Some of you do. I went to Liberty University for college after graduating from Chesapeake. I went through the Chesapeake school system all my life. For some of you, you're like, awesome. Others of you are like, I see Mark back there kind of hiding his face. But that's all right. I bleed purple and you can't convince me otherwise. So, love my community and very proud of where I come from and my roots and I won't forget where I came from. And went away to college, to Liberty University, and got a great education along with my wife, was kind of a great asset to me while I was there, that I wasn't there by myself, and that we got to have a great time and get tons of debt racked up. And yeah, that's the worst part of it, but man, it was a lot of fun and greatly, greatly impacting me for the long term. It wasn't just four years of education, it was four years of foundation and really the launch pad for where we are now. And so as I was there at Liberty University, in my latter part of my education. I got a job working for Advanced Auto Parts and some of you do know I have kind of a heartbeat for anything that makes loud noise and goes fast and so I wanted to broaden my education and Part of that was getting that job and becoming familiar with parts and vehicles and just how to also help people because I like people, I love people, and the customer service part of it actually came pretty natural to me. I know some of you, again, you are like, whoa, that is not me, you know, and I hear people criticize retail, you know, all the time, and it has its, wow, it has its moments, for sure, and it has its issues, but I loved it. And part of my job, and many of you maybe have been driving down the road, and you've seen this little horrifying light pop up on your dashboard in your vehicle, and nowadays it doesn't say anything. It's just an orange logo, and they expect many of you to understand what that is. And you're like, I don't know what that is, but it hasn't been there, so I probably should get that checked out. Used to it said check engine. Sometimes it still does. But that light would go off and people would bring their car in to Advance Auto Parts or now it's O'Reilly or Advance or we've got many NAPA in the area. And they go there entrusting that the person behind the counter can come out and diagnose their vehicle's issue. and that light comes on and one of us out in our red polo will come out and we've got this little calculator looking device with the tail hanging off of it and we crawl underneath your car and we plug it into this little outlet and you don't know anything about that but you're trusting that we can tell you what's wrong with your vehicle. and so we plug that in and a few seconds later we tell you it says P309 or you know there's a code and that code is then translated and it says something about what could be wrong with your vehicle because oftentimes those codes just give you an idea And it's like, well, it could be, it could be, it could be. And sometimes it's, I wouldn't worry about it, honestly. And you could talk to Jake, because he's one of those guys who has far more knowledge than I do concerning what that even entails. And they've got a far better machine than what O'Reilly or auto parts stores in our area have. And it's far more detailed as far as its diagnostic capabilities. And so diagnostic. is important. Diagnosis is important. And many times, I could tell that individual, you know, you probably have a sensor that's failing. You probably have your O2 sensor or this or that. And sometimes you could clear that code. And I will be honest, I have a vehicle right now that sometimes that code pops up. And I'm pretty confident that all it is is a loose gas cap. Because repeatedly, the same results have come back. And you know what? I say, just delete that code. I know what the problem is, and I go on down the road. And I don't think anything about it. But recently, I found that they can't do that anymore. So now, you're up to your own devices as to what you need to do. And so I go up, and I take off the positive battery terminal cable, and I pull it off, and I leave it off for a minute, and I plug it back up, and there we go. We're right as rain, and we go on down the road again. But you can't do that in your life. You can't just pull that cable off and say, we'll just clear the code and go on about our life because you know what the code comes back and there's still a problem and it needs addressed and here in the last few weeks we've been in a series all year entitled Not I but Christ but here in the last few weeks we've kind of I guess dived into somewhat of a mini-series and we've tended to do that throughout this series Not I but Christ but a couple weeks ago you heard that our identity in Christ is the root to a fruitful and effective life. And that your identity is what you live out of and it affects everything about you and everything about the relationships that you have with others. And then the following week, Pastor Randy shared with us, this was last week, that There are some things based upon your identity, and I loved the message last week. If you weren't here, you may want to go back and listen to it. But it was really, really, really eye-opening because, yes, you have an identity, but you also have a potential because of that identity. and the vision that you have was the message last week what is your vision for you and what is the vision of the church and how have we gotten away from that vision and today we get to see how the gospel is the greatest and most accurate diagnostic diagnosis for us and our condition and our cure alright so that's where I want to be with you this morning not I but Christ in me comes from Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 as well as John chapter 3 verse 30 where it says he must increase that I but I must decrease and that is the momentum by which we say not I but Christ but not I but Christ in me is seeing the gospel of grace of mercy as being the most vital thing to you and me the gospel of grace is our identity and today Hear this, it's both your diagnostic and it's your cure. We're really, if you don't want to admit it, I hope that you will come to admitting that you're desperate. You're a real desperate person. We tend to shy away from that. We'd like to see others as being on the end of desperation and not me. But this not I, but Christ is seeing a need for more of God and less of me. And if that's where you are, you are at a healthy place to change. Matter of fact, you find that your true self will be found at the end of you. At the end of your rope is where you find who you really are and who you're meant to be. And at the beginning of Christ is where you start to see yourself through an accurate lens. You start to see yourself not because of what somebody has said about you, not because of what you've said about you all your life, but because of what God says about you to be true, and that is, in fact, true. that you can bank on that truth. Receiving your diagnosis and really humbly responding to that is one of the hardest things that human beings are faced with and are required to do. And this morning I want you to see in Luke chapter 6 starting out really the practicality and the sense of this diagnosis that we're referring to. If you're not a Christian this morning And that can be very possible in a crowd this large. This message, for the most part, is aimed towards followers of Christ. Those who have been, an unpopular word today, born again. Bonnie and I had a conversation just a week or two ago, and that terminology is not used by many. But that terminology, born again, really I think speaks volumes about the radical thing that takes place when people are saved, a word that we often throw around. But this message is primarily for Christian people. But hear me, if you are not sure that you're a Christian, if you are unsure, lack assurance, unfamiliar with the teaching of the Bible or the love of Jesus Christ on a cross for you, listen, listen, don't tune out, please, because oftentimes you can hear from the Word of God, what the Christian life is supposed to look like, not what you've seen on the ground, in your life, at your workplace, in your home, in the lives of friends and family, because you look at their lives and you say, man, that is not what I want. I don't want that." Well, oftentimes that's because it's not the true thing. Not that they aren't saved, not that they aren't Christian people, but they're not living up to their potential. They've not seen the diagnosis and the cure, and they're not living that out. And I am one of those people continually forgetting who I am in Christ, my identity, and then living out of that identity and having to go back to it and back to it and back to it and remind myself. So Luke chapter 6. Let's get to the scripture. It says this. In verse 43, verse 43 is where I want you, verse 43, it says, For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good, and the evil person, out of his evil treasure, produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. His mouth speaks. Let's get straight to this. By my definition and yours, there are a lot of good people in this room. By my definition, when I pan this crowd, I look at you and I think, man, you are good people. And I would even go further than that and say, I don't know of anybody in this room that's not a good person. Honestly, I mean, there's some of you, I don't know well, I don't know your history, I don't know the things that you think about, I don't know the things that, I don't know your skeletons in your closet or whatever, but you have common experience of struggle and challenge and weakness and everything that I have. But let's get this straight, by definition, there's good people in this room, but by God's definition, there isn't one. And I don't like to hear that, nor do you. God doesn't say that we are good. Otherwise, if He did, if God said you were good and said I were good, the whole need for a Jesus Christ on a cross is kind of silly. You know, it's been said that if you want to look at other religions and compare them to Christianity and say, you know, I don't understand what makes Christianity unique, well, God is pretty cranky, pretty nasty, pretty awful, ugly, if He puts His Son on a cross and kills Him, if there are multiple ways to get to heaven. If there are many ways in to the system, if there are multiple ways by which we can come to the Father, and God says, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me. And so for Him to say that and for there to be multiple ways or multiple truths is to be absolutely insane. to be able to look at that God and say, how can I trust you? Why would I want you when you would do something so horrific when there are other options to choose from? There is just a simple Just a basic, an elementary apologetic. And when I say apologetic, an argument for the case of Christ. To be able to intelligently talk to your friends about Jesus and about God's plan and his heartbeat for you to restore people to himself. It's insane for Jesus to have to die if there are other ways, if there are other ways. And so let's get straight, as I said, that there are no good people by God's definition in this room, but there are most definitely great people in mine and your definition. But to be good, in God's eyes, is to be righteous and to be right-standing. So you need to stand before God and say, you and I can be in each other's company and I have nothing to fear because God and I are on the same plane. We are alike. And that is so far from the truth. And oftentimes we don't go there, but God is holy. He is so other. There's this otherness to God, there is this power, there is this wrath, there is this anger, there is this justice. And yet, if that does not scare you, you may never see your need for a Savior. Oftentimes, many of you, before you were saved, you were terrified. Were you not? Because there was nowhere to run but to Jesus. And I think sometimes we cheapen the gospel when we don't discuss our need for it because of how sinful and how arrogant it is for us to come into God's presence and think that it's okay without Jesus standing in the gap for us. And Luke chapter 6 verses 43 to 45 sets up the framework for what is wrong with you and me. We bring something to salvation, alright? It's called sin. You bring something to the table, it's garbage, it's trash, it stinks, it's rotten, you're a mess, I'm a mess, we need a Messiah. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 31 that it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. And what that means is it is terrifying for you to be in the presence of God without knowledge of the fact that He has done something to settle the account to displace the wrath of God that you and I deserve. That it is absorbed by Jesus and then He's given His righteousness to you. And here, here we see that the way we speak, the way we think, the way we act, the way we behave is not merely just a get better, try harder, do something about it, fix this, stop that. No. He says here that out of the abundance of the heart is where those actions come forth, where those words that you have spoken that have done such devastation or upset the apple cart or have caused a family division, or on and on and on, a divorce, or a, we could go on, because it is out of the heart, he says here, that bitterness, jealousy, anger, on the other end, kindness, Selflessness, all the things that we would want to be true of ourselves come as a result of what's in your heart, what occupies your heart. Because we see here that no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear bad fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit. So another way to say that real simply is this. An apple tree has what kind of roots? Apple roots. All right? So if you have apple fruit, you can trace it back to apple root. And so the goodness, the kindness, the gentleness, the respect, all of that kind of stuff that comes out of you is not because you're a good person. It's because Jesus Christ is alive in you and He's producing a fruit because He's growing in you. And all of us have got a long way to go, right? And so the ultimate anchor, the root, is what has to be addressed, not merely the external fruit. Because it's not a matter of just picking all the fruit off and throwing it away to the side and saying, OK, we're all right. There are no apple fruit. There is no diseased or rotten fruit on my tree. But you didn't address the roots. So therefore, the apple fruit is going to come back. You're going to have an issue again. It's going to rise up in you because of the roots themselves. Out of the mouth, the heart speaks. Your behavior, your speech, your thoughts, your affections, your energies are intrinsically tied to, let's put it this way, the occupation of your heart. What are we doing here? We're doing diagnosis. We are diagnosing our problem. And if you don't diagnose your problem, you can't get to the cure, you can't get to the result of what needs to be done to address. You go to the doctor when you have an issue, when your check engine light goes off, do you not? When you cough, when you sneeze, when you have a throbbing pain in your back, you go to the doctor to say, please give me a diagnosis so that I can then take care of my issue, or you can prescribe something to me to address this. Whatever ails you. So we, again, have to see the diagnosis. We know what our identity is supposed to be. Last week, we saw what the vision is supposed to be. And if any of you are in here and you're not a Christian, you need to diagnose first your issue. And also, if you are a Christian and you're not acting like one, it's again because of diagnosis. You need to look at your heart. You need to see the condition of your heart because Christian people still need to address their heart. You can be saved and you can be set free and you can be living unlike you ought to live because you, again, back to a couple weeks ago, you have forgotten who you belong to. You've forgotten who you are fundamentally in Christ, not in the world. Amen. We've got to see, we've got to see where our proper and accurate diagnosis comes from. It's a matter of worship. It's a matter of worship. If you've got a rotten heart, that means that something that is occupying your heart is producing that rotten fruit, those rotten actions and reactions. Oftentimes we're reacting to things that are happening around us, and it's a result of what's sitting on your heart, what's occupying, what's holding onto your heart. Why? Why? Well, if you'll turn to me to Romans chapter 1, I think we can see part of the answer to this question. Romans chapter 1, in verse 20 to 23, and also in verse 25, let's see why this is the case. We see that no good tree bears bad fruit, and no bad tree bears good fruit. So why is this true? Why is this common human experience for us? Well, it says this in verse 20. For His, speaking of God, His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly perceived. That means that there's no question. of God. Ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, you ought to be able to look around at the beauty and the majesty of this world in which we live. As we're driving home last night from vacation, a mini weekend getaway, coming home last night, we were looking at the sky and it was pink and the clouds were beautiful. And Kelly's taking pictures of it with her phone out the window because God has revealed His beauty, His artistry in the world in which we live. in the things that have been made so that they or we could say we are without excuse. There ought to be an acknowledgement of God simply because the world we live in has a design, has a structure, has an intricacy to it that just begs the question of a creator. For although they or we knew God in the sense that He has created this place, we did not honor Him. They did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking. That means worthless in their thinking. They become reckless in their thinking. Their thinking is leaky. It's like a vessel that has a bunch of holes in it and it's just oozing everywhere and making a mess. It's not consistent. And their foolish hearts were darkened, verse 22, claiming to be wise they become fools. How many times have we seen that in our own lives? Claiming to be wise to find ourselves once again foolish or to see a friend or a loved one who says, I know what I'm doing, do not tried to distract me from my end goal to be found on the other end, devastated, trying to pick up pieces, because they were thinking they were wise, but they are fools. In exchange, verse 23, the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Basically, created things, not just animals, not just in our context today. This is your fishing boat, this is your home, this is your bank account, this is the American dream, this is your children, this is many, many things. Not the creator, but the creation, as he says in verse 25, because they exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. It's a matter of worship. This is a matter of worship. Your diagnosis is a matter of worship. And let me help you hear this because I need to hear this. We, how do I say this so that we all hear it as we should? Worship is an identity before it's an activity. You are first a worshipper before you start worshipping. That means you can't get away from it. See, worship becomes a church term. Church, Christianese, churchianity. We talk about worship as if it's something that's constrained to four walls and a service from 10 to 1130, depending on how windy the speaker is. So worship is something that you can turn on and you can turn off, but hear this, you can't. Because fundamentally, tied to your identity, you are a worshiper. That means that you are worshiping whether you like it or not. It means that your worship, your focus, your heart is set on something, and that in itself is worship. Have you heard that before? Some of you have. You're nodding. You're agreeing. You're like, amen. When you could be saying, oh man. Oh no, I know that I say I worship Him with my lips, but with my life and with my affections and with my thoughts, I worship my children. I worship activities. I worship recreation. I worship approval. I worship status. I worship stuff. I worship money. I worship climbing the ladder. I worship being liked. I worship being loved. And what do I say? Worship is whatever that thing is that your life rises and falls on. If you can think of something in your world right now that if you lose it and you are completely undone to the sense that life is no longer living, that is the answer to what you worship. It is. It's the very thing that you praise. And this doesn't have to look like, oh my goodness, I love this, I love this, I love this. This can also look like, this is all that I worry about. This is all that I concern myself with. This is the thing that eats at me. This is the thing that disgusts me. This is the thing that occupies me. If I could define myself by something, this is it. It's what you worship. It's a matter of worship. To put it real politely, to put it real nonchalantly, to put it real sensitively, to put it real politically correct would be to say that your worship is misdirected. Your worship is off somewhere where it ought not to be. God calls it idolatry. God calls it false gods in your life. He calls it false worship. He calls it satanic. He calls it empty, dead. And it's almost amazing when we look at it historically that yes, they would spend hours, waking hours crafting an idol out of wood. A man would walk into the shop and he would get out this block of wood and he'd get all his tools out and he'd spend hours sweating and working and splinters and crafting this. I'm getting a phone call. Chastity, it was your mom. But they would spend hours in the woodshop, in the woodshop crafting an idol, a figurine, a statue. And then, once they're finished polishing it, making sure that it resembles what was in the mind's eye before he began working on this figure of wood, and maybe seals it, cleans up the dust and the mess, and puts all the tools back, and then kneels on the floor, and begins to cry out to this idol, this man-made figurine, saying, Give me what I need. Provide for me. Forgive me the insanity of that in the fact that this God was made by mere hands. As it were, God says, I was not made by mere hands. I am a God who made your hands. I am the God who crafted you and your mother's womb. I am the God who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And we do the same thing. We craft our idols. We pick and choose that thing by which we will worship. And our lives rise and fall on that very thing. And it's sometimes animate, as in it is a something. It is going to the store, shopping for something to appease or to medicate or to address the need or maybe pacify that which is aching within you or sometimes it is inanimate in the fact that it's up here and it's out And it's something that you want in the form of a person, in the form of a smile, in the form of a hug, in the form of a lover, in the form of a romantic afternoon or evening or life or as many are now calling an affair which is such a horrific word to use for something such an affair. It happens, yes, and to give it that word An affair used to be a great thing. And so we can say an affair and it almost sounds a little bit better than what it really is. When it is, in fact, just like anything else, it is idolatry. Your relationship issues are oftentimes not because, you know, he or she hasn't done, it's a God problem. It's a God problem. Our relationship issues are oftentimes, if not always, tied to a God problem. Seeing yourself incorrectly, seeing your God incorrectly, and then in turn seeking something outside of Him that has been conquered and purchased and bought for you in Jesus Christ. It's a matter of worship. We're a bunch of addicts. And I don't want to make light of that term. I don't want to because it is a problem. It is a pervasive problem in the tri-state area. It is tragic. It is disgusting. It is heartbreaking more than anything. It's out of control. But all humanity, we're junkies to some extent. Get this. Before you start getting on a high horse, and before you start pointing fingers, and before you start thinking you're something that you're not, realize you are an addict. You are addicted to pleasure, to purpose, to passion, to recreation, to satisfaction. You're a junkie. I'm a junkie. What's your addiction is the question. What do you worship? The diagnosis is you are a worshiper. But what is it that you worship? All the stuff in the world, Paul says here in Romans 1. All the stuff in the world, you worship the created instead of the creator himself. The beauty, the majesty, the holiness, the creativity, the adventure that is God himself. You have exchanged, you have taken it back and swapped it out for a trinket, for a dollar deal, for junk. What's that look like? As mentioned, you don't have to look far beyond your relationships. You really don't. James chapter 4 verse 1 says this, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? Is this not saying the same thing? In other words, that what it is that occupies your heart, the abundance of your heart is why your mouth speaks as the way that it does? And get that back to Luke chapter 6. Notice that it says the abundance of your heart. It's as if your heart is at full capacity, and it's got to be filled with something. It's not like, well, you know, I'm kind of here and I'm kind of there. You're worshiping something, and most of the time we are giving all we've got to it. We're giving all we've got. You don't have to look beyond relationships. I'll say it again. Relationships is what life is made of, and the most important things in life are people. I'm going to continue to say that because most of us don't believe it. We don't hear it. Something's going on. It's a God problem. We get scrappy. We argue. We withdraw. We isolate ourselves. We blow up. We get divisive. We get physical. We belittle. We abuse. We neglect. We do all of these things not because of circumstances outside of us that have driven us there, but that's where our heart is default. We're already there. It's not that you can say, oh, he made me do it, she made me do it. You don't know my past. You don't know what's going on. That's real. Let me address that. Your pain is real, and I'm not dismissing it. I'm not saying the things that you have gone through aren't important and that you're not important to me, or more importantly, important to God. But the blame game And the shifting away from self is to see, not your heart, but to see something outside of you that you can't fix. Nor is your complaining, your griping, your worrying going to fix it either. Apart from Jesus, our heart is already there. Our heart is already there. That's where we are occupied. And on the flip side, As I said momentarily ago, we love, we listen, we laugh, we sacrifice, we give, we nurture, we cultivate, we build up, not because we're good people, but because we are continually surrendering our hearts to a new identity of Christ in me. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Obviously you live, but your living is continually saying, not me, not me, not me, but Christ in me. Take over, please, because I am a wreck, and I'll take this vehicle and I'll drive it right into a ditch if I'm the one behind the wheel. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 15 reminds us that this is a matter of worship. We've seen the gospel itself as our only hope in identity and our most accurate diagnostic. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 15 says, He died for all, that those who might live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. That we might no longer live for ourselves, but we might live for Christ. And who does Christ say that he comes for to seek and to save the lost? And this is one of many places where God says, this is why Jesus is the answer. Because unless Jesus, you will live for yourself. Unless Jesus, you will be selfish. Unless Jesus, you will continue to be who you are, whether you want to be or not. Unless Jesus, you will remain the same. No matter what. This was said a couple of weeks ago, no matter what, your greatest problem is inside of you, not outside of you. Your greatest problem is not your neighbor. Your greatest problem is not your spouse or your kids or this country or the election. Your greatest problem is you. My greatest enemy is me. And so, what has to be addressed is that which is inside, your heart, my heart. We take what's outside of us and combine it with some effort to bring about change when the solution as a Savior comes and invades every aspect of who you are. Will you ask Him to infect you? Every vein, every part of who you are, please invade me. Take over. Be my vision. Be my identity. Be my diagnosis so that when I start to wander, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Bring my sights back to you. Help me to fix my eyes on you. Help me to Look away from stuff and pleasure and satisfaction and security and welfare and love and all the things that, yes, are good and well. We will. We'll go to the store and buy something to fix it. A book, a diet, a toy, a vacation, drugs, alcohol, recreation, all those things. You and I don't believe that our greatest problem is outside of us. Inside of us, rather. You and I don't believe that. Our lives prove the fact that we believe that if something outside of us is fixed, we'll be alright. We can sleep at night as long as this is taken care of. As long as I get that new job, it'll be well with my soul. As long as bills are paid. It will be well. As long as I get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, as long as I can make the grades, as long as I can get a college education or get the job in my major as soon as I get out of school or so that I can plan out so far that I've got it figured out. You and I don't believe the problem is us. We say we do. But hear this, if we did, our lives would be far less characterized by running to Jesus in crisis only and instead staying at his feet and saying, I'm not going anywhere. I can't afford to. I can't afford to leave you. I can't afford to go elsewhere. I can't afford to feast on the things of this world. A new heart is what we all have, needed, and some of you still need a new heart. You need to be given a new heart. David talks about it. Many of the Old Testament prophets talk about it. Let's look at Ezekiel, see what he has to say about it. He says it in verse 36, one of my favorite little passages in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 36, 26 and 27, he says this, And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I'll put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I'll give you a heart of flesh. And I'll put my spirit within you. How awesome is that? And cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules. He says, I'll cause you. He's saying, I'll give you the fruit. The product of a new heart will be that fruit. The result of me changing you from the inside is your only hope of change. You can't work for it. You can't earn it. You can't be it on your own. And I love this because he goes from a hard heart that is you and me to giving us a soft heart. And what's a soft heart? A soft heart is receptive to the things of God. A soft heart, a hard heart, a stone heart, a heart of stone is solid. It is fixed. You're not going to bend it. You're not going to mold it. You're not going to make it. But a soft heart in the hands of God can be stretched. It's malleable. It can be made into the image of Jesus so that you look more like him. If your heart, if you've had a transplant and you've been given the heart of God. If you've got a heart of stone, you have no hope of change. You have no hope. You have no hope of being godly if you don't first have a heart transplant. And that only comes at the end of you. Not I but Christ. Save me. I am a sinner. I am undone. I am in need. He said in Isaiah chapter 6, whoa, I'm a man of unclean lips. He realized, and he lives among a people of unclean lips. We're all in the same boat. We're a mess and we need a solution. And it can't come within, it must come without. In the form of the Son, whom the whole Bible is about prescribing your problem and your solution. And this is not just pages on in a book. This is reality and it's sitting before me. Lives changed by the gospel. Affections made new. Hallelujahs during worship through music because of an understanding of what God has done. You and I'll do wrong. No question about it. You and I will sin. It's not a matter of if, it's when. And the issue of this diagnosis is this. Without sin, you deceive yourself. If you're without sin, you deceive yourself, it says in 1 John, God says. If you're without sin, you deceive yourself. So when you sin, what will your diagnosis be? It's because of so-and-so. It's because of something that was said to me, something that was done to me. It's because of my upbringing. It's because of the home. It's because of the circumstances. If that is your diagnosis of yourself, instead of running to the giver of grace, instead of running to the cross, you'll deceive yourself and you will forfeit That grace that is so readily available to you because you'll see yourself as not needing it. Did you hear that? Michael, did you hear that? When you start the blame game, when you start looking outside of you instead of inside of you, you see yourself as in need of something bigger and better than Jesus Christ himself. What a tragedy. What a tragedy, and we all do it. So we must see the diagnosis. If you see yourself as a victim, you won't see grace as your need. You won't see the gospel because you don't think you need it. In conclusion, the gospel of Jesus Christ is our vision. It's our identity. It's our diagnosis. And we must see that when we're not living up to our potential, when we have a fruit problem, the answer is to run back to Jesus and to stay there. It's to stay there. That's not some hypothetical. It's not some cliche. Jesus is all you need. It's not a figure of speech. He shows you what's wrong with you and also shows you that your provision, your need has been met in him. So fall at his feet. And let him be the cure you have so long craved. Christians. Don't play a game. And run on your own steam. Fake it till you make it. See your need. Repent. Repent. What does that mean? That means turn back to Jesus. Put your faith in him, not in whatever else that is that's occupying you. Have a change of mind, a change of direction. Ask for Him to set your sights on something else, and that is Him. See your disobedience and come home. See Jesus and give it to Him. Let's pray.