Good Conflict
I am not sure what your feelings on conflict are? It probably depends on the type of conflict. Around the world we see Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran and we, rightly, don't like this conflict. Closer to home you may have conflict in your family or even here in church. While not pleasant, when we apply the truths of the gospel to ourselves and our conflictees, this kind of conflict can pave the way to new insights about the work God is doing in all of our lives and can result in a greater intimacy with our loved ones.
But there is another kind of conflict that many of you are aware of. It is the internal conflict waging between indwelling sin and our desire to follow the way of the Lord. To use the old language, it is the battle between the old man and the new man. Here is how Paul puts it in Romans 7:21–24: "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 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. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"
But here is the good news! This inner conflict is a sign of life for the believer. Pay close attention to how B.B. Warfield puts it:
"Is there a conflict of sin and holiness in you? asks Paul. This very fact that there is conflict in you is the charter of your salvation. Where the Holy Spirit is not, there conflict is not; sin rules undisputed lord over the life. That there is conflict in you, that you do not rest in complacency in your sin, is a proof that the Spirit of God is within you, leading you to holiness. And all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. This is the purport of the message of the text to us. Paul points us not to the victory of good over evil, but to the conflict of good with evil—not to the end but to the process—as the proof of childship to God. The note of the passage is, thus, not one of fear and despair, but one of hope and triumph.” *
Here is the bottom line, without the Spirit being at work in your life, you simply would not care about following the way of the Lord, but would easily give in to your own idolatrous desires or the exterior temptations of the world. So this very conflict, which at times is so exhausting, is the very sign that God is at work in your life. This, of course, doesn't mean that we stop struggling toward God or putting to death our fleshly desires, but that we do so knowing that God is at work in our life, and that his work in us precedes our obedience to him. Again, in Paul's words, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." (Romans 8:14)
* Sermon the Leading of the Spirit. Quote on pp. 86,87