Grow Your Faith: Grace‑Driven Change One Step at a Time

``well, here we are in part two of our series, you can change. And at the beginning of every year, it's a time where we start thinking about change. How that we wanna change certain habits, how we wanna change our health, change some relationships, maybe change something about our finances. It's a time of the year that we start thinking about change and so we make some resolutions and make some promises to ourselves. And so, in this series, it's super important series that we know that change is not maybe a possibility, but it's actually you can change and we are assured that we can change. [00:21:20] (40 seconds)  #GrowInFaith

Changing our health is good, relationships, finances, all those things are good things. But when it comes to change as believers, the one, one place of or point of change that is so important for us is in our faith. And what I mean is that we're not changing the object of our faith. Our faith is always on Jesus. That is secure and sure and forever. But Peter, as we'll see, says that we must grow and change in our faith. This is one of the most important areas, the important area in which we must change. [00:22:06] (37 seconds)

And this is the message of Peter. We're gonna be hanging out in second Peter for the duration of this series. So I encourage you to turn in your Bibles to second Peter chapter one. We're gonna be looking at verses five through 11. And this is what Peter is saying to us. He's saying to the early believers, the located in, what we know as Turkey. And as he's writing to these early believers, he's exhorting them to prepare themselves to stand firm in their faith because their faith, listen, is under assault. And there's two fronts to this assault. It's under assault externally. [00:23:43] (37 seconds)

You have the government. You have Nero, the emperor that is with increasing persecution against the Christians, the culture, that's external. But then Peter warns about an internal assault on their faith inside of the church. In the next chapter, Peter starts to warn the believers about these false teachers that have infiltrated the church. And Peter wants these believers to stay prepared, to stand firm. [00:24:19] (31 seconds)

Later on, Peter warns that the teachings of these false teachers, it sounds so good that it actually entices. It entices. It woos the unsteady believer. In fact, Peter is concerned for the whole church. He doesn't want the church at all or the whole church to lose its stability of the faith, the stability of their faith. And the way that Peter tells us to remain stable in our faith is that we must grow in our faith. [00:24:51] (31 seconds)

the point is is that anything that's growing is changing. Here's Peter. Right? Writing to the early church, but also writing to Harbor Church West Oahu that our faith must grow and it must change. So as we begin 2026, your faith know this, your faith can grow. It can change. In fact, it must. It must. So that's what we're doing today is that we're looking at how our faith grows and changes. [00:27:02] (35 seconds)

And maybe you're here and you feel like your faith is a little unsteady. Maybe it feels a little wobbly. Maybe there's something that happened, maybe some kind of circumstance unexpected that happened in the beginning of this year and it's caused your faith to feel unsteady. Or maybe you're here and you feel like your faith is stagnant. Feel like it's not really growing. It's not shrinking, but it's not growing. You're not making progress. You're maybe a little disappointment disappointed with your faith and its growth. Maybe here in your faith is growing and it's strong and you're standing firm in your faith in Christ and man, praise God. The evidence of God's grace in your life in that way and Peter has encouragement for you too. [00:27:37] (47 seconds)

Here's what we need to see. That by grace, God has given us everything. Not something, but everything we need for life and godliness. And he's telling these early believers that God is giving everything that you need to stand firm and to resist external assault of government and culture and the internal assault of smooth talking, enticing false teachers. [00:29:48] (31 seconds)