What Are You Praying For? | Inner Peace

Do you ever feel pulled in two directions inside your own heart? Do you struggle to find peace even when you know what is right? Do you feel tired of trying to fix yourself and still coming up short?
 
 In the middle of that inner conflict, Jesus meets you with good news. The gospel tells us that you are not saved by getting everything right, but by trusting the One who made it right for you. Through Jesus, you are forgiven, covered, and held steady even in the middle of the struggle. This is a foundation that holds when your thoughts feel noisy and your efforts fall short.
 
 You are not alone in the battle within. Scripture speaks honestly about the tension you feel and points to a Savior who steps into it with you. The Holy Spirit is at work, patiently untangling what feels knotted and chaotic, leading you toward real inner peace. As you slow down, pray, and bring your whole self before God, you can begin to experience a deeper calm rooted in Christ, not in your circumstances.
 
 Scripture: Romans 7:15 to 25
 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Romans 7:15
 “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:25
 
 Belong at First Pres by taking the first step: join us for worship on Sundays in person. https://firstprescos.org/belong

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the First Preds Sermon Podcast, where each week we dive into scripture, wrestle with truth, and discover how faith intersects our lives. God's word meets us where we are, challenging, shaping, and calling us into something greater. No matter where you are on your journey, you belong here. And we're praying that this sermon might help you take a next step in faith towards Jesus. Hey, let's dive into today's message together.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Amen. Good morning, church. Good to be with you this morning. We're studying in Romans. Please open your Bible to Romans chapter 7. We're picking up at verse 15 this morning, just right where we left off last week. And as we open our scriptures, let's open our hearts so that God can speak to us by his Spirit. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that this book is not like other books. These words running across the page are not like other words, because you inspired these words by your Holy Spirit. You gave them to us as a gift, and now you're bringing them right in front of us. And we pray, Holy Spirit, that you would open our hearts and minds so that through your word we can hear your voice. All the voices that are rattling around in our heads. We want to hear your voice, Jesus. So speak to us, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Romans 7, 15 to 25. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it. But it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do. But the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it. But it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work in me. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself, in my mind, am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. What are you praying for? We're praying for different things each week. What are you praying for? Today we're praying for inner peace. Inner peace. Who among, okay, show of hands. Who among here is willing to say boldly, hand in the air, you would love a little bit more inner peace? You'd love a little bit, just a little, just a tiny smidge, a sprinkle, just a spoon, just a little, we all need this inner peace. We want inner peace in our lives. I don't want to weird you out, but at the end of the message, what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna take some time of silence because we don't just want to be talking about prayer. We want to be learning, experiencing, practicing prayer. So at the end of this message, we're actually gonna take some time for silence. We all need this inner peace, and this is gonna be a quieting, listening prayer in silence before the Lord. Why would we do that? Why would we do that? I don't bring too many props up into the pulpit, but some of you in this house would have seen me bring this prop up before, or you've seen this illustration before. I love this illustration. Why would we want to stop and be still before the Lord? Well, imagine that this is like your soul, and your soul just gets, it just gets in turmoil. It just gets bumped around, it gets mixed up, and before you know it, it's just so cloudy, it's so confused, it's so twisted up, you can't see clearly through it. You can't really understand what's going on. You start to get darkened, you start to get confused. What does that soul need? To be still. God said in Psalm 46, the Lord says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted. Whoa, where is that? Yeah. Good. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Like if you drop this thing, it's bad news. You need someplace steady to put it. The Lord said, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. But Lord, what's happening with the nations? But Lord, what's happening in the earth? Hmm. Be still and know. We need this inner peace. I don't think I have to do much arguing to convince you that this is something that we need. The rising generation, young adults, kids are called the anxious generation. You know that? Generalized anxiety disorder is the most common mental health diagnosis. It's 20% of the U.S. population. We're just troubled. We're just, we don't know how to stop our souls from all this trouble, all this shaken up. Part of it is we know so much more than we can possibly sort of process, or we know more problems than we could possibly do anything to fix. And so we just we're just stirred up by it all. It's a disturbing world. We're quick to pray for our president, the first lady, everyone in Washington, D.C., all the White House press corps, all these people that were in that room, 3,000 people in that room last night. Because I know that their hearts are still looking like that, don't you think? It's a world that's disturbed. We need peace. How do we find inner peace? Rudyard Kipling is a British poet, he wrote a poem called If. And it's a poem where he takes on a father's voice, encouraging his son to become a man. And it begins with these words. He says, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. Isn't that good? I mean, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies. Or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. And on and on goes. I'm not going to read the whole thing for you, but it's it's things like that. He goes on with all these sort of like, if you can not take money so seriously, you know, if you can uh if you can enjoy uh victories without becoming too triumphant, if you can make it through defeats without getting too too defeated, if you can sort of be uh the same person in front of a king and a commoner, uh, if you can keep going when it's hard, if you can make it through difficult times and turn around and say, I know I did my best. He says, if you can do all these things, he says this at the end, then, if all these things then, yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and which is more, you'll be a man, my son. I like that poem. It's a good poem. But what he's talking about, he's he's trying to encourage, he's saying something about uh being um a man, something about being a mature person, uh, be about being a mature woman, even, would be to be able to kind of keep your head in the storm. Inner peace. Don't we want that? Don't we want more of that? Peace within myself. Does this passage sound like a man who is experiencing inner peace? What do you think? Yeah? Maybe when we get there to the end, right? But he's really honest. And I'm in I'm I'm all I'm all stirred up. Look at verse 15. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. Is anybody relating? I don't understand what I'm doing. I mean, I know what's right, I know what's good, I know what's out there that I'm supposed to do, but I don't do it. And then the thing that I know I don't want to do, I don't I wind up doing it. You know, this is so real, it's so honest, it's so sort of gritty that, you know, scholars have debated: is Paul really talking about himself? I mean, this is so like this wrestling inside. Could there be this much internal turmoil within Saint Paul? Could there be? I believe the answer is yes. And I'm telling you, I'm grateful for it. That he would open up the door and say, I'm wrestling, I'm wrestling. Which is more uh more difficult for you? Is it harder for you to understand what other people do or to understand what you do? Just a quick quick show of hands. Who thinks it's more difficult for me? I have a really hard time, I it's more difficult for me to understand why the people around me are doing what they're doing. Who would put a show of hands, show of hands in the air? Okay, good. And who would say it's actually more difficult for me to understand my own actions? Put your hands in the air. Look at that. Did some of you vote twice? I wasn't watching carefully. Like, I just don't know what's going on. I'm with you. I'm with that second group. Like, I can usually, I feel like usually I can understand why somebody did something. I can think that I can understand. I can I can I kind of get that. If you if that's what you believe, it's probably what you would do. It's my own actions. Like, what in the world? Like, I know what's good. Why am I not doing that? I know what's bad, why is that still in my life? What is going on inside here? I can't understand. If I I can't understand my own actions, and it it it causes uh to just a disturbance in the inner peace. Let's put it that way. Look at this, verse 16. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. What's he saying? This is an important point. I want you to know, I want you to see this. What he's saying is, I'm not going to change what is good and bad because of what I'm inclined to do. Just because I make certain actions and choices, that doesn't mean that I can fundamentally alter the nature of the universe and what's good and what's bad. He says, I know God's law is good, and I know God's law is not going to change. I know what is that right and wrong. Those aren't going to change up there. God's law, I'm not saying that God's law needs to be shifted to match my struggle. What I'm saying is, God's law is good, I can't keep it. I don't understand why I don't do it. That's the struggle. Do you see that? This is actually the conundrum that Socrates carried to the grave, the great Greek philosopher. He believed that if I teach my students what's good, then they will do what is good. And so he taught them what is good. He argued what is good is watertight. Great philosophy. Here's what's good. And what did his students do? They were knuckleheads all the way down. Right? I told you what was good. And then you're doing that. And then what's more, Socrates realized, hmm, same fight's going on in here. The hardest battle I've got is to know and understand myself. I know what's good, and I can't do what's good. What's going on here is there's another force at play, and Paul gives us the name of it. He names it for us. It's called sin. Verse 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. Now don't read this and think this is Paul saying, Oh, I'm not responsible for my actions. You know, the devil made me do it, sin made me do it, you know, or it's just, or uh in kind of in our times, it's just my genetic code. There's nothing I can do about it, right? Like there's there's there's forces outside of me, and I'm not responsible for my own behavior. That's not what Paul is saying. He's saying, I own this, this is mine. But there's another force at play if I am going to find inner peace. And that force is sin. And it's pushing on me, it's wrecking me. It jumps up and attacks me when I try to find peace. Verse 18. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me. That is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep going. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. He's not saying, oh, the devil made me do it. Like it's not my responsibility. What he's saying is there's a force, there's a power, there's something pushing against me, there's something I have to fight against. And it's still on me. It's still in me, it's still holding me back, and it's sabotaging my life. Between my good intentions and my actions, there's sabotage. Eugene Peterson wrote this Bible version called the message. And he puts this passage this way: I need something more. For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help. I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it. I decide not to do bad, and then I do it anyway. Something has gone wrong deep within me. And it gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. What is sin? I I like what uh Pastor Glenn Pacquiaum wrote about sin. He said, sin, the problem of sin, to put it another way, the problem of sin is that it is a contagion and a captivity which involves our complicity. What does that mean? We like we think of that last one, complicit, like that's something I did. Sin is something I did. It's a crime on my record, it's a choice that I made that was wrong. But you know what? Sin is more than that. Sin is a contagion. It's like a sickness that starts getting in your blood. Sin is a captivity, it's like a chain that holds you down, sits on your chest, pushes you. Sin is so much worse. Sin is more than just a bad choice you made. Sin is a force that is pushing you away from life. Imagine if you betray your true King Jesus. When you betray your true King Jesus, you get trapped in your own betrayal. What do I mean? Imagine you betray your king. All right, first you have to imagine you have a king. So imagine you're living in the Middle Ages, it's the year 971, and you're living in a little kingdom, and it's a nice little kingdom, it's a really nice king. Okay, and you betrayed him. What do you want to do now? Really, what would you do? Try to fix it? Try to lie? Lie about it? Do you want the king to see you? No way. Do you want his people to see you? No way. What are you gonna do? You're gonna go hide. You're gonna run. You're gonna lie to cover it up. And then you're gonna lie to cover up that lie. And every time you lie, every time you you make another choice, the lie gets easier. The second lie is easier than the first. The third lie is easier than the second. And all of a sudden, you've got a web of lies that you're trying to cover your betrayal. And you want to hide from all of it. You want to run from all of it. And all of a sudden there's momentum that is pushing you, pushing you. Just because you betrayed your one true king, there's this momentum pushing you, pushing you away from where you truly belong, your home. And how are you going to escape that? Look at this, verse 21. So I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law. I delight in, but I see another law at work in me. Waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. Church, I admit, I love this passage. I am grateful that this is in the Bible. I am so glad this is in the Bible. Not just because of the way that it reveals that inner battle and turmoil of the soul, the psychological insight, I mean the spiritual insight of what's going on inside of us. Not just because of that. I love this passage and I'm glad that it's here. Because I can relate. Can't you? The fight is going on, the struggle is going on. The battle still rages. Now wait a minute, you say. A prisoner of the law of sin. How can you be a prisoner? Weren't we set free by Christ? Didn't we just go through Easter and we were set free? We were liberated. We were set free from the chains of death. Jesus broke the chains. I'm forgiven, I'm free. Isn't that true? Have you ever heard this saying? You can take a man out of the prison. But can you take the prison out of the man? Right? You're free. But you're acting like you're in chains. Here's what happens. Let's understand this. Let's go deep. Let's get down to the theology here. Justification. That's the word for when you're forgiven, you're set free. You no longer are accountable for your sins. Jesus has paid for your sins. Go back to Romans 5. Therefore, since we have been, what's that word? Justified. We've been justified by faith, through faith, we have, and what's that word? Peace with God. With just justification. Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have your faith in Jesus Christ, here's what's happened. Jesus Christ has paid for your sins on the cross. He came and he bore your sins on the cross and he paid the debt and penalty for them. You are no longer held to account for those sins. You've been justified to the Lord. You have been justified. You've been forgiven of those sins. And now what happens? Now God starts to change you. And that change is a fight. That change is a struggle. Because you know what? Your body, your physical body, is a repository of habits. Your body loves routine, loves to do the same thing in response to the same stimuli. Your neural pathways literally are trained to fire off in the same direction given the certain stimuli so that you save energy. You are created for habit. And here's the bad news: the habits of your flesh have trained you, have formed you, have habituated you to disobedience, rebellion against God. And when you're justified, when you know the Lord, when you say yes to Jesus, when you have Him in your life, all of that isn't gonna go away like a lightning flash. It's gonna take time and struggle and fight. That's what we're looking at here in this passage. You're not a prisoner, you've been set free, but you still act. Some Christians see taught that salvation happens like this. You, you, you, you're far from God, you've fallen in sin, you're not worthy of salvation, and and so you can't be in the presence of a holy God. And so God sent his son Jesus Christ to take that sin. He paid the penalty for the sin on the cross. And now your debt is at zero. Your debt is at zero. And here's what's going to happen. Even though your debt is at zero, this is how some people teach salvation. Even though your debt is at zero, you're still fundamentally a sinful and selfish person, and that's going to get you off track. And so what God is going to do, God is going to infuse, infuse righteousness into you like an injection.

unknown 22:37

Psh, psh.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

God's going to inject goodness in you. He's going to keep injecting, injecting, injecting until you actually change to where you can say, you know what? I think I am righteous. I think I am worthy now to walk through the front gates of the kingdom of heaven. You've been infused with the righteousness that changed you to the point where God could say, Yes, you are worthy. What do you think of that? Are you following me? The scriptures, Romans, Paul are a little wiser than that. They say, you know what? It isn't that God is waiting for me to get good enough to be worthy of salvation. It isn't that God is going to send righteousness into me until I get past these patterns of sin. There's something else that's going to happen. We use a word, we use a word called impute. Isn't that a great word? Yeah, you want to say that with me? Impute. What does that mean? It means you know what? God's not waiting for the infusions of goodness to make you a person worthy of salvation. God has covered you over with the righteousness of Christ. He imputes Christ's righteousness over you. We are covered by the blood of Jesus. If you are in Christ, if you are saved, you are at one and the same time. You are both a sinner and justified. Why? Because God's not waiting for you to live up to righteousness. He is imputing the righteousness of Christ, crediting the righteousness of Christ on your behalf, and you are His. And what does that mean? Now, what does the Holy Spirit do? Well, now the Holy Spirit enters your life and starts to help you walk that out and help you become who you truly are. And listen to me now. The more you cooperate with the Holy Spirit in that work, the more you say yes, yes, the more you try to walk with them, the more you respond to the Holy Spirit pulling you in that direction, the more you will experience inner peace. And wouldn't that be good? Wouldn't you like? I mean, wouldn't you like to be like the master of peace, right? Wouldn't you like to be uh unflappable, unimperturbable? Like nothing can push you off your point, you know? Like you're just whatever situation, wouldn't you like to just be totally, you know, to use a uh a Buddhist word, totally what? Zen, right? Zen. Just nothing can move me, nothing can push me. That's what the Stoics wanted. To be totally stoic, to be totally secure, to be like a stone statue. You can't push me off my point. I'm not feeling anything too high, too low. No emotion can stir me up. I am just, I'm like a stone statue, resting my whole life on myself. Wouldn't that be good? You can try. This is gonna be a fight. This is gonna be a struggle. Because when I look in here, what I see is a whole jumble of warring factions. Amen. I mean, I've got desires and intentions, and I've got longings and needs. I've got uh values and beliefs that are noble and worthy, and I've got uh reactive wounds and I've got uh selfish intentions. I have high thoughts and little selfish tricks, and they are all jumbled up. But you know what else is in here? It's the Holy Spirit of God holding me steady, quietly and carefully unwrapping these painful knots and bringing peace. And you know what I wish? I wish you would get on with it. Right? Get her done. Because the more these roots are in the soil, the roots of the spirit, the fruit of those roots is love, joy, peace. What you're seeing in this passage is a man in the fight, not a man sitting there solid and steady, knowing that nothing can push him off his mark. What you're seeing is a man who knows there's a mess inside here, there's a big mess, and I've got no hope except for the hope of the Savior to come and intervene. I've got the Spirit of God working in me, but this is gonna be a fight. And he comes to the conclusion, he looks inside himself, he's trying to impress these Romans. He's gonna come and try to use them to be a fulcrum point, like a jumping off point to spread the gospel to all of Europe. Like I really want you guys to be impressed by me. But he opens the book and he says, You know what's inside here? I'm gonna tell you the truth. It's a mess. And if I'm gonna come to a conclusion about what's going on inside, here's the conclusion I reach is this if I'm gonna be honest with you, there's too much of a mess in here for me to even function. Look at verse 24. What does he say? What a wretched man I am. But who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? My body is a is a repository of habits. It has been trained to disobey. And every time I try to do good, it just jumps onto the evil again. Every time I try to break free, it just pulls me back into the habits. It's gonna take a long, long time for me to get there. The mess is real, but so is the Savior. And so thanks be to God. Our last verse, thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. So he summarizes, so then, you know, I myself, in my mind, I'm a in my mind I'm a slave to God's law. I know it, I believe it. But in my sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin and the struggle. It's like a it's like a chick trying to break out of an egg. It's like a uh a caterpillar trying to push out of the cocoon. It hurts, but it's good. And the more you cooperate with the Spirit of God doing that in your life, the more you will know inner peace and be a person of peace. I'm grateful for this passage. I truly am. Hope you are too. Grateful for it. As I'm grateful for the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. How do you picture Jesus? Do you see Jesus as this kind of um imperturbable marble statue, like someone who's just kind of above it all, totally zen, stoic in all circumstances? Do you see Jesus that way? Sometimes he's that way, isn't he? It's like you can't mess with me. No matter how much of a mess or how much of a fire you're making out here, you can't get in here. Human confusion doesn't push me off of divine peace. Didn't you like that sometimes? Remember when the disciples were out on the on the storm in the Sea of Galilee and the waves were flowing into the boat? Where was Jesus? Where was Jesus? He's asleep in the back of the boat. Yeah, Jesus, he's above the waves of this world, that's for sure. You know? But here's the thing: Jesus decided to take on the distress and the disturbance. Luke says, He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them. He knelt down and prayed. Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but yours be done. An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. Why does Jesus need help? Why does Jesus need strengthening? Well, here's why. And being in anguish, and being stirred up, and being in turmoil, and being in distress, and being all twisted up. He prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Listen to me, Jesus took on our distress so you and I could know peace. He earned it for us. That's where you rest your soul. That's where you rest your soul in Jesus. So we're gonna take a little bit of time to do that. I'm gonna pray a quick prayer, and this is just a time of silence for you to invite the Lord to settle your heart, to settle your soul. Invite the Holy Spirit to work on those knots. Rest your soul in Him. I'm gonna pray quickly, and we're gonna go into silence. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are our inner peace. Lord, grant me the peace to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Lord, in this quiet space. Help me to settle my soul, to rest my soul on you, my peace. Lord, hold on to my soul and be the base, the foundation. Lord, hold me in peace in a world that is just in turmoil. Make us a people, a church, a body, a family that is able to walk out of here, held in your grip, held firmly in your grip of peace. So, Jesus, that your peace would shine through our lives, would be a stark contrast and a blessing to our schools, our workplaces, our friendships, our families. Lord, make us men and women of peace, and make your peace known to the glory of your name.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

In Jesus' name we pray. Hearing God's word is just the beginning. What connected with you? What challenged you today? Maybe it's surrendering something, stepping into community, or simply trusting Him more deeply. Whatever it is, don't leave it for later. Act on it today. We're praying that this message moves you closer to Jesus. And we'd love to walk with you in that journey and answer any questions you've got. Connect with us by visiting firstprintscos.org. Hey, if today's message encouraged you, take a moment and subscribe so you never miss an episode and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Check in next week and we'll continue to grow in our faith together. See you next time.