Friday, March 9, 2018
Foundation words
Matthew 7:24
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
It is a great experience to build your own home from foundation to finish. Not many persons have this experience. Many purchase a house that was already built. In more developed environments people purchase houses from a developer and show up when everything is in place. Sadly, many never get a chance to build or own their homes.
Getting hold of a piece of land, working with an architect on a design, getting approvals and permissions and then breaking ground is usually the first milestone in the process. One is filled with satisfaction, and some pride even, to have reached that point.
The foundation is a very important thing, and the bigger the building the more important the foundation becomes. The foundation is the part of your building that connects to the ground and is responsible for transferring load from the building to the ground. Before the foundation works begin the contractor, or the project engineer, based on the size of the project, must determine the type of soil on which the constriction will take place.
In our scripture reading today, Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus wraps up the sermon on the mount with a declaration that His words, just spoken, are a proper foundation upon which a house could be built. “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:” Matthew 7:24. Instead of doing foundation works we could build on His foundation words.
The idea of words being a foundation for your life construction is not as unusual as it may appear at first glance. People have always built their lives on words. Societies the world over have been constructed and organised on one political philosophy or the other. These political philosophies, or political ideologies, have affected everything including liberty, justice, rights, education, business, land ownership and home construction.
The best known political philosophies of our time that have been used to determine social organisation and property ownership and the like, include capitalism, communism, and socialism. Historically, we know that some societies were also organised on the basis of religious philosophies. Biblical Israel was one such society organised on the basis of a particular religious philosophy and theology.
At the individual or family level, we have also always let words determine our approach to how life is organised. The words that make up our philosophy or our theology always affect our approach to how we live and what we seek to own and construct. Often this is referred to as a worldview.
We discussed this before in these devotionals, the contemporary philosophies and dominant worldviews shape the response to the Gospel message from place to place, from culture to culture. Jesus however, is saying something very radical here. He is not saying that we should view the Gospel through the lens of our philosophy or worldview, He is saying that the Gospel should be our philosophy and worldview.
Jesus cast this in the terms of the practical issues of house construction. Jesus reminded that with a variety of soils available, the choice of soil for construction is important. The nature of weather is that there will be rainy seasons and during the rainy season there is always the potential for flooding. Heavy rain and flooding usually threaten the foundation of our structures and where the integrity of the foundation is compromised we lose the structure. This is a very obvious thing.
We know for sure that Jesus wasn’t talking about an actual building construction project. We might not have known this as children because when we sang the chorus about the foolish man who built his house upon the sand we were only taught to think in construction terms, not in theological, philosophical or worldview terms.
Jesus said that “everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:” Matthew 7:26. If your worldview is not shaped by the teachings of Jesus you “will be like the foolish” builder. When life’s challenges come you have no enduring framework through which to handle them.
There are so many persons today who cannot handle the basic pressures of life. They cannot handle sickness, suffering and death. They cannot handle the challenges from the other philosophies, ideologies and doctrines. This is so partly because in church we sing the narrative of the foolish man who built upon the sand, but we haven’t spent time building a worldview for our members to face the issues of life.
It was the clear intent of Jesus that we have a worldview shaped by His teaching. To approach life otherwise is to be foolish, Jesus’ words. As a church, therefore, we have the responsibility to ensure that we not only focus on music, sound and light. That we not only focus on programmes and promotion. But that we also focus on teaching doctrine systematically so that Christians could be prepared for the issues that confront us.
As individual Christians, we also have the responsibility to be committed to more than just a good time in church. We have to be committed to the Bible Studies and Prayer Meetings. These are the meeting in church with the lowest attendance but should be the place where we build our foundation.
The example of the early church was different though. These two examples make the point “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:42.
Think on these things:
- Do you know how the scriptures shape your worldview?
- What other philosophies and teachings have contributed to how you see life?
- Do you focus on the systematic study of scripture in addition to what is done in the church service?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that the Word of God would be our foundation for addressing life’s issues.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
