Draw Near | Brokenness Required (September 15th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Get your uh Bibles open to Psalm uh 51 and as it's turning uh there uh I want to just kind of tell you here that my daughter when she was uh a little bit younger, uh her favorite movie uh was a movie called Spirit.

I don't know if you've ever uh seen uh this movie before, but it basically was a cartoon about uh a wild horse.

And so as you can imagine, as a dad, I've seen this movie approximately 500 times.

All right, and so I feel like I have uh this thing memorized.

Uh there was a uh there was a scene in the movie, one of the pivotal scenes in the movie, uh Spirit uh found himself uh captured by members of the US uh military, the army, as they were kind of getting the railroad going throughout uh towards the wild, uh wild west.

And so uh Spirit found himself in a pen where horses uh were to be broken.

And so uh a number of the officers uh in the army uh tried their best, and there's this scene where Spirit is just bucking and kicking and tossing riders left, right, and center, all the while this kind of grizzled, very crusty general is uh is peering uh through beady eyes at this whole situation.

Well, finally uh he gets to the point where he's like, enough's enough, I am going to break this horse.

And so he jumps on and uh, you know, this battle ensues, as you can imagine.

Now, one of the kind of funny, kind of interesting things is that while this is happening and this rider is trying to break spirit, the other horses that have already been broken, they've got saddles on them, they've got, you know, a bit in their mouths, all of that.

They're looking at spirit, like with these sad eyes, you know, wishing and hoping that spirit prevails and doesn't get to the point of brokenness uh that they have endured.

And so, as you can imagine, right when it looks like hope is lost uh for our uh for our horse, he finally says, enough's enough.

He bears down and he bucks uh the general off as well, not to mention, you know, breaking down the barriers and escaping the fort and running off into the wild.

Yeah, I can't believe I'm sharing a story about this.

Okay, but the point of that scene, okay, and really the movie in the in general is that uh brokenness is a bad thing.

Right?

It's something to be avoided and fought against, right?

The idea here is you know, be wild, you know, be untamed, be your own person, do your own thing, rise above the constraints and the boundaries and the restrictions, limitations that people try to place on you.

I think that's you know still a fairly common mantra uh in our world today.

All right, submission and compliance, these are not exactly beloved concepts uh in the minds and hearts of people.

All right, spiritually, though, uh brokenness is a very good thing.

All right, in fact, drawing near to God, which is what our series is about here, and you know, enjoying a deep intimacy with him and a thriving, joy-filled walk with him, is impossible without first being broken.

And that's that's broken over our sin.

Over our pride and our foolishness and all the different ways that our heart defies God and goes against him, against his holiness, against his law and and offends him as his created beings, which we are.

Brokenness, submission to Christ, you know, yielding to him, they're they're actually required.

And required in order to get saved, right?

You remember your own story and how there was a moment for you where you realize, you know what, I I am living for self, right?

I am about me, and I I need Jesus to, I need to, I need to accept the forgiveness that he offers me, and so I need to I need to humble myself, right?

I need to yield to him, confess my sin, and receive him as Savior.

It's absolutely required in order to get saved.

And ongoing brokenness is very much a necessary thing for believers throughout our walk with him as he continues to refine us and and and humble us and draw us close to him.

Alright, so question for you When was the last time that you were truly broken?

Right?

When was the last time that you were deeply repentant and that was genuine and real?

Now, the the incredible thing here that we have to remember here as we talk about this subject here and we wrap our minds about repentance, and you're you're probably already getting the sense that, oh man, this is gonna be a heavy one here today, and you know, here we go, I better buckle up, and and that's probably true in some ways, but we need to remember here that God does not break us to destroy us.

Right?

That is what our flesh will say, that is what that is what the enemy will whisper into our ears.

So you don't want to yield to him.

That's just gonna be too painful and too messy and ultimately not what's good for you, but it actually is.

God doesn't break us to destroy us, he he actually breaks us for the opposite reasons.

I love Hosea chapter 6, verse 1.

Hosea 6:1

Here's what it says: it says, Come, let us return to the Lord.

For he has torn us, that he may heal us.

He has struck us down, and he will bind us up.

Alright, so God does this in you and I so that our our heart will be put back in its right place and we will be healed.

Right?

So that we can, you know, actually truly worship the Lord genuinely and bring him glory and be useful to him in all kinds of different ways.

Alright, so to get really to all of this here today, we're gonna look at just two verses from Psalm 51.

Now, Psalm 51, I've actually preached uh it in its entirety uh in our church.

A couple of years ago uh we did this, but we're just gonna zero in on these two verses here today as we look at this.

So why don't you uh take a peek at verse 16 and verse 17 with me and then I'll pray.

Here's what it says it says, For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, that you will not satisfy.

God, as we bring ourselves before you and and face a busy fall, and for some of us it means uh uncertainty.

For some of us, it just means the chaos of our crazy lives.

It means everyone in our family running in different directions, Lord, and and for some of us in the midst of all of this, it means that we are actually walking away from you because we're so preoccupied with so many other things.

And for some of us, Lord, maybe we've come out of a season of this and have just, you know, sort of drifted a little bit in our hearts, maybe even a lot.

And so, Lord, we understand that to draw near to you and to make that our priority, as we discussed last week, Lord, it requires uh true brokenness.

And so, Father, as your church, I pray uh that you, by your Holy Spirit, would uh move here this morning in a powerful way.

Father, I pray that this morning, which you could uh argue is just another Sunday.

It's just another day, uh another weekend, and what will be 52 of them for us uh this year.

But Lord, I pray that this would be a special Sunday for our church.

Lord, I pray that it would be a turning point day for us, Lord, that we would bring ourselves before you, that we would throw ourselves at your mercy and ask you to lead us back to that sweet place again.

Lord, that we would confess our sin, that we would do it, that we would do it with passion, Lord, that we would do it quickly, Lord, that we would do it sincerely.

And Father, that you would truly bring us back to a place where we are close to you and there is no sin between us and yourself.

And so, Father, we know that we need you.

God, we know this.

I pray that you would encourage your church in this.

We thank you that you do this because you love us.

Lord, we thank you that we have a loving God.

We thank you that you are a loving God.

And so, Father, I pray that you would press into us here this morning.

I pray that you would heal.

I pray that you would make us new and make us useful in your hands.

We pray these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, when it comes to uh genuine brokenness and repentance, which we're really talking about here today, I think it's you know really good for us to understand that uh there are really two key components, at least two key components uh to keep in mind here.

All right, first of all, uh brokenness is an act of God.

Right?

Do we understand that?

It is straight up an act of God's power, where he sovereignly just kind of gets his hands into our business, right?

He interrupts our lives and brings us to a place of deep conviction, okay?

Uh just a heavy awareness of our wrongdoing in a way that just cuts through our pride and and shatters it and reveals the you know the ugliness of our sin and and shows us the kind of damage that it's been causing in our lives and likely also in uh the lives of other people as well.

And he uses all of it, he does all of it to get us back on track with him, draw us close again to him.

All right, and Psalm 51 is uh a primo example of this.

We've talked about Psalm uh 51 quite a bit.

It is one of my uh favorite uh places in the entire Bible.

There may be no more clear and you know, kind of epic place in the entirety of Scripture where we see someone just pour their heart out so clearly and provide for us such a great model of what it means to repent of sin and get our hearts uh back to a healthy place with the Lord.

And of course, you might know the story.

You might know that it all started back in 2 Samuel chapter 11 and 12, and you can jot that down.

2 Samuel 11 · chapter mention

I would challenge you to read that uh later this week as you get yourself, you know, kind of diving deeper into this.

But that's really where the story of David's fall happened.

And of course, uh as you know this, the you know, the Israelite army was out to battle, and David should have been right there with them, but he decided decided to stay home.

And so he's hanging out, and it's that whole idea of you know idle hands, idle minds, all of that that gets you into trouble.

Well, sure enough, he happens to see uh this beautiful woman uh bathing on a rooftop, and he gets it in his mind, his lustful mind, uh, that he wants this woman.

And so one thing uh leads to another, and he gets her pregnant.

And so David, he's instinctively thinks, man, how can I how can I fix this?

How can I cover this up?

And so he kind of comes up with this harebrained scheme and he tries to get her husband back from war, and he gets him drunk, and he tries to make it look like you know, the husband did this, and of course, the husband he is too honorable for all of these things.

Like, who am I to be with my wife?

And all of my brothers are out there fighting right now, and so that doesn't work from David's end, and so he has to, you know, the whole thing just gets darker and and deeper, and what he essentially does is he has Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, uh, moved up to the front lines of battle so that he would be killed.

And so, sure enough, that's what happens.

And um, David thinks, you know what, I've I've gotten away with this.

Right?

Here, here, here, look what I've done.

This is fine.

And so you can just kind of picture with me here that the hardness of heart that a David, a man after God's own heart, he said, you know, gets into that place.

And it separates him from just this close, intimate relationship with his creator.

And God will have none of that.

And so he actually sends a prophet, a prophet by the name of Nathan, to enter into David's life, and through Nathan, he just he just convicts David.

And David is just, you know, you know, stripped bare basically of his sin.

And it's from that place of brokenness that he pens Psalm 51.

Alright, so God's sovereign will to act and to override our stubbornness, as he did in David's life here, that's certainly one major, major, the main component of brokenness.

Sometimes he does that when we're willing and we've asked for help, and sometimes he does that even when we haven't.

Okay, a second component of brokenness and repentance here that we have to keep in mind is that you and I, as Christians, we have the responsibility uh to repent and pursue true brokenness, right?

To to return to the Lord, as Hosea said in that verse I read earlier.

There's an onus on us to uh to confess our sin, right?

To deal with that constantly, daily, and to nurture soft hearts that love the Lord and soft hearts of humility, and you know, and pursuing authentic contrition when we do sin and when we do disobey.

Okay, so we have a responsibility to play in this uh as well.

And so uh what we see here, as we do in so many cases, God's sovereignty, okay, and our responsibility, they you know, kind of intersperse and intermingle a little bit here.

And we again we don't know how to explain how all of that works together, but but God moves and he works in power, and again, you know, we have a responsibility uh as well.

Right?

And so this is something that you and I, as Christians, if we have truly understood the gospel, if we've understood that Christ went to the cross to forgive us and pay the price for our sins, we should be regularly praying for brokenness.

That's the responsibility uh that we have.

And that God would move in power.

Move in power by the by the by the by his Holy Spirit and in his grace and certainly by his mercy to bring us to a place of heartfelt brokenness and repentance as you and I return to him.

Alright, so here's the first thing as we get into this.

Two points today.

To be near God requires brokenness over my sin.

So I will refuse to replace that with empty acts of devotion.

All right, so all through Psalm 51, David has been just pouring his heart out.

Do we understand that?

He has been confessing his sin in this state of uh of heaviness and conviction that God has placed over his life.

It is such a great, like I said, a great picture of repentance for us.

Right?

In it, he's just he is completely owning up to his enormous failures, right?

It is not a pretty picture for him.

And so David, we know it's so general because he's not trying to cover it up.

Right?

He's not you know trying to put spin on this at all, you know, to make him look like, well, I'm not, I'm not quite so bad.

He's not he's not trying to convince himself or to convince somebody else or or convince God.

Right?

He's not trying to spread blame around and say, well, you know, you know, Bathsheba probably should have been wearing some clothes.

That would have been a little bit more helpful to me.

Right?

I think she did have a part to play in this.

Absolutely, but he's not in that head space.

He's not blaming her.

He's like, this is this is me, this is my issue.

I have to, I have to own this.

He's been pleading with the Lord for mercy.

We see that in verse one.

He's he said that the Lord is is completely justified to judge him for these heinous acts.

We see that in verse four.

Right?

He's he's begged God to wash his heart clean, purify him, and and and and to get to bring him back to this place of uh of gladness and joy.

He's like the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

He's like, Lord, I'm feeling it here.

This is this is heavy, and I'm taking this seriously.

Lord, would you get me to the place where my salvation is is a sweet, sweet thing again?

We see all that through the kind of middle section of the Psalm, verses 7 to 12.

And then as he kind of is concluding all of this, he begins to pledge to the Lord what his life will look like going forward as God restores him.

He says, He says, I want to I want to teach transgressors your ways.

I want to take what I've learned and show other people not how to not make the same mistakes that I've made.

He's like, I want to worship you, Lord.

I want to sing praise to you.

We see all that in verse 13 to 16.

And then the part that we're looking at here today, verse 16, take a look at this with me again.

It says this, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

Now, maybe, I don't know, maybe you look at that and you're kind of thinking, you know, hang on a second here.

I I I thought that, you know, sacrifices in the Old Testament, I thought that was a good thing.

Right?

I thought I thought that's what God commanded in the law, and and it I thought that this was like a act of worship, right?

I thought that this was a you know a picture of how a you know a person was forgiven through the transfer of their guilt, the transfer of their sin to an animal, right, who whose blood was was shed so that they could be pardoned, right?

It was an initial picture of what Christ would ultimately come and do on the cross.

Like I thought, I thought this was all good.

So so now you're saying that God doesn't want this?

Like what's what's up with that?

Well, I think to help us kind of understand what David's getting at here is what he says in verse 19, actually.

If you jump ahead to that here, it helps us understand what 16 means because he mentions how the Lord delights in, what's the next word?

Right sacrifices.

Right sacrifices.

Okay, so another way uh of saying verse 16, if you will, is that is that God will not delight in wrong sacrifices, or else David would give it.

He will not be pleased with a burnt offering that's been presented inappropriately.

All right, this is what David is saying here in verse 16.

Hosea chapter 6 again, but in verse 6, it shows us here what God's really looking for uh from people when they would sacrifice, when they would worship in that way.

Hosea 6 · chapter mention

He says, For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice or empty sacrifice.

Means God's had no interest in people's meaningless, you know, inauthentic, empty acts of devotion.

Which is again what these what these sacrifices could easily turn into and become for people.

This is this going through the motions and you know, here I am to offer a dove, and you know, you're you're doing it without any real meaning.

Right?

Hosea lets us know that he wants, that God wants steadfast love.

He wants He wants love from us.

He desires the knowledge of God, it says, rather than burnt offerings.

Right?

That we would that we would truly know him instead of just engaging in what again can become little more than you know, just this mechanical, dreary, routine type of religious behavior.

God wants our genuine worship, He wants you know heartfelt passion.

When we worship Him and anything that we do, he's looking for sincere, sincere love.

Again, just doing things for the sake of doing things, going through the motions in in any area of of the Christian life is so, so far from what it's really all about.

God's not interested in that.

If God gave us his all, right?

He gave us his only son, he gave us Jesus, what a What an immense act of love.

Right?

And if we were to understand that, if we were to understand that his own son, who is sinless, who is guiltless, endured the cross, endured this torture on our behalf so he could reconcile us to himself, so that we could be washed clean of our sin and of our guilt and of our shame.

If God has done that for us, and we see so clearly in the scriptures that this is because he loves us, then it just makes sense that out of that we're to give him our all from a place of heartfelt love.

Right?

Not empty devotion, genuine devotion.

That the Lord does not delight in sacrifice in verse 16 means that again, he's not looking for outward acts of Christian devotion that's coming from a heart that's checked out.

Right?

Like here I am, but I don't really care, right?

That's just so empty.

That's so that's so meaningless.

Right?

Those of us who have been Christians for a long time, we know what that's like, right?

We know what it's like to fall into that kind of a routine.

Are you tired of that yet?

Are you tired of how empty that is?

There's nothing fulfilling in any of that.

There's nothing that really brings glory to God in any of that.

God wants our hearts.

That's what he constantly goes after, always.

If our hearts aren't in it, there's just no value really in what we're bringing him.

If we gather today, as we've already done that, and and and we sing with our words, but but have these unengaged hearts, and we're not, we're not, we're not in it, we're not passionate.

If if we read our Bibles, if we pray, if if we disciple somebody, if we serve in the church, or hey, listen, the context here is if we confess our sin, okay, but we've got unengaged hearts, it's just hollow.

It's pointless to God.

He's just not pleased with it.

Here's the thing, though.

So many Christians live that kind of existence every single day.

Every day.

That's what it's become.

You know, where we've settled into this, you know, kind of comfort zone here, yet ultimately very unsatisfying, you know, rut type of existence where, you know, somewhere along the way, and we might not even be able to pinpoint it exactly, but somewhere along the way we've we've grown cold.

Right?

We've become numb to the Lord and and dull to God.

And we're not we're not pursuing him any longer with with our whole hearts.

And and so we've replaced that pursuit with something else.

You know, and and our and we are we are worshipers.

That's what we have created to do and and be.

That's how we're hardwired, whether you know Christ or you don't, you worship.

It just comes down to who or what do you worship?

And so if we are numb and cold to the Lord and it's no longer truly authentic, and our hearts aren't engaged and and all of that, it means that we're chasing after some form of idol.

And we've replaced what maybe was once true brokenness, you know, over our sin with these just empty acts of devotion that, again, look pretty good on the outside, can fool a lot of people, can even fool us.

But of course, it does not fool the Lord.

And honestly, church, uh, I'll just be honest, I've lived a lot of my life that way, and I still fight it.

I really do.

I mean, I grew up, you know, going to church, you know, from day one basically.

I was constantly in you know, church culture and and and youth group culture, and I, you know, went to a you know a Christian school from grade seven to twelve, and and so I learned real quickly what was you know was kind of expected of me, and and and namely it was just to behave, right?

Be a good kid, that that's really what it was.

And so I learned how to how to go through uh the all of that.

I learned how to kind of impress.

And I mean, I remember in high school, we had chapels every day at my Christian high school.

And so I went every single day.

And I and I really I thought that was enough, just being there, just showing up.

I didn't think that I really had to listen, I didn't think that I really had to pay attention, I really had no idea what it meant to like apply these things to my life.

I had no one really challenging me on that.

I wasn't thinking these things through.

Of course, it all fell apart for me much later in life.

But I remember specifically, very vividly, every month, once a month, our church, every church pretty much, you know, takes communion together.

We're gonna be doing that here today.

And I remember, you know, every time the pastor would talk and say, you know, it's time to get right with the Lord, it's time to do all of that.

I, you know, I would kind of, you know, muster up some, you know, kind of fake emotions inside, and I would, you know, kind of confess my guilt over some, you know, some sinful areas, and and I would say probably some of the right things, at least quietly and personally to myself, to the Lord.

But man, I knew that it was just you know in an hour or two, or you know, the next day or whatever.

I'd be going right back to all that stuff.

There was no true brokenness, right?

There was no it was no real repentance in all of this.

Listen, if if you, if we sense that we're in a place like that today, right, and we understand that to be near God requires spiritual, authentic brokenness.

But somehow we've replaced that way of life with just these empty, kind of stiff and wooden acts of devotion that, you know, at best looks good on the outside, maybe, but it's just so dead inside.

We sadly become check mark Christians.

You know, where again, externally we do a lot of the right things, but inside we're just more and more desensitized to our sin.

We're we're desensitized to the things of the Lord and growing close to him, being near him.

All of that just seems like a kind of a foreign concept.

It seems like a thing of the past for us.

Maybe we even regularly confess our sin, technically, kind of like me before communion, but is really just lacking heart and and and meaning and sincerity.

It's missing brokenness.

If that's the case, what do we do?

Right, what do we do?

Maybe you've tried.

Right, maybe you're like, I kind of want this, but my heart is just stale and cold, and I'm kind of stuck in that ugly groove, and what do I do here?

Well, I'd say that one major thing that you can kind of hang your hat on this week and really think about here, and we see this in the scriptures over and over again.

It's this to remember the Lord.

Remember the Lord.

Now, personally, I've just been reading through the book of Lamentations this week, and it's been a while uh since I've been in there, but it really covers a lot of the same stuff that we're talking about uh here this morning, and it's uh, you know, uh a book that has been written after uh Israel and Jerusalem.

The people have been scattered, and and it's all been because of um discipline at the Lord's hands.

It was his doing.

They had you know gone after you know the other nations' gods, and they'd interspersed with them, they've got their eyes off the vertical, off of God, they've gotten super horizontal, and and and worship had ceased and all of that, and the Lord but only takes so much, and finally he brings punishment and he just scatters the people, and Lamentations is written to just you know express the suffering that they've that they've endured, and and just admitting all that all of this is is on us, and well, in Lamentations chapter one, verse seven, you know, after six verses describing the destruction of a once great city and just the bitter sadness that Israel's left to live with after their sinful choices for so many years just completely blew up in their faces, okay, and the recognition that their fall was absolutely a result of God's disciplinary action, right?

He was breaking them.

Here's what it says, Lamentations 1, 7.

Jerusalem remembers in the days of their affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old.

Isaiah actually says something very similar in his book, in chapter 46, verse 8.

He says this, remember this and stand firm.

Recall it to mind, you transgressors.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other.

I am God and there is none like me.

Listen, church, if you're in that place of, you know, this robotic, stiff, empty acts of devotion, way of relating to the Lord, and you've been there for far too long, and you're tired of it, and maybe you're experiencing the consequences of that.

Listen, we must get our eyes, our minds, our hearts back on the Lord and remember, you know, who he is and and what he has done.

Right?

I don't just mean some you know, quick, like, oh yeah, I remember him a little bit, and I can probably tick off a couple of things about his character and about his nature and some of his attributes.

I mean, I mean really like like stewing in it, like marinating in it.

You remember what Israel would do, they would get the book of the law after you know years of walking away from it, they would get the book of the law and they would open it and they would read it as a way to remember who God is and what he has done.

Listen, we need to do the exact same thing.

Things are stale for you.

Get your eyes back on Christ.

Right?

Think about who he is, think about his nature, think about his amazing love.

Think about his patience with us, how he just he endures with us.

Think about his immense goodness.

Think about his character and how he has been kind to you in the past.

Of course, I think it for us it's it's reminding ourselves and thinking about and and meditating on the cross.

Right?

Thinking about the gospel, reminding ourselves, not just what Jesus did and going through a bunch of bare-bone facts about it, but really, again, thinking deeply about what he did, but but why he did it.

And again, thinking about the immense love and how he was coming to take the wrath of God that you and I deserved upon himself.

Right?

Like I said earlier, we are going to be taking communion together later on this morning.

And so even now we should be just be thinking about that and in the shed blood of Jesus.

Right?

Right?

His body given up for us, and how we we we didn't deserve this.

And we would be in a far worse place if we hadn't once received Christ as Savior.

Spend some time, not just today, again, not just for a few moments, but think about that.

Spend some time this week.

Remembering who God is and what he has done.

Think about your own story, think about your testimony.

And remember what it was like when you were suffering and you were at your wit's end, and and the Lord graciously rescued you out of that.

He he called you out of the kingdom of darkness into his glorious light.

And remember how that felt and what you were passionate about in those moments.

And and begin to cry out to the Lord, I want that again.

I I need that again, that sweetness, that that brokenness, that that humility where I'm I'm less sure of myself.

I I don't think that what I want is necessarily what's best for me.

Lord, I want to give you glory, I want to give you praise constantly and only.

When we remember the Lord in these ways, what what ends up happening is we we start to see the stark contrast that exists between what being near Him is really about, okay, versus the the mere shell of which we've been experiencing lately, this this rut, these empty acts of devotion.

And as we see what it's like to be to be near him, as we see his goodness, and and our hearts are stirred by the Holy Spirit and those things, and we see how we've been living, we've seen the just the stupidity of the way we live, we're gonna start to want what's good.

We're gonna start to want what's right as the Holy Spirit moves in us.

We'll want to be broken of this nonsense.

We'll want to repent.

That's that's God's way of leading us to repentance.

We'll want to be close to Him again.

And again, I would really challenge and encourage you to not just take today, but I don't know, maybe even take the next week or or or or the next month, even, and start studying some of these texts that we've mentioned even this morning.

Write down 2 Samuel 11 and 12 and Psalm 51 and do a bit more of a deep dive into that.

And look at how your life can mirror David's repentance in that.

Spend some time studying lamentations and go through just the rawness of that and pray, God, would you would you get my heart into this place as well?

We need to remember the Lord, that's a big part of getting out of that place of empty acts of devotion.

Second thing, final thing here.

To be near God requires brokenness over my sin.

So I'll refuse to replace that with these emptied acts of devotion and cultivate a truly repentant heart that pleases him.

Verse 17 bears this out.

Take a look.

Psalm 51.

The sacrifices of God, okay, or the kinds of sacrifices that please God are ones that come from, he says, a broken spirit.

A broken and contrite, contrition, contrite means means genuinely remorseful.

Right?

It's not just, again, he's going through the motions thing.

The Lord's looking for this to be real, right?

A broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise.

So again, it's it's it's not to say here that God wasn't interested in sacrifices at all in the Old Testament.

It's just that he desired right ones, right?

That came from a truly repentant heart.

A spirit that has been broken of pride.

That arrogance, that that coldness, that I that idolatry, those idolatrous desires that we have.

Or we've yielded to the Lord again.

His supreme rule, his authority, his love.

I think an obvious question that kind of comes out of this like, again, how do I do this?

How do I cultivate this in my life?

A genuine, genuine repentance.

How can I get to the place of actually truly wanting this and not just saying the right words that I know people or I think the Lord wants to hear?

Okay, well, I've referred to this before, but I I think David here just gives us some mammoth, mammoth insight into all of this right here in Psalm 51, that that sheds some light here on what to do when you know that you need brokenness, right?

You know that you need a truly repentant heart, but if you're being honest with yourself, you know you're just you're just not there.

But I I want to be, I want to be soft, but I but I'm cold.

And we see it first of all in verse 10.

Take a look at that.

He says this, and maybe like those 80s or that 90s song comes to mind Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

We'll get back to that in a second, but jump down to verse 12 now.

He says something very similar.

He says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and here it is, uphold me with a willing spirit.

Alright, so if you're feeling stuck or lost or kind of dead inside, and you know that it's not right, and you know that you need to be broken here, but but you just can't seem to muster up the you know the ability to change, remember again that it is God who changes your heart.

It's God that does this.

Remember, he's got a huge responsibility here, and he does it in when it comes to brokenness.

He sovereignly works.

Right?

When David says, create in me a clean heart, he said, God, you need to do this, you need to create this heart in me.

I I cannot change my heart.

It's the Lord who acts by grace within us to bring that true brokenness and true repentance that we need.

So really, it's as simple as admitting your coldness, admitting your apathy, admitting your sin, the empty devotion, all of it that's just you know plagued your life for you know in your walk for far too long, and and ask him to renew a right spirit within you.

Lord, I don't I don't have the joy for this.

I don't I don't have the willpower for this.

Would you would you renew that in me?

I love how that's the Lord.

And David's just like, I need you to do it.

He's just crying, he's crying out for mercy.

God, show us, show us your mercy.

It's what I need, it's what we all need.

Right?

He prays that that the Lord would uphold him with a willing spirit.

He's like, in my volition, Lord, I don't have the willpower for this.

I want to continue to give into lust and be with Bathsheba.

He's like, would you uphold me, lift me up, make me strong with a willing spirit that actually wants to follow you, that wants to obey you, that wants to have a soft heart.

Wants to be authentic in this.

Lord, would you give me the drive?

Even that I don't have.

I don't possess it.

Now listen, I want to be real clear here.

We're not advocating for emotionalism.

Right?

I'm not trying to work you up into a lather of like just feeling guilty and shameful, but it's not it's not real, it's not true brokenness.

Right?

Right, none of that really gets us any anywhere here.

We're not trying to stir up something fake.

I think sometimes we try to do this.

We try to just make ourselves feel bad, and we need the Lord to bring true repentance.

Right?

Again, it's just it's simply admitting how thoroughly and how and how extremely we need Christ to break in and do the work in our hearts.

Right?

That he would restore us and make us want to be near him again.

Right?

I love how verse 17 ends there.

You see it where he says that a broken and contrite heart, oh God, look at this, you will not despise.

Right?

The Lord loves it when we humble ourselves.

Right?

He he loves it when we when we give way to his supremacy, when we give way to his power and his sovereign rule over our lives.

It pleases him immensely.

You have to remind yourself that you and I, we cannot go wrong when we give way to the Lord.

When we give him our hearts, when we allow ourselves to be truly broken and repentant.

Why?

Because, well, that's that's what's best for us.

Right?

It leads, yeah, maybe through some difficulty and maybe through some challenges in the brokenness time period, maybe in the repentance piece and and the conviction and the heaviness of all that, that's difficult.

I'm not saying that it's not.

It might require that you need to humble yourself and go to some people and confess some sin that you've been hiding from them.

I get it.

That's that's difficult, that's not easy.

I'm not trying to act like it is, but but have the long view in mind here.

Have the understanding that through that God is making you whole.

God is healing your heart, He is making you new.

He is leading you to a place of true worship as you surrender your life to Him.

And as you do that, it all leads to what?

The most important thing for any one of us giving God glory.

Right?

When we yield in this way, He gets the glory that He so, so deserves.

So, like I mentioned, we're gonna take communion this morning.

And as we do that, we're gonna end our service uh a little bit differently than we usually do.

Uh John is gonna be uh making his way up here, and he's gonna play a song, and and as he does in just a moment, you're gonna have the opportunity to come forward to uh one of these tables here where we've got uh the communion uh elements, and uh you'll find uh some trays have the cracker, which represent Christ.

Christ's body and some trays have the juice, which represents his blood, as we think about Calvary and we remember his death until he comes.

And so what you can do is you can take that when you're ready, you can bring it back to your seats here, and then you can take it on your own time.

And let me really say this do it when you're actually ready, church.

Don't just go through the motions here.

If your heart's still a little bit checked out, if your heart isn't as soft as you need to, you know it needs to be.

Deal with that with the Lord.

Invite him into all that.

And what I'm saying here is take as much time as you need to get right with him.

Contemplate the cross.

Contemplate what Christ went through.

Plead with God for mercy as David does in this psalm.

Pray for that heavy yet at the same time, sweet brokenness to flood your life.

And then as you're doing that and as you sense you're in the right spot, then you can take the elements on your own time when you're ready.

Here's the other thing I would really encourage us to do, and this is where it's a little bit different than what we usually do as well.

Before you've or after you have done all of that, I would really encourage our families here, you know, as you know, spouses, husbands, and wives, to really take a few moments and just where you're seated, pray with your spouse.

And really just take a few moments to really, you know, as we launch into this fall here and we talk about drawing near to the Lord.

Listen, we're gonna commit to doing this together.

We're gonna commit to making this the priority in our marriage.

We're gonna make this the priority with our children this fall.

We're gonna disciple them.

We're gonna lead, we're gonna go together towards the Lord.

We're gonna do whatever it takes.

We're gonna confess the sin.

We're gonna stop ignoring that issue that's been plaguing us.

It's been a huge problem.

We're gonna get after this.

We're gonna get the help that we need to get.

We're gonna talk to whoever we need to talk about.

But we're gonna draw near to him.

Would you pray with your husband?

Would you pray with your wife?

If your spouse isn't here or you're single or you're here by yourself, I would encourage you just to pray with the person that you came with.

Pray with the person that's near you.

I don't know the person.

Introduce yourself and pray.

I would even say, like, if you want to, look for somebody that you do know who's here and get up out of your chair and go sit beside them.

Hey, listen, do we pray together?

This is so important for us, not just as individuals, but as the church.

See, we're trying to set the tone here for what this fall is going to look like.

Because here's the thing.

When individuals, when families, when entire churches get right with the Lord, he is going to move.

He is going to do something awesome.

And do you not want to see that happen here?

Do you not want to see that happen across New Market?

I would love, love, love.

And I've been praying for you this week that the Lord would start with me and He would start with us and He would do a mighty work in and through our church.

I hope you would pray that with me.

And so again, I'm I'm not gonna come back up and close the service.

This is the service is over when you're good and ready.

And so see this as the you are love.

Know that you are.

Only you make new, only you make whole.

And so, God, I pray that as your church remembers your death until you come, Lord, I pray that we would get our hearts right.

Lord, I pray that we would truly pray.

I pray that you would truly move.

I pray that you would truly be honored and be glorified in this place.

Today, tomorrow, all through this fall and this year, Lord, as your church meets, be honored, we pray.

We need you, we know that.

Please, Lord, answer our cries.

We pray all of this in Christ's name.

Amen.