Get Up

TITLE: GET UP

SCRIPTURE: ACTS 9:36-43

I am glad to return to the pulpit as Sis. Lawson and I struggled with COVID the past week and a half. My desire was to honor our woman last Sunday as March was “Women History Month.” I do want to recognize the importance and critical role women have in the Kingdom. I also, at the same time want to point us to the significance of this Palm Sunday which begins Holy Week. We will host Holy Week here at ‘First Church’ beginning tomorrow evening and concluding on Good Friday – please take note of the weekly schedule that has been printed in your morning bulletin. In this recognition, I call your attention to our text for examination where we find a beautiful woman of God. Let’s review her life and her story together this morning. Go with me to ACTS 9:36-43. If I had to tag the text it would simply be ‘GET UP.”

I often see memes posted on social media thanking God for allowing us to wake up every morning. Sometimes they’re catchy and cute like –

• Don’t forget to pray today, because God didn’t forget to wake you up this morning

• Sometimes they’re a beautiful prayer like -- Thank you God for the sounds that disturbed my sleep, for many woke today and could not hear

• Thank you God for all the things I see around me, as many woke today and could not see

• Thank you for muscles that move and allow me to get up, as many woke today and could not

• I thank you most of all for allowing me and those I love to wake up, as this morning many woke not

For most of us, getting up every morning is a blessing. It means we got to leave behind all that was terrible yesterday, give our minds and our bodies some rest, and then begin the day fresh, with new and promising energy. And we all have different ways of getting up.

• Some of us might spring out of bed at 6 AM, workout, eat breakfast, and move headfirst into the day, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

• Others of us might hit the snooze button one too many times and sluggishly grab a cup of coffee before driving to work, bleary-eyed and dragging

• Some of us feel great in the morning and others might hear the popping and cracking of joints as we groan with every movement

• But we all eventually have to get up and get moving into the day that God has provided

Our Scripture lesson for today in the book of Acts is about Getting Up. There are so many interesting things in this text. Do you remember in the Gospel of Mark when Jesus says to the leader of the synagogue that his daughter was healed? The man didn’t believe it, so Jesus took Peter, James, and John and went to the house where the girl had died. Jesus reached out his hand and said, “Talitha cum.” or “little girl, arise!” get up! And we get a similar phrase here in Acts. Peter says to the recently deceased Dorcas, “Tabitha, Get Up!” Dorcas is the Greek name for Tabitha. I think we are meant to see that Jesus and Peter both desire that the people of God, those who are desperate, sick, and even dead, and in this case, especially women and children, need to get up, to arise and continue their good and purposeful work in the world.

Here in our text, A great woman of God lay down in her bed.

• Lifeless - but filled with love from the people around her

• Dead - but alive in the memories of her loved ones

• Great cries and sighs filled the room as people bitterly grieved her death

• You can tell by the emotions of these people how this lady touched their lives in a special way

• Yes, Yes, Her name is Tabitha

Her good works were too difficult to ignore to the point that her good works were recorded in the Bible. Remember after all REVELATION 14:13 “YEA, SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS; AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM.”

• Though she died, her legacy of zeal and passion for God’s work lives on through the pages of the Holy Book

• Thus, I strongly believed that we, as Christians, today would learn a lot of beautiful lessons from this amazing lady

• So, let us take a deeper look at Tabitha’s life and see what we can learn from how she lived her life

Tabitha is that woman you know, who is a cancer survivor who also knits hats for the chemo room. She knows from experience how cold it gets when you're in treatment. She knows that it is easy to feel lonesome when you're on isolation. So, she knits, or maybe crochets, little warm reminders that she is thinking of you as you work to get well and to remind you that God is with you while you sit there with the needle in your arm.