Ep 139 | Cover to Cover 18 | Pastor Ryan Clark | May 3, 2026

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.

You are listening to a message from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

This week as I was preparing for this message, I looked up the daily routines of some of the most well-known, influential people throughout history.

And what I found was a reminder that routines can be good, routines can also be bad, and as I found out this week, routines can also, frankly be quite odd.

Some of the people I read about had some peculiar unique daily routines, and I thought I would share a few of those with you.

First of all, inventor, ingenious, Nicola Tesla would always curl his toes 100 times on each foot before going to sleep every night.

Interesting.

Writer and musician,Ludwig von Beethoven, would count one at a time, exactly 60 coffee beans to grind each day for his daily coffee.

1, 2, 3.

This is an interesting one.

Inventor and founding father to our country, Benjamin Franklin, would oddly stand with few to any clothes on in an open window every morning for up to a half hour.

He called it an air bath and he thought that it kept him healthy.

Okay.

And finally, this one was interesting too.

Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, whenever she would travel, would have one of her servants carry for her a golden toilet, presumably, so that she would never have to use the public facilities.

Routines can be good.

Routines can be bad.

Routines can be odd like some of these.

Well, as we're continuing on with our cover to cover Bible study, finishing up the Book of Numbers, we're going to see that God himself, came up with routines for his Old Testament people.

And these routines, they may seem a little odd to us living several thousand years later, but they were good for his people.

In Numbers 28, it says, the Lord said to Moses, Give this command to the Israelites and say to them, make sure that you present to me at the appointed time my food offerings as an aroma pleasing to me.

So what we're going to find here is that God had these regular times that he wanted his people to gather together with him, to be reminded of him, his commands, his promises, but it would always have to do with sacrifice.

As we've talked about and as we've been reading about over the last couple of months as we've gone through Leviticus and Numbers, in God's old covenant with his people, it was a bloody mess.

It really was.

There were constantly being sacrifices of animals, sheep and goats, and bulls, all kinds of sacrifices.

Why? Well, for lots of different reasons, but the main reason was is because God's people were sinners, and in order to abide with a holy God, there needed to be blood shed.

Why? You see God is good and out of his goodness and his love for his people, He said, every time you sin, I should demand your blood from you.

But because I love you and because I have taken you as my own people, I will receive the blood of an animal in your place.

And so there were constant sacrifices being done around that tabernacle as they were on their way to the Promised Land.

In Numbers 28, starting at verse 3, it says, Say to them, this is the food offering you are to present to the Lord.

Two lambs a year old without defect as a regular burnt offering each day, offer one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight, together with a grain offering and a 10th of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil from pressed olives.

So what was God doing? He was giving his people a daily routine, both in the morning and at twilight.

Each time, sacrifice to me come and gather together with me on a daily basis.

Then in verse 9, it says, On the Sabbath day, once a week, make an offering of two lambs a year old without defect, together with his drink offering and a grain offering of two tenths of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with olive oil.

This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.

So in addition to the every day in the morning and the in the evening sacrifice, there was also to be a special sacrifice every Sabbath.

That established not only a daily routine, but also a weekly routine where they would once again gather together around God's throne there in the midst of the tabernacle.

Thirdly, on the first day of every month, present to the Lord, a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old, all without defect.

So now he's established a daily routine, a weekly routine, and thirdly, a monthly routine.

Another opportunity for them to come back.

Be reminded of all that God has said and all that God had done.

And then in verses 16 and following, On the 14th day of the first month, the Lord's Passover is to be held.

On the 15th day of the month, there is to be a festival for seven days.

Eat bread without yeast on the first day, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.

And so after saying, I want you to have a daily routine, a weekly routine, a monthly routine.

Then he said, I've got these high and holy festivals throughout the year that I want you to gather.

And no matter where you are, I want you to make that trek back to the Tabernacle, or eventually to the temple to celebrate these things like Passover, like Pentecost, like the Feast of Tabernacles, like the Feast of Trumpets.

I want you to gather together for these high and holy feasts multiple times during the year.

This was an annual routine that God had set up.

If God set up routines for his people, then not all routines are bad, right? Some routines are good and they're necessary for God's people.

Why? Why did God have to set up all of these different routines? Well, for a lot of different reasons.

Number one, they needed regular reminders of God's commands.

They needed regular reminders of God's promises that he had made because it's so easy to forget those things.

They needed regular reminders of what God has done.

Especially those high and holy feasts like Passover in Pentecost, they pointed back to something that God had done in the past that God wanted them to remember.

They needed regular reminders of what God will do, because if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then what he did, what he's doing is also prophetic of what he's going to do in the future as well.

And most importantly, they needed to be regularly forgiven.

And that's why there were all of those sacrifices that were made at every one of these gatherings because God's people, even though God had chosen them.

They were so quick to forget all these things and begin living just like the world around them.

Here's our question for today.

Do we also need regular reminders of God? Do we need reminders of his commands that he's given to us? Do we need reminders of his grace and his promises? And do we need regular forgiveness from him? The answer is, of course we do.

Of course we do.

Even though we're living on this side of the cross, even though we're living under a new and a better covenant through Jesus, we need regular reminders too, don't we? And isn't it neat that on this side of the cross.

God has provided those regular reminders, those regular routines, those regular rhythms of life for you and for me as well.

Martin Luther once said, we need to hear the gospel every day because we forget it every day.

There are so many things that are competing for your and my attention today.

And you say, well.

After spending an hour or two hours at church on a Sunday morning, I won't forget that during the week, but we know better than that, right? With all that's going on with all the things that are competing for our attention, we are so quick to forget God's commands, his promises, what he has has done and what he promised to do, and that's why we need forgiveness every day.

To that end, God has set up routines for you and for me as well.

First of all, there's a daily routine.

In Matthew 6, Jesus said, when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father who is unseen.

Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Jesus says regularly.

Go behind a closed door where it's just you and God.

Many people, including myself here in this congregation, refer to that as a quiet time.

And remember in the Old Testament, he said a daily routine is there would be a lamb sacrificed in the morning and one in the evening.

It doesn't matter when your quiet time is.

Maybe it would be in the morning, maybe it would be in the evening.

Maybe you do a short one at each time, but set aside a little bit of time each day to spend time with the Lord.

Open his word.

For those of you that have been reading through the two year Bible.

Hopefully you've gotten in the habit by now of doing that.

Spend some time in prayer.

Maybe spend a little bit of time singing a worship song or a hymn to the Lord.

Why? Because he's worth it.

He's worthy of all of our praise and all of our worship.

God wants to establish a daily routine with us.

And by the way, isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing with how sinful we are with how many times we forget and we live like the rest of the world, just like those people in the old covenant.

Isn't it amazing that he is constantly beckoning us back because he wants to spend time with us? In Psalm 46 it says, be still and know that I am God.

Sometimes we just need to take time out of the hustle and bustle of life to just be still and remember that all he has said is true.

In Mark 1 it says, Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.

What was Jesus doing? He was having a quiet time with his Heavenly Father.

And if Jesus needed to have a quiet time with his heavenly Father, then certainly you and I do as well.

God has also established for us living on this side of the cross, a weekly routine as well.

In Hebrews 10, it says, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up, meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.

In our opening responsive reading that we read from Acts, we see that the very earliest church began meeting together on Sundays on the Lord's Day gathering together as a church family, as you and I are doing here today, but already in the writing of Hebrews just a few years later, people were already saying things like this: Oh, it was a big day yesterday.

You know what? Let's not go to church.

Let's not gather with God's people.

We'll go next week or maybe the week after, and so the writer to the Hebrews says, let us gather together.

Let us spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

Don't get in the habit of missing those times where we can gather together on a weekly basis.

God wants to meet us every day.

He also wants us to gather together, to encourage us on a weekly basis, and also to encourage us through each other as we encourage one another with the things of God as we pray for one another, as we help one another, as we cry with one another, as we rejoice with one another.

All the more as it gets closer and closer to the day of Christ's return.

And it doesn't matter if it is a traditional service, like we pretty much do on Sunday morning or a more contemporary service on Saturday night.

God just says, gather together.

Be reminded of all that I've said to you.

God Also I believe, wants us to have more of a monthly routine as well.

In Jeremiah 29 it says, then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you declares the Lord.

If you're doing a quiet time every day, maybe with the busyness of your life, maybe that quiet time is only like 15 minutes or a half hour.

Still, that's awesome.

That's great.

But if you're gonna seek the Lord like this with all your heart, with all your soul, that might require a little bit more time.

For the last, about 20 years, I have tried to take time multiple times throughout the year to just get away for a 24 hour period of time.

I'll usually get a, a cabin that, I'll stay in for 24 hours.

I'll bring my guitar.

I'll bring my, my bible, a notebook, a pen, and just spend time with the Lord.

I'll spend time asking him those questions that I don't have answers to.

I'll spend time asking him, what do you want me to do as a father, as a husband, as a pastor? What do you want us to do as a congregation? Lord, I need your guidance, and I'll just spend a 24 hour period of time seeking him with all my heart.

And I gotta tell you, in the 20 years that I've done this.

I have never walked away from those times disappointed.

He is good to his word.

If you seek him with all of your heart, you will find him.

Now, you can't do that on a daily basis, but maybe on a monthly basis, maybe on a quarterly basis, you do something similar to that.

And then, just like with his Old Testament people, he has annual routines for us.

Those high and holy festivals like he had with his Old Testament people.

And by the way, Jewish people around the world today, all of these thousands of years later, still gather together as families.

Or as a church to celebrate those high and holy festivals.

Over the 10 years that I've been here, we've had groups like Jews for Jesus come in here and share with us the richness of some of those things like Passover, like the Feast of Tabernacles, like Pentecost, and how it all points back ultimately to Jesus.

We have people in our congregation that try to celebrate these things maybe in a small way or maybe in a way with their family.

This is certainly not a have to, but it's an opportunity once again, to bring our minds and our thoughts and our beings back to the God who saved us.

By the way, we do that as Christians also, don't we? We have these annual routines that we gather together high and holy feasts, like Christmas, like Easter, like Palm Sunday, like Ash Wednesday, where we gather together as a whole family and we celebrate and remember all that the Lord has done for us.

And we don't have to just do that as a family, we can do that as a church family, we can do that as our, in our individual families as well.

All of these things are holy daily routines that God wants us to get into the habit of doing these things.

Like Luther said, we need to hear it regularly because we forget it so quickly.

One last question.

Well, Pastor, you said that in the Old Covenant, every time that they gathered together, there needed to be sacrifices.

Well, we're not sacrificing anymore.

And if those sacrifices were only done for the forgiveness of God's people, then what about those times that I forget? One of those times that maybe I don't have my quiet time in the morning, or I don't go to church on a Sunday morning and, and I forget and I begin living like the world around me as well.

Where's my forgiveness? That's where we rejoice that we live on this side of the cross where Jesus Christ became the Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the whole world once for all on that cross.

It's so easy for us as Christians to beat ourselves up.

Oh, I didn't.

I woke up late and I didn't get a chance to have that time with the Lord today.

You know, I was so tired from my big Saturday that I just couldn't get up on Sunday morning.

Yes, the Lord wanted to meet with us each and every one of those times, but because of Jesus, you don't have to beat yourself up.

Your sins have been washed away as far as the east is from the West.

And now God is not upset.

He's not angry.

With a smile on his face, he's beckoning you, come on back.

I wanna spend time with you.

And may God bless us that we embrace these daily, weekly, monthly, and annual routines where he wants to spend time with us.

Amen.

You've been listening to a sermon from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

If you would like more information about St.

John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.

stjohnsbuffalo.

org.

Thank you and God bless you.