Ordering Our Time

do likewise with your vineyard and with your olive orchard. Six days you shall do your work,

but on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest,

and the son of your servant woman and the alien may be refreshed.

Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods,

nor let it be heard on your lips. Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.

You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread

for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt.

None shall appear before me empty-handed. You shall keep the feast of harvest,

of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the feast of

ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. Three

times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God. You shall not offer the

blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.

The best of your first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

How do you order the time that God has given you on this earth?

Time is one of our most precious resources.

And it's something that we all have.

And how we use our time and how we order our time says a lot about what we value,

what we invest our time in. And that's what this morning's passage is about.

Verses 10 and 11, God commands the Israelites to let the land rest every seventh year.

Verse 12, He commands them to let one another and their animals rest every seventh day.

Verses 14 to 17, we have commands about three times each year when the Israelites were required

to come together and keep a feast. So this morning I want us to consider three things. I want us to

consider how God ordered His people's time in the Old Testament. Second, I want us to consider how

God's order of time was fulfilled in Jesus in the New Testament. And third, how we should order our time

today as followers of Jesus. So first, what do we see about God's order of time in the Old Testament?

I think we see two things. First, we see that God is ordering His people's time in a way that was

naturally beneficial to them. Many of these practices, modern, so for example, scientists would

affirm that letting land lie fallow every so often is a wise agricultural practice. If you continue to

actively farm the same land for years and years without ever giving it a break, you'll eventually

end up with a desert. You can also find studies out there that affirm the health benefits of taking

one day of rest each week. When you actually unplug, take a break from your normal work for one day,

you have more energy to work more diligently during the other six days, and you're less prone to

burnout in the long run. And furthermore, the rhythm of resting on the seventh day and letting the land

rest every seventh year benefited those in ancient Israel who are most prone to overwork and exploitation.

Now notice in verse 11, the purpose of the seventh year. It says that the poor of your people may eat,

and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. And notice in verse 12, similarly the phrase,

the purpose of the seventh day, that your ox and donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant

woman and the alien may be refreshed. You see, God knows that when a society idolizes work and money

and productivity above everything else, the people who bear the brunt of that burden are the ones who

have the least say over their work schedules. And so God established a weekly rhythm in Israel

that protected the most vulnerable workers, the poor. That meant people who were living hand to mouth

and had no extra, no extra. Or household servants who had little or no authority over their schedules,

or foreigners, aliens, people who didn't have an extended family or a history to back them up.

People who are vulnerable to being exploited in almost any society.

And we even see God's care for animals, both wild animals and domestic animals, that they too would have food

and rest. And that's the explicit purpose of these Sabbath commands in this passage.

They were naturally beneficial. Even the schedule of the three annual feasts coincided with the natural rhythms

of their agricultural year. So the first one, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, came in early spring.

Late March, early April, at the beginning of the barley harvest, but right after the busy season of

spring planting. The Feast of Harvest came toward the end of the wheat harvest in May or early June.

The Feast of Ingathering was the most lavish feast, and it happened in late September or October

after the grapes and olives and other fruits and vegetables had all been gathered in for the season.

So there was a natural rhythm to these feasts. You know, none of them happened at the busiest seasons

of sowing or reaping. They all coincided with natural sort of breather points in the agricultural

year when it made sense to take a break and even to gather together for a communal celebration.

So these rhythms were naturally beneficial to the people in a whole bunch of ways, but even more

importantly, what we see is that God ordered the people's time in a way that was distinctively

loyal to Him. Now, verse 13 is sandwiched right in between the commands about the Sabbath and the

feast. And some people have even argued that it's the heart of the passage, and yet it's not about time.

It's not about rhythms of time or how they order their time. It's about how they're to order their

loyalties. Verse 13, pay attention to all that I have said to you. Everything God says matters.

Make no mention of the names of other gods. Be devoted exclusively to the one true God.

And that's the main point of all these commands about time, that God's people would be distinctively

loyal to Him alone. Let's see how that's expressed in each of these commands. Consider the command to let

the land rest every seventh year. Now, there's some uncertainty about how that command was meant

to be applied. Was everyone in Israel required to let all their land rest every seventh year in the

same year? In that case, they really had to trust God to provide almost miraculously like they did in

the desert with the manna. Or would this command have been applied to different fields at different

times? You start planting one field in one year, and you count seven years and give that one a break.

You start planting another field in another year, count seven years, give that one a break.

That would seem to fit with the purpose in verse 11 that some land each year would remain uncultivated

and therefore freely available to the poor and to the wild animals. But either way, however it was

supposed to be practiced, it would have been a bit challenging if you were a landowner, right?

You get to that seventh year and you think, ooh, I can't count on the profit from that field this year.

Seventh year was intended to be a reminder, as Leviticus 25 makes explicit, that the land wasn't

the people's to do whatever they pleased with. The land belonged to the Lord, and they were just tenants.

The seventh year was an expression of the people's loyalty and submission to the Lord who owned

everything. Or consider the command to rest on the seventh day. Now, this was not a common pattern in

the ancient world. In fact, no other nation in the ancient world ordered their time in this way.

Now, some scholars like to point out the ancient Babylonians did have seven-day weeks except for the

last week of each month, which was eight or nine days. And the Babylonians did set apart the last

day of each week. But for the Babylonians, it was an evil day. It was an unlucky day, and it was not a day

of rest or blessing. So, the biblical pattern is quite unique in the context of the ancient world.

Even today, having a rhythm of a seven-day week is the only unit of time, major unit of time, that's

not based on the cycles of the sun or the moon or the earth. Right? What's a day? One revolution of

the earth. What's a month? One cycle of the moon, roughly. What's a year? One time around the sun

for the earth. What's a week? Nothing that we can observe. So, why the seven-day week?

What's the point of God saying six and then one? The point is God is the Lord of time.

You see, the God of the Bible is not only imminent, not only dwelling within the created order,

He's also transcendent, that is, outside of and sovereign over the created order.

And for the people of Israel, orienting their lives around these weekly rhythms was a way

of recognizing God's transcendence, God's authority to order their lives as He pleased and not just

as they pleased. You see, God's purpose for His people has always been not only to live in harmony

with nature as nature presents itself to us, but to live in harmony with our Creator,

who has made us and the world and all that is in it.

You know, sometimes it would have seemed extremely inconvenient to rest on the seventh day.

For example, during the busy seasons of sowing or reaping. But God was very insistent,

and so the command to rest on the seventh day is repeated five times in the book of Exodus alone.

We've seen it already in the story about the manna in the desert. It's in the Ten Commandments,

here in chapter 23. It's also in chapter 31 and chapter 35 in the passages that are listed in the

bulletin. And in chapters 31 and 35, the commands about Sabbath come at a key point in the narrative.

Now, we'll get there in a few weeks, but chapters 25 to 31 are the instructions for building the

tabernacle. And then chapters 35 through 40 is the report of how they built the tabernacle according

to God's instructions. And so, the tabernacle is hugely important. It's the, you know, a third of

Exodus is devoted to it. It's the dwelling place of God with His people. It's, in some ways, the most

important construction project that went on in ancient Israel, spiritually speaking. But the commands

about the Sabbath come at the, say, even the building of the tabernacle has to stop on the Sabbath.

Even the work of building God's holy place is not important enough to override God's holy day.

And so, 31.13 says, the Sabbath is a sign between me and you through all generations that you may know

that I, the Lord, sanctify you. In other words, I have set you apart to be distinctively loyal to me.

We see the same pattern in the three annual feasts that they each express a distinctive loyalty to the

God of Israel. That seems to be also the main point of verses 18 and 19. You read those verses and you

think, well, that seems a little random. Why all these instructions about sacrifices? Well, some of

those verses warn against mixing the worship of the one true God with common pagan rituals or impure

practices. Verse 18 says, you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened.

Most likely, this is a reference to the Passover when the people were supposed to eat only unleavened

bread as they remembered their exodus from Egypt and as they soberly recommitted themselves to

following the Lord. Or the end of verse 19, don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk. That's

probably the most mysterious of these commands, but it's probably a warning against a Canaanite pagan

ritual. We have an ancient Canaanite text that mentions boiling a young goat in its mother's milk

in a verse about offering… in a poem about offering sacrifices to Canaanite gods.

And God says, no. I think the symbolism is the source of life, a mother's milk, should not become

the source of death. That's sort of the idea behind it. The command later was expanded by the rabbis to

be the basis of don't mix any meat with any dairy. That's a later interpretation and expansion that

happened later on. But the original point is don't mix the worship of the one true God with other kinds

of worshiping other gods. And there are also… these verses also emphasize that God deserves our first

and our best. If you look at the middle two commands, don't let the fat of my feast remain

till the morning. The fat was considered the best part of a feast, and the fat was all supposed to be

burned up and offered completely to God. And so, the point is don't keep for yourselves what rightly

belongs to the Lord, or don't wait until later on to give God the honor He deserves.

And verse 19 is probably the most obvious. Bring the best of the first fruits to the Lord,

not the second quality left over. So, all these commands were expressions of distinctive

and undivided loyalty to the Lord. And furthermore, the three annual feasts were a yearly reenactment

of the Exodus story, right? What's the Feast of Unleavened Bread? Well, it's connected with the

Passover, the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It reminded them God saved us. What about the Feast

of Harvest? That was also called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost. That was connected with

the giving of the law. We saw that a few weeks ago when we looked at the giving of the law, and it

reminded them God provides. God provides bread in the wilderness. God provides His Word for our

spiritual food. So, God saves, God provides, and third, the Feast of Ingathering celebrated God's

presence. That was also called the Feast of Tabernacles, and it celebrated God's presence

with His people during their journey through the wilderness. So, in the course of the year,

they would celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, remembering God's salvation, the Feast of Harvest,

remembering God's provision of His Word and physical sustenance, and the Feast of Ingathering

celebrating the joy of God's presence with them. And really, that's the whole book of Exodus.

God saves, God provides, and God comes to be present with His people. And so, that's what the yearly,

that's what all these yearly cycles of feasts are supposed to remind the people of.

If somebody could get me a drink of water, that would, I would appreciate that. I think I might

need it. So, it's, they're meant to say, this is what God has done for you. You are God's distinct

people who have experienced His salvation, who have received His provision, and now who rejoice

in His presence. There were other special days added later on, but these three feasts are the oldest

and the most important ones, sort of the backbone of God's order of time in the Old Testament. So,

that's God's order of time in the Old Testament, the first thing we're looking at this morning.

It was naturally beneficial to the people, and it expressed a distinctive loyalty to the Lord.

But what do we see when we come to the New Testament? This is the second point.

When we move to the New Testament, we see Jesus, first of all, living under this order of time.

We see Him going to the synagogue. Thanks, Matt.

To worship on the Sabbath. We see Him going up to Jerusalem for the Passover with His mother and

father at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. The command in the Old Testament only required the

male heads of households to travel, giving some flexibility to women who might have just given

birth to children. But very often, the whole family went. It was often a whole family pilgrimage

to Jerusalem for these festivals. In John chapter 7, we see Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the Feast

John 7 · chapter mention

of Tabernacles. So, we see Jesus honoring this order of time that God had established for His people

in the Old Testament. But we also see something even more profound. We see that Jesus embodied in His

own person all that these days and seasons and years represented. Now, how do we see that? Well,

we read earlier from Matthew 11, that familiar passage, wonderful invitation, come to me,

all you who are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest for your souls.

But did you notice that the next story, actually the next two stories, are all about the Sabbath?

And it ends with saying, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. You see that Jesus represents and embodies

all that the Sabbath meant for the people of Israel, right? The Sabbath was a day where all work

was strictly prohibited. There was even the death penalty prescribed for flagrant Sabbath breakers in

the Old Testament. But what does Jesus say? Jesus says, I have come to give you rest, and you cannot do

one bit of work to earn it. I've come to give you rest for your souls by grace completely. And you can't do

even a little bit to earn a tiny part of it. You have to simply receive it apart from any works of your own.

Just like the Israelites were supposed to rest on the Sabbath and do no work to acknowledge God as their

creator and their redeemer. So Jesus embodied all that the Sabbath day represented. Rest, renewal,

blessing. Jesus also embodied all that the Sabbath year represented. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus reads

a passage from the book of Isaiah during his first sermon in the synagogue. And he says he's come to

proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, the year of liberation for the oppressed and good news to the

poor. Sort of sounds like the Sabbath year. Actually, it sounds like the year of Jubilee, which is sort of

like the Sabbath year on steroids. It's described in Leviticus 25. And it only happened every 50 years,

but everybody in the land took a break and celebrated and got a rest, and all debts were

canceled. So whatever you owed somebody in that year, everybody got a fresh start. And everybody

could go home to their ancestral lands. It was a major reordering of life, and it was a year of joy

and celebration. And Jesus, and interestingly, we have no, we don't know whether that year was ever

observed according to the law. There's no reference in the Old Testament that it was ever actually

practiced. And yet when Jesus comes on the scene, he says, I've come to bring the year of the Lord's

favor. The year when you can know, you can find joy and freedom that will never pass away.

But you know, Jesus not only embodied what the Sabbath days and years represented, he embodied what the

feasts prefigured. The gospel of John shows us that Jesus was the Passover lamb, right? Our salvation.

We just sung about that in that song. The Lord is my salvation. At the beginning of John's gospel,

John the Baptist says, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And at the end of

John's gospel, in the narrative about the crucifixion, John points out that when Jesus was killed, the Roman

soldiers did not break his bones. And he quotes a scripture saying, so that the scripture might be

fulfilled, not one of his bones will be broken. Now, where do you think that scripture is from?

It's from Exodus 12, the prescription about not breaking one bone of the Passover lamb.

And so what John is saying in his gospel is that Jesus is the true Passover lamb, the true salvation,

the one that the Passover celebration was pointing towards all the time.

And the Apostle Paul says, Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, so let us keep the feast

with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. But Christ not only saves us, he provides for us.

He's the embodiment of the feast of harvest, right? The feast of harvest celebrated in one way God's

provision of bread for another year. It came at the end of the wheat harvest, but it came before

most of the other crops would be harvested. So the feast of harvest was a feast of hope.

It was a feast of thanking God for what he had already done, but especially looking forward

to what he would continue to do. And it was sometimes referred to in connection with the

first fruits. Verse 16 says, you shall keep the feast of harvest of the first fruits of your labor.

They would bring the first fruits to God in faith, trusting he would continue to provide. And the

Apostle Paul says, interestingly, in 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus is the first fruits of the promise

of our resurrection. That the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, he says, Christ has been raised from

the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ

shall all be made alive. In other words, when we look at our risen Savior, when we look at the risen

Lord Jesus, our elder brother, we see a promise that one day God will do the same thing for us.

He will raise us from the dead. He will glorify us. And we will be with him. And finally, Jesus embodied

the reality of the feast of ingathering. God's very own presence dwelling among his people. And the

feast of ingathering was the biggest feast of them all. Came in the fall, a bit like our Thanksgiving time.

It was also called the Feast of Tabernacles because it was also a bit like a nationwide camping trip.

Everybody lived in temporary shelters with four walls and a roof made of tree branches.

They were sort of remembering how God had been present with them in the wilderness.

But by the time of Jesus, there were two ceremonies that had developed during the Feast of Tabernacles.

First, there was a water ceremony that happened every day in Jerusalem. So, a priest would go down

to the spring, fill a golden pitcher with water, bring it to the temple, and pour it out on the altar.

And the people would follow him, rejoicing and giving thanks. They were remembering that God had

provided water from the rock in the wilderness. And they were looking forward to the day when he

would pour out his Spirit on all nations and bring his salvation from Israel to all the nations.

And second, there was a light ceremony that happened every night.

And back then, it was dark at night. There were no street lights.

But what they would do during the Feast of Tabernacles is they would set up these four massive lamps

with these huge bowls of oil. And these huge… they'd be huge in the temple. And so,

they'd light them up at night. And you could see the temple glowing. You could see the light from

anywhere in the city. And the people would sing and rejoice all night. They would remember how God led

the people through the wilderness with the pillar of fire by night and how he had called the people

of Israel to be a light to the nations. Now, why am I telling you about these ceremonies?

Well, if you read in chapter… in John, chapter 7 and 8, Jesus goes up to the Feast of Tabernacles

John 7 · chapter mention

and he says two things. First, he says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, springs of living water will flow from within him.

Jesus is saying, I am that spring of life-giving water. That water from the rock, the water that

they celebrate. I'm that… I'm the river of living water that will flow out from Jerusalem to the whole

bringing God's salvation to the whole world. And he said, John 8, 12,

I am the light of the world. Isn't that fascinating? Jesus says these things at the Feast of Tabernacles

when they're pouring out the water and lighting up the lamps. And Jesus says, I'm the true living

water. I'm the true light. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Jesus is saying, I have come to be all that these days and seasons and years were meant to represent.

Our Savior, our provider, and the very presence of God within us.

So what does it look like for us as followers of Christ to order our time today? This is our third

and last point. On the one hand, it means that as Christians, we no longer are required to observe

this same order of time that God prescribed in the Old Testament. Paul says in Colossians,

these things are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. It's sort of

like for years and years, the Israelites were trapped at the bottom of a cave. And they were

looking up at a large canvas hanging on a wall. And they were tracing the outline of a massive shadow

and filling in its contours, but having no way to look directly at its source. And every year as they

went through these cycles, they would keep on tracing that pattern of the God who saves and provides

and who is present with his people. And yet they could never quite see that source directly.

And the Apostle Paul says, look, the person whose shadow you were tracing for centuries

on every Sabbath and in every feast has now come into the cave in person and led you out by his

resurrection into his glorious light. So don't fixate on the shadows on the wall anymore. Fix on him.

The reality that they were pointing to all along, he's the one whose outline had been traced for

centuries. Christ, our Sabbath rest. Christ, our Passover lamb. Christ, the first fruits of our

future resurrection. Christ, the water of life and the light of the world.

But I think we still have to ask the practical question, as we seek to fix our eyes on Christ,

how do we order our time? How do we order our time in a way that's naturally beneficial to us,

but also distinctively loyal to Jesus? Ephesians 5 says, look carefully then how you walk.

Not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, or literally redeeming the time,

because the days are evil. So first we might ask, do we order our time in a way that's naturally

beneficial to us as God's creatures? We might begin by asking ourselves, do I have healthy patterns

of work, rest, and worship? Mark 2, 27, Jesus said the Sabbath was made for human beings. In other

words, a weekly day for rest and worship is a good gift from God, not only in the law of Moses,

but even in the creation order. And we ignore this principle at our own peril. It's also beneficial to

make time periodically for extended seasons of rest and refreshment. If you're able to take a vacation

this summer, praise God for that opportunity. But you know, we shouldn't just think about ourselves,

we should also think, am I promoting healthy patterns of work, rest, and worship for those

under my care? Parents for your children, professors for your students, employers for your employees.

That's part of the Sabbath commands and principles in the Old Testament, is not just to think about

ourselves, but those over whom we have responsibility. And I think in our day we should

also ask this question, am I resisting activities that are neither productively working nor peacefully

resting? Because there are all kinds of those things today that didn't all exist back then.

Things like aimlessly surfing the internet, or mindlessly watching TV, or gossiping, well,

that's been around all along, or anxiously worrying. There are all kinds of activities that aren't work

or rest. They don't accomplish anything meaningful, and they don't leave us refreshed in the end. And God

says, cut those things out. And do your work diligently, and then rest. And figure out what is actually

refreshing to you as God's creatures. But even more importantly, we should ask, not just what's

naturally beneficial to us, but as God's redeemed people, are we ordering our time in a way that expresses

our distinctive loyalty to Jesus? In other words, if someone who didn't know you well were to examine your

weekly, or daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms, would they see clearly that your time is ordered around your

primary loyalty to Jesus above everything else? Could someone discern that you are a Christian simply

by looking at how you use your time, your schedule? Now, the natural rhythms of our year are probably

different from the ones back from the agricultural year in the ancient Middle East. But how about this?

Can we turn the natural downtimes of our year into occasions for thanksgiving and worship, as the

Israelites did? If you have some downtime this summer, or if you're taking a vacation, don't just say, hey,

that's great, I'll go do it, and I'll do whatever I feel like. Do it for the glory of God. Make it a time

not just for physical rest, which is good, but also for spiritual refreshment. You think about how can your

vacation be spiritually beneficial and refreshing? Maybe that's reading a good book. Maybe that's visiting a

fellow believer, a good friend who lives far away. Maybe it's worshiping God in the mountains or on the beach.

Maybe it's spending some of your time to go on a missions trip, or to go help some other Christians

during the time that you have off. Or consider this question, are there ways we can order our time over the

course of a year to remember and proclaim our story of the God who has saved us and provides for us and

is present with us, like the Israelites did in their three annual feasts? Now, some Christians follow a

church calendar starting with Advent and Christmas and Epiphany and going on to Lent and Easter and

Ascension and Pentecost. And like the Old Testament feasts, that rhythm follows the story of our redemption

in Christ. If you find that rhythm helpful, follow it to the glory of God. If you don't find it helpful,

it's not required. And you can live each day, as Paul says in Romans 14. You can do it either way.

Do it to the glory of God. You're not bound. But every week, we remember and proclaim

our redemption in Christ when we gather here on the Lord's Day. And Christians have done that for all

the variations in practice. Christians have done that ever since the beginning. In the second century,

Justin Martyr wrote, Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first

day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world, and Jesus Christ,

our Savior, on the same day, rose from the dead. That's what Sunday represented. And back then,

you know, in the first three centuries of Christianity, it was even harder to meet on

Sunday than it is today. You know why? Because Sunday was not a day of rest in the Roman Empire.

If you were a slave, and there were many of those who had basically no authority over their time

schedules, you would be working all day on Sunday just like most other days. If you owned your own

business, perhaps you had some flexibility. But again, Sunday was a day when businesses were open,

shops were open, everything was open in the Roman Empire. And so, the Christians would sometimes gather

very early in the morning, before dawn even, or in the evening after work. You even see that in Acts.

They gather in the evening on the first day of the week. Now, why did they do that despite how difficult

it was in their society? They did it to remember the one day that mattered more than any other day

in the history of the world. The day when Jesus rose from the dead. And they met together every week

to say that day matters more than anything else. And so, every week we're going to reorient our lives

around that, our Savior and our resurrected King, and celebrate the day when God's new creation dawned.

You see, the Lord's Day is meant to be like a reset button every week, right? When you press reset on

your phone or computer, and it gets the viruses out that have infected the system, and it reorients us

toward our glorious Savior and Lord. So, brothers and sisters in Christ, make it a priority to worship

Jesus with His people every Sunday. Now, I know you're all here, right? Good for you. So, obviously,

there's a little bit of preaching to the choir. But still, it's a reminder we all need. You know, it's never

a good sign when a Christian only attends church once a month and is perfectly content with that.

If that's the case, something is off spiritually. That's not the biblical pattern. Something you do only

once a month is not going to shape your life very significantly. But let's make the most of the

time we have with one another every Sunday. Come at 9 o'clock for Sunday school or stay around.

Don't be in a rush to leave the moment the service ends. Let's enjoy the time we have with each other

as family, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Because this is where we are reminded every week.

We are God's distinct people who have experienced His salvation, who have received His provision,

and who now rejoice in His presence through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray.

Father, thank You for Your wisdom in ordering the people's time to show them in a way that was both

naturally beneficial to them, but also reminded and was meant to reinforce their distinctive loyalty to You

and Your saving work on their behalf. And we pray that You would help us to order our time in a way

that reflects You and seeking first Your kingdom and Your righteousness.

We pray that You would forgive us for where we have squandered our time, for where we have not worked

diligently or rested in You. Help us to fix our eyes on You as our spiritual refreshment and renewal,

our joy, and our hope. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.