Just, Kind, and Merciful: Heart Over Ritual

Aug 16, 2026

Devotional

Day 1: Ritual Without Relationship: Fasting That Forgets the Heart

The people of Bethel asked whether to keep mourning Jerusalem’s fall, but God questioned their motives. Empty rituals—fasting or feasting—mean nothing if hearts remain hardened to true repentance. True devotion isn’t about checking religious boxes but pursuing God Himself. When our spiritual practices become routine without relational depth, they echo the hypocrisy of those who honored God with lips while hearts strayed. God desires raw honesty over polished performances. [40:06]

“And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous?”
(Zechariah 7:5-6, ESV)

Reflection: What spiritual habit have you maintained out of routine rather than relational hunger for God? How might you approach it this week to seek His face, not just His favor?

Day 2: True Judgments and Tender Mercies: The Mark of a Soft Heart

God’s answer cuts through ritual pretense: “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy.” A heart softened by repentance overflows into justice for the marginalized—widows, orphans, strangers. Hardened hearts devise evil; tender hearts break for the broken. This isn’t moralism but the natural fruit of abiding in the God who defines love. To know Him is to reflect His care for the vulnerable. [46:23]

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
(Zechariah 7:9-10, ESV)

Reflection: Where is God inviting you to replace judgment with mercy this week? How could actively advocating for one marginalized person reflect His heart?

Day 3: Diamond Hearts and Deaf Ears: The Cost of Refusing to Listen

Generations before Zechariah’s audience “made their hearts diamond hard,” resisting God’s warnings until exile came. A stubborn shoulder, stopped ears, and calcified heart describe deliberate rebellion. God’s discipline isn’t cruelty—it’s the tragic consequence of those who refuse correction. Yet even diamond hearts can be shattered by grace when humility replaces defiance. [49:15]

“But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets.”
(Zechariah 7:11-12, ESV)

Reflection: What area of your life feels resistant to God’s Word? What practical step could soften that resistance today?

Day 4: Scattered by the Whirlwind: When God Withholds His Ear

God’s chilling response to rebellion—“As they would not hear, I would not hear”—reveals the relational rupture sin causes. Exile wasn’t petty retaliation but the natural outcome of rejecting their covenant Anchor. The “pleasant land” became desolate, not because God abandoned them, but because they abandoned Him. Yet even in scattering, His purpose was restoration. [51:33]

“As I called and they would not hear, so they called and I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts. And I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known.”
(Zechariah 7:13-14, ESV)

Reflection: When have you experienced distance from God? How did His discipline ultimately draw you closer?

Day 5: From Ritual to Regeneration: The Spirit’s Work in Softened Hearts

The sermon’s hope lies not in self-reform but the New Covenant promise: God replaces diamond hearts with fleshly ones. Rituals become relationship when the Spirit empowers obedience. Justice, kindness, and mercy flow not from gritted teeth but a transformed inner life. What the law demanded, grace enables through Christ’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s indwelling. [01:09:11]

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
(Ezekiel 36:26-27, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you tried to “white-knuckle” holiness instead of relying on the Spirit? How might you invite His power into that struggle today?

Sermon Summary

Zechariah 7 opens with another dated word from the Lord, about two years after the night visions and while the temple rebuild was about halfway done. The Lord had already encouraged the returned Jews through Zechariah that He remembered His covenant, that He was restoring His people, and that the Branch, the Lord Jesus Christ, would one day rule as king and priest. Chapter 7 brings a different kind of word, but it still presses the same matter: return to the Lord with the whole heart.

The people of Bethel send men to entreat the favor of the Lord and to ask whether the yearly fasting and weeping in the fifth month should continue. That fast had grown up around the anniversary of Nebuchadnezzar destroying the temple. The seventh month fast also remembered another disaster, the assassination of Gedaliah, when the remnant in the land further spiraled after refusing prophetic warnings. So the question sounds reasonable: if the temple is being rebuilt and restoration is happening, should the mourning keep going?

The Lord answers the question with a question. “Was it for me that you fasted?” The issue is not first the calendar. The issue is the heart. The Lord asks whether the people had truly been grieving sin and seeking Him, or whether they had just kept a ritual because the consequences were sad. Their eating and drinking had the same problem. Even the feasts could become self-focused if the heart was far from God.

The Lord then brings back the words He had spoken through the former prophets. He had already told His people what He wanted: “render true judgments, show kindness and mercy,” do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and do not devise evil in the heart against one another. That is not empty religion. That is what real repentance and real relationship with God look like in everyday life.

The former generation refused to pay attention. They turned a stubborn shoulder, stopped their ears, and made their hearts “diamond hard.” The Lord, slow to anger, finally brought great anger. As He called and they would not hear, so they called and He would not hear. He scattered them with a whirlwind, and the pleasant land was made desolate.

Zechariah 7 therefore presses relationship over ritual. The Lord is not impressed by religious activity that ignores His word and mistreats people made in His image. True repentance turns from sin and turns to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose atoning death satisfies God’s wrath and whose resurrection gives new life. Truly loving God will show up in truly loving others, by the Spirit’s power, in justice, kindness, and mercy.

Key Takeaways

1. Seek the Lord for answers The people of Bethel did the right thing by bringing their question before the Lord instead of just guessing at His will. The people of God now have the living and active written word, more revelation than that generation had, and that means seeking counsel must never replace listening to Scripture. Real seeking does not stop at getting information, because wisdom is meant to become obedience. [54:20]
2. Ritual cannot replace relationship The Lord’s question, “Was it for me?” cuts through every outward religious act. Fasting, feasting, prayer, giving, and serving can all become ways to keep up appearances while the heart stays far from God. The Lord looks past the performance and weighs whether love, repentance, and obedience are actually present. [59:56]
3. Repentance turns from and to Repentance is not merely feeling bad because consequences came. Repentance agrees with God about sin, grieves the broken fellowship sin causes, and turns toward Christ as the only true refuge. The cross shows that sin is not small, because wrath had to be poured out on the Son for forgiveness to be given. [56:49]
4. Hard hearts invite holy anger The former generation did not accidentally drift into ruin. The people refused to pay attention, turned a stubborn shoulder, stopped their ears, and made their hearts diamond hard. The warning is sobering because the God who is slow to anger is not indifferent forever, and ignored mercy eventually becomes judgment. [49:15]
5. Love God by loving others The Lord tied true devotion to true judgments, kindness, mercy, and care for the vulnerable. A person cannot claim real love for God while devising evil or neglecting the needy neighbor right in front of him. Right relationship with God bears fruit horizontally, because the Spirit forms the self-giving love that mere religion cannot manufacture.

## [64:44]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[28:39] - Zechariah 7 Begins
[31:09] - Reading Zechariah 7
[34:15] - Date and Temple Rebuild
[35:43] - Bethel Asks About Fasting
[40:46] - Was the Fast for God?
[45:42] - Justice, Kindness, and Mercy
[48:45] - Diamond Hard Hearts
[51:04] - Scattered by the Whirlwind
[53:53] - Go to the Lord for Answers
[56:49] - Repentance and the Gospel
[59:56] - Relationship Over Ritual
[64:44] - Loving God Means Loving Others
[67:26] - Prayer for Justice, Kindness, and Mercy

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

Zechariah 7
“In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD, saying to the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, 'Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?' Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: 'Say to all the people of the land and the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?'' And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.' But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. 'As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,' says the LORD of hosts, 'and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.'” [31:35]

Micah 6:8
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” [48:28]

James 1:22-25
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” [55:53]

1 John 4:7-21
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” [01:05:50]

Observation questions

In Zechariah 7, what question did the people of Bethel bring, and how did the Lord answer that question before addressing the fast itself? [40:46]
What specific actions does the Lord command in Zechariah 7:9-10, and which kinds of vulnerable people are named there? [45:42]
What pictures are used in Zechariah 7 to describe the former generation’s refusal to listen to God? [48:56]
According to James 1:22-25 and 1 John 4, what two marks are emphasized as evidence of a right response to God’s word?

Interpretation questions

The Lord asks, “Was it for me that you fasted?” What does that question reveal about how God views religious practices like fasting, feasting, and other outward acts? [59:56]
Zechariah 7 connects true devotion to justice, kindness, mercy, and care for the vulnerable. Why does God tie love for Him so closely to the way people treat one another? [01:04:59]
The people mourned real national tragedies, yet the Lord still exposed a heart problem. What is the difference between being sad over painful consequences and truly repenting of sin? [56:49]
Zechariah 7 says, “As I called and they would not hear, so they called and I would not hear.” What does that teach about the danger of repeatedly resisting God’s word? [51:12]

Application questions

It is possible to keep up spiritual habits while the heart is far from God. Are there any routines in life right now—church attendance, prayer, giving, serving, fasting, Bible reading—that have started to become mostly outward for appearance or habit rather than love for the Lord? [01:04:24]
Repentance turns from sin and turns to Christ. When conviction comes, is there a tendency to mostly feel bad about consequences, or to honestly bring the sin to the Lord and seek restored fellowship with Him? [59:19]
God’s word calls His people not only to hear but to obey. Is there a clear area where God’s word is already known, but obedience has been delayed, softened, or resisted? What would a first step of obedience look like this week? [55:22]
The Lord cares deeply about how widows, the fatherless, the sojourner, and the poor are treated. Who in everyday life might fit into a vulnerable category nearby right now, and what would kindness or mercy toward that person actually look like? [47:24]
Hard hearts do not usually appear all at once; they grow through repeated refusal to listen. Where might a “stubborn shoulder” be showing up—in a strained relationship, a hidden sin, a long-ignored prompting, or a refusal to forgive? [49:15]
Loving God shows up in loving others. Is there anyone currently being judged unfairly, avoided coldly, or quietly resented in the heart? What would true judgment, kindness, and mercy look like toward that person? [01:05:14]
The Spirit is the one who forms real love, not mere religious effort. What would it look like to ask specifically for the Spirit’s help in one relationship this week where patience, mercy, or self-giving love is needed? [01:07:26]

Sermon Clips

49s

#RelationshipOverRitual

“``And that leads to another one of the main takeaways from today's text for us, I believe. It relates to our motivation for repenting or doing anything else that we aim to do, that we believe God would have us to do, and that is the issue of relationship over ritual. From our text today, we saw the Lord's criticism of a people that was just going about the rituals of this weeping and fasting or other times feasting according to him without really regard for him, as demonstrated in the way they behaved and neglected to do what was right to others.”

41s

#RepentAndBelieve

“But we also turn to the solution. Repentant is a turning from and a turning to. We turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and how He came to provide the means by which we can be forgiven through His atoning death on the cross, where God's wrath was poured out on Him for our sin. But then He, of course, didn't stay dead, but He rose from the dead. So we repent initially when we turn from our waywardness and agreeing with the Lord about these things, our sin and our need to believe in Jesus and what he did to save us.”

45s

#PrayListenObey

“And when you're struggling, though, to understand it, pray. Seek the Lord. Seek counsel from other trusted Christians and Bible teachers. But more than that, listen and obey His words. Listen to and obey His words. It's one thing to know the Lord's words, and it's another thing to listen to them or obey them. Our text today records that the Lord, he recounted how the previous generations leading up to the exile refused to pay attention to his words. They made their hearts diamond hard against his words.”

41s

#FastingWithPurpose

“Second, the question from the Lord was, did you fast for me? Is it because you were sorrowful for your sins, the sins of your people, and how it negatively affected your relationship with me? So were you seeking me in this fasting? Or was it because you just followed this tradition and you were sad for the negative consequences that happened? So then the similar and rhetorical question comes in the next verse, verse six. And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?”

36s

#MotiveMatters

“What's more, the shift from past to present tense from verses five to six shows that this wasn't a past issue. In other words, their main motivation in their eating and drinking was not to seek and glorify the Lord. Had they learned the lessons that the destruction of the temple was meant to teach? And therefore, had they truly repented and turned from their sins and turned to the Lord? If so, there's no need to keep fasting. And if not, what was the point?”

43s

#JoyfulObedience

“So here is what the Lord wanted, and, oh, by the way, still wants his people to be like. He's more interested in this than whether the people continued their fast. And these are not new commands. Right? When a person is truly repentant for their sins, they will desire and they will aim to live in, really, a joyful obedience to the Lord. And that includes looking like these things, rendering true judgments. That is, making judgments that accord with what is true and what is in step with God's revealed truth.”

44s

#HardenedHearts

“So previous generations had refused to pay attention to the Lord's words given in his word and reiterated via his prophets that he had sent to them. Not paying attention equals not heeding them, not doing them, not obeying them and not is not good. Turning a stubborn shoulder. Right? Stopping the ears, making their hearts diamond hard. This speaks of deliberate, persistent choice to reject God's word. They made themselves so hard hearted that they wouldn't hear his word via the law or the prophets.”

46s

#RepentForRelationship

“What's more though is save people who do believe in him on occasion when we sin and when we realize it and we're convicted about it by the Holy Spirit, we confess it to the Lord in repentance, knowing that among other consequences, our sin grieves him, and it impedes our fellowship or our relationship with him. See, that was part of his question to the people. Were you fasting and mourning all those years for me? Because you care about the relationship between me and you? Or was it just some ritual you were doing? Or was it just something you were just sad about the consequences?”

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What did God prioritize over ritual fasts?

How did hardheartedness lead to national judgment?

How should true repentance manifest toward others?