Welcome to our Together on Mission podcast, when we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, the scripture, prayer and meditation, and then continue that conversation with him throughout your day. Your hopes to strive is fine. The pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. Hello, Inland family.
How are you? It's me, Carson again. It's my second podcast. And again, I'm just so excited to be here with you guys and yeah, to hang out virtually.
So we're going to be in Romans 6 again. We're going to be there for most of the weeks. We're going to today dive into Romans 6, 6 through 7. Really short.
You ready? Okay, let's go. For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Do we really?
Do I? Do you? Do we really believe that? Do we really believe that we have an old self, and therefore we have a new self?
Do we really believe that the old self who did not know the goodness of Jesus is dead and is gone? We will believe that sin really doesn't slave us. That enslaves us to death and to destruction and shame, and bad things that happen. If you listen to Monday's podcast that I was on, I talked about verse 21 from Romans 6, and it says, what benefit did you reap at the time from the things you were now ashamed of?
I still love that verse. I still have been thinking about it this week. Because sin destroys. It absolutely destroys.
Even if we don't believe it, it does. But God, but God has set us free from sin. Free from having only the choice to sin, from only being able to see sin, free from only thinking and dwelling on sin. God desires for us a full and free and enjoyable life, and he desires for his kids to love their life, to enjoy their life, to be a perfect reflection of him and Jesus and the life that he died for.
And some things about life are hard, and we can't change it. Like our grouchy neighbor or our bad boss or a partner breaking up with us. We can't change what other people do to us, and people sin against us. But some things about life that are hard are hard because of our own choices.
We choose sin. We willingly make a bad decision. And then life is hard because there's natural consequences to our decision. Or we sin unwillingly or struggle with an addictive sin, and then we refuse grace because we believe the enemy's lies and we walk and shame.
Or we don't put any practical steps in place, like community and prayer and self-discipline. We don't fight back. We don't fight against. We just succumb.
So we have to declare ourselves free. We have to believe that sin is destructive, but there is life. We have to believe. We have to declare ourselves free.
We must walk in our life as people set free from sin. We protect ourselves up front with prayer and we read our scripture so we know what sin is so we can stay as far away from it as possible. And then we fight back and worship in community and small groups and hanging out and just doing life with people. And we use the Holy Spirit that we've been given through the resurrection.
We use the Holy Spirit's power to enable us to say no. So my prayer for you today is that when we read this verse or we read any verse about sin, that we would actually be encouraged, that we would be thankful that sin was brought to light so that we could flee from it. So we wouldn't do it anymore. That we would hate sin.
My prayer is that we'd be people who would love freedom. And so again, I just pray that you would feel encouraged and I pray that you would feel emboldened and boldened to flee from sin and to be free. So I'm going to pray for us real quick and then I'll let you go. So Father God, thank you for Jesus and all that he brings and all that he does and did.
And I just pray God that us here at Inland, that Christians all over the world would just hate sin. That we would flee from it. That we'd read our scriptures and that we would know what sin is so that we can run away from it. Because we choose the life that you died for us to have Father God.
We choose to live in freedom. We declare over ourselves right now in the name of Jesus that we are free from the enslavement of sin. Father God, that you are calling us to life, full life. And not just in heaven, but right now you said eternal life.
Eternal future, but also God for eternal present. Father, that you have set us free. So we thank you for that. We glorify you for that.
Let us be your hands and feet. Let us be the visual of life to the full Father God for those around us and our community here in Corona and Riverside and Norco and Eastvale and all around the world. Father God. So yes, I just pray for anyone listening and just people who aren't listening for freedom and for joy, Father God and for peace and Father for hope.
We love you so much, Jesus. Amen. Alright guys, that's it for me. Have a really, really great day.
Bye. Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast. We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by you today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries, or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store and check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.