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Do you believe that God is marching on? That His Truth is marching on? These last few weeks there has been a song I keep playing on repeat, the Battle Hymn of The Republic. Written during the Civil War it has endured as a popular song to inspire Americans for over a hundred years. If you’ve never heard it the chorus for this “Battle Hymn” is Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, His Truth (referring to Messiah Yeshua) is marching on. I have found this song to be very motivating during these difficult times. As we come to Resurrection Sunday or Easter, I think it is important to remember that we serve a risen Lord who is living, active, and present in this world. As we go through the troubles of these times, it is important to look towards Adonai, marching forward with Him towards our promised future.
To march with the Lord, to be His servants looking to the future, I think is best explained by Rabbi Paul, writing to Messiah’s Community in the Phillipe, in Philippians 3. Rabbi Paul reflects on his own past and his life before Messiah Yeshua entered it. Born as a “Jew among Jews”, from a great family line and trained under one of the greatest Rabbi’s he considers it all worthless. It is worthless compared to the faith he has gained through Messiah Yeshua’s death, burial, and Resurrection. The desire of his heart is written in this chapter, in Philippians 3:10-14:
I want to know Messiah—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Rabbi Paul’s desire is to know Messiah Yeshua and so should we. This idea of knowing Yeshua is not some sort of mystical or gnostic knowing, there are no smoke and mirrors here. It is to learn and experience the Lord in our lives. To have a real, personal relationship with our Creator. Which is possible because of the power of His resurrection.
Our Messiah rose from the dead and then rose to heaven, we serve a living God who has saved us from our sins. Right now, He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us as His will is being done. Rabbi Paul considered his sufferings bearable because of the reality of Messiah’s resurrection and the promise that he also would be raised. If we join ourselves to Messiah Yeshua we will also experience suffering and persecution, but also eternal life. This is the foundation of our ministry as servants of the Lord, the real promise of eternal life and resurrection from the dead. While we have this as a sure promise we have not yet experienced it. Rabbi Paul makes this very clear as we continue to read.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Messiah Yeshua took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Messiah Yeshua.
In the present Rabbi Paul may be suffering, but he is suffering for a future hope. He is not looking back to what he has left behind in his life but looking forward to the “prize” the Lord has called him to, eternal life in which to truly know Messiah Yeshua. Our lives are like a race that we have not reached the end of yet, but we are running towards the goal, living forever in resurrected bodies with Messiah Yeshua. Because the Lord has called and died for us, we can reach that goal through His power. That is where is we need to be focused, on heaven and not this world. It is made clear in the conclusion of this chapter what the prizes will be for those who serve the Lord and those who do not.
For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Messiah. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Messiah Yeshua, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
We all are called to live our lives looking towards the Lord. If we live our lives for ourselves, filling it with empty pleasure then we will be destroyed. But for those of us who have placed our trust in Messiah Yeshua we belong to a different country. We eagerly await his return to Earth where He will march against the forces of this world and establish His kingdom here on Earth. We will be raised as He was and transformed in a single moment to begin to live forever and truly know our Savior.
The call of God for our lives is the same call He gave His disciples after He rose. To make the Good News of Messiah Yeshua known to all. To spread His message of hope, love, and salvation to a world covered in great darkness. Even in dark days like we live in, even as we suffer and are persecuted, we need to press on. To keep running the race set before us. To remember that our Lord marches on, that people are being saved from their sins and finding resurrecting life in our risen Messiah.
Messiah Yeshua is working in this world and that is why I don’t despair. There is more happening than what is on the news. You won’t hear about lives being given to the Lord on CNN, people finding peace on Fox, or those finding real hope on MSNBC. God’s work in our lives is not always loud or fancy, but it is real and wonderful.
I’d like to conclude our time this morning with the final and my favorite verse from a version of the Battle Hymn of The Republic:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,
While God is marching on.
May the Lord enable us through His Spirit and Power to believe in our souls and proclaim with our mouths that He is risen and coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Yeshua.