knowing that we are created by God on purpose for purpose and that the number of people who reject God and certainly reject His call to follow and obey Him is growing rapidly, I think there is something significant we can derive from such an observation!

There is nothing new under the sun. Internal conflict has always been an issue and today I want to look at an issue of internal conflict and a promise of how we can experience Abundant Peace with Ourselves:

Romans 7:14–8:11 ESV

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

3 OBSERVATIONS ABOUT INTERNAL CONFLICT IN CHRISTIANS AND HOW WE CAN HAVE ABUNDANT PEACE WITH OURSELVES

1) SIN (REBELLION) CREATES INTERNAL CONFLICT! (v.14-24)

Before we came to faith in Jesus, we live by the law of sin and death. Our sinful nature of rebellion was all that we knew and we lived blissfully unaware that we were headed straight for destruction. (7:5)

Once we were shared the truth our rebellion and the reality of its conclusion, we turned away from sin and death and turned to the Spirit of Life made available to us through Jesus.

However, while we have new life, we also carry with us old death. This often leads to internal conflict because we are still tied to an old rebellion while still growing into a new life.

Opportunity is our friend and our enemy…it’s our frenemy.

We have the opportunity to live in freedom from rebellion.

We also have the opportunity stay stuck in rebellion.

We are in quite the predicament!

2) JESUS BRINGS RELEASE FROM CONDEMNATION! (v.25-8:4)

While we have internal conflict, our draw towards rebellion gives way to more rebellion when we talk ourselves into giving up on righteousness.

Rebellion is easy for our flesh.

Often we get discouraged because we feel guilt and shame.

Feelings of guilt and shame make us think we are cursed and condemned to struggle, barely getting through this life.

In reality, Jesus, in God’s Abundant Love brought us Abundant Peace so that we are free from condemnation.

We need to remember this amazing truth!

The guilt and shame we think are condemnation is a really a new language of conviction that we need to learn to recognize.

When we walk in the flesh, the conviction we experience is meant to drive us away from rebellion, not cause us to give up and stay in rebellion.

Guilt and shame are for those who are condemned.

Conviction and motivation are for those who are free from condemnation!

The internal conflict we experience as Christians is the Holy Spirit drawing us into God’s righteousness and away from the flesh.

3)CONVICTION PRODUCES RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH PRODUCES PEACE! (v.5-11)

Living according to God’s Word and walking in His righteousness produces peace in our lives!

The peace we experience from walking in righteousness diminishes the internal conflict we experience.

When our hearts and our desires are set on God and we live in faithfulness to Him we not only grow in understanding of His love and experience His peace, but we also experience peace within our own hearts and minds.

CONCLUSION

IN WHAT WAYS ARE YOU SETTING YOUR MIND ON THE THINGS OF THE FLESH? WHAT INTERNAL CONFLICTS DOES THIS CREATE FOR YOU?

HOW ARE GUILT AND CONDEMNATION KEEPING YOU TIED TO THE FLESH? HOW DOES REALIZING JESUS’ RELEASE FROM CONDEMNATION HELP YOU EMBRACE CONVICTION AND MOTIVATION?

WHAT IS AT LEAST ONE NEW WAY YOU CAN COMMIT TO RIGHTEOUSNESS AND START GROWING IN PEACE?

If you are here this morning and you are a Christian who is living with internal conflict, ask God to show you in what ways you are living in opposition to Him. Ask Him to help you see where your old flesh of death is still being satisfied. Take a moment to confess those sins and agree with God that it is rebellion and ask Him to help you set your mind on the things of the Spirit and to turn away from the things of the flesh.