O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise. For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Psalm 51:15-17
The great aim of Infallible Joy is and will always be Proclaiming Christ as the Only True Source of Joy No Matter the Cost. However, one has to ask the question how do we get there in a world that is so affixed with self and the aggrandizement of it. We are told day in day out that we are good on the inside or that we have good in us.
I wonder how that is true in a world that has shown us time and time again that it isn’t so because if that was so then wars would be almost non-existent, digital media wouldn’t be a cesspool of sin and bad behavior but much more importantly Jesus Christ need not have died on the cross when apparently we have good in us because saying that degrades Christ from the position of Savior and the Propitiator of our sins (Romans 3:25-26; 1 John 2:2) to a self-seeking, selfish insurrectionist, in short; just another human.
So with that slight dose of reality out of the way, then how do we regard Christ as our Only True Source of Joy in a world that confidently tells us that joy in self is what’s more important. Well here’s where the term ‘brokenhearted’ comes in. As the dictionary tells us this term means filled with grief or disappointment. So, you could be asking yourself why would the Bible or I as the writer of this article tell you that your key to true and eternal joy is through brokenheartedness. The answer is simple actually but before I answer I would like to explore three stories in the Bible to see why their brokenheartedness was their redeeming light and then come to hopefully an agreeable conclusion.
David and Psalms 51
David is regarded by many not only as a role model for Christian living but also as possibly the greatest king of Israel not named Jesus. Even the Bible calls him “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). So who wouldn’t yearn to be like him; an author of 73 Psalms, loved of God to the point where one of the reasons Hezekiah was saved from the onslaught of the Assyrians was not only for the sake of God’s name but also of His servant David (Isaiah 37:35) and not only that but the only reason Judah existed in the first place was because of the promise God made to David (1 Kings 11:32).
So, you’d be inclined to think that David was the model believer. Well, he isn’t for the way you might think but he is for the way he looked at sin especially his own (Psalms 25, 32, 51). If you were to look at the atrocities written in the Bible that were done by David they are actually worse than those done by Saul.
I am sure these atrocities are well known to many but for those who don’t know well here is a quick summary: he coveted another man’s wife, committed adultery with her, tried to coerce her husband to sleep with her to try and hide the fact that the woman had gotten pregnant by him, then when the husband refused to leave his side as it was during a time of war he directly propagated his murder by ensuring he was placed in the frontlines of battle so that the pregnancy can be a hidden fact (2 Samuel 11).
Let’s compare that with why Saul was rejected by God: he had been commanded by God to go and completely destroy the Amalekites to the point that essentially no breath came from that country anymore but he decided to spare the Amalekite king and all their best cattle and sheep (1 Samuel 15). When you look at the two I wouldn’t be shocked if you said that Saul did much less than David as David broke at least 5 commandments while Saul broke at least 3. If we were to look at that then the final judgment would be more severe on David than Saul.
However, God doesn’t operate like that as His way and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) as he looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and also He doesn’t delight in sacrifices that comes from a place of hypocrisy (Isaiah 1:10-17). The reason why God delighted more in David when compared with Saul and basically all of Israel’s kings despite essentially doing much more harm was that David was brought to a point of brokenheartedness when confronted by God because of his sin while Saul still sought glory and pride for himself when God confronted him.
When Samuel confronted Saul because of his sin at first he made an excuse for his wrong by essentially saying he had fulfilled Yahweh’s Will but then when he couldn’t escape the nature of his sin instead of seeing the error of his ways and bringing himself to realize that he needs to seek the Lord’s forgiveness what he essentially did was seek glory and honor for himself by asking Samuel to come and praise him in front of the people (1 Samuel 15:30).
However, when David was confronted by Nathan because of his sin; his response was essentially him realizing that he greatly erred against the Lord who had granted him everything according to the counsel of His Will, and what proceeded from that was the prayer that forms the crux of my writing. He pleaded with the Lord to not only forgive him for his great sin but also that he is bringing his broken and contrite heart to the Lord as he knew that the sacrifices he offered wouldn’t appease the Lord but a heart that has come to realize of its fallen nature and its need for an all-powerful Savior to clean it and renew it for him as well as sustain it, that heart the Lord wouldn’t despise.
Why wouldn’t He because it is a heart that recognized its moral bankruptcy, its wretchedness and there is no inherent goodness in it and as a result, in its wretchedness, it can’t have lasting joy but with a good, just and gracious Savior it will be granted and “restored to the joy of His salvation,” (Psalm 51:12).
Nineveh’s Redemption
Now let’s journey to the book of Jonah and the main crux of that book is God telling the people of Nineveh to repent in 40 days or else they would bear the full wrath of a just God, wrath so brutal that “it won’t turn back until He has performed and until He has accomplished the intent of His heart;” (Jeremiah 30:24).
For now, we won’t delve into the story of Jonah and his running away from God and His stay in the large fish but we will talk about his reason for running away as it is a pretty beautiful description of our God even if it is being done in jest. When Jonah went to Nineveh and made them aware of what God had planned for them (Jonah 3:4), you’d be inclined to think that Nineveh a nation that never worshipped God would either kill Jonah or at the very least imprison him because they believe that what He is saying is actual nonsense but what happens is astounding.
Literally, in the next verses (5-9) this happens:
Then the people of Nineveh believed in God, and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth, and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”
How precious is that? Even Israel per Jesus’ admission couldn’t do that. For He, the Son of God was in their midst and they shunned Him and even killed him but a mere prophet went to Nineveh, a city which until Jonah basically didn’t know God or actively mocked Him, and they didn’t waste time in submitting to the divine will of God (Matthew 12:40-41). They were brought to see their wretchedness and that on their own they are worthless.
Back to Jonah’s beautiful admission about God. After He saw their genuine repentance of sin God relented His anger against them. However, before I go any further by this I don’t mean that God changed His mind about the Ninevites as doing that would directly contradict scripture (1 Samuel 15:29) and the author of Jonah and I don’t have any intention of doing that. What he meant and what Jonah shows in Jonah 4:2 is that God always meant to save them as they were part of His elect hence why God sent Jonah to them as they were an unreached people whom God delighted in saving from His wrath (Jonah 4:11). This brings up a lot of questions that we will tackle another time but just know this:
“God has full control in electing us as He wasn’t influenced by Abraham’s moral fitness or even Israel’s any more than a father is moved by the moral fitness of the non-existent child to beget Him” – John Piper, The Pleasures of God.
Also, it isn’t He who changed His mind but rather that the people of Nineveh’s hearts were tuned to Him and His irresistible grace.
When Jonah saw what God had done he became angry and told God that the reason why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh was that:
I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. – Jonah 4:2
In saying this he admits that their brokenheartedness moved God as He delights in a people whose sole yearning is for Him and that can only be achieved by a broken heart that leads to repentance.
The Thief on the Cross
When the thief entered heaven the angels might have asked him “how or why are you here as from our records we can see you weren’t a member of any church or bible study, we can see that you had no theology to stand on and we can also see that you did countless atrocities. Then by what basis would you say that you are here on?” His answer would be pretty simple as it will be based on Christ alone (paraphrased excerpt from Alistair Begg’s sermon titled “The Power and Message of the Cross”).
Exactly but to arrive at that He had to have a brokenhearted experience as just minutes earlier he and his friend were among those mocking Christ but then seemingly out of nowhere he says:
“Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” – Luke 23:40-42
In the span of a few minutes, he went from mocking Christ to asking him for a place in His kingdom. He came to understand with no prior knowledge that he was a sinner in need of a Savior and the precious reality is that the person he needed was to his left. It didn’t matter that He looked humiliated and disgraced what mattered was that only Christ could save him and as I said earlier God delights in our brokenheartedness and with that in mind what was Christ’s answer:
And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:43.
Why God delights in the Brokenhearted and its beauty
Hopefully through all those three stories especially the last one you have been able to see why God delights in a broken and contrite heart. However, if you haven’t seen it, it is simply that a contrite heart has come to a point of understanding that it has no good in it, it is filled with wretchedness and as a result, it is need of a Savior who will save us from the rebellion that tells us that our greatest joy is in self.
Though this may bring out the question of how then do we reach a point of brokenheartedness especially when I have just said throughout the article that we are totally depraved humans who can’t seek Christ (Romans 3:11-18). Here’s where the beauty of brokenheartedness comes in: it is a conviction of God. All the three stories I have just delved in show us that it was God’s work either through the prophets or through His Own Son that bring us to a brokenhearted state and as a result amplifies the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20.
For us it is a conviction of God through His precious and all-sufficient Word which reveals to us our fallibilities and shows us an Infallible Joy that will never waver as those who are saved by Christ, He will never cast out (John 6:37-38) but will always bring us to a state of brokenhearted joy so that we will never forget of His great works and mercy and that our delight may be in Him always.
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