Song Of The Brokenhearted Series

PSALM 51

SONG OF THE BROKENHEARTED

Psalm 51.17

S: Brokenness and Repentance

C: Revival

Th: Our Time, Our Turn, Our All

Pr: YIELD TO GOD’S CONVICTION.

I. SIN

II. REPENT

III. CHANGE

IV. FRUIT

PA: How is the change to be observed?

• Grieve over your sin.

• Reconcile – make it right.

• Move forward

Version: ESV

RMBC 26 April 09 AM

ILL Signs (H)

Let’s start with a bit of humor this morning. Here are some really good suggestions for signs…

For an Optometrist’s office…

"If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place."

For a taxidermist…

"We really know our stuff."

For the Podiatrist…

"Time wounds all heels."

For the a muffler shop…

"No appointment necessary. We’ll hear you coming."

For a garbage truck…

"We’ve got what it takes to take what you’ve got."

Let’s pause for a moment. If God had a sign outside His office, I think it just might say this…

“I can’t fix it until it is broken.”

As a I mentioned last week, through mid-June, Lord willing, we will be thinking through our prayer action plan, talking about how we can PRACT – pray and act.

I know that “pract” is not a real word, but it does fit.

When it comes to the Prayer Action Plan, we must pray it and we must act on it.

We must do both!

Let’s read it out loud together.

PRACT

RENOUNCEMENT: We renounce stubbornness and an unwillingness to repent.

ANNOUNCEMENT: We announce our need for brokenness and repentance.

AFFIRMATION: We affirm that God will not despise a broken and contrite heart.

COMMITMENT: We will readily yield to the conviction of the Holy Spirit in confession and repentance.

I want us to consider a part of the story of David for a moment.

Though David had many successes in his life, there was one point that…

David had made a real mess of his life (Psalm 51.17).

Psalm 51 is based on this.

Because David became filled with lust for a woman, he committed the sin of adultery with her.

Then when she discovered she was expecting, David tried to force the husband to have relations with her.

When this plan failed, he tried to cover-up the sin by having him killed in battle.

He covered his adultery with murder.

What he forgot in all this process is that God knew all about his sin.

And when a prophet of God confronted him, he got it.

He knew he had been an evil man.

A #1, class A Jerk.

So he writes the song of the brokenhearted…

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

To handle sin in the Old Testament, a sacrifice of an animal was offered.

It was a total commitment.

Every part of the animal was given in a sacrifice.

By definition, a sacrifice is the surrender or destruction of something valued for the sake of something else.

In the Old Testament, it is the destruction of a valued animal in order to receive the forgiveness of sin.

But David understood that a sacrifice is not what God wanted.

It was much more encompassing.

God wanted what was missing.

He wanted David.

Listen to this verse again, this time in the New Living Translation…

The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. (NLT)

The word broken is descriptive.

It is the idea of being burst, shattered, and smashed.

It is not just being broken into two pieces (like a stick).

It is much more than that.

The Hebrew word for contrite is even more vivid.

It means crushed.

Literally it means crushed into a powder.

It is like being crushed into smithereens.

And here’s the thing…

God wants us broken.

Not because He’s cruel.

Not because He enjoys seeing us in pain.

He wants us broken, because unless we’re broken, He cannot penetrate the hardness in our hearts.

You see…

God is in the fixing business.

That’s the sign on His door.

This is God’s specialty!

When we are broken, He fixes us.

But we have to understand sin first…

SIN

Because…

Sin breaks us.

It wrecks us.

It ruins us.

It is poison to our system.

When we sin, we are playing God.

When we know something is wrong, and God has said it is wrong, but we do it anyway, we are choosing to sin.

We are choosing to play God.

We put ourselves at the center.

We put God anywhere else but the center.

As a result, we put our will in opposition to His will.

Here is the thing…

We don’t get to a better place with God until we recognize where we are is not so good.