The Brokenness that Leads to Joy

Transcript

Good morning, Saints. Wonderful to worship with you. I love that song. It’s really, really sweet. It’s a sweet reminder of our regular need of the Lord. If you weren’t here at the beginning of the service, Pastor Samuel shared about the fact that we’re taking a break this week from our series, the Gospel of John. Life came our way, and so we adjusted. But this morning, we’ll have a chance to look together at Psalm 51, Psalm 51. The topic of this morning’s sermon is the brokenness that leads us to joy, the brokenness that leads to joy. Saints, this morning I want us to consider the topic of joy. But I’d love for us to look at this topic from a slightly different angle than we’re maybe used to looking at it. Usually we just look at joy as its own category of the Christian life or the Christian walk,

but I want to look at joy by way of brokenness. I want us to consider the way that we get to joy, the road that we take to get there. And also, I want us to consider this question of how is it that a Christian’s joy might be lost? A story is told of Ignatius. He was a student of the Apostle John and the bishop of the church at Antioch in the first century, the beginning of the second century. When being martyred for his faith, when he was facing immense suffering, when he was dealing with death by being thrown to wild beasts to be eaten alive simply for following Jesus, here’s what he said. Let fire and the cross, let the companions of wild beasts, let the breakings of bones and tearing of members, let the shattering and pieces of the whole body and all the wicked

torment of the devil come upon me. Only let me enjoy Jesus. Only let me enjoy Jesus. That’s fascinating. That’s all this saint wanted was to enjoy Jesus, to draw to his source of joy, to draw to his source of pleasure. Even in the midst of horrific torture and impending death, Ignatius knew that there’s a joy to be found in God that surpasses everything else that’s happening in life. How do we get there? How do we have that disposition? How can we live in such a way as to be so full of joy that whatever the circumstance, whatever is happening in life, whatever is thrown our way, whatever trials the Lord allows in, whatever trials the Lord sends, we’re joyful. Let’s look at Psalm 51 and we’ll look at just one path that we might be able to get there. Psalm 51, beginning from verse one.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you. You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it, and 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. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then will you delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Joy Lost

This, dear saints, is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me? And as you’re praying, would you pray for my voice? I, it’s a little, a little whack this morning, so I really need a little bit of strength from, a lot of strength from the Lord, in many ways, but my voice in particular is quite needy. Let’s pray. Father, would you help us to see Christian joy in a way that would point us to Jesus? Not joy for joy’s sake, but joy in our Redeemer who saved us, who made us new, who redeemed us and made us right in your eyes. May that be at the forefront of our minds and may that guide our worship as we sit under the preaching of your word. Help us, Jesus, we ask in your name, amen. We don’t often associate brokenness with joy.

We don’t often talk about joy in that way. That’s not part of the conversation. When we analyze what it means to be a joyful Christian, we often just talk about joy as its own thing. But in God’s economy, these things, joy and brokenness, are inextricably woven together. This psalm shows us what it looks like to be crushed with guilt, but in a good way. Doing that well, being crushed well. A Christian is not someone who doesn’t get discouraged. A Christian is not someone who doesn’t feel rotten about their sin. A Christian is not someone who doesn’t feel deflated at times. A Christian is a guilty person, not positionally so before the Lord if you’re born again, but a person who nevertheless sins. And at times, a Christian is a discouraged person who, with Jesus, can view this aspect of their life, discouragement, guilt, shame, in a right way.

Christianity is not about not feeling down. And if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t that kind of message, so I’m sorry. Christianity shows you how to be discouraged and yet encouraged, sad and yet happy. John MacArthur has this great thought about Christian joy. He says, we live in the ambivalence of celebration and confession. It’s that back and forth. This is seen every single Sunday morning at Trinity. If you’ve worshiped with us before, if you’re here regularly, you see this when we do the confession and pardon. By the way, Andy, brother, thank you so much for serving us this morning. Andy connected it perfectly to what this sermon is about, but we corporately, every single Sunday, get to gather together, confess our sins, and then we receive the pardon that is freely given to us in Jesus Christ. We don’t linger in that confession. We don’t linger in that guilt.

We look to Him. And so the Christian life is this constant back and forth of living in that space. We take our sin seriously. We respond to it appropriately, but we live in a state of hope. We live in a state of joy because we are a forgiven and a redeemed people. And the Psalms teach us how to think about discouragement and guilt and sin. We see here not only how we are to think about these things, but we’re also guided in how to feel during these times. Christian joy, then, is a contemplative joy because it’s ultimately grounded in truth. Amen? Amen. But if we’re honest, if I’m honest, I don’t always feel very joyful. And on my better days, when my contemplation and when my processing and when my analysis of my heart and my behaviors and my motivations is an honest assessment, I don’t really like

where I’m at. I don’t feel like I am where I need to be spiritually. I don’t always feel like I’m emotionally there, like I’m mentally there, even though I know the truth. Why do we not have joy? Why do we often feel unfulfilled in our Christianity? Why are we discontent? Why do we often seek stimulation just to feel like we’re doing okay, just to feel like we’re all right with the Lord, sometimes just to feel? I’d like for us to consider what this Psalm tells us leads to Christian joy. Consider how contrition, an honest reflection in the life of the Christian when grounded in gospel truth, leads to satisfaction, leads to comprehensive joy. And spoiler alert, it’s not how we often think about joy. It’s not what the world promises. We’ll consider by looking at David’s sin and his repentance, how our brokenness is actually

what gives us the greatest joy. Let’s take a look at the different sections of this Psalm to see what happened in the life of David when his joy was lost, and then we’ll look at how God graciously gave it back to him. Let’s look first at joy lost. What’s going on in this Psalm? What’s the broader context? How did David get here? Consider the heading. If you look at your Bible before verse one, there’s a heading to this Psalm. Now, we don’t always see this, but sometimes we get to see this in the Psalms. So in this heading, in Psalm 51, we see, To the choir master, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. If you’ve been around Christianity for at least a while, you likely know the horror of this story. You likely know the horror of David’s sin against God, David’s sin against Bathsheba,

David’s sin against Uriah. And when we read about it, or when we hear people mentioning it, most of us are mortified that a man of God could do something like that. This is just shocking. This person certainly doesn’t fall within our understanding of what a man or woman of God looks like, who acts like this, who behaves in such a way. Psalm 51 is one of these few psalms where the theme is actually given to us. One of these few psalms where the theme is actually given to us. So it’s not just this reflection, but it’s this reflection about this. Here we see the inner world of David’s spiral into sin and his clawing his way back out of it. We see exactly what happens to cause this in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. Now, we’re not going to read through that. And so I’ll just briefly kind of walk through the story.

But again, most of you likely know this story. So David is home and he’s out on his balcony and he sees Bathsheba bathing. And the question that instantly we should be asking is, dude, why are you looking? Look away. That’s not your wife. That’s not for you to look at. So David looks. He’s interested. And he calls for her to be brought into him, not to be asked to be brought into him. She’s brought to him like an object, like a thing. So he violates this woman. He uses his position of power. He sins. And we find out that this is actually somebody’s wife. This isn’t just a woman who is single who he could take as his own wife, but this is somebody else’s wife. And he gets this man’s wife pregnant. And then David starts to kind of panic and he needs to fix the situation.

And so in order for his sin to be covered up, in order for people not to find out this horrific thing that he’s done, he calls her husband Uriah home. Where is he? At battle, fighting for King David, protecting the kingdom. He calls him home and he’s like, hey, come home. Be with your wife. Sleep with your wife. So that he could think the child is his. David’s actions are evil. And how does Uriah respond? He responds nobly. He won’t go home to be with his wife and he won’t leave the king’s side because they’re at battle. And he’s an honorable man. He won’t do the wrong thing, even though his king is telling him, hey, you’re free, go. How does David respond to this honor? He has him killed. David murders this man. Then he marries Bathsheba in order to cover up the sin, make it look like the child was

his all along, that the child is legitimate, that nothing wrong happened. Sin on top of sin on top of sin and evil and more evil and wickedness and darkness and covering it up. It’s so ugly. It’s so gross what happens in this story. And then Scripture tells us that God sends Nathan the prophet to David. He sends the prophet to rebuke him of his sin. And in perhaps the understatement of the Old Testament, the thing that David has done has displeased the Lord. We read at the end of chapter 11 of Second Samuel. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s displeased the Lord. Nathan tells him a parable which was meant to bring David to confess his sin, to condemn himself, to see the reality of what he’s done. He tells him the story of a poor man with just one sheep and then the rich man who comes

along and takes that sheep for himself away from this man that only has one. And David is just incensed. He’s just angry. There’s righteous indignation. And his response is, that man ought to be killed. That rich man needs to die. You don’t do that kind of thing. And Nathan looks at him and he says, you are that man. You did that. Why have you despised the word of the Lord? Nathan the prophet says to David. And David breaks. He just shatters. He shatters under the weight of his sin. He shatters under the realization of what he’s done. How horrific his actions have been. The fact that he murdered an innocent man. The fact that he stole this woman. The fact that he acted in such a horrific, ugly, ungodly way that brings dishonor and shame upon the Lord. So he repents. He understands what he’s done.

He sees the horror of it. The seriousness of it. The implication. And then Nathan says something remarkable to David. It’s shocking. The Lord has put away your sin. Really? That’s it? A man is dead. A baby is about to die. A woman has been violated. The Lord has put away your sin. God says, I’ve taken your sin away. And when you read this, I want to ask you, do you feel outraged? Do you feel a little uncomfortable maybe? But the fact that’s all it took? Really? David did all that and the Lord has just put away his sin? If you’re not moved, dear saint, by the fact that God forgives things like this, then maybe you haven’t quite reached that point of understanding how God solves the problem of sin and evil. And how shocking the gospel actually is.

How merciful and how gracious God actually is towards sinners. How can God be righteous and just say, I’ve put away your sin? How can God just pass over sin? How can God just pass over sin? How can God just move past the murder of an innocent? The New Testament tells us in Romans 3 verses 23 through 26, read

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, by whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of all those who have faith in Jesus.

— Romans 3

(ESV)

What we see here is not that God sweeps David’s adultery, his lying and his murder simply under the rug. You see, God looks at David’s faith and in his inexplicable mercy towards sinners, he looked to the future of a coming redeemer and united David’s faith with the coming Messiah and applied his righteousness to this sinner who absolutely did not deserve it and covered David’s sin with Jesus’ sacrifice. Just like he did for me and just like he did for you. And so as we look at David’s sin and we marvel at the magnitude of it and we shudder at the horror of it, do we look at our own sin in the same way? Are we just as shocked that in knowing what we know and being a born again people, a saved people, we would lie? We would let our eyes wander to someone who isn’t our spouse?

We would let our thoughts go into a murderous rage at somebody who has sinned against us? Are we just as shocked? In understanding the ugliness of David’s sin and how it is that he lost his joy, his contentment, we see that the consequences of that sin are many. Again, people died. But have you ever considered that his joy in its truest sense was lost because what was fractured was his relationship with God against whom he sinned? Verse 4 says, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. David will later ask for the joy of his salvation to be restored. What needed to be repaired was not in the ultimate sense the joy of his salvation. The different aspects of his sin, although they certainly needed addressing. But first and foremost, what needed to be addressed in David’s heart,

in David’s life, was his relationship with God. And out of this would flow the repairing of everything else. Upon repairing that relationship, his joy came back. Why? Because of what God did. Because of the assurance that he was right with God again. Because of the assurance that he would not have to experience the wrath of God and the just judgment for his sin. That he was okay in the most meaningful way, even if the wreckage of his sin was still all around him. Even if all he could see is chaos. Even if all he could feel is despair. He knows, I’m right with God because God is merciful. And following down the roads that lead to his sin, covering up, lying, excusing, maybe even blame shifting, compromising and on and on and on. What David did was he sought to hide from God. Much like Adam and Eve sought to hide from God.

Much like you and I, when we sin, we seek to hide and excuse and cover up. He sought to hide from the very one that he should have been running to. Oh God, what have I done? The very one who could make things right. Saints, do you see what we find in this psalm? We find the gospel. Friends, we find the gospel and in that gospel we find joy. So we see that, yes, David’s sin caused for his joy to be lost. But thanks be to God, we serve a merciful and a gracious God who restores our joy. What we see in the good news is that God passes over adultery. God passes over murder. God passes over deceit. God passes over your sins and my sins, all of them. Christ’s blood, Christ’s righteousness, this is what makes forgiveness possible. How do you live in light of the good news?

The Gospel Solution

How do you enjoy that life? How do you rejoice, even celebrate the good news? How do you rejoice, even celebrate when you might feel horrible about your sin, when you might have lost your satisfaction in the gospel? And you maybe have been just so distracted in your Christian walk that you no longer find joy in the Lord.

How do we do that? Friends, are you stuck in a cycle of repeating the same sins? Are you stuck thinking about the things that you shouldn’t be thinking about? Are you stuck doing the things that you shouldn’t be doing? Do you feel like you’re kind of in this point of going through the motions with your Christian walk? Well, friend, maybe you’ve taken your eyes off Jesus. Maybe you’ve deceived yourself into believing sin can actually offer you joy. Maybe you’ve stopped reminding yourself what it is that you believe and why. Christ’s sacrifice was a once-for-all sacrifice. It was perfect. It was complete. Nothing can be added to it. It’s easy to move past this in our day-to-day Christianity, to dwindle our faith down to praying the Lord’s Prayer, praying before a meal, maybe doing my devotionals, going to church, maybe doing some form of ministry. And if that’s all our Christianity is, then yeah, that life is going to be devoid of joy.

That’s going to be devoid of actual life. One major issue is that you can actually live your life in that way, praying at the right times, showing up at the right time, saying the right things, while harboring secret sins, while not dealing with what’s really going on in your heart. A merely external religious life is really not all that hard to maintain. Plenty of religions around the world do it. A merely external religious life leaves us susceptible to sin, though. It leaves us susceptible to lying to ourselves and to living that lie, to live in the joy that’s available to us, to embrace that reality of joyful, satisfying Christianity. The man or woman of God must walk that line of understanding, acknowledging, and repenting of your sin, grabbing onto the grace and forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ. We see that in a variety of different ways in this psalm.

We see this process of restoration that David walks through in order to get there. First, we see this when David, upon seeing his sin, he turns to the love and the mercy of God. He leans on, he falls at the love and the mercy of God. It took him a while, though. He lived in this sin for around a year. It’s no wonder he’s miserable. It’s no wonder he couldn’t worship. It’s no wonder he couldn’t find satisfaction.

David knew what it means to be guilty before God. He was convinced by this point that he desperately needed forgiveness. How much more do we know about the mystery of redemption than David did? David had glimpses of it. We have the whole story. Friends, how do you read of Jesus when you’re stuck in sin, when you’re stuck not being satisfied in the Lord? Do we clearly see him? How do we hear the stories about him from the Gospel of John as we sit here every Sunday morning? How much are we trying to grasp and understand him better, grasp what it means to be his and for him to be ours? Do we long to dwell in the truth of our salvation? Or are we at a point where we kind of just rush past it now because we feel like we just kind of get it?

We believe what we need to believe. We know what we need to know. Beware. David was a man after God’s own heart. One distraction followed by one excuse, followed by another excuse, followed by, and you know where the story goes. Friends, we’re not immune to it. Then we see that in coming to God’s mercy, David prays to be cleansed from his sin. He doesn’t want to stay there. He sees the destruction of it. He’s not enjoying it anymore. He’s not getting what he needs and he’s not getting what he thought he wanted. And so he pleads with God for forgiveness. In verse 7, we read, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Hyssop was used by a priest to sprinkle a home with blood

to cleanse it from disease. David asks for God to cleanse him from the disease of sin. Wash my disease away. Wash my sin away. In 1 John 1-7, we read that the blood of Jesus, his Son, does what? Cleanses us from all sin. The imagery is the same. This cleansing with hyssop, this cleansing with blood. We must regularly ask to be cleaned. We don’t move past this in our Christian life. We must regularly ask for God to help us to walk in the light, even as Christians. Beloved, the cross is not a reason to not ask for forgiveness.

The cross is the assurance that we will receive that forgiveness. Do you understand that a life of repentance doesn’t stop when Jesus saves you? We become more sensitive to our sin. We understand it’s destruction. We understand that were it not for the grace of God intervening and stepping into my life, I would be headed to destruction. I would be dying. And so when we look to the cross, we remember that sin is killing us. Lord, take out its remnants. Take out what lingers in my heart. Take out the barbs that are still there. When David asks for cleansing from his sin, he sees that sin accurately. He understands what he’s done. He confesses its seriousness. And notice something strange in this repentance. Throughout the psalm, he’s actually intensifying the size of his sin as he goes on. We do the opposite. We defend ourselves.

We excuse what we’ve done. If only he or she didn’t do this, or if they did this. Well, my life is such that I had to blank. Well, the circumstances were such. You see, we actually go on and we say, well, there’s a reason for it. I get that it’s not the best thing to have done, but there’s a reason for it. But David, he can’t get the sin out of his mind. Look at verse three. For I know my transgression. My sin is ever before me. He says that the sin was only against God in verse four. The point is not that others weren’t hurt. They were. But that what makes sin in the ultimate sense is that it’s first and foremost against God. And then what he does is he vindicates God, not himself. Again, in verse four, you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment. Lord, whatever you have to say about me is right. You see me in what I’ve done. You see my heart. You see my motivation. He understands that God would be just to damn him. So friend, is sin light to you? Is it not a big deal? Is it somehow excusable? If it is, why would you rejoice in being forgiven? Forgiven for what? David then admits that he sinned not only against the law, but against God’s light in his heart. And we see that in verse six. He says that he went against his conscience, against the truth that he knows. He draws attention to his inborn corruption in verse five. And many people often when reading this, they’ll actually use it to lessen their guilt, not to heighten it. Well, I was born a sinner, you know, in my mother’s womb, I was conceived.

It should be the opposite. Our corruption is so great that it isn’t even worth it. It’s so great that it is in every aspect of our life. It touches on everything. This is what total depravity means. It’s that it’s in every aspect of our lives. It impacts all that we do. Upon seeing its seriousness, he then pleads with God for a complete overhaul, for complete renewal. He wants more than forgiveness. He wants more than to know that God is no longer angry at him. They’re passionately committed to being changed by God. The mark of the new birth is that I want to be like Jesus. I want to be different. I don’t want to be like the guy that came before me. That guy is dead. I want to be a different person. David pleads with God to confirm his salvation in verse 11. Don’t let me be one of the fake ones.

Lord, please don’t let this be a fake repentance. Don’t let me fall away. Hold me. Please keep me. Keep me safe. So I’d ask, are we maybe too comfortable with our salvation? Do we gloss over the warning passages in the New Testament and passages like this, where we see that there is this need for a constant and a regular analysis of self, maybe unhealthily leaning into the doctrines of election and the perseverance of the saints, missing what these doctrines actually teach.

We need to continuously remind ourselves that it’s God who holds our salvation in his hands. It’s not just nebulously floating out there. God is like, well, here you go. You’re saved. Live your life. No, God holds us. And a deep reliance on him is a prayerful life, a contemplative life that leans into him and says, Lord, if you don’t hold me, I’m done. I’m toast.

The Path to Restoration

We see that David prays for a heart and a spirit that are new, that are firmly rooted. We see this in verse 10. He doesn’t want to sin. When he asks for all these things of God, David does something else. He prays for joy and salvation. He says, Lord, keep me. Lord, sustain me. Lord, give me a new heart. Lord, don’t let me fall away. And Lord, in the midst of this, as I reflect upon your kindness to me, as I reflect upon your goodness, help me be joyful in knowing that you’ve saved me. Help me not become complacent. We see this in verses 8 and 12. Look at this. This is beautiful. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit.

Verse 8, let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you’ve broken rejoice. Upon reading this psalm, have you ever noticed what’s missing when David talks about his sin? Why doesn’t he talk about sexual sin in the psalm? Why doesn’t he talk about murder for that matter? Maybe it’s because the misuse of the gift of sex is a symptom and not a disease.

Maybe the disease is sin and the manifestation in David’s life was sexual sin and the length that he’d go to cover up his sin. David could have gone out into the kingdom and sought out some accountability partner. He could have asked for God to remove his temptation and these things are all good and we need accountability and we need help. And this is part of the gift of the body. This is part of the gift of different members being gifted differently so that we can help one another, so that we can point one another to Jesus. But these things are good, just not ultimate solutions. See, David says in the psalm that he wants joy in his salvation. He needs for a deep and abiding understanding of who he now is and for that to be satisfying enough for sin to look more and more and more ugly.

That’s what we’re working towards, not just creating enough boundaries in our life to keep sin at bay. That helps, but it’s not the ultimate solution. David sees that his lostness and his confusion and the chaos in his heart are there because he doesn’t have the joy that comes with being a child of God. And so friend, I’ll ask you, could it be that you pursue sin because you’ve lost joy in your salvation? Have you come to believe that something or someone can offer that joy to you that it was never meant to?

At the root of being able to flee from sin and be satisfied in life and not in seek and not seek for things that will harm your soul is the rejoicing in the salvation that only God can give you. You won’t be able to truly enjoy your freedom from sin and get the good things out of this life if your heart doesn’t leap for joy upon remembering that you’re saved, that you’re a child of God. If you’re indifferent to that, it’s an uphill battle, friend.

And then we see something interesting when David asks for God to bring joy back to his praise. We see this in verse 15. He wants for his praise to be filled with joy, fueled by joy. So are you seeing this flow here? Repentance, confession, cleansing, forgiveness, joy, more joy, praise, joyful praise. John Piper says, praise is what joy in God does unless there’s an obstacle. David is asking for the removal of the obstacle. Open my lips, Lord. I’m lazy. This is hard. I’m stuck. I’m distracted. Remove the obstacle so that I can fully and truly worship you. Forgive me for not leaning on you, not seeing that you hold my salvation in your hand, not feeling secure in you. So as I look at my life, I often have to ask this question. Why can’t I praise him in the way that I want to?

Why does this sometimes feel dry? Why does it feel forced? And it’s often because we don’t see him as we ought to. And that leads us into not living as we ought to. David then in looking at what the life of the man or woman of God should look like, asked that this would lead to effective evangelism. He wants to tell people about God. We see that in verse 13. He doesn’t just want to enjoy all these gifts from God on his own. He wants for his brokenness to be used to heal others. As soon as he experiences forgiveness, as soon as he’s close to God again, he wants for others to have what he has. This is a life that moves outward. This is a life when experiencing that joy moves towards others. What David discovered is that God crushed him in love.

His broken and contrite spirit actually shows that he’s a child of God and why God allowed for him to be crushed is so that he could see that. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you ever get beyond a broken and a contrite spirit in this life that you’re in good shape or you stop feeling the weight of your sin. Your mourning over sin, your hatred of it shows that you are no longer that person. It may not feel like it, but that’s actually a gift from the Lord. We don’t move past that as Christians. We don’t move past that as Christians. If anything, the longer we walk with the Lord, the more sensitive we become to that sin. Sorrowful yet rejoicing. This is the Christian life. Psalm 34, 18 tells us that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and he crushed the saved, I’m sorry,

and he saves the crushed in spirit. Jonathan Edwards has this wonderful thought about this brokenness, this contrition, where he writes all gracious affections that are a sweet aroma to Christ are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love either to God or men is a humble, brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory is a humble, brokenhearted joy.

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Blessed Brokenness

Saints, we lose joy when we fall into sin. We lose joy when we run from God, when we rebel and as counterintuitive as it may seem, the way to regain that joy, to find it, is to look at that sin, to understand it for what it is, to feel the pain of it, to confess it, to repent of it, to acknowledge its ugliness and in light of that ugliness, to see the contrast of the beauty of the Savior. It is this mourning over sin that leads to joy. Consider what Jesus says in Matthew 5 verses 3 and 4.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

— Matthew 5

(ESV)

It is our poverty of spirit and our mourning over sin that provides true and lasting happiness. In the Beatitudes that we just read from,

blessed can also be read as happy. Jesus is pointing that the new birth brings about a person that mourns over their sin and in that mourning, they find happiness. This is only possible in Jesus Christ. There is no other way. And what we get on the other side of that repentance and running from our sin into Jesus, it’s life.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

— Galatians 2

(ESV)

Friend, if you’re not a Christian, this life is available as a free gift to you. If you’re here and you’re hearing this for the first time or maybe for the hundredth time, this life is available if you would repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus.

The Bible tells us if you do that, he will forgive you. He will save you. Your sin can’t offer lasting satisfaction. Your rebellion, your running from the Lord, it won’t lead anywhere lasting. This room is full of stories of how he’s done that, how he’s forgiven people, sinners like me and like you, how he’s made them brand new. If you’re not a Christian and you’re here, I’m so happy that you’ve come to be with us this morning. Grab on to somebody after the service. Grab on to me and ask them to share how a person becomes a Christian. The Lord saves sinners like me and like you. And if you are a Christian,

a joyful and a gospel-centered life is one that keeps our eyes on Jesus, saints. It reminds us who he is and what he’s done. We live with the knowledge of the fact that as that modern hymn says, our sins they are many, his mercy is more. And as we just sang this morning, where sin runs deep, your grace is more. We come to the joy that is available to the believer by way of brokenness. And what we hold on to with all that we have is the fact that despite our brokenness, we are his and he is ours. Amen? Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for your abundant grace, your mercy to sinners. We thank you that when you give the free gift of salvation, you don’t leave us as we are, but you give us the gift of newness of life, a new heart. Father, as we reflect upon the ugliness and the severity and the seriousness of sin, we plead with you to work mightily here at Trinity Church, to draw us to yourself, to cause us, each of us, to lean heavily on you and not on ourselves. To help us to see the beauty of the gospel every single minute of our lives and to understand that the only way that we can have the joy that you promise is by relying heavily on you, not ourselves, not our own strength, but your work in us. So we ask that you would work here. You would use us however you wish

and you would cause for us to see the joy of our salvation. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen. Amen.