scripture for broken heart

introduction: hello and welcome to this teachingfrom skip heitzig pastor of calvary albuquerque. we pray that god uses these messages to restorelives and we're thankful to hear that many are experiencing his love. if this teachingencourages you, we'd like to know. email us at mystory@calvaryabq.org. and if you'd liketo support this ministry financially, you can give online securely at calvaryabq.org/giving.jesus loved the unlovable and was compassionate towards all people. as we continue or seriescalled jesus loves people, we look into his heart for those who are broken. in the message"jesus loves the broken," we learn how we can respond to and love people who are facingcrushing circumstances. let's open our bibles to john, chapter 5, as pastor skip begins.

skip heitzig: would you turn in your biblesto john's gospel, chapter 5. i brought with me today a camera. you can tell by lookingat it, those who can see it, it's a very old one. they don't make these things anymore.this is called an argus c-3 camera. it was a very inexpensive, mass-produced, rangefindercamera made out of bakelite, so that will date it, manufactured from between 1939 and1966. and this camera is broken. it doesn't work anymore. but it's special to me and ihave it because this was my father's camera. and so, all of the early photographs thathe took of my mother, and their honeymoon, and the family, were all done on this littlecamera until it broke. and it broke just because it was used, and worn out, and he had pushedthat button one too many times.

and people can get like this. people can getworn out, and used up, and there's enough people that will push their buttons one toomany times. they get broken. if you're a member of the human race, you know what it's liketo be broken to some degree, maybe a broken heart. maybe somebody in a relationship brokeyour heart. a few years back a nashville newspaper decided to do a special set of articles onpeople that were suffering from a broken heart. and so they asked pastors in the area to submitnames in the local community of those that they knew had a broken heart. the newspaperwould find them and interview them and write their story. one insightful pastor sent tothe newspaper the telephone directory for nashville. [laughter]

in other words, who doesn't have a brokenheart to some degree? but then there are those who, more than just being hurt or having abroken heart, because of life's circumstances, we would say, "that person is a broken person."malcolm muggeridge once wrote: "the biggest disease today is . . . the feeling of beingunwanted, uncared for, deserted by everybody. the greatest evil is the lack of love andcharity, the terrible indifference towards one neighbor who lives at the roadside assaultedby exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease." today our study is "jesus lovesthe broken," and that's because he does. and we know that he does because he announcedthat one of the reasons he came to this earth was to heal the brokenhearted.

"he has sent me," jesus said in the synagogueat nazareth, "he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted." the word "brokenhearted" is an interestingword, because it literally speaks of rubbing against something. and it was a word usedfor kindling a fire where you would take two sticks and rub them together so fiercely thatyou would ignite a flame. so the word came to mean a person crushed or broken to pieces.and that's because life rubs so hard sometimes against some people's lives that the end resultis they are brokenhearted. they are crushed by those things. well, how do you love a brokenperson? how did jesus love a broken person? it is important to love those who are broken?my father had many sayings that he would quote. and there were dinnertimes where i would justroll my eyes and go, "here goes."

and dads do that, and they have the rightto do that. but i remember my dad, one of his favorite sayings was that "god helps thoughwho help themselves." and he would even say, "you know, the bible says, 'god helps thosewho help themselves.' " now, i've never read that in the bible. in fact, i did a littledigging and found that it was benjamin franklin who was credited with saying that, and heis quoted in the 1757 edition of poor richard's almanack. so, that's where that comes from.what we discover in our study today in the fifth chapter of john is god doesn't helpthose who help themselves, he helps those who can't help themselves. here is a man whois unable to do something for himself, until jesus comes along and heals this man.

and there's two overarching truths in john,chapter 5, there on your worship diagram today: people can get broken, and jesus loves brokenpeople. people can get broken; jesus loves broken people. now why is this important?this is important because as gordon macdonald once wrote: ". . . a single human being isthe most beautiful, the most valuable, and potentially the most powerful thing god evercreated." so if they get broken, that can impede god's purpose and plan for that person'slife. people can get broken. let's see how. in john 5, beginning in the first verse, "afterthis there was a feast of the jews, and jesus went up to jerusalem. now, there is in jerusalemby the sheep gate a pool, which is called in hebrew, bethesda, having five porches."

"in these," that is, in these porches, "laya great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.for an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoeverstepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease hehad. now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. when jesus sawhim lying there, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, he saidto him, 'do you want to be made well?' the sick man answered him, 'sir, i have no manto put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while i am coming, anothersteps down before me.' jesus said to him, 'rise, take up your bed and walk.' " now allof us are aware that no matter where we go

in this world, you're going to find brokenpeople. whether you go to syria or syracuse, whetheryou find yourself in afghanistan or albuquerque, whether you're in iraq or indianapolis, whetheryou're in paris, france, or paris, texas, you're going to find people who have beenbroken, broken people. and a person can be broken a number of ways. they can be brokenspiritually; most all people are. you can be broken emotionally; many people to somedegree are. you can be broken physically. and you can get broken by experiences thathappen to you in life, by how other people mistreat you in life, or by making wrong choicesyourself over time. as one author said, "life will break you. nobody can protect you fromthat, and living alone won't either, for solitude

will break you with its yearning." so, no matter where you go in this life, thereis the possibility of being broken---a marriage that didn't work out, and then another marriagethat didn't work out; or being abused and abandoned by parents, or being abused andabandoned by children; a disease, an accident that renders one limited in their physicalcapacities. you can be betrayed by someone. hurtful words can be spread by people whotalk against you and about you. proverbs 18 asks the question, "the spirit of a man willsustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?" and the thing about brokennessis you can't always see it by looking at a person. the world was shocked last year whenwe heard that robin williams had taken his

life, this talented actor, who whenever hewas interviewed was so full of humor, so funny. but there was a dark side to his life: brokenmarriages, he struggled with depression for years, some believe he was in the early stagesof parkinson's disease, substance abuse in his life. and those of us who didn't knowhim well had no idea. so here's the deal: right now in this room, people surroundingyou, we don't know what has gone on in their life. we don't know what they're carryingas they come in. there may be a sense of helplessness that they feel because of it. well, let'slook at how this man was broken. there's three ways in which i submit to you this was a brokenman. first of all, he is broken by his circumstances. we know he's sick. verse 5 says he "had aninfirmity." now we don't know exactly what

that infirmity was. it means a debilitatingillness. whatever it was, he was either paralyzed orhe was too weak to be able to move freely, because whenever something happened at thepool, he couldn't get in in time. everybody else would beat him to the punch. and so hehad the circumstance of being physically ill. and i will tell you this, that physical ailments,especially chronic disease, has a way of isolating a person and making them feel so utterly alone.they begin to realize they're unable to do what they used to do. they understand theirphysical capabilities have been pared way, way down. then they find that their friendswill invite them less and less to functions because of their physical disabilities, andthey just feel more and more isolated. now

with this man, we're not told how old he was.he could have been much older than thirty-eight years. we know his disease lingered that long. buthe could have been much older and that this was an onset condition that came later on,which means---though we don't know---there's the possibility that this man was marriedor married at one time. there's no record of his wife. and i say that because so oftenwhen there is this circumstance of being broken by physical disease, it puts an enormous amountof pressure on the marriage relationships. seventy-five percent of marriages where thereis chronic illness end in divorce, 75 percent. and that is because the spouse, the caregiveris frightened at the prospect of long-term

care, and 75 percent of the time will fleethe marriage. so, circumstances can rub against a person's life and rendering that personcrushed, broken. e. stanley jones, some of you have heard thename of that great missionary to india, said that he knew of a pastor who prepared a seriesof ten sermons. and they were---it was a series called how to avoid a nervous breakdown. beforehe had finished the tenth message, he had one. he had one himself, broken by circumstancesin his life. something else i'd like you to notice as you look at your bibles: in verse3 this man was broken by people. now, i want you to see this. in these porches, in thispool of bethesda---and i'll describe that to you---in jerusalem, there "lay a greatmultitude of sick people." so here's a place

where they just stuck sick people or allowedthem to congregate. "there was a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waitingfor the moving of the water." it's important that you know that in ancientcultures they did a lousy job of caring for the sick. they did not have programs likewe have today. if you were sick back then, if you were broken back then, you would eitherbecome a beggar in the streets or at the gates, or you'd simply congregate where people knewthe sick people were in this pool of bethesda. now the pool of bethesda---and there is evidenceof it still to this day---was about two feet, maybe three feet deep, this large rectangularpool by the sheep gate. because they would bring sheep into the city, and they wouldclean them up and get them ready for sacrifice.

but we're told there was "a great multitudeof sick people." one commentator suggests that you'd probably find about three hundredof them every day in that place. but on festival times like this, great feastswhere people would gather to jerusalem, you would find about 3,000 sick people congregatingtogether. now it doesn't take a great imagination to envision what this would look like andwhat this would smell like. if you've ever visited a third world country hospital, andyou have seen sometimes two patients per bed in a little, single bed. they don't even knoweach other, but they're put in the same bed, and their families are camped around on thefloor cooking food for them. what it looks like, sounds like, and smells like---i'veexperienced it---reminds me of what i read

here. now, why were they there? well, it speaksabout "the moving of the water." evidently, there was some subterranean spring that fedthis pool that caused the water to bubble up every now and then. and so people thought it was an angel thatdid that and that's why it is written. by the way, though it is written in bibles thisway, in the most ancient manuscripts it doesn't say the angel stirred up the water. so itis believed that a scribe, in trying to describe to us what people believed in that day, saidthat it was an angel that did it. either way, people congregated there in hopes of findinghealing. "bethesda" is a word that means the house of mercy. it's ironic, because it hadbecome a house of misery where "a great multitude"

had gathered together. but i'm bringing thisto your attention because this is how many broken people feel. they feel just like theydid in ancient times, that our culture doesn't do a very good job in taking care of them.they feel isolated. they feel-they feel shelved, sort of likethis camera here. this camera ordinarily sits on a shelf at home. it's to remind me of mypast, my father, but that's all it is. it just sort of sits there broken on the shelffor me to walk by and be amused by. and people who are homeless feel like they're on theshelf, and people walk by them and are amused by them. aids victims often feel they're onthe shelf; people walk by and are amused by them. those in nursing homes feel like they'reon the shelf; people walk by, they're amused

by them. there's no real involvement or care.they feel broken by people. this man, broken by circumstance, broken by people, and alsohe was broken by time, verse 5. i just want the length of time to settle into our hearts. "a certain man was there who had an infirmity[almost four decades] thirty-eight years." the next verse says, "jesus saw him . . . andknew that he had been in that condition a long time." here's a man on whom time hadtaken its toll. not only has he been broken by the circumstance of disease and brokenby the relegation of a place by people, but he got up every single day to the same reality,so that his helplessness turned into hopelessness. whatever hope he had of getting better hadvanished decades before this. it was just

this daily, hopeless routine. sometimes peoplesay, "well, you know, time heals all wounds." no, it does not. sometimes the longer thetime protracts and elongates, it feels like eternity upon eternity to a person in thiscondition, and they spiral downward from helplessness to hopelessness. i've appreciated the honesty of paul the apostlein second corinthians when he said, "[he] had suffered beyond the ability to endure,so that we despaired even of life." it always caught me off guard. it's like, that's pauldespairing of life? what could have happened to him? well, he goes on and his honesty isunveiled in chapter 11 of that book. he says, "i have labored and toiled and i have oftengone without sleep; i have known hunger and

thirst and i have often gone without food;i have been cold and naked. and besides everything else, i face daily the pressure of my concernfor all the churches." it's that daily pressure day after day, week after week that adds up.it takes its toll and it finds a person crushed. like the psalmist said, "my tears have beenmy food day and night." crushed, rubbed down by circumstances, bypeople, and by time. and how is brokenness expressed? well, a number of different ways:depression is one, anger is another, substance abuse will be true for others. others willbe antisocial in their behavior. others will be suicidal in their thinking. and otherswill self-injure, cutting, self-injury. a number of different ways it's done, but basicallyit's when a person has the emotional problems

that are so pronounced they feel they can'tshare. they can't put it into words. they can't articulate the amount of grief or shameor hurt or anger they feel. and it hurts so badly emotionally that they resort to self-injuryphysically, because it takes their mind off the other pain. when i go to a dentist, and when he startsputting the stuff in my mouth, the needles and the drills, i'll often pinch my fingerso hard just so i'll think about a different hurt. there's people who live like that. now,let's see how jesus loves this man. how does he approach this man? well, we know he healshim. so that's a great part of it, but there's something else. and i want you to see howjesus handles the broken, how he approaches

a broken person, because this is what we oughtto do. first of all, jesus observed him compassionately. he observed him compassionately. verse 6 isreally striking, it says, "now a certain man who had been there who had an infirmity thirty-eightyears. when jesus saw him lying there"---out of this huge miserable crowd jesus sees oneguy. he saw them all, he knew them all, but hezeros in on one person, one solitary human being. he saw him. and this is really thegreat story of jesus. he was able to speak to crowds and move crowds. and people wouldsay after he would speak, "never a man spoke like this man." and, yet, you could get himone-on-one and he would be so individual and engaging with nicodemus, or the woman at thewell, or this needy man here in our story.

loving the broken begins by how we see thebroken. it's by how we observe them. one of the great stories of the new testament iswhen jesus is surrounded by a huge crowd of people up in galilee. they start coming towardhim. and a lot of people will go, "this is awesome! they're coming to hear me." but thoseweren't jesus' thoughts. it says, "he saw them---he saw them, and hewas moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheephaving no shepherd." it's that kind of compassion that enabled jesus to see like he saw. howdo you see broken people? do you see them, do you view them with embarrassment? do yousee them as an inconvenience? i've always loved the story of the two boys talking outin front of school. you know, little boys

will say anything to each other. and theywere observing parents picking their kids up. and one boy said to his friend, "i'd hateto wear glasses all the time, wouldn't you?" it's something a little boy would say. andhis friend said, "i don't know, if they were my grandma's glasses, i don't think they'dbe all that bad." he says, "well, what do you mean by that?"he said, "well, you know, my grandmother has this way of seeing if somebody is hurt, orif somebody needs something, and she says just the right thing. and one day i askedher, 'grandma, how is it that you can see people like that?' and she said, 'i don'tknow, i think it's just the way i've learned to look at things as i get older.' " and theother little boy really didn't get it, so

he said, "i think you're right, it must beher glasses." [laughter] and i think, god give us that kind of prescription in our glasses,fill our prescription with the kind of love that allows us to see people like you sawthem, to observe them with compassion. we need our sight corrected. we need to be morefarsighted. we are so nearsighted, we can't see past ourselvesso often---our deal, our thing, our issue, our problem. lord, give us that kind of vision.observe compassionately. here's the second thing he did: he interacted honestly. andthis has always been striking to me how jesus talks to this man, but he's very honest. inverse 6, "jesus saw him lying there, knew he had been in this condition, and he askedhim, he said to him, 'do you want to be made

well?' " what kind of a question is that?this guy's been crippled thirty-eight years---"you want to get better?" it sounds cruel. in thirtyyears of doing hospital visitations, i have never asked this question. [laughter] i'dnever have the guts to ask that question. but jesus asked it, and it was appropriate,and here's why. verse 6 tells you the clue. "he knew that he had already been in thatcondition a long time." he had learned to live this way so long that now a change inhis condition and circumstances would mean a change in his responsibilities. j. a. findlaysaid that in those days in the middle east, a man who would have been healed could losea substantial living. he had been so used to the system of being a beggar and layingaround and collecting handouts from people,

that jesus would ask this question. he saidfor him to be healed means that he has to join a very hard workforce and work for penniesa day as a hard laborer. so he's a broken man, but if he is healed, he has to take onnew responsibilities. so he asked him, "do you want to be made well?" are you contentwith your condition? do you want to change? do you really want a different life? roger frederikson, a commentator on this,was very helpful to me this week. he writes: "so often people succumb to their illness,'bedding down' with their alcoholism or heart trouble or partial paralysis or whatever.they become psychological and spiritual invalids, retreating within themselves, avoiding responsibilities,becoming more and more self-centered as they

demand sympathy from others. so every nowand then in dealing with this kind of defeated person in the office or at a hospital bedor in a luncheon appointment i have asked that question, 'do you want to be made well?'"i read that and i thought, "you know, i've never asked that question, but maybe i shouldstart asking it now in some cases." jesus is so honest as he deals with him. well, notice something else in verse 14. "afterward,"after the healing took place, "jesus found this man in the temple, and said to him, 'see,you have been made well. sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.' "what!? whatcould possibly be worse than thirty-eight years of being broken? you know the answerto that? there's something far worse that

could happen---eternal suffering because ofunrepentant sin could mean this man could be eternally lost. and though the diseasehad taken the best years of his life away, unrepentant sin would take his eternity away.now just think about this---probably no one had ever spoken to this man like that. noone had ever talked to this man about his sin. "hey, you don't do that. he's sick. he'san invalid. you don't talk about their sin." but jesus did. why? because he loved him.because he loved him and he knew there was something far worse. so, loving the brokenmeans preaching the unbroken gospel. at some point, if you care for that person, you willcare for that person's soul. if you merely feed that person or make them better, it istemporary, unless at some point you are honest

enough to talk about something far worse thanany physical brokenness or malady. as augustine well put it, "if i weep for the body fromwhich the soul is departed, should i not weep for the soul from which god is departed?"so, observe compassionately, interact honestly, and the third thing jesus did, he expectedadversity. he knew it was coming. verse 9, "immediately the man was made well, took uphis bed, and walked. and that day was the sabbath." "the jews therefore said to him who was cured,'it's the sabbath; it's not lawful for you to carry your bed.' he answered them, 'hewho made me well said to me, "take up your bed and walk." 'then they asked him, 'whois the man who said to you, "take up your

bed and walk"?' "now they're hunting him down."but the one who was healed did not know who it was, for jesus had withdrawn, a multitudebeing in that place. afterward jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, 'see,you have been made well. sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.' " now noticesomething in verse 13. they couldn't find jesus, because "jesus had"---what?---"withdrawn"himself. he knew that doing this, showing this kind of love and compassion would puthim right in the bull's-eye, so he withdrew. he got out of the way. this was not the timeto be arrested and be crucified. that would come later. it was all in a perfect timetable.so, expecting adversity, jesus withdrew himself, because love has consequences. and one ofthe great consequences of loving the unlovely

is you'll be misunderstood by people. we'vehad enormous groundswell of love and support for this series jesus loves people, but whathas amazed me is some of the messaging we have gotten back from "christians" who willsay, "i can't believe you guys are saying that jesus loves prostitutes." good, i'm gladyou're reading it well. that's exactly what we are saying. you got the message. "jesusloves homosexuals?" yes, he does. yes, he does. that does not mean in saying that all of thesepeople that jesus loves that he condones their choices or their behaviors, but he does lovethem, and he will forgive those who come to him his way. and it's time the church startssaying that jesus loves people. [applause]

you know, a few years ago we did a huge outreach,a few of them, to the aids community in this town. we just brought them food and lovedon them, and they received it very suspiciously, because of what they have heard about christiansin the past. but what we found is it was very controversial, and we were misunderstood byboth the faith community as well as those in the aids community. and then over the yearswe have ministered to inmates, and when they get out of prison we've actually hired manyof those inmates here at the church. and people have said, "oof, that's risky.that's risky to hire those guys." you know what? it was risky when they let me come.[laughter] we're all a risk. and i find that jesus was so often willing to take that risk.now let me just say something else as we wind

this down. expect adversity, not just fromthe community who will misunderstand you, but from the very people you're trying tohelp sometimes. you will find pushback and blowback and they'll say things about you.you're trying to love them and help them and they'll say nasty things to you or do nastythings. there's an adage in the mental health community that goes like this: "hurt peoplehurt people." people who have been hurt will often be the ones who will hurt reactively,because it's like it temporarily numbs the pain that they have experienced of rejection. so expect anything, but don't let that holdyou back from loving the broken. there was one american artist that noted that when thejapanese mend broken things, that often times

they will aggrandize the damage done to thatthing by filling in the cracks of the broken object with gold. interesting. they wouldfill in the cracks with gold, because they say when something has been damaged, now ithas a history, and now it's more valuable. it's more beautiful. i love that thought.here's this broken man, what a history he had. and, by the way, there's no record thathe even knew who jesus was, but jesus came and was merciful to him and loved him, thisbroken man. he had a history, and he was valuable, because a single human being is the most beautiful,the most valuable, and potentially the most powerful thing god ever made. i have to say this in closing: there is abrokenness that god loves. there is a brokenness

that god wants. the bible says, "a brokenand contrite spirit, o lord, you will not despise." he loves when we are humbly brokenbefore god, because we realize our failures, our sins, our inadequacies, and we bank onhim for compassion and forgiveness. and, father, as we close this service, we do that beforeyou. break our hearts with the things that break your heart. may we be drawn to thosewho are broken by circumstances, by people, by time. it is not easy. it is inconvenient.it can be embarrassing. we will be misunderstood. but we believe it captures so much the heartof jesus who saw and he acted upon what he saw. and, lord, help us too to balance out ourhelp and our love with loving a person's soul

enough to tell them how to get from earthto heaven, that they might find forgiveness and the joy of eternal life, in jesus' namewe pray, amen. closing: our god is a god of mercy and he'sthe hope for the helpless. let's make sure any hurting people in our lives know thisbeautiful truth. how has god carried you through trying times? let us know. email mystory@calvaryabq.org.and just a reminder: you can give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/giving. thankyou for listening to this message from skip heitzig of calvary albuquerque.