It wasn’t long after coming to believe in Jesus that I started to hear emphasized the need to come “prepared” to worship Sunday mornings. What that meant, for the most part, was that I needed to be prayed up, studied up, and, in that day and age, dressed up. Not saying that was wrong but realizing more and more at this end of the journey, that the advice may have been a bit incomplete. This morning, as I hover over David’s song of confession, I’m reminded that, when it comes to worshiping God, it’s also appropriate to come broken up.

O Lord, open my lips,
       and my mouth will declare Your praise.
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, O God, You will not despise.

(Psalm 51:15-17 ESV)

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit . . .

Broken, maimed, crushed, wrecked . . . that’s the condition of spirit which, when offered to God, ascends as a sweet-smelling aroma.

A spirit shattered by the deep realization of the presence and power of sin in one’s life. A heart collapsed by the weight of openly confessed wrong-doing before a holy God. Such a spirit, such a heart, will God in no way regard with contempt. Far from such a condition of the soul preventing us from approaching the altar, it is actually a sacrifice God delights in and is pleased with. Far from it being our weakness, it is actually the secret sauce to knowing the fullness of God’s abundant mercy, His boundless grace, and His steadfast love.

Dane Ortlund, in his book, Deeper, Real Change for Real Sinners, says that our tendency is to want to feel better about ourselves and to minimize our “mistakes” because sin is like a disease where one of the symptoms is that we feel healthy (Deeper, p. 40). When, in fact, “we will not grow, not deeply anyway, except by going through the painful death of being honest about our own spiritual bankruptcy” (Deeper, p.44). When we’re broken up, then are we most ready to be built up.

When aware of our sin we confess with contrition and sing songs of salvation, then will our worship fill heaven with wonder. For it testifies afresh of a faith that truly believes that just as we were saved by grace alone, we are still being saved by grace alone. That though we falter, we believe still that the work is finished. That through we’ve blown it — again! — He remains “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn. 1:9).

I learned God-worship
       when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
       don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

(Psalm 51:17 MSG)

So, there’s benefit in being broken up. It is the door which opens acceptable sacrifice and unfathomable blessing.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
       Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
       and lead me in the way everlasting!

(Psalm 139:23-24 ESV)

Broken up. And thus, prepared to declare His praise.

This too, only by His grace.

This too, only for His glory.