Give Me What I Need!

Acts 3:6 “Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” - Give Me What I Need!

If you want something different, you’ve got to do something different. If you want something else, you have to decide to do something else. To continue the same routine, to indulge in the same action and activity in any area of life expecting different results, you become a first class candidate for a diagnosis.

Repetition, redundancy, rehearsal, repeats is good if it yields positive, productive, progressive results. But if what you’re doing keeps you forever still, stuck, static, and stagnant in the same old shape; in the same old stuff; in the same dirt, in the same drought; in the same place; in the same predicament, it’s high time you employ a new revised standard version and do something else. You would think that by now, some people would be tired enough of some things. Tired of the shame we feel. Tired of the hurt. Tired of the failures. Tired of the rejection. Tired of the poverty.

Ya’ll talk back to me. If your course and conduct in life is one of repetition with no results, you’re gonna always get what you’ve always gotten because you keep on doing what you’ve always done, and in order to get what you’ve never gotten, you’ve got to start doing what you’ve never done. You’ve got to start looking where you’ve never looked; you’ve got to start reaching where you’ve never reached; you’ve got to start asking questions you never asked; you’ve got to start hooking up with people you’ve never hooked up with before.

Peter and John met a man at one of the temple gates in Jerusalem who appealed to them for money. But they responded by saying we don’t have what you want, but we do have what you need; in the name of Jesus, get up from where you are and move into your future because that’s really what the powerful plan and program of a providential God is all about.

Preferring your own predicament but never achieving your full potential lets us know that we need a God who can modify and manage our lives so we can experience more than we are experiencing right now. Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

I know some people like it where they are; they are satisfied with being average; their minds are set on mastering mediocrity, but God got me on prophetic assignment to tell somebody that you don’t have to stay where you are; you don’t have to keep getting what you’re getting, you don’t have to keep putting up with what you’re putting up with, you don’t have to keep selling yourself, lying to yourself, hating yourself, beating yourself up, hiding yourself. I know someone who can give you what you need and then love you enough to what you want; His name is Jesus.

If that’s your desire and your ambition, and it ought to be. Here are some trustworthy tenants from the text, which may become for us some living lessons as to how we can always get what we need.

Stay in a profitable place. This man was in a profitable place; He was at the gate of the temple. If you are going to beg for something, make sure you are in place where folk are most likely to help you. However, when you choose the later, you find yourself always wanting. When God made man, he made him a free agent on the personal decision path. God gave him the liberty and latitude to choose his own way, but unfortunately, my brothers and sisters, the fall, a deliberate bad decision in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve to do their own thing and try to get what they wanted instead of what they needed. And that bad decision kicked them from the confines of comfort to the conflicts of culture.

Deliberate, bad decisions have caused a lot of conflicts today. When you take federal, private, secure documents and think you are above the law but now find yourself indicted, bad decision, when you go cheap on your creation to make another dollar and cost the lives of yourself and four others: bad decision, when you kick women as pastors from the pulpit but still want them to support their sinful attitude, bad decision. When you go behind the backs of the assembly to do your own thing and now cost the city over 2 million dollars that could have gone to house the almost 2000 homeless in our city, bad decision.

We don’t stand too far from all those who made bad decisions in the registry of history. Some of you here today wish you could take back some of those decisions. I hate some decisions I made because they were some bad decisions, and if we are gonna make a good decision, at least we ought to make one that puts us in a profitable place.

And being in a profitable place always puts you in the path of praying people. The place this man was in had him encounter folk going in and out of the temple. He was in a spot where he could receive after having requested money from those who went in and those who came out, but whatever he asked for, he was in the path of people that were either on their way to pray or on their way out, having already prayed. And get this from the text. Luke said it was the ninth hour. The day is almost gone, but even though it’s almost gone, Peter and John are still on their way in for the hour of prayer. For people who really know how to pray; it really doesn’t matter to them what kind of circumstance, crisis, or condition; in their mind, they haven’t seen God work the way he has worked before; some say it might be late, but it is never too late.

Philippians 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;” 1 Thess. 5:17 “pray without ceasing,” Luke 18:1 “..men always ought to pray and not lose heart,” Col. 4:2 “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving;”

Peter said, look on us; we don’t have what you want, but we got what you need. Here’s my last trustworthy tenant. If you’re gonna get what you need, you will have to opt-in to the perfect preference. I’m done. Peter and John said we don’t have money, but we do have the master; we don’t have any coins, but we do have the Christ; we don’t have dollars and cents, but we do have the divine savior: in the name of Jesus rise up and walk.

I need to tell ya; you need to opt-in to the perfect preference; in the name of Jesus. I said in the name of Jesus. May I remind you there’s power in the name of Jesus. Healing in the name of Jesus. Doors open in the name of Jesus. Ways are made in the name of Jesus. Demons tremble at the name of Jesus. The compassionate heart of Jesus Christ is what we need. With His level of competence, class, character, charisma, content, calmness, composure, cleanliness, courage, and collaboration, who wouldn’t want a God like this?

And once Jesus comes into your life, you will not only get up and walk, but you ought to get up walking, leaping, and praising God. After you see where the Lord has brought you from. When you remember how strung out you were; how sinful you were; how satanic you were; how bad you were; how boastful you were, when you remember that if it wasn’t for the Lord who was and is on your side, you’d be lost and on your way to hell, but thanks be to that God of mine who came all the way done through generations and generations suffered at the hands of scandals died on a cross buried in a borrowed tomb stayed there three days but I wouldn’t be a Baptist preacher if I didn’t tell you; early Sunday morning the tomb was empty; Jesus got up with all power in His hands.

Lord, give me what I need, and I need a little more, Jesus. I need Jesus. I don’t need more houses or land, fine clothes or jewelry. I need a Christ who, way back on Calvary, paid the price, makes me heavenly happy, and is my best friend. I need Jesus; you need Jesus; we need Jesus. So, Lord, give us what we need.

Benediction:

Peter and John said I’ll give you something. We don’t have what you want, and what you want is keeping you the way you are. Look at the text. There’s two tensions I see in the text. Real quick. First, why didn’t this man have whoever it was bringing him to the gate; take him inside instead of dropping him off at the gate? Remember, I said, if you are going to get something different, you have to do something different. The second tension I see. The problem with this man wasn’t with the money that others were dropping in his cup; his problem was with the people that kept dropping him off at the gate. And some people will never get anywhere because they’ve entrusted their destiny to somebody else.