Psalm 51:17 NKJV
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.
The Power of a Broken Heart: Divine Acceptance Explained
MY NOTES
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.” — Psalm 51:17 (NKJV)
In the world’s eyes, “broken” is a status nobody wants. If a vase is broken, you toss it. If a contract is broken, you sue. If a heart is broken, you try to “fix” it as fast as possible. But in the economy of heaven, brokenness is actually a prerequisite for intimacy.
In Psalm 51:17, David reveals a counter-intuitive truth: The very thing we try to hide from God—our crushed, messy, and failed state—is the only thing He’s actually looking for.
When the Hammer Hits the Rock
Sometimes we think of “repentance” as a polite apology. But the word “contrite” in Hebrew literally means to be crushed or collapsed, like a bone that has been shattered. John Gill describes the Word of God as a “hammer” that breaks the rocky, stubborn heart into pieces.
This isn’t a “legal” breaking where we just feel bad because we got caught. This is an “evangelical” breaking—where our hearts melt because we realize we’ve hurt a God who loves us. It’s the difference between being sorry you have to pay a fine and being sorry you hurt your best friend.
The Usefulness of the “Useless”
Spurgeon once asked, “What is the use of a broken heart? Why, much the same as the use of a broken pot, or a broken jug!” In human terms, a broken vessel is trash. But David—a king who had offered thousands of perfect, expensive animal sacrifices—realized those were empty ceremonies if his spirit remained “stony” and proud.
A “stony” heart is a heart that is insensible to sin, stubborn, and unteachable. A “broken” heart, however, is a heart that is finally pliable. It is tender like King Josiah’s, trembling at God’s word and patient under His correction. God doesn’t want the “perfect” version of you that you try to present on Sunday morning; He wants the broken version that finally admits it needs Him.
The Only Sacrifice That Works
Matthew Henry makes a powerful point: In the Old Testament, the sacrifice was bound, bled, and burnt. In the same way, a truly penitent heart is “bound” by its convictions, “bleeds” in its sorrow for sin, and “burns” with a new zeal for God.
We don’t provide this brokenness on our own. God is the one who “prepares the lamb” for this burnt offering. He provides the grace that allows us to be honest about our failures. And here is the best part: While men despise what is broken, God treats it with the highest honor. He overlooks the majesty of heaven and the vastness of the earth just to look with favor on the person who says, “Lord, I’m a mess, and I need You.”
Key Takeaways
- Brokenness = Fragrance: Just as an alabaster flask must be broken to release the perfume, our pride must be broken for our lives to become a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God.
- The World Rejects, God Collects: People move away from those who are “falling apart,” but God moves toward them. He is “nigh to those who have a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18).
- Pliability Over Performance: God isn’t looking for a “fixed” version of you. He is looking for a heart that is soft enough to be reshaped by His hands.
- The Gospel Connection: Our hearts are broken for sin only when we look at the Savior whose body was broken for our sin. True repentance always leads to the Cross.
Cross References (NKJV)
Isaiah 57:15
“For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’”
Psalm 34:18
“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
Isaiah 66:2
“For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,’ says the Lord. ‘But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.’”
Psalm 147:3
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Let’s Pray
Abba, I’ll admit that I spend a lot of energy trying to look like I have it all together. I try to bring You my “achievements” and my “good days” as sacrifices. But today, I’m bringing You my brokenness. I’m bringing You the parts of my life that feel crushed and the areas where I’ve failed. Thank You that You don’t look at me with contempt, but with compassion. Thank You that You dwell with the humble. Melt my stony heart and make it soft in Your hands. I ask for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Things to Think About:
- In what area of your life are you currently feeling “broken” or “crushed”? How does it change your perspective to know that God “will not despise” this version of you?
- Reflect on the difference between a “stony” heart and a “tender” heart. Are there areas where you have become “stiff-necked” or stubborn toward God’s direction?
- Matthew Henry mentioned that a broken heart is like a sacrifice that “bleeds in contrition.” When was the last time you were genuinely “cut to the heart” by the love of God despite your mistakes?
- Spurgeon said a “broken heart is a fragrant heart.” How has a past season of brokenness in your life eventually led to “fragrance” (growth, empathy for others, or a deeper prayer life)?
Proverb for Today
The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10 NKJV
Daily Scripture
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
Ephesians 5:8-14 NKJV
Bill
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Summary of Commentaries:
Commentators agree that God values a broken and contrite heart above empty rituals. Spurgeon describes this crushed state as a “fragrant” sacrifice, while Barnes and Henry note that a spirit crushed by guilt becomes pliable and ready for divine grace. Gill emphasizes that true repentance flows from grieving a God of love. Ultimately, while the world tosses out what is broken, God honors it, overlooking heaven and earth to bind up the humble through Jesus Christ.
Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.” All sacrifices are presented to thee in one, by the man whose broken heart presents the Savior’s merit to thee. When the heart mourns for sin, thou art better pleased than when the bullock bleeds beneath the axe. “A broken heart” is an expression implying deep sorrow, embittering the very life; it carries in it the idea of all but killing anguish in that region which is so vital as to be the very source of life. So excellent is a spirit humbled and mourning for sin, that it is not only a sacrifice, but it has a plurality of excellences, and is preeminently God’s “sacrifices.”
“A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” A heart crushed is a fragrant heart. Men contemn those who are contemptible in their own eyes, but the Lord seeth not as man seeth. He despises what men esteem, and values that which they despise. Never yet has God spurned a lowly, weeping penitent, and never will he while God is love, and while Jesus is called the man who receiveth sinners. Bullocks and rams he desires not, but contrite hearts he seeks after; yea, but one of them is better to him than all the varied offerings of the old Jewish sanctuary.
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Enduring Word
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart: David had a great love for the House of the LORD and had sponsored great sacrifices unto God (2 Samuel 6:13, 6:17-18). Yet he understood that one could sacrifice an animal or many animals to God without a broken and contrite heart. Perhaps David had offered many sacrifices at God’s altar in his months of unconfessed sin. He recognized the emptiness of all that, and the value of his present broken spirit and broken and contrite heart. (Guzik)
i. A broken spirit: “If you and I have a broken spirit, all idea of our own importance is gone. What is the use of a broken heart? Why, much the same as the use of a broken pot, or a broken jug, or a broken bottle!” (Spurgeon)
ii. A broken and contrite heart: “This is opposed to that hard or stony heart, of which we read so oft, which signifies a heart insensible of the burden of sin, stubborn and rebellious against God, imminent and incorrigible.” (Poole)
iii. “The clean heart must continue contrite, if it is not to cease to be clean.” (Maclaren)
These, O God, You will not despise: It’s easy to imagine that many in David’s day would despise his broken and contrite heart. What he did – taking whatever woman he wanted and killing anyone who got in his way – these were expected conduct for the kings of the world. Perhaps his neighboring kings were mystified as to why any of this bothered David. To him, it did not matter what others thought; God did not despise his broken and contrite heart, and that was enough. (Guzik)
i. You will not despise: “This is great comfort to those that droop under a sense of sin and fear of wrath, being at next door to despair.” (Trapp)
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Albert Barnes
The sacrifices of God – The sacrifices which God desires and approves; the sacrifices without which no other offering would be acceptable. David felt that that which he here specified was what was demanded in his case. He had grievously sinned; and the blood of animals offered in sacrifice could not put away his sin, nor could anything remove it unless the heart were itself penitent and contrite. The same thing is true now. Though a most perfect sacrifice, every way acceptable to God, has been made for human guilt by the Redeemer, yet it is as true as it was under the old dispensation in regard to the sacrifices there required, that even that will not avail for us unless we are truly penitent; unless we come before God with a contrite and humble heart.
Are a broken spirit – A mind broken or crushed under the weight of conscious guilt. The idea is that of a burden laid on the Soul until it is crushed and subdued.
A broken and a contrite heart – The word rendered contrite means to be broken or crushed, as when the bones are broken, Psalms 44:19; Psalms 51:8; and then it is applied to the mind or heart as that which is crushed or broken by the weight of guilt. The word does not differ materially from the term “broken.” The two together constitute intensity of expression.
Thou wilt not despise – Thou wilt not treat with contempt or disregard. That is, God would look upon them with favor, and to such a heart he would grant his blessing. See Isaiah 57:15; and Isaiah 66:2.
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John Gill
The sacrifices of God [are] a broken spirit,…. That is humbled under a sense of sin; has true repentance for it; is smitten, wounded, and broken with it, by the word of God in the hand of the Spirit, which is a hammer to break the rock in pieces; and that not merely in a legal, but in an evangelical way; grieving for sin as committed against a God of love; broken and melted down under a sense of it, in a view of pardoning grace; and mourning for it, while beholding a pierced and wounded Savior: the sacrifices of such a broken heart and contrite spirit are the sacrifices God desires, approves, accepts of, and delights in;
a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise; but regard, and receive with pleasure; see Psalm 102:17; the Lord binds up and heals such broken hearts and spirits, Psalm 147:3; he is nigh to such persons, looks upon them, has respect unto them, and comes and dwells among them, Psalm 34:18.
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Matthew Henry
He knew also how acceptable true repentance is to God (v. 17): The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. See here,
(1.) What the good work is that is wrought in every true penitent-a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. It is a work wrought upon the heart; that is it that God looks at, and requires, in all religious exercises, particularly in the exercises of repentance. It is a sharp work wrought there, no less than the breaking of the heart; not in despair (as we say, when a man is undone, His heart is broken), but in necessary humiliation and sorrow for sin. It is a heart breaking with itself, and breaking from its sin; it is a heart pliable to the word of God, and patient under the rod of God, a heart subdued and brought into obedience; it is a heart that is tender, like Josiah’s, and trembles at God’s word. Oh that there were such a heart in us!
(2.) How graciously God is pleased to accept of this. It is the sacrifices of God, not one, but many; it is instead of all burnt-offering and sacrifice. The breaking of Christ’s body for sin is the only sacrifice of atonement, for no sacrifice but that could take away sin; but the breaking of our hearts for sin is a sacrifice of acknowledgment, a sacrifice of God, for to him it is offered up; he requires it, he prepares it (he provides this lamb for a burnt-offering), and he will accept of it. That which pleased God was not the feeding of a beast, and making much of it, but killing it; so it is not the pampering of our flesh, but the mortifying of it, that God will accept. The sacrifice was bound, was bled, was burnt; so the penitent heart is bound by convictions, bleeds in contrition, and then burns in holy zeal against sin and for God. The sacrifice was offered upon the altar that sanctified the gift; so the broken heart is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ; there is no true repentance without faith in him; and this is the sacrifice which he will not despise. Men despise that which is broken, but God will not. He despised the sacrifice of torn and broken beasts, but he will not despise that of a torn and broken heart. He will not overlook it; he will not refuse or reject it; though it make God no satisfaction for the wrong done him by sin, yet he does not despise it. The proud Pharisee despised the broken-hearted publican, and he thought very meanly of himself; but God did not despise him. More is implied than is expressed; the great God overlooks heaven and earth, to look with favor upon a broken and contrite heart, Isa. 66:1, 2; 57:15.
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