Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we are continuing our teaching
series called Growing Season, where we're looking
at what we can learn about faith from life on
the farm. What's something that you do every
single day? Maybe you wake up, maybe you brush
your teeth, you drink your coffee. These are
the rhythms that keep us going from one day to
the next. But what about in your faith? What
rhythms keep you going? That's what Rob is going
to unpack for us in today's sermon. Today's reading
is Psalm 1. yields its fruit in season, and whose
leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked. They are like chaff that the
wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not
stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly
of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the
way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked
leads to destruction. The word of the Lord. We
are doing this summer teaching series, which
we are calling Growing Season, and we're discovering
what farming can teach us about growing spiritually.
The Bible says in Psalm 95 that God is a great
God and that we are the people of his pasture.
We are the people of his pasture. We are the
sheep of his hands. Or today I might say we are
his herd. Now, I realize that when I start a
sermon that way and I start referring to the
congregation as livestock, right, that things
can go downhill pretty quickly. But what I'm
going to do is try my dairy best to explain how
utterly amazing. God is by talking about how
God grows us. And I've given you some sermon
notes to kind of follow along today. So obviously
from that video, you know that I grew up on our
family dairy farm and there was a rhythm around
which everything else on the dairy farm revolved.
And it wasn't planting time and it wasn't harvest
time. It was milking time. And in fact, if anybody
wants to understand what life on a dairy farm
is like, you just have to explain to them about
the milking and that will tell them just about
everything that they need to know. Because dairy
farming depends on a daily rhythm. Every cow
will produce somewhere, I think, between like
5 and 10 gallons of milk a day. But they had
to be milked at least twice a day. Otherwise,
things could get pretty uncomfortable for the
cow. And so every morning, And every evening,
you had an appointment that could not be canceled.
And farmers knew about this appointment. The
cows knew about this appointment. And it didn't
really matter when. It was 365 days a year. Christmas
mornings, you still had to milk the cows. Easter
mornings, you still had to milk the cows. You
know, if you had a funeral that day, if you had
another commitment that day, if you had a birthday,
if there was a snowstorm, the cows did not care.
the cows did not care every morning every evening
you had to be there and everything else on the
farm revolved around that rhythm everything else
in your life revolved around that rhythm meals
were planned around it sports were planned around
it family gatherings were planned around it vacations
were not impossible but it meant that you had
to find somebody who was going to come in and
do the milking for you while you were gone dad
couldn't simply just lock the door and walk away
and say i'm going to come back in a week the
rhythm came first and everything else came second
and and some people when they hear this they
think oh my goodness that sounds so restrictive
and i admit that sometimes it did feel that way
there were certain days when i wish that the
cows would just take a day off But if you talk
to a retired farmer, they will usually admit
that they do kind of miss it. They don't miss
the hard work, as my dad said. They don't miss
getting up early. They don't miss cleaning out
the barn. But what they miss... is that rhythm
to life. Because after years and years and years
of living that way, every morning, every night,
every morning, every night, every morning, that
rhythm does something to you. It gives structure
to your days. It gives shape to your weeks. And
it ultimately gives you a framework for your
entire life. Now, the same is true in our spiritual
lives. Faith grows through rhythms, not so much
through moments. We love... Big, flashy moments,
right? We love the breakthroughs, the life -changing
experiences, the dramatic stories of transformation.
We love that kind of stuff. And social media,
I think, also trains us to look for the highlights,
to look for the milestones, the big announcements,
the mountaintop experiences that are in people's
lives. We rarely, rarely, rarely see the ordinary
routines of life. Culture prefers dramatic moments.
over daily rhythms. And because of that, it begins
to affect how we think about our faith. We imagine,
therefore, that spiritual growth must also happen
through great big dramatic events. I went to
a great big conference and it changed my life.
I went away on a spiritual retreat and I came
back transformed. We had an amazing, powerful
worship experience and everything's different
now. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't moments
in our lives that are transformative. There certainly
are. And the Bible is full of transformative
moments of burning bushes and mountaintops and
miracles. But most of the time, most of the time,
I think God operates the same way that a dairy
farm operates one ordinary day at a time. Every
morning, every night, this rhythm. You know,
Psalm 1 tells us that blessed is the one whose
delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates
on his law day and night, day and night, morning
and evening, week in, week out, again and again.
It's not a moment. It's a rhythm. It's not about
intensity. It's about consistency. Nobody ever
became a successful dairy farmer by milking enthusiastically
once a month. No farmer says, you know, today
is the day. I'm going to go out and I'm going
to milk the heck out of those cows. I'm going
to give it everything I've got. I'm going to
milk these cows once and for all. No, that's
not what cows need. Cows do not need one spectacular
milking. They need a regular one. the herd survives
because someone keeps showing up day after day
again and again and again morning and evening
day after day morning and evening week after
week year after year healthy things grow that
way healthy things grow through rhythms not through
occasional bursts of enthusiasm a marriage isn't
built by one romantic weekend once a year a friendship
is not sustained because you have one really
long phone call every decade a church like ours
does not become healthy because of one inspiring
Sunday morning, right? No. And our faith does
not mature in one kind of powerful moment. No.
Spiritual growth is usually gradual. It is not
sudden. It accumulates through repeated acts
of returning to God again and again, saying a
prayer, reading your Bible, going to worship,
confessing your sins. None of those things on
their own Feels dramatic at the time. But over
time, over time, those repeated returns to God
begin to form us. Psalm 1, again, uses the image.
of this tree. Now, a tree does not flourish because
it had one dramatic encounter with water a decade
ago. It flourishes because its roots remain near
the stream, daily drawing life from that stream.
It keeps receiving nourishment, and that's a
picture of the blessed life. It's not about spiritual
fireworks. It's about a life that is shaped by
a repeated return to God. And here's why. Here's
why. What we do repeatedly becomes part of who
we are. You see, at first, when you start a new
rhythm, it just feels like something you do.
But eventually, a rhythm becomes part of who
you are. You know, ask my dad. My dad did not
sit there lying in bed every morning saying,
hmm, this morning, do I feel called to get up
and go and milk the cows? Is that what I'm feeling?
Is that what I want to do today? No, it was part
of who he was. He was a dairy farmer. It was
his identity. And that's just who he was. The
things that we return to shape the people that
we become. If we return to bad habits, those
shape us. If we return to unhealthy relationships,
those shape us. If we return to destructive habits,
those shape us as well. But if we repeatedly
return to God, then slowly but surely, God begins
to shape us and our lives begin to change. Our
desires begin to change. Our character begins
to change. We see this in Jesus, don't we? In
Luke 5, 16, we read that Jesus often withdrew
to lonely places and prayed. And that key word
there, often. Jesus didn't do this just once.
He didn't just do it even occasionally. He didn't
just do it when his life was falling apart. No,
he did it often. He did it regularly. He did
it rhythmically. Jesus was not sustained by occasional
spiritual highs. He kept returning to the Father.
He kept withdrawing for times of prayer. And
he kept rooting his life in the presence of God.
And if Jesus... was kind of governed by rhythms
like this, then what would make us think that
we can have a flourishing spirituality without
rhythms as well? So that is the first thing I
think we learn from the dairy farm, the dairy
farmer, is that faith grows through rhythms,
not through moments. But secondly, those rhythms
need to continue through every season. Now, on
a dairy farm, the rhythm of milking did not only
happen, when life was convenient. It happened
when the sun was shining, which is great, but
it also happened when the snow was blowing in
sideways. It happened whether dad felt healthy
or whether he was sick or had a flu or was under
the weather. There were no sick days on the farm,
right? Milking happened whether it was an ordinary
Tuesday or whether it was a Christmas morning.
And the same is true with faith. There are seasons,
I think, when faith feels oh so natural and prayer
feels easy and worship feels joyful. Seasons
when your heart is full and gratitude comes easy.
Wonderful. Great. But there are also seasons
when everything feels like a burden. Everything
feels harder. When you are tired. When you are
grieving. When you're disappointed. What do you
do then? What do you do in those seasons? Well,
healthy rhythms persist through the ups and downs
of life, just like on the dairy farm, right?
Keeping those spiritual habits going in difficult
times doesn't mean that you're just ignoring
your feelings or you're pretending you're not
feeling the way you're feeling, but actually
a healthy rhythm gives us somewhere to bring
those feelings, to bring your grief, to bring
your anger, to bring your confusion or your fear.
So in that way, having a spiritual rhythm to
your life keeps carrying you when your feelings
cannot. And the Bible, of course, look at the
Bible. It's full of prayers for every season
of life. The Psalms, there are Psalms of praise.
There are Psalms of lament. There are songs of
thanksgiving, but there are also songs of desperation,
which means that prayer persists through all
the different seasons. Let me give you just one
example. Many of us are familiar with this particular
piece of scriptures from Lamentations 3 .23.
His mercies are new every morning. It's one of
the most beloved pieces of scripture. People
have it, you know, printed on, you know, needlework
and hung in their bedrooms. But we need to remember
that when this was written, it was written from
the ruins. right jerusalem had just been destroyed
the temple had been torn down the people were
grieving and the poet who wrote this is not sipping
coffee looking out at a bright sunny day he's
standing in the wreckage of his life and he's
still saying his mercies are new every morning
how can that be because That poet, that writer
had developed a rhythm and rhythms teach us that
we return to God every day, not because we feel
especially spiritual, but because that is where
we can go to meet with God. And here is the thing,
and this is really important. And as I was thinking,
this might be one of the most important things
we're going to learn today. And that is that
the rhythms that we establish in ordinary days
are the ones that will sustain us. in the difficult
days. In fact, in that sense, there really are
no ordinary days. An ordinary day is actually
a day when your roots are just growing a little
deeper, where your hearts are being formed a
little more. And that is so important because
there's going to come a day. There's going to
come a difficult day. And in that moment, You
might not just rise to the occasion. Instead,
what we normally do when difficulties come is
we fall back onto the rhythms that have already
shaped us. Right? So let's take another story.
Take Daniel's story. Daniel was ripped from his
homeland. He was sent into an enemy culture,
and he faced this new law that said you're not
even allowed to pray. But still we read that
Daniel went home. He got down on his knees. And
he prayed and gave thanks to God just as he had
done before. And that phrase matters, just as
he had done before. The crisis that Daniel was
going through did not create his rhythm. It revealed
the rhythm. Daniel was faithful in this extraordinary
moment. Because he had been formed by countless
ordinary moments, ordinary rhythms for years
and years and years. The ordinary moments that
we spend with God matter because one day it'll
be a difficult morning, right? One day, you know,
the ordinary worship services, and maybe today
it feels like just an ordinary worship service,
it matters. Because one Sunday you're going to
come to church and you're going to be grieving.
And when that season comes, the rhythm is already
there for you. You know, you don't prepare for
the blizzard in the blizzard. You don't prepare
for the harvest in the harvest, right? The rhythm
is established before the time comes. And that's
true on a farm, and it's true in our faith. That's
the second thing. The rhythms have to sustain
us through all seasons. But here's the third
kind of lesson we can learn from dairy farms
and farmers. And that is that the rhythm sustains
our life. I have to admit that on a dairy farm,
on the farm I grew up on, my siblings and I would
often refer to the work that we had to do. And
there was a schedule and everybody knew what
the schedule was. We called them chores. Whose
turn is it to do chores? Rob, it's your turn
to do chores. Who's doing chores? As kids, we
did not like chores, right? But we all had to
do the chores. But I have to tell you that to
my dad, I don't think milking was a chore. It
was a gift in a way. Because it was the activity
that sustained the life of the farm. It sustained
the health of the cows. It sustained our income,
right? It sustained the whole operation. If we
stopped the rhythm of milking, the whole family
farm would fall apart. Sometimes we get into
that place where we start thinking of spiritual
rhythms as chores. Maybe even this morning you've
heard me say things like prayer or scripture
or worship or confession or communion. And we
start to think of them as just religious chores.
Things we're supposed to do. Things good Christians
do. Things we feel guilty about if we don't do.
But these rhythms are not chores. They're gifts
that sustain our life. I think of another story
in the Bible. In Exodus 16, the people of Israel,
they're in the wilderness where they had no food.
They had no fields, no barns, no grocery stores,
no Uber Eats, no nothing. And every morning they
were hungry. So what God does is God provides
manna for them. It's this special bread from
heaven, which means that now every morning when
the dew lifted, there it was, this manna on the
ground. And there was enough there for every...
day. And at first it must have felt like an astonishing
gift. They didn't plant it. All they had to do
was just receive it. It was a gift. The one thing
they did have to do was they had to go out and
gather it every morning, again and again, day
by day, week by week, year after year. That was
the one thing they had to do. But eventually,
eventually that started to wear on them. And
that miracle started to become familiar. And
the gift, started to feel like a burden. And
the very thing that God had given them to sustain
their lives started to feel like one more chore.
And I wonder if something like that doesn't happen
to us. Prayer is this wonderful gift. Scripture
is a gift. Worship is a gift. Christian community
is a gift that God gives us to sustain our life.
Because these rhythms are repeated and sometimes
they're ordinary and sometimes they're familiar,
we can start to experience them as burdens. Oh,
I have to go to church. I have to read my Bible.
Oh, I have to pray. Whatever. Spiritual rhythms
are gifts that can start. to feel like chores
just like on the dairy farm so in the spiritual
life the very thing god gave us to sustain us
begins to feel like it's imposed on us slowly
the language of gift gives way to this language
of obligation the israelites well, okay, okay,
maybe we can avoid all these daily chores and
we can just stockpile the manna. We can go out
and collect enough of it to last for a whole
week. But God said, no, that's not how I want
to sustain you. I want to sustain you through
daily dependence. not through occasional abundance.
Occasional abundance sounds very good to us.
We would love just one dramatic encounter with
God that settles all of our questions forever,
right? Or one prayer that fixes everything. Thank
you very much. One worship service. If I could
just come to church once every six months and
that would carry me for those six months, that's
what I want. But God says, that's not how I work.
God gives daily bread, grace for today, mercy
for this morning, strength for this moment, wisdom
for this decision, enough for today. And tomorrow,
you know what? He invites you to come again.
Not because he's stingy. Not because he wants
to create some kind of anxiety in you. But because
daily dependence on God keeps our relationship
with God alive. The rhythm sustains the relationship.
That's why Jesus says, give us this day our daily
bread. Not our yearly bread. Not our monthly
bread. Daily bread. Some things you have to receive
daily. You can't do tomorrow's milking today.
You've got to come back again tomorrow. And the
same is true with prayer. You have to come and
receive again. Scripture reading, you have to
come and hear again. Worship, you have to come
and recenter again. Communion is you have to
come and be hungry again. This rhythm keeps us
coming back to the God and back to the gift,
but more importantly, back to the giver of the
gift. Back to this God who, isn't it amazing?
He doesn't just meet us every once in a while,
but he meets us every morning, every evening,
every morning, every evening. So this morning,
let's just learn from the dairy farmer. Let's
learn that faith grows through rhythms, not moments.
That those rhythms continue through every season
and that those rhythms sustain our life because
they keep bringing us back into that relationship
with God. Now, some of you are probably thinking,
Rob, that sounds pretty good, but I have to be
honest. I struggle with rhythms. I struggle with
those habits. I am not consistent. I start and
I stop. I forget. I get distracted. And Rob,
sometimes prayer feels dry and sometimes I don't
want to go to church. And sometimes scripture
feels difficult. Honestly, they do feel like
chores. So is there any hope for people like
us? And here's the good news. As important as
rhythms are, the Christian life does not ultimately
depend on your ability to keep a rhythm. It depends
on Christ. The rhythm matters. The rhythm helps.
But the rhythm is not the Savior. Jesus is the
Savior. Think about this verse from Hebrews 10.
It tells us that day after day in the Jewish
temple, the priests would stand there performing
their religious duties again and again and again
and again. But those sacrifices, those rhythms,
as wonderful as they were, they could not take
away sin. But then we read that Jesus offered
himself for all time as one sacrifice for sin.
So we see what happened is at the cross, Jesus
did what no rhythm could do, what no routine,
what no religious effort on your part could ever
do. He offered himself once and for all. And
so, yes, we returned to God morning by morning.
Day by day. And we gather here again and again.
And we worship again. And we listen. And we confess
again. And we come to the table again. But we
don't do all these things in order to earn grace.
We do them because grace has already been given
to us in Jesus. It doesn't depend on us. It depends
on Jesus. And maybe that's where I think the
dairy farm gives us one last picture to leave
today with. Every morning and every evening.
The cows come back to the barn, right? And they
would just show up all on their own, right? You
didn't even have to necessarily go get them.
And it's not because the barn was particularly
exciting. It's not because the milking was going
to be particularly dramatic. They just came because
they knew that's where life was sustained. And
we too are called back again and again to Christ,
back to the place where mercy is found, back
to the place where grace is given. Back to the
one who has already done for us what we could
never do for ourselves. So the invitation to
you this morning is not try harder. The invitation
is come back. Morning by morning, evening by
evening, day by day. Come back to the God whose
mercies are new every morning. Thanks be to God.
Amen. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode
of Trinity Sermons. This sermon was recorded
at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga,
Ontario on June 28th, 2026.