The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
Build up the walls of Jerusalem;
Then you will delight in right sacrifices,
In burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
Then bulls will be offered on your altar. - Psalm 51:17-19
Most of us have had our hearts broken. Perhaps it happened because someone close to us betrayed us. Maybe it was the boyfriend or girlfriend (or fiancé or spouse) who told us they no longer loved us and wanted to be with us. Or it happens as we watch death overtake a loved one. Regardless of the situation, none of us delights in having our hearts broken and some of us go to great lengths to prevent it from ever happening to us again.
So, it may seem strange to us at the end of this psalm of lament and repentance to find out that a broken heart is what God desires from us. It is not external sacrifices that are of utmost importance (v.16). Anyone can go through the motions of offering up a bull or a lamb. But that can be done with a heart that is unmoved by or hardened toward sinfulness. As Isaiah states, this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me (29:13).
So what is a broken heart? Timothy Keller in his devotional, The Songs of Jesus, puts it this way: What is the broken and contrite heart God wants so much? It is a heart that knows how little it deserves yet how much it has received. To know only the first truth is to be self-loathing, to know only the second is to be self-satisfied - and both kinds of hearts will be self-absorbed. David is talking instead about hearts broken by costly, free grace - knowing both how lost and how loved we are. This gets us out of ourselves, freeing us from the need to be constantly looking at ourselves. When our lips are opened, we do not speak of ourselves but of God’s praise (verse 15).
When God by His Spirit brings conviction of sin, the psalmist is exhorting us to yield to that work. Don’t diminish it as if sin were no big deal. Don’t try to shift the blame to others. Don’t try to justify it. Instead, let the Spirit break you for it is in that broken place where Jesus meets us with grace and forgiveness.
Saints, may we make this prayer that Dr. Keller offers our own:
Lord, create in me true brokenness - not the counterfeit ones of discouragement, bitterness, or despair. Let me know liberation from always needing to defend myself, always standing on my dignity, always smarting because I’ve been snubbed. Give me the quiet peace of a broken spirit. Amen.