I remember this hymn from when I was a kid in Vacation Bible School, back before the big production it is today. The song following the pledge to the Christian flag was almost always this hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers. We sang it from a small booklet that had all the pledges and the songs and a little about each of the missionaries for all five days. After, we marched out by classes, youngest to oldest for four hours of fun and crafts and lemon cookies and weak Kool-Aid. 

The first verse was all that was sung at that time. If you have ever tried to keep 75 to 100 or more kids contained during Onward Christian Soldiers played on an upright piano, then you understand why. So, I am the most familiar with the first verse. There have been times as an adult when we have sung the other verses but not often. I don’t know if it falls on many people’s list of favorite hymns. However, it is a good anthem to get the blood pumping and remind us that we are in a spiritual battle.   

Paul reminds us time and again that we are in a spiritual conflict. He tells Timothy to “fight the good fight.” I have been in churches where the fight became very verbal and very painful. It is easy to forget that our fight is not against flesh and blood. What we see is tangible. What we are fighting against is not. We cannot see it or touch it. We only see the effect of where it lingers or where it has been. We must remember that we are unified in the blood of Christ. Unity is the theme of the third stanza of our hymn.  

There are examples of churches coming together for the good of the community. Working together for the needs of the people they serve. This is the church united. We are separated by denomination and doctrine and practice, so sometimes it is difficult to see what brings us together.  

Psalm 133:1 says, 

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity! 

My husband and I had the privilege many years ago to be part of some prayer walks. I was the prayer coordinator at our church at the time and thought it would be a good idea to go to the other churches in our area and just stand in the parking lot and pray for the church. I wanted to be unobtrusive and not draw attention to what we were doing. So, we began to gather on Saturday mornings. Soon though a Methodist minister close to us caught wind of what we were doing and joined us every time we gathered. Our unobtrusive gatherings  culminated in a community wide prayer walk from the local convenience store to the school, about a two-and-a-half-mile walk praying for our community, our churches, our school, our state and our nation. It was a wonderful time of a community of churches. 

Let me encourage you today not to let anything distract you from the common faith we have. The apostles and writers of the New Testament faced this as much as we do today. Two thousand years have not solved the things that divide us. Believers still squabble over doctrine and Jesus’s words. Yet unity for believers is the very thing Jesus prayed for in John 17. 

I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me. John 17:23 

Jesus prayed for us to be unified not divided. It is Christ that unifies us and in heaven we are all one in Him. We are reminded by Paul that we are one in Christ when he writes in Ephesians, 

Ephesians 4:4-6 

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. 

Brothers and sisters, we are one in Christ. So let us pray for our world, our individual nation, our community, our church, our family. We are soldiers in battle. If you have opportunity in the coming weeks to join with other Bible believing, Christ redeemed churches take advantage of the opportunity. Let us fight the good fight as soldiers and remain united to the end.  

Onward Christian Soldiers! 

Angela