Biblical Kintsugi: Brokenness, Redemption, And New Creation

In this Solo Scripture Samurai sermon from my Radiating Faith series, I explore the Japanese art of Kintsugi—the practice of repairing broken pottery with lacquer and visible gold—and use it as a doorway into one of Scripture’s most powerful recurring themes: brokenness does not have to be the end of the story. 

I begin with the history and meaning of Kintsugi before sharing why this subject is personally bittersweet for me. Long before I came to Japan, Kintsugi became connected to a broken relationship in my own life, making this sermon more than simply an observation about Japanese culture. It became an opportunity to examine what God can do with the parts of our lives we once thought were permanently shattered.

Through Joseph, David, Bathsheba, and Solomon, I examine how Biblical restoration does not require pretending that evil, sin, consequences, or suffering never happened. Like Kintsugi, Scripture does not paint over the cracks and pretend the vessel was never broken—it tells the truth about them while showing that brokenness does not have sovereign authority over what comes next.

I then turn toward the promises of Scripture concerning the brokenhearted, wounded, and spiritually exhausted. Psalms describes Yahweh as being close to the brokenhearted and healing their wounds. Isaiah speaks of beauty replacing ashes, joy replacing mourning, and praise replacing despair. Ezekiel promises a new heart, while Paul describes those in Yeshua as a new creation. But Biblical restoration ultimately goes much deeper than Kintsugi. God is not simply decorating visible damage. He transforms the heart, restores what has been ruined, and brings life into places that looked completely dead.

That leads into the question at the center of this sermon: What if I am too broken? Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones gives us an extraordinary answer. These were not slightly damaged people waiting for minor repairs—they were described as very dry bones whose hope appeared completely gone. Yet God's breath brought them back to life. The New Testament continues that testimony through Lazarus, Jairus' daughter, the widow's son, and ultimately Jesus Himself. The Gospel is not merely the story of a cracked vessel being glued together. It is the proclamation that Yeshua entered death and walked back out alive. The cracks may remain part of our testimony, but they do not get the final word. Resurrection does.

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Couple of Nukes podcast, and this episode is part of the Radiating Faith Ministry sub-series. Specifically, this is an ongoing series of the Radiating Faith series. This is the Solo Scripture Samurai arc. This series of sermons is based off my time here in Japan, where I'm currently residing, and it is inspired by different parts of Japanese culture. Although today's sermon is actually something that was introduced to me before I had ever gone to Japan, and my attire is supposed to reflect that concept. I'm wearing a black suit with a, uh, gold and blue tie. It's not the easiest to see here on camera, but I wore that accordingly to what we'll be getting into today, which is Kintsugi. Now, a lot of people have heard of it, but for those who haven't, I'm gonna be breaking it down. And even if you have heard of it, I'm gonna be giving a little bit of the history. Now, Kintsugi's origins are a little bit... You know, there's different stories about it, so I'm gonna give the overall agreed historical overview, and we'll talk a little bit about some different things here. So Kintsugi was first developed around Japan's Muromachi period. Uh, that's around the late 15th century, and it was really based in tea culture, but there is no surviving record that identifies the exact inventor or year that Kintsugi was first practiced There is an origin story, however, it seems to have... Japan and China have certain relations, and there are different propagandas going on. Uh, so we have to take this with a grain of salt in the sense that it seems more like a traditional legend rather than a firmly documented history. This one is Ashikaga Yoshimasa, um, was a shogun who lived from 1436 to 1490. According to this story, again, uh, from the story that we've heard, uh, one of his treasured ch- china tea bowls broke, so they sent it back to China for repair. This is the Japanese. And it returned held together by visible metal staples, right? And so the shogun was disappointed with this and dissatisfied with that appearance, of course. So it says that Yoshimasa supposedly encouraged the Japanese artisans to create a more attractive repair. So instead of the visible metal staples, they used lacquer and gold. And that is a story, again, traditional legend rather than a firm historical document because of the propaganda between China and Japan against one another. Again, take that with a grain of salt. Either way, Kintsugi began at some point, and it is a practice that has continued for many, many, many, many, many years. Now, Kintsugi is actually broken down. Uh, if you look at the kanji, the first kanji is kin, which is representative of gold. And then you have two kanji together, meaning tsugi. That's T-S-U-G-I. And the kin was K-I-N. So you have T-S-U-G-I, tsugi, and that means joining or the mending and connecting. So together it quite literally reads gold joining or golden joinery, and that refers to the visible gold lines and marks that were, uh, evident. You could see them where the broken pieces had been reconnected. And so the, it actually comes from an older term, which meant gold repair, which is kintsukuroi. Or maybe kintsukuroi. Yeah, kintsukuroi. Still learning Japanese, so bear with me. And then again, it became an established tradition of urushi, uh, lacquer work. And, you know, it was with decorative metal powder techniques, and it was a big part of tea culture again because a lot of t- tea utensils were treasured as much as they were used. They weren't just disposable objects. And I've been to a couple museums here, especially over in Hakone, uh, at one of the shogun's residences, where you can see they have on display a very decorated, uh, you know, tea ceremony art and the actual things used for the tea ceremonies. And what's really interesting about that for, for me personally, is the fact that the tea decorations at the time, the tea boxes, the, you know, the ceramics are decorated microscopically, some of them through woven work or through painting. And the level of detail, I, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how absolutely skilled some of these artisans were. It kind of, like, blew my mind. Again, we're creators made in the image of the Creator, so I guess it shouldn't be so surprising, but really, some of the detail from so long ago just blows my mind. I don't know how they did it. You know, I don't know peoples nowadays who could replicate that level of skill. Uh, I certainly couldn't, and I know there are plenty of detailed artists out here in the modern day and age, but wow, I am just amazed by some of the detail I saw in, in the museums I visited here in Japan And so of course, over time, this culture developed where repair was not just practical, but it was part of art. It was part of culture. And so the golden seams then gave the vessel a new appearance, and right, the damage became part of its identity, part of its story. Uh, it showed recovery. And I say all this in a framing of we're applying it to faith and mental health today and, and just life in general, but especially with faith because this is a sermon. And so what seemed like the end of the object became another chapter in its history, and that's the theme we'll be addressing today. You know, so those are the historical notes and introduction. And along with that, I really just wanna get into specifically, you know, kintsugi was first introduced to me by my ex-fiancée. I wanna credit her for, you know, this sermon in the sense that it was a subject I knew about already. And I haven't gotten to attend a class where they actually create, uh, the repairs, or you can actually pay a good amount of money to, you know, do it yourself. And I haven't gotten to do that while here in Japan. It's something that I've, I thought about doing. But I actually used to have a, a kintsugi necklace that my ex-fiancée had gotten me representative of a very damaged relationship that she and I had in the hope that something beautiful could be formed of it. And when we were shopping, uh, for rings to get re-engaged in the future, they were kintsugi rings. Obviously, uh, she and I are not together, and, uh, there's still many things learned from that relationship and kintsugi and- The failure of that relationship as much as the hoped recovery for it. So this is a sermon that is also personal to me, and it- one of my favorite... I actually, some of my favorite quotes of all scripture are gonna be in this sermon. Uh, not because they're my favorites, but because they are about brokenness and love and the heart and the spirit and evil and good. So really am personally passionate about this sermon. For me, it is very bittersweet, uh, but we're gonna really be focusing on a couple things in the outline here that I really wanna focus on that I've, I've drafted up for us. You know, with starting one with the history and introduction, which we've gone over. Then I wanna focus on redemption and new creation. With y'all, I'm gonna go over some of the, the big scriptural examples that most of us will know, whether you're an avid Bible reader or new to the faith. These are some main historical events that, along with the people they're, they're talking about, you should recognize pretty easily. And if not, I'm gonna give context for sure. Then I wanna move into, after that, we'll get into specific quotes that I think tie in very well into the concept of kintsugi and faith. And then at the last part, we're gonna get into a question that I think many of y'all will be thinking, uh, by the end of this sermon. And then after that, well, we'll, we'll be over with. But the last question, and I'll go ahead and preface it now, actually. This last part of the sermon I put together something that I've thought about much in my own life. Even as a believer, even as a preacher, I wanna talk about what if I'm too broken, broken beyond repair? What if I'm basically dead? Kintsugi is about repairing these ceramic, whether it's a, a teapot, a teacup, whether it's a vase. A lot of times it's a vase. Uh, it can be jewelry, as I mentioned. But when we talk about a vase or a teacup or a teapot- And it's completely shattered into dust. What then? And that's where the Bible is kinski on a whole new level, beyond what we could repair on our own as humans. And whether you're broken into two pieces, 100 pieces, or to dust, there's an answer for that, and we're gonna get into it at the end of the sermon, so stick around for that. But first I wanna get into the broad Biblical overview. Starting of course with Genesis 50:20. This is one of those quotes that is my favorite of all time. In a lot of the major quotes that I'll be sharing today, I'm also gonna be sharing in Japanese at some point. Not every single section of scripture that we read or go over I'll be doing in Japanese, just because learning the language, the pronunciation, and, and translating is a bit of a time-consuming task. And, uh, some of these are paragraphs. But for the quotes that I think are most important for today's sermon, we're also gonna get them in Japanese. Starting with Genesis 50:20. "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Now let me put it into context for y'all. This is one of my favorite quotes of scripture. This is, again, one of those moments where almost everyone knows it. Joseph, who was thrown into the well by his envious brothers, who was sold into slavery in Egypt, who suffered imprisonment, who suffered false accusations, and then rose to be one of the most powerful people, if not really second to Pharaoh of Egypt at that time. When his brothers find him, having gone to Egypt for food because of the famine, and when they realize it is Joseph, they are filled with fear about vengeance, about Joseph extracting revenge on them for what they had done all those years ago. But what does Joseph say? He doesn't say, "I'm going to smite you." He doesn't say that God is going to smite you. He forgives them, he blesses them, and he actually says that what they had intended to harm him, God intended it for good. And again, a Hebrew word I always share, this good is in Hebrew tov. Tov being, a, a, a more than just g- it is whole, it is complete, it is perfect. It is a special type of good. It, this is the good, this is the Hebrew word used in Genesis when God looks back and says what he created was good. It was tov. And I've done a couple sermons or social media clips on that that you can research as well. It's an amazing, beautiful word. Good is such a weak English word. I always encourage everyone, if you haven't looked into the Hebrew or Greek of the scriptures, y'all gotta look into it. Read with the Holy Spirit. The, the Hebrew and the Greek will take you to a whole nother depth and level of faith that is so powerful, y'all It says, "To accomplish what is now being done," not just the blessing. He doesn't say, "To bless me, Joseph." He says, "The saving of many lives." Joseph could have said that his life was a vase, a teapot, if you will, that was broken into pieces. He had these dreams of, of being a leader, of, of being a blessing and serving, and instead he was thrown into a well, which broke him. He was thrown into prison, whi- which broke him. And when I say break him, we didn't see Joseph have a breakdown. We didn't see him, you know, curse out God. But I'm saying, in general, that is something that breaks a person's heart, tests their faith, crushes their spirit. But he saw that all of what was bent or what should have broken him, God continually used with lacquer and gold powder to create something beautiful. God could have created a vase that was made of pure gold from the beginning. He could have put Joseph in charge of Egypt from the beginning. He didn't. He made him a regular vase that went through breaking and then restoration and then holy purpose. And so what we see is that what seems like harm, what seems like shattering, is gonna be used for good because of that redemption and new creation, that Kintsugi, that is just making us so beautiful from what seems like it would have broken us. And now I'll share that quote in Japanese And then moving on, we'll get into another broad example. And again, I wanna specify that this biblical can s- be, it's not saying that the betrayal was good, that the slavery was good, that the imprisonment was good, but that God was greater than all of it. And so when we look at that good, that tov, pleasing and morally right good, that beneficial good, it's not saying that his brothers were in the right or w- that it was fine. What they did was evil, we acknowledge that, but God's intention was greater than their intention. So those, those cracks within the, the vessel, they were real cracks, but they were not sovereign ones that were permanent and that were so destructive. Joseph's wounds, the life that he lived, the trials he went through, became part of a rescue plan for Egypt, for Israel, in the family line. Get this, y'all. Get this, y'all, ready? The family line through which the Messiah would eventually come, that is Yeshua And speaking of the family line, David, Bathsheba, and Solomon. Redemption does not erase consequences, and this is what I'm gonna emphasize here with this section right here, with this historical account. Because David's sin with Bathsheba was evil. For those of y'all who don't know, he saw her bathing upon a rooftop, was so captivated by her beauty that he went and got her, slept with her, she got pregnant. He then tried to scheme ways to get her husband to sleep with her. Her husband refused because they were in a war, and he respected his soldiers who were out there. And then David es- eventually made the plan that got her husband killed by sending him out and basically into what I would call a suicide mission of, of the combat at that time. And this was evil. It was, uh, adultery, it was, uh, in, in terms murder. You know, there was a lot of evil that was going on with lust and pride and greed. And if you really want to know about the lamentations of David when he's confronted by Nathaniel the prophet, you know, Nathan the prophet, it is just... It is a powerful story of the man who had many and the man who had one. You know? So I encourage y'all to read that, uh, when you have the chance to. Again, there was the abuse of power and deception, and God did not bless the sin itself. That child from the first union died. David's household suffered severe consequences, and there's a lot that we could unpack there. But later on from David and Bathsheba came who? Solomon. Solomon, who was later King Solomon, one of the greatest blessings to the nation of all time. That's not saying that God endorsed David's sin. What it is, is God redeeming a family line after sin. Judgment, grief, and repentance, all cracks in the vessel. Solomon, like I said, became a blessing to the nation. Who was representative and was wisdom, the creation of the temple, a time of national strength and prosperity, the literary tradition of Israel God's redemption is not denial. We recognize his sin. God knows that David sinned, yet he still called him a man after his own heart, and he brought beauty after repentance. He does not bring approval before repentance. David repented, he lamented. It was great suffering. And we need to understand that repentance is key. Repentance is extremely important. And so I just want everyone to clarify that, you know, or ra- rather I want to clarify that for y'all. And, and this is important when you tie it into kintsugi, because kintsugi doesn't pretend that the bowl was never broken. It acknowledges the brokenness. It, it just as God acknowledges the sin and the lamentations, the consequences and everything that comes with it, the cracks remain visible. But as scripture did not hide David's sin, so it was with this. In fact, the Bible exposes it, it judges it. But then we see that God's covenant mercy is greater than human failure, and that lacquer gold powder is put over it. You can still see what happened, but it has become something greater through repentance and renewal. In fact, his son, King Solomon, as mentioned earlier, Solomon's own life, own brokenness, own sin, produced the most beautiful vessel of all time, that some would argue. Now, traditionally, Solomon is strongly associated as the author of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. This can be debated by some scholars about the exact authorship of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, especially, again, Ecclesiastes. But it is very much traditionally agreed upon that Solomon wrote them. And many people believe that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes toward the end of his life, after all the evil he had done. Hundreds of pagan wives, uh, leading the country astray into idolatry and witchcraft and terrible paganism. But Solomon's birth was a beautiful vessel. It was a young boy who said, "God, all I ask for is that you give me the wisdom to lead the people." A beautiful blessing, one that most people would not ask for, one that many people nowadays would not ask for. And so Solomon, when I start out as such a beautiful vessel, was filled with cracks, probably more than any other man perhaps, depending how you want to weigh out morality and justice and sin and all that, which we're not gonna get into. But King Solomon, he, he had his heart led astray. There's no doubt about it. And when you read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, we see not the glorification of the cracks, but wisdom and reflection upon them. Solomon begins as the king of wisdom. God said, "There has never been anyone like you, and there never will be." His wisdom was truly a divine blessing. But his own life was fractured by wealth, by the hoarding of horses, by women, foreign gods, baked goods, political excess, spiritual compromise His story is not a wise man who stays wise. It's a wise man who receives wisdom, and then also ignores wisdom, but then became a warning about wisdom. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are very powerful, especially together. Proverbs can be summarized as a section of wisdom on ordered living. You're looking at discipline, righteousness, the fear of Yahweh, restraint, humility, sexual purity, diligence, justice, and wise speech. A lot of my favorite quotes from the Bible come from Proverbs about adultery, about wisdom, about alcohol consumption, about life in general. But Ecclesiastes is where one of my favorite words of all time, hevel, comes from. A Hebrew word with no direct English translation. Uh, uh, chasing after. You know, Ecclesiastes talks about this chasing after wind, nothing you understand. It talks about hevel, a vapor, a breath of mist, something that is impossible to grasp, a fleetingness, and I, I love that word hevel. And Ecclesiastes is the other side of excess. It talks about how much is meaningless or vanity over and over again. It is deep despair, but it's more than that. It's the wisdom of a man who looked at pleasure, success, wealth, work, who had done everything under the sun. All of this I have done, and all of that I have done, and yet I found that there is but one purpose in the end. Ecclesiastes ends, one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible, which could summarize all the scripture in my opinion. There, listen, you have heard all that is said. Do not continue to add all knowledge from all these different books. Although reading and writing many books, there will be no end. But listen to this. I say there is but one purpose in life, to serve and glorify God. And that's a paraphrase, but the end of Ecclesiastes is, Ecclesiastes is a heavy, heavy section of history and of reflection, and it, it weighed on my heart. I felt lifeless for days after reading it. Not because scripture kills your spirit or your heart or your soul, but it purges the flesh, and with it you can feel a feeling of death, uh, in a good way. But there is an attachment you're losing, and, and there is a reflection on life that if you do not have the hope and faith of scripture combined with the reading of Ecclesiastes, it can really weigh you down with dread. And so we need to continue to hope in our faith and love for Yeshua, the redeemed Messiah and Savior who came and died for our sins on the cross, and who is coming back, and dare I say soon. That being said, people have, you know, traditionally looked at Proverbs as wisdom before the fall and Ecclesiastes as wisdom after the fall, after the injuries. Uh, together it is both the, the vessel, the crackage, and the repair, the kintsugi. Solomon's brokenness became a warning and a witness that many people have passed on for generations. And in the New Testament, while you wanna talk about kintsugi, the New Testament is, is probably the strongest section of the Bible when you're talking about this. The entire New Testament is the ultimate kintsugi story. The cross makes new creation possible. Humanity's broken by sin. At this point, Israel's waiting for restoration. The nations are alienated from God. You know, creation itself is just suffering. The human heart is fractured. The people have been led astray and exiled and punished and suffer. All kinds of stuff have happened. It looks like death has the final word over everything, but Yeshua comes and he defies death, and he does not come to just patch humanity. He does not come just to decorate the cracks of brokenness in humanity. Yeshua came for a much greater purpose, as we read in the New Testament. He takes sin, death, judgment, shame, separation, all onto himself at the cross, and then he rises. The resurrection is not just a cosmetic repair, it is a deep, new creation, and this is where Kintsugi, uh, is surface level compared to the power of the healing of God in the, in the scripture, right? And so don't get so anchored into the analogy that we forget about how deep or how much more deeply, you know, that biblical Kintsugi goes, and we're gonna get into that, especially with 2 Corinthians 5:17, reading that. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone and the new is here." New creation, you know, that's really important. That's an important part of all of this. And it says, you know, the Greek word for new here is kainos, and it means new in quality, fresh, renewed, unlike what came before. And creation is ktisis, which means creation, creature, created order, right? Referring to all of creation and, or how God is a creator, and we are creation. So this isn't Paul just saying, "Hey, you get a second chance." This is him saying that the Messiah, and in the Messiah, Yeshua, God begins a new creative work. So while Kintsugi repairs the vessel, the Gospel goes further, as I mentioned, because God makes a new creation from it altogether And I want to get into how kintsugi is about repaired pottery. Scripture is about repaired people, and we're gonna get into specific verses now that really focus on that. The word of God repeatedly tells us that Yahweh draws near to what is broken, heals what is wounded, restores what is ruined, and makes new what sin made old. And we're gonna get into all the supporting quotes for that, starting with my favorite quote of scripture of all time. It is a quote of scripture that I have said so many times, one that has gotten me through more things than anything, and that is Psalm 34:18. "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Again, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." You've probably heard me say in a couple other sermons or episodes of the podcast, I say it all the time in real life. It's one of my favorite s- verses of scripture of all time This isn't talking about just a tiny inconvenience or a scratch on the surface of a vessel, uh, you know, talking of pottery. This is deep breaking, a broken heart and a crushed spirit. This is the kind of pain where the person wonders whether they are still whole or not. This is the kind of lamentations that God is questioned for by us. This feeling of brokenheartedness and crushed in spirit, this is where a lot of people have a turning point in their faith journey, where they either walk away or they find a greater healing in relationship with God. And for me, it was at the bottom of broken heart and crushed in spirit where I had nothing but God to rely on that I found the most, uh, uh, dare I say, kinsy in my life. And that's not to say that things still don't break me, but I am at a much stronger place in my faith where even brokenhearted and crushed in spirit, I try to hold on to this verse. And there was many times where I read it and I said, "Lord, you feel so far away, though." God doesn't stand far away from the shattered vessel, you know? And that's us. He comes close to the brokenhearted. Uh, that's, and, and that's the thing. You can't expect God to repair you if you don't give yourself up to him and you don't let him be close. Think of it in the kintsugi analogy. How is someone gonna put the pieces back together with the lacquer and, and the golden powder if the vessel is always far away from them, if the broken pieces are far away from them, right? It's not about can God chase after us. It's about are we making ourself available for God to do the work that He wants to do. In Psalm 147:3, we read that God binds wounds. Just as the lacquer and the gold powder close and put together the broken pieces of the, of the vessel under kintsugi repair. Look at Psalm 147:3. What does it say? "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." In Hebrew, it's rafa, which means to heal, restore, and make healthy. Also, my Hebrew, like my Japanese, is still very new in practice, so I believe it's rafa, spelled R-A-P-H-A with different accents. And again, that means to heal, to restore, to make healthy, right? This is direct kintsugi language. Um, and this is not just, you know, on a physical level. This is on a spiritual level. Again, the brokenhearted are emphasized, and binds up their wounds, and those wounds could be a lot of different things, y'all The same hands that made the vessel are the hands that also know how to repair it, y'all. And now we're gonna get into a longer passage of scripture, one that Yeshua himself later read. And I always pay close attention to what Yeshua referenced in, you know, read in scripture. And in Luke 4, he references Isaiah chapter 61, and we're gonna look at the first three lines of it, the first three verses that talk about beauty instead of ashes. And I'm gonna read this verbatim here from the New International Version of the Bible. "The year of the Lord's favor. The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has," and this is the important part right here, "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the day of his splendor." So y'all looking at this, we see a pattern. Beauty instead of ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair. And- Those things are in comparison to, meaning those other things existed first instead of, instead of, instead of. Instead of all these broken cracks, instead of metal staples, instead of keeping it broken, instead of throwing it away, we're gonna get something covered in ashes, um, uh, or, and, and then taken into beauty, right? We're gonna, instead of ashes, we're gonna have beauty. Instead of mourning, we're gonna have joy. Instead of, you know, despair, we're gonna have praise, right? That is that golden lacquer and that new purpose, that repurposing of the vessel that looked broken, a, a vessel that looked like it was ashes and mourning and despair, right? Because we are that vessel. And so Isaiah 61 is, is important, and it's directly quoted by Yeshua. And so we look at that even ashes are not beyond God's power and exchange, and that's really important for that question that we're gonna address later on about what if I'm too broken. This is very close to the heart of Kinsey. The ruin is very real. We see mourning, despair, ashes. That, that is real ruin, but God's restoration is greater. One of the most famous passages of scripture revolves around Jeremiah 18, the story of the potter and the clay, or rather the, the analogy there This is different because this is pre-Kintsugi work. This is talking about the vessel is marred, the potter forms it into another vessel. So we know that Kintsugi is specifically just repairing something that is broken, but this shows us that it goes beyond that. God has authority over the vessel. You know, the clay in the vessel does not have the final word over the potter. We read that, right? The damage likewise does not get the final word over the design, and so that's a really important concept as well. And then in Ezekiel we have, continuing on with the theme of new, "I will give you a new heart." Ezekiel 36:26, "I will give you a new heart." Restoration from the inside out. And this is where God goes beyond Kintsugi. Kintsugi repairs the visible cracks. It's a exterior work and design. God goes deeper. God addresses the heart. And of course, our heart needs Kintsugi work as well. God is not only interested in making the outside presentable, but it's about what's on the inside as well. Because we can look repaired and redeemed and new creation on the outside, but if we're not on the inside, it doesn't matter. And so Kintsugi works with hollow vessels, but we're vessels inside of vessels inside of vessels. We have so many layers, and God goes and fixes the, the cracks inside of our heart as well. It's not just about the, you know, the lacquer and the gold powder on the outside, but we ne- need those layered throughout us, throughout all the cracks inside of our soul, our spirit, our heart and everything. He gives us a new heart. He says, "I will give you a new heart." And then I want to get into also one concept with kintsugi is that you still see the wounds, right? And whose wounds do we still see even after the resurrection? Well, you look at John 20:24-29, Yeshua. Yeshua's wounds are visible after the resurrection, right? He rises from the dead. He defeats death. He, he's resurrected, yet he still has wounds. Why? Not because God couldn't close them. In fact, Thomas is invited to see them, to feel them. The resurrected Yeshua does not hide every mark of suffering. His wounds aren't signs of defeat, they're signs of victory, and they're evidence that death touched him but could not keep him. Just as a vessel is broken, kintsugi shows that it could not keep it defeated. It was repaired, and you can still see where the wounds were, but they serve a greater purpose and story now, just as Yeshua's wounds did, and as he kept them, and as Thomas saw them In Yeshua and through him and through our relationship with him, we know that our wounds don't have to remain shame either. They can become witnesses. Then this goes beyond consi- Yeshua is not just repaired, the resurrected body of Yeshua is glorified. The wounds testify. And then of course Revelation, we know there's a lot of new creation in Revelation, including Revelation 21:5, "I am making everything new." God doesn't just restore individuals, He restores all of creation Yes, we're all vessels that need cleansing in our lives through God, but this whole earth is a fallen world. God needs to repair the entire broken garden and restore it to a new creation. The end of scripture, and this, this is the hope, y'all. A lot of people read Revelation, and they get really worried and stressed, and I've read it many times, and it is woe, woe, woe. Not W-O-W, W-O-E, as, as the, as the eagle cries, "Woe," to the people, right? But the end of scripture isn't God throwing away this broken world. It isn't saying, "This vessel is useless. Throw it out." He makes all things new. So that leads us into that final question I mentioned. What if I'm too broken? I want this to be direct to y'all because some of you all may be listening. A question that I've asked myself before Joseph, cool. David, cool. Solomon, cool. All these, you know, historical figures from the Bible, great, hundreds of years ago. What about for me? What about for me living in the modern day, in 2026? What about the sins I've done that maybe didn't even exist back then because people weren't doing what we're doing now? I feel too broken. I feel like I'm broken beyond repair. Uh, this isn't just a crack in a vessel, this is like death. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring up, and this is gonna be the longest passage we read here, but this is the most important one, Ezekiel 37. I'm just gonna read it straight to y'all. Bear with me here and we're gonna let the Holy Spirit talk through this chapter and section right here. The Valley of Dry Bones. Y'all are not ready for this. Get ready for this. "The hand of the Lord was on me and He brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and sent me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' I said, 'Sovereign Lord, you alone know.' Then he said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.' This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones. 'I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.' So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I was prophesying there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say to it, this is what the Sovereign Lord says. 'Come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live.' So I prophesied as He commanded me and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet a vast army. Then He said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone. We are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says. My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it,' declares the Lord." So we see God does this physically, but we also see that this is the people of Israel and it is a spiritual conversation as well. And so what's so beautiful of this, first of all, is Ezekiel's answer when he says, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know." And it's a doubtful believer's answer. It's an exhausted person's answer. It's a person who wants to hope but does not want to lie You know, we're saying to ourselves, "I don't know if I can live again, but Yahweh, you know." And then God commands breath to enter them. Breath being in Hebrew, Ruach, a, a breath, a wind, and a spirit. And that is an important side note, because the dead bones do not resurrect themselves. Life comes from God's breath. When you are dry bones, the answer is not self-improvement, the answer is the breath of God. What we see is God completely restores them from a state of not just d- They're not just bones. It says they are very dry bones So if you feel like a completely broken vessel, picture the pieces. As the bones rattled and went bone to bone, tendon and flesh formed. Picture the reconstruction of all these pieces of the, of the vessel going back together, and God creating them. The tendons and the flesh, the kintsugi, as the pieces, the bones, come together. And as he says, it is spiritual as it is physical. So it is with our kintsugi. So even if you think you are dead, dead, you're, as he said, in the grave, very dry bones. God can bring you out of that with His Spirit, and I think that is beautiful restoration. Many people don't even realize that this section is in the Bible. It's one of the most miraculous sections in the Bible, in my opinion. And resurrection is not unique to the Old Testament. We see it multiple times in the New Testament. Lazarus, Jarius's daughter, the widow's son, you know, Tabitha and Eu- uh, Eutychus, and then Yeshua himself, right? I mean, you look at all these different historical accounts of resurrection, what do we get? With Lazarus, you know- He's not just sick when Yeshua arrives. He's not just dead. He's not just recently dead. Lazarus, at that point, had been dead for four days. There's already an odor according to scripture It's what we would say beyond sentiment denial or beyond human repair. But Yeshua shows up and says, "I am the resurrection and the life." John 11:25. Yeshua doesn't say, "I can perform resurrection." He says, "I am the resurrection." For us, death looks like the end of the story. But for Yeshua, death is just another place for him to speak his authority. He calls Lazarus out. The voice of Yeshua reaches places that no human hand can- Jairus' daughter, you know, what people were calling dead, Yeshua called sleep. And what's so interesting about this, you, you read the section of scripture when Yeshua says she's sleeping, crowd sees death and mocks hope. But Yeshua sees death and speaks life. You know, the mourners laughed when Yeshua said she was sleeping. What does this mean for us? It means, and this is really important, y'all, be careful who you let define your condition. The crowd called it dead. Cr- Yeshua called it life. This is so important Some of us are letting our brokenness be determined by other people, and when we do that, we lose sight of the redemption in new creation. Think about the death of the, uh, the widow who lost her only son. That's not just a, a physical death in the family. It's not just grief. You look at the historical context, that's social vulnerability, economic vulnerability, family devastation, right? This is her only son. You gotta think about the, the impact, uh, socially and economically and historically. But Yeshua sees her and has compassion. He raises the son. Resurrection can sometimes begin with a simple truth. Yeshua saw her. But a lot of us are running and trying to hide from God. We need to show God our, our grief a- our grief and our, our heart and our brokenness. The Lord wants to be close to us, and the Lord is close to us, but are we hiding from Him? That's not to say that you can hide from God, but it's about our free will, and God respects our decision of whether we try to hide or not. And it's sad how many people are choosing to run away from a God who is right there waiting for us, knocking at the door, waiting for us to invite Him in to enter and sit down with us, not just to be there, but to build a relationship over, over that meal. And then we see in Apocalyp-, uh, the, uh, apostolic, you know, witnesses that resurrection power continues. And then Yeshua, I mean, that is the greatest example right there. The whole climax of the biblical story up until Revelation, we have the death and resurrection of Yeshua. To many people, the cross looked like defeat. The tomb looked final. They sealed the tomb with a stone. The disciples looked like they were scattering. It seemed like hope was dead. But then on the third day, Yeshua rose So Christianity isn't just about us climbing up toward God. It's about God entering death and walking out alive. It's about c- a new creation. So that's the ultimate answer to what if I'm too broken. Too broken for what? For Yeshua, the one who conquered the grave, the one who has spoken not just life into death, but said, "I am the resurrection. I am a power o- of, of biblical kinsagy beyond anything." And the reason I wanted to tie it to kintsugi is because of the beauty of the truth, which is kintsugi doesn't hide the truth. It shows you that the vessel was broken, the cracks are real, the damage was real, but the story didn't end with it breaking, and that's the testimony of scripture. Joseph wasn't left in the pit. David wasn't left in his sin. Solomon's wisdom was not erased from history by his warnings, nor by his tomfoolery. Israel wasn't left as dry bones. Lazarus wasn't left in a tomb. Yeshua was not left in a grave. And those who belong to Yeshua will not be left in death. So we need to stop asking, "Am I too broken to be repaired by this biblical kintsugi?" No, the question is, "Am I willing, as broken pieces, whether it's two pieces or 100 pieces or dust, to hand myself over to Yeshua for that repair?" And that is what is so beautiful. And we need to remember that we get focused on the cracks, the world gets focused on the cracks, but what God sees is testimony, repair. The enemy sees ruins and brokenness. Yeshua sees resurrection. So ladies and gentlemen, may all the brokenness in your life be filled with the lacquer and golden power there. And what I mean by that is, may God breathe His spirit of life into you through the scripture, through people in your life, and through your journey of faith. May all the parts of your life that you thought were gonna break you permanently, may you realize that they are part of the story and are being healed through redemption, repentance, and new creation each and every day that we surrender ourselves to Yeshua and choose life over death, and we choose to walk the righteous path, and to allow ourselves as broken pieces to be healed.