Want to watch or listen instead? Catch Pastor Lauderdale’s sermon titled Lord, Fix Me on YouTube.
Scripture: Isaiah 64:6 (KJV); Romans 7:18 (KJV); Ephesians 2:8–10 (KJV); 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV); Romans 12:1–2 (KJV)
Beloved, we live in a world that tells us we can fix almost anything if we just try hard enough. Fix your habits. Fix your finances. Fix your relationships. Fix your mindset. Fix your life. Everywhere we turn, the message is the same: work harder, do better, push farther, believe more deeply in yourself.
But the Word of God confronts that idea head-on and tells us something many people do not want to hear: we cannot fix ourselves.
That is the heart of this message: “Lord, fix me.” Not “Lord, help me fix myself.” Not “Lord, show me how to save myself.” But “Lord, You fix me.”
Isaiah says it plainly in Isaiah 64:6 (KJV): “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” That verse does not just speak about our sins. It speaks about our righteousnesses—the very best we have to offer God. Even our best efforts, apart from Him, fall short.
That is a hard truth, but it is also a freeing one. Because once we stop pretending we can save ourselves, we can finally surrender to the One who can.
Before anything can be healed, it has to be honestly diagnosed. The Bible does not sugarcoat our condition. Scripture says we are not merely wounded, inconvenienced, or in need of a little improvement. We are broken at the deepest level. We are sinners by nature, not just by behavior. Psalm 51:5 reminds us that sin is not something we casually picked up along the way—it is part of the fallen condition we inherited.
That is why Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:7 (KJV), “Ye must be born again.” He did not say you must be improved, reformed, educated, or motivated. He said you must be born again. Why? Because our problem is not surface-level. It is spiritual. It is internal. It is beyond the reach of self-help, self-discipline, and self-righteousness.
Many people spend years trying to clean themselves up before they come to God. They think, “Once I get my act together, then I’ll come to Jesus.” But the Gospel says the opposite. You do not come to Christ because you got cleaned up. You come to Christ to be cleaned up.
And for church folk, the temptation can look a little different. Sometimes we are not trying to earn salvation the first time—we are exhausting ourselves trying to maintain it in our own strength. We turn a relationship with God into a performance for God. But even polished performance is still filthy rags when we trust in ourselves instead of in grace.
If we cannot fix ourselves, why do we keep trying? Pride.
Pride says, “I’ve got this.” Pride says, “I can handle it.” Pride says, “I do not need to fully depend on God. I just need a little more discipline, a little more effort, a little more control.” That spirit is old. It was pride that lifted Lucifer against God. It is pride that makes people think they can earn righteousness by activity, appearance, religion, or moral comparison.
We start believing that if we attend more, give more, pray more, read more, and perform better, somehow we can fix what is broken inside us. But Proverbs 16:18 (KJV) warns us: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
Pride also shows up in another dangerous way: it does not just make us think we can fix ourselves—it makes us think we can judge who else God can fix. We begin measuring ourselves against other people instead of against Jesus. We rank sins. We compare failures. We comfort ourselves by saying, “At least I’m not like that person.” But Romans 3:23 (KJV) levels the ground: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
All means all. Your struggle may not look like mine, and mine may not look like yours, but both of us need the same Savior. The ground really is level at the foot of the cross.
If you want to know how well you are living, do not line yourself up against somebody else. Back up against Jesus. He is the standard. And when we do that honestly, we all come to the same conclusion: we are not here because we were good enough. We are here in spite of ourselves, because of the mercy and grace of God.
Here is the good news: God does not ask you to fix yourself before He moves in your life. He asks you to surrender.
When we stop trying to save ourselves and place our lives in His hands, something supernatural happens. God does not simply patch up the old structure. He builds something new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV) says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Not repaired—new. Not renovated—new. Not slightly improved—new.
God is not in the business of decorating dead things. He is in the business of resurrection. He takes what is filthy and clothes it in righteousness. He takes what is broken and begins to build something beautiful.
Peter is a powerful example. He was bold, confident, and self-reliant—until pressure exposed what was really in him. He denied Jesus three times. But after the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter became a different man. What changed? He stopped relying on himself and surrendered to the power of God.
The thief on the cross is another example. He had no time to clean up his life, no chance to make up for his past, no opportunity to prove himself through good works. All he could do was surrender. And in that surrendered moment, Jesus gave him paradise. That is grace.
Ephesians 2:8–10 (KJV) reminds us that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works. And then it says something beautiful: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” We are His workmanship. His construction project. He is the Builder.
Romans 12:1–2 (KJV) teaches us that surrender comes first, and transformation follows. Present yourself to God—that is surrender. Let Him renew your mind—that is transformation. You cannot transform yourself, but God can transform you when you surrender.
Maybe this message meets you in a very personal place. Maybe you have been trying to fix an addiction in your own strength. Maybe you have been trying to fix a marriage. Maybe you have been trying to carry fear, anxiety, grief, or shame by yourself. Maybe you have been trying to look whole on the outside while feeling broken on the inside. Maybe you have been trying to fix your soul with religion instead of surrender.
This is the call of God today: stop trying to save yourself and surrender to Jesus Christ. Present yourself to Him. Bring Him the broken pieces. Bring Him the failed attempts. Bring Him the fear, the pride, the guilt, the striving, the mess, and the exhaustion. And then trust Him to do what only He can do.
Transform. Renew. Restore. Rebuild.
You cannot transform yourself. But God can transform you when you surrender. So let this be your prayer today: Lord, fix me. Not by my strength. Not by my goodness. Not by my effort. But by Your grace.
And when God begins to build, He builds back better than we ever could.
Catch Pastor Lauderdale’s sermon titled Lord, Fix Me on YouTube.
Or plan your visit now to join us Sundays at 10:15am for our worship services. We’re a group of Jesus followers working day by day to Fix What’s Broken to Build Back Better. In ourselves. In our church. In our community.
