God is Near the Brokenhearted

What this episode covers

Pastor Steve Smith opens his Father's Day sermon with a humorous and self-deprecating story about spoofing an email to motivate his son Nathan to apply for college — a plan that backfired in memorable fashion. From that lighthearted moment, Pastor Steve pivots to a deeper truth: just as his son was briefly heartbroken, all of us carry real and serious wounds — loss, rejection, abuse, divorce, unfaithfulness, and more. Psalms 34:19 reminds us that "many are the afflictions of the righteous," and Pastor Steve makes clear that the question is not whether we have been broken, but whether we have allowed the healer to heal our broken hearts. Pastor Steve anchors his message in the prophetic words of Isaiah 61:1-2, fulfilled by Jesus in Luke 4:16-21, where Christ declares He was anointed to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free. He also points to Isaiah 53:3-6, the portrait of the suffering servant, reminding the congregation that every stripe Jesus bore on His back was for our healing — including the healing of our hearts. The enemy, Pastor Steve warns, wants nothing more than to keep us from the one person who can truly mend what is broken in us. Pastor Steve closes by laying out practical steps toward healing: repentance, forgiving others, drawing near to God, leaving ultimate justice to Him, trusting in His healing, praising Him even in pain, and refusing to let brokenness define our identity. He uses the Japanese art of kintsugi — the practice of repairing broken pottery with gold — as a beautiful picture of what Christ does in our lives, making us more beautiful and more glorious than we were before, and pointing others back to the One who did the healing.