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That's ascensionpress. Com/support. Thank you and God bless. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter.

God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture.

The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is a 325. That's 325 if you add three and the two, you get five. That's today. We're reading Acts of the Apostles, Chapter four, as well as Romans, chapters six and seven.

And.

Proverbs, Chapter 27: 4-6. As always, the Bible translation.

I'm reading from is the revised.

Standard version, second Catholic edition. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a year.

Reading plan.

Finally, you can visit ascensionpress. Com/biblein theyear. You can also subscribe to this podcast and receive daily episodes and daily updates every single day.

Including.

Day 3:25. You would know what to read, and it is day, 3:25, reading Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, Romans 6:7, and Proverbs chapter 27, verses 4-6. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4.

Peter and John.

Before the Council.

As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. They arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of men came to about 5,000. On the next day, the rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem with Anas the high priest, and Caiaphus and John and.

Alexander and all who were of.

The High.

Priestly family.

When they had set them in their midst, they inquired, By.

What power.

Or by what name did you do this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the.

People and elders.

If we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a cripple, by what means this man has been healed, be it known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This is the stone which was rejected by you.

Builders.

But which has become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man that had been healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to go aside, out of the counsel, they conferred with one another, saying, What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is manifest to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. They called them, encouraged them not to speak or teach at all in the name.

Of Jesus.

But Peter and John answered them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people. For all men praised God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old. The believers pray for boldness. When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who, by the mouth of our Father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples imagine vain things? The Kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed. For truly, in this city, they were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal. Signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. The believers.

Shared their possessions.

Now, the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possess was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power, the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not anyone needy among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to each as any had need. Thus, Joseph, who was surname by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a Levi, a native of Cyprus, sold a field which belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the Apostle's feet. The letter of St. Paul to the Romans.

Chapter six.

Dying and rising with Christ. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we, who died to sin, still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him, by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection.

Like his.

We know that our former man was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in.

Christ Jesus.

Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey their passions.

Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to.

Life.

And your members to God as instruments of righteousness, for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace, slaves of sin or of righteousness. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

But thanks be to God.

That you, who are once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness.

I'm.

Speaking in.

Human terms.

Because of your natural limitations. For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Chapter 7.

The analogy with marriage. Do you not know, brethren, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is discharged.

From the.

Law concerning her husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulterous if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. If she marries another man, she is not an adulterous.

Likewise, my brethren.

You have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code, but in the new life of the Spirit. The law and sin. What then shall we say?

That the law is sin?

By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all.

Kinds of covetousness.

Apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive, apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. The very commandment, which promised life, proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me.

So the.

Law is.

Holy.

And the commandment is holy and just and good. The interior conflict between good and evil. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means. It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment, might become sinful beyond measure. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin, which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I.

Cannot do it.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 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 inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So then.

I of myself serve the law of God with my mind.

But.

With my flesh, I serve the law of sin.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 27, verses 4-6. Wrath is cruel.

Anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Profuse are.

The kisses of an enemy.

Father and heaven, we give you praise. Thank you so much. Gosh, Lord God, as we just keep hearing about your grace, that has just poured out on us.

Your grace.

Which comes to.

Meet us in our brokenness.

Help us just to say yes.

Help us to say yes to your grace.

Help us to say yes to your gift.

Lord God, right.

Now, help us to say yes to you that you may be glorified in everything we think, everything we say, and everything we do, that you.

May be known.

And that more.

And more.

People may love you and that.

You may be loved by more and more.

Of our heart. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, gosh. Let's go back to the Acts of the Apostles first. Oh, goodness gracious. Okay, so at the beginning, what do we have? The context, of course, Peter and John, going into the temple. There was the man who was crippled, right? He couldn't walk. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Lord heals him through Peter. This is incredible. Now, what happens is they're being brought before the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees. Now, I love that this says they're annoyed because they're annoyed. The Sadducees are annoyed, captain of the temple priests, they're annoyed. All those people are annoyed. Why are they annoyed? This is the interesting thing. They're annoyed because.

They were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the.

Resurrection of the dead. Remember the Sadducees? The difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees? There's a lot of differences, but the Sadducees, they only believed in the first five books of Moses. The Sadducees.

Didn't believe.

In angels. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. One of the ways we can remember that, of course, is that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, and the Sadducees didn't.

That's why they were.

Sad, you see? Old joke. But it says merely that they were annoyed. I think that that is interesting. Anyways, here is Peter and.

John, they're.

Brought before the council, that St. Heteran, the same people that they were.

Both Peter and John were in the presence of.

Essentially, during.

Jesus'.

Trial, which is.

Remarkable to remember.

Because the first time, we.

Don't hear anything about John. We know that John.

Went all the way with Jesus to the crucifixion. But we did hear about Peter, and we do know that Peter, he failed. In that moment, he was not bold. In that moment, he cracked and he denied knowing Jesus at three times.

Yet now, this is incredible. Verse 8, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, 'Rulers are the people and elders. If we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a cripple by what means this man has been healed, be it known to you all and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him, this man is.

Standing before you well. ' He goes on to say, This is incredible.

This is a.

Cornerstone line, not only because it speaks about the cornerstone in verse 11, but in.

Verse 12, the line is, And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

This is huge.

Because Jesus himself had said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to.

The Father except through me. Here's Peter.

Who's making it very clear. There is salvation and no one else. There's no other under heaven.

Given among men by which we must be saved. Now, the key word, I think, of chapter four is boldness. Keyword of chapter four is it says multiple times.

That they're filled with boldness.

This is remarkable. Observing them to be common, ordinary, uneducated men.

And yet they have this new quality and the quality is not theirs.

It says they.

Recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Oh, my gosh, you guys, chapter four, this is one of those chapters in the Acts of the Apostles. You want to have a pen. You want to have some thing to mark this down. Not only here is Peter's boldness, not only is this no other name given under heaven, which must you say, but even this, they were different.

And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

There's something about that for all of us that's the key, that's the core, which is.

If we've been with Jesus, we should look different.

That if we've been with Jesus.

We should.

Look like him. As Jeff noted a couple of days ago in the intro to this last age, the final time period of the Church.

You.

Have Peter who looks a lot like Jesus. Later on after chapter eight, we're going to see Paul who looks a lot like Jesus. That's what we're called to be. We're called to look like Jesus. I just love this. It keeps going. I don't want to say everything. I just repeat the entire chapter again. Gosh. But it says, They called on them — this is verse 18 in chapter four —.

They called on them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

But Peter and John answered them.

'whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to rather than to.

God, you must judge. For we cannot speak of what we have seen and heard, ' in verse 21.

And when they had further threatened them, they let them.

Go, finding no way to punish them. Because why?

Because you can't stop someone who's already dead. You can't threaten someone who's already dead. Peter and John, they've already.

Died to themselves out of love for Jesus Christ. Now, last couple of things I want to highlight is that what happens from this, in verse 23, they're released. They went to their friends, reported what the chief priests and elders had told them.

When they heard it, they all began to pray. What did they pray for?

This is incredible. They don't say, God, there's a lot of danger out there and a lot of opposition, so make it safe. God, there's a lot of opposition out there, a lot of danger, so take.

Away the danger.

What they pray.

For is they say.

In.

Verse 29.

And now, Lord.

Look upon their threats.

And grant to your servants to speak Your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.

It's incredible.

Do not.

Pray for an easy life.

Pray for the strength.

To face life. Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the courage.

To face life. Not pray for an easy way to follow Jesus. Pray for boldness to.

Be able to do this. This is just the secret of the saints, and this is the secret of Acts, chapter four.

These people were already living in boldness. They were already speaking in boldness.

They said.

Instead of God take away the danger, they said, Give us more boldness.

Lord Jesus, stretch out your hand and.

Do miracles so that more and more people will know that you.

Are the Messiah, that you are the one who conquered death and has restored life to all of us. How great is this? You guys, this is amazing. Romans, chapter six and seven, there's too much to say. There's too much to say. But let's begin. Let's try to say something. In verse six, I love this. In six and seven, Paul has this pattern. Maybe you noticed it. Maybe you didn't notice it. He will say something and then he'll, not his bets, he will qualify it.

He'll say, What shall we say then?

Are we.

To continue in sin that grace may have bound? By no means.

He says, What then? Are we to sin because we're not under the law but under grace? By no means. He'll ask those questions and say, No, that's not what I meant, just anticipating. It's a literary device and it's great because it clarifies some things, because at.

The end of chapter five, St.

Paul had said that so.

That as sin reigned in death.

Grace also.

Might reign through righteousness.

Then he asked the.

Question, Are we saying then.

Continuing sin, the grace.

May abound? Because here's.

What St. Paul was saying, The more sin, the.

More grace. The more we need God's grace because of our sin.

The more he gives his grace because of our need.

Then the question could be, Well, shoot, in that case, how.

About I sin more and.

Get more grace? That's why St. Paul says, No, that's not the point. When you need the grace, grace is given. But don't go injuring yourself in order to get more grace. But the reality, of course, is that's the power of God's healing, power of God's grace, is we can be.

Trucking along.

At a certain level of relationship with.

The Lord, at certain level of holiness and.

Just his.

Divine life in us, and then we fall into sin. What happens when we repent and turn back to the Lord? We go.

To confession.

God doesn't just raise us.

Back up to the same.

Level we were. He raises us up and elevates.

Even further because we're grace abounds... We're sorry.

We're sin.

Abounds, grace.

Abounds all the more.

But that's why he clarifies. Don't go looking for sin so you get more grace.

But if you happen to need the grace, you can trust in.

The love of God for you to give you even more. Hopefully, that makes sense because he was on to talk about, Those of us who were baptized into Christ, baptized into his death, we were buried therefore.

This reality, of.

Course, is that.

The old man, the.

Former man, he calls it.

The old man being our fallen flesh.

Is meant to have been crucified with Christ in our baptism.

That when we actually repented, we turned away.

Not just from sin, not just from vice, not just from old habits.

We turned away from that person. I was someone different before I encountered Christ. I was someone different before he saved me. He's made me into a new creation.

I turned from that and let that person die. I remember going to confession to a priest. At one point, he said, You know what? I think sometimes.

We would rather just torture the.

Old man, or what St. Paul says here, the former man.

Rather than actually let him die.

Because he was highlighting how.

Sometimes we don't.

Really fully turn away from that former way of life. Sometimes we don't.

Really fully.

Turn away from.

That sin.

He can use that term of phrase to be able to say, Sometimes I think.

We just tortured the old man.

Rather than.

Actually let him die.

Keep him alive a little bit and maybe he'll have some power in our lives.

But.

As St. Paul says.

We know that our former man was crucified.

With him so that the sinful body might be destroyed and that we might no longer be slaves of sin. That's verse 6 in chapter 6. For he who has died is freed from sin. So if we've died with Christ, we believe we should also live with him because that's just the whole, this incredible mystery. Gosh, there's so much to say. I'm going to just jump to the end in chapter 7 because there is so much good. But there's also this sense of, Oh, my gosh, Paul understands me. In chapter 7, this is another place we might want to just have that highlighter out there, that pen, that pencil, whatever it is, to be able to write your notes to.

Underline.

These.

We.

Recognize.

He says, The.

Interior conflict between good and evil. This is one of those passages of scripture that you might say, Oh, my gosh, this is me. If it's not, that's great. Praise the Lord for that. But I read it and think, Oh, God, at least you understand me. So does Paul. He says, I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.

He ever felt like that?

That we're at war within ourselves.

He even says that. He says, Now, if I.

Do what I do not want, I agree the law is good.

Yeah, because I don't.

Want this. I want the right. I don't want the wrong. So then it's no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.

That recognition that, yes, there's this brokenness.

When.

St. Paul uses the terms the flesh, he's not defending our bodies.

The flesh means the fallen human nature, our fallen human nature.

Keep that in mind. Whenever you hear.

The term that St. Paul uses the flesh, but I don't know if there's any exceptions, St.

Paul refers.

To the flesh that means our fallen human nature. It doesn't mean that bodies are bad. It's just that part of us that doesn't want to do the right thing, essentially. But I love this. He says, So I find it to be a law when I want to do right, evil eyes, close at hands, is chapter 7, verse 21.

I see in my members another law, a war with a law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin, which dwells on my members. Then he cries out in verse 24, Wretchard man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death and...

In the very next verse, he just inserts this praise and he says, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Just like.

I'm still a mess.

Here I am a puddle of messiness, but thanks be God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

That's the key, in the middle of the mess.

To be able to praise God for his presence, for what he's doing in the midst of that mess. You guys, I don't mean to take any more of your time today. It has.

Been an incredible gift to, man, be in what, day four, I guess now, of the age of the church.

And just be trucking along here. I think I've used that term twice today.

Oh, well, here we are.

I'm telling you, I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.