29 "Regular Rhythms That Honor God" Numbers 28-29 | Thursday, April 30, 2026

Numbers 28

and Numbers 29. We're going to cover two

chapters tonight. And as we come to

Numbers 28 and 29, uh God is reiterating

Israel's responsibility

to bring their offerings to him as they

prepare to go into the land of Canaan.

this new generation needs to remember to

worship God according to as he has said.

And so uh we've covered much of the

details of these feasts and they were

given to us some in Exodus some in

Leviticus and as they were given to us

in those particular books they

highlighted different things. Exodus

tended to focus more on the purpose of

these different feasts and then

Leviticus focused more on the priestly

responsibility and on the sacrifices

themselves. This list tends to focus

more on the people's responsibility, the

offerings that they are to bring for

each of these feasts in particular. And

they have a very clear purpose for

Israel. And though these are feasts that

have been rendered obsolete according to

the new covenant in Jesus Christ, he has

fulfilled every one of them. There's

still a pattern that we can learn that's

very valuable to us today. And so we're

going to read just really the beginning

and the ending uh of these chapters. And

so if you'll stand as we read God's word

together, we'll read just the first few

verses here of chapter 28, the last few

verses of chapter 29.

So numbers 28:1

Numbers 28:1

the Bible says and the Lord spake unto

Moses saying command the children of

Israel and say unto them my offering and

my bread for my sacrifices made by fire

for a sweet savor unto me shall ye

observe to offer unto me in their due

season. So then what we're going to have

here in the next few verses is the daily

burnt offering that we've covered and

then some new rhythms are introduced

that there's the Sabbath offering and

then there's a monthly offering at the

very first of their months and then it's

going to go through all the different

feasts through the rest of chapter 28

and into chapter 29 and those would be

more annual uh offerings. And so let's

look at chapter 29 now. Verse 39.

These things shall ye do unto the Lord

in your set feasts beside your vows and

your free will offerings, for your burnt

offerings, and for your meat offerings,

and for your drink offerings, and for

your peace offerings. And Moses told the

children of the Lord uh the children of

Israel according to all that the Lord

commanded Moses. So, what you see here

at the end is he reminds them they're

going to be offering these free will

offerings, these sin offerings, trespass

offerings, uh all of those Levitical

offerings given in the first five

chapters for sin and for cleansing and

for purification. So, they're going to

have all of those, but those are a

little bit more random. They're they're

whenever sin happens, whenever

uncleanness happens. But God wants them

to understand that alongside of that,

you are going to have what we call

regular rhythms of worship. Regular

rhythms of worship. And so the title of

our message tonight is regular rhythms

that honor God. So you can be seated and

we'll consider these passages tonight.

See, there are many arenas of life where

we find ways to honor people who stand

out. It might be that we hand out uh

outstand outstanding athletes, we give

them players of the week and MVP

trophies or medals. And when it comes to

good employees, you might hand out an

employee of the month award or there may

be performance bonuses or perhaps even

an all expense paid vacation if you hit

all of your goals. Some companies will

do that. Sometimes we might honor a

faithful pastor for 25 years of service,

whether it's through a a plaque or maybe

it's a a a vacation to reconnect with

his family or whatever it might be. But

we try to honor them. Of course, we also

give the Medal of Honor to service

members who have performed outstanding

acts of valor. And so, it's something

that's kind of ingrained into us to do

our best to give honor to people for

outstanding courage, outstanding acts or

outstanding performance. Well, because

God is infinitely transcendent over all

things, he is also infinitely worthy of

our honor. Let's think about who he is.

He's worthy to be put on a pedestal in

ways that no man or woman ever should

be. Everything in the entire universe

owes its existence to God. We could not

live and move and have our being apart

from him. He ranks above all others in

strength, power, and authority. He's

infinitely above all others in holiness,

justice, and truth, but also in love and

in grace, and in mercy. He's a God that

doesn't require that we impossibly reach

his level, but a God who condescended to

our level through his son, Jesus Christ.

He took on flesh and lived sinlessly

among us. And he gave his life to redeem

us from all of our sin and to reconcile

us back to himself. and to give by grace

the gift of eternal life. He's done

great things for us. Therefore, he is a

God before whom every angel and every

demon and every king and every man,

woman, and child must bow. We all bow

before him. There is none like him. And

therefore, he is supremely worthy of our

honor. The question is, how do we as

mere mortal sinners

possibly give him the honor that is due

unto his name? How do we do that? Well,

just as God is worthy of our honor, God

was worthy of Israel's honor.

He brought the 10 plagues upon Egypt. He

parted the Red Sea and they walked

across on dry ground. He drowned the

Egyptian army behind them. He provided

for them faithfully through the

wilderness. He brought them to the Mount

Si and he covenanted to be their God.

He's given them victory. He's been

faithful to a rather faithless people.

But now God is going to lead a new

generation with a new leader into a new

land. He has appointed Joshua to be the

new leader of Israel. He's going to give

them victories on his way to fulfilling

his promises. And after anointing Joshua

as the new leader in the previous

chapter, he now reminds all Israel that

they must honor him above all. That

while Joshua is leading the way, he is

really their king. God is. He's the one

who's really going to give them victory.

He is the one who's really going to

bring them in and fulfill his promise.

and therefore he is worthy of their

honor. And what God is calling them to

do here in these two chapters is to

worship him continually as he had

prescribed as he'd already told them. He

reminds them of these regular rhythms of

worship, their regular offerings, their

Sabbaths, their feasts that all intended

to bring Israel together to remember

their God, to offer sacrifices unto him,

to keep them connected to him in spite

of their sin.

There are two main emphases in these two

chapters. Number one is that to honor

God, Israel must keep a regular rhythm

of worship. But then as we go along the

way, we're going to see a constant

thread that shows us number two that

they must worship him continually and

not just occasionally. That's what we

see. Regular worship and continual

worship. And the way that God calls them

to honor him in this text is the same

way that we can give honor to him today

as our redeemer. And so let's consider

number one, to honor God, we need to

keep a regular rhythm of worship in our

lives. The Lord tells Moses, as we read

in verses 1 and two, to remind Israel to

keep their regular rhythms of worship at

their due seasons. He begins in verses

3-8 with what we might call daily

worship. It's the continual burnt

offering. And because we've covered the

details pretty well, I'm going to do my

best. We have a lot to cover here. I'm

going to do my best to to just summarize

here. I think we know and understand

what's being done in these different

feasts and sacrifices. And so, we're not

going to take the time to read through

each and every chapter. But here in

verses 3-8, we have the continual burnt

offering that every single morning and

every single night, the priests would

offer a lamb as a burnt offering. It was

wholly sacrificed unto the Lord. And

then on top of that offering, they would

put what's called a meat offering or a

food offering of fine flour mingled with

oil as well as a drink offering of wine.

And so God starts right here with the

daily worship. every morning, every

night, you bring this offering unto me.

Then in verses 9 and 10, he moves to the

weekly Sabbath. If you'll look at verse

9, it says, "And on the Sabbath day, two

lambs of the first year without spot,

and two tenth deals of flour for a meat

offering mingled with oil and the drink

offering thereof. This is the burnt

offering of every Sabbath." And so now

you've got the weekly worship. So daily

worship and now you have weekly worship.

Every Sabbath they offer twice as much

as they do for the regular burnt

offering. But then we notice in verses

11-15

that he prescribes a monthly worship as

this uh comes to the first of every

month. They operated on a lunar

calendar. And so sometimes they're

called the new moon offerings. And so

they would bring a another offering on

the first day of the month that offers

two young bullocks, one ram, and seven

lambs of the first year along with a

meat offering and a drink offering for

each animal. So they're going to offer

these these two young bulocks, one ram,

seven lambs, and then one of the food

offerings for each of those animals, and

then also a goat for a sin offering. And

so what you see here is this pattern,

daily worship, weekly worship, and

monthly worship. And guess what comes

next? Yearly worship. And so then it

goes into all of these different feasts

that we have covered in verses 16-2.

It's the Passover and the feast of

unleavened bread. This commemorates

Israel's deliverance from Egypt on the

14th day of their first month, which

would be around March or April because

of the lunar calendar. their their first

month. On the 14th day of that month,

they would offer the Passover lamb. And

then on the 15th day, they would have a

a holy convocation, which is a a Sabbath

assembly. They're not working on this

day, and they're assembling together for

yet another offering on the 15th day.

And so, they're all going to come

together. They're going to offer this

sacrifice of two bollocks, one ram,

seven lambs with their meat and drink

offerings and a goat for a sin offering

to make atonement for them. And they're

actually supposed to offer this

particular sacrifice every day for the

seven days of unleavened bread. And so

that's the instruction given for the

Passover. And then in verses 26

through31, you come to the feast of

first fruits, which we also know as

Pentecost. This is when they remembered

to give God thanks for providing them

another harvest, for meeting their needs

of of food throughout that year. And so

this would take place both at the

beginning and the end of harvest. And

they would offer the same sacrifice

there as they did for the new month as

well as the Passover. And then in verses

as we move to chapter 29, you come to

verses 1-6 and it gives the feast of the

trumpets. We actually first came across

this early in numbers after the counting

of the first generation. And this is the

seventh month, the first day of the

seventh month. They're to have this

feast of trumpets. This is the holiest

month of the year. You have the day of

atonement in the seven month seventh

month as well as the feast of

tabernacles. And so this is the holiest

month of the year. They would blow these

trumpets and then they would they would

uh offer a sacrifice of one young

bulock, one ram and seven lambs of the

first year as well as their meat

offering and drink offerings and a goat

for a sin offering. That then leads to

the 10th day of the seventh month which

is the holiest holiday of the whole

year. What we call yam kapour. That's

what it is in Hebrew. It's the day of

atonement. This is the one day of the

year when they would perform a special

ceremony and they would bring two goats

to the door of the tabernacle and they

would cast lots upon them. And the the

lot that fell upon the scapegoat, the

priest would would put pressure on the

goat's head and it would be like

transferring all the sins of the people

on that goat and then somebody would

take it out and release it in the

wilderness. and it symbolized the sins

being removed from Israel's camp. Then

they would kill the other goat and

sacrifice it and take the blood. And it

was just this one time a year the high

priest could go into the holy of holies

and he would sprinkle that blood seven

times upon the mercy seat and it would

cover all the sins of all the people for

that one whole year. And so anything

that was missed by their other

sacrifices were covered by the day of

atonement. And so they would offer these

particular sacrifices as well. Then you

come to the 15th day of the month which

starts the feast of tabernacles. And the

feast of tabernacles is when Israel

would live out in tents for seven days.

And it would remind them of how God

faithfully provided for them and led

them through the wilderness journey into

the promised land. And this was the by

far the most involved feast that they

had because they would uh offer for

seven days a massive offering. If you

it's in verses 12-38 of of chapter 29.

So that tells you this is the lengthiest

section. And it's because there's a

slightly different offering for every

single day. On the very first day, they

would offer 13 young bullocks. That's

quite a bit more than all the other

ones. So 13 young bullets, bulocks, two

rams, 14 lambs of the first year with

their meat and drink offering and a goat

for a sin offering. But every day that

it progressed, there would be one less

bulock offered until it counts down to

seven, which is the number of

completion. And on that seventh day of

that feast, then it would finish it off

with this large sacrifice. And so you

have all of these different feasts, all

of these different sacrifices. But then

what we do is we come to verse 39 where

it says, "These things shall ye do unto

the Lord in your set feasts beside your

vows and your free will offerings, for

your burnt offerings, and for your meat

offerings and for your drink offerings

and for your peace offerings." And so

what what God gives to them here is a

regular consistent rhythm of worship

that they are going to be offering

sacrifices for their sins. They're going

to be offering sacrifices to complete

their vows. They're going to be offering

sacrifices for cleansing when they have

buried a loved one. And they're going to

be offering sacrifices for unintentional

sins. and and then at times just to to

worship God and just give peace

offerings of thanks and fellowship with

him. And so they're going to be doing

this all throughout their year. But what

God establishes is a specific rhythm of

daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly

worship. Why? Rhythms help us remember.

Rhythms help us remember. We all know

cheesy commercial jingles, don't we?

That it just takes a couple words or a

slight tune to remind you what it is.

Like

I'm loving it. McDonald's, right?

Nationwide is

>> like a good neighbor.

>> Yeah. It's funny how that works, right?

See, the repetition and the structure of

rhythm and melody helps us remember

songs that we've maybe not even heard in

years. There are times you may have not

listened. I mean, my parents are

notorious for this. They haven't

listened to secular music in like 50

years and yet all they have to hear is a

slight tune from the Bee Brothers or the

Beatles and it all comes right back

because of that. And so that's how

rhythms help us remember. Well, if we

are to honor God with our lives, we need

rhythms of worship in our lives. And we

need the same kind of rhythms that God

gives to Israel here. First, we need

daily rhythms of worship. Everyday

worship time when we get in the word of

God and we just remember, hey, I belong

to God. God's spoken to me through his

word. He's preserved it for me where I

can read it every single day. God has

truth he wants me to take in and I'm

going to honor him by taking in the

truth he's given to me. We all need

daily rhythms of prayer. Daily rhythms

where we bring our needs before God.

Whether it's our financial needs or our

family struggles or or the hurts of our

heart that need to be healed, we bring

those things to God on a daily basis.

But don't forget so, you know, we're so

quick to come to our daily prayer time

and just start almost like venting to

God, right? I need this and I need this

and I need this and God, I can't believe

these people did this. Don't forget

daily rhythms of worship.

To remember in prayer what God's done

for you, what Christ accomplished

through the cross to thank him for how

he's provided for you in the past.

Whether it's providing you with a spouse

or graciously giving you children or

blessing you with a good church or

whatever it might be, but you spend time

actually thanking God for what he's done

for you and expressing worship and

adoration, acknowledging who he is, that

he's holy, that he's perfect and

sinless, and yet he came to us to give

us life. He paid for all of our sin. We

need those daily reminders of who God is

and the wonder of what he's done for us.

We also need weekly worship in our

lives. God's built that into his church

where we have a Sunday morning service

and we have a a Thursday evening service

where we can come together and sing his

praise and spend some time in worship

and praying together and bringing our

needs before him and fellowshipping and

remembering that that he didn't just

save us individually, but he saved us

collectively into a family of God and

that he has made us one in Christ. And

and so we need those times to come and

to give our our offerings to him and to

take in his word and hear from it so

that we can believe it and make

application to our lives. We need those

weekly rhythms of worship. Why? They

remind us to honor the Lord with our

lives. Then there are also times when we

have other regular days of worship. We

may not do something uh special once a

month, but you know, every quarter or so

we have sing the gospel. We hold the

Lord's supper and we've worked those

those rhythms into our regular calendar

as a church so that it gives us time to

really sing the gospel of Jesus Christ

to let the word of Christ del dwell in

us richly and all wisdom teaching

admonishing one another in psalms in

hymns in spiritual songs singing with

grace in our hearts to the Lord that's

something that God's called us to do and

singing the gospel helps with that

observing the Lord's supper regularly

helps us to reflect upon on the cross.

You know, I just I just came under the

conviction last year that, you know, we

do this twice a year at Easter and and

Thanksgiving and they're such special

times and they're really reflective for

us. And it's just like, well, maybe we

should do that once a quarter instead of

just a couple times a year. Why? Because

it reminds us to honor Christ because of

the cross that he took for us. And so,

we work some of those things. And then

we might have what we call big days,

annual days, missions conference, summer

refresh, open house or friend day,

vision Sunday. We have these different

special days that that can regularly

remind us to share the gospel, to invite

people to church, and just to refocus on

our evangelistic responsibilities as

well. These are ways that we can honor

the Lord. And so we need these regular

rhythms of worship in our lives. Can I

just ask you tonight, how important are

they to you?

Is daily worship as important to you as

it is important to God? God wants that

time with you because God knows that

only will you be truly satisfied in life

when you have a close intimate

connection with him. He knows that a

close relationship with him is the most

lifegiving thing that you can have in

your life. He wants that worship time

with you. I just wonder if we want it

too.

Can I ask you, what about weekly

worship? Is Sunday just optional for

you? Or is midweek Bible study marked

out on your calendar every week or just

when you have nothing else going on?

I'm not accusing, I'm just asking. Every

year we give out our annual calendar in

January on vision Sunday. We give out

quarterly calendars to correct when

those dates are messed up. And so we

give you these calendars. I just wonder,

do you take that calendar every month

and say, you know what, I'm going to

mark out those particular dates,

especially those big days on there,

especially summer refresh in August and

missions conference in the fall. Do I

mark those days off at my calendar and

plan my life around it? plan vacation

around it and and my work schedule

around these regular rhythms of worship.

I think that those are things we need to

give our attention to. Why? Because

these regular rhythms can help remind us

to honor the Lord.

See, it's easy for us to become

preoccupied, isn't it? To be distracted

or to be tempted to honor other things

of the Lord. Whether it's our work,

whether it's our sports, whether it it's

relationships or whatever it might be.

We have that fallen tendency in us. And

so these regular rhythms can just remind

us to give God the glory and the honor

that he's truly worthy of in our lives.

But there's one more thing that I want

to point out to you that is heavily

emphasized in this text and that is this

that to honor God, we must worship him

continually and not just occasionally.

Where does this come from? Well,

throughout these chapters, the Lord is

careful to say that they are to offer

each offering beside the continual burnt

offering.

In fact, it's said 16 times after each

offering. Let's just look at it. Go back

to chapter 28, verse number 10. This is

during the Sabbath day. It says this,

"This is the burnt offering of every

Sabbath beside the continual burnt

offering and his drink offering." Then

you look at verse 11. It says, "In the

beginnings of your months," now look

down at verse 15, "One kid of the goats

for a sin offering unto the Lord shall

be offered beside the continual burnt

offering and his drink offering." Look

down at verse 23 and 24 for the

Passover. Ye shall offer these beside

the burnt offering in the morning, which

is for the continual burnt offering. And

after this manner ye shall offer daily

throughout the seven days, the meat of

the sacrifice made by fire of a sweet

savor to the Lord. It shall be offered

beside the continual burnt offering and

his drink offering. Now we go down to

verse 31. This is talking about

Pentecost. And it says, "Ye shall offer

them beside the continual burnt

offering, the feast of trumpets, chapter

29:6, beside the burnt offering of of

the month and his meat offering and the

daily burnt offering." And so you've got

beside it again, verse 11, one kid of

the goats for a sin offering beside the

sin offering of atonement and the

continual burnt offering and the meat

offering of it and their drink

offerings. Verse number 16, feast of

tabernacles, one kid of the goats for a

sin offering beside the continual burnt

offering. And it says this, for every

day of the feast of tabernacles, verse

19, verse 22, verse 25, 28, 31, 34, and

38, it's mentioned after every single

day that the you're to offer these

offerings on these big days, these

weekly Sabbaths, these monthly

offerings, but they are all to be beside

the offering. And then of course we saw

in verse 39 that these are beside all of

their regular offerings. And so there's

these these uh regular offerings that

they're going to offer all throughout

the year, but then they're going to have

the weekly, the monthly, and the yearly,

but they are never to override the daily

burnt offering. I think God is

communicating something very important

here. He is in a covenant relationship

with Israel. And relationships

cannot rely on big days alone.

Think about a man who's a husband and a

father. He has a traveling job and he's

always gone,

but he calls and checks in on birthdays

and anniversaries and maybe Christmas.

But the rest of the year his for his

wife and kids, it's just utter silence.

Now, what kind of relationship do you

think that man is going to have with his

family if the only time he talks to or

sees his family is on the big days? It

won't be very good, will it? Well,

listen. Big day worship can never

replace everyday worship.

See, we all know people who come to

church on big days, Easter and

Christmas, right? And it might be that

if you call them up and say, "Hey, we're

having a big open house Sunday and we're

going to have the Sweet Cow ice cream

truck and I just wanted to we're trying

to get as many people there as we

possibly can and just have a a big day."

And they may show up on those days. It's

inevitable that there's going to be some

Christians that that's the depth of

their Christian life is big day worship.

But I also am concerned

about those who come to worship every

Sunday but never worship throughout the

week.

Those who come to weekly worship and

think that weekly worship can replace

their everyday worship. that that they

spend very little time to with the Lord

throughout their week. The Lord knows

this that if we're truly going to

experience that lifegiving relationship

that we were created to have with him,

we need regular rhythms of worship. But

he also knows that big day worship can

never replace everyday worship.

He puts weekly into our lives. Sometimes

he might put quarterly or monthly into

our lives and sometimes he'll put yearly

into our lives. He's certainly done

that. But he calls us to close daily

fellowship with him every single day.

For Israel, it was morning and evening.

Sometimes we can just struggle to nail

down one of those, can't we?

And yet what I hope you understand is

that God desires fellowship and

connection with you.

Think about that for a moment.

In spite of the ways that I've sinned,

in spite of the countless ways that I've

let him down, in spite of the many times

that maybe my motives haven't been

right, every day God still wants to be

with me.

and God still wants to be with you.

God so wanted to be connected with

Israel in spite of their sin that he

gave them a system

of connection to him.

But I want you to understand that God so

desires connection with you that he did

not just give you a system. He gave you

his son.

He gave you a savior. that Jesus came

and gave his life on the cross to remove

our every sin, to cleanse us completely,

to purge us entirely so that we could

come boldly to his throne and obtain

mercy and find grace to help in time of

need. That Jesus gave his life on the

cross and he rose again and he's in

heaven ever living to make intercession

for us. He's the continual everenduring

mediator of the new covenant of God

whereby we are in in we are sealed with

his holy spirit who causes us to live in

obedience to him and causes us to call

him aba father. He has sealed us with

the spirit. He has put his word in our

hearts. He has put away our iniquities

and he remembers them no more. He's done

that all in Jesus Christ. what he

provided for us in his son was even

greater than what he provided for Israel

in this system. That's how much he

desires to be with you.

Big day worship

can never replace everyday worship.

He calls us to honor him by not just

worshiping him occasionally, but

worshiping him continually.

He calls us to it. And so if you really

want to give God the honor that belongs

to him for everything that he's done for

us, we need to worship him continually.

We need to make these rhythms of worship

a priority in our lives. But we must

never let weekly, monthly, or big day

worship replace everyday worship. Why?

Well, we sin every single day.

Whether it's a bitter or lustful

thought, whether it's a big or a little

white lie, whether it's an angry

outburst or a selfish act, whether it's

running red lights or exceeding speed

limits,

we all fall short of the glory of God.

And sometimes our thoughts can just be

in the wrong place. our mindsets, our

beliefs, our perspectives on life.

Sometimes we can death scroll on social

media and be sucked into wormholes of

politics and gossip and sports. And

sometimes we can take in entertainment

that exposes us to the filth of this

world. And sometimes it's even

unavoidable in our lives that as you

drive around or you walk around at work,

you're going to hear things and you're

going to see things that that that just

make you feel yucky a little bit.

Sometimes you could even succumb to

temptation.

And so every single day, we need our

minds and our hearts to be cleansed and

recalibrated

to our redeemer. We need to carve out

that personal time to read his word,

personal time of prayer, personal time

of confession and repentance and

cleansing in Christ. We need to read

scripture every day to reset our minds

on things above. We need that time to

worship God, remind ourselves of just

how glorious he truly is. We need daily

rhythms of worship so we can remember to

honor God with our lives. Big days are

good. Don't get me wrong. I like big

days. They're exciting. Sometimes they

can renew enthusiasm within us for

inviting people to church and sharing

the gospel. Sometimes those days like

the Lord's supper are very special

because we sing a lot about the blood

and the cross of Christ and we we see

the broken bread for us and the the

poured out uh juice for us as well. And

so we we see in vivid picture what

Christ has done and those are great

days. But do you realize you can have

your own version of communion with God

every single day?

You don't have to wait till the Lord's

supper to remember he died for you. To

remember he atoned for all your sins. To

remember that he secured for you an

eternal inheritance. To remember that he

brought you together uh from from

different backgrounds and different

associations and different religious

systems and different ideologies. He

brought us all together as one unified

body in Jesus Christ. He did that in our

lives. you can remember every single day

that you have a relationship with God in

Christ.

So never let big day worship replace

everyday worship. Honor God by

worshiping not just occasionally

but continually in your life. Let's

pray.

Heavenly Father,

thank you for the truth of your word,

and I thank you for working into our

fabric

regular rhythms of worship,

for showing us in your word to meet

weekly,

but also that we can commune with you

daily.

And I pray that you would help. My my

earnest prayer for this church

is that we would not just survive from

Sunday to Thursday or even Sunday to

Sunday. That we would thrive every

single day living in communion with you.

I pray that you would help us to apply

these truths to our life and to

prioritize the rhythms, but to never let

them replace the dayto-day fellowship we

can have with you. Please speak to our

hearts and I pray we would respond

accordingly in Jesus name. Amen.