Postma Post: Gathering the Builders

At the end of the most famous sermon ever preached is a story. You know it: two guys each build a house. One does a good job, the other is a disaster waiting to happen. 

The story is the parable of the wise & foolish builders, and it is the culmination of the Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon, Jesus “speaks as one with authority” because he keeps excavating deeper and deeper. He digs beneath various teachings to find the solid foundation underneath. 

Most people assume that the parable is a story about where to build, not how to build. I'm the land where Jesus told the parable, all the land was sandy soil and all of it had bedrock somewhere underneath it. In the rainy season, all the soil would lose its ability to support the structure of a house. Only a lazy or incompetent builder would set the foundation of the house on the top layer of sand rather than do the hard work of digging down to the bedrock underneath. 

So it is not a parable of location but of depth. 

It doesn’t ask if you are willing to build over here on the rock instead of over there on the sand. It asks: how deep are you willing to go as a follower of Jesus? How much to the core of God’s design for his creation are you willing to base your ethics, your practices, your theology? Can we follow Jesus on his excavation journey as we build?

And build we must. The life of faith is not an invitation to look down the hole and gaze at the footings. It is an invitation to move from footings to foundation, from foundation to framing, from framing to finishing, from finishing to living. 

To be a disciple of Jesus is to be a builder. The only question is whether we’re wise ones or foolish ones.

This is the theme of the upcoming Canadian National Gathering: Foundation to Future. It is a gathering of builders, and we’re going to invite everyone to look at the foundation, explore where we’ve come from as a denomination and how we’ve followed the call of Jesus to do ministry in Canada. And how we move from that foundation to the future.

We’re excited to have over one hundred people gathering from all across Canada this May 28-31, 2026, at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont. I look forward to sharing more along the way, but in the meantime I would love to invite you to pray for us, pray for the participants, and pray for the CRC locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.