To Heal The Broken Hearted - Joel Schrock

Well, good morning again, greet you all in Jesus name. Thank you

Gerald for the opening and everyone that's express their prayers and thoughts, and that's

been very meaningful. So I also wanted to just give a thanks to the

youth for the effort put into last night. Thought of it in relationship some

to what I'm talking about this morning as well, and Eric's opening scripture reading

this morning caught my attention. I'll just read verse three of that of that

chapter he read in Psalms one, he left the broken and art and bindeth

up their wounds. And I guess the reason that stood out to me is

because the title of the message is to heal the broken hearted, so fit

very well, whether he knew it or not. So going to look at

a couple verses in Luke Chapter four, familiar Verses. We'll talk about,

maybe just briefly, how these verses are given in context, but then I'd

like to look at him a little bit separate from where they are situated in

this story. So in context, here Jesus said, if you look at

the beginning of this chapter, Jesus had just gone through the forty days in

the wilderness in the desert, no food and being tempted it. It was

a tremendous trial that he faced. If I understand right, Jesus had already

moved kind of made a move from his hometown in Nazareth down by Galilee.

So he came back from the wilderness and says he came back in power,

came back to Galilee and power. And it doesn't record a lot here in

Luke, but some of the other gospels I believe, record some things that

could have been in this time frame, likely some miracles, certainly some teaching

that was going on then in uh So his fame began to spread through the

through the area, at least local. It's like he was people were paying

attention. So he went back to his home town, says verse sixteen.

I'll start reading verse sixteen of chapter four and Luke, and he came to

Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, so

this is some people think, you know, he could have been a member

at this place for years. People certainly knew him. He went into the

synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read, and there was

delivered unto him the Book of the Prophet Isaias, And when he had opened

the book, he found the place where it was written, The spirit of

the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel

to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to

preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to

set at liberty them that are bruised, each the acceptable year of the Lord.

And then he closed the book and sat down and taught them. So,

if I understand right, at least the one place I was reading went

they would stand to read these scriptures, would sit down to teach, and

I read one place that the congregation would be standing while the person preaching was

sitting explaining. I guess it kept people from falling asleep during the message.

I don't know, so that's what was happening. He went on to teach

them. They became offended because they knew him. It got to the place

so they they took him out. There's a hill could push him off the

cliff. It's not. I don't think a big enough cliff to kill him.

But it was the beginning of the process of stony. And I guess

that's how they took care of people had offended him, and Jesus said,

you know you want a miracle, You're you're going to say, you know,

do the things that you're do in these other places. Everybody wanted to

Jesus. Life is not all miracles. Not nearly everybody that saw Jesus heard

Jesus saw the miracles. But they were so upset at him, so offended

by him, they missed a miracle he performed right there is they're pushing him

up that hill. However, I mean angry mob apparently. I mean,

if you're if you're aiming at pushing someone off a cliff, you're you're kind

of upset at him. Probably farmers, fishermen, strong people, carpenters.

Jesus walked right through them and left, which looks like a miracle to me.

I mean, that just doesn't happen. So, but back to these

verses. So that's kind of the context this is given in. And he

goes on to other places and teaches and preaches and does miracles. But these

verses the way I would like to look at these verses. So Jesus read

a prophecy about himself from Isaiah. But this morning I would like to focus

on these verses as a call to the people that follow Christ and are called

after his name. And I believe that that is not taking it taking too

much liberty there. This is this is the reason Jesus came, and we

are to be followers of him and the name given to these people Christians,

the little Christ. Right. So if you look, if you have some

newer translations, to heal the broken hearted was omitted from some of the later

translations. I'm not going to get an to big translation discussion here. It

is in the in Isaiah to bind up the broke broken hearted, but I'll

just say that I believe it belongs here and we'll probably get more the most

attention out of this verse I want to look at I want to look at

all of all of kind of verse eighteen and nineteen, look at each part

of it, but that part will probably get the most attention there. So

the five categories of people listed in verse eighteen, it's quite a group.

It's quite a group of people. It's the poor, it's the broken hearted,

the captives, the blind, and the bruised. So that's that's quite

a list. It's quite a list of people and so it's thinking about this,

well, who are the poor? And who are the broken hearted?

And who are the captives? And who are the blind? And who are

the bruised? And then there are five responses given here that Jesus gives that

why he was sent. And some of the responses to these problems don't look

real obvious to me just looking at them. So preach the gospel to the

poor, right, that's not maybe the first thing you think of when you

think of a poor person what they need. So that was interesting. Heal

the broken hearted, or find up the broken hearted, Preach deliverance to the

captives, recovery of sight to the blind. That's pretty that's pretty obvious there.

And this one is interesting to me. To set at liberty them that

are bruised, right, So why are the bruised? Who are they?

And why do they need to be set free? Free from what? And

then also verse nineteen to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And we'll

touch on that a little bit as well later. So who are the poor?

You know these these numbers, and Eric gave some numbers this morning,

billions and trillions and hundreds of billions and trillions, and twenty three zeros and

our minds can't comprehend that. Okay, those numbers, they can't, they

really can't. There's ways of trying to make all right, make it make

sense. But Congress does this with money, and we still don't comprehend it.

But is it the two and a half billion people? It's a lot

of people. We can't comprehend that many people, and it becomes impersonal so

many times. But think of them as individual people that have you know,

their lives are just as important as your life, right, just as important

to God for sure. So is it those people that don't have consistent,

adequate supply of food? Right? Most of them are relatively healthy, but

it's a struggle. And these numbers you can get obviously, these are all

estimations, but based on some real life statistics. Is it the eight hundred

plus million, maybe over ten percent, one in ten of the world's population

that regularly go to bed hungary? Is it the forty five million? This

is starting to get closer to where we can wrap our heads around, but

not quite. What is the population of the United States? Haven't looked for

a while, Probably between three and four hundred million, somewhere three hundred and

some million for the whole United States, forty five million children under five years

old? Uh, who are suffering a cute malnutrition where like you know,

they're not growing fast enough. Or is it the twenty five thousand people that

die every day because they don't have enough food or some issue related to that

some of these Well, here's another one. What about the one hundred or

so a million people who have who are refugees, they have no place to

call home. Are they the poor people? Or is it simply the family

that has bills to pay, no money to cover it, not enough?

Is it the poor in spirit? Is it the deprived? Is it the

powerless? In the story of the rich Man and Lazarus, was it Lazarus?

Was it the rich man? I think it's all these people in some

way. So what is our response to the poor and why preach the gospel

to the poor? Like if if money is the sue, of food is

the sue, what's the gospel gonna do? Well? Preaching the gospel is

declaring vision and hope to the hopeless. It is announcing good news. And

you think about the children of Israel, who maybe they fit in the captive

category more when they were in Egypt. But just think of them as come

up. While they were slaves, generally considered poor people. Did they need

another now they weren't starving like some of these people were. It about did

they need another meal of leaks and garlics and so on? Now what they

needed was vision, They needed hope, and they needed deliverance from bondage.

So I'd like to look. Just turn to Luke sixteen if you want to

the story real briefly of the rich Man and Lazarus. Part of the story.

Going to jump in. It's Luke sixteen. Going to jump in at

verse nineteen and read through twenty six or so. There was a certain rich

man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.

And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at the

gate, full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell

from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores,

and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the

angels into Abraham's boosom. The rich man also died and was buried and in

hell. He lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and see if

Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said,

Father, Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may

dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am

tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, son, remember that in that

thou in thy lifetime receivest good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But

now he is comforted, and now are tormented. And beside this, between

you and us, there's a great golf fix. And I'll stop reading there.

So when you look at this story and you say who is poor,

you see who needed? Who needed the gospel preach to them. And you

look at Lazarus and he died, and you look at the rich man and

he died, And all the other one of them really got was you know,

on your gravestone you get a date and a dash and another date.

Right, that's kind of what you get for life. In life, Lazarus

is clearly clear that clearly poor, very poor needed food. He needed a

doctor. The rich man had plenty and couldn't condescend to see Lazarus out there.

But in light of eternity, I can't really say maybe the length of

eternity, because there's no end, there's no beginning an end for a person,

there's no end. But when you look at eternity, certainly the rich

man was poor. Both men were poor in their own way, and both

needed the good news declared to them. Lazarus may have still been poor even

if the rich man had given him an occasional good meal, hired to you

know, send a doctor out to see him. He could have ministered to

him. Lazarus may have remained poor in this world, but you know,

the rich man wouldn't have had to stay poor in eternity. And Lazarus was

rich because he had freedom from he had deliverance from bondage. Feeding the poor

is important. We're commanded to do so Jesus, and Jesus when he said,

and we'll talk about the later, separating the sheep and the goats,

that's what he mentioned. Possibly the poor will be hungry again, all right.

The gospel fills a hunger that nothing else can. So let's be faithful

in physically caring for the needy and announcing the good news now the captives.

One of the thoughts given of the captives captives here is prisoners of war?

And so who are the caps? Are the captives? Maybe a jew being

held in a tunnel underneath Gaza City right now? Are the captives the roughly

one million or hingas in a corner of Bangladesh because they're not welcome in their

own country? Are they? Those are captives? Is it the person entangled

in sin and seemingly cannot escape even though they know themselves they don't want to

be bound captive? A captive is someone held against their will and possibly caught

while performing an act they voluntarily committed. So you think of the case of

a prisoner of war. Possibly somebody voluntarily signed up for the army, they

ended up going to war, and now they got captured and are being held

against their will as a captive. I think this happens in the spiritual sense

too. We may voluntarily go down a road that will lead us into some

sort of captivity that you could say were being held against our will. If

it's just our will, what is our response to the captive? Again,

it's to preach, it's to declare. If you think of John the Baptist

that declaring that voice of one crying in the wilderness, and we're to preach

deliverance, and deliverance is to set free. It's forgiveness, it's liberty.

And you think about a prisoner of war being held by an enemy in a

foreign country against his will. If he's released, the liberty, the freedom,

the you can breathe again that deliverance. Deliverance doesn't mean your life's always

going to be easy. Children of Israel. You may find yourself wondering in

the wilderness. You may need to be delivered again. But our job is

to proclaim the deliverance. I believe. I believe that's the call of the

follower of Christ. Who are the blind, well blind or obviously those are

people that can't see, maybe especially those who have become blind, or maybe

they have a blind spot. Maybe they've lost the ability to see around them.

Maybe they only have a narrow focused vision and run over people because they

don't see them. Maybe they've lost the ability to focus and can only see

what's around them and get this tracted, and why can they do that?

And it's not fair that they can do that. Maybe they've become near sighted,

far sided maybe everything's become dark. So what's the response to the blind?

Well, what's the recovery of sight? Well, that's kind of Jesus

job, right, What are we supposed to do about that? Maybe we

need each other. Maybe I'm near sighted, maybe you're far sighted, and

maybe if we're humble enough, we could help each other. See. Our

job is to be a light, but only God can truly heal the blind.

Who are the bruised? And this is an interesting one to me.

Is it the child that tries so hard to please but can never be enough?

Is it the youth doesn't have to be a youth? Youth boy,

youth girl, maybe survives a church split, but over time drifts off and

we wonder what. Maybe it's the the parent. Maybe it's the mom who

works all their life just to meet rejection by their child. So if you

want someone non emotionally, you have to get someone else up here. Sorry,

So, Bruce, what I found interesting about a bruise is they're not

obvious necessarily. It can be hidden with makeup, long sleeves, a fake

smile. The bruise could be also be pressed down by guilt, consciousness of

sin. So what's our response? Well, the bruise need to be set

at liberty, And I think what does that mean, Like, isn't it

the captives need to be need liberty. Only God can Again, only God

can truly set at liberty. But maybe we can lift up the hands Hebrews

twelve Versus twelve thirteen. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the

feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, unless that which is

lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.

Maybe maybe we can help with that. We can encourage sinners saved by grace

to leave their bruises under the blood of the Lamb, to be free,

to be free of them things under the surface that maybe they're keeping to themselves,

bitterness, whatever it is, resentment. There's a couple quotes from Jordan

Peterson that I thought I would share, short quotes. I think they're I

think they're powerful quotes. You can just slide right past them. I'll say

here in the context of what he's saying self consciousness, he was meaning in

this focus on oneself. So the first one is there is no distinction between

self consciousness and misery, and the second one, the best path to misery

is to constantly think about how you feel, constantly be checking your bruises,

making sure that your resentment's just still there right focus on yourself as Beth's path

to misery. Think it's true, So let us not remain bruised, and

let us help the bruise to experience that liberty being set free, freedom and

Christ So who are the broken hearted? Didn't take the as an order?

So is that the children in Israel who watch their dad get killed by grenade

from protecting them. Is that the children in Gaza who lost their entire family

because they happened to be between the Israeli bomb and terrorists underground? Is it

families in Ukraine left with nothing, not even their dignity and many times not

even their life after troops roll through. Is it a young Russian man far

away from home, facing Ukrainian bullets in front of him and possibly Russian behind

him. Is it the mom who loves her children has no strength to choose

them over her addictions. Is it the young person crushed by the way of

sin but seemingly no strength to wind. Is it parents that have lost a

child or a child that's lost a parent. Is it the one broken in

repentance that needs to rebuild their life after godliness. So many people could think

of you could you could say, have a broken heart, who loses spouse,

watch the child go down the wrong path. It is someone overcome by

sorrow, weakened, crushed or destroyed in spirit. And you think about what

the heart is. The heart is, This is the seat of human emotion.

It is our inner being, it's who it's who we are inside.

So for heart is broken, we are broken. There's a poem turned into

a song written by I don't know how to say his name, Kurt Beasto

or something. And he lived in Yugoslavia back when there was a Yugoslavia for

a while, and different ethnic groups, the Serbs and the I forget who

all. He knew them all as good people, happy people get along,

intermarried. In some instability in the country came along and the ethnic groups began

to fight. Mother in law would disassociate from son in law, their family

divisions, friends and no longer speak to each other. And he was back

home in the United States and he's wondering why it devolved into civil war and

many people died for no reason. And he wrote just kind of out of

frustration, wrote a song, Prayer of the Children, And he said later

that was not his best poetry, it was not his best music, It

was not his best anything as far as he could tell. In fact,

he never planned to release it. But it's probably but it's by far his

most well known work at this point. He just happened to when he was

given some other songs, he had a slot and I think it was like

a two hour section he didn't have filled up, so he pulled that out

of his personal archives, and that's the way it became public. Oh,

maybe take the time just to read this. Can you hear the Prayer of

the Children on ben de knee in the shadow of an unknown room, empty

eyes with no more tears to cry, turning heavenward toward the light, crying

Jesus, help me to see the morning light of one more day. But

if I should die before I wake, I pray my soul to take Can

you feel the heart of the children aching for home, for something of their

very own, reaching hands with nothing to hold on, to hope for a

better day, crying Jesus, help me to feel the love again in my

own land. But if unknown roads lead away from home, give me loving

arms, away from harm. Can you hear the voice of the children,

softly pleading for silence in a shattered world? Angry guns preach a gospel full

of hate, blood of the innocent on their hands, crying, Jesus,

help me to feel the sun again upon my face, for in darkness clears,

I know you're near, bringing peace again. Can you hear the prayer

of the children. So what is our response to the broken hearted people?

Maybe they have no choice in the situation they're in. Maybe they are where

they are because of their choices, pretty much their choices alone. What's our

response, Well, Jesus is the great physician. We are to be little

Christ. I believe, like I said, maybe for us Jesus heals,

But our job is maybe to bind up. As it says in the original

Aaron Isaiah, the spiritually needy and bankrupt are exactly the people to bind up,

to give hope, to to bandage. There's a I'll read part of

a quote from Peter Rogers wrote about about broken hearts and how broken heart is

healed. I thought this is profound. The poor and oppressed or not healed

of their broken hearts simply by the reversal of fortunes. Those who have los

us families in war, their homes or jobs in recession, their innocence to

abuse, their reputation to slander, and so on are not healed simply by

seeing themselves vindicated or reimbursed and their enemies punished. That does not heal your

broken heart. A radical healing of a broken heart is required, and this

can only come by repentance of the hatred and envy that the circumstances of oppression

have allowed to gain a foothold. Such radical repentance is not easy. In

many cases in our war torn world, it seems impossible. Both Jesus as

mentor model and mediator, it is possible through his proclamation his life is death

and resurrection and the new kingdom of freedom and reconciliation. There is the opportunity

for the healing of the broken heart. How do we heal? How do

we bind up? How do we help someone come to that place so they

can be healed. I believe that we need to have been before God with

a broken heart, touched and healed ourselves by the great physician. We need

to be whole. We need to show what it looks like to behole.

Part of a song poem by Jason Gray. If you want to love someone,

search their soul for it's broken, find the cracks and pour your heart

in. If you want to love someone, and if you think about pouring

your heart in, that's vulnerable. If you meet them where they are that's

uncomfortable, help them, heal, build them up, be there. It's

different for every person. It's different for every situation, but love is the

same, and sometimes just being there is enough. Now, Jesus said it

came to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and this is apparently referencing

there's some reference made back to the year of jubilee Leviticus twenty five, verse

ten. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty. So preach

liberty through throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall

be a jubilee unto you. And ye shall return every man to his possession,

and ye shall return every man into his family. So debts are taken

care of land, restored, slaves, freed, families reunited. It was

right, good, joyful, free, as God intended it. So back

to sort of practically our responsibility, What is our job? What is our

call? Here's I thought of the song True evangelical faith came from a poem.

I guess something that Meno Simons wrote. Here's the kind of unabridged version

of that. I thought it was interesting and noticed how he starts out with

responsibility here and then reaching out. True evangelical faith is if such a nature

cannot lie dormant, but spreads itself out in all kinds of righteousness and fruits

of love. It dies to flesh and blood. It destroys all luss and

forbidden desires. It seeks, serves and fears God in its inmost soul.

It clothes the naked. It feeds the hungry. It comforts the sorrowful.

It shelters the destitute. It aids and consoles the sad. It does good

to those who harm who do it harm. It serves those that harm it.

It prays for those who persecute it. It teaches, admonishes, and

judges us with the word of the Lord. It seeks those who are lost,

binds up the wounded, and it heals the sick. It saves what

is strong or sound. It becomes all things to all people. And then

he says, the persecution, suffering, and anguish that come to it for

the sake of the Lord's truth have become a glorious joy and comfort to it.

So our call is to be aware. See a need fill it is

someone wounded, buying them up, is someone hungry, feed them, and

so on. Jesus had something to say along these lines, as was mentioned

before, separating the sheep from the goats. He said, and if you

listen to what he said, well to both. But I'll what he said

to the ones in his right hand. For I wasn't hungered, and you

gave me me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was

a stranger and you took me in naked and you clothed me. I was

sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came unto me.

See a need fill it. There's a quote I heard a while back,

and I could not find it, but something like this, and it

stood out to me because I was doing exactly what this man said not to

do. And it's not wrong to say, but he was saying, don't

pray that you would see what God sees, or that you would hear what

God hears or those things. Pray that you would be God's eyes and his

ears and so on, which is I found to be a profound difference.

So inclosing, maybe this could be our prayer. Lord, I want to

be your heart of compassion. I want to be your eyes see the needs

of the needy. I want to be your ears that hear the cry of

the broken hearted. I want to be your feet running to and fro I

want to be your hands reaching out to comfortless. And maybe can't be all

of those at the same time, but as a church, as a group,

we probably can be. So if we can fill at least one of

those roles, I think that's what we're called to do. Thank you.