First Sermon from Couch

I am a firm believer in rules, they are created because people did not have common sense to not do the right thing therefore someone created a label for the action that must be followed in order for society to continue without chaos.

I do not cross the street when the orange hand is up, I do not drink milk after the date on the carton, I do not dry my hair in or near the bathtub and I stand on the square at the pharmacy until the person in front of me is done.

I believe that if a person breaks a rule they should suffer the consequences. If you speed, you get a ticket, you hurt, threaten, endanger or try to hurt someone you should go to jail. You skip school, detention, you skip jury duty, bench warrant. I think you get the picture.

I am not saying I am right, and that all rules are in people's best interests. I am simply saying that I like rules because I can control things when there are rules. God likes rules too. He has lots of them. There are the ten big ones like don't kill, honor your mother and father, etc... and the other miscellaneous ones you know like love everyone and clothe everyone and feed the poor and don't be a hypocrite. Come to think of it I think God likes rules more than I do and his punishments used to be a lot more strict. He lightened up a lot when Jesus showed up but most people do get busy when they have kids.

Amos 7:7-8 reads "This is what he showed me; the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, 'Amos, what do you see?' And I said, 'A plumb line.' Then the Lord said, 'See I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel."

I went on a mission trip in college to Coalmont, TN and was asked to build a boarder of 6X6s around a playground in 2 days with some rebar and a couple of sledgehammers. There were like 8 of us college students and our pastor. It was my first mission trip and I didn't have a lot of experience with building. Thankfully someone on our team came up with the idea to use a rock from the playground and the string from our nametags to make a plumbline to make the border straight. Folks, it wasn't striaght but those elementary school kids didn't care; they got to use thier new playground after months of looking at it because it had a border and I learned what a plumb line was.

That trip taught me that sometimes rules don't apply, you just have to make stuff up as you go along and hope for the best. While I do believe that rules keep me safe and I do follow the most important ones, I also make exceptions.

As a teacher I break rules for my students when I see how hard they are working or if a second chance is needed (or a third, fourth...). I am learning to accept that the expectations I set for myself aren't hard and fast rules but more of a plumb line that can be crooked as long as the path is in the right direction. Everyday I get up and make more mistakes and set my path straight again according to the plumb line I hope God has set for me.

God set a plumb line to judge the Isrealites because no one keeps all the rules, no one has a perfectly straight path. There are twists and turns and as long as we keep God's plumb line in our sights we will never break God's rule over our hearts.