Episode 2 - Ronny and Tammy Northington

Hey everybody, we are back with the Advent Your podcast.

I've got Ronnie and Tammy in the room

and what we're gonna do is start out

with the Christ in acronym.

David wants us to keep Christ in Christmas,

so he wants us to do a Christmas carol,

or a highlight, or a recipe or refreshment,

or an impact, something made an impact

or it had an influence on you,

or a story, or maybe some part of the Christmas story.

or a tradition. So Ronnie and Tim are going to share one of those things with you,

and then we will go right into the reading of their scriptures for today.

Hello everybody.

I guess for me, what I remember most of all

about Christmas was the tradition in my home

of putting up the Christmas tree.

When I was a young boy, my dad seemed like

that was his favorite time of the whole year

was when we put the Christmas tree up.

And so now today, at my age, I look forward

to putting up the tree and hanging all the lights.

And you know, there's a moment there

when you plug in the Christmas tree

and it really gets real.

You see all the pretty lights and all the,

everything's shining and it's just a beautiful notion.

That's for me, that's what I love.

You know, cause it seems like Christmas gets real

when that happens.

People are nicer at this time of the year.

And I don't know, it just seems like everybody

comes together, you know, during Christmas.

And again, for me, it was the tree.

When I grew up, we didn't really have a whole lot

of traditions and celebrate a lot for Christmas.

So what I see now,

is people put their lives on hold during the season

and they make time for each other

and they think about each other.

They buy gifts for each other.

They send out cards to let you know

they're thinking about you.

They get together, they make time to have fellowship

and spend time with family.

And this is the time of year that they do that

when I don't see that during the year on a regular basis.

I'm reading Romans 6 verses 1 through 11, and I'm reading from the ERV.

Romans 6:1–11

So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us more and more grace?

Of course not.

Our old sinful life ended.

It's dead.

So how can we continue living in sin?

Did you forget that all of us became part of Christ Jesus when we were baptized?

and our baptism we shared in his death.

So when we were baptized, we were buried with Christ

and took part in his death.

And just as Christ was raised from death

by the wonderful power of the Father,

so we can now live a new life.

Christ died, and we have joined with him by dying too.

So when we will also be joined with him,

with him by rising from death as he did.

We know that our old life was put to death

on the cross with Christ.

This happened so our sinful selves

would have no power over us.

Then we would not be slaves to sin.

Anyone who has died is made free from sin's control.

If we died with Christ,

we know that we will also live with him.

Christ was raised from death

and we know that he cannot die again.

Death has no power over him.

Yes, when Christ died,

he died to defeat the power of sin one time,

enough for all time.

He now has a new life and a new life with God.

In the same way, you should see yourselves as being dead

to the power of sin and alive for God through Christ Jesus.

I'm reading Genesis 8.

1 through 19.

But God did not forget about Noah.

God remembered him and all the animals that were with him in the boat.

God made a wind blow over the earth and all the water began to disappear.

Rain stopped falling from the sky and water stopped flowing from under the earth.

The water that covered the earth began to go down.

After 150 days, the water was low enough

that the boat touched land again.

The boat stopped on one of the mountains of Ariat.

This was the 17th day of the 17th month.

The water continued to go down,

and by the first day of the 10th month,

the tops of the mountains were above the water.

Forty days later, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat.

Then he sent out a raven.

The raven flew from place to place until the ground was dry and the water was gone.

Noah also sent out a dove.

He wanted it to find dry ground.

He wanted to know if water still covered the earth.

The dove could not find a place to rest because water still covered the earth.

So the dove came back to the boat.

Noah reached out his hand and caught the dove and brought it back into the boat.

After seven days, Noah again sent out the dove.

And that afternoon the dove came back to Noah.

The dove had a fresh olive leaf in its mouth.

This was a sign to show Noah that there was dry ground on the earth.

Seven days later, Noah sent the dove out again,

but this time the dove didn't come back.

After that, Noah opened the door of the boat.

He looked and saw that the ground was dry.

This was the first day of the first month of the year.

He was 601 years old.

By the 27th day of the second month, the ground was completely dry.

Then God said to Noah, leave the boat.

You, your wife, your sons and your sons' wives should go out now.

Bring every living animal out of the boat with you,

all the birds, animals,

and everything that crawls on the earth.

These animals will make many more animals

and they will fill the earth again.

So Noah went out with his sons, his wife,

and his sons' wives.

All the animals, everything that crawls,

and every bird left the boat.

All the animals came out of the boat in family groups.