Hope For Our Generation
Hope for Our Generation: Why We're Living in a Time of Awakening
Every generation of believers stands on the shoulders of the ones who came before. The prayers whispered in hard seasons, the stories of God's faithfulness passed down at kitchen tables, the miracles remembered and retold — these are the threads that connect us to a covenant God has been keeping since Abraham. This week we explored that connection, and what it means for us to carry it forward today.
A Covenant Meant to Be Passed Down
Psalm 78 opens with a charge: God's people are to teach the next generation about His power and His wonders, "so that each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting the glorious miracles and obeying his command." What began with Abraham was never meant to stop with him. It was designed to travel — from parent to child, from grandparent to grandchild, carried not by theology textbooks but by ordinary people telling true stories.
Paul reminds Timothy of exactly this in 2 Timothy 1:5, pointing to the faith that lived first in his grandmother, then his mother, and now in him. Three generations, one thread of faith, held together by the simple act of sharing what God had done.
You don't need a seminary degree to do this. Your kids and grandkids don't need footnotes — they need to hear what God has actually done in your life: the door He opened, the body He healed, the word He spoke in the dark. Those stories get inside people long before they're old enough to fully understand them, and years later, they surface as faith.
What God Has Done Before, He Can Do Again
Throughout American history, seasons often called "Great Awakenings" have marked times when large numbers of people turned back to God — marked by bold preaching, genuine repentance, and transformed communities. The Azusa Street revival, the tent healing crusades of the mid-20th century, waves of charismatic renewal — each one is a reminder that when God moved in a previous generation, it wasn't a one-time event. It's a pattern.
And there are signs that something similar may be stirring today:
- Bible sales hit a 21-year high in 2025, with 19 million copies sold — a 12% jump from the year before.
- Young people, especially young men, are returning to church in numbers researchers are calling a "quiet revival."
- Worship music is showing up on mainstream charts, and faith-based storytelling — from streaming series to feature films — is reaching audiences far beyond the usual Christian circles.
- Mass baptisms, college campus revivals (following what began at Asbury in 2023), and stadium-scale prayer gatherings are becoming visible markers of renewal across the country and around the world.
None of these signs alone would mean much. Together, they paint a picture worth paying attention to.
Wheat, Tares, and the Question of Awakening or Apostasy
It's fair to ask: are we headed toward revival, or toward a falling away? Scripture actually points to both happening at once. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the tares — good seed and weeds growing in the same field until harvest. Two different responses to God can exist side by side in the same culture, even the same city, at the same time.
The question isn't which one is winning. The question is which one you are choosing to be part of. If you're pursuing Jesus, you can expect to walk in the goodness, the miracles, and the presence that come with that pursuit — regardless of what's happening around you.
The Harvest Isn't Four Months Away — It's Now
It's easy to talk about revival as something happening elsewhere, to someone else, someday. But Isaiah 43:19 records God saying, "I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?" The invitation is to recognize what God is already doing rather than waiting for it to arrive.
That shift in posture changes everything. When you believe the harvest is now, you start to see the people around you differently — the coworker who's hurting, the neighbor who's asking questions, the family member who's watching your life closely. They're not interruptions. They're the assignment.
What This Looks Like in Everyday Life
A move of God rarely starts with a stadium. It starts with ordinary obedience:
- Spend intentional time with God — even fifteen minutes a day of Scripture keeps you rooted for the conversations ahead.
- Talk about Jesus more than you used to, and don't rule anyone out because of how they look, dress, or where they're at in life.
- Support what points people to God — Christian music, faith-based films, local baptisms and outreach events — with your presence and your resources.
- See yourself as the answer God wants to send into someone else's story, not just a spectator waiting for it to happen to someone else.
Your Story Is Part of the Covenant
Somewhere outside these walls, someone is waiting for a breakthrough — in their marriage, their health, their next meal. They're not going to ask about your credentials. They're going to ask, in one way or another, "Does Jesus love me?" And your story — the ordinary, specific, personal story of what God has done in your life — may be exactly what points them to the answer.
We've inherited a generational covenant. The invitation now is simple: don't put the move of God off into the future. It's for you, and it's for right now.