How to Mend A Broken Heart
Luke 4:18
Jesus had just returned from the wilderness and the Mount of Temptation where he had struggled with Satan and faced temptation and had not bowed to compromise. The Bible says that Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee. His fame was spread abroad and he began to teach in the synagogues. On the occasion of our text we find Jesus in the synagogue quoting the famous passage from Isaiah the prophet that spoke of a great Messiah who would come and heal and deliver the people of God who were held captive by sin and the devil. Jesus read this great text and sat down and said, “This scripture is now literally fulfilled.”
His message was first of all to proclaim the good news of the gospel
Secondly to “Heal the broken hearted and Set the captives free.”
Third, “To set the captives free and give sight to the blind.”
I want to focus on the second purpose of Jesus ministry this morning paying particular attention to the words he came to Heal the broken hearted.
Tuesday evening I had the opportunity to visiting with one of our deacons to memorial hospital. While we were visiting with Mrs. Ponder in ICU pediatrics, I heard something rather unusual. I heard some gospel singing coming from the room next door. Someone had a video of a lady singing And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own…I couldn’t stand it any longer, I walked next door and found a middle aged lady rocking in a rocking chair watching a video and when I looked down, I saw a sweet baby boy with big brown eyes, looking up at me. When I asked her what was wrong with her little boy I found he had a very rare disease which had caused him to have a serious problem with his colon and to complicate matters, he had serious heart problem. This lady had a lot of faith in the Lord, but I could tell that she was suffering from a broken heart.
I want you to think with me this morning. Our Lord Jesus Christ left the Ivory palaces of glory to come to this world with the express purpose in mind of healing broken hearts. He was born in a manger, wrapped in poor man’s rags, walked among us and ministered among us and was mocked, and whipped and hung on a cross to suffer, because he loved you and me enough to want to save us and mend our broken hearts. OH WHAT A SAVIOUR, OH HALLEJUAH!
With this in mind, I want you to consider this morning that we as church have a ministry that has been handed down to us through our savior. It is the ministry of helping to heal broken hearts. It is the ministry of pointing people to the only one who can heal a broken heart…. the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
How do we mend a broken heart?
I. First by Considering the Great Need All Around Us
The Bible says that when Jesus saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion.
Broken hearts are found in all classes of people. No one is exempt from the possibility of experiencing a broken heart.
The word broken hearted in our text literally means to be pressed down upon by calamities. To heal those hearts who are broken down upon by a sense of sinfulness or affliction. The next line explains the purpose in healing broken hearts…”To preach deliverance to the captives…to set at liberty them that are bruised.
To set free from being bruised means to literally be set free from the pressure of the problem and give them consolation.
I mentioned Wednesday that I am thankful that I had a praying grandmother. I watched my grandmother suffer many times with a broken heart. One of her sons (my uncle) was an alcoholic. One time he broke in my grandmother’s house to steal her television set while she was gone so he could go pawn it to get a drink. It angered my family, but my grandmother just cried and said, “That’s my boy and I still love him.”
Then I would hear her cry at night in her bedroom. She would literally soak her pillow with her tears, as she would pray for her kids and grand kids. She had a broken heart…but oh how I watched her broken heart mended time and again because SHE WOULD TAKE HER BURDEN TO THE LORD AND LEAVE IT THERE!
When Jesus first entered this world…the first sound he heard was of weeping…. It was the wail of those mothers in Bethlehem mourning over their children.
From the manger to the cross he was surrounded by sorrow. “He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”
He cried over Jerusalem…. He wept at the grave of Lazarus…He too was acquainted with tears and grief.
II. Secondly, Commit the Problem to Jesus who Expressly Sent by God to Mend broken hearts
Look at the words, “He hath sent me” Ladies and gentleman Jesus did not fail in His mission and Jesus will not fail you.
He wants to mend your broken heart this morning. If you will trust Him he will not fail you.
God sent Moses with a mission of deliverance to deliver 3 million people who were captive and broken hearted. He had no general, he had no armies…He did have a speech impediment…but he would not fail because the spirit of the Lord was upon him.
NOW DO THINK FOR A MOMENT THAT GOD’S OWN SON WOULD FAIL YOU IN YOUR GREATEST TIME OF NEED. “He is the GREAT PHYSICIAN,” He wrote the book on mending broken hearts.
II. CHRISTIANS HAVE A BLESSED HELP IN MENDING BROKEN HEARTS
D.L. MOODY tells the story of a sweet mother and children who were saved at one of his meetings. The father of this family took the mother and children on board an ill-fated French steamer, bound for Europe. When out on the ocean another vessel ran into her, and she went down and her two children were drowned in the sea. Upon reading the news, Moody said, “I must get down to where the mother is, the news of her children drowning will kill her.” “But when I got there”, Moody said, I found the Son of
God had already been there before me. Instead of my comforting her, she comforted me. She told me she could not think of those children as being in the sea. Christ had taken those children out of that ship and brought them to him, and had left her there to serve him a little longer.”
YOU DO NOT HAVE A BURDEN SO HEAVY THIS MORNING THAT CHRIST CANNOT CARRY. BRING YOUR BROKEN HEART TO THE LORD.
During the civil war a young man got court marshaled and was sentenced to death for going to sleep at his post. An order had been issued by the president that no interference would be allowed in cases of this kind. This sort of thing had become to frequent, and must be stopped.
News reached the father and mother in Vermont, and the whole family became grieved. Finally a little daughter who had read about the life of Lincoln, and knew how he loved his own children went to the White House on behalf of her brother.
She pleaded with Lincoln not to let her brother die. If he did it would break the hearts of her mother and father. Lincoln’s heart was touched with compassion and gave the boy a parole so he could go home and see his father and mother again.
Ladies and gentleman Jesus is touched by your problems and heartaches and he stands ready today to mend them.
