A Solid Foundation

Matthew 7:24-27 A Solid Foundation

Now I know why we used to have that giant wooden pulpit, it was great to hide object lesson props.

I’m going to quickly reveal something that I think many would be embarrassed about, I’m thinking specifically of those that are still in school, but I have this shoe here, and I’m actually wearing the same shoes right now. How do you have three of the same shoes? Well, there’s a fourth, I bought these shoes while in the states at the outlet malls and I really liked them, so a year or two later, while still wearing these shoes I saw the exact same shoes in Saskatoon, and bought them again. They’re great shoes. So, yes, I have two pairs of the exact same shoes. But that’s not the reason I have this shoe up here.

It’s because of what’s written on the shoe. This is a basketball shoe and like many basketball shoes it’s endorsed by a particular basketball player.

Now, I was told that this message was supposed to be a little more informal so I’m asking that the audience participate a bit, I’m looking right here in the first few rows, I’ve got to get you to help me out a little:

This player very recently had a video go viral where he doing his pregame warmup and proceeded to shoot about 20 shots starting at the basketball and working all the way back to half and he didn’t miss a single shot. It was quite impressive. He is also currently in the playoffs - do you know who it is?

Steph Curry

So, if you look at the back of the shoe, there’s a phrase written there. It says, “I can do all things.” And I think most people look at that and think, that’s a great slogan to have on some basketball shoes. It’s something to instill confidence. We would recognize this as a passage from our Bible. Specifically, Philippians 4:13. And you can turn there now to look at it, I’m sure many of you have this verse memorized, and you’ll recognize very quickly that this isn’t the entire verse. The entire verse reads, “I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me.”

I think in many ways what we see on this shoe is indicative of what we see all around us. We very much still live in a world where basic Biblical principles are valued. And when I say basic Biblical principles, I mean: do not lie, do not murder, respect for others, etc.

But the foundation to these principles have been removed.

You can turn to Matthew 7:24-27, and this is where we will be spending the next few minutes.

Let’s pray.

The foundations, most certainly, are crumbling. It does not take us long to prove this fact:

Society teaches us that everyone person has value.

Why? If we are all the product of random chance, and some people are smarter and contribute more to society, it seems quite logical to argue that some are more valuable than others.

We would point to Genesis 1:27 - “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

So why do we teach that everyone has value, because everyone is created in the image of God.

Society teaches us that everyone should be treated equally regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status.

Why?

We would point to Galatians 3:26: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

It is not our race or gender of wealth that proves our value, it is only our value to Christ.

Society has removed the foundation and then questions why there are rising rates of anxiety and depression. Why so many people struggle to find purpose. Why are more and more people questioning every aspect of life and then cling to contradictory value systems that leave them more lost and confused than when they began.

It’s like buying a Dodge and wondering why you’re left stranded on the side of the road.

The world around us teaches that we should be the best version of ourselves, but people don’t know who they are. We ask our young people to build and shape their own unique identitiy but there is no foundation for that identity to be rooted in.

So, let’s spend some time looking at what Jesus taught about this issue of the importance of a foundation in our lives. We find this in a familiar parable from Matthew 7:24-27, which is commonly referred to as the parable of the wise man and the fool.

Read Matthew 7:24-28

This is the last of Jesus’s four warnings as he urged his listeners to act upon the words they were hearing. Just as there are tares or weeds among the wheat, and wolves amongst the sheep, the houses of the wise and the foolish stand side by side.

Those who hear the words of Jesus and do what he says, build their house upon the rock. The words and teaching of Jesus and the scriptures, provide for us a foundation, a firm foundation. What’s the foundation for? There are two primary reasons for this foundation:

The first is related to the final judgment. Jesus will one day return, and if you hear his words and put them into practice, that is, you form a relationship with him, you will be saved. There is an eternal focus in what Jesus is expressing.

The second is that when life’s trials come against us, we will be able to withstand them. And it’s not if life’s trials come at us, it’s when. So, if we know that the struggle is coming, we must hear and do so that the foundation is constructed when it’s needed.

The foolish man is the man who hears the words of Jesus and does not put them into practice. This man is like one who builds his house on the sand and ultimately perishes. The foolish man is unable to withstand the trials of life, and ultimately the foolish man does not inherit the Kingdom of God at the final judgment.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived in Germany during the rise of Nazism, came up with something he called the Theory of Stupidity. Now, I know that the kids are with us today, and that for some, this is not a word we should be using, so for that reason and because it fits the parable a bit better, we will call this the Theory of Foolishness.

Bonhoeffer developed this theory based on what he was experiencing during the rise of Hitler. He couldn’t figure out how one of the most advanced nations is the world, a nation of poets and scientists, could allow the evils of Nazism to take hold.

The root, he argued, was not malice or the will to do evil, but rather foolishness. He argued that while one may protest against evil and perhaps even use force to suppress evil, against foolishness one is defenseless. Reason falls on deaf ears.

He wanted to search out the root of foolishness, and he argued that foolishness is not an intellectual defect, but rather a moral one.

This is how Bonhoeffer characterized the foolish man:

He is taken hold of by a powerful movement and gives up independence

In fact it is difficult, he argued, for one to become foolish when he is on his own, but rather in a group is when foolishness develops. It is very much a sociological phenomenon.

In conversation with him you will feel that you are not dealing with him as a person but with slogans and catch words

The foolish person becomes incapable of understanding what is evil.

After hearing Bonhoeffer's description of foolishness one likely wouldn’t be surprised if he had written this in 2022 and not 1942.

How is the foolish person set free?

Through an act of liberation. This liberation is not through carefully crafted arguments but rather a liberation of the heart through the Holy Spirit. It needs to be a heart change.

And this is where we need to return to the parable.

Let’s examine the houses for a moment. First, if the houses represent those that have heard the teachings of Jesus, it very much reflects our communities here. In that there is no separation in our communities between those who believe that those who don’t. We don’t construct our residential neighbours based on who is a Christian and who is not. This means that the foolish and the wise live side by side. This means that we must be vigilant that the poor foundations we see around us does not affect our own foundation. The church must ensure that it’s foundation remains strong. Rooted in Christ so that it can resist that which is foolish.

In our personal walk with God we also must ensure that our foundations are strong, and for those that have constructed that foundation, help those that are at this time working on their own.

Also, we must consider who Jesus is speaking to specifically. If the houses are those that have heard the teachings of Jesus, the first step is to teach the message of Jesus. That is we must first share the gospel to those around us.

We shouldn’t be shocked by the contradictory and at times evil messaging that we see around us, for without Christ shouldn’t that be what’s expected? Our first reaction to a world that is seeking purpose and truth and unable to find it should not be criticism and condemnation. Our first reaction should be of compassion. A compassion that seeks to show them what our true purpose is and where to find truth. They need the gospel first, for without the gospel we should expect only lies and destruction.

Who Jesus is condemning, are those that hear His words and choose to reject them. John 12:48, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.”

We will all one day be judged. So, how can we ensure that our foundation is built strong, That we resemble the wise man? We must hear and do.

What is it that we must hear, it is the gospel of Jesus: that God created us for His glory, but we have all sinned and we fall short of the glory of God. Therefore, we deserve death, yet in his mercy, God sent his only son Jesus, into the world to provide a way to eternal life. Therefore, eternal life is a free gift to all who trust in jesus Christ as their lord and saviour.

That’s the foundation.

So, we must hear and do. We hear the Gospel, now what is the next step.

I don’t want you to hear this morning that our first endevour should be to call out all of the evils of the world, or point out that which is foolish. There is a place for this but one of the most interesting parts of Bonhoeffer’s theory of foolishness, is that we all believe that we could never be the foolish man.

What we should do first, is self-examination. Once our foundation is strong, rooted in Christ, we can seek to improve the foundations of others.

I’m going to give you a very practical way of doing this, so listen closely. There are two steps, and I want you to consider doing this for this week.

Step 1: At the beginning of every day I want you to say a prayer. I’m not going to give you specific words that you have to say, but what this prayer should include is a commitment to God that you are going to choose to live for him and do his will as you go into each day.

Matthew 16:24, “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The Christian life isn’t a magic prayer that you say one day and then you’re in and you can go on living for yourself. It’s a decision that’s made each day. I heard this once described as sitting in a chair. That having a relationship with Christ is like sitting in a chair. Someone might ask you when you started sitting in the chair, and you might not know. That’s not the most important part. The most important part is that you are sitting in the chair. The important part is that each day, you commit yourself to his leading.

Step 2: Is that at the end of the day you reflect on where you saw God in your day. There was a missions trip that I’ve gone on a number of times and every year, when we would return after our day of work, we would get asked, where did you see God today. What a powerful question.

Ephesians 1:17-18a, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.”

Paul in this passage is praying for the believers in Ephesus that as they grow in their relationship with Jesus, that God would give them wisdom and revelation, so that with the eyes of their hearts they would come to see him.

If you wake up each day and commit yourself to his leading and you end each day reflecting on where you saw God work, your relationship with him will be strengthened. This is how that foundation is built.

I want the words in Jesus’s parable this morning to reveal to you the importance of the foundation that only he can provide truly is, for it shapes who we are. It ensures that we are able to withstand the trials of this world, which we know will come. It ensures that we, unlike the foolish man, are not tossed to and fro by the ever changing moral values of the world around us.

This parable should be a call to hear the words of Jesus and to do them.