The One Thing Needful and its Enemies

Our life with God is the work of God’s Spirit, which comes to us in His Word.  Life in Christ is planted in us through the Word, and it is sustained in us by the Word, and only by the Word. (1 Pet 1:23-25) The Word is our connection to Christ. Without the Word we cannot have Christ, and if our life in Christ is not sustained by the Word it will die. So I pray, as your pastor, first and foremost, that you and I—that we—stay in the Word. That Word is our connection to Christ.

Maintaining faith in Christ is not simply a matter of willpower. Faith is generated by His Word. (Rom. 10:17) That means there are places we go and things we do to stay connected to Christ. First of all, we go to Baptism.  Baptism is the very Word of God, “spoken” with water, to each of us Christians individually, and by it we began our connection to Christ.  Once baptized, we live in constant remembrance of what God promised us there.  Having been connected to Christ in baptism, we build a life of daily devotion and weekly worship to stay that way.  Every day we ought to read or hear or bring to mind some memorized Scripture, meditate on its meaning, and pray. Every day we ought to connect to Christ, and then talk to Him. Every week we ought to go to the house of the Lord and join in public worship, and there, in the midst of God’s people, confess our sins and receive the absolution; hear the Word read and taught and explained; eat and drink the Word, made present in the very body and blood of Jesus. There in worship we connect to, we commune with, Christ and His People. (See Acts 2:36-42) And that’s how we stay in the Word; that’s how we stay connected to Christ.    

The Word is how we sanctify ourselves, our lives, our homes, our families, our children and grandchildren. (John 17:17)  There is more to being a Christian than staying in the Word, true—but only if we stay in the Word.  (John 15:1-6) Therefore, more than anything else, this is my prayer for you and me—for us: that we remain in His Word. Every day, every week. If we remain in the Word, we remain in Christ, and all else will come. 

Staying connected to Christ would be easy but for the devil, the world and our own sinful nature. The devil and the world would poison our life with Christ, while our own sinful nature would starve it to death. We must be on guard against these enemies. We must understand them and their tactics and we must pray that God would protect us from them.

Starvation is what happens when we have too little of the Word. When we are not remembering God’s promises to us in our Baptism, when we are not daily meditating on His Word and praying, and when we are not worshipping and communing and fellowshipping on the Lord’s Day, we are not remaining in the Word, and too much of that and we will starve to death. This is our own sinful nature at work against us!  And whether it’s because of work, or a troubled and doubting mind, or a new hobby, or a lack of discipline, or a dislike of people, or marital problems, or over commitments, or anxiety, or depression, or illness, or an unbelieving spouse, or whatever—the Word is the source of our life in Christ. It is the One Thing Needful. (Luke 10:42) No matter the reason, if we don’t stay in the Word, eventually even the most devoted among us will fall away.  “Man does not live by bread alone.”  Deliver us, Father, from spiritual starvation!

And, Father, deliver us from spiritual poisoning also! Spiritual poisoning occurs when a Christian embraces the wisdom, truths, values, politics, and ideologies of this present age, and is tempted to turn to them as to another gospel.  (Gal. 1:6-9) Atheistic rationalism; materialism; the deification of science; radical individualism; biological, social and psychological Darwinism; postmodernism; libertinism; the celebration and politicization of sex, gender and sexual identity; race-based politics; and all manner of other popular, silly and trendy beliefs—these all challenge, and often mock, orthodox, creedal Christianity, and promise a better way. They are the devil and the world at work.

Brothers and sisters, outside the Church you will rarely hear the teaching or viewpoint of historic creedal Christianity seriously presented, but you will hear all these other things, over and over and over again. The effect on a Christian’s life in Christ can be quite poisonous. It doesn’t so much rob us of the Word, as it causes us to come to despise it.  The Christian who too much ingests the wisdom of this world often in time abandons Christianity and the Word altogether. They come to believe that orthodox, confessional churches like ours are too backward, narrow-minded and intolerant for today’s enlightened society.  They turn to another gospel, and make shipwreck of their faith.  Many of our young people are doing this. Whole church bodies have done this!  Defend us from this, dear Father in heaven!

A pastor’s task is to make sure the Word of God is regularly set before the people of God. It is also to exhort everyone to stay connected to Christ through that Word, and to encourage those who are not doing as well as they ought to do better.  In our present day it is also vital that a pastor investigate, unmask, and explain the wisdom of the world and the insidious ways in which it attempts to undermine the truth of God’s Word and poison us against it. Pray for me that I may be faithful in all this!  I pray for all of you as well, that our Lord Jesus would bless our congregation, our homes and families, and each one of us, that He would keep us in His Word, and that He would deliver us all from evil!

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas