Every Day, Twice a Day | Trinity Sermons

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.