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[ Silence ] I'm not asking for the riches of the land. I'm not asking that high men will know my name. Please give me, love heart, a clean heart that I may follow thee.

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Give me a clean heart, a clean heart, ♪ And I will follow thee ♪ ♪ Sometimes I'm up ♪ ♪ And sometimes I'm down ♪

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Sometimes I'm almost clever to the grub. Please give me, Lord, a clean heart that I may follow Thee. Give me a clean heart, a clean heart, that I may follow thee. Give me a clean heart so I may serve Thee.

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Lord, fix my heart so that I may be used by Thee. For I'm not worthy of all these blessings. Give me your clean heart And I'll follow thee

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Amen. Let us pray. purify and sanctify our hearts, oh God, through your holy word we pray,

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through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. We continue our sermon series based on the book of Psalms. Today, we come to consider Psalm 147, the third verse.

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He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto God, for it is pleasant and praise is comely.

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is calmly, "The Lord doth build up Jerusalem, "he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel, "he healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds." The subject of the message, healing for broken hearts.

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Part of the pilgrimage of human existence is the experience of a broken heart. The human condition is affected by sin which is expressed in brokenness.

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We are separated from ourselves. We suffer from split personalities. Our brokenness is revealed in the fact

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that something radically wrong is at the core of our being. We have become unglued. We are not all together.

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We live fragmented lives. Our hearts are broken. We lack the strength, the drive of a totally integrated personality because our hearts are broken. The harmony we want

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in our lives is overcome by the mad rush of discordant notes because of the brokenness we suffer. Like Humpty Dumpty, We are broken. You remember the familiar nursery rhyme,

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Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses, all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again.

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It is from brokenness that the psalmist cries, oh God, hear my supplication, be attentive to my prayer. From Earth's extremities,

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I cry to thee when anguished in my heart. It's the broken heart that says, I wander to and fro in my anguish, and I suffer because of the menace of the enemy

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and the oppression of the malicious. For they make misery tumble down upon me, and they persecute me with fury. Yes, it's the broken heart.

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that cries, "My heart is in torment within me, and the terrors of death assail me. Fear and trembling get hold of me, and horrors envelop me." Again, the psalmist cries from a broken heart, "For my days vanquish like smoke, and my bones are are consumed as with fire.

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My heart is hit hard and withers away. I even forget to eat my bread. I groan so very much that I am only skin and bones. I'm like a vulture in the desert,

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like a scavenger in the ruins. I am no longer able to sleep. I am as fidgety as a sparrow on a roof. All day long my enemies enrage me and my adversaries speak my name in fury like a a name despised. Out of ashes I make my meal and out of tears my drink. My days

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are like the shadows of evening and I wither like the grass. These are the cries of the brokenhearted. Whenever we have experienced some deep pain, if we We have ever been burdened with grief, suffered some crushing disappointment, engaged in an overwhelming conflict, if you've ever really trusted in someone who has let you down, if

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you have encountered, embraced, and endured the depths of human suffering, then you know the experience of a broken heart. But I do not choose to linger on analyzing what it means to have a broken heart. Let's consider just this word from the psalmist which is focused primarily not on the pain or suffering created by the condition but by, is focused

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on the remedy. The psalmist looks up to God and says, "He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds." This is a song of those who have entered, so to speak, heartbreak hospital. They have undergone serious surgery and experienced healing. The Jewish people had endured a long night of captivity. It was a time of radical

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brokenness, uprooted from family and friends, forced to live among strangers, Deprived of the view and comfort of home, they have come through the night with a song. And this is the testimony that is shared concerning the Lord God. He heals the broken heart.

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Yes, Israel had experienced brokenness, disruption of community due to the captivity. And we suffer brokenness and we can identify with that situation. All about us we see numerous expressions of our brokenness. It's expressed in every dimension of human activity.

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But the good news of God is that God heals our brokenness. He mends our hearts. He unites us. It is in our relationship to him that we are healed.

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You know, anyone who has been seriously ill knows the need and the value of a physician. I can remember a number of years ago, and I was out of this country in Israel,

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and I became ill. And the first problem was finding a doctor who could address my situation. And then I can remember when we found a doctor,

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I felt completely at his mercy. I didn't know what to do in my situation. I didn't know what the solution was and I was brought into the presence of the doctor

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and I didn't know what he was gonna charge me or anything like that and he looked at me, he said, "You are not a wealthy man, are you?" I said, "I said I am not."

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(audience laughing) And that's the way we all feel when we find ourselves in need of healing and we go in the presence of one in whose hands our destiny may rest. We are dependent upon the physician. And that's one place we go when we walk into the physician's office

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and then we go into the room and he says undress. That's one place we go and we don't give him any questions about it, we just undress. We're putting ourselves in the hands of the physician

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and he diagnoses the condition. And then when he get through with it, he diagnoses the condition and he gives us a prescription and it's written in some cryptic language.

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We don't know what it says. We just take it to the pharmacist and we put it in, And all that is our dependence upon the physician. And somehow we are participants in the healing process,

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but it doesn't occur without the guiding hand of that physician. And so, you see, there has been a disruption, as I've said.

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And there is need for the healing of the nation. This broken experience occurred in connection with captivity. And an expression of that brokenness is in the fact that

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the temple had been burned. Walls had been destroyed. In fact, the temple was destroyed three times. Solomon's temple was burned in 586 BC.

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Temple was destroyed again with the Zerubbabel in 20 BC. And then Herod's temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Three times they suffered this. But here, the psalmist is concerned

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with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It's in the hand of God. God is at work in the restoration process. Oppression may come, but the Lord relieves the oppressed.

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The Lord sets the captives free. The Lord brings his people home again. Those who have found themselves separated in so many ways, who've had their spirits crushed,

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God raises them up and brings them home again. This God, this God who numbers and names the stars, this God who is the creator of heaven and earth, this God brings his people home again.

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He heals the broken heart. Yes, this is God's action. It's expressed by the prophet Isaiah. God acts in human history.

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Isaiah expresses it in that 61st chapter when he says, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, "because he has anointed me to preach the gospel "to the poor.

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"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted." God's mighty acts are revealed in human history. And the wonderful thing about it is the manifestation of his transcendent power.

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And he does manifest his transcendent power in his creative acts. The God who is over everything, who controls everything,

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manifests his creative power. That no matter what may happen, no matter how our hearts may be broken, and no matter how crushing may be the defeat that we suffer,

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remember God is over it all. No matter how strong and how entrenched the enemy may be, no matter how stubborn may be the hostility that we encounter,

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remember that God is over all. And while there is a serpent in the garden, God who has created the garden still has dominion, he still has power over the demonic forces

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that we may encounter in our lives. So this brokenness in the natural order is reflected in the fact that when Adam falls, When he falls and he becomes broken just as Humpty Dumpty was broken in the many pieces.

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When Adam falls, and it's broken. He doesn't have himself together anymore. That unity that he needs in order to perform as he ought in the garden, he has lost it now. And then not only is this brokenness expressed in in

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Adam But it's also expressed in in the universe It's it's expressed in all of creation. You see Adam is tied up with God's creation Adam is made from the dust of the ground and that's how he's made from the dust of the ground and when Adam

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falls when Adam experiences brokenness it is expressed in all of creation. The ground is cursed and the brown ground does not bring forth as it did before so this brokenness is all around us. God himself however enters into the healing process And listen to the eternal word.

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God enters, He becomes incarnate in human flesh, declaring to people who are a symbol for worship, this is Jesus Christ. When God comes to heal our brokenness, He comes Himself. he does, he just wraps himself in human flesh and he walks into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and

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when he is given the book he stands up and he reads saying, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the brokenhearted." Jesus himself, God in the flesh, makes this announcement that he has come to heal our brokenness and he participates in our brokenness. That's good news. That's good news. No matter how much we may be misunderstood and no matter how far

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from us others may be from us how far they may be in our time of crisis that there is one who is always there. In fact the God we serve comes to us in the midst of crisis. When we are really up against it, when we don't know where to turn, we find that he's there. He comes to us in the midst of the crisis. and he ministers to our situation. He comes right where we are. That's good news.

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That's good news. He comes where we are. In fact, what he does, he enters into our brokenness. When your heart is heavy, when you have suffered that crushing defeat, when you have endured a disappointment, That God is there. He enters into our broken. Jesus Christ as he comes into our world He enters into this broken world and he enters into all of the brokenness that we experience. He comes

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And when he comes he sympathizes with us you know some people come and and some Some crushing defeat has occurred and they say well, well, honey time will heal it

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Well time doesn't just, that isn't any comfort. Well just forget about it, just put it behind you. Those are just words that fall from our lips, but here is one who comes right where we are.

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And he enters into that situation with us, he enters into that brokenness, he weeps with us, he shares our mutual woes and our mutual burdens. our mutual burdens, he bears, he's right there with us.

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He gets underneath the load with us and he helps us to carry the load because we enter it with his spirit and with his spirit we are able to conquer.

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And what he really says, he says that to his disciples, he said, in other words, this is my body which is broken for you. that that body that is broken is a manifestation of the fact

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that he enters into that human brokenness that we suffer, he enters into our disappointments, he enters into our heartaches, because on Calvary he did it all just for us.

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He enters into it with us. And so, Apostle Paul puts it very well when he says, he became sin for us. That meant he became broken for us.

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He became sin. He became broken for us. So that he takes upon himself our brokenness. And it is this one who takes our sin upon him,

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he is the one who says, this is my body which is broken for you. And so he comes, he enters. Where there is rebellion against God, Jesus comes.

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And he comes to share with us his life. He comes in the midst of our guilt, he comes in the midst of our grief. He comes to bring healing.

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And you see there is, there is, Healing, but always the healing is based upon the fact that the wholeness must be accompanied by holiness. So holiness and wholeness go together.

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So it's when we set ourselves apart, it's when we somehow relate to the eternal that we find this wholeness being experienced. It's an integration of our personalities that comes in our relationship to God. Oh, I would like for us to go back and just take a look at David.

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He's broken now. He's been lifted up, king. God had been with him as a shepherd boy, made him king of the nation, but now he falls and he commits a great sin.

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And he cried out in his brokenness, "Lord, I have sinned, create in me a clean heart "and renew the right spirit within me." And God comes, he enters into that situation,

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as he always does, and he binds up that broken heart. And he causes David to rejoice, so that years later he writes that beautiful song, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,

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He made me to lie down in green pastures, he restored my soul. And then he says, yeah, though I walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil

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because he's with me. His rod and his staff comfort me. He suffered brokenness, but he's experienced healing wholeness. Well, that's good news, I say.

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For those of us who walk this way, whose hearts are broken, whose spirits are crushed. That's good news. Jeremiah proclaimed it to his generation

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when the people were suffering because the nation was on the verge of being carried into captivity. And he cried out, he said, "Is there a bomb in Guinea?

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"Is there a physician there?" And I think our ancestors identified with that. They identified with all of the brokenness that we suffered in this country, with all of the things that were done to crush our spirits and be cried out. Yes, there is a balm in Gilead. There is a physician there. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

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So Jesus heals, he heals, he heals the brokenhearted. There's another song that says, does Jesus care? Does he really care about me? And so often when we suffer brokenness,

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we wonder if anybody really cares. Even the closest ones around us, we sometimes wonder if someone really cares. Nancy comes back and says, oh yes.

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Oh yes, oh yes, he cares about me. I know he cares. His heart is touched with my grief. And that's good news. That's good news. Go forth saying yes, he heals the broken heart because he's healed me. He's enabled me to get my life together. He's enabled me to sing a song of

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of hope in the midst of despair. He's given me courage to go on. He's given me the power to embrace life in the midst of all of the discontinuities. He heals, yes, yes, he heals the broken heart. We come now to the hymn of invitation. I invite you to come. Accept Jesus Christ as Lord and member.

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Come to this country. Come. Come to New York, where you and I have made it, huh? Trust me.

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Come. Come to die. No steps, no direction, no steps. [ Music ]

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♪ Come ye to consolation ♪ ♪ Where'er you may wander ♪ ♪ Come to the nursing home ♪ ♪ What else to see ♪

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♪ What else to be ♪ ♪ Here with the moon and stars ♪ ♪ Sing till the morning breaks ♪ ♪ And let no sorrow ♪

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♪ Let it be ♪ ♪ Cannot kill ♪ ♪ Joy of the desolate ♪ ♪ Light of the stray ♪

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♪ Hope, hope of the penitent ♪ ♪ Of the penitent ♪ ♪ Faithless and pure ♪ ♪ Here speaks the comforter ♪

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♪ Genderly safe ♪ ♪ Earth has no sorrow ♪ ♪ That heaven cannot cure ♪ [MUSIC]

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See what a fool he is. Falls down and down and down. ♪ Here from on high ♪ ♪ Come to the peace of life ♪

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♪ I will never know pain ♪ ♪ I know He ♪ ♪ Has no sorrow ♪ ♪ That can ♪

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♪ Have ♪ ♪ Not me ♪ [Music] every--

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[ Silence ]