Tabitha Series

Sometimes we need someone to tell us “koum” softly … [softly] koum … get up. Sometimes we need them to get our attention … [shout] koum! Get up! We need to hear koum … get up … and then, when we hear koum, we need to get up and look around … look around and see what needs doing. Koum … we need to get up and make a difference in the lives around us, amen? You with me so far?

We need to let Jesus into our lives so that our lives will be full of good deeds and just gushing with charity … but that can’t happen if we keep Him in a box … if we lock Him up in this sanctuary, where we only let Him out once or twice a week. It can’t happen if we set Him on a shelf like a trophy and only take Him out once in a while to show Him off.

We need Him to shine on us and shine through us all the time. We need to encourage each other to koum! Get up! We need to constantly remind ourselves to koum … to get up! We may not be perfect, but with God’s help we can be perfect examples of those who koum and serve the Lord because we love the Lord.

Humble service. Genuine service that comes from the heart. This is what draws people to you … to the Christ in you.

I want to close with an old Chinese parable about a woman whose only child … a son … died. In her grief, she went to the local holy man and begged: “What prayer, what magical incantations do you have that can bring my son back to life?” Instead of sending her away or trying to reason with her, the holy man gave her a task to perform. “There is nothing that can be done to bring your son back to life, but if you fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow we can use it to drive the sorrow from your life.”

The woman set off at once and began her search for that magical mustard seed. The first house she came to was a beautiful mansion. She knocked on the door and when the owner answered, she explained: “I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow … is this such a place? It is important to me.” The owner shook his head. “You have certainly come to the wrong place,” he said, and then he began describing all the tragic things that had recently befallen him and his family.

Hearing all the problems this family had and all the troubles they had gone through, the woman thought to herself: “Who better to help these poor, unfortunate people than I, who has had such misfortunes of my own?” So she stayed with them for a while to comfort them and then went on in search of a home that had never know sorrow, but wherever she turned … whether it was a hovel or a mansion or a regular home … she heard one tale of sadness and misfortune after another. She became so involved in trying to minister to other people in their grief that she eventually forgot her own quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that her quest for the magical mustard seed had, in fact, drive the sorrow from her life.

Let us pray …