Healing the Broken

Introduction

Today’s quiz might be one you would prefer to fail. Because today’s quiz theme is are you old enough to remember? Are you old enough to remember what a quilt rack is? Anybody know what one of those is? Maybe, or maybe the question is, are you old enough to have owned a quilt rack? One place that I preached, we one of our members’ mother was moving to our area. I want to be a part of our group. And uh in the move, she had one of the things that was packed in in the moving van that made its way uh to where we were was a quilt rack. And it did not arrive in the same condition that it left. Uh in fact, that quilt rack was supposed to be in one piece, and it arrived in about 14 pieces.

It had just been smashed, shattered. And that quilt rack had some emotional attachment for this sister. And so she was just tore up that this quilt rack had been decimated and destroyed. What at first she thought was beyond repair. And but somebody had told her that that maybe the preacher could fix it. I don’t know that they thought I could perform miracles like those preachers in the New Testament, but I I took it and I told her I said I’ll do my best. And so I took those 14 or 15 pieces of that old quilt rack, and I I took it home, and I meticulously took some wood glue and glued and clamped those pieces uh back together. Uh I went and got some stain and some stained filler, some wood filler, and tried to patch all the places that couldn’t be really attached back, and I I fixed it.

In fact, brag on myself, it looked as good as nude. Now, to be fair, this was an elderly woman, her eyesight wasn’t the best, and so as far as she knew, it looked as good as nude. And I’ll never forget her face when I brought that quilt rack and back into her living room into one piece and this sentimental attachment, and now she had a place to put her quilts. Uh the tears flowed down her cheeks as she could see that that broken and shattered piece had now been repaired. It had been fixed. And I’m going to tell you, that felt good. It felt good to be able to help somebody to bring back this thing that she thought was lost, to restore this sentimental attachment, and to give her a place to display her quilts again.

And it just it just kind of did my heart good because I could tell that it did her heart good. It feels good, doesn’t it, to help people and to fix things. But what if we what if we could do both? What if we could help people and fix things by helping to fix those people? That’s what God has called upon us to do is to be repairmen and women to help fix that which is broken, to restore that which has been lost. Then we’re not talking about inanimate physical objects anymore. The text that Robert read for us in our reading this morning is in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, and I encourage you to get your New Testament and turn with us there and maybe put a bookmark there.

We’re going to be coming back to that text. And for emphasis sake, I want to read that text again. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, where Paul, as he will often do, and he and other biblical writers will do, will accomplish two, at least two things in this reading. Number one is he will first and foremost praise God for the work that he has done. But much like we discussed in our Lord’s Supper talk, he’ll also say, there’s an example for you. We praise God for what he has done, and here’s what you are to do in modeling after God. Read with me again the text in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 3, where he says, Blessed. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now, if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. The apostle says, we praise God, the God of mercies and comfort. God has comforted us in our afflictions, Paul says. And that equips us to comfort others. I don’t know that Paul or the Holy Spirit has in mind this Old Testament text, but it brings to mind a psalm, Psalm 147, where under the old covenant, the writer says this, Psalm 147. It says, Praise the Lord. For it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant, and our praise is beautiful.

The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcast of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds. That’s the God of comfort. That’s the God of mercies that Paul and we praise in the New Testament. But Paul says, now it is our task to do for others what God has done for us, our as we sing in that song, the world’s Bible, to be God’s hands and feet, to comfort as God has comforted. And so let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about how we can be those comforters. How can we be those helpers, those healers to others who are broken? Let’s start by stating the obvious. The so obvious that it doesn’t even need stated, but we’ll state it anyway.

1. People Are Brokenhearted

People are brokenhearted. People are hurting. All around you. In your neighborhood, in your schools, in your workplaces, in your families, and yes, in your church are broken people. The breaks are different. The heartaches are the results of different things. But can’t we admit that we’re all broken some way to some degree? That everybody you encounter is going through something. Through some struggle. And like that sister with the broken quilt rack, just devastated that they may feel that there’s no chance of repair. There’s no hope of restoration. Just like we talked last week in sharing the gospel, that you may be the closest to someone to the God of salvation. That because of your relationship to God and how God has helped maybe to heal you, you might be the most perfectly equipped person to help heal someone else who is broken.

And so let’s talk about how this God of comfort can help us to comfort others, how we can heal the broken, how God equips us.

2. Allowing Us to Experience Pain and Suffering

The God of mercies, the God of comforts, who will help us to show mercy and comfort to others. How does God equip us to heal the broken? Well, strangely enough, he equips us, he helps us to help others by allowing us to experience pain and suffering.

Look again at verse 6. Paul says, if we, if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. Paul says, the affliction that I’m going through is for your benefit. Now, admittedly, in Paul’s case, he’s probably saying the persecution I’m suffering in the preaching of the gospel is allowing you to receive the gospel. But there are other ways in which our affliction can be a benefit to someone else. So maybe one way God equips me to help you is that He allows me to experience pain and suffering. Because again, let’s be honest. No one is a better helper of the broken than someone else who has been repaired from being broken. Someone else who has experienced that same loss and that same hurt. Notice what the Hebrew writer says.

Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, and let’s start there in verse 32. To these Christians who had been persecuted and afflicted, he says this. The Hebrew writer, Hebrews 10, verse 32 says, but recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, in other words, after you had seen the light and obeyed the gospel, you endured a great struggle with suffering. So you remember, you remember when you became a Christian and you went through your struggle of sufferings, partly, verse 33, partly while you were made a spectacle, both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated. For you, my translation says you had companion on me in my chains. Your translation may something say something to effect of others in their chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heavens.

He says, You endured this suffering, and you became companions of those who were equally treated with suffering.

That’s true of physical pain, isn’t it? When you hear that somebody has some physical disease, just fill in the blank. It’s easy for us to go, oh, I’m sorry to hear about that. But if you had that, you go, ooh.

You’ve experienced that. The loss of a parent, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a child. We recognize no one can feel what they have felt except someone who’s felt it. And so it equips us to feel as they feel. And it helps us to identify those who hurt as we have. It’s the old red Toyota Camry syndrome. You know the red Toyota Camry syndrome, don’t you? You never know how many red Toyota Camries are on the road until you buy a red Toyota Camry. And then all of a sudden, red Toyota cameras appear everywhere, don’t they? The reality is they were already there. You just didn’t see them. But now you can see them because you’ve got one too. That’s happened. Doesn’t it happen all the time?

And it happens here. That you not only feel as those other people feel, but now you’re seeking those people out. And you see someone, you hear about someone who’s going through the same thing that you went through, and you can easily now identify them and empathize with them and reach out to them. But the second thing that it also does for you is that your own brokenness gives you credibility. Not only can you empathize, and maybe the only ones who can truly empathize with those, but it also gives you credibility when they find out. Oh, you experience this too. Then yes, please come. Set by me. Let me hear your story. Let me hear your advice. I didn’t, while I was going through this, I didn’t want your advice.

I didn’t want your help until I found out you had gone through this. Then by all means, come and sit beside me and tell me your story. And tell me what got you through it. It gives you credibility. You know, in James chapter 5 and in verse 16, James tell us tells us to do something. That at first glance we may wonder, why did James tell us to do that? James 5 in verse 16, James says, confess your faults to one another. Well, why, James? You have absolutely no power to absolve me of my sin. So why do I confess my sins to you? It’s not the Catholic priest concept that I confess them to the priest and he can somehow absolve. That does that’s not track in the New Testament.

Why do I confess my sins to you? Well, James would go on to say, so you can pray. But I think there’s also another benefit in us confessing our faults, our sins, our troubles, and our weaknesses, because then it gives us that credibility. That you can relate. That I see you just on Sunday in your Sunday finest clothes and on your best behavior, and I assume that you’re not broken, because you look mighty put together when I see you on Sunday. You haven’t gone through what I’ve gone through.

But when I hear you confessing your sin, I realize, oh wait, you were broken too. And so I can go to you with my heartache, with my hurt. You can truly say, I’ve walked in your shoes. I’ve been where you have been. And let’s again admit it. We’re all broken. Brokenness is a part of this world. Shakespeare in his play Hamlet said, when sorrows come, they do not come as single spies, but they come in battalion.

There’s the sorrows of health problem that affects us all, either our health or the health of someone that we love. We think of the epitome of that would be Job in the Old Testament. Sorrows and the finally the sorrows of his own health being decimated. We think of family heartache. The Proverb writer said in Proverbs chapter 17 and in verse 25, a foolish son. A foolish son is a grief to his father and a bitterness to her who bore him. There’s family hurt and anguish.

There’s family hurt before there’s even a family. There’s the grief and anguish that Hannah experienced in the Old Testament of just not being able to bear children. She wanted that so much. And it says that in her sorrow, in fact, the text puts it this way, that she was in bitterness of soul and wept in anguish. There’s the sorrow that addiction brings. The Proverb writer again says in Proverbs 23, who has woe? Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who linger long at the wine? Those who go in search of mixed wine. Do not look at wine when it’s red in the cup, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly, at last it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper.

Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things. Yes, and you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or one who lies at the top of the mass, saying, They have struck me, but I was not hurt. They have beaten me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake that I may seek another dream? Which of us has not directly are in our families been affected by the sorrow and the brokenness of addiction.

And then there’s a woes and brokenness that comes the result of money. Paul would warn Timothy, for the love of money, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. For which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and have pierced them through with many a sorrow. And on and on the list goes of the grief and the sorrow that this life can bring upon us. But God has equipped us by letting you go through those struggles and to be healed from them so that you can help others. Again, what did Paul say? If we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. God also equips us in other ways.

3. Teaching Us to See As Jesus Sees

And again, much of this teaching has come through example and the example of Jesus Christ. He is teaching us to see as Jesus sees and to feel as Jesus feels. When you study the life of Christ, and you notice Jesus’ interactions with his fellow human beings, that is one writer observed that Jesus never met an it person.

An it person is defined as someone who you pay no attention to, that you attach no humanity to. And if we’re not careful, that can happen. That can happen to the waitress in the restaurant. Who may introduce herself and tell us her name, and we remember neither her name nor her face, even while we’re eating that meal.

With dozens or hundreds of human beings that we come in contact with that that we pay no attention to really.

Matthew 9, beginning in verse 12. When Jesus heard that, that is the complaint that he is eating with tax collectors and sinners. When Jesus heard that, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Jesus, in the midst of those outcasts and scourges of society, said, This is the very, these are the very people that I came to say. Skip down later in that chapter to verse 35. Still Matthew 9, verse 35. Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary, scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. You know, there’s two other responses Jesus could have had to those multitudes. Number one is it could have been anger.

You’re the ones who made me come out of heaven. You’re responsible for the suffering and the death and the anguish and the separation I’m about to experience. But that’s not the way he viewed them.

4. To Feel As Jesus Feels

But he didn’t see them just as a multitude, just as a crowd, a nameless, faceless crowd. He saw them as people. And more than that, he saw them as souls. And so it says he had compassion on them. And so he helps me and he equips me to help heal the broken by teaching me to see as he sees. To see people as people, as broken people, who need God. And he equips me to feel as Jesus feels. In Philippians chapter one. The apostle says that was his goal. Philippians 1, and in verse 8. Philippians 1 and in verse 8, it says, For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. Paul doesn’t say, I long for you.

He doesn’t just say I have affection for you. He says, I long for you with the affection of Jesus Christ. I feel as he feels. That word affection, or that’s the way it’s translated in the New King James, at least. That word affection is an interesting word in the original. It literally means inward parts. Probably the spleen of all of our internal organs is what he’s talking.

5. God Can Multitask, and So Can We

Along with you with the inward parts of Jesus Christ. That doesn’t sound as sweet as the word affection, but we get it, don’t we? When you care for somebody, you truly love and have that kind of affection for somebody. Literally feel it on the inside, can’t you? Literally hurt for those people. That’s what Paul says, I do for you, Philippians. I feel inwardly with the affection of Jesus Christ. I feel for you the way Jesus feels for you. And he teaches us to do that. To see people as people, to feel with the affection that Jesus has for us. And let’s make this observation. God can multitask, and so can we? You might say, Well, I thought God was there to condemn, and God was there to correct the sins and the flaws in people’s lives.

We’ve been talking about the idea of just kind of healing and repairing their brokenness. Well, first of all, God can do both. And so can I? I can have affection for the sinner while not loving the sin. And while seeking to correct the actions and the behavior of that sinner. And in fact, isn’t that the affection of Jesus Christ? And so let’s echo the words of the Apostle Paul. Let’s praise God, the God of all comforts, who’s comforted us in all of our affliction. But never forget that one of the purposes in doing that is so that we could comfort those who are as broken as we are and need that love. Not just our love and our affection, but the love and the affection of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Are you broken this morning? Would you come not to us, but we’ll seek to help you to heal as best we can. But more importantly, would you come to the God of all comforts, the God of all mercies, who can truly heal the brokenhearted this morning? If we can help you in that healing or in any way, would you come as together we stand and as we sing?