The Story Behind the Song
When Anastasia Baptist Church began an effort to replace its outdated youth and children’s ministry facilities in 2019, we had no idea what 2020 would bring. But we did know the truth of Psalm 33:11—“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.”
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God’s plan has always been for one generation of believers to receive the treasure of the gospel and then pass it on to the next. Psalm 78:4-7 explains how that chain of event works: “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God.”
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Our “For Generations to Come” faith campaign is one way that Anastasia is passing on the faith to the next generations. We’re simply taking our place in an unbroken chain that stretches back to Jesus’ original disciples. Each of us who is a believer today came to know Christ because someone told the good news of salvation to someone, who told someone, who told someone, who told someone…until someone told us of the “gospel of redeeming love, of a Father’s will, a Savior’s blood, and the Spirit Who ensures the story’s told.”
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Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is known to students of history as the hero of the Battle of Little Round Top, part of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. As a younger man, he had decided to become a missionary to a foreign land, and as part of his preparation, he became fluent in Greek, Latin, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and Syriac. When the war came he was a professor of rhetoric and oratory at Bowdoin College in Maine and served as chairman of the department of modern languages. Despite the displeasure of the college staff, he took a leave of absence and joined the Union army.
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Chamberlain’s service was so distinguished that Ulysses S. Grant selected him to receive the first flag of surrender at Appomattox Court House when Robert E. Lee laid down the sword of the Army of Northern Virginia.
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A quarter century after the Battle of Gettysburg, Chamberlain gave a speech at the dedication of monuments to the soldiers from Maine on that battlefield. He ended his talk with these stirring words:
“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.
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“This is the great reward of service. To live, far out and on, in the life of others; this is the mystery of the Christ,– to give life’s best for such high sake that it shall be found again unto life eternal.”
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“To live, far out and on, in the life of others” is why we as a church invest time and money and effort into children and youth. So that “generations that know us not and that we know not of” will come to know Jesus. That’s a sacrifice worth making.
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The Bible has a lot to say about giving of one’s self for the sake of others. Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 16:24-25: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
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At another time He told them: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45).
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Jesus wasn’t speaking metaphorically when He talked about taking up a cross and giving a life. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) was not just a moving turn of phrase for Jesus—it was His purpose.
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And His purpose should be that of us His followers. The apostle John said of Jesus, “…he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16).
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We have the privilege, what Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain called “the great reward of service,” of giving of “life’s best for such high sake that it shall be found again unto life eternal.” But to receive that reward, “We must take up our cross and follow Jesus; We must forge another link in the chain of faith.” Why? Because “…the treasure we’ve received (see Matthew 13:44-46) is for all who in Christ believe—those who’ve gone before, and those serving now the Son, and for generations to come.”
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Anastasia Music 