Broken Hearts and Mended Souls
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intro
intro
When I was 11 years old I was pestering my older sister and she had enough. We were in the kitchen, and suddenly I found myself running for my dear life. I ran out of the kitchen, into the living room with Robin in hot pursuit. I tried to make a quick turn around the corner to get away, but I made a costly mistake, you see I was wearing socks as I was running these corners and the living room and entrance way were all hardwood floor. As I rounded the corner I slipped and fell face first into the door hinge of the entrance way. I was stunned, and then I was screaming because I had spotted the blood! I had split my bottom lip wide open. This was at around 9 PM at night, most nearby urgent cares were closed. My parents were sure this wound was going to need stitches but the weather outside was very poor, they decided to put a butterfly bandage on my lip as well as lots of ice and then take me in first thing in the morning.
The next day my face was a little swollen and we did go to the nearest urgent care, however I did not needed stitches the way we had originally thought. The doctor said the butterfly bandage had helped fuse my lip back together and all I should be prepared for was a small scar, which I do have but hardly noticeable at all unless you look very closely.
Some of us here today are walking into this church with larger scars then others. Some of you have physical scars, emotional scars or carry the wounds you have experienced at the hands of friends, family, and fellow church members alike. Some of you have experienced healing and yet still carry the scars with you as a reminder. It is my hope today to share with you the hope that is found in Jesus Christ. We serve a Savior who is able to mend together our broken and wounded flesh and even mend our souls, helping us find fulfillment and completeness in Him. Before He can heal our marriages, heal our hurting, heal our relationships, heal our parent and child bonds, He wants to heal our hearts.
Listen I believe our God is pained when we are in pain. He hurts when we are hurting in our relationships with our spouse and even in our friendships. It seems we hurt worse when we are wounded by a loved one.
Some of us guard our hearts after being hurt because we don’t ever want to open ourselves up to that sort of pain ever again.
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
Psalms 147
God sees us, and he cares, he’s ready to offer all the butterfly bandages we need.
To many times God is offering us the keys for healing yet we choose more pain. Some of us have troubles expressing love and some of us have troubles receiving love.
Benjamin Lundquist story:
This time of year we often examine our relationships specifically celebrating the gift of romantic love. This to was created by God and extends from His self-less love for us. While loving deeply can lead to deep wounds. Our God is the great healer. before we go any further, lets pray.
Prayer
It seems like today, there is tons of pressure for young people to accomplish certain things in life. Make good grades, graduate college, find a job. Find a spouse. Have kids…repeat. One problem that is often naturally created, is the imbalance of managing personal expectations with the expectations of loved ones. Some times people do all these things and still don’t find fulfillment. I would also say, there some don’t do any of those things and fill very fulfilled.
I’ll come back to this but first, turn with me to what is hopefully a familiar passage in scripture. John chapter 12
Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
Many believe this to be the same woman who had been trapped in adultry and thrown at Jesus’s feet to judge her fate. John chapter 8 records this event, of Jesus writing in the sand convicting the accusers of their sins and personal wickedness. Gradually the mob departed and the only ones left were Jesus and the accused woman.
Jesus responds to her with a fulfilling self-less love. He says, “Woman where are your accusers? She responds, “They are gone” Jesus says, Neither do I condemn you! Go and sin no more.”
Can you imagine this playing out before you?
Mary has received love so different than any of the counterfeit types she has received previously. It doesn’t how anyone else looks at her from this point on. She has met the gaze of of loving savior. She has experienced healing where everything in her was broken.
If this is indeed the same woman we read about in , which I believe is the case, we have a greater lens into her experience if we examine another mention of her in the Gospel of Luke, in chapter 10.
Jesus visiting the village Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus lived. They served as hosts Him and his disciples. The texts indicate that Mary was attentive to Jesus, in that she was taking in every word He had to say. Martha though, was growing resentful of Mary for leaving her to having to do all the serving.
But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:40
Sometimes, in reading this passage, there is the temptation to think Martha is being rebuked for attending to the hosting. I don’t think that is really the case. Listen the church is in great need of Marthas, and I am not just referring to females here. Marthas are the organizers, the workers, the coordinators, and all of the above. Jesus is not displeased with Martha, but he wants her to understand Mary.
Mary, it appears, has had a prodigal family experience. She had reasoned she would not miss any words uttered from her savior.
Mary was storing her mind with the precious words falling from the Saviour’s lips, words that were more precious to her than earth’s most costly jewels.
Pray
The book Desire of Ages expounds upon the Biblical account:
Mary was storing her mind with the precious words falling from the Saviour’s lips, words that were more precious to her than earth’s most costly jewels.
Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits, for the time we may part company with Satan; but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end.
The “one thing” that Martha needed was a calm, devotional spirit, a deeper anxiety for knowledge concerning the future, immortal life, and the graces necessary for spiritual advancement. She needed less anxiety for the things which pass away, and more for those things which endure forever. Jesus would teach His children to seize every opportunity of gaining that knowledge which will make them wise unto salvation. The cause of Christ needs careful, energetic workers. There is a wide field for the Marthas, with their zeal in active religious work. But let them first sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus. Let diligence, promptness, and energy be sanctified by the grace of Christ; then the life will be an unconquerable power for good.
White, E. G. (1898). The Desire of Ages (Vol. 3, p. 324). Pacific Press Publishing Association.
Desire of Ages Chapter 58—“Lazarus, Come Forth”
Mary was storing her mind with the precious words falling from the Saviour’s lips, words that were more precious to her than earth’s most costly jewels.
White, E. G. (1898). The Desire of Ages (Vol. 3, p. 525). Pacific Press Publishing Association.
So it is from this context do we have the look at Mary’s personal experience: Now at this party at Simon’s house. Mary did more than sit at Jesus feet, but she annointed him.
Mary, a true follower of Jesus may not have had the same amount of quantified time with Jesus that his closest disciples had, and yet she understood Jesus mission, far sooner than they had. He was there to heal the sick and downtrodden. He was there to forgive sins. She understood Jesus would die while maybe still hoping he would be crowned King.
Mary had been living a life going from man to man and had been objectified to a point she did not know her worth. Until she met Jesus. Because of Jesus, her life was fulfilled.
This same fulfillment is offered to you and I.
I mentioned earlier about the pressures many young people face today balancing their personal expectations as well as that of their parents. I am not a parent yet, but parents who are here, maybe you can give me some confirmation on my next statement. Parents you want to see your kids grow up and to marry someone wonderful right? Sometimes it seems the longer young adults wait to get married, the wish then becomes, I just want my daughter or son to get married period…and hopefully move out of the house. ;)
My older sister Robin is getting married next month actually. She’s only 33 but to some, someone might say she’s waited longer in her life than many choose to. When I got married, inching forward to 4 years ago, I remember feeling…FINALLY!, I was thrilled. In some ways I think I experienced a form of fulfillment.
Knowing my sister had been in relationships and had not married, I had talked to her asking her why she had remained unmarried. Her answer was rather profound that helped give me a healthier view on marriage. She expressed to me that she was genuinely content on her own. She said she doesn’t feel unfulfilled. She wasn’t closing the door to marriage, but she told me, at the time, it wasn’t her highest priority in life, and she certainly didn’t need to be married to be happy or content.
I was baffled. Basically the entire time I was in college, if I didn’t have a girlfriend, I wanted a girlfriend. This idea of being content and happy without a significant other seemed strange to me. I also didn’t trust people when they said they were happy on their own versus having someone special in their life. In fact when I really spent more time in scripture I began learning, it wasn’t having a spouse, or owning a home, or even having kids, that were foundation of ultimate happiness and fulfillment. In fact these are also not what heals a broken heart or fills a void that is missing something. Maybe it sounds a bit cliche’ but I don’t think the heart can be filled in a lasting way without it being a sanctuary for the Savior Jesus.
I believe this scripture was used last week, but its an important reminder.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
I believe to mend a broken heart or even experience the lasting fulfillment, we must first find delight in the Lord.
Now there are plenty of wedding sermonettes that include Paul’s writing on love. “Love is patient, Love is kind” comes to mind. However I don’t think I have ever been to a wedding where was mentioned.
I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
If you are not familiar with the context of the verse. Paul was referring to himself as a romantically unattached male who was practiced abstinence.
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
1 corinthians 7:
At first reading, it kind of sounds like Paul is saying is the single people, like himself are in more control of their lives than one who is married. But if we examine more closely, his view is very balanced and is more spiritual than it is given credit for.
An interesting factoid is that Christianity was the very first religion that held up single adulthood as a viable way of life. Stanley Haurwas writes, “One clear difference between Christianity and Judiasm (and all other traditional religions) is the former’s entertainment of the idea of singleness as the paradigm way of life for its followers.”
Nearly all ancient religions and cultures made an absolute value of the family and of bearing children. Quite literally, there was no honor without family honor.
Pastor Timothy Keller in his book, co-authored with his wife Kathy, “The Meaning of Marriage” a book devoted strongly to helping married couples thrive in their marriages, makes the point that the early church took value in those who remained single. He writes, “The Christian gospel and hope of a future kingdom de-idolized marriage. There was no more radical act in that day and time than to live a life that did not produce heirs. Having children was the main way to achieve significance for an adult, since children would remember you. They also gave you security, since they would take care of you in your old age. Christians who remained single, then, were making the statement that our future is not guaranteed by the family but by God. Single adult christians were bearing testimony that God, not family, was there hope.
The book is not in any way saying being single is better than being married but expounds on Paul’s principled lesson taught in verse 17 of .
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
Quite frankly Married couples should not look down on singles who are contented with being single, just like singles should not turn their nose up to those who have chosen the committed marital relationship.
The book I am referencing also makes the point that a Christian community is enriched for the better when singles and married couples both exist and thrive. Singles specifically have a greater range of friendships among both sexes. I would suggest to you this church specifically is stronger because of its diversity of experiences. Even those of you who have experienced the pain of divorce have an opportunity and can be more qualified to minister to the needs of others who have experienced similar pain.
Ultimately what I am getting at is, not pushing singleness on everyone, I’m helping you understand marriage and creating a family, while created and instituted by God, do not deliver the lasting fulfillment your relationship to God can and will.
My wife brings me a whole lot of joy. I like to think I bring her fair bit of it as well. But our joy and happiness comes from our delight in the Lord.
Meggan and I enjoy a line from the Christian movie courageous depicting a husband and wife who are central characters in the film. The wife remarks to her husband. “Honey there are days I love, and there are days when I REALLY love you.” after learning of her husbands recent contract with fellow friends to be more honorable husbands and fathers.
Just a small window into My wife and I’s home. Several nights a week I am at the church for various meetings. One of my great joys is coming home sometimes at 8:30 or 9 PM and walking into our bedroom and seeing my wife knelt beside her bed praying after doing devotions and prayer journaling. I can’t help but stare and think…some days I REALLY love you!
You see there has been several instances in the last year that she and I have had to navigate difficult news and struggles. Things that have caused us very deep pain. Yet, knowing that our joy comes from God, is a peace thats pretty indescribable. You see we are happy with each other. We love each other deeply. But we both acknowledge our love for God must be stronger. It must be stronger. Our happiness is affected by each other, but is generated by our faithful God.
This is what Paul is talking about in verse 32 and 37 of .
Paul says in verse 32, “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, while the married man is anxious about worldly things.
To be clear Paul is not rebuking the married man, suggesting married men are anxious with worldly desires. He is saying marriage and family in a sense are of something of the world and even the noble created institutions can separate us from God. There are temptations often greater of the single man as well.
Things become more clear in verse 37
But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.
What is firmly established? is found 2 verses prior in verse 35
I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
Undivided devotion to God.
Pastor Ross, what does this have to do with broken hearts and mended souls? Thankyou for asking.
So many of us are asking our spouse or a loved one to fill the void where the creator needs to be. I’m sorry but that is just about as impossible as it is for the Cleveland Browns to win a super bowl.
Desire of Ages puts it this way,
“Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits, for the time we may part company with Satan; but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end.” -Desire of Ages pg. 324
To heal our broken hearts, God asks us to Trust him with our hearts.
When I think of the transformation of Mary, from prostitute adulteress to daughter whose value and self worth came from God alone, I think about the daughters and sons out there who have believed the lie the devil tells them....That they need to look this way, or act this way, or find the right self-medication. I think about those of us here who have struggled to find the right life-partner, maybe tempted into believing that if only you had someone, then you’d experience fulfillment.
God tells us in his word if we want to leave behind the anxieties of the world, we need to undivided devotion to Him.
Don’t you know this peace and joy that Jesus gave Mary and that he gave Paul the apostle is something he gives to each one of you. He waits patiently for us come to Him.
When I was in academy my class made a video called “Table for Two” If I could find it, I would have played it for you today. In our highschool budgeted film, we depicted a man sitting at a table of a fancy restaraunt waiting on his date to come. He finishes several coffees waiting for his date to arrive. While he waits, he sees other couples gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. As the restaurant is abut to close for the night, the man pays for his coffees and leaves a generous tip. He tells the waitor he will be back tomorrow. Then the video changes scenes as a young lady going through her to do list before bed, skips the time that was allotted to spending personal devotional time with God...
Lets not go another day standing up our God. Let’s receive the love God has for us. Let’s go to him to heal our broken hearts mending our souls.