God Cares About The Heart

Well, good evening and welcome to New Grace Baptist Church. And I hope everyone had a great day. Had a good week. This week. We are in September today is September 1st. So it seems like the months are just flying by, aren't they? Well, we are in Zachariah tonight and we've been doing the book of Zechariah for several months now on Wednesday nights and tonight. We kind of start a new section. We going to start in chapter 7 tonight. And actually, I want to come by and chapters seven and eight. Probably take us a couple of Wednesday night's to finish this. But remember now are series is entitled, hope and hopeless times and how God cares about the heart. That's the title of tonight's message, God cares about the heart, and it's going to come from Zakaria 7 through 8. And will probably kind of finish chapter 7 tonight, then we'll save chapter 8 problem. For next week. Well, remember now what we've covered so far here in Zachariah. We started out with looking at 8, different visions. And we you know, the people had come back from Babylon and they had tried to rebuild the walls and rebuild the Temple, and they were just discouraged and all, and they had some enemies there who was trying to stop the rebuilding. Remember this is going on somewhere around 52525 BC. And so the lord gave them eight visions and they were Visions to encourage them and vision. One's talked about the longing for the peace of God. And remember all these Visions. They had like a prophetic sense to it. A longing, for the peace of God, talk about one day, when Christ is going to come back and set up his kingdom on Earth. We talked about longing for the justice of God. One day, God's going to come back and set everything right longing for the presence of God, that one day, that we history. Are we going to dwell with him forever first in the millennial. A thousand year reign on Earth and then forever in heaven? And then longing for the righteousness of God and we talked about how we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And that's what we need. If we going to go to heaven, we can't get there in our own righteousness. So remember that vision for and then longing for the power of God and we talked about how the holy spirit gives us the power that we need to live the Christian Life and then Vision 6 and 7 and talked about the authority of God and how one day that he's going to do away with evil. And then finally we talked about longing for the victory of God when he comes back and he does away with evil and he sets up his kingdom and there's peace and Tranquility on Earth, you so, we looked at those 8 visions and he gave them those Visions. So to encourage them. So now tonight. We're going to start in Zechariah 7, 1 through 3 in what we're talkin about again tonight. Is that God cares about the heart. So let's look at Zacharias 7 1 through 3 and will read these verses together. Now in the fourth-year king Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zachariah on the fourth day of the ninth month of kislev. When the people sent Sharisa with Regal Malik and his men to the house of God to pray before the Lord and to ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts. And the prophet saying, should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years. So we see here in verses 1 through 3. Here's a question about fasting. So let me give you a little context of what's going on here, almost two years have elapsed since Zachariah received those night visions, those eight night visions. And then, about two years later. He receives another word from the Lord. Now the Bible says here on the fourth day of the ninth month kids live. Well, that is in the fourth-year. It says of the reign of Darius and that would have been kissed. Live is in the month our December, so it's Winter time and the fourth year of Darius Reign that would been December of 5:18 BC. So the resumption of work on the temple began a little more than two years ago, but the completion is probably about two years away. So they were probably halfway finished with the construction of the temple. And then there's a question here that these two men want to know and it regards fasting. So there's a delegation of men that come from Bethel which was probably about 12 miles north of Jerusalem, and they wanted to ask the priests in the prophets whether they should continue to observe. They said the fifth month, fast in the fifth month and fast if we have done for so many years. Well the fifth month fast probably started in reference to the burning of Jerusalem. That was when Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon came in and destroyed the city walls and exiled the people to Babylon on the 7th day of that month. Well, that was the day that marked, what we would call the death of the nation. So it was only natural to fast in the morning during those long years of Exile. So while they were in Babylon for 70 years, they always remembered the the death of their nation. And so they had the fast and they mourned over that 470 years while they were in Babylon. So now that the Reconstruction of the temple was underway, the people in Bethel were wondering Well, do we still need to keep the fast? Do we still need to fast? Because we're back home now and, you know, we're not in captivity. We are rebuilding our Temple. So do we really need to mourn and fast about this? And other words could we set aside the morning and all of a sudden? Joyfully look for the new age, to Dawn, the nation's restoration promised by the prophets. Is it just around the corner? So can we stop fasting? So they just asked, should we weep in the fifth month, all these years? Well, you going to see That's a lot of Zechariah does not answer them until we get to chapter 8 and what he does. Now in Verses 4 through 14 is he basically gives them a sermon against hypocrisies cuz it that these men want to know, should be fast. Should we more like we've been doing for 70-something years? Or can we just kind of look forward to us? Coming down the road? So let's look at Zacharias response and verses four through seven. And this is what Zachariah says. Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me saying, Say to all the people of the land into the priest, when you fasted and mourned in the 5th and 7th months, during no, 70 years. Did you really fast for me from me, did you pass fast? So the Lord wants Zachariah to ask them. When you did all that fast in the morning while you was in Babylon. Did you really do it for me? From me? He says verse 6, when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? And then in verse 7, should you not have a beige, two words with the Lord for claim through the former prophets? When Jerusalem in the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous and the south in the lowland were inhabited. In other words. He shouldn't you have a baby when I threw the prophets come to you and told you what to do, and what I wanted. And yet you just went running after other gods and I Don't you think you should have a baby? And then after you were capped it captured and taken to Babylon when you would fast and more. Did you really do that for me? Was it for me? Or were you just putting on a show? So Zachariah does not answer their question actually. He won't answer until verse 9 of chapter 8, but what he wanted to do is he wanted to deal, firstly with the heart attitudes of the people. And that's why God he cares about the heart. You see, after all our relationship with Lord isn't so much a matter of traditions, and just fasting and praying and going to church and a bay in rules. It's not so much as bad as it is, Faith and Love and Hope and a desire to please him. You see is, you know, you can look at immature, Christians inventory, people. They always require religious regulations to tell them what to do because what they do and don't do that helps them to measure their spiritual life. So if I do this, if I pray, read my Bible, go to church pipe welding. That helps me measure my spiritual life and if I don't go to certain places, I shouldn't if I don't cuss but don't smoke don't you don't go out with women who do if I don't do that then that must That I'm spiritual but see what God wants us. He wants us to meet or spiritually and not grow from a bang rules, but grow by following principles and cultivating of vital personal relationship with him. So instead of answering their question, just like Jesus used to do, he answered, Zachariah, answers your question by asking them a question. And he asked these questions of the people and Priests, for they had been fasting and mourning and keeping those fast. So Zachariah says in verses 5 and 6, you know, when you were doing this, when you fasted, did you really do it for me or was you doing it for yourselves? When you fasted those seventy years in and you mourned Did you really mourn because you disobeyed me, or did you mourn? Because of just the circumstances that you were in that you got caught disobeying me and now you're in captivity and now, you're sorry, not because you disobey me, but because of your circumstance in other words, what's really in your heart, the process who ministered prior to the fall, had taught, the people that their religious observances had to come from the heart. And to worship any other way, was nothing more than practicing hypocrisy. Now, as far back as the ministry of Samuel, God told the people that he wanted their obedience and not just their fast and their sacrifices, look at it here in 1st Samuel 15:22. So, this is Sam. He said so Samuel said As the Lord, as great Delight, in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in a bay in the voice of the Lord, the whole to AB, a is better than sacrifice and to Eden the fat around that, he was talkin to us all here because saw had taken upon him to do the duty of a priest and Samuel saying to him, do you actually think God is more pleased with your sacrifices than he is with obedience. In other words, wouldn't God rather for us to a bay him than to walk down the aisle every Sunday morning and have to confess in the same sin over and over and over again. God would much rather us. Listen to what he says and then obey what he says not to disobey and then have to come down to the Altar and and confess past sins each and every week. Well, Isaiah also had proclaimed this message and so did the prophet Micah. And I look what Micah said in his book. Micah chapter 6, verse 6, through 8. He says with what shall I come before the Lord? And by myself before the high God, shall I come before him with burnt offerings with Cavs a year old and other words, should I just come confessing my sins with the Lord? Be pleased with thousands of rounds Ken thousand rivers of oil. Should I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you old man. What is good? And what does the Lord require of you now that he's going to tell us exactly what the lord requires? But to do justly. To love mercy and to walk humbly with your guy. This is what God requires. God does not really care about our sacrifices, and he doesn't care about our morning and sitting inside cloth. And he's really doesn't want us to come down the aisle, every Sunday, confessing the same sin. What he wants is to listen and to do, right, do what's right? Do justly, and then to love Mercy. What, what is, what is it? What does that mean? It means to love. Forgiveness to love to forgive others, to show other people, Mercy, not giving them what they deserve but give them what they don't deserve grace and mercy and to walk humbly with your God. He would whole lot rather us to obey him. Then he would to dissipate and then to come offer sacrifice and fast and things of that nature. You see life was peaceful and secure in those days. And it was much easier to maintain their Traditions, then to really meet with God and have a heart experience of worship. You see before Babylon came and took them into captivity. They just leaving the way they wanted to, and there was nothing going on. No one was threatening them. They were just having a good time. And it's in those times when it's a lot easier, just to go to church and just to go through the motions. Then it is to cultivate a intimate experience, intimate fellowship and relationship with the Lord. Now Zachariah was condemning traditions of such. He was just in for sizing the fact that the true spiritual life can't be turned on and off. At our convenience. We can't serve God 1 minute on Sunday morning and then just leave it like the world wants to live six days. The rest of the week. You can't serve God 1 minute and then forget about him the next. So if we Feast we ought to do it to glorify God. If we fast, we must do it to honor him. In other words, the Lord must be the center of our lives. And the reason for our actions and we aren't to worship Him and praise him, and glorify him and just go through the motions of doing it, just by because, well, I'm going to go to church cuz I'm supposed to, or I'm going to pray because that's what I need to do. I'm going to read, I'm going to make myself read the Bible friends. It shouldn't be that way. He doesn't want our relationship with him to be that way. These are things that we ought to want to do, and not have to force ourselves to do it. So if we keep a fast or any other religious tradition just to please ourselves and when the admiration and approval of others than God is not pleased with activity, and that activity is just a wasted activity. Don't you remember, Jesus, how he used to talk to me at her seat and the Pharisees? I just can't all these rules and regulations and they expected everybody else to keep them. And not only did they try to bait a Bible but they added their own rules on top of the Bible. Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees because they were Hypocrites. He said, you honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me, friends. Listen, God cares about your heart. He cares about you worship, and he wants it to be genuine and sincere. So, for their fasting to be sincere, the people needed to observe kind of the weightier matters of the law as well. So let's pick it up. Now, again and zachari seven and let's look at verses 8 through 10, then the word of the Lord came to Zakaria saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts execute True, Justice show, mercy, and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor, let none of you playing evil in his heart against his brother. And I we've already talked about that. How in those days people were, they would go to the marketplace and Buy and they would change the scales and they would give people maybe food, but it would be the wrong amount and they would take more money than they needed to take and they was evil all around and people were not treating each other in the way that God would have them to do it. They were oppressing the widows in the following. They was not helping the poor. They were planning evil in their hearts against their brother. See how much they, you know, what they could do to make a dollar. So, as a long line of prophets had urged them. They should administer True Justice and show, kindness and mercy to each other. And don't oppress the orphan in the Widow and the, a stranger in the poor and don't plot evil against each other. And I noticed that all these prescriptions here, cover the entire range of relationships from the legal operations, within society, that I spoke about to personal relationships with each other and they are broad. Look, it covers the widows and the orphans in the strangers and sojourners and the poor. And since neglecting these matters, was one of the main reasons of why, why God sent them into captivity. And I'll look at it here in Zachariah seven eleven through fourteen. He says, now this is what you should have done, but look at verse 11, but they refused to heed, they shrug their shoulders and stop their ears so that they could not hear. Yes, they do. Play their hearts, Like, Flint something hard refusing to hear the law, in the words with the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Does grey rats came from The Lord of hosts. He's talking about Babylon, coming and capturing them. Therefore. It happened that just as he proclaimed, and they would not here. So they called out. And I would not listen to say the Lord of hosts, but I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, which they had not known. Thus, the land became desolate after them. So that no one passed through or returned before they made the pleasant land. Desolate now, just think of that. What he saying? They, he's describing hear the obstinacy really of the people and he uses really three Vivid metaphors here when he was talkin about the people. First of all, he said, they shrug their shoulders. In other words, what he's saying, they turned a stubborn shoulder, the image. Here is aye a stubborn Ox that will not allow a yoke on its neck. In other words, you know, this animal here, possesses a kind of an autonomous spirit and they refused. And, you know, he would refuse to submit to the, to the yolk or to his master. And this is what the Lord was saying. He said, you just shrug your shoulders at me. I would tell you this and I would send the prophets, and they would preach, and all you do just shrug your shoulders, you didn't care. You didn't want to hear it. And then, secondly, he says, they stopped her ear so that they could not here. In other words, the people just Turn the deaf ear to all the preachers, literally in the Hebrew, hear what the text says, they made their ears heavy so that they would not here. I can remember when I was a child and sometime my mother or father, would say something to me and I didn't want to hear. So, I would take my hand and cover my ears, and they would be talking to me and I would be saying, I can't hear you. I can't hear you. But this is kind of the, the picture here. We get of the people, the preachers are preaching and tell him what God Said, and they just stopped their ear. So they couldn't hear. They just don't tell us that we don't, we don't want to hear that. And then thirdly it says here that they made their hearts Like Flint. They hardened their hearts. The sense here is something that's so hard. That is unbreakable. They have become so callous that virtually, nothing could Pierce their hearts or consciences. So, the Lord in his Justice sandtrap upon his people. He abandoned them and Scattered them into Exile. And then you notice that it said that the land was laid to waste the land was just desolate after this. It says, does the land became desolate after them for they made the pleasant land desolate. So it was a farming community and they were farming and they would gathering in crops. Everything was perfect. They got the rain when they needed it, but all of a sudden, they disobeyed the Lord and year after year. And finally, he sent them into captivity and the land became desolate, just think the lamb was left to waste. This land was, was the land that was flowing. The promised land flowing with milk and honey. Spacious producing Fields fruit bearing Vineyards, but the land was so rude. That is like no one could ever be spotted walking in it. It had become such a waste that even. The sheepherders were not found, did not find it to be useful friend. Sometimes the only way that the Lord can bring us back to reality. It's the force us to endure suffering. Remember what the psalmist said before, I was afflicted. I went astray, but now I have kept your word and friends sometimes, when we look at our own nation, and we see everything that's going on today. And we see the pandemic and we see the corruption in politics and government. We see the hatred, the race relations. We see socialism and Marxist. I'm trying to penetrate in our country and friends. We think. Maybe this is the Lord sending us a message like he sent the children of Judah here and maybe we like them where shrugging her shoulders. We're putting her hands over and ears and we don't want to hear what the word of God says. We don't want to hear what God thinks, we want to do it our way and our hearts have become Like, Flint and they're hard in the heart of your heart. Becomes the harder. It is to repent and Sometimes when we find ourselves in the furnace of Affliction, we have to turn to God. And his promises because really his promises and his word is the only thing that we have. So the Lord had to send the Jewish people into Exile before they'd learn to turn from their idols. And appreciate all the blessings that they had because of God's grace. And we will eat. We look at Afghanistan and we see the Taliban set sitting in our airplanes and taking pictures and having a parade in declaring the death of America. And maybe it's because God has seen how we turned our back on him and shrug their shoulders and close their ears. And maybe he's trying to teach us a lesson today. And friends, if you're listen to this and you are Christian, let me just say this in closing, God cares, about the heart, and don't let your Christianity just turn into something that you just have Hazard Lee and casually do. That has no meaning to you don't think simply because you go to church and give money and read your Bible and pray a little bit. That everything is right with you and the Lord, don't think that this is what he's telling the people here. He says, I'm sick of the hypocrisy. I'm sick of lips. That praise me, but Hart's, that are far from me where we going to see where this takes us in chapter 8, and we will look at that next week. So, let's pray. Father, we do. Thank you, and praise you and love you tonight. Lord for your word and Lord. Thank you for. This is so easy for us to go through the motions to get. So busy doing everything else to working and raising families and trying to make a dollar, even going to church and doing Church. Work is so easy to do that. Without having a close personal intimate relationship with you. Lord, help us to understand tonight that you care about our hearts that you want our hearts to be pure. And that you want us to do the things that we do. Out of obedience to you and I love our love for you not some tradition or not. Some, this is the way that we do it or not trying to do something so that you will bless us. But do it because you have loved us and you died on the cross for us, father, helped our hearts to be pure. And if there's anything in our hearts tonight, Lord, where we have insincere motives, we pray God, that you would let us know what it is. And if we can confess that and we could get right back on the track to obedient for it is far better to obey than to sacrifice. Well, thank you for being here tonight, and we will see you again next Wednesday night. And we'll look at Zakaria chapter 8. Have a great night.