THE BROKEN ONES.

Psalm 147:2–3 KJV

The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart, And bindeth up their wounds.

Theme: Don’t get so focused on where you are going that you miss the broken people God puts along the way.

💡 During the Vietnam War, there was a courageous American nurse who was not content to remain safely inside the medical camp. After a battle, she would leave the camp and walk onto the battlefield, searching among the suffering and dying for soldiers who still needed help. Sometimes she personally dragged wounded men back for treatment. She did not stop to ask whether they were Americans or Viet Cong—if they were wounded, she tried to help them.

The doctors reprimanded her more than once. They told her that the battlefield was too dangerous and that she had no business going out there. After one particularly fierce battle, an officer found her moving among the wounded and demanded, “What are you doing out here on this battlefield?”

Without hesitation, she answered:

“I’m looking for the wounded. That’s what I am here for.”

There are broken people all around us.

Some are broken physically. Some are broken emotionally.

Some have been broken by grief, disappointment, rejection, addiction, abuse, failure, or sin.

Some people wear their brokenness where everybody can see it. Others have learned how to conceal it. They dress well, smile, shake hands, and say, “I’m doing fine.” But beneath the surface, they are carrying wounds no one else knows about.

The Bible is filled with broken people. But it is also filled with examples of people who stops for them.

In each of these accounts, somebody was headed somewhere important:

Peter and John were going to church.

Jesus was going to a crisis.

Jesus was entering a city.

Jesus was traveling toward the cross.

Yet in every case, a broken person appeared along the way.

Here is the message I want us to ]remember:

They were headed somewhere important, but God placed a broken one in their way.

What looked like an interruption was really a divine appointment.

We often think ministry is what happens when we reach our destination. We think ministry begins when the service starts, the song is sung, or the sermon is preached. But sometimes our greatest ministry happens along the way.

Sometimes the person who interrupts our schedule is the very person God scheduled for us to help.

Don’t let your schedule, prevent Gods schedule

I. THE BROKEN ON THE WAY TO CHURCH

Acts 3:1–10 — The Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate

consistent Peter and John were headed to the Temple for the hour of prayer. They had somewhere to be. They had something spiritual to do.

Acts 3:1 — “Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.”

But God placed a broken man directly in their path.

This man had been lame from birth. Day after day he was carried to the Beautiful Gate. Hundreds—perhaps thousands—passed by him on their way to worship.

But Peter and John saw him.

Acts 3:4 — “And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.”

They could have been so consumed with getting to church that they missed the hurting man outside the church.

Key Truth: Never become so busy going to church that you fail to be the church.

Don’t be too busy to see the one in need.

Billy Graham once described being present after the MGM Grand Hotel fire and watching firefighters, military personnel, doctors, nurses, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and ordinary people rush in with food and clothing.

*** suffering creates an opportunity for compassion to become visible. Christianity is more than feeling sorry for somebody; compassion moves toward the hurting. 

💡 Preaching it:

Compassion is not something you feel sitting safely on the sidelines.

Compassion gets close enough to smell the smoke. Compassion gets its hands dirty.

Compassion sees somebody hurting and says, ‘What can I do?’”

Punch line: “You can’t help the wounded if you’re unwilling to walk where the wounded are.”

II. THE BROKEN ON THE WAY TO A CRISIS

Mark 5:21–34 — The Woman with the Issue of Blood

Jesus was on His way to Jairus’ house.

There was urgency. There was a crisis. Everybody had a reason to hurry.

Then an unnamed woman reached through the crowd and touched Jesus.

She had suffered for twelve years.

Mark 5:30 — “And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?”

Jesus stopped.

Jairus might have been thinking, Lord, we don’t have time for this! My daughter is dying!

But Jesus never treated this woman as an interruption.

Compassion sees people, not interruptions.

Someone else’s crisis never makes your hurt insignificant to Jesus.

💡 In an 1879 sermon, Spurgeon was preaching about God's providence and how remarkably precise God's timing can be. He said:

“God never is before His time and He is never late. He times His mercies to the tick of the clock.” 

Spurgeon then described occasions when he had accidentally gone down a street he normally would not have taken. At first, he thought he had made a mistake and wasted half an hour.

But during that apparent delay, he unexpectedly met the very person he most needed to see—someone who had exactly the information he needed.

Spurgeon's conclusion was essentially:

“I was going the right way when I was going out of the way!” 

That will preach with Jairus.

Jairus must have looked at Jesus stopping for this woman and thought:

“We're wasting time! You're going the wrong way! My daughter is dying!”

But Jesus wasn't wasting time.

Jesus wasn't late.

Jesus hadn't lost control of the situation.

What looked like an interruption to Jairus was a divine appointment to Jesus.

And Spurgeon's statement fits perfectly:

“God never is before His time and He is never late.”

Jairus was watching the clock. Jesus was controlling the clock.

The woman had waited twelve years for her miracle.

Jairus' twelve-year-old daughter was running out of time.

One had waited twelve years. The other didn't seem to have twelve minutes.

But Jesus had time for both of them.

“Compassion sees people, not interruptions. When you're walking with Jesus, what looks like a delay may actually be a divine appointment.”

💡 GOD CONTROLS THE CLOCK

Jairus may have been thinking, “Jesus, hurry! We are running out of time!”

But Jairus was forgetting something about God:

God doesn't serve the clock—the clock serves God.

In Joshua 10, Joshua was fighting the Amorites, but daylight was running out before the victory was complete. Joshua prayed:

Joshua 10:12–13 KJV

“… Sun, stand thou still … And thou, Moon…. 13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies…”

*** When Joshua needed more time, God stopped the clock.

Then in 2 Kings 20, King Hezekiah asked for a sign that God would fulfill His promise. Isaiah asked whether the shadow should go forward or backward.

2 Kings 20:11 KJV

And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward…

God didn't just stop the clock—He turned the clock backward.

III. THE BROKEN ON THE WAY TO THE CROSS

Mark 10:46–52 — Blind Bartimaeus

Jesus is leaving Jericho.

And He isn’t just going to another town.

He is going to Jerusalem…. He knows what awaits Him there.

The betrayal. Gethsemane. The arrest. The trial. The scourging. The mocking. The nails. The Cross.

And beside the road sits a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.

When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is passing by, he cries:

Mark 10:47 — “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.”

The crowd tells him to be quiet….But Bartimaeus cries even louder.

Then Scripture gives us five words that reveal the heart of our Savior:

Mark 10:49 — “And Jesus stood still…”

Think about that.

The Cross couldn’t make Jesus too busy for one broken man.

Jesus was carrying the weight of what He knew was coming.

He knew Calvary was ahead.

Yet the cry of one hurting man beside the road caused Jesus to stand still.

That is commitment to broken people.

If Jesus could stop for Bartimaeus on His way to die for the world, surely we can stop for somebody hurting on our way through an ordinary day.

Charles Spurgeon preached from Mark 10:49  He emphasized the remarkable question: What could stop Jesus on His journey?

Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem and Calvary. Then he said, in substance:

Herod couldn't stop Him. Pilate couldn't stop Him. The chief priests couldn't stop Him. The bloody sweat of Gethsemane couldn't stop Him. Even the vision of the Cross couldn't stop Him.

Spurgeon's question was: “What made him stand still?”

His answer:

A blind beggar's cry.

That is powerful for your sermon because Spurgeon then makes an unforgettable comparison with Joshua:

“I have heard of Joshua who said, ‘Sun, stand thou still’…”

But Spurgeon says he ranks the blind beggar above Joshua, because Bartimaeus caused “the Sun of righteousness to stand still.”

CLOSING

On the way to CHURCH — they stopped.

On the way to a CRISIS — Jesus stopped.

On the way to the CROSS — Jesus stopped.

Church wasn’t too important.

The crisis wasn’t too urgent.

Even the road to Calvary wasn’t too consuming for Jesus to notice a broken man.

Maybe we’ve become so busy doing good things that we’ve stopped seeing hurting people.

We have somewhere to go.

Something to accomplish.

A schedule to keep.

A service to attend.

A sermon to preach.

But there are broken ones along the way.

Maybe the greatest ministry opportunity God gives us this week won’t be where we’re going.

Maybe it will be who we meet along the way.