When you think of broken people what comes to mind? An alcoholic that dulls his or her pain by throwing back a fifth of this, or a twelve pack of that? What about a drug addict that just cannot seem to break the need for another hit of meth or whatever drug they use to cope with life’s challenges? Is this what brokenness looks like? What do you do with a broken person?
Most of us would attempt to help them in one way or another. Some of us may ignore them to their detriment and our comfort. But what does God think of the broken?
According to David in Psalm 51:17 God accepts them. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” To understand this verse, we must first understand the larger context.
David, who was the greatest and most beloved king in the history of Israel, was also a great warrior and an equally great sinner. One season of war, when he should have been out with his troops, he stayed at home and looked out over Jerusalem. When he did, he observed a beautiful woman bathing on her roof; which was a custom of the time. He sent for her.
Well one thing led to another and she became pregnant with the king’s child. What makes it worse is that this young woman was also a young wife. Her husband was a warrior in the king’s army.
To make a long story short, David set this man up to be killed in action on the battlefield. He then made her one of his wives. All this, to hide his sin from both God and man. He failed on both counts.
A man named Nathan was called upon by God to present a story before the king about a man who had sinned before God. Nathan did as he was told, and when David angrily declared that whoever had sinned so is worthy of death, the prophet Nathan pointed at him saying “you are that man.”
David was broken by the magnitude of his own evil. He wrote the famous Psalm 51as a result of his confrontation with the prophet of God. David did not and could not sneak his sin past God; maybe before the people but not God.
The King of Israel could’ve reacted in various ways, but David had a heart for God. He fell to his knees and pleaded for forgiveness, and the sweet Psalter of Israel sang the song of Psalm 51.
As he processes his sin before God through agony of spirit, some of the most beautiful words to come as a result of sin flow out of a heart that misses God’s presence.
Yes, David could have “done” a lot of things in an attempt to please God and get himself out of trouble, but he chose to humble himself before God and confess his sin against God to restore the fellowship he had with the living God.
His words reach their crescendo in verse 17. But what does he mean by these words?
Three key words are “Broken”, “Contrite” and “Despise.”
David had come to realize that he did not “have it all together.” In fact, life as he knew it became unraveled in an instant, leaving him broken. He had grown proud and set himself up as an idol in place of God.
There was no sacrifice or good deed powerful enough to expunge David’s sin. So the earthly king approached the King of kings, and saw clearly, maybe for the first time, that he was nothing without fellowship with God. David now destroyed the last idol in his life (himself) that kept him from experiencing the intimate life with God that the Creator promised to those who loved Him.
David was not only “broken” but he was also “contrite” or crushed because of his sin against God. A note here is that all sin is against God as verse four spells out. When one is contrite, one is emotionally crushed by the weight of their sin. They have no way out, with God being the only relief for their intense guilt.
Why only God? Because He will not “despise” the one who comes to Him “broken” and “contrite.” When you “despise” something it means that you accord little worth to something. So God does not treat our brokenness lightly, but rather accepts us when we call out to Him; even after we have broken His heart and severed our fellowship with Him.
The first letter that John the apostle wrote to the churches in modern day Turkey states the same thing in different words. John wrote: “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Maybe you feel 10,000 steps away from God as you read this and you just can’t seem to break free from the sin that has held you down. You may have been consumed by this sin for so long that you feel God cannot possibly hear you anymore, or worse, care. But He does hear you, and through the grace of His mercy, those 10,000 steps become merely one…a step back to God.
Come to Him now, though smashed to smithereens and crushed beyond recognition, and you will find a God who will forgive and restore. He bids you “come as you are” and believe in what Jesus did upon the cross and you will find rest for your sinful and weary soul. He will make you brand new. Lay down your pride and accept the reality that God truly gave his Son to rescue the “broken.”